Page 44 of Ashes of Us

“You're welcome.” She had a feeling he wasn't buying her innocent act but was choosing to ignore it.

He cleared his throat and turned to his computer.

“So, like I said on the phone, we were able to recover some of the footage and audio from the camera, but there are large gaps in both.

We've had two separate interviews with Ms. Gamache since the accident and have put together a timeline based on her statements and the timestamps on the dash cam.” He pulled up a Word document and cleared his throat.

“However, the audio we recovered directly contradicts most of the story she told, which is surprising because I've been doing this for ten years and can usually spot a liar a mile away, and if I didn't hear the recording, I wouldn't have questioned her authenticity at all.”

“Yeah,” Danica nodded. “There is a chance that she believes what she told you actually happened.”

Galvin leaned forward, looking intrigued. “What do you mean she believes it? Cause the audio I heard tells a whole different story, and it's her voice on the recording, we forensically matched it to her interview footage after we realized she was lying.”

“According to a psychologist Mave spoke to about her, she may have a mental condition commonly known as magical thinking,” Danica explained, shifting uncomfortably as her tailbone began to protest the hard wooden chair she was sitting on.

“That's where they believe the scenario they made up, right?

Like they've told the lie to themselves so many times they start to believe it?” The detective narrowed his eyes as Danica nodded.

It wasn't exactly what Maverick had explained to her, but it was close enough.

“But you don't know for sure if that's the case.”

“No, Maverick has been digging into her past for us to see if she had done something similar to this before. He was disturbed by what he found and brought it to a psychiatrist friend of his to see if there was an explanation.”

“What did he find?” Danica ran her hands through her hair and shook her head. She just wanted to hear the damn recordings, not go over all this again. She quickly gave him the cliff notes of what Maverick had found out about her parents' divorce and Lucy's response.

“Interesting.” Galvan mused to himself and fell quiet as he made a few notes.

“So, to give you a rundown, according to her statement, your husband picked her up at five for a dinner date, she told him over dessert that she was pregnant, and he was thrilled he was about to be a daddy.

While they were driving back to her place to celebrate, they were discussing the logistics of him leaving you and planning their future together with their child, they were hit by the other driver.

Obviously, her statement goes into a lot more detail, but that's the general idea.

According to the timeline we established, your husband did pick her up at five, and that's where her story falls apart.

There is no evidence they stopped anywhere for food or anything else.

The restaurant she claims they went to has no record of them being there, and Jasper clearly already knew she was pregnant when she got in the car, because the first thing he says to her is, well, I'll let you listen.” He clicked the mouse and then reached over to adjust the volume on the speakers.

“We cut out the first thirty minutes, because it was just your husband's music playing while he drove to her place,” he explained as the music in question came through, but was decreasing rapidly in volume, and there was the sound of the car door opening.

Then Lucy's voice, happy and perky, came through.

“Hey Jaz, it's so good to see you!”

“Get the fuck off me, Gamache,” Jasper's voice, low and angry, was heard, followed by the sound of Lucy's shocked squeak as Danica guessed she had tried to hug him, and he shoved her away.

“I don't know what the fuck you're playing at, but there's no way in hell that baby is mine, if you even are pregnant.”

“I am pregnant!” Lucy wailed, and there was a rustle of paper. “Here, my doctor gave me the bloodwork results.” Jasper was quiet, and the sound of Lucy's sniffles was all they heard for a few minutes.

“Well, congratu-fucking-lations, you've managed to baby trap some mook, but it ain't mine. I didn't fucking touch you.” He snarled, and Danica heard the sound of paper being balled up and tossed, and the clip ended.

“The next part we were able to pull started at five-twenty-seven.” The detective opened another clip.

“Stop fucking saying we slept together!” Jasper was yelling, and Danica could hear him hitting the steering wheel to punctuate each word. “You fucking stripped and climbed on top of me, you psycho Barbie! Jesus, how many ways do I have to tell you, it ain't my fucking kid!”

“It is! You're the only one I've slept with in two years!”

“I didn't fucking put my dick anywhere near you!” Jasper screamed, and the screeching of brakes and Lucy's terrified yelp followed his outburst. “You're fucking delusional if you think I'd ruin my marriage for a walking red flag like you!”

