Page 34 of She Didn’t See It Coming

Friday morning, when Jayne arrives early at the station, she’s approached by an officer. “I’ve been looking into Derek Gardner,” he says. “And I might have found something.”

“What is it?”

“When he started his business, he had a huge infusion of cash.”

“From where?”

“From his wife. She inherited it.”

“Am I missing something?” Jayne asks impatiently.

He speaks more quickly. “She inherited over three million dollars from her mother, who was killed in a hit-and-run accident four years ago. It was never solved.”

Jayne stares at him. She says, “Bring everything you have on it to my desk.” As she walks to her office, she has more energy in her step.

Minutes later she’s reading about Mary Smelt, who was killed on March 27, 2019, outside of Roxbury, New Hampshire.

The woman, who was sixty-one years of age at the time, and a widow, had been walking down a lonely country road near her rural home, where she lived alone.

She’d been struck by a vehicle that had left the scene.

The body was found some time later by a passing motorist who saw her in the ditch.

She was probably killed instantly. There were no witnesses.

The victim was known to walk regularly along that road in the evenings for exercise.

It might have been an accident, Jayne thinks—people often speed, especially on rural roads.

It might have been getting dark; there are no streetlights in the country, she could have been hard to see.

The driver might have been drinking. But he could not have been unaware that he hit her. And he fled the scene.

Or, Jayne thinks, it might have been deliberate.

Someone might have known that she took her evening walk along that road at the same time every night.

Jayne reads through everything in the file.

The investigation seems to have been cursory.

The victim’s only family—the daughter, Alice Gardner, and her husband, Derek Gardner, who lived out of state in New York—were not even formally interviewed.

Jayne looks up from the file and stares at the wall in front of her, her mind whirring.

Hit-and-runs are notoriously difficult to solve.

If she were going to kill someone, she thinks idly, that’s the method she’d use.

Did Derek Gardner kill his mother-in-law for her money?

It was awfully convenient. Or maybe he was just lucky, and someone else happened to do it for him.

Jayne asks an officer to find her Alice Gardner’s phone number.

···

Sam wakes from a heavy sleep to Clara looming over him on the bed.

“Daddy, when is Mommy coming home?”

“Clara, honey,” he says gently, “I told you. Mommy isn’t coming home. She’s in heaven.”

She pouts at him. “Let’s get some breakfast,” he says, wanting nothing more than to stay in bed.

He’d finally slept. Not for long though; he’d been up half the night, and looking at the clock now he sees that it’s barely seven a.m. Clara slides off the bed.

He takes her by the hand and together they go silently to the kitchen in pajamas and bare feet.

He settles her at the kitchen table with a bowl of cereal and puts on a pot of coffee for himself.

But the adrenaline has already started, along with the nonstop voice in his head telling him he’s fucked.

The police know that he abused Bryden. They know he called her office to check up on her. Such a stupid thing to do. Will they find out about Paige too? It’s getting harder and harder to pretend that they had the perfect marriage.

He watches Clara, eating her cereal. If they find out about him and Paige—what would the fallout be? They’d know that he’s a cheater. That he lied to the detectives.

He thinks that if they do find out, if Paige cracks under the pressure and tells them, he’ll tell the truth—that it was meaningless to him. That he didn’t get rid of his wife so that he could be with Paige. He sips his coffee uneasily.

And now Bryden’s parents think he did it, and maybe Lizzie does too. He’s not entirely sure about Lizzie.

“Daddy!” Clara says. “The buzzer.”

He was so lost in his thoughts that he hadn’t heard it. Now he goes to answer it. It’s Lizzie. He lets her in the parking garage and waits for her to arrive.

“I promised to take Clara to day care this morning,” she says when he opens the door.

“Right.” He’d forgotten. He’s lost all track of what day it is. “Want a coffee? I just made some.”

“Sure,” she says. She greets Clara in the kitchen with a big hug. “You’re going to go back to see your friends today,” she tells the little girl with a gentle smile.

Clara looks listless and doesn’t answer, as if she doesn’t care one way or the other.

“Why don’t you go pick out what you want to wear,” Lizzie says, “while I talk to your dad.”

Clara gets up and trails off to her room, leaving Sam facing Lizzie across the kitchen table. “What are they saying?” Sam asks.

“Who?”

“Donna and Jim. They think I did it, don’t they? I could tell,” he says bitterly. He watches Lizzie take a deep breath.

“They think it’s a possibility,” Lizzie replies carefully.

“What do you think?” Sam asks bluntly.

She looks him in the eye and says, “I don’t think you’re a murderer, Sam.” She puts her cup down carefully on the table. “But you have to admit, it doesn’t look good to the police. If Bryden was having an affair—”

“I didn’t know,” Sam says. She nods as if she believes him. He wonders how long that will last. Will she find out about his call to Bryden’s workplace? About the abuse? She probably will, he realizes. It’s just a matter of time. He feels the walls closing in on him.

“Don’t look so defeated,” she tells him. She lowers her voice. “I can help you.”

He looks at her in disbelief. “How?”

“I know people.”

She says this with a conspiratorial air. And there’s a strange glint in her eyes he’s never seen before. It’s so odd, so unlike Lizzie, that he doesn’t know what to make of it. “What are you talking about?” he asks, taken aback.

“Never mind.” She sits back and seems like the old Lizzie again. “Just please don’t give up. We’ll find out who murdered Bryden.” She stands. “I’d better help Clara get ready.”

Sam watches her go, wondering if his sister-in-law is losing her grip.

But then, aren’t they all?

···

Jayne sits down beside Kilgour, across the interview table from Alice Gardner.

The woman is unusually attractive, Jayne observes, remembering her in her bathrobe at their opulent home the previous morning.

It’s no surprise, given the husband’s looks and his apparent taste for fine things.

Alice Gardner looks very well cared for, like an expensive cat.

Pampered. “Thank you for coming in, Alice. Of course you’re here voluntarily.

We’re hoping you can help us with our inquiries into the death of Bryden Frost.”

“I don’t see how,” Alice says. “I don’t know anything about Bryden Frost. And neither does my husband.”

“I’m not so sure,” Jayne says pleasantly. “You see, Bryden’s best friend knew all about their affair. Bryden told her about it.”

Alice, apparently unfazed, says, “Derek barely knew that woman.”

“That’s what he says, but we have information contradicting that.”

“I don’t believe it. Can you give me details? I’m sure I can find holes in her account,” Alice says.

If Jayne’s not mistaken, she senses a curiosity there. Alice seems to want to know what her husband’s been up to. She doesn’t trust him. Good to know. Unfortunately, Jayne is rather short on details about the affair. Paige hadn’t had any to give her. Which is frustrating. She hesitates.

Alice smiles. “She didn’t provide any, did she?” She tilts her head. “You don’t have any factual evidence at all. If you did, you’d tell me exactly where they met, and when. You’d show me hotel receipts.”

A pampered cat, with claws, Jayne thinks.

“Well, I’m afraid I believe my husband over this friend you mention,” Alice says blithely, as she rises to go.

“Sit down,” Jayne says sharply.