The Maid's Diary(72)
Daisy swipes away more tears. Her hands shake. She refuses to think about the stink of alcohol on her husband. The smell of vomit unexplained. The fact she never saw the ER doc with her own eyes. She tells herself this minor stroke—or whatever Jon says the doctor called it—is a blessing in disguise, because she doesn’t doubt the fear she saw in his eyes. Jon is scared by what happened.
Perhaps she and Jon can both be more thankful now. More fierce in protecting each other and in safeguarding what it means to be starting a little family.
MAL
November 2, 2019. Saturday.
Tamara Adler shows Mal into her sumptuous office. The woman is a partner in the exclusive law firm Kane, Adler, Singh, and Salinger.
“Please take a seat,” she says to Mal. The view from Adler’s office must be breathtaking, Mal thinks, but right now it’s bleak and smothered with low clouds. Rain streaks the windows. Mal sits on a sofa near the window. Benoit is at the ADMAC construction site, awaiting the arrival of the police dive team and ident units.
“What can I do for you, Sergeant?” Adler is poised and impeccably attired in a cream suit. Her perfectly coiffed red hair swings neatly at her jawline. Her nails are manicured. Expensive is the word that comes to Mal’s mind. And controlled. Tamara Adler certainly does not exhibit the signs of a woman who witnessed an atrocity from her car parked under a bridge at a construction site in the very dark hours of the morning. But Mal knows that people are seldom what they seem.
She cuts straight to the chase. After opening a file, Mal extracts several images printed from the CCTV footage. She spreads them out over the coffee table in front of Adler.
“These images were captured by security cameras on the ADMAC construction site near the old silos and dockyard in North Vancouver. As you can see from the time and date stamps, they were taken in the very early hours of Friday, November 1. The Mercedes-Maybach in these images is registered to you, Mrs. Adler.” Mal meets the lawyer’s gaze. “Can you tell me who was driving your car in these photos? If you look closely at this enhanced image here”—she points—“the person in the driver’s seat appears to be you.”
Tamara Adler regards the photos. Not a muscle moves in her body, but Mal can feel her tension. The wheels in this woman’s head are turning, seeking explanation, escape. Mal notices the exact moment the lawyer decides to face this head-on. Adler looks up. Her eyes lock onto Mal’s.
“Can we keep this out of the press?”
“I can’t promise anything. But the more cooperation we have right out of the gate, the easier it might be for you and whoever else was in your car to remain beneath media radar.”
Adler inhales deeply and returns her attention to the photos. She studies them, as if calculating her odds on whether law enforcement will figure out for themselves who the person in the passenger seat is.
“Who is he, Mrs. Adler? And it does appear to be a male. We’ll eventually identify him without your assistance. Especially if we post these images and put out a call for information via social media. We get a lot of tips crowdsourcing this way.”
Adler moistens her lips, reaches for the water jug on the table, and pours herself a glass. She holds the jug out to Mal.
“I’m fine,” Mal says.
The lawyer takes a delicate sip. A faint sheen has developed on her brow. Tamara Adler is finding this distressing.
“I was with Frank Horvath,” she says finally. “And I cannot stress enough how damaging this will be to his—our—reputations if this gets out. It will scuttle a court case that—”
“What did you and the Honorable Mr. Horvath witness at the ADMAC site that morning, Mrs. Adler? Judging by the location of your vehicle, you must have seen something.”
The lawyer glances out the windows.
“Was there anyone else present? Any other vehicles?”
Adler does not meet Mal’s gaze. She continues to stare out the window.
“A young woman is missing. We have reason to believe you and the passenger in your car can help us figure out what happened to her.” Mal taps her finger firmly on an image secured from the jumpers cam. Adler turns to look. “See how your vehicle arrives here, then exits facing east? Your vehicle at one point was directly pointed toward the old dock.”
Adler inhales. “You don’t know that we saw anything.”
“Like I said”—Mal’s tone is cool, crisp—“cooperation is going to make things a lot less difficult for you and MLA Frank Horvath. And for both of your families.”
Adler surges to her feet. She walks on her expensive pumps to the floor-to-ceiling windows. She folds her arms across her stomach and stares out into the mist and low clouds.
“We saw the two cars,” she says quietly with her back to Mal. “A larger sedan and a smaller hatchback. The sedan was dark in color. The hatchback light. I believe it was a Subaru Crosstrek. We gave one to our son for his birthday, so I am very familiar with the model.” She pauses, then turns to face Mal. “Two people in rain gear got out and took a rolled-up rug or something similar out of the back seat of the sedan. They dragged it to the edge of the dock and rolled it into the water. Then we witnessed them sending the hatchback off the edge of the dock.” She regards Mal for a long beat. “It appeared as though they jammed down the Subaru accelerator. Frank and I—we were having an affair. It’s over now. We were both afraid that if we came forward, our liaison would be exposed. The consequences will be catastrophic to both of us, and our spouses, children, my clients, and his constituents.”