“I'll do a paternity test and prove it!” Lucy sounded more annoyed than anything else at this point, and Danica narrowed her eyes. She sounded too confident about the results. Lucy might be delusional, but she was also smart enough to know how to manipulate people.

“Did you fucking do something?” Jasper's voice now sounded like he was about to be sick. “Is that why...” The clip ended, and Danica stared at the Sergeant as it sunk in that Alex's theory about what had happened that night might have just been proven true.

“Spit it out,” The Sergeant said gruffly, and Danica realized he had been observing her reactions. “I know you know something about that.”

“I don't know exactly what they're talking about, but the night he supposedly knocked her up, they were all together in Jasper's cousin's apartment.

His cousin, Jimmy, was seeing Lucy's friend, and they went over to Jimmy's while Jasper was there. They were high, like really high, and I can count on one hand how often Jasper smoked weed while we were married, so he was probably really feeling it.” Danica swallowed.

“According to Jimmy, he and his girlfriend went to his bedroom to have sex, and when he came back out to get a drink, Jasper was asleep on the couch with Lucy on top of him in just her bra and underwear. When Jasper woke up and saw her, he threw her off him, like picked her up and tossed her so she landed on and broke the coffee table, then he threw up in the kitchen sink and left.”

“So, he was fully dressed?” the detective asked quietly, making notes as fast as he could.

“He was in his jeans, but he didn't have a shirt on.” Danica ran her hands through her hair, trying to gather her thoughts.

“I'm sure he took off his shirt on his own. My husband was a big man, and Lucy would never be able to maneuver his dead weight, plus he usually slept in jogging pants without a shirt, so if he were feeling tired, he would have taken it off to go to sleep.” Danica sighed and rubbed her eyes.

“A friend suggested that if the baby was actually Jasper's, that maybe she gave him a hand job while he was sleeping and collected his...” She fumbled as she searched for the non-slangy term, since Alex had just called it cum.

“... ejaculate, and inserted it herself. So, when Jasper asked if she did something...” She trailed off, not wanting to make the accusation when it was still a theory.

“What are the names of the people your husband was with that night?” The detective's frown deepened as she explained why she reacted the way she did.

“Jimmy Preston and Elena something.” She shook her head in frustration when she couldn't remember Elena's last name. “Maverick has it, I don't remember what he said.” She pulled out her phone and texted him the question.

“Do you have contact information for Jimmy?” Danica nodded and looked up his number in her contacts, reciting it off to him. “Mave says her last name is Sheridan.”

“Tell him to send me her phone number,” the detective murmured, writing down Elena's last name. “And his report on his interviews with them.” Danica did as he asked and put her phone away.

“Were there any other audio files?”

“A few, but they're all very short and are mostly your husband dropping f-bombs left, right and center while denying he had sex with her.

The funny thing is, she never outright says they had sex.

She just keeps saying they slept together and now she's pregnant.” Galvin leaned back in his chair and regarded her thoughtfully as he tapped the pen on his desk.

“The last clip is when the impact happens and I don't think you need to hear it, but it does back up my theory that she broke his necklace and was distracting him, because he's repeatedly telling her to “let go” and “get the fuck away from him” and she's demanding to know why he's denying their child and calling you some choice names. Then he calls her a fucking cunt and to give it back to him... which is when the other car hits him.”

“I thought you said you processed the car? Why did Maverick find the necklace, and you didn't?” Danica asked curiously, voicing something she had wondered about since that day at the tow lot.

“We did process it,” He acknowledges. “But your husband wasn't at fault, so we checked the car for open bottles of alcohol and drug paraphernalia and collected electronics.

They looked under the seats, but they didn't do the same kind of thorough job we would do if there was a body in the trunk or if the dogs had alerted on something. A broken chain under the seat would have gotten the same kind of attention the change in the cupholder did.”

“Right.” Danica nodded. That made sense.

Jasper hadn't committed a crime, so something so nondescript as a chain under the seat would have been left behind.

“Well, I can tell you that he never took that necklace off and if he broke it, he would have gone to the nearest open jewelry store he could find to replace it immediately.”