Afterlife - Douglas Clegg [17]
“No, nothing like that,” McGuane said.
“Because he didn’t. He didn’t go for mumbo-jumbo. That’s one thing I can say for sure about him. He was a doctor. He was fascinated by scientific research. He didn’t think life was mystical,” Julie said.
“That’s true,” Mel said, and Julie was thankful she was there.
Mel got up to go get a glass of water. McGuane made a joke about crazies who phoned in solutions to murders. “This guy may just be one of the crazies, that’s true,” he said. “Still, he knew some things.”
“Where did it happen?” Julie asked, wanting to steer the conversation away from mumbo-jumbo.
McGuane looked out, beyond the living room window, as if thinking about how to delicately answer this question. “That doesn’t really matter right now.”
“It does to me.”
“All right. Just outside town. Out in some hills beyond the highway.”
“He died in the woods.”
“We found his car on the side of the road,” McGuane said. “In Newark.”
“But you found him nearby.”
“Yes.”
“I want to go there.”
3
Against his better judgment, McGuane agreed to drive her to the place where her husband had been murdered. The roads were slick from a previous rain, and he took the turns along the highway slowly, both for safety and because he felt as if he had a fragile item in his car.
They said nothing as he drove along the back road that led up to the hillside, beyond the suburbs, and Julie stared straight ahead the whole time, thinking of nothing whatsoever to mention.
When they got there, to the edge of the road where the killer had left the victim’s car, McGuane parked, got out, and went around to open her door.
“Thank you,” she said.
He had positioned the headlights of the car to shine on the narrow gravel path that cut through the woods.
“He took your husband through there,” McGuane pointed, and then made a circle with his finger in the air. “There’s a clearing when you go higher.”
“I suppose it’s too dark to go up there.”
“Mrs. Hutchinson, if you think this will help at all,” he said, “I’ll get a flashlight and we can go up there. It’s muddy, and frankly, any footprint we leave might obscure some vital piece of evidence. I hate taking that chance.”
She nodded, and glanced around the woods. “Do you know when he died?”
“We’re not sure. Not yet. I’d guess it was early afternoon, yesterday. Might’ve been last night. Some mountain bikers use that path. They’d been going up and down the hills around here this morning. One of them thought he saw a dead deer, and went to get a closer look. Only, well, it wasn’t…what he had thought. That was before nine this morning.”
“It rained yesterday, off and on,” she said.
“But it was fairly dry when the bicyclists came through here.”
“Where did the car end up? My husband’s Audi?”
“Mrs. Hutchinson,” McGuane said. “it’s important to examine every little detail of this crime scene.”
“It’s impounded,” she nodded, understanding. “Livy and I were here yesterday. Well, not here. Miles away, really. To the west. But we were in the woods, up in the hills.” She walked up to the edge of the path. She looked into the darkness between the trees as if half expecting someone to be there. Then, she turned, facing the headlights of McGuane’s car and said, “Please take me home now. I think I’m going to be sick.”
4
Later that evening, after the detective had gone, and Julie walked in the front door, Mel called to her from the top of the stairs. The kids were all ready for bed. It was nearly ten, and everybody was exhausted. Julie went to sit on the edge of Livy’s bed.
Matt unrolled his sleeping bag on the floor near Livy’s bed.
“It’s okay for a night or two,” Julie said. “It’s wonderful in fact. But you need to move it back to your own bedroom soon. Okay?” Even as she said this, she wanted to bring both of them into her own bed and hold them for as long as possible.
Matt’s reaction had surprised her. She had suspected he might have a violent outburst, or become agitated. But he chose silence, instead. He had barely said a word since Julie