The Widow - Carla Neggers [48]
Abigail scowled at the dead phone and debated driving out to the local police station and finding Doyle Alden, but what good would that do?
Instead, using an ancient dustpan and brush—and her hands—she swept up the chunks of plaster, bent nails, mice skeletons and yellowed drywall tape, shoving the debris into her heavy-duty trash bag.
She needed answers. But how could she get them with such an elusive caller? Without the law enforcement resources she usually had at her disposal?
“You’re the only person the killer fears.”
Was it true? If so, what leverage did it give her?
She could hardly breathe in the thick dust she’d stirred up. She tied up the overstuffed bag and dragged it out to the back porch, down the steps and around to the side of the house, coughing as she shoved it into the garbage bin.
She knew what she had to do.
Before she could change her mind, she ran back into the house and grabbed the phone, dialing her father’s private number.
“Abigail,” he said when he picked up. “I thought you might call. Where are you?”
She was sure he knew where she was. “Maine,” she said.
He took an audible breath. She pictured him in his office or in his car, taking her call because he was between meetings. He was a busy man with an important, high-pressure job, but he was like any father with a daughter whose life had taken a hairpin turn from what he’d wanted for her.
John March had started out as a Boston cop. Bob O’Reilly remembered him and said they’d all known—even the rookies like him—that her father wouldn’t stay in uniform. He had drive, ambition and a willingness to sacrifice. He’d gone to law school, joined the FBI, moved his family from one city to another as he worked his way to the top. He was fifty-nine, handsome and unstoppable. He was also absolutely convinced that no one would ever crack the only unsolved murder of one of his own—FBI Special Agent Christopher Browning.
Abigail never doubted her father’s love or his desire to see her happy, only what they might lead him to do.
“You know about the calls, don’t you?” she asked him bluntly.
“I was briefed earlier today. You’re my daughter, Abigail. You can pretend I’m a plumber all you want, but I’m not—”
“Do you have any reason to believe the calls are related to your position?”
“No.” He spoke without hesitation, and he wasn’t a liar. If he didn’t want to tell her something, he simply wouldn’t. “Do you?”
“I don’t know anything. It’s frustrating. I’d hoped coming up here would get the caller to come out of hiding, but so far, no luck. And I have zip for leads.” She smiled into the phone. “But I did have tea and popovers at the Jordan Pond House today.”
“Alone?”
“With Owen Garrison, actually.”
“And the Coopers. They were there, weren’t they?”
Abigail sat at the kitchen table and frowned. “Dad, are you having me watched?”
He gave a small laugh. “That’d send Washington aflutter. Just imagine. To answer your question, no, I’m not having you watched. The two agents doing the background check on Grace Cooper saw her there with her father and uncle.” His humor vanished as quickly as it had appeared. “Abigail, you are my daughter. If you’re getting anonymous calls, for any reason, I need to know about it.”
In other words, she should have called him on Saturday after the first call—or, at the latest, this morning, not left it for the news to work its way to him. But she hadn’t, and she didn’t know why.
“Next time, I’ll let you know sooner,” she said.
“Right now, it doesn’t sound as if this caller has shed any new light on the investigation into Chris’s death.”
“So far, no.”
“Do you want protection? An agent—”
“Good heavens, no. Tell Mom I said hi. Don’t worry about me, okay? I’ve been painting and knocking out walls and having tea and popovers.” And kissing Owen Garrison. “I rousted Mattie Young from the old Garrison foundation. He was drinking beer and smoking cigarettes out there in the dark. The Alden boys thought he was Chris’s ghost.”
“You don’t fool me,” her father said quietly.