Olivia is suddenly frightened. Why are they back for her husband? What has changed?
Raleigh appears on the stairs. ‘What’s going on?’
Olivia looks at her son in dismay, unable to find the words to tell him.
‘We’d like you to come, too, Mrs Sharpe,’ Webb says. ‘We have some questions for you as well.’
They’ve left Paul Sharpe in an interview room, waiting for his attorney. In the meantime, Webb has also asked Glenda Newell to come in for an interview. They will talk to the two wives while they’re waiting for Paul Sharpe’s attorney. They start with Mrs Sharpe.
She sits nervously in the interview room. Webb gets directly to the point. ‘Mrs Sharpe, this won’t take long,’ he says. ‘I understand you kept a spare key for your cabin hidden in the shed underneath an oilcan.’
‘Yes,’ she says.
‘Who knew about the hidden key?’
She clears her throat. ‘Well, we did, of course. My husband and I.’
‘Anybody else?’
‘My son knew.’ He waits. She says quietly, ‘And Keith Newell knew about it. My husband told him last summer that we started putting it there after we drove all the way to the cabin once and forgot the key.’
‘Anyone else?’
She shakes her head miserably. ‘No. I don’t think so.’
‘You see, here’s the problem,’ Webb says. He waits until she’s looking in his eyes. ‘We don’t think Keith Newell killed her. But whoever did, cleaned up the scene and then returned the key to that hiding place.’
She stares at him in horror as the penny drops.
Chapter Thirty-eight
GLENDA WATCHES THE detectives, unsure of how to behave, what to do. The interview room is bare except for a table and chairs. It’s intimidating. This is where her husband has been spending so much time. All those hours when she couldn’t imagine what was happening at the station – she’s beginning to be able to imagine it now. He’s still here, somewhere, in a different interview room, probably just like this one. What has he told the detectives? What do they think? Are they going to tell her? Or are they just going to ask endless questions and try to get her to implicate him?
‘Mrs Newell,’ Webb begins.
She looks back at him with dislike. She’s angry with him; she’s angry and afraid. She will ask for a lawyer if she thinks it becomes necessary; for now, she thinks she can handle this.
‘Did you know that your husband was having an affair with Amanda Pierce?’
‘No.’
‘He’s admitted it,’ the detective says bluntly.
She looks back at him and says, ‘I didn’t know.’
‘You’re familiar with the Sharpes’ cabin, aren’t you?’ Webb asks.
‘Yes. The Sharpes are good friends of ours.’ She pauses. ‘We were out there in June of this year, and again in July.’
‘Do you know where the spare key is kept?’ the detective asks.
She goes completely still. ‘Pardon?’
Webb looks at her more intently, and it makes her nervous.
‘Do you know where the spare key for the cabin was kept?’ he repeats.
‘Spare key? I don’t know about any spare key,’ she says.
Webb fixes his eyes on her. ‘Your husband told us that you knew where the spare key was kept.’
She can feel the perspiration start beneath her arms. It’s hot in here. Too many bodies close together. She shifts in her seat. ‘He’s mistaken. I’m not sure why he’d tell you that.’
‘It’s an important point,’ Webb says.
She doesn’t say anything. She suddenly feels light-headed. It is an important point. She knows that. They obviously know it, too. What has Keith told them? She realizes now – too late – that she should have told Keith the truth. But she didn’t, and now they are in separate rooms being interviewed by the detectives. They should have got their stories straight. They could have protected each other. But that’s the thing – she never told Keith the truth because she couldn’t be sure he would protect her.
Webb says, ‘Your husband claims that when he left the cabin at around eight o’clock that night, Amanda was alive, but when he arrived the next morning around ten thirty, her car was gone, and the cabin door was locked. He admits he retrieved the key from the usual hiding place, under the oilcan in the shed.’ He leans in close to her. ‘Whoever killed Amanda Friday night cleaned everything up and returned the key to the hiding place. An easy mistake to make,’ Webb says, ‘in the stress of the moment.’
Glenda can’t think of anything to say. It was such a stupid mistake.
‘Mrs Newell?’ the detective prods.
But she ignores him, her thoughts falling over one another, remembering flashes from that awful night. Scrubbing the kitchen floor, wiping down the walls, using the cleansers she’d brought from home. Driving Amanda’s car down to the bend in the road in the dark and deliberately sinking it. Checking everything over, making sure it was spotless and tidy. She was so exhausted by then that she’d locked up and, without thinking, put the key back in its usual hiding place.
It wasn’t until Keith came home the next afternoon, looking so distressed, that she realized her mistake. Realized that he would look for the key and know that someone who knew where the key was kept had been there.
Her best hope then was that the car with the grisly body in the boot would never be found; that everyone – especially Keith – would think that Amanda had simply taken off. Keith would assume that either Paul – or more likely, Glenda – had been there and had confronted Amanda, and that she’d decided to disappear and leave them all behind for good.
He’d never said a word to her about it; perhaps he was too afraid of what might have really happened. Beneath the confident exterior, he always was a coward. But then they’d found the car. The body. And they’ve been living with this between them ever since. Her knowledge, his fear.
If only they had never found the car, Glenda thinks hollowly. If only Becky hadn’t seen Paul in the car with Amanda that night, they wouldn’t have had any reason to look at Paul, to search the cabin, to find the blood. There should have been no way for this to lead back to the cabin – to Paul, or Keith, or her.
‘Mrs Newell?’ Webb says again.
‘Yes?’ She must focus. What is he saying? She can’t admit to anything. It must still be possible to turn this around. She’d tried so hard all this time to protect the ones she loves. Adam needs her. He doesn’t need his father the way he needs her. Maybe she can still pin this on Keith somehow. It would serve him right, the cheating bastard. She thought of everything, except the key. ‘I don’t know about any spare key,’ she says firmly. ‘I don’t know why my husband would tell you that,’ she repeats.
‘Sir.’
‘Yes, what is it?’ Webb asks briskly. He’s got his hands full at the moment.
‘There’s been a report of a homicide.’
Webb looks up in surprise. ‘Where?’
‘On Finch Street. Number Thirty-two. Neighbour found her. Called 911. Victim is’ – he refers to his notes – ‘a woman named Carmine Torres. Uniforms are on the scene, sir.’