The Widow - Carla Neggers [12]
“That’s one scenario.”
“It’s the only one that makes sense and fits the facts. If Abigail thinks she’s going to come up here and find answers, she’s wrong.”
“She’s thought that for seven years—”
“And she’s been wrong for seven years. She just stirs people up for no good reason.”
Lou sank back against the hood of his car. “The caller said things were happening here.”
“It’s a busy island that gets three million tourists every year,” Doyle said. “Of course things are happening here. You can cherry-pick a dozen possibilities without breaking into a sweat or thinking hard.”
“What about things happening among the Garrisons and the Coopers?”
Doyle scoffed. “Something’s always going on with them. Owen’s starting up this field academy. He just got back from digging for earthquake survivors.”
“The Coopers?”
“Grace Cooper’s up for a big State Department appointment. Her father’s doing some complicated business deal. Her uncle’s designed a new garden for one of his rich friends. Her brother’s here this summer. He made it through a whole year of college.” Doyle narrowed his eyes on his fellow, more experienced law enforcement officer. “But you know all that, don’t you, Lou?”
“Yeah. I do. Well…” He smiled. “I hadn’t heard about Linc Cooper not getting kicked out of another college. You’ll call me when Abigail turns up?”
“I’ll call. Thanks for stopping by. By the way, did you stop by the Browning house just now?”
Lou shook his head. “No, why?”
Doyle decided not to tell him about the boys and their ghost. “Just curious. Sure you don’t want to come in?”
“I should get back. Say hi to the boys for me.”
After Lou left, Doyle locked up his car and headed inside. The house wasn’t the same without Katie. He didn’t know how he’d manage for six weeks without her. The place needed vacuuming. He had to take out the trash, clean the bathrooms, mop the kitchen floor. Normally he and Katie and the boys split the housework, but he could see now he hadn’t been doing his fair share.
He didn’t need to deal with Abigail right now. She had a way of getting on his last nerve.
With a little luck, she’d get assigned to a hot case in Boston and forget about the anonymous call. Let the state and local police investigate. Stay out of it.
Doyle snorted, noticing he’d left the coffeepot on that morning.
What was he thinking?
Luck just never seemed to be on his side.
CHAPTER 4
Abigail left Boston early Monday morning, and by the time she took Route 3 over the Trenton Bridge onto Mt. Desert Island, she ran into a wall of fog. Not pretty fog, either. It was slit-your-throat depressing fog. She had her coffee can of journal ashes on the front seat next to her. She’d almost dumped them at a rest stop between Augusta and Bangor, just to be rid of them. It was as if every memory of her life with Chris was in there, condensed, trying to pull her inside with them and draw her into the past, keep her there forever and never, ever let her go.
She stopped in Bar Harbor at a streetside deli-restaurant and bought containers of clam chowder, lobster salad and crab salad, and two huge peanut butter cookies. Droopy-eyed tourists griped about the fog. “It could last for days.”
Well, Abigail thought, climbing back into her car, it could.
When she arrived at her house on the southern end of the island, the fog, if possible, was even thicker, encasing the tall spruce and pine trees in gray, obscuring any view. Water, rocks and sky were indistinguishable.
The front steps were slick with condensation, and the air tasted of salt and wet pine needles.
Her 1920s house was too small, too simple, for today’s coastal living standards. If she put it on the market, it would sell for its location. A new owner would almost certainly bulldoze it and build from scratch.
Perhaps just as well.
She unlocked the door and, with the damp air, had to push hard to get it open. Inside, her house felt like a tomb. Cold, dark, still.