Losing Leah Holloway (A Claire Fletcher and Detective Parks Mystery Book 2) Page 5

  “My God,” Claire said.

  Connor grimaced. “Yeah. It’s worse than we thought.”

  She pushed her chair back and stood, calling for Wilson. “I’ll drive you back,” she said. “Or wherever you need to go.”

  “Claire, I—”

  She touched his face, laid a palm on his bearded cheek. It was softer than she imagined. He looked up at her. She thought about Jade Webb. They’d probably be working the Holloway case together. The thought made her gut clench.

  “When you have time,” she said, “stop by my place.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Claire dropped Connor off at Mercy General Hospital where he found Jade waiting inside the ER. He caught her eye as he entered, and her face brightened. “I thought we lost you, Parks.”

  He shook his head. “Nope, I’m here,” he said without enthusiasm.

  Jade eyed his suit, which he knew still bore wet spots from Claire’s unexpected hug. Connor shifted uncomfortably beneath her gaze. “Don’t start,” he told her. “I’m here to work.”

  “Okay,” Jade said with what Connor knew was feigned indifference. “Did you get a statement from Miss Fletcher?”

  “Of course I—” Connor stopped abruptly. Of course he had not. He had been too busy worrying over her. He could tell from the moment he saw her on the riverbank that the Holloway thing had messed with her mind, upset the delicate balancing act of her recovery. And frankly, as usual, he’d been intoxicated by her. He always thought he was over her until he saw her again. But today had been different. Today there was something decidedly missing—the wall she always put up between them.

  Jade’s noisy sigh brought him back. She pushed herself off the wall she’d been leaning against and started walking away. “Thought so,” she said. “By the way, I got your text about the dog. Had someone at the division pull up the report. Your friend was right. Dog died of Xanax poisoning. Almost three months ago. It was in their yard, so someone either snuck into the yard and gave the dog the meat, or they threw it over the fence. No suspects. No movement.”

  “Suspicious, though,” Connor said as he followed her down a hallway to where two rooms sat side by side, walled in glass. In one of the rooms, Connor saw two gurneys, each holding an identical little girl. Their parents sat between the gurneys, the mother holding the hand of one of the girls, and the father holding the hand of the other.

  “Those are the Irvings,” Jade said. “Apparently, Mrs. Irving and Leah Holloway were besties. The families live next door to each other. The Irvings’ twin girls are six and in the same youth soccer league as Leah Holloway’s six-year-old daughter. Docs say the one girl has a concussion and the other a fractured ankle.”

  Connor studied the girls’ faces. They looked exhausted. The curly brown tendrils that had escaped their braids hung limp and stringy from the river, although they’d both long since dried. They each had several Band-Aids on their arms. One girl’s eyelids sagged as she fought sleep beneath her mother’s watchful eye. The other smiled wanly at something her father said, then looked up and saw them at the window. Connor smiled and gave her a small wave as he followed Jade to the next room, crowded with a man and three kids, one of them a babe in arms.

  “That the husband?” Connor asked.

  Jade nodded. “Jim Holloway, age forty-two. Those are his and Leah’s children.”

  Jim Holloway was short, stocky, and about thirty pounds overweight. His sandy-brown hair was shaggy and hung in his brown eyes. He wore a moustache and goatee, a green polo shirt, and wrinkled khaki shorts. His eyes were bloodshot. His children were not happy. The infant screamed loudly in Jim’s arms, his tiny face nearly purple with rage and indignation. For a man with three kids, Holloway looked very much out of his element. Connor wondered if he was always so inept at handling his kids, or if it was just shock over the news about his wife. Given what Leah had done that morning, Connor was inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.

  Holloway shifted the baby from one hip to the other as he watched his older son throw a full-blown tantrum on the floor. The boy looked like a miniature version of Jim, sans facial hair. The boy lay face down, little arms and legs pounding against the tile.

  “I want my mommy!” he screeched.

