Page 50 of The Drowned Woman
Except none of those were the real reason. “Honestly, I just couldn’t accept that I’d been living with her, had seen her every day and I had no idea. I couldn’t handle the idea that I’d missed every sign. For months after, I’d lie in bed every night dissecting those past few days and I couldn’t for the life of me see what I’d missed. It tormented me, the not knowing why.” His breath was ragged as he sucked it in. “I imagine her in the water, in the dark, alone, the water tugging at her, holding her down. I imagine her changing her mind. But it’s too late.”
“But now you know that it wasn’t her fault. And not yours, either. The killer wanted you to feel guilty, to shoulder his blame.” She took the seat across from him. “Because despite what he says about allowing chance to control his actions, he loves manipulating other people. For him, it’s all about power and control. I mean, he’s practically run Risa’s life for her for a year now. He’s manipulated you right off the case.”
“But that means hewasthere back then, watching us, stalking Cherise. And I missed him. I never saw him, never noticed him.” Luka cursed, caught in the bitter shadows of memory. “If so, then it was my fault that he got to her. And I never even knew that he was right there.”
Twenty-Nine
Luka ended up sleeping on Leah’s couch—by the time they had finished dissecting the case, it was late, and they were both exhausted.
They’d gone over everyone from college that Luka could remember, and even a few he didn’t whom they’d found via an alumni message board. Cherise’s friend who’d hosted their study group that last night had created a memorial website for her. It pained Luka to see all the hearts and prayer hand emojis filling the screen. He didn’t know most of these people—and was certain Cherise hadn’t either. But he diligently checked all their names, finding no one who seemed suspicious, and forwarded them all to Krichek for full background checks.
He woke early as sunlight was beginning to crawl through the windows, showered and dressed in the mudroom. Leah’s great-aunt Nellie had installed a washer, dryer, toilet, laundry sink, and a small shower in a location convenient to both the back porch and the kitchen since her work had meant she was always out in the flower fields or making chocolate and candles.
Luka had visited Nellie’s home a few times as a kid when he spent summers with his grandparents, but he remembered her more from her trips out to Jericho Fields. She’d come during the harvest, the orchard dripping with apples, and she and his gran would create the most marvelous concoctions using Jericho apples, Nellie’s lavender and roses, and, of course, chocolate. They sold them at all the nearby fall carnivals, Amish auctions, and county fairs.
When he was a kid, he’d be on the lookout for Nellie’s rickety old green truck and would run to greet her, knowing his efforts would be rewarded with a piece of chocolate. No matter the weather, she always looked the same—red hair escaping her sun hat, flannel shirt, jeans, work boots. He hadn’t seen her in over a decade before her death, but somehow in his mind she lived on, kept alive by his childhood memories.
Now, he wished he’d spent more time at his grandparents’ farm when he was a kid. Since he was several years older than Leah, he had never met her during the time Leah lived with Nellie after Ruby left for good. Leah was eleven then and Luka would have been fourteen, much too old to leave Pittsburgh and his friends to come hang out with his grandparents. He’d been such an arrogant brat back then—like most teenaged boys.
As he tied his tie, he couldn’t help but think of Nate sleeping upstairs. How would he remember this time after being torn from everything and everyone he knew? It was already clear he saw Luka more as a cop than a surrogate father. No matter. Luka was determined to give Nate a childhood that one day he could look back on and smile at. Just like what Luka had.
Luka finished dressing, folded the quilt and sheets Leah had given him, then grabbed his bag and keys. He hesitated at the bottom of the stairs, his gaze climbing to where Nate slept. Should he talk to him, warn him about what he might hear about the case?
With a sigh, Luka turned away. Better to let the boy sleep while he could. There were no TVs in Nellie’s house—neither Ruby nor Leah had brought any in after they moved here, honoring the dead woman’s wishes—so maybe Nate wouldn’t even hear about it. Why not protect the kid for as long as possible?
Luka left, the kitchen door latching behind him with a quiet click.
Nellie’s farm was only a quarter mile beyond the city limits, but because of the winding topography of the river and the hills, it took over twelve minutes for him to drive the four miles to the police department downtown. Even with no traffic on a Saturday morning, it was almost eight by the time Luka arrived for his meeting with Ahearn. He parked and walked to the staff entrance, pausing to regard the latest efforts of the mystery gardener. The rain had stopped and the clouds were clearing, leaving blue sky in their wake, so he’d expected the small corner of color to be even more brilliant this morning.
Instead, he was greeted with a pile of sodden trash and dead leaves that perfectly matched his mood. The downspout that fed into the corner and the gutters it was connected to had finally surrendered and overflowed. Someone had cleared the sidewalk of the debris by sweeping it all into the corner, over the tiny flowers. The irony of the blue skies above and the dead mud smothering spring’s hope below was not lost on Luka. He could only hope it wasn’t a harbinger of his own fate.
By the time he reached Ahearn’s office on the fifth floor, he was three minutes early for their meeting. But when he opened the door to the conference room, he was the last one to arrive. Ahearn sat at the head of the table, a videographer was setting up her camera in one corner, the ADA was to Ahearn’s right, while McKinley sat on his left, both using the seat beside them as coatracks, leaving Luka a seat at the far end of the table, as if in quarantine.
“Are we waiting for anyone?” Ahearn asked. “Your union rep or attorney?”
“No, sir.” Luka took his time removing his coat, folding it over the chair back, and retrieved his notes and laptop. Finally, after enough time had passed to make it clear that he was here because he wanted to be here, not because of any summons from on high, he sat down.
“Now then,” McKinley took the lead, “why don’t you start at the beginning and tell us about your involvement with Cherise Sumner.”
Luka took a deep breath, held Cherise’s image firmly fixed in his mind, and began. “She was my fiancée. She died our senior year of college. We were both undergrads at Bucknell in Lewisburg.”
He kept to the facts, reciting everything he had told the police seventeen years ago, only this time he maintained an emotional distance, as if he were an objective observer rather than the man whose life had been shattered and put back together, with missing pieces never to be found again. He hated knowing that the killer wanted him here, wasting his time, wasting everyone’s time, distracting them all from the real work at hand. All he could hope was that his team was having more success.
“Sir, we should be focused on finding her killer—the man who sent the photo of her ring,” Luka said.
“We as a department are absolutely focused on finding your fiancée’s killer,” Ahearn answered. “As are the Lewisburg police and the state police. But, in this room right now, our focus is on damage control. Finding any weakness or flaws that could be used against us once this becomes public.”
Meaning weakness or flaws in Luka’s story and his actions handling Trudy’s case.
“It’s our job to plug those holes before they can hurt the case we’ll be eventually building against the killer,” the ADA added in a slightly kinder, gentler tone.
“Continue,” Ahearn ordered.
Luka finished giving them the background on his and Cherise’s relationship. McKinley turned things over to the ADA. She grilled him relentlessly, comparing his answers to the statement he’d given the Lewisburg police seventeen years ago. When she was satisfied that he hadn’t changed his story and couldn’t catch him in any contradictions, Ahearn waded in, meticulously combing through the police report as well as the coroner’s findings.
“You knew she had a history of depression, but not that she’d stopped taking her medication?”
“Correct.”
