The Book of Cold Cases(31)

Beth pressed her lips together, looking out the window. “They’re going to get my handwriting,” she said.

“Sure, but not today. Just stay home, Beth, and don’t let this make you crazy. That’s all you have to do.”

“I can’t stay home,” Beth snapped. “I have things to do.”

“All of that driving around you do? Going nowhere? It needs to stop. Unless you want the press following you.”

Don’t let this make you crazy. Easy for him to say. “What if they’re right?” she asked, Ransom’s holier-than-thou wisdom getting on her nerves. “What if I really shot those men, and by defending me you’re setting me loose to do it again?”

Ransom didn’t even blink. “If you did it, they can damn well prove it, and not by getting you in an interview room and throwing Julian’s murder in your face, trying to make you cry. That was pure bullying back there, so I’m going to remind you, Beth—don’t ever talk to the police without me. That goes for reporters, too, but it goes ten times over for cops. If you talk to them alone, even your money won’t save you.”

There was more lecturing as Ransom drove her home, his version of fatherly advice: Don’t date. Don’t talk to strangers of any kind, because strangers will repeat everything you say to the nearest reporter. Don’t write letters, because they could be intercepted. Be careful what you say on the phone.

Beth listened in silence, watching out the window. The words flowed over her, because she was stuck on one thing he’d already said.

In the interview room, they’d been trying to make her cry about her father’s murder. But she hadn’t felt like crying at all.





CHAPTER SEVENTEEN


September 2017





SHEA


Sylvia Simpson worked at a law firm in downtown Claire Lake. Even though she was past retirement age by now, she was listed on the firm’s website as the assistant to one of the senior partners. But I definitely had the right Sylvia, which she confirmed when she replied to my Facebook message.

We met on a weekday afternoon. Our offices were only a few blocks apart, and I managed to take a break and slip from behind my desk. “Ten minutes,” Sylvia had written to me on Facebook. “That’s all I’ll give you. Meet me outside my office at three.”

Her firm was one of the nicest in town, the offices in a restored two-story Victorian house close to the ocean. At three o’clock, I stood on the front walk in my scrub top, wondering if I should go inside, when the front door opened and a woman of possibly seventy came out. She was wide and hard as a block of concrete, her white hair pulled back and her eyebrows drawn on in dramatic arches. She wore a gray wool skirt and jacket that were likely very expensive and still managed to look unflattering. She took a pack of cigarettes from her purse and motioned me around the corner of the house without a word.

“Surprised?” she asked me as she pulled out a chair on a small patio. She lowered herself into the chair and pulled out a cigarette and a pack of matches. Her voice was husky and low, intimidating. “An old woman like me, working. Caught you off guard.”

She hadn’t offered an introduction or a handshake. I pulled out a chair for myself and sat, feeling the cool, damp breeze from the ocean breathe past us. “Not really,” I said.

“Huh.” Sylvia lit a cigarette, inhaled, then exhaled, not bothering to blow the smoke away from me. “You’re bluffing, but it’s fine. If you think I’m old, you should see my boss. He’s even older than I am. I’ve been his assistant for thirty-five years, and when he goes, I go. I’m the only person he trusts.”

“That’s nice,” I said, pulling my phone from my bag. “Do you mind—”

“Put that thing away.” Her voice was flat, hostile. I put the phone back. “How old are you, anyway?”

“Twenty-nine.”

“A baby,” she said, almost angrily. “Julian Greer was already dead by the time I was twenty-nine, and I was looking for a new job. I was looking for a new husband, too, because the first one had pushed me down the stairs one too many times.” She gestured at me with the lit end of her cigarette to make her point. “Record that, why don’t you?”

This was going to be a fun ten minutes, I could tell. “I want to ask you about Julian,” I said.

“Such a nice man. Handsome, too.” Sylvia took another drag on her cigarette and shook her head. “I worked for him for four years. I saw everything—everything. You’re lucky, because you’re talking to the only person who knew what was really going on. Even those police who came to me after Mr. Greer died didn’t know their asses from a hole in the wall, and they didn’t bother to ask. Because who cares what the secretary knows, right? Well, let me tell you, we know everything. So listen up, Miss Twenty-Nine.”

“My name is Shea,” I said.

“Are you going to listen, or are you going to talk?”

I sighed. “Listen. I’m going to listen.”

“Good. The first thing you need to know is that nothing was Mr. Greer’s fault. It was all because of that woman he married.”

I blinked. “Mariana Greer?”

“She was the worst thing that ever happened to him. Everyone knew it. Sure, she had money, and I suppose she was beautiful, but she didn’t have class. He used to come to work exhausted because they’d had a fight and he didn’t get any sleep. I’d put calls through from her, and she would be in tears, yelling at him about something. At work. It was a damned disgrace.”