Cold River - Carla Neggers [122]
“She’s a controlling, abusive woman,” Hannah said.
“Why’d she take Lowell’s side in the end?”
“She couldn’t let anyone find out about his role in the killings. That by itself represented an existential threat to her.”
Bowie grinned through his pain. “Existential threat, Hannah?”
She smiled at him. “Put your oxygen back on.”
He didn’t. Instead, he said, “I think every time he arranges a killing, he thinks of her. He just doesn’t have the guts to stand up to her.”
“Does she know he hates her?”
“What do you think?”
“She knows.”
Thirty-Five
It was dusk by the time the police finished with them, but dusk came early to northern New England in January. Hannah had just finished reporting the events of the day to Devin and Toby when the Cameron brothers arrived at the café and gathered at the big table overlooking the river.
“Here, Hannah,” A.J. said. “Have a seat.”
She pulled out a chair between him and Sean. She ached all over, but she was warm. Jo, Grit and Myrtle were en route from Washington. They all planned to meet up the street at O’Rourke’s before it closed.
“Why did Lowell do it?” A.J. asked.
“It made him feel powerful,” Hannah said. “He was passive and cerebral in person, especially with his wife, but he was cold, calculating and bold in his work pairing his clients and his killers. He really was afraid Bowie was working against him.”
Elijah nodded. “He was in bed with some ruthless people.”
“The thought of Lowell hiding in the cellar with the money jar—fixated on me—gives me the creeps.” Hannah winced, surprised at how calm she was. “He must have grabbed it and run, then panicked and ditched the jar in the cellar.”
Sean leaned in closer to Hannah. “I’m guessing Kyle Rigby and Melanie Kendall didn’t know Lowell was their middleman, the guy who paid them and gave them assignments. Lowell hired them on his own behalf to kill Pop and then Ambassador Bruni, because they were getting too close to him. Then he had them go after Nora and Devin. He killed Melanie himself. He’d have killed Kyle, too, if he’d had to.”
“It wasn’t another of his contract killers,” A.J. said. “Lowell made the mess he was in into a bigger mess. He was afraid of what Bowie and Hannah knew.”
“How many killers do you suppose he had on his payroll?” Hannah asked.
“Law enforcement has his computer,” Elijah said. “They’ll find out.”
Hannah saw Judge Robinson enter the warm café. He was pale and obviously shaken by the day’s events as he walked behind the glass case and helped himself to a mug of coffee. “Just when I think I’ve seen everything in my long career,” he said, shaking his head in dismay as he joined them at the table with his coffee, “along come Lowell Whittaker and his faithful wife, Vivian. Dear heavens. Lowell thought he could put killers together with people who wanted killing done and not engage in any violence himself, but he certainly took advantage of the opportunity once presented, didn’t he?”
A.J. sat back. “He won’t be back here playing the gentleman farmer again anytime soon.”
In the ensuing silence, Hannah decided what she had to do. No more dancing around the subject. No more waiting. She was who she was. Abruptly, without looking at the men seated at the table with her, she said, “For those of you who don’t know, my father spent five years on and off in state prison. It’s not a secret, but it’s not something I talk about. I don’t want to wonder who knows and who doesn’t know, or tiptoe around the subject. I’m not proud of anything he did wrong, but I did love him. My brothers did as babies, too.” She paused, picturing her father with Devin in one arm and Toby in the other, all of them laughing on a rock above the river. She smiled at the memory and promised herself she’d share it with her brother. “I remember.”
No one spoke. She got up and headed out of the café and into the center hall, then back to the mudroom. She grabbed a coat and burst outside, through the snow to the riverbank.
She heard the back door creak open and thud shut and