The Kind Worth Killing Page 19

  I told Detective James that I was okay, that I’d just like to leave. “You sure I can’t get you a drink of water before you go?” she asked in her husky voice, looking down at me. I figured she was close to six feet tall. She must have been a little bit self-conscious about it, because every time I’d seen her she was wearing flats. Dark pantsuit, collared shirt, and flats. And she never wore jewelry. She made me nervous in a way that Detective Kimball didn’t. It wasn’t that I thought she suspected me; it was that I truly had no idea what she was thinking. She looked at me the way she might look at a tollbooth collector.

  “Can I walk you out, Mrs. Severson?”

  “No. I’m fine. And it’s Miranda.”

  She nodded at me and turned away. I was pretty sure she didn’t wear any makeup either.

  Detective Kimball must have made a call because when I got to the front of the station a taxi was waiting. It was already dusk, rain beginning. It felt as though the bad weather had followed me all the way down from my mother’s house.

  CHAPTER 22

  LILY

  I checked out of the Kennewick Inn very early on Tuesday morning, figuring I could drive directly to Winslow College. It didn’t make sense to miss another day of work and draw attention to myself. I’d drunk two cups of coffee at the inn, but stopped in Kittery at a Dunkin’ Donuts for another coffee to go. I was exhausted. Brad and I had talked for several hours the night before, first in his truck, then in the rental cottage that he lived in. Despite what he’d done to Ted, I felt a little bad for Brad. He was a wreck, and once he realized that I wasn’t going to turn him in, he latched onto me like a drowning man coming across a lifeboat. He told me he would set up the meeting with Miranda for that night at 10:00 P.M. If she agreed, he would call me at my house from the public phone at Cooley’s. He would only let the phone ring twice, but the number would appear on the digital readout on my landline.

  I made it into my office before anyone else arrived. After logging in to my work e-mail account, I wasn’t surprised to learn that my boss, Otto, had left early on Monday, the previous afternoon, having felt a cough coming on himself, and that he thought he’d take Tuesday off as well. Otto Lemke was easily the most suggestible man alive, especially when it came to any kind of ailment. Just letting him know on Sunday that I wasn’t feeling well had probably sent him into a spiral of psychosomatic illness. I spent the morning writing short descriptions of our archived collections to go on our internal site for students and faculty. When I’d done enough to justify a morning’s worth of work, I walked across campus to the student-run café where I got most of my lunches. The rainstorm from the previous day had left the world looking bright and washed, like a car emerging from a car wash. The cloudless sky was a deep metallic blue. The air was crisp and smelled of apples. At the café I got curried tuna salad on wheat, and took my sandwich out to one of the stone benches with a view of the line of oak trees, bright red and bristling in the high breeze, that split Winslow’s main quad. My life was good, and I wondered briefly why I’d gotten involved in the sordid affairs of Miranda and Ted and Brad. What I was planning on doing in Kennewick tomorrow night was a huge risk. It was dependent on Brad, who was so fragile you could almost see the cracks in him, and it was also dependent on Miranda’s not becoming suspicious when Brad suggested the meeting. I felt exposed, and less than 100 percent confident, but knew that I had gone this far, and would go to the end. Ted deserved to be avenged, and Miranda deserved to be punished, now more than ever.

  That afternoon I had scheduled an off-site visit to a former student, now in her eighties, who was offering to donate items from her school years to the archives. These visits were often the best part of my job, and sometimes the worst. It all depended on the lucidity and expectations of the former student or professor. Sometimes all they had were a few battered textbooks and some class notes; these were often lonely people looking for someone to talk with for a while, someone who would have to listen to long tales from their college days. Sometimes, however, these former students would turn out to have treasure troves of archival materials. These were the girls who kept everything. The printed menus from the Midwinter Formal of 1935. Photographs from the March blizzard of 1960, when the drifts of snow were seven feet high. A handwritten poem from when May Gylys was the visiting writer. I never knew what to expect with these visits, and I only scheduled them when the person was within close driving distance. Otherwise, we would ask the donors to mail us their materials.