  Jim held the infant against his chest as he knelt to his other son. He spoke in low tones and touched the boy’s head, but it didn’t help. He looked helplessly at his daughter, who sat curled into a ball on one of the gurneys, rocking back and forth. She hugged her knees to her chest and looked straight ahead, her gaze blank and far away.

  “Peyton!” Jim called, but the girl didn’t acknowledge him.

  “Word is the guy’s mother is on the way. Flying in from Nevada,” Jade said.

  “I hope so,” Connor muttered. Then he headed to the nurses’ station. “First things first.”

  Fifteen minutes later, a nurse was bottle-feeding the extremely hungry baby while the other boy watched SpongeBob SquarePants on the television affixed to the wall. It had taken two nurses to get him tucked beneath the covers of one of the gurneys, where he continued to scream and cry until he wore himself out. He watched the television with the vacant expression of someone who had been through a war. Either he would fall asleep for a while, or he would experience a fresh onslaught of tears in a few minutes.

  Connor knew Jim Holloway was in shock, but he didn’t know how the man could go without scooping the kid up and holding him until he fell asleep.

  Jim stepped out of the room and looked around as if he were trying to locate someone in the small but crammed ER.

  “Mr. Holloway,” Connor said. He and Jade moved toward the man, Jade with her notebook out, Connor ready to take point on questions. The man looked at them dumbly, uncomprehending.

  “My mom should be here soon. She’s coming from Reno.”

  “Mr. Holloway, I’m Detective Parks. This is Detective Webb. We need to ask you some questions about your wife.”

  He seemed to look through them. He put both hands in his hair, rubbing until it stood out in every direction. “My wife,” he said, his voice husky. “My wife.”

  Connor decided to start with the easy stuff. “What time did your wife leave the house this morning?”

  Jim shook his head slowly from side to side. “I don’t know. She was gone when I woke up. She always takes the kids to soccer. I mean, she doesn’t always take Rachel and Mike’s kids, but she always takes our kids.”

  “What time did you wake up?” Jade asked.

  He scratched his head. “Don’t know. Ten? Ten thirty? I work four to midnight at Ranger Heating Supply, so I get home late and sleep late. Leah was already gone when I got up.”

  “How old are your kids?” Connor asked.

  “Oh. Well, Peyton is six. Hunter is four, and the baby, Tyler, is five months old.”

  “And it was Peyton’s game?” Connor asked.

  “Yeah, I guess. I mean yeah. Hunter doesn’t play soccer.”

  “Did Leah always take all of the children to Peyton’s games?” Jade asked.

  Jim’s eyes went to her. “What?”

  Jade smiled warmly, using what Connor always thought of as her calming look. “Did Leah ever leave the boys with you on Saturday mornings while she took Peyton to soccer?”

  “Oh no,” he said. “The kids—you know—they were Leah’s thing. She always took them with her.”

  Connor didn’t miss the sour look that crossed Jade’s face. “So, Leah was a stay-at-home mom?”

  Jim looked momentarily puzzled. “What? No. She works for a radio station. She’s in charge of advertising.”

  “And what do you do at Ranger?” Connor asked.

  “I work on an assembly line. We manufacture heating elements.”

  “So your wife took your three kids and the Irving twins with her sometime before ten a.m. this morning to go to a soccer game?”

  Jim nodded.

  “When is the last time you saw your wife?”

  Jim shrugged
. “Last night, when I got home from work.”

  “Did the two of you talk?” Connor asked.

  “Sure. She, uh, waited up for me. Heated up a dinner plate for me, and we sat at the kitchen table and talked.”

  Connor and Jade looked at one another again. “What did you talk about?” Jade asked.

  Jim shrugged again. “Work, the kids. The usual stuff. Hunter got in trouble at preschool. Rachel had some recipe she wouldn’t give Leah. I don’t know. Just talk.”

  “Did she seem distraught to you?” Connor asked. “Tense? On edge? Distressed?”

  Jim shook his head to every word Connor threw at him.

  “How was your wife’s mood?” Connor asked. “Had she been depressed?”

