Chapter 2
Chapter Two
For a moment Gary was too stunned to react. Then he regained his composure. He grabbed a notepad and pen from the table. “You’ll have to give me some details so I can look the case up in our system.”
Gary scribbled notes, then started tapping on the keyboard, aware of Dan’s soothing tone.
“You said your husband’s death was ruled accidental,” Dan said.
“Yes. But it wasn’t. I know it.”
“But how can you know that?” He fixed her with a keen glance.
“Because I knew him. He spent his whole working life being careful. He knew what he was doing.”
Gary frowned at the monitor screen. “According to our records, your husband was working on a construction site.”
“That’s right. He was a joiner and carpenter. He was building houses at the time.”
Gary quickly scanned the information on the screen. “And he fell off a roof while working. Well, the roof rafters.” Gary’s chest grew tight. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Sebring,” he said in an apologetic voice, “but I don’t see how we can help you. It was an open-and-shut case.”
“But it wasn’t,” she wailed. “And I’ve been saying this for the last two years to anyone who would listen.” Her eyes glistened.
Dan removed a dark blue folded handkerchief from his waistcoat pocket and pressed it into her hand. “Hey,” he said softly. “We’re going to listen to you, okay?” He covered her hand with his own, then froze.
Gary knew what that meant. And he had to know more.
“Mrs. Sebring, can I get you some coffee? Tea?”
She eased her hand from Dan’s grasp and wiped her eyes. “Tea would be good. And please, call me Linda.”
“I’m sure I can find some.” He gave Dan a meaningful stare, then inclined his head toward the door. “We’ll be right back.”
Dan took the hint and rose to follow Gary from the room. Outside the door, Gary gave him an inquiring glance.
“What did you pick up on?”
Dan’s brow furrowed. “I… I’m not sure. She’s desperate, I know that much.”
“Yeah, well, that hadn’t escaped me either.”
Dan shook his head. “It’s more than that. She’s utterly convinced she’s telling us the truth. So I guess my question is… would Travers agree to us looking into it?”
Gary laid his hand on Dan’s arm. “Can I point out a couple of things here? One, it’s not a cold case—it’s a done-and-dusted case, with nothing indicating any outcome other than the official one. Two, I’m pretty certain Travers would think this would be a total waste of our time.”
Dan stared into his eyes. “But what if she’s right?”
“When all the evidence points to it being an accident? I checked. There wasn’t one eyewitness account of someone throwing him off those rafters. As far as I can make out, he was alone up there.” One glance at Dan’s solemn expression stopped him in his tracks. “Did you sense something else?”
Dan glanced at the door. “I can’t explain why, but she… she really shook me. I think we need to look into this.”
“You trust your senses that much?” Then he reasoned that was a dumb question.
Dan’s senses hadn’t steered them wrong yet.
A slow nod. “They don’t lie, Gary. Okay, they might lead me off in weird directions sometimes, but at the heart of everything, I’m… shown there’s an inescapable truth.” He stared once more at the door to the interview room. “And I need to know what her truth is.”
Gary gazed at him in silence, then pulled his phone from his pocket and called Travers. “Sir? Something’s come up.” He relayed what they had so far.
“This doesn’t sound as if it would be a good use of your valuable time,” Travers commented dryly. “In fact, it sounds a lot like a wild goose chase.”
Dan grabbed his arm and locked gazes with him. Please, he mouthed.
“One moment, sir.” Gary pressed his phone to his chest. “You said it yourself. You don’t have anything to go on.”
“You think I don’t know that? This is what’s bugging me about the situation. Everything in me is screaming not to let this go.”
If it was a choice between provoking Travers’s ire and following his own instincts….
Gary held his phone to his ear. “Sir, Dan feels there’s something that needs to be investigated. And if you want my opinion? I think we should see where this leads us.”
Travers fell silent, and Gary’s heart sank. He’s not going to go for it.
At last he spoke. “You have until Friday. After that, I expect you both to be hard at work solving a cold case. Is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And keep me informed if you find anything.” He hung up.
Dan gazed at him expectantly. “Well?”
“We’ve got until Friday. So I guess I’d better find some tea.”
The glow in Dan’s eyes made Gary feel like a million bucks. “You backed me up.”
“I did.”
Dan bit his lip. “Remind me to show you my gratitude tonight.”
Warmth spread through Gary’s chest. “I’ll hold you to that.”
Gary placed a cup of tea in front of Linda, then picked his pen up once more. “Okay, tell us more about James.”
She sipped the fragrant amber liquid, and Gary could almost see the layer of calm that descended, settling on her like a shawl, her shoulders relaxing.
“What do you want to know?”
“A little of his background.”
She leaned back. “James worked with wood since before he was sixteen. That was when we met, when we were both in high school.” She smiled. “I used to say his hands were magic.”
The light in her eyes made her seem more alive.
“So he always knew what he wanted to do in life?” Dan asked.
