All the Dark Places(65)

When he leaves, Joe and I huddle. “He doesn’t do himself any favors,” Joe says.

“Obnoxious twit,” I say. “But Mrs. Pearson’s information is interesting. We’ve got something of a timeline.” I tap my notebook with my pencil.

“If what Mrs. Pearson says is accurate, yeah. If the doctor was awake at twelve, he could’ve waited for her to go back up to bed, given her a few minutes to fall asleep, and slipped out the door. She’d been hearing cars on the road all night, so if the doctor took off, she might not have been able to distinguish his car from the others if she’d been listening.”

*

Laken Ferris is a bundle of nerves. She looks tired, not as glamorous as she had at the beginning of the investigation. Her story meshes with Mrs. Pearson’s. She says she had another drink after Mrs. Pearson went up for the night, then she and her husband followed suit. She estimates they were in bed by eleven-thirty, as far as she remembers.

Mr. Ferris is red-eyed, but otherwise, he looks composed. He sits calmly, hands folded in his lap. His story matches his wife’s. They went to bed, didn’t hear a thing.

“Mr. Ferris,” I say, “we’ve been looking through a lot of information and discovered that you had a restraining order taken out against you six years ago.”

His face blanches. “What?”

“A restraining order, Mr. Ferris.”

He drops his head and rubs his eyes under his glasses. “My mother took that out,” he says quietly.

“Your mother?” Joe says, feigning surprise.

He nods. “It was no big deal. My mother was a bit . . . disturbed. My father had died and left me some things.”

“What kind of things?”

“Baseball cards. Other sports memorabilia mostly. Nothing my mother had any interest in. And it was my stuff. Anyway, my mother was ill. She died shortly afterward. She wasn’t in her right mind. When I went to see her, I asked for the boxes, and she told me I couldn’t have them. I went up into the attic anyway. She freaked out, and when I came down with the first load, she pushed me and scratched my arms.”

“You push her back?” Joe asks, leaning forward.

Ferris shrugs. “A little, okay? She had a hold of my arm. I didn’t hurt her.”

“Then what happened?” I ask.

“I put the first load in the trunk of my car, but when I went back to get the rest, she’d locked the door.”

I look over the paper. “She says she was scared of you and that you’d harassed her with phone calls after that and tried to break into the house.”

“I didn’t harass her.” He grimaces.

“Did you try to get back into the house?”

“Once, but then she got the order, and I gave up.”

“You said she was ill, died not long after. Why not just wait?” Joe asks, eyebrows raised.

“The stuff was mine. It belonged to me, and I wanted it. I didn’t realize she’d get so worked up about it. Once she took out the order, I let it go, okay? That was the end of it.”

I tap my pencil against my notebook. “You sure you never left the mountain house on July Fourth?”

His eyes open wide behind his glasses. “No. We all stayed at the house that night. Someone suggested we drive over to some local fireworks, but we decided not to go.” He shakes his head. “I had nothing to do with that woman’s death, if that’s what you’re getting at.” His gaze meets mine.

“I heard there was a lot of drinking. You didn’t get a little inebriated? Didn’t go out looking for a little excitement after everyone was asleep?” I stand and lean against the door. “Maybe you met Annalise and things got out of hand?”

Mr. Ferris’s eyes flash. “No. No fucking way are you going to pin this on me.” His face reddens. “It wasn’t one of us. Just because she was found nearby doesn’t mean anything. Anybody could’ve dragged her down that hill.” He turns to Joe. “Somebody could’ve buried her there just to make it look as though one of us did it.”

“Maybe,” Joe says mildly, shrugs, goes back to his notes, then drops his pen on the table. “You hear anything that night?” His gaze meets Ferris’s. “Maybe you heard or saw something that could help us find the real killer.”

“I don’t know anything. I didn’t do anything.”

“Then you won’t mind giving us a DNA sample? Just to eliminate you.”

Mr. Ferris’s mouth falls open. “I think I need to talk to my lawyer before this gets out of hand.”

“Of course,” Joe says.

“You sure?” I ask. “It’s quick and easy. Then we won’t have to bother you again. Come on, Mr. Ferris. What are you afraid of?”

He jumps to his feet, perspiration running down the sides of his face. “I’ll get back to you. I need to get home to my family.”

He leaves, and we wrap up for the day. Joe asks if I want to grab a drink, but I’m tired, so I tell him we’ll do it another time and hurry through the dark parking lot to my van.

*

At home, I put on my oldest, rattiest T-shirt and a pair of faded gym shorts. I stand in front of the bathroom mirror and pull out the elastic from the top of my head. My hair falls down over my shoulders, and I paw through it. There are definitely more grays than there were last time I really looked, whenever that was.