“I don’t know. I’m not the investigator, you are. But her manner of death was murky, and it was kept very hush-hush, which is why you didn’t know about it.”
Carson was right. That was interesting. “Send me what info you have. Dare I ask how you came by it?”
“Better not. If you’re ever put on the witness stand—”
“Understood. What’s the second thing?”
“It’s about the SUV.”
Trapper didn’t want to tell him that its rear end was presently in a ditch. “Sorry to be keeping it so long. Did you tell the guy I’ll pay him a rental fee?”
“That’s not the problem.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“The vehicle is sort of, uh…”
“Sort of what?”
“Sort of stolen.”
Just then Trapper’s attention was drawn to the horizon, where he saw one, possibly two, police units braving the icy conditions, running hot, and coming in their direction.
Chapter 15
As he did most nights after his wife, Greta, had gone to bed, liberally dosed with vodka and Xanax, Thomas Wilcox sat on the edge of his late daughter’s bed. He was anchored there by guilt.
Tiffany’s room had been preserved like the tomb of a pharaoh. Everything she had loved and valued remained where she had last placed it. Their housekeeper had been given strict instructions not to touch or move anything, to dust around every item: a snow globe with a carousel; the picture of the high school dance squad, of which Tiffany had been captain; the trophies and ribbons from the riding academy where she had excelled at dressage. Her goal had been to make the U.S. Olympic team.
The room and every tangible thing in it was a heart-wrenching reminder of her, but Thomas noticed that the remnants of her vital spirit diminished a little bit each day like a slow leak from a stoppered bottle of perfume. At first, the room had contained a strong essence of her soul, but its evaporation was inexorable. Soon it would disappear altogether, and she truly would be gone.
Believing himself to be untouchable, Thomas had called another man’s bluff. Tiffany had been the price he’d paid for his misjudgment.
He took a final look around, ending on her pillow where lay the teddy bear she’d slept with every night since infancy. “Night-night, sweetheart,” he whispered. Then he pushed himself to his feet, switched out the lamp, and left the room, gently closing the door behind him.
He glanced down the hallway toward another closed door, that of the bedroom now occupied by his wife.
Initially Greta had used bereavement as her excuse for leaving the master suite to sleep in the guest room. But now, eighteen months after the death of their only child, she was still there, permanently installed.
Neither he nor Greta acknowledged this estrangement. Their interactions these days were reserved and formal. They didn’t love, nor did they fight. Any emotion required too much of them. From Tiffany’s birth until the day she died, she had been the sun around which their lives orbited. When her life blinked out, the two of them had been left in a vacuum, devoid of light, warmth, and energy.
Thomas descended the sweeping staircase to the ground floor and headed for his study. He’d just reached it when the intercom panel buzzed. The blinking dot of red light was labeled “Front Gate.” He depressed the speaker button. “Yes?”
“It’s Jenks.”
Thomas’s melancholia vanished. His body language, tread, and facial expression reflected this automatic shifting of gears from that of grieving parent to that of a man who protected his interests. At all costs.
He crossed to the window and, being mindful to stay behind the adjacent wall, flipped open one panel of the louvered shutters. His sprawling lawn was frosted with sleet. The fountain in the center of the circular driveway had become an ice sculpture. From the distance of thirty yards, twin headlight beams shone through an aura created by the frozen precipitation, making it impossible to identify the vehicle or the driver.
Thomas returned to the control panel. “What are you doing here at this time of night, during an ice storm?”
“I was sent to tell you that we have a problem.”
“I already know. The ten o’clock news covered the press conference from the hospital. The Major is going to make it.”
The deputy snuffled. “Actually, that’s the good news.”
Thomas deliberated then punched the button to open the gate.