“It suggests Jenna died between midnight and one a.m., the time Jim is covering by saying Jenna was with him at the coffee shop. It suggests Lynne went to Jenna’s apartment building after the concert to tell her about the night, and then trouble happened—Jenna hinting of something going on with Jim or speaking badly about Maggie?
“If Lynne did kill Jenna, Jim could be the one who took care of the body. Lynne could clean up a crime scene, erase any trace of it. There was more than forty-eight hours for the apartment air to clear of cleaning products. And she’s good at putting things in their right place, could have easily restored order so it looked normal. Jim could have used the coffee shop’s trash collection to get rid of any physical evidence. Things with blood on them, anything damaged, the murder weapon. They could have hidden the fact Jenna died that night if they worked at it together.”
“If Lynne did it, talk to me more about the motive and why.”
“The most likely trigger, Jenna tears down Lynne’s illusions. ‘The concert was okay, but I’ve heard better. Maggie didn’t really like you; you’re just the dressing room help. You’re never going to be a singer, Lynne. Grow up and see reality, quit living in a fantasy world. Jim isn’t even a faithful boyfriend, because he’s flirting with me.’ Jenna could slice into Lynne’s soul with words in a bunch of ways. And if this happened after Jim had walked Jenna home, ignored her advances, and is choosing Lynne over her, Jenna is primed to be vicious. All it takes is Lynne pushing her back with a cry of ‘No, that’s not true!’—shoving her hard enough to send her into the corner of a table, and Jenna dies of a broken neck. Boyfriend covers it up, and now tries to protect Lynne years later. It’s incredibly plausible given what I know about Jenna. I’m not sure it’s in Lynne, but it’s in Jenna.”
David drummed fingers on the wheel. “If we didn’t have other related remains, we’d have a hard time not bringing both of them in for formal questioning right now.”
“Take your favorite theory. Jim did it. Or Lynne did it, and Jim is trying to help her. Or it’s not a local crime, our concert traveler picked out Jenna and made her disappear, just like he’s done others—and we’re left with two locals who could look guilty—just like every other disappearance he’s pulled off has been leaving someone local looking guilty.”
“You liked Lynne.”
“I did. And I like Jim. It’s much easier to lay this crime on an unnamed traveling stranger. But odds say it’s Lynne, if it really comes down to it, with Jenna provoking the scene that led to her death. Jim protecting Lynne by helping to cover it up is likely. And I do think that Jim is protective enough, cares deeply enough that he could have killed Jenna before she had a chance to rip into Lynne’s illusions. Maybe it’s not at the coffee shop, maybe Jenna is digging into Jim on that walk home and saying how she’s going to tell Lynne how it really is. Jim is thinking about that, follows Jenna inside and pops her one, ends this at her apartment. Hiding the body is an easier problem than letting Jenna destroy Lynne.”
She didn’t want it to be Lynne, didn’t want it to be Jim, but the truth was going to end up where it needed to be.
David held out a fist. Evie lightly tapped hers against it.
“We’re days away from this being solved,” Evie said.
“It’s gonna be the traveler,” David said. “Sometimes there are bad men who do show up and make someone disappear.”
“I won’t be disappointed if it is.” Evie thought about tomorrow. “We’re going to have a very full day taking apart Jim’s life. He’s not going to be sleeping much, wondering which way the case is going to roll. We might as well cut the uncertainty and pull him right into the misery of more questions, see if we can shake the story.”
“Think he’ll lawyer up?”
“Probably. Eventually. We’re going to ask the questions that would have been asked nine years ago, and it’s going to get very uncomfortable for him. I would like to keep this out of the news until we’ve sorted it out. The headline—Man lied to police about missing student—would just drown us in the politics of a wealthy college. We need the neighborhood on our side, or at least neutral, if we’re going to get the facts. There’s definitely a neighborhood versus college crowd line around here.”
“We ask questions, we stay below the radar for as long as we can,” David said. “Sharon and the others should be able to join us next week. We’ll cover more ground then.”