All the Dark Places(72)

CHAPTER 54


Rita


“OKAY, ALISON, START WALKING,” JOE SAYS.

He and I stand in the cold morning air in the Mountclair Tavern’s parking lot. Agent Metz takes a couple of steps, her phone in her hand counting the minutes. She turns and walks backward.

“Shouldn’t I drink a couple of beers first for accuracy’s sake?”

Joe smiles, and she turns back around and keeps walking along the side of the road.

“Maybe later,” Joe yells after her. “Work first.”

She waves at him over her shoulder. We want to see about how long it took Annalise Robb to walk from the bar to where she was abducted. Agent Metz is closest in age and size to our vic, so she got volunteered. Chase stands at the side road, where Annalise would’ve turned the corner, to direct Alison.

Joe and I drive up to the end spot where Annalise disappeared and wait for Agent Metz to arrive.

We sit in his vehicle, heater cranking, coffees in hand.

“Whoever did this had to leave the Bradley house sometime after midnight,” Joe says, “or Mrs. Pearson probably would’ve noticed. Annalise left the bar anywhere from one o’clock to one-twenty, according to witnesses.” When we reread the statements gathered by the sheriff’s department, there was some discrepancy as to when Annalise actually left. Still, it’s a pretty good timeline.

“And the deed was probably done by five a.m.,” I add.

“Key ring wasn’t back, according to Alice.” Joe raises his eyebrows.

“True. But wouldn’t she have heard something? I’m thinking the perp replaced the ring later. Realized it was still in his pocket maybe. I think he was finished by then and back in bed. It would’ve been risky to have been prowling around the house in the early-morning hours. I think he got the job done overnight when he was sure everyone was asleep.”

We’d gone over all this since we interviewed Alice yesterday, but talking through possible scenarios is always ongoing. You never know when something you hadn’t thought of before might pop up.

“And,” I say, “I don’t think it was the doctor.” I had lain awake half the night thinking about this case, and I’m growing more convinced Jay Bradley wasn’t a killer. Maybe it’s just my gut talking, but it’s getting louder. Ma always said the McMahons could feel things that not everyone else could. She used to visit an old woman who lived over Corrigan’s Bar on the corner who claimed to be a psychic, much to Father O’Brien’s chagrin. I don’t necessarily buy into that sort of thing, but you never know.

Joe tips his head. “Maybe not, Rita.”

“I still think he would’ve used his own keys. Why bother with the ring in the mudroom?”

“Maybe it was handy.”

We sit in silence. The car is facing down the road so we can see Agent Metz coming. She eventually appears, walking at a moderate pace, trying to embody a tipsy Annalise. When she gets close, Joe and I exit the vehicle.

Alison takes a big breath and points over her shoulder. “That incline is steeper than it looks.”

Chase appears headed our way, having walked a little behind her. We stand in a huddle.

“Okay, how did you do?” Joe asks, and Agent Metz hands him her phone, leans over, and puts her hands on her thighs.

“Asthma,” she says to me.

When I raise my eyebrows, she adds. “Cold weather does it. It’s not normally a problem.”

Joe writes in his notebook. “That took you twenty-two minutes.” He looks at me.

“So Annalise arrived at this spot anywhere from one twenty-two to one forty-two, give or take.”

“Yeah. Looks like.”

Chase arrives, also a little winded. “What now?”

Joe stows his notepad in his pocket. “We drive from here to the Bradley place. Hop in.”

We drive in silence, the bare winter trees skimming by. I’ve got my phone timing us as Joe drives. He’d been to the scene before he’d arrived in Graybridge, but together, armed with the statements from our people of interest, we hope to find some answers. Joe pulls up on the side of the road. The old hunting lodge looks dark, dreary in the snow, like a huge dead beast. “How long did that take?” he asks me.

“Six minutes.” We get out, and he pulls a tarp out of the back of the car.

“I don’t have to get in that, right?” Agent Metz says. We’d run through our plan back in Graybridge and decided we weren’t going to go that far, but we all laugh.

“No, although it would help.” Joe cocks an eyebrow. She snorts and steps back. “Okay. We know that whether he took her around the house from the outside or went through the house entrance to the basement, he had to carry her quite a ways.”

“All of our suspects are big men,” I say. “Mr. Westmore carries heavy objects in the course of his work. Mr. Ferris plays hockey and tennis. Mr. Pearson isn’t any wimp.”

“Hayes Branch?” Chase says.

“Okay. He’s not Goliath, but he’s not a hundred-pound weakling either, and with adrenaline pumping . . .”

“The doctor was also a fairly big guy, and Ms. Robb was petite,” Agent Metz says.

“Right,” Joe adds. “Anyway, let’s walk around the outside of the house first.” He lays three cinder blocks in the tarp and wraps it up, and we head down the sloping lawn. The blocks aren’t quite the same as a full-grown woman, but Joe wanted something to approximate an unwieldy load. The snow isn’t too deep, thank God, but we slip a little anyway. We’re on the side of the house where the Westmores’ bedroom had been, but no windows. The other side of the house would’ve presented more difficulties. Much steeper, more trees, windows, the side porch where the Branches were sleeping. If the perp carried Ms. Robb outside, it would stand to reason it was on this side.