Page 100 of Cold Case, Warm Hearts

“Rachel’s sister.”

His eyebrows lifted, and she got the sense he was impressed.

“She sort of introduced herself to me the other day,” Aspen said.

“Knowing Rhonda, it wasn’t a friendly introduction.”

She pictured the woman at the coffee shop, the fury and hatred in her expression. “Not so much.”

“She was home with her family. They ordered pizza, and the delivery guy confirmed seeing her and her husband at her house. Didn’t figure she’d done it—she wouldn’t wear a man’s boot, but her husband… Anyway, wasn’t him.”

“Okay, then. You said you interviewed five people. Who were the other three?”

“I’ll tell you, Aspen. But this really does need to stay between us. You and Garrett McCarthy have gotten close, but this isn’t something he needs to get involved in. Or to know about.”

The mention of Garrett’s name sent a flash of worry through her. Surely Chief Cote didn’t think he’d had anything to do with this? He couldn’t have. He was the one who’d rescued her. “I’ll keep it to myself.”

“I was a rookie detective at the time of the lumber company bombing, but seeing as how we only had two detectives on the force back then, I worked the case.”

She mentally shifted gears. “Okay.”

“How much do you want to know?”

It was a fair question, considering her mother was the number-one suspect. “I need to know everything. Even if it’s hard to hear.”

“Why don’t you tell me what you already know?”

“I know when it happened and where. And I know my mother was the only suspect, and that she disappeared after, though I don’t know when exactly. I know she was mentally unstable and believed the company was harming the environment.”

“Your source?”

“Old newspapers, mostly.”

“You haven’t talked to anybody in town about it?”

“Marion Eaton, Tabby’s mother. She’s the one who told me about the bombing. Brent Salcito and I talked a little about it. Deborah Finley told me about Mom and what she was like back then, but we didn’t discuss the bombing.”

Aspen watched the detective closely as she said the names, but his expression gave nothing away. His chair creaked under his weight as he leaned forward. “What you’ve heard and read in the papers is true. But it’s not the whole truth. There were a number of details we kept from the public.” He paused as if waiting for her to speak.

She wasn’t sure what to say. She certainly didn’t want to say anything that might stop him from sharing. “Is it okay if I ask why?”

“A number of reasons. We had our suspicions, but we didn’t have proof. We didn’t want to scare anybody off or warn them we were onto them.”

“I thought everybody knew my mother did it.”

He nodded slowly. His words were measured when he said, “Despite what the papers say, your mother can’t have acted alone.”

Aspen sat back. “What? I thought… Why do you think that?”

“First and most obvious, she didn’t know how to build a bomb.”

“She could have learned.”

“Bomb-making is not like mixing up cupcake batter. And we uncovered zero evidence that she’d bought the supplies or books on how to do it. And there’s the fact that she wasn’t entirely in her right mind back then. She might have, in her state,attemptedto build a bomb. But to have successfully accomplished it?” His skepticism was evident in his shrug. “We didn’t buy it.”

“Who do you…? Wait, first, what other reason? You said, ‘first and obvious.’ Which makes me think there’s a second and?—”

“Less obvious but no less true,” he said. “Your mother was in the midst of what your father called anepisode.We don’t know what she suffered from—maybe schizophrenia, maybesomething else—but it was debilitating. Your mother’s friends were starting to come to grips with her issues, but your father seemed to understand better. He knew the terminology even then, which meant he’d done his homework. He’d been trying to get her to see a psychiatrist for some time, but she’d refused repeatedly. He even tried to have her committed against her will, claiming he feared she was a danger to herself. According to the records, authorities talked to her friends—this was months before the bombing, mind you—who contradicted his claims. One of her friends claimed your dad was bitter because… Are you sure you want to hear this?”