Chapter 15 #3
“No.” He sighed. “But there’s a lot that Ingrid never told me about her work.
Things she wasn’t supposed to tell me. You know that.
” He looked at Ben and Declan. “And you too. All those years in the field, all those secrets. It becomes a habit, doesn’t it?
Holding back, locking sensitive details in your mental closets.
I understood there were things I shouldn’t ask her, things that needed to remain in that closet.
It’s the nature of the business. I don’t know the significance of that stiletto, because she never talked to me about it.
All I can tell you is Ingrid seemed to go into hyperdrive after she found Karen O’Brien’s body on Saturday.
She hardly slept. She’d shut the door when she made phone calls.
Then she sent me off to New York Tuesday morning, said I needed to track down the provenance of the stiletto.
It was a fool’s errand. She just wanted me out of the way while she .
. .” He shook his head. “Actually, I have no idea why she wanted me out of the way. But that’s just Ingrid, always a step ahead of us. Certainly ahead of me.”
That much Maggie could not dispute. Ingrid was usually a few steps ahead of them all.
“We all know she’s quick,” said Jo. “But how did she connect a dead waitress in the parking lot to a case of polonium poisoning?”
Maggie and her friends glanced at each other.
“Obviously,” said Ben, “Ingrid has intel we don’t have.”
“And she didn’t share it with any of you?” Jo turned to Lloyd. “Not even you?”
He shook his head.
“Well, this is a first,” Jo said. “Usually, I’m the only one in the dark.”
Ben took Jo’s glass and splashed more whisky into it.
“Now you know why we consider this a delicate issue,” he said, handing the glass back to her.
“The fact Ingrid didn’t bring us into the loop means either she doesn’t trust us, or it involves intel that’s so sensitive she’s not allowed to share it. ”
Jo stared down at her whisky and seemed to be weighing her next words. “There is another possibility,” she said quietly. “What if she’s done something wrong?”
“Are you accusing her of something?” Lloyd said.
“I’m trying to explain her behavior. You said she suddenly became secretive. Took phone calls in private. She sends you out of town on a pointless errand, and then she disappears.”
“Which is why I called you,” said Lloyd. “I can’t search the whole state of Maine on my own.”
“Okay,” Jo sighed, and set down her glass. “I’ll do my best to find her. But the fact she chose to disappear makes her look guilty of something. It would help my search if I knew why she left. Do you have any idea?” Jo scanned their faces. “Anyone?”
The answer was silence.
“I didn’t want to say this in front of Lloyd,” Jo said to Maggie, “but we need to consider another possible reason why Ingrid might have left.”
The two women stood outside, next to Jo’s vehicle, talking quietly. When Jo had left the house, she’d given Maggie a look, a nod, that said: We need to talk. Now the two of them were huddled together on the sidewalk, where the men could not hear them.
“What if Ingrid’s disappearance has nothing to do with polonium or all that other stuff you were talking about,” said Jo. “I mean, it’s all a bit far fetched, isn’t it? Russian hit men in Maine? Maybe her reason for leaving is personal.”
“Go on,” said Maggie.
“The Slocums. How solid is their marriage?”
Maggie gave a disbelieving laugh. “You think that’s why she left?”
“She wouldn’t be the first woman who walked out on her husband.”
“Oh, Jo.”
“She sends him out of town on a useless task, and then she leaves without telling him where she’s going. And her note. ‘I need to leave.’ That sounds like a wife who’s fed up with her marriage. Who can’t take it anymore. Could there be another man in her life?”
If they were talking about anyone but Ingrid, that explanation would make perfect sense, but Maggie refused to accept it.
She didn’t want to accept it. She’d known Ingrid for nearly four decades, and if one of Maggie’s oldest and dearest friends could deceive her, it meant she could be deceived by anyone.
Then she thought about the conference reception Friday night, when the five of them had stood in the hotel ballroom, toasting Ingrid’s skill as an emcee.
She remembered the strikingly handsome man who’d joined their circle, one of Ingrid’s former colleagues, he’d said.
Rodrigo. And she remembered Ingrid’s reaction when she first saw him.
Surprise. Discomfort. Turmoil. Ingrid had clearly been reluctant to introduce him to her friends.
Ingrid and I used to work together, he’d told them, hinting that he, too, had once operated under nonofficial cover.
Was that all he was to her, a former colleague? Or had there been something more between them?
“You know that saying you just quoted?” said Jo as she opened her car door. “‘When you hear hoofbeats, think of horses, not zebras’?”
“Yes. It means common things are common.”
“Yeah. And a woman leaving her husband for a lover? That’s definitely a horse, not a zebra.” Jo slid into her cruiser. “Think about it.”