Page 36 of Murder Notes

“Your brother told me.”

I quickly decide that a conversation with Andrew, in which I call him an idiot to his face, is not a bad idea after all. “What is the point of this powwow, Eddie?” I demand, having no choice but to assume Andrew repeated every word I shared with him last night. “Cut to the chase.”

“Whatever you’re after, it isn’t here,” he says. “I have a suspect in last night’s case. I expect to bring him in in the next few hours.”

“Who?” Beth asks.

“Kevin Woods,” he states, still looking at me, not her. “A man with a violent history who dated the deceased.”

Eddie cuts Beth a sharp look. “Your job is to examine dead bodies,” he snips. “Mine is to make sure we don’t have any more. You do your job. I’ll do mine.” He returns his gaze to me. “Cut to the chase, you said. Here it is. This isn’t your case. We have our man. Go back to Cali and enjoy La-La Land. We don’t need you here.” He stands and starts walking. I watch him cross the diner, my gaze catching on the empty table where Alexandra was a minute ago before lifting and following him to the exit. He disappears, leaving me with one thought: this isn’t a simple turf war. There’s more going on.

“I thought this wasn’t official business, Lilah?” Beth demands, pulling my attention back to her.

“It’s complicated,” I reply.

“Clearly,” she states, holding up her cell phone and indicating her text screen. “I’ve been ordered back to the main office. I’m to return immediately, which I suspect has something to do with Eddie showing up here. Just as I was supposed to stay here and say nothing to anyone about this case.”

That the locals want to keep this quiet doesn’t surprise me. That her boss, in the vastly larger Suffolk County, is involved, on a nonelection year, feels worthy of investigation to me. “When you said you were asked to stay here and do the autopsy, but you originally declined that request,” I say. “Who asked?”

“Your brother.”

“My brother,” I repeat, his connection to Samantha Young’s corruption returning to the front of my mind.

“Yes. And I know he is your brother, but if he lets Kevin Woods take the blame for this—”

“Who is this Kevin Woods person?”

“He’s Ciara Matthews’s boy toy. And by boy toy, I mean he’s twenty years younger than her and runs a construction company that’s doing work here locally.”

“Not only did Ciara do several movies with my mother, they were close friends, and my father knows her husband, John, well. A woman with a boy toy doesn’t process to me as accurate.”

“Oh honey, you’ve missed so much. John started drinking and was violent. Ciara let her boy toy Kevin lick her wounds. John found out and it was bad. They fought. Boy toy held a gun on him.”

“Let me guess,” I say. “Between the eyes.”

“Yes.”

“And what happened?”

“Rumor is he was let off, paid off, and left the city.”

“You said he wasn’t a killer. Explain what brings you to that conclusion.”

“He didn’t pull the trigger. He’s not a killer.” She grabs her bag. “I have to go.”

“Wait. You know as well as I do, just because someone doesn’t kill someone the first time they think about it doesn’t mean they aren’t building confidence and working up to it.”

“I do know this. But I’ve looked into that man’s eyes and I’m telling you. He’s not a killer.”

“So you know him?”

“I met him once.”

“How?”

“A party, and while it was brief, when you’ve been doing this as long as I have, you get to know people. You see things in their eyes.”

She’s right. You do, but those who are master killers only let you see what they want you to see. She should know this. She has to know this.