  I nearly canceled that afternoon’s visit. I was still tired from lack of sleep, and was not sure that I had it in me to accompany some stranger down her own personal memory lane. But I told myself that I should keep my schedule as normal as possible, so I went, driving several towns west to Greenfield, where Prudence Walker, class of 1958, lived. She was raking leaves when I arrived and had filled several bags, all of which had already been placed on her curb for pickup. Her house was a neat, orderly Cape Cod in a neighborhood of Colonials and deck houses. I pulled into her driveway behind a new-model Camry, and Prudence Walker put down her rake and came over to greet me.

  “Hello, there. Thank you so much for coming out. You’ve done an old lady a huge favor.” She was wearing a faded denim skirt and a green windbreaker. Her gray hair was pulled back in a bun.

  “It’s not a problem,” I said, getting out of my car.

  “It’s all boxed up, and right there on the front step. I’d carry it over to you, but it took all I had to get it from the attic to where it’s sitting. Apparently, back then, I decided I needed to keep everything. Most of it’s my scrapbooks, but I included all my notes from class, and syllabi, and there’s a bunch of exam papers, as well. You said you wanted those, didn’t you?”

  “I’ll take it all. Thank you, again, for this.”

  I walked over to the front step, and picked up the heavy box. Prudence Walker came with me, walking with an uneven gait that dipped her right shoulder down every time she took a step with her right leg.

  “I hate to make you drive all the way out here, then send you off just like that, but I’m trying to get all these leaves raked up before we lose the sun. Can I get you a glass of water, or anything?”

  “No, thanks,” I said, loading the box into my trunk.

  As I backed out of the driveway, I watched her walk unsteadily back to the rake she had left leaning against a maple tree. I felt a surge of love for this woman, so willing to discard her old life, to not look back, but really I was just grateful that I didn’t need to sit for an entire afternoon going through scrapbooks.

  I dropped the box back at Winslow, answered a few more e-mails, then drove to my house, a cottage-style two-bedroom built in 1915. It overlooked a picturesque pond, lousy for swimming (it bred mosquitoes all summer), but decent for ice-skating in the cold winter months. I checked my phone, and there was no call yet from Cooley’s. My doctor’s office had called to remind me of an appointment, and my mother had called but had not left a message. It wasn’t yet five o’clock, and I thought I’d try to take a short nap before making dinner. I lay down on the couch in my living room, and just as I was falling into a light sleep, the doorbell chimed and I jerked upright, confused for a second about where I was. I ran my fingers through my hair, stood, and walked to the foyer. I peered through the leaded glass that ran along the side of the front door. A slightly shaggy-looking man in his thirties stood there, scratching at the back of his neck. I partially opened the door, keeping the chain on.

  “Can I help you?” I said.

  “Are you Lily Kintner?” said the man, pulling his wallet out of his herringbone tweed jacket. Before I had a chance to answer, he flipped the wallet open to show a Boston PD Detective badge. “I’m Detective Kimball. Do you mind if I have a quick word?”

  I unchained the door and swung it open. He scraped his feet on my welcome mat and stepped inside the house. “I like this house,” he said, glancing around.

  “Thank you. What can I help you with? You’ve
got me curious.” I took a few slow steps into the living room and he followed me.

  “Well, your name has come up in an investigation, and I have a few questions. Do you have a moment?”

  I offered him the red leather club chair and he perched on its edge. I sat down on the couch. I was scared to hear what he was about to say, but also anxious to hear it.

  “What can you tell me about Ted Severson?”

  “That man who was killed in Boston over the weekend?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I can tell you what I read in the newspaper, but that’s about all. I do have a vague connection with him, but I don’t know him. He was married to someone I went to school with.”

  “You went to school with Miranda Severson?” The detective pulled a notebook from his coat and flipped it open. He pulled a small nub of a pencil from its spiral binding.

