The Last of the Moon Girls(26)

“I do.”

“And you still want to do this?”

“I do.”

“Even if you learn something you don’t want to know?”

She knew what he was asking. In his mind, there was a chance that in her search for truth, she might actually uncover evidence that implicated Althea rather than exonerating her. But he didn’t know what she did—that Althea was incapable of harming anyone, let alone a pair of young girls.

“I won’t.”

He nodded coolly, willing for now to accept her at her word. “Well then, what do you want to know?”

“Why did you leave the department?”

Roger blinked back at her, clearly surprised by the question. “Because it was time.”

It was evasive, a polite way of telling her it was none of her business. But if she was going to trust him, she needed to know his story, and understand what had prompted him to walk away from what had surely been the biggest case of his career. “So you retired?”

“Officially? No.” He squinted out over the water, where a red-and-white sailboat bobbed lazily at anchor. “I quit. Because I was no longer able to be effective.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“It means Chief Summers and I had different ideas about the department’s responsibility to the public. He wanted to make the Gilman case go away, and I wanted to keep digging until we solved it.”

Coleman’s matter-of-fact tone surprised her. “You don’t think he wanted to solve it?”

“In the beginning, maybe. When he was getting tons of press. Big man with his name in the paper, always available for an interview. Then the coverage turned ugly, and he slammed on the brakes. He started cutting man-hours, hamstringing us on resources, wouldn’t sign off on sending stuff to the state lab because it wasn’t in the budget. And the press was strictly off limits. All statements had to be cleared by him. It felt funny. He’d always been a bit of a tyrant, but this felt like something else.”

“What did it feel like?”

“Like there was something going on that the rest of us didn’t know about.”

“Did you confront him?”

“You don’t confront Randall Summers. But I did voice my concerns.”

“And what happened?”

He shrugged. “I bought a sailboat and went to work for my brother.”

“Ah . . . right.”

“Don’t get me wrong. I like the work I’m doing now. It’s useful. But law enforcement was in my blood. I know it sounds corny, like I’m some kind of Boy Scout or something, but it’s how I’ve always felt about the job. I think it’s how most of us feel. We’re proud of what we do. Because we believe we’re making a difference.” He paused, looking back out over the bay, at a father and son horsing around in a bass boat. He was smiling when he turned back, but it faded quickly. “Some of us give our lives to the job. The job doesn’t always return the favor.”

Lizzy glanced back into the house. She hadn’t noted it until now, but there was no sign of a woman about the place, and no ring on his finger. Single? Divorced? She recalled the trace of wet leaves she’d picked up earlier, and found herself wondering if Roger Coleman had given up something—or someone—for the job, and if the choice had been worth it.

Andrew had been idly swirling his tea, ice cubes rattling rhythmically against the glass. He set it down now, and leaned forward, elbows on knees. “Would it be breaking any rules to discuss where the case stood when you left? Neither of us wants you to go against your principles, but Lizzy has her own sense of duty. She’d like to know that she’s done everything she can to clear her grandmother’s name. She did go to Summers first, but he wasn’t much help.”

Roger nodded slowly. “I’d like to say that surprises me, but it doesn’t. The man doesn’t give a damn about public safety. He sees being police chief as a gig, a stepping-stone to bigger things.”

Andrew caught Lizzy’s eye with a look that said I told you so. “Mayor Cavanaugh just announced his retirement.”

Roger’s lips thinned. “Then you can bet the VOTE SUMMERS yard signs are being printed as we speak. Not that it was any big secret. We all knew he was angling for mayor, or higher. We could see him working it, milking the high-profile cases to get his name in the paper. He was all about the show. Unless it made him look bad. Then he wanted no part of it.”

Andrew’s brows knitted. “You think the Gilman murders made him look bad?”

Roger blew out a long breath. “The Gilman murders made everyone look bad. People in Salem Creek aren’t used to seeing that kind of thing on the local news. So when they do, it doesn’t take long for the finger-pointing to start. And the fingers weren’t just pointing at Summers. Cavanaugh was taking heat too, and Election Day was right around the corner. It was in everyone’s interest to make it go away.”

“Not everyone’s interest,” Lizzy shot back. “But he did get his way. There was never a resolution. No arrest. No trial. Nothing.”

Roger looked at her over steepled fingers. “You have to consider the evidence we had. Or, rather, didn’t have. We had the bodies and an anonymous tip, but nothing that linked your grandmother directly to the murders. No motive. No weapon. And no concrete forensics to speak of. Say we go ahead and make an arrest to tamp down the noise. Then we go to court. Only we can’t make the case and your grandmother’s acquitted. The last thing Cavanaugh wants while he’s out stumping for votes is for people to remember that two girls died on his watch, and that his police chief let a killer walk free.” He paused, shrugging heavily. “Sometimes, when you can’t make a case, it’s better to do nothing than to poke the hornet’s nest. Strategy must have worked. He’s still there.”