  Again, Jim shook his head. He looked at the floor. “No,” he said. “She was good. Things were good. She was always in a good mood. Everyone loved her. She’s a—she was a great mom and wife.” Tears leaked from the corners of Jim’s eyes, and he wiped them away quickly. “I don’t understand,” he mumbled, so low that Connor had to strain to hear him.

  “Mr. Holloway,” Jade said. “Did your wife drink?”

  His head snapped up. “Drink? No. Leah never drank. Not a drop. She was always—she always said she needed to be sober and clearheaded ’cause of the kids. Even after they went to bed, she wouldn’t have a drink. She used to say what if one of the kids woke up with a really high fever in the night and she had to take them to the ER? She couldn’t be drunk in case something happened. In case—” He looked over his shoulder at his children on the other side of the glass. Mercifully, Hunter had fallen asleep. Peyton hadn’t moved at all.

  “So, your wife never drank?” Connor clarified. “How about socially?”

  “No,” Jim answered. “Never.”

  “And you weren’t having any marital problems?”

  Jim’s head shake was more vigorous this time. “No. We never had marital problems.”

  “You never fought?” Connor added, trying to keep the incredulity out of his voice.

  “Well, sure we had fights like any couple, but we never had problems. I mean our marriage was fine. It was great.”

  “Were you having any financial problems?” Connor asked.

  “No,” Jim said. “I mean it’s tough sometimes with three kids, but we were doing good. Leah got a raise last year, and we were doing fine.”

  “How about at Leah’s job?” Jade asked. “Was Leah having problems at work?”

  “No. Like I said, she just got a raise. Work was good.”

  “How about family and friends?” Connor said. “Was there anyone she was having trouble with? Anyone she was maybe feuding with?”

  “Feuding? No. No way. Leah is good to everyone. Everyone loves her.”

  Connor could tell by the way Jade drummed her pen against her notebook that she was growing frustrated with the man. A woman who was loved by everyone, who never drank and had zero stress in her life—not at work or at home—didn’t kill four people with her car and then crash a vehicle filled with kids into a river. A woman like that didn’t drown herself.

  “Any mental illness?” Connor asked. “Was Leah taking any medications? Did she have any medical conditions?”

  “No. She was fine. She was healthy. I mean, she had problems with her stomach sometimes, and heartburn. She took pills for that sometimes, like Tums or whatever, but other than that, she was fine.”

  “There was an issue with your dog a few months ago, wasn’t there?” Jade asked.

  Jim looked momentarily confused. He touched his forehead. “Oh, the dog. Yeah, the dog died. He got into something in the yard or whatever. The kids took it hard.”

  “Do you know what the dog got into?” Connor asked.

  “I don’t know. It ate something bad, I guess,” Jim said.

  “Did Leah tell you what the vet said?” Jade asked.

  “She just said it was something toxic.”

  Jade made a notation in her notebook. She was probably wondering the same thing that Connor was: Had Leah not told her husband that their dog was poisoned, or was Jim Holloway simply minimizing what had happened?

  “Did your wife have any social media accounts? Facebook? Twitter?” Jade asked.

  Jim shook his head. “No. She wasn’t into any of that stuff. She always said she was online all day at work. The last thing she wanted to do when she got home was get back on a computer. Plus, she said she doesn’t—didn’t like to broadcast every detail of her life. Rachel always wanted her to go on Facebook, but she wouldn’t.”

  “Did she have an email address?” Jade asked.

  “Yeah. I don’t remember it, but yeah, she had one.”

  “Did she have a computer at home?”

  “Yeah, but she hardly ever used it.”

  “Would you allow us to have a look at it?”

  Jim shrugged. “Sure, but what’s that—what’s that got to do with anything?”

  Connor and Jade had once been tasked with investigating a woman’s death after she fell from the Tower Bridge. Her friends and family insisted it was an accident, but when they checked her email account, they found a half-dozen unsent messages to her family explaining why she had chosen to kill herself. This was not something that Connor was prepared to explain to Jim Holloway, nor anything Holloway appeared prepared to hear, so Connor kept his voice friendly and soothing and said, “It’s really just routine. We can send someone to your house to pick it up to make it more convenient.”

