Chapter Eighteen
I expect to find an army of CSIs in white Tyvek suits collecting evidence at the crime scene along the lakeshore.
Instead, a lone, bored state deputy keeps guard in a cruiser.
Gilcrest consults with him before sending him off for a break, then leads me along a narrow access alley lined with yellow crime tape to where the house’s burned-out shell is covered in plastic tarps and surrounded by an orange barrier.
“The fire marshal’s team collected evidence before the rain came,” Gilcrest says.
“They’ll be back today. They found evidence of accelerant, so this is officially an arson investigation. ”
Offshore, a boat floats on the calm blue water. The driver points a camera toward us. “Did Andrea Haviland start the fire?” Gilcrest asks, as though talking to himself.
“That’s for you to determine,” I say.
“It doesn’t look good for her, though I can see what she’s fighting for. Once these old camps are gone, they’re gone.”
Gilcrest is a cop. He’s trying to disarm me, but I won’t fall for whatever game he’s playing. “You grew up on the lake,” I say. “Did you know my mother?”
“The lake’s big,” Gilcrest says. “And I’m only forty-eight.
Your mother had practically graduated high school by the time I was out of diapers.
” He musses his hair and opens the front of his coat.
“You should get some photos. The light’s good right now.
I scanned your online profiles last night, and you hardly ever post. You’ll need to do more social media if you want this podcast to go anywhere. ”
I wonder whether Gilcrest checked me out for professional or personal reasons. When did he find out his girlfriend left the Landing with another man, and who the man was? “I’m not interesting,” I say. “I go to work, hang out with friends, play video games. Not much else.”
“No one’s all that interesting,” Gilcrest says. “It’s the packaging. You’re young and good-looking. That sells. And you have a compelling story.” He stops at a set of granite steps. “I like the gray stone. Foot up or down?” He poses both ways.
“Down. Arms folded.”
He sets an expression of stony resolve as I snap a string of photos. “Try one with a smile,” he says, his eyes creasing into a sly, practiced grin.
Afterward, he scrolls through the images, deleting as he goes until only two remain. “One serious. One smiling. You decide. But don’t post either without approval. Now, show me where you were when the attack happened.”
We retrace our steps to a spot by the shore next to a grove of trees. “I was beside those birch trees, there,” I say.
“Thick underbrush, and plenty of places to hide,” Gilcrest says. “Have you remembered anything new since yesterday? Sometimes things are clearer a day or so later.”
I search my memory for a flash of color or a familiar voice. “Movement and sound,” I say. “It happened fast, and with the fire, there were distractions, and then the branch swung toward me.”
“How long were you out? From the moment you were attacked to when Chief Haviland arrived on scene.”
“It could have been thirty seconds, or much longer. I didn’t mark the time.” I think for a moment. “But the fire hadn’t progressed much when I came to. And Mrs. Haviland had collapsed in the courtyard. If she’d been there very long, she wouldn’t have survived with all that smoke.”
Gilcrest shoves his hands into his pockets. “Stop the recording.”
I hit pause, and he makes me show him the screen before saying, “Seton Haviland asked you to lend her money yesterday.”
“She didn’t ask,” I say. “I made an assumption.”
“But she hinted at it. And she was mad at you when you said you didn’t have any.”
“Maybe.”
“Haviland’s a good cop,” Gilcrest says. “She’ll tell me anything that touches on the case, whether it’s relevant or not. And I have to rule out every possibility.”
He had me stop the recording because he’s testing Seton as a suspect. “The conversation about money wasn’t relevant at all,” I say. “It happened as a result of the fire. We wouldn’t have had the conversation unless her mother needed a lawyer, so there’s no motive.”
“Seton was the first on the scene. Maybe she was here before you and knew what her mother had done. Maybe she panicked when she saw you arrive.”
I picture Seton kneeling over me when I came to.
“She couldn’t have attacked me because it contradicts the timeline.
I was on the ground here. The house was engulfed in flames, but Seton’s whole focus was on me.
She didn’t know her mother was in danger until I told her.
That was when she went into action-hero mode and ran into the inferno. ”
“Pretty solid deduction,” Gilcrest says. He had to have worked most of this out on his own, and I wonder about the motivation behind this line of questioning. Maybe he’s testing my loyalties.
“Any hanky-panky between you and the chief?” he asks.
“Are we in kindergarten?”
“Sex. Have you had sex, or anything close to it?”
Nothing beyond a few lingering touches over the years. “Neither of us would make that mistake,” I say. “Too much baggage. And if the chief’s such a good cop, wouldn’t she have disclosed a sexual relationship?”
“Let’s hope,” Gilcrest says, nodding at my phone. “You can start that up.”
I tap record.
“Let’s go back a little further on the timeline,” Gilcrest says. “You got up to go for a run. Who was at the house?”
“Just me,” I say. “My mother had a client meeting in Finstock, and my brother left the night before.”
Gilcrest waits for me to continue.
“They found out about the podcast,” I say. “And I asked too many questions about my father. Reid didn’t want to talk about what had happened.”
“It got heated?” Gilcrest asks.
I nod.
“Who else was there?”
“My mother, Hadley, Paul Burke.”
“Paul must have gone to Burkehaven Farm for the night. And your aunt Hadley?”
“She walked to the bungalow.”
And she didn’t answer the door when I used the landline to call 9-1-1 the next morning, but my guess is that Seton has already filled the detective in on her suspicions.
Unlike Seton, Gilcrest is direct in his questioning.
“Your aunt wasn’t home when you used the phone,” he says, pausing for a confirmation I don’t provide.
“Fine,” he says. “The chief told me your aunt arrived on the scene after you’d pulled Andrea from the fire.
