All the Dark Places(7)

“Does he keep anything out there in the filing cabinet or his desk that someone might want?”

“I have no idea. I doubt it.” But I remember the office had been in disarray. One of the filing cabinet drawers was open. Jay wouldn’t have left it that way. “Do you think it was a robbery?”

“We don’t know,” Detective Myers says. She flips through papers in her folder. “You made a list of all the people at the party last night?”

“Yes. Our friends. Three couples.”

“What time did they leave?”

I take a deep breath. I have no idea. “I’m not sure. I went up to bed, and Jay was still downstairs.”

“You went to bed with your guests still there?”

I brush my hand through my damp hair. “No. I mean, everyone was getting ready to leave. Jay was walking them out.”

“If you had to guess the time?”

“I don’t know. Eleven-thirty maybe?”

The detective’s eyes sweep over papers in her folder. “Any of your husband’s patients giving him any cause for concern?”

“No. I don’t think so. He doesn’t discuss them with me except in vague terms on occasion.”

“He wasn’t worried about anyone, anything lately?”

I glance over her shoulder back out to the harbor and follow an expensive cabin cruiser as it motors slowly out to sea. “Not that he told me, but he was a little quiet this week. Something was on his mind, I think.”

“Uh huh. But nothing you can pinpoint?”

“No.” My gaze falls to my lap, where I’ve twisted a clump of tissues into a damp, fibrous mess. I want to help, but I really have no idea what was bothering Jay. I take a shuddering, teary breath. I should’ve pressed him. Why didn’t I insist he tell me? I rub my hand over my eyes. It’s my fault for being so needy, for being so focused on my own problems, never thinking that other people have troubles too. And now Jay’s dead.

“Mrs. Bradley, are you sure you don’t know what was on his mind?”

I try to weed through the last few days, remember our conversations, but nothing emerges that explains Jay’s preoccupied mood. I shake my head. “I don’t know what was bothering him, Detective,” I say, feeling like a total failure.

“Okay. You hear anything after you went to bed? Raised voices? A scuffle?”

I was passed out. I can’t even remember putting on my pajamas. “No. I didn’t hear anything.”

Detective Myers lifts a piece of notebook paper, looks it over through black-rimmed reading glasses. “So you had three couples at your house for the party. What can you tell me about them?”

I describe our friends and wonder what the detectives are thinking. Are they looking for trouble among our little group? From my perspective, that seems a waste of time. Whoever did this to Jay has to be a monster. No one who knew him would’ve hurt him. But maybe a patient, someone so disturbed that he or she shifted their animus onto Jay, made him the bad guy. I’m sure there’s a psychological term for that.

Detective Myers nods as I talk. She writes in her notebook, her pencil scratching across the page, and I notice she’s drawing, sketching a picture of me.

I look up and catch her gaze, and she snaps her notebook shut.

My cheeks are wet with tears, and I lean back into the sofa and wipe my face with my sleeve.

“Thank you, Mrs. Bradley,” Detective Myers says. “That’s all for now.”

They stand, and Corrine pops up and walks them out. I wander to the window and glance down at the busy street below. I see cars, traffic, but no media, thank God. Not yet. I squeeze my eyes shut and pray they don’t find me.





CHAPTER 4


Rita


DR. WESTMORE ANSWERS HER PHONE ON THE FIRST RING. SHE AND her husband are home, so we head back to Graybridge. The house is a massive three-story a few blocks from the Bradley residence. It sits back from the main road, obviously built a hundred years ago or more, with a big wraparound porch and gingerbread trim. We park in the long driveway, head up the walkway.

The door swings open, and we’re greeted by a thin woman with shoulder-length brown hair and swooping bangs. She’s dressed like she’s going to work, even though it’s Sunday. Neat beige trousers, a white blouse, green print scarf around her neck. She’s older than Mrs. Bradley by at least a decade.

“Come in, Detectives,” she says after we introduce ourselves. She leads us down a dark, polished hardwood hallway. A large tabby cat darts from a side room, quiet as a prowler. It scampers after her and escorts us into an antiques-laden parlor.

Dr. Westmore sits demurely in a carved and padded wooden chair, while Chase and I get settled on a stiff settee facing her.

“Is your husband here?” I ask.

“In the garden. Should I get him?”

I fish my notebook out of my satchel. “We’ll talk to you first.”

She nods, and her red-rimmed blue eyes take a furtive glance at a pack of cigarettes sitting next to an ashtray on the end table.

“I’m sorry about your friend,” I say.

She tips her chin up toward the wedding cake of a ceiling and blows out a breath. “I can’t believe it. Jay was . . .” She shakes her head. “He was a peach of a man. Smart, compassionate. A terrific psychologist.” Her voice catches. “How could this have happened?” A tear slips down her cheek, and she wipes it away with a blood-red manicured fingernail.