Page 15 of Thicker Than Water
“What’s it like at work?” Julia asks. “With Gavin… gone.”
Maeve lets out a breath. “The police were there Monday and Tuesday, taking statements, searching his office. And the phones have been ringing off the hook. If you can believe it, this has actually beengoodfor business. But it’s so weird there. Everyone’s just tiptoeing around, almost like they’re… suspicious of each other? As if one of us was the one who killed him.”
A shudder ripples through Maeve, but Julia and I stiffen.
“Do you think that’s possible?” I ask. “Is there someone at work with a grudge against him?”
“The police asked the same thing, but—I don’t think so? Nothing I noticed, anyway. A lot of people still treat him like he’s a god because of the whole merger thing. Remember that? How Integrity was supposed to merge with Higher Home Improvement but Gavin turned the owner in to the IRS instead? I’m sure Jason told you that Integrity was struggling before that—we were heading toward layoffs—but then Gavin managed to get most of Higher Home’s customers without having to split any profits. So, some people still really respect him for that. But others…” She trails off, shrugging one shoulder.
“Others what?” I press.
“I don’t know, he can be”—Maeve pauses, searching for the right word—“inappropriate. Making jokes about women during sales meetings—not to their faces; all our sales reps are men right now—but Jason’s told me stories. Like, Gavin will talk about someone he rode up in the elevator with, saying he wouldn’t mind giving hera different kind of ride.”
“Ew,” Julia and I say together.
“And at the dinner after the conference, he was downing drink after drink—which isn’t that weird; a lot of people get pretty loose at those dinners—but he kept trying to chat up the women from other companies, inviting them to ‘keep the party going’ back at his lake house.”
My pulse thrums beneath my skin. “Do you know if any of them did?”
Maeve shrugs again. “I doubt it.”
I think of the news story from Tuesday night, the interviews with Gavin’s neighbors.Everyone’s still all “Me Too” these days. He probably called her “sweetheart” or something.It boiled me up at the time—that absurd, reductive take on the movement—but even then, something about it resonated. The brutality of the murder, those stitched-up lips, like someone was punishing Gavin for something he’d said.Only a woman has that much anger, another neighbor told the reporter. And I know what she means.
Maybe a woman from the conference went home with Gavin—for a nightcap, for the promise of a great view: the lake behind his house sparkling with stars. And maybe Gavin crossed a line. First with his words. Then with his hands. And maybe, by the time the woman left, there was a body, stabbed and smothered and stitched, lying in his backyard.
The theory zips up my spine, a tingle of potential.
“So you were at the conference?” Julia asks Maeve. “It wasn’t just Gavin and the sales team?”
“Yeah, Gavin likes me to get some face time with the vendors, since I’m their main contact at the office.”
“Okay, so—” Julia clears her throat. “Do you know what happened with Jason that night?”
My head whips toward her.
“What do you mean?” Maeve and I ask at the same time.
Julia looks at me, brow puckering, before returning her attention to Maeve. “Did you see Jason leave? Do you know where he went after the conference?”
Maeve’s eyes fog over a little, as if perplexed by the question. “Jason? No. I assumed he went home.” She tilts her head. “Why?”
I stare at Julia, her parted lips, the flick of her tongue behind her teeth.
Is she actually planning to tell her? We didn’t discuss it, but I assumed we were on the same page: Lou’s the only person outside the family we’re sharing this with. Nobody else, certainly not Jason’s colleague—good friend or not—needs to know what the cops are so stupid to think.
“The police are investigating him,” Julia says—and a flicker of something, like a pilot light, ignites in my chest.
“Jules,” I say.
“For what?” Maeve asks, frowning. Then her mouth pops open. “Wait—for Gavin? As a suspect?” She swivels toward the door as if Jason might be standing there, waiting to explain. “Why?”
I laser a look at Julia, but if she feels the heat of my gaze, she simply ignores it. And she tells Maeve everything—Gavin’s phone in Jason’s car, the blood they’re testing, the time we can’t account for.
I study Maeve’s face as she listens. Her eyes bulge. Her features contort with horror. “But that’s impossible!” she says. “They can’t seriously think it was Jason.”
I relax a little. She’s on our side. Jason’s side. And it feels good—her sputtering disbelief, the validation that the cops are out of their minds—especially after Lou’s terse phone call, his insistence that we plug up Jason’s timeline like it’s a leak in a boat.
Julia was right to include Maeve.