  “Yes, Mather College. She was Miranda Hobart then. Faith Hobart actually.”

  “She went by a different name?”

  “Faith is her middle name, I think. That’s what she went by in college.”

  “Have you kept up with her? How did you know that Ted Severson and she were married?” He sat up a little, pushing back fractionally into the chair. His hair was a little long, especially for a police detective. He had round brown eyes under thick eyebrows, an imposing nose, and a mouth that could belong to a girl, with a plump lower lip.

  “We met in Boston a few years ago, just by accident.”

  “Was she with her husband then?”

  “You know, I was wondering that myself after I read the story. She was with a man, I think, and she introduced us but I don’t remember much about him. I couldn’t believe it when I read about what happened in Boston. Detective . . . is it Kimball? . . . I was going to make coffee. Should I make enough for two?” I stood, aware that I was potentially acting suspicious, but I needed time to think.

  “Um, sure. If you’re going to make it for yourself.”

  “Unless you think we can wrap this up right away. I’m actually pretty curious as to why you’re here,” I said as I walked toward the kitchen.

  “No. Make coffee, and I’d love some.”

  Once in the kitchen, I took a deep breath, put the water on to boil, and put ground coffee at the bottom of my French coffee press. I needed to think clearly. Something had happened to connect me with Ted Severson and I had to be extremely careful to not get caught in a lie, not to contradict myself. They had found something out, but I didn’t know how much. When the water had started to boil I poured it over the coffee, inserted the plunger. I put the coffee on a tray with two mugs, a carton of milk, and a bowl of sugar cubes, and brought it back into the living room. I was startled to see the detective standing, peering closely at the bindings in my living room’s built-in bookshelf.

  “Sorry,” he said, sitting back down on the lip of the chair. “You have some interesting books. I hope you don’t mind my asking . . . you’re David Kintner’s daughter, right?”

  I placed the tray on the coffee table and sat down on the couch. “Uh, yes. Do you know him? And please just help yourself to coffee.”

  “I do know him. I’ve read several of his books, and I saw him read once. In Durham, New Hampshire.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “He was quite the showman.”

  “So I’ve heard. I’ve never seen him read before.”

  “Really? I’m surprised.”

  “Don’t be. He’s my father, and what he does for work is not exactly fascinating to me. At least it wasn’t when I was younger.”

  I watched the detective assemble his coffee, adding milk but no sugar. He had beautiful hands with long slender fingers. I was suddenly struck with how similar he looked to Eric Washburn. Thin and masculine, but with almost girlish facial features. Rosebud mouth. Thick eyelashes. He took a sip of his coffee, put the mug back on the coffee table, and said, “You know, you weren’t easy to find out here. Are you still a Kintner or did you officially change your name to Lily Hayward?”

  “No, I’m still Kintner, legally. People here know me as Lily Hayward. Hayward was my father’s mother’s maiden name. Don’t read too much into it. It’s just that—working at a college—people are familiar with my father and all his baggage, and when I got the job here, I decided to go by another name.”

  “Understandable.”

  “So you know what’s happening with my father?”

  “The accident in England.”

  “Right.”

  “Yes, I heard about it. I’m sorry. I really am a big fan of your father’s. I’ve read all his books, actually. I think I remember that he dedicated his last one to you.”

  “He did. Too bad it wasn’t a better book.”

  The detective smiled. “It wasn’t so bad. I think the reviews were a little harsh.” He took another sip of his coffee, was quiet for a moment.

  “So,” I said. “Back to Ted Severson. I’m still confused why you’re here.”

  “Well, it could all be a coincidence, of course, but Ted Severson came here to Winslow on the day he was killed. We know that because he got a parking ticket. He wasn’t coming to see you, by any chance?”

  A flash of anger at Ted’s stupidity went through me, followed by a touch of sadness. He had come looking for me. He had come to my town. I shook my head. “Like I said, I don’t know him, and he doesn’t know me. We might have met once or twice . . .”