She nodded. “When he was seventeen, he got a job as a carpenter with a company who planned to train him. He was good at what he did, a fast learner. He must have been, because the company kept him on, moving him from carpentry to house building.”
“He stayed with the same company?” Gary made notes.
“Well, different companies, but they were all part of the same group.”
“Which group?”
“DFF.”
Gary’s pen stilled.
She frowned. “You must’ve heard of them. I mean, they’re everywhere in Boston.”
“Yes, I’ve heard of them.” For all the wrong reasons.
“Well, James was working for them when he died.” She fixed Gary with a hard stare. “Aren’t you going to write that down?”
Gary dragged his pen across the page. It wasn’t a name he could forget.
“So what happens now?” Linda asked. “Because I don’t think there’s anything else I can tell you.”
“We’ll look at the case again, but you have to be prepared.” Gary didn’t want to raise her hopes. “We might not turn up anything new.”
She took a deep breath. “But you will. I know it.” She pushed her chair back. “I guess it’s up to you now.”
She wasn’t looking at Gary, but at Dan.
Gary wasn’t under any illusions. She was relying on Dan’s gift to provide new leads.
He hoped Dan’s instincts were correct.
They shook hands, and Gary assured Linda they’d be in contact. Whatever happened. He opened the door to call for an officer to accompany her from the building.
“Thanks for listening,” she said as she walked over to where the officer stood patiently.
“That’s what we do,” Gary told her with a hopefully reassuring smile. He removed a card from his wallet and handed it to her. “This is my phone number. You can reach me at any time.” He waited until she was no longer in sight, then came back into the room.
“Why the frown?” Dan asked.
“You’re not from Boston, so you’ve probably never heard of the DFF group. Not a good company to be associated with.”
“What’s wrong with them?”
Gary leaned against the table. “Let’s see. Dodgy deals, bad press, scandal, corruption…. And all the companies are under the control of one family—the DiFanettis.”
Dan chuckled. “With a name like that, we could be talking organized crime. You know, like the Mafia.”
Gary didn’t say a word.
Dan gazed at him openmouthed. “Oh my God. Seriously?”
“Maybe I’m doing them an injustice—they definitely had that kinda rep back in the day.
But then again, I’m a firm believer that leopards do not change their spots.
But enough of them. I think the only way forward with this is to interview James’s coworkers again.
The ones who were there the day he died. ”
“Are you expecting different results?”
Gary smiled. “Yes, I am. Because this time, we have you.” From the moment Travers had proposed the two of them working on cold cases, Gary had felt an undercurrent of excitement.
It hadn’t been cut and dried at that point—they’d had to wait for approval from the chief—but something told him the addition of Dan’s gifts could make a real difference.
And if thoughts of finding Brad’s killer occurred, that was only because Gary was human.
Dan moved closer. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to discuss with you.”
“And what’s that?”
“When I changed the calendar in the kitchen last week, I noticed something.”
“Ah. You noticed I hadn’t changed the page. It happens a lot.”
Dan chuckled. “Whereas I’m usually good at stuff like that. The fact that I missed it only goes to prove one thing—you addle my brain.”
Gary preened. “Damn, I’m good.”
“But that isn’t what I wanted to talk about.
You’d circled a date last month—the twenty-third, I think—and you’d written ‘lunch’ underneath.
But you didn’t have a lunch date. I remember because that was the Sunday I moved in with you.
” He peered at Gary. “Did you have to miss something because of me?”
Answering that question was going to open up a can of worms Gary would rather leave sealed, but he knew they had to talk about it sometime.
“One Sunday every month, I have lunch with my parents.”
“So what excuse did you give them for missing that particular Sunday?”
He cleared his throat. “I told them I was helping a friend move house.”
Dan’s eyebrows shot up. “So I’m a friend? And I’m guessing you didn’t tell them whose house I was moving into.” Before Gary could respond, Dan held his hand up. “You know what? It’s okay. They don’t need to know, not if you’re not ready to tell them.”
“You don’t mind?”
Dan rolled his eyes. “What did I say to you right before roll call? You don’t have to tell anyone anything, and yes, that includes your parents.” His face flushed. “I’m sorry I reacted so badly just now. I wasn’t thinking.”
“I will tell them, okay? About our relationship, the fact you’re living with me. But not yet.”
“That’s okay.” Dan smiled. “I’m not going anywhere. Now how about we sit down, go through the original statements, and draw up a list of James’s coworkers? Because it’s going to take us a few days to locate them all, and we only have until Friday, right?”
“Then what are we waiting for?”
Work was better than thinking about his parents’ reaction when he finally shared his news.
Gary knew what lay at the root of his reluctance to tell them the truth was not fear of them rejecting his assertion that he was bi.
No, what he feared was that they wouldn’t react at all, that his words would crash into the wall they’d built around their hearts and fall to the ground to be forgotten.