CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Matt Evans had always had an appreciation for fine things, and that was probably because he’d never had any fine things of his own as a kid. He’d grown up poor. Not poor enough that he went hungry or wore rags to school, but poor enough to get the government-subsidized free lunch offering at his public school. Poor enough that his mother had bought most of his clothes at the Salvation Army thrift shop and he didn’t have his own car until he was well into his twenties and he didn’t have a checking account until after that—because if you don’t have the cash to put into the bank, what was the point? He’d gone to college for a business degree (just like every other bozo who had no idea what to major in) but had never finished, and then moved to Denver after Janice’s death and took the only job he could find—selling cars. He hated it, but here’s the thing: it’s almost always the case that a person is good at the thing he hates the most. And Matt was good. He sold a car on his first day—beginner’s luck, the other guys scoffed. You gotta let them get that first one so they’ll feel good about themselves. But then Matt kept selling cars, more every day, and the atmosphere at the dealership became like that of a shark tank, the water teeming with blood. Matt could sell any car on the lot, he’d attach every service plan available, every extended warranty. He sold heated leather seats and sunroofs and remote starts and car bras to keep those pesky bugs from smooshing against the hood and ruining the paint jobs.

No one could say no to Matt Evans.

That he was too talented for car sales was quickly apparent. And someone noticed—specifically, a gentleman who’d come in to simply browse the newest year’s models and drove away in a car he hadn’t intended to buy, one fixed up with every possible upgrade, as well as vouchers for three years’ worth of oil changes, prepaid and rolled into the monthly installment. He also came away with a new salesman for his team. He was head of a growing nationwide sandwich restaurant that’d started selling franchises, and they needed good men to sell them. For the mere price of $250,000, a person could sell artisan meats slapped between slices of freshly baked bread (a proprietary recipe!) to the hungry masses—but it wasn’t only about feeding people, although food is life, and good food is a godsend, it was also about the dream every person had of owning their own business. Being their own boss. It was the AMERICAN DREAM. (Matt’s sales pitches were a thing of wonder. He was as precise as a surgeon with a scalpel, passionate as a pianist performing at their career-making concert. The underlying message was always the same, but each pitch changed, even if just a little. Every meeting he took, every person he spoke with, he came prepared, and everyone needs something different. But in every pitch he used those words—AMERICAN DREAM—and in a way that the person on the other side of the table understood it was being said in all capitals, and bolded. Times change, and people change, but the ideal of the AMERICAN DREAM was forever, and it always worked. Hooked the target like a fish, and he reeled them right to shore.)

So Matt went from selling cars to selling businesses—or rather, the AMERICAN DREAM—and his paychecks went from no big deal to heavy hitters. He was suddenly able to afford things he’d never had before—a big house and designer clothes and fancy cars—and he found he took comfort in them. More comfort than he’d ever gotten out of Marie or their two daughters.

Love is fleeting, after all. But stuff—stuff lasts forever.

Like now, sitting in his kitchen with the two detectives from the Denver Police Department and answering their questions about what’d happened to Marie, he was aware of the dim gleam of the stainless steel front of the Viking fridge and the E. Dehillerin copper pots and pans hanging above the island and the minute movements of the hands of the twenty-thousand-dollar watch on his wrist. In fact, he kept swiping the pad of his thumb over the face of his watch. It was a tic, one that Loren picked up on right away. It took Spengler a little longer to catch it, but not much longer. It might mean he was lying, or that he was nervous. Both, or neither.

He’d finished telling these cops what’d happened to Marie—he’d told the park rangers, he’d told the cops in Estes Park, and now these two, third time’s the charm, he could only hope—and then they’d asked him to write it out and sign that it was complete and true, and that he was aware they’d also recorded an audio of his official statement.

“You said you took a picture of Marie before she fell,” Spengler said as she folded up the signed statement and tucked it into her pocket.

“Yes.”

“Do you still have it?”

“Yeah, hang on.”

He picked up his phone and swiped through a few screens before handing it over. It was a good picture. The wind had gusted just before he’d taken it, and Marie’s hair had flown into her face, covering most of it, making her laugh. Spengler smiled as she looked at it.

