Page 69 of The Accomplice
‘You’ve got to be fucking kidding me, Flynn ?Nowyou’re going to ask me this ? We’re not in court. And why the hell would I do that ?’
‘Because she’s sitting right over there,’ I said, pointing to the table in the corner where Ethel Gorman sat, her mouth open, a half-eaten oyster on her tongue and her eyes wide as a truck’s headlights. We all squinted through the gloom, but it was Ethel.
I’d met Denise outside court and pointed out Ethel as she came through the exit taking her cigarettes out of her purse. Denise approached Ethel and told her she had been selected at random for today’s mystery-shopper lunch prize. She had two hundred dollars to spend, right now, in a high-class restaurant called the Commodore. She would be taken there, and then back to Center Street in a limo, and all she had to do was tell Denise what she thought of her lunch afterward and fill out a comment card in order to take home the one-hundred-dollar market research fee, paid in advance. From the look on Ethel’s face, she was beginning to realize there is no such thing as a free lunch in Manhattan.
For what seemed like a long time, no one moved. And no one said anything.
Then I heard Harry behind the fish tank. He was coughing, politely, and I guessed he was trying to get someone’s attention. Then I heard him hollering at the maître d’.
‘Excuse me, can we get this order to go ?’
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Extract from the Journal of Carrie Miller
June 4
It was after three in the morning when I heard the front door close.
I waited to hear his footsteps coming up the stairs. It was hot in the bedroom, but that wasn’t the reason I couldn’t sleep.
Over the past weeks I’d been driving myself crazy. Ever since that cop arrived at the front door asking about Danny’s van. In the past few days he’s been out super late every night. And I’ve been lying here, thinking. Panicking.
Thinking the same thoughts over and over again.
He loves me.
He was out the night of Margaret Sharpe’s murder.
He has never been violent to me. I’ve never even seen him angry.
He gave me a pair of earrings the day after her murder that were exactly like hers.
That was a coincidence. Had to be.
He lied to the police about being home that night.
He had an excuse for that.
He made me tell the same lie.
He was concerned and just wanted rid of the cop who upset me.
He was out the night of the last two murders. Those girls killed in their apartment.
He has to work late and meet his clients, some of those he talks to on the phone are in different time zones.
He took a shower when he got home.
He had an excuse …
THIS. IS. DRIVING. ME. INSANE.
I listened for the sound of him coming upstairs.
There was only silence in the house.
Then, I heard door hinges whining downstairs.