  “You were in England in September, right?”

  “I was. I went over to see my father after he got out of prison. In fact, he’s going to be moving back to America, and I was there to help him with some of the logistics.”

  “Do you remember the flight you took back?”

  “I can look it up for you if you’d like.”

  “That’s okay. I know the flight. It was the same one that Ted Severson was on after a business trip he took to the U.K. Do you remember seeing him on that flight?”

  I was prepared for this. So they knew that Ted and I were on a flight together. It was still highly doubtful they knew that Ted and I met later at the Concord River Inn. Did they know I traveled to Kennewick the day before? Probably not, but it wouldn’t be hard to find out.

  “Do you have a picture of him?” I asked

  “I don’t with me, but if you have Internet . . .”

  “Right. I’ll double-check it, but I did talk with a man on that flight, and now that I think of it, it was probably Ted Severson. We met, actually, in the airport bar at Heathrow. I remember thinking when we met that he seemed to know me. The way he said hello. But then we introduced ourselves and talked for a while. He didn’t really look familiar to me.”

  “You didn’t exchange names?”

  “We did, but I didn’t really catch his. Or if I did, I didn’t remember it.”

  “But you gave him your name?”

  “I did. And I told him that I worked here in Winslow.”

  “So if he wanted to he could have looked you up, come out here to try and find you?”

  “In theory,” I said. “Though if he’d really wanted to get in touch with me, I don’t know why he wouldn’t have tried to call me.”

  “You gave him your number?”

  “I didn’t, actually.”

  “So it’s possible he tried to find your number and couldn’t, then drove out here.”

  “Sure, I guess it is. It just doesn’t seem likely. We had a nice conversation but it wasn’t flirtatious, and he’s a married man, and . . .”

  The detective smiled and shrugged. “You might have just missed it. We see it all the time. Some guy meets some woman, and the woman thinks nothing of it, and the next thing she knows, he’s stalking her. And vice versa, as well, but that’s not as common.”

  “You think I was being stalked?”

  “I have no idea. We were just curious as to why he drove out here on the day he was killed. It’s a suspicious death, so we look at anything that happened recently that seems out of the o
rdinary. But if he drove out here in the hopes of running into you, then I can’t imagine it had anything to do with his death.”

  “No. I can’t imagine.”

  “Do you mind my asking if you’re in a relationship, Miss Kintner?”

  “No, I don’t mind. And no, I’m not seeing anyone. And you can call me Lily.”

  “Just checking, Lily. No jealous ex-boyfriends in your life?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  The detective looked at his spiral-bound notebook and was quiet for a moment. I had relaxed. As far as I could figure, I had covered myself as best as I could. I couldn’t deny having met Ted on the plane. There were witnesses. But there was no reason for me to admit anything else. If the police figured out that I had stayed for two nights in Kennewick immediately after the murder, I would just have to claim it was coincidence. It might look strange, but what could happen to me? It’s not as though I had actually been involved in the Friday night murder.

  “Sorry, Lily, but I need to ask this. Can you tell me where you were on Friday evening?”

  “I was here. I was alone. I cooked dinner for myself, then watched a movie.”

  “Anyone stop by? Anyone call?”

  “Sorry, no. I don’t think so.”

  “That’s okay.” He finished his coffee and stood. “Is it possible to look at a picture of Ted Severson online so you can give a proper identification?” he asked.

  “Of course,” I said, and got my laptop. Together, we found a picture that accompanied a news article on Ted’s slaying, and I said, that, yes, I was pretty sure that it was the same man I’d talked with on the plane.

  “It’s so strange,” I said. “I read the article and realized that I kind of knew this man, or at least I definitely knew his wife, and it turns out I’d met him recently, spoken with him.”

  At the door, Detective Kimball reached into his jacket pocket, then said, “Oh, one more thing. I nearly forgot.” He pulled out a single key, still shiny. “Do you mind if I check and see if this key opens your door.”