The Stranger
Page 49

“I almost did. Draft night at the American Legion Hall. When you went nuts on Bob, I thought that maybe you already knew.”
“I had no idea.”
“Yeah, I get that now.”
“You could have said something to me, Tripp.”
“I could have,” he agreed. “Except for one thing.”
“What?”
“Corinne asked me not to.”
Adam stayed perfectly still. Then he said: “I just want to make sure I understand.”
“Let me see if I can help, then. Corinne knew that we were looking at her for the theft, and she made it clear that we shouldn’t tell you,” Tripp said. “You understand just fine.”
Adam just sat back.
“So what did Corinne say that morning when you called?”
“She asked me for more time.”
“Did you give it to her?”
“No. I told her time was up. I had tried to hold the board back long enough.”
“When you say the board—”
“All of them. But mostly Bob, Cal, and Len.”
“How did Corinne respond?”
“She asked—no, I think a better word might be begged—she begged for another week. She said she had a way to prove she was completely innocent, but she needed more time.”
“Did you believe her?”
“Truth?”
“Preferably.”
“No, not anymore.”
“What did you think?”
“I thought she was trying to find a way to pay it back. She knew we didn’t want to press charges. We just wanted it to be made whole. So yeah, I figured that she was contacting relatives or friends or something to raise the money.”
“Why wouldn’t she come to me?”
Tripp didn’t reply. He just sipped his coffee.
“Tripp?”
“I can’t answer that.”
“This makes no sense.”
Tripp just kept sipping his coffee.
“How long have you known my wife, Tripp?”
“You know the answer. We both grew up in Cedarfield. She was two years behind me—the same year as my Becky.”
“Then you know. She wouldn’t do this.”
Tripp stared into his coffee. “I thought that for a long time.”
“So what changed your mind?”
“Come on, Adam. You used to be a prosecutor. I don’t think Corinne started out to steal. You know how it is. When you hear about the sweet old lady stealing from the church tithing or, heck, the sports board member embezzling, it isn’t like they set out to do it. You come in with the best of intentions, right? But it creeps up on you.”
“Not Corinne.”
“Not anybody. That’s what we always think. We’re always shocked, aren’t we?”
Adam could see that Tripp was about to start into some philosophical spiel. For a moment, Adam debated stopping him, but maybe he should let go. Maybe the more Tripp talked, the more Adam would learn.
“But, let’s say, for example, you stay up late at night to schedule the lacrosse practice. You’re working really hard and maybe you’re in a diner, like this, so you order a coffee, just like the ones we have in our hands, and maybe you forgot your wallet in the car and figure, what the hell, the organization should pay for it anyway. A legitimate expense, am I right?”
Adam didn’t reply.
“And then a few weeks later, some referee doesn’t show up at a game in, say, Toms River, and you lose three hours of time covering for him, so hey, the least the organization can do is pay for your gas on the ride down. Then maybe it’s a dinner because you’re far away from home and the game ran late. Then you need to pay for the pizzas for the coaches when the board meeting makes you all miss dinner. Then you need to hire local teens to ref the little kids’ games, so you make sure your teen gets the job. Hey, why not? Who better? Shouldn’t your family benefit from all this volunteering you’re doing?”
Adam just waited.
“So you keep sliding like that. That’s how it starts. And then one day you’re behind on a car payment and what do you know—your organization has a big surplus. Because of you. So you borrow some money. No big deal, you’ll pay it back. So who are you hurting? No one. That’s what you fool yourself into believing.”
Tripp stopped and looked at Adam.
“You can’t be serious,” Adam said.
“As a heart attack, my friend.” Tripp made a project of looking at his watch. He threw some bills on the table and stood up. “And who knows? Maybe we’re all wrong about Corinne.”
“You are.”
“That would thrill me to no end.”
“She asked for a little more time,” Adam said. “Can you just give it to her?”
Tripp quietly sighed and hitched up his pants a bit. “I can try.”
Chapter 33
Audrey Fine finally said something relevant. And that led to Johanna’s first real lead.
Police Chief Johanna Griffin had been right about the county guys. They had put on their spouse blinders and zoomed in on Marty Dann for the murder of his wife, Heidi. Even the fact that poor Marty had a rock-solid alibi for the timing of the killing hadn’t dissuaded them. Yet. They had assumed a “professional hit job” from the start, so now they were digging into poor Marty’s phone records and texts and e-mails. They were asking around the offices of TTI Floor Care about his recent behavior, about his contacts, about where he went out for drinks or lunch, that kind of thing, hoping to find some connection between Marty and a possible hit man.
Lunch was the key.
Not where Marty had lunch, though. That’s where the county boys had messed up again.
But where Heidi ate lunch.
Johanna knew about Heidi’s weekly lunch with the girls. She had even gone a time or two. At first, Johanna had dismissed it as indulgent, as a privileged waste of time. There was some of that. But these were also women who wanted to bond with other women. These were women who made it a priority to make their lunch hour last a little longer so that they could share time with friends and connect to something other than their own family or career.
What was wrong with that?
This week, the lunch had taken place at Red Lobster and included Audrey Fine, Katey Brannum, Stephanie Keiles, and Heidi. No one noticed anything unusual. According to all of them, Heidi, fewer than twenty-four hours from being murdered in her home, had been her usual ebullient self. It was an odd thing talking to these other women. All of them were beyond devastated. All of them had felt that they had lost their closest friend in Heidi, the one person whom they could confide in, the one who was the strongest among their friends.