Page 30 of She Didn't See It Coming
“What’s the motive though?” Kilgour asks.
She says tiredly, “Maybe one of them was having an affair—we both got the sense that Paige was lying. We need to talk to her again, tomorrow, first thing.” She continues. “If itwasSam, and he didn’t use his card to enter the garage, that speaks to planning. He knows there are no cameras in the garage, or on the floors or elevators. And he knew she was working at home that day. He kills her in the apartment—probably smothered her, no mess—puts her in his suitcase, and takes her down and puts her in the open storage locker behind the boxes and leaves the way he came. No cameras. Except he could have been seen. And why use his own suitcase and leave her in a storage locker in the building? She was certain to be discovered eventually, from the smell.” She looks at Kilgour. “Is he just stupid?”
Kilgour says, “On the other hand, does finding her in the storage locker really make him look any more guilty than if we’d found her in his suitcase in a ditch somewhere? He might have been afraid of being seen or caught on camera dumping it, and he knew there were no cameras in the garage.”
“Maybe he’s innocent,” Jayne says wearily. “Anyone who lived or worked in that building could have gone to her apartment, killed her, found the suitcase, dumped her in the storage locker, and returned to their own unit or even left the building.” She pushes her coffee away. “The storage area is kept locked,” Jayne says, “so whoever it was would have needed a key. All the residents have keys. Unless—”
“Unless what?”
“Unless the storage area wasn’t locked at all. Maybe sometimes it’s left unlocked or propped open, in which case the killer wouldn’t have needed keys. I’ll talk to the manager again.”
Kilgour nods. “If that door wasn’t locked, it could have been anyone at all, somebody she might have buzzed in through the parking garage.”
Jayne says, “Ravi is adamant that no one entered the building through the main floor that didn’t belong there. Every person on the CCTV is accounted for. We need to have officers speak to everyone in the building again and ask them whether they saw anyone with a large suitcase yesterday. And we need to look into Bryden’s life and find out who she might have let into the building.” Jayne thinks quietly for a moment, then asks, “Why move the body at all?”
“Maybe to implicate the husband? By using his suitcase?”
“Perhaps a lover,” Jayne says. She looks at the other detective. “Go home. Tomorrow is another day. And it’s going to be a long one.”
•••
Jayne drives hometo her apartment. Michael isn’t there. They don’t live together, not yet. But perhaps soon. She calls him when she gets there, as soon as she sets down her bag.
“Hey,” she says.
“Looks like you’ve had a busy day,” Michael says.
“You can say that again.” She finds the remote and turns on the TV for the news, but keeps it muted. It’s almost eleven thirty. “We found her,” she says, her voice catching. She can let her guard down with Michael. It’s something that she needs him for, that she loves him for.
“I heard. I saw it online. Pretty awful.”
“Pretty awful,” she repeats.
“Do you want me to come over and give you a back rub?” he offers.
There’s nothing she would love more. But she really needs to sleep, and she has to be up early. “You’re the best,” she says, meaning it, “but I should go straight to bed. I’ve got an early start.”
“Okay. I love you, Jayne.”
“I love you too, Michael, more than you know.”
“Sleep well.”
She kisses into the phone and disconnects. She’s lucky to have Michael in her corner. Hers is the kind of job that sucks your belief in the goodness of people right out of you. She changes into her pajamas and goes into the living room. The news is about to come on and she turns up the volume.
And there it is, the photograph of Bryden Frost filling her television screen. The details are sketchy, just that her body had been found in a suitcase in the basement of the building where she lived. There is mention of the husband, Sam Frost, being taken in for questioning and released.
As she climbs into bed, she wonders what they will uncover in the coming days. Maybe the news coverage will shake some skeletons out of the closet. Maybe someone saw somebody with that suitcase.
19
Lizzie sits with Sam at the little table in his hotel room, the lights dim. Neither of them can sleep, although they are both drained and exhausted and it’s long after midnight. Sam has plundered the mini bar, and Lizzie has joined him. He’s drinking scotch, and she’s drinking little bottles of vodka, mixed with Coke. She needs its warmth and comfort, needs its numbing properties. Clearly Sam does too, because this is his third.
She studies him anxiously. Fortunately, Clara has not woken up, not yet anyway. Lizzie is worried because Sam is all Clara has now. But then she reminds herself that that is not true. Clara has her, and her grandparents. She is loved, and she will be okay. They’ll make sure she’s okay. She tells herself that children are resilient. But she recognizes that Sam himself may never recover from this.
She wants to know what happened when he was with the police, but she’s afraid to ask again. Instead, she says, “Sam, you should probably get some sleep.”
“I know, but I tried that. I can’t. I just keep imagining…what happened to her.” His voice has sunk to a strangled whisper.