Does your aunt get along with Paul Burke? ”
“They get along fine,” I say. “But Hadley travels a lot. She’s not here often.”
“What about your mother? Does Hadley get along with her?”
“Mostly,” I say. “They’re sisters. And my mother always lets Hadley stay at the bungalow when she wants to.”
Gilcrest looks up, grasping the implication of what I’ve said at once. “Your mother owns Idlewood. Did she buy Hadley out?” When I don’t answer, he adds, “Property records are public, Charlie. You can tell me now, or I can make a quick visit to town hall.”
“My grandfather left the property to my mother.”
This time, Gilcrest does make a note on his phone. The morning’s conversation with Freya has me questioning everything and anything that’s happened. And if this were an episode of Scene of the Crime, wouldn’t Hadley’s actions warrant a second look?
“Even if Hadley has a grudge against my mother,” I say, “why start a fire? And you told me the arson team would take the lead on this case.”
“They take the lead on the fire. I’m trying to find out who assaulted you.”
“My aunt Hadley wouldn’t hit me with a tree limb,” I say. “And a state detective investigating an assault? This is hardly a major crime.”
“It is when it’s wrapped up with arson.” Gilcrest intertwines his fingers. “See, it all connects. How’s the cash flow at Reid Construction? Any talk about unpaid debt?”
“My mother runs the business.”
“Closing ranks.”
“More like, I don’t know.”
And if Vance Moodey’s visit to the site yesterday has business implications for my mother, the detective can find that out on his own.
“Okay,” Gilcrest says, “back to the timeline. You and the chief were on the shore with her mother, then Hadley arrived. Who came next?”
“The fireboat.”
“After Hadley?”
I work through the events in my mind. “Before,” I say. “It went Seton, the fireboat, Hadley, then the EMTs and a fire truck. After that came Reid. He blocked in the ambulance.”
“And what about Paul Burke? Or your mother?”
“I told you, my mother had already left for Finstock. Paul must have come later, after Hadley drove me to the hospital.”
“Paul’s farmhouse is about a mile from here,” Gilcrest says. “The smoke was thick. I saw it from my cabin on the other side of the lake in Kingston. I was getting ready to respond when the call came in. I could smell the smoke, too.”
Like with Hadley, he’s turning Paul, my mother, and Reid into suspects. Where was Paul when his own property was in flames? Could my mother have set the fire before she left? And where had my brother been all night?
A text beeps into Gilcrest’s phone. “The arson team’s about to arrive,” he says.
We retrace our steps along the shore, where two cars pull into the parking lot alongside Gilcrest’s SUV. “That’s Detective Cornell Stamoran,” Gilcrest says as a tall man emerges from one car. “He’s helping me out on this case. Give us a minute.”
He crosses to where the other detective waits. The two men talk in hushed voices, while another group unloads equipment. A moment later, Gilcrest waves me over. “Charlie’s working on a podcast,” he says to Stamoran. “True crime.”
“Duncan here is your man,” Stamoran says. “He’ll talk to anyone.”
“Thanks a lot,” Gilcrest says.
“I call it as I see it, pretty boy,” Stamoran says.
A few minutes later, Gilcrest stops his car in front of the Landing and turns to where I sit beside him in the passenger’s seat. “Send me the recording you just made.”
I flick it to his phone.
“Don’t think I forgot our conversation earlier about your father,” Gilcrest says. “Let’s say he’s been alive all this time, hiding out. Could he have survived on his own? Or would he have needed help?”
It’s a good question, one I should have asked myself.
My father wasn’t the back-to-the-land type, though who knows what he learned in the years since he disappeared.
If someone did help him, I doubt it was my mother, after what he did to her, and Andrea Haviland seems unlikely, too—unless she was having an affair with him.
That leaves Paul Burke. Or Hadley. “My father doesn’t have a lot of allies,” I say.
“Your father grew up here. Maybe someone we haven’t thought of helped him out. Someone with resources. Or maybe—” Gilcrest stops himself. “If you’re looking to explain who gave you that head wound, your father could be a suspect.”
“Maybe,” I say.
“Charlie,” Gilcrest says, “if there’s something you’re not telling me, now’s the time.”
I take a deep breath. “My father was at the Landing last night,” I say, and it’s such a relief to say it out loud I wonder why I haven’t done it earlier.
Gilcrest doesn’t attempt to mask his shock this time. “Your father, Mark Kilgore, was at the Landing last night? Who else saw him?”
“The bartender. He served him a beer.”
“Blancy’s too young to recognize your father, and so are you. He’s twenty-five years older.”
“Some things don’t change,” I say.
“You should have told me about this the moment I showed up at Freya’s condo,” Gilcrest says.
“In fact, you should have called me last night. If you see your father, call me, no matter the time of day. I have kids of my own. Three of them. The oldest is fourteen, and I can’t imagine putting them through what your father did to you and your brother. ”
Something Gilcrest said yesterday at the crime scene returns to me. “You watched the Lantern Festival with your kids,” I say. “And your wife. You’re married.”
“I’m married on paper. Her name’s Nicole, and Freya doesn’t appreciate the paper part. I suspect that’s how you wound up tangled in my personal life.”
Another text beeps into Gilcrest’s phone. He glances at the screen. “That’s Stamoran,” he says, back in cop mode. “Will you be at Idlewood later?”
“Did he find something?”
“I should get to the crime scene.”
I step out of the SUV and around to the sidewalk.
Gilcrest rolls down the driver’s-side window. “Don’t tell your mother, or your brother, or anyone else about seeing your father. Not yet. Even I don’t want the attention a twenty-five-year-old cold case will bring to this investigation.”