I put the water on for tea and made Caroline go over the story she’d kept to herself for years and had undoubtedly repeated out loud and to herself a dozen times in the last month.
“I guess I was pretty, but who thinks she’s pretty at that age-only the most confident girls, and I wasn’t one of them. I was the poor girl, pretty enough to make out with but not presentable enough to bring home to your parents. Until I met Eddie and Kate. They made me feel special. Kate even gave me some of her clothes and convinced me to try out for cheerleading. She knew the coach. Cheerleading made me popular, at least I thought that’s what it was. Once I started dating Eddie, I had lots of friends. Coach Hopper even encouraged Eddie and Kate to come along to games. He gave them credit for bringing me out of my shell.
“I never knew what they were doing, and I didn’t steal anything,” Caroline said. “Honestly.”
“Caroline, I’m not going to judge you and I’m not sure that’s the hot issue right now. Someone I would characterize as one of the bad guys thinks you did. And knows your phone number and knows where you live. He may even know that you’re holding this thing right now.” As I said it, the two of us looked out the sliding glass doors into Caroline’s backyard and the reservoir behind it. A beautiful spot. Peaceful. Wooded. Remote. She pushed a button under the island and sun shades rolled down, allowing us to see out but obscuring the view from outside. Then she went into her living room to retrieve a bottle of vodka.
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea. Let’s have some more tea, okay?”
“Tea is not going to do the trick. I’m screwed. My life has been unalterably changed, my kids must think I’m a hypocrite, my mother-in-law wants custody of my children. Lord knows how Grant’s clients will react. What else can they do to me?”
What they could do, and she’d realize it once she calmed down, was to make her look as bad as possible so that a judge in Michigan would have to send her back to prison to complete her sentence, otherwise risk being thought of as too liberal.
“You have to call the police,” I said.
She shook her head vigorously and I couldn’t blame her. The last time she trusted them, she was sentenced to twenty years in jail for a crime I still wanted to believe she hadn’t committed.
“No,” she said. “We just have to find this man and see what he wants.”
“Caroline, we know what he wants-money. Some measure of revenge. And from the tone of that note, scaring the pants off you would be a nice little bonus for him.”
“You have to help me. You found Jeff Warren, you can find this guy.”
I had to admit I was getting good at locating things and people. I found myself wondering what Nina Mazzo charged for this line of work. It had to be more than gardeners earned, and the work was a lot less strenuous, if occasionally risky.
“Okay, let’s narrow down the possibilities. We keep saying ‘he.’ Are we even sure it’s a man?” I asked.
There was only one other woman who’d been involved with the case, and she wasn’t talking. Unless it was from the grave.
“I can’t tell you anything about Kate,” Caroline said. “The subject is off-limits.”