The Widow - Carla Neggers [72]
Attacking Abigail. Hiding in a garden shed. Crawling out of a chicken door.
He’d see what a creep he was and decide he wanted a different life for himself.
And, Linc realized, he was rooting for Mattie because of his father’s attitude.
The great Jason Cooper, who’d been born to privilege, who’d never had to fight alcoholism—who’d never lost a friend to murder.
Linc knew his father had never cared about Chris Browning. That his murder remained unsolved and Chris’s widow stayed on the case, relentless, not giving a damn who she pissed off, was just an annoyance to him.
“Linc?” A note of concern had crept into his father’s voice, but Linc had no illusions that it was about him. His father would only worry that his afterthought of a son would do something to attract police attention. “Son, why don’t you have a cup of tea with us. Then we’ll go home. Mattie will have an explanation for why he was in the shed.”
To pressure me with Abigail’s missing necklace. Linc rinsed off his plate. It was handmade pottery, as carefully chosen as everything else in his uncle’s kitchen—the cool tile floors, the muted colors, the custom cabinets. Dinner had been clay-pot chicken with rosemary from the garden, locally grown early peas, crusty bread from a Bar Harbor bakery. Linc had shoved his food around his plate, pretending to eat.
“I don’t want tea,” he said, turning from the sink.
Grace sighed, her reserves worn thin. “Oh, Linc. This day’s been difficult enough without you getting sullen.”
“I’m going to look for Mattie.”
“No!”
His sister jumped up, but their father shook his head, saying calmly, “Let him go. The mosquitoes will chase him inside soon enough.”
“But Mattie attacked someone today.”
“Abigail,” Jason said, as if that explained everything.
Grace spun around at him. “You make it sound as if she deserved what she got.”
“Not deserved.” He didn’t raise his voice. “She’s capable, Grace. She’s an experienced homicide detective. She can handle herself.”
“Mattie could have slit her throat today.”
“I don’t think so. He had a rusted saw that probably hadn’t been sharpened in fifteen years, and he had only a split second to act—not enough of an opening for someone of his abilities and limitations to have succeeded in doing more than what he did.”
“You can be so calculating sometimes,” Grace said.
“I’m just trying to be objective and understand the situation.”
Linc had heard enough. He let the screen door bang shut on his way out. Abigail and Owen had headed out to look for Mattie even before the police had arrived, but as well as they knew their way around the surrounding woods, Mattie knew them better. He’d grown up there, he’d photographed them. With the fog and the oncoming darkness, no one would find him unless he wanted to be found.
The police hadn’t asked Linc outright if he’d seen Mattie. He hadn’t volunteered what he knew, but he hadn’t lied.
One of the FBI agents—Special Agent Capozza—stood in front of the shed door, brushing at a cloud of mosquitoes hovering over him.
Linc gave him a sympathetic smile. “They’re bad tonight, aren’t they? Early morning and early evening are the worst times. You want to be careful of West Nile.” He peered past him into the shed. “Was Mattie in there for sure?”
“You’ll have to talk to Lieutenant Beeler or ChiefAlden.”
“Right. Sorry.”
Capozza whacked a mosquito on his arm, grimacing when it spurted blood. “Looks like I got that one too late. Your father and sister still here?”
“They’re having tea in the kitchen. I want to go look for Mattie.”
“Why?”
Linc felt a surge of emotion. “Because he’s my friend. Because I don’t think he’d ever hurt anyone. I don’t want some trigger-happy cop to shoot him just because—”
“Whoa, whoa. Watch what you say, Mr. Cooper.”
“He didn’t kill Chris Browning.”
The FBI agent tilted his head back and eyed Linc. “Why do you say that?”
“Chris was my friend, too. And he was Mattie’s friend.”
“Sounds like everyone’s friends up here.” Capozza wasn’t paying attention to the mosquitoes now. “But we’ve got a