The Broken Girls(73)
She stared at him in shock. “You realize you’re talking about the man serving life in prison right now.”
“Just because he committed that crime doesn’t mean he committed this one.” Jamie sighed. “Fiona. I told you, I know nothing about this case. But if there was no arrest, it’s because the officers in charge of the investigation didn’t find enough evidence to arrest a suspect. It’s their job to close cases, their job to chase these things down. You’re looking for something that isn’t there.”
“Isn’t there?” she nearly shouted. “If the police had done their job, even a little, Tim would have been arrested before Deb even met him. She would be alive.”
“Assuming Tim did this,” Jamie countered, indicating the articles strewn on the table. “This girl was hit with a baseball bat, not strangled. She was left at her parents’ house, not dumped in a field. Deb was seen with Tim dozens of times, while this girl was not. What evidence do you have that he was dating her at all?”
“She admitted to her brother that she was.”
“Did the brother ever see him?” Jamie asked. “Did Tim come to the house? Meet the parents? Did he talk to them on the phone? The cops would have asked her friends and family if they’d ever seen her with him. Did they do that?”
Fiona was quiet.
“Of course they did,” Jamie said. “So she never told her parents about this great boyfriend she was supposedly seeing, and she never told her friends. Just one person knew, her brother. And he was reliable?”
“He was into drugs,” Fiona said. “It got worse after his sister’s attack. He became an addict. But he wasn’t an addict when it happened. Just a teenager messing around.”
“For God’s sake, Fiona,” Jamie said. “You’re listening to a story spun by a drug addict? Because that’s who you’ve been talking to, isn’t it? The brother.”
Damn it. She had known this would happen, that he would be like this, and it made her so angry. “He’s telling the truth,” she said, fighting the impulse to shout. “He knows what his sister told him. There’s nothing wrong with his memory.”
“And how did he find you?” Jamie’s gaze was hard and cold. “Because he did find you, didn’t he? He found some way to approach you and reel you in. You’re a smart woman, Fee, but when it comes to anyone mentioning your sister’s name, you can be completely goddamn stupid.”
She stared at this Jamie and she didn’t know him. “Fuck you,” she spit at him. “That’s the cruelest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“I’m cruel?” he said. “Did you plan to go to your father with this? Was that your idea? To rip his wounds open with an unproven theory that his daughter’s death could have been prevented? Your evidence is hearsay from a girl who hasn’t spoken in twenty years and an addict. You’ll kill him with this kind of shit.” He took a breath. “But it’s all an acceptable sacrifice, isn’t it? Your life, your father’s life, your own happiness, our relationship—it’s all an acceptable sacrifice to you. This case has already taken your parents’ marriage and your mother’s life. What’s a little more misery for the pile?”
The words made her wince—yet she felt that only now, after a year together, were they getting to the heart of it. “You think I should drop it,” she said.
“Of course I think you should drop it. Do you know why? Because you should fucking drop it.”
“Really? Or does this have to do with your precious police force?” She shoved the words at him. “The cops did a shit job on this case, Jamie. You know as well as I do that it’s always the boyfriend. It’s always the boyfriend. You think someone came up randomly behind her with a baseball bat? Did anyone think that, even for a minute? But we’re talking about Tim Christopher, aren’t we? Rich, good-looking, his family one of the wealthiest in the county. Oh, no, sir. No way it could be the boyfriend! Sorry to bother you—we’ll just be on our way!”
“Goddamn it, Fee!” Jamie shouted. His face was red.
“You want to talk about acceptable sacrifice?” Fiona said to him. “What’s an acceptable sacrifice to you? Is it acceptable that Helen’s case is never solved, that her attacker goes free, just so that the Christophers aren’t bothered with too many questions? Is it an acceptable sacrifice that you brush me off, just so no one asks questions now? So that the force doesn’t face any criticism? Everything is smoother, easier, if we just let it go.”
He was breathing hard, trying to keep control. “You need to leave,” he said, his voice low and furious. “Now.”
“You’re right,” Fiona said. “I do.” She picked up her papers, put them in the folder, and walked out the door.
Chapter 26
Barrons, Vermont
November 2014
Fiona was hungry by the time she got home to her apartment. She pulled a box of crackers from the cupboard and stood at the kitchen counter, dipping the crackers in a jar of peanut butter and eating them, as she stared at the file that contained Helen Heyer’s press and refused to think about Jamie. It was hard to look at the photo of twenty-year-old Helen, with her clear eyes and silky dark hair, and compare it with the face she’d seen this afternoon. Helen at forty-one was vacant, confused, her eyes sunken and the corners of her mouth turned down, her hair graying. She looked at least fifty. She’d sat in the chair in the corner of her hospital room and watched her brother anxiously, rubbing the knuckles of her left hand with her right fingers in a gesture meant to soothe herself.