“If you’ll forward that to me, I’d appreciate it,” she said. She held the phone to Loren, but he only gave his head the tiniest shake. He hadn’t said one word the entire time, not even to introduce himself. He just looked, his eyes ticking back and forth as Spengler asked questions and Matt answered, and his silence was worse than anything. Matt was a man who’d built his entire fortune on words, using them like a prod and a sword and a gentle touch, and the only people he’d never been able to sell to were the silent ones. Silence wasn’t just golden—it was the best defense there was.

After a moment Spengler handed the phone back to Matt.

“Of course,” he said.

“There is something we should tell you,” Spengler said. “Three men have come forward, claiming they heard your wife begging before she fell.” She flipped open her small notepad and glanced at the words there. “‘Please. Don’t. No.’ That’s what they claim they heard her scream.”

“I didn’t hear any of that.”

“In your statement you said you shouted your wife’s name several times after she fell, then screamed for help?”

“Yes.”

“These men never mentioned hearing you at all.”

“I don’t see how they couldn’t have heard me. I shouted several times.”

“Three men are claiming they heard your wife beg for mercy, then fall. Then silence. Three men against you.”

“They’re lying, then.”

“Why would they lie?” Spengler was watching him curiously. Her eyes were light brown, slanted down at the corners. They made her look sad. Loren abruptly stood up and began wandering around the kitchen.

“I don’t know. People do strange things for no reason at all.”

“Like murder their wives?” Loren asked absently, running a finger along the edge of the granite countertop. Matt flinched at his voice. He’d learned to be prepared when heading into a sales pitch, to have all his ducks in a row, to know more than the other side. But this was a different situation, one he hadn’t been able to prepare for, and it threw him off, made him nervous. It was a feeling he didn’t like much.

“Are you accusing me of something, detective?”

“I’d never accuse anyone of anything,” Loren said, grinning. In the light shining down from the can lights overhead his teeth looked gruesomely yellow. So did the whites of his eyes. Matt had never noticed it before, but the lights threw a sickly cast down on everything. Asylum lighting. He’d have to replace the bulbs when he had the chance. “But I do have a question. Did you push your wife off that cliff?”

“No.”

“Okay.” Loren started wandering again, opening up the cabinets as he passed by and peering inside. Spengler was watching him, frowning hard, a deep line appearing between her brows.

“Okay?” Matt asked. “I’m confused.”

“What don’t you understand?” Loren asked. He opened the silverware drawer and pulled out a fork. Examined his reflection in the backside and then dropped it back in with the others. He tried to slam the drawer, but it was a soft close and gently drifted shut. “I asked a question, you answered it. What’s confusing about it?”

“Uh, nothing, I guess.”

“Good. But I do have another question for you.”

“Okay.”

“What’s a place like this set you back?” Loren asked. “Big house in a historic neighborhood close to downtown, fully renovated, all the bells and whistles. It had to have been a pretty penny.”

Matt looked from Loren to Spengler and then back again.

“Do I have to answer that?”

Loren pursed his lips and shrugged.

“Just curious,” he said. “Real estate in Denver is so outrageous these days. What’d you nab this place for? A million?”

Matt coughed lightly.

“A million three.”

Loren whistled through his teeth.

“That’s quite a mortgage.”

“It’s not too bad.”

Matt looked at Spengler again. She was watching him thoughtfully. If he were selling to these cops, Loren would be the impossible close. There were plenty like him, guys who’d come to sales seminars and take meetings claiming they were curious about the possible business opportunity, and they’d partake of plenty of the free refreshments and they’d flip through the literature, but when push came to shove, they’d walk. Pack it up and leave. Those guys had all sorts of questions and would try to lead you in circles by the nose, try to confuse things and cause problems just for the sheer fun of it. You had to learn to avoid guys like Loren, who took a certain cruel glee in making people squirm, because they didn’t want to be closed. They couldn’t be brought over the finish line, even if you held their hand and tried to lead them across the damn thing.

But Spengler—he’d be able to close Spengler. Don’t pitch the bitch, a line from a movie that everyone in sales repeated, and it was mostly true. But there were those women who could be worked, and he had a feeling Spengler was one of those. It was the way she was looking at him, the way she’d sat back from the table and crossed her legs so he’d get a good look at her long stretch of thigh encased in tight denim. The feeling was nothing but the lightest tickle, but it was there, and if he’d learned one thing over all his years in sales, it was to trust those feelings.