  “Uh, sure, okay,” Jim said.

  “Mr. Holloway,” Connor continued, “can you think of any reason why your wife would try to kill herself and your children?”

  This time, Jim couldn’t hold his tears back. Tremors shook his body as he sobbed into his hands. “No,” he said through his tears. “No, I can’t.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  “You think he’s lying?” Connor asked Jade. They had stepped outside so they could check in with Captain Boggs by phone.

  Jade pocketed her cell phone and shook her head. “No. I think he is just your typical oblivious male.”

  “Typical oblivious male?” Connor echoed. “Should I be insulted?”

  “Nothing typical about you, Parks,” Jade said with a wink. “You heard him, though. The kids were ‘her thing.’ Everything was great. He’s a figurehead husband. He donates his sperm, hands over his paycheck, attends social functions, and maybe, just maybe, he cuts the grass or fixes a few things around the house. He has very little real function.”

  “Yikes,” Connor said. “Don’t you think that’s a little simplistic? And unfair?”

  Jade slowly shook her head. “Don’t be naive, Parks.”

  “That’s exactly the kind of attitude that’s going to land you a great husband one of these days.”

  Jade’s look darkened. “Don’t make me punch you, Parks. I’m really not into workplace violence.”

  Connor laughed and walked away from her. “Let’s interview the best friend,” he called to her over his shoulder. “She’ll give us the real picture of Leah Holloway’s life.”

  Rachel Irving stood outside her daughters’ room, arms tightly folded over her chest. She looked like she had just come from working out—brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, black yoga pants, Nike sneakers, and layered tank tops over a sports bra. She was flat chested and thick around the middle, but her skin was soft, supple, and evenly tanned. She had an attractive face—high cheekbones, large blue eyes with long lashes, and a straight, thin nose. Only a small white star-shaped scar on the very bottom of her chin marred her complexion. A gold chain with a heart-shaped “#1 Mom” charm hung around her neck. She reached up to fidget with it as Jade made introductions and pulled out her notebook and pen.

  Rachel looked over her shoulder where she could see her family through the glass. The twin she had been sitting with had fallen asleep. Rachel’s husband spoke softly to their other daughter, his back turned to them.

  “Is it true?” she said, turning back to
the detectives. “Is it? What the other officers said? Did Leah—did she do this on purpose?” Rachel said the word this carefully, as if she were using code that might easily be misinterpreted, as if the word itself might coax something awful into being. But something awful had already transpired, and as Jade spoke to the woman, Connor could see tension drawing Rachel’s shoulder blades together.

  “We are extremely early on in our investigation, Mrs. Irving,” Jade told her, “but at this juncture, by all initial accounts, the only conclusion we can come to is that she purposely crashed her car with the children in it. When given the chance to exit the car, she chose to stay in the water. She was deceased when we recovered the vehicle.”

  Rachel shook her head as if she were refusing something being forced upon her. “No, no, no. Leah wouldn’t do that. My kids—she had my kids in the car.” She waved in the direction of the Holloways’ room. Her voice went up an octave. “All of our kids were in the car. This has to be a mistake. You don’t understand. Leah, of all people, would not do something like this.”

  “So you and Mrs. Holloway were quite close, then?” Connor said.

  Rachel chewed her bottom lip. “She was my best friend. I knew her better than anyone.”

  “When was the last time you spoke to her?”

  Rachel shook her head once more, closed her eyes momentarily, and opened them again. “This morning. She took the kids to soccer. They left around seven thirty. Mike had to work, and I was waiting for a delivery. She was fine.”

  “Did she always take your children to soccer?”

  “No. Usually, we went together. If one of us didn’t feel well or had to do something, the other would take them. We helped each other out. We were friends.”

  “Mrs. Irving,” Connor said. “Can you think of any reason Leah might have been upset or stressed? Was there anything going on in her life that was causing her a great deal of trouble? Any recent stressors?”