Second Shot

It was breakfast the following morning before the dead private investigator’s partner turned up. We were in the Intrigue Cafe at the hotel, sitting at one of the tables overlooking the corrugated waters of the harbor itself. A fast cat ferry was moored just over to one side, and farther out were a group of sleek-lined little yachts, built for fast summer cruising and which, at this time of year, now looked like a group of racehorses shivering together in a muddy field.

I noted the woman from the moment she stepped into the room and started heading our way. There was something about the flat professional way she surveyed the room, like she was used to summing people up fast, assessing them. She was medium height and trim in the way people are when it’s their job to be fit, rather than through vanity. Her hair was short and dark and cut in a neat bob, parted in the center, a style chosen to survive being under a hat all day as part of the job. There was cop, or ex-cop, written all over her.

As she approached I put my napkin aside and casually pushed my chair back a little, giving myself some space. Her eyes narrowed as she caught the action and she nodded, as though acknowledging my status, before she spoke to Simone.

“Excuse me. Would you be Miss Kerse?” She rhymed the name with “furze.”

Simone looked startled. Her eyes flew to me as though asking for permission to confirm the question.

“Er, yes, I am,” she said, not correcting the woman’s pronounciation. “And you are?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m Frances L. Neagley,” the woman said, and I recognized the name from the file Sean had given me on the private investigators, although Simone still looked a little blank. “I’m sorry I wasn’t at the airport to meet you yesterday. I was dealing with the arrangements for the funeral and I guess I must have gotten kind of hung up.”

“Oh yes. Don’t worry about it,” Simone said, shaking her hand. I’d told her all about the private investigator’s accident before we’d left Heathrow, just in case she decided to change her mind about coming. She hadn’t. “I realize this must be a difficult time for you. I really appreciate your making time to see me.”

Neagley’s shoulders came down a fraction, as though she’d been expecting a chewing out. We were sitting at a table for four, with Ella on a booster seat next to her mother. Simone gestured to the spare seat and the private investigator slid into it gratefully. Close up, she looked tired, strained.

I caught the eye of a passing waiter. “Can we offer you something to drink, Ms. Neagley?”

“Thank you, ma’am,” she said. “I don’t suppose they serve Tab here, do they?”

The waiter shook his head and Neagley reluctantly accepted Diet Pepsi as second-best. A glass appeared in front of her almost immediately. The service throughout the hotel was slick and unobtrusive.

Frances Neagley smiled vaguely at Ella, who was mutely watching her every move while dunking toast and grape jelly into the yolk of her poached egg. She was occasionally washing this concoction down with great gulps of fresh orange juice, picking up the glass in both hands as she drank. I expected her to throw up at any moment and, from Neagley’s expression, I wasn’t the only one.

“So, do you have any news for me?” Simone asked when the waiter had departed. The question burst out of her, like she’d been doing her best to wait a decent length of time, but she couldn’t contain it any longer.

Neagley had just lifted her glass towards her mouth with the reverence of someone who has been too long deprived of caffeine. When Simone spoke she hesitated a moment, then put the drink down again, untasted, with the barest hint of a sigh.

“Not at the moment. We’re assuming Barry-that’s my partner, Barry O’Halloran-well, that he had his case notes with him when he went into the river,” she said, with a sideways glance at Ella to check how much she was taking in. Neagley didn’t sound Bostonian to my ears, but I wasn’t familiar enough with American accents to place her beyond that. “Lotta the stuff inside his car was washed away. They haven’t found his briefcase.”

“He went into the water?” I asked.

Neagley turned and regarded me fully for a moment without speaking, as though trying to gauge whether I warranted the information or not. Then she saw Simone’s expectant air and said, reluctantly, “Yeah. He was driving back down from Maine. It was late at night and the last fall of snow was just getting started. The cops reckon he most likely hit some ice on a bridge and just went off the road.”

There was doubt in her voice, though, or maybe it was just a little disbelief. Everybody thinks they’re a good driver until an accident happens to them.

“Surely he would have kept copies — duplicates, backups — of his files?” Simone said.

Neagley took a hurried swig of her Pepsi and her face pinched.

“Look, I’m sorry, Ms. Neagley,” I said quickly “I know this must seem heartless to you, but you have to understand how important this is to Miss Kerse.”