“I do have a few more questions, if you don’t mind,” Spengler said.

“Not at all.”

“How long have you and your wife been married?”

“Twenty-two years. We were in Estes to celebrate.”

“Romantic getaway?”

“That’s how it was meant to be.”

“And you have two kids, don’t you?”

“Two girls, yes.”

“You have pictures? I’d love to see.”

He opened up his phone again and clicked to a photo of the girls, then slid the phone across the table so Spengler could see.

“Hannah’s on the left,” he said. “The other one’s Maddie.”

“They look like good girls.”

“They are.”

“They didn’t come home when they heard about their mother?”

“They did.”

“They’re here?” Spengler glanced toward the staircase that spiraled up to the second floor.

“No,” Matt said slowly. “They rented a hotel room together.”

“You have a big house here. Why wouldn’t they just come home, save the money?”

“I don’t know. They tend to do whatever they want. You’d have to ask them.”

Spengler made a small noise he didn’t know how to decipher and tapped the end of her ballpoint pen against her teeth.

“You’re a lucky man.” Spengler looked at the picture on the phone again, then smiled and slid the phone back across the table. “Beautiful girls. The older one looks a lot like your wife.”

“Yes,” he said. “Thank you.”

“Okay, just a few more things, standard stuff, and we’ll be out of your hair.”

“Yeah, of course. I’m more than happy to answer whatever.”

Spengler asked her questions. It was more than a few, and every new one made his insides shrivel. He’d expected questions, but not this many, and not thrown out so casually, one after the other, so fast. It was like being peppered with bullets from a machine gun.

When had they arrived in Estes Park for their vacation?

How long had they hiked that day?

Was Marie on any sort of medication, had there been any marital discord recently?

We’ll need your daughters’ cell phone numbers so we can contact them.

They were simple questions, and Evans had all the answers. Finally, Spengler flipped her notepad shut with a small sigh.

“It’s been a long day for us, Mr. Evans,” she said. “We’ve taken up enough of your time.”

She stood, her chair squealing as it slid against the wood floor. He stood, too. It was over, thank god. They’d leave and he could be alone.

“If there’s anything else I can do, please let me know,” he said.

“Actually, there is something you could do,” Spengler said. Matt saw then he’d made a mistake. He’d thought Spengler would be easy to close, she’d be the one to fool, she was eating his story right out of his hand, but he’d underestimated her. He saw it in the way she was gazing at him now, still smiling, but she might’ve been looking at a pile of dog shit she’d stepped in. “Could you come into the station tomorrow to take a polygraph? It’s up to you, but it’ll certainly help move our investigation along.”

“But it’s Labor Day weekend.”

A vertical crease had appeared between her brows. Faint, but it was definitely there. That was her entire reaction, that single wrinkle. And then it smoothed out and was gone.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. “Did you have plans tomorrow? More important than helping us investigate your wife’s death?”

“No,” Matt said. “I just thought you might be off for the holiday.”

“Oh, no. We’ll be at the station there, first thing. So we’ll see you tomorrow?”

“I didn’t push my wife off that cliff, you know.”

The words came before he could stop them. It was the wrong thing to say, he realized immediately. Too defensive. Spengler had been putting away her notes and paused with her hand still in her pocket, her gaze on him thoughtful.

“No one said you did,” she said. “But we do have to cross every possible scenario off our list. Just going down the checklist, crossing off what’s done.”

“Then I’d be more than happy to take a lie detector,” he said. No hesitation.

“Then I’ll have one of the detectives call you and set up a time to come in,” Spengler said pleasantly. She held eye contact for a beat too long. “Thank you for your time.”

He walked them out, through the kitchen and the formal living room and into the foyer. It’d been sunny that morning but was now raining, a fine mist that seemed to blur everything. It was late enough that the streetlights had turned on, and the rain gave the impression of glowing halos around the bulbs. Loren flipped up his collar and went barreling right into the rain, but Spengler took a travel-size umbrella from the pocket of her jacket and unfurled it above her head. She hesitated, seeming ready to say something else, but instead walked down the steps to her car without another word.