Baltimore 03 - Did You Miss Me?

I came home after Beckett. Anyway, Mama came and the next day we put a security deposit on an apartment there in Baltimore, close to the hospital and Ford’s new school. Hal called my cell phone, said he was at the townhouse and why wasn’t I there. I told him about meeting his wife.’
    ‘What did he say?’
    ‘Nothing for a very long moment. Then he said it was a misunderstanding and that he’d take care of it. I backed away from Hal for a while. I didn’t want to jeopardize his marriage any more than I unwittingly had. And once chemo started . . . After I started law school he called me. His wife had died. Killed herself, actually. He told me that she’d been emotionally unstable for years. Based on what I saw that night, I believed him. We started meeting for lunch, just . . . friends. He took me to the opera and ballet. Contributed to my women’s center. We’re platonic. End of story.’
    ‘Except he lives a hundred yards from you and you didn’t know.’
    She looked troubled. ‘He was my bodyguard. Maybe it’s an old habits thing. I know you think I’m burying my head in the sand, but I’m not in a frame of mind to make a snap decision on him. Besides, his son is only thirteen. When I was walking out of his wife’s house that night, I saw the little boy, asleep in the back seat. He was about five and this was eight years ago. He might even hate me if he thought his mother’s account of things was right, but he’s not Doug.’
    ‘Daphne, the check I had done showed that Hal Lynch has one son. His name is Matthew. He’s twenty-five. His mother was Jane. Who committed suicide. That would make a son very bitter toward the woman he believed broke up his parents’ marriage and drove his mother to kill herself.’
    Daphne frowned in confusion. ‘But that twenty-five-year-old son is still not old enough to be Doug.’
    ‘Unless he lied about his age to the lady who was carding him at the drugstore.’ He lifted a brow. ‘People do lie about their age, you know.’
    She rolled her eyes. ‘I know.’
    ‘Will you at least consider for a moment that he intercepted your letter to the FBI?’
    She went still. ‘I guess I have to. I mean, Nadine never does anything herself. She gives orders and others do her bidding. If she’d told Hal to fake the certificate, I’m sure he would have. We weren’t friends at that point. He owed more to Nadine than to me.’
    Joseph wasn’t so sure Hal would have done the deed for his employer. ‘You still assume Nadine called the shots.’
    ‘Of course. She’s the only one to have anything to gain.’
    ‘Avoidance of scandal,’ he said and she nodded. He said nothing more, waiting for sharp mind to make the connection that her loyalty to her friends didn’t want her to see.
    ‘What possible motive could Hal have had?’ she asked, doubt in her voice.
    ‘Keeping you close by. If Nadine had found out then, before the marriage, what would she have done?’
    She faltered. ‘I don’t know. She probably would have sent me packing and found a way to get custody of Ford.’ She looked out the window, her jaw tight. ‘And Hal lives up the street from me. Do you remember the date of his wife’s suicide?’
    She was finally starting to get it. Joseph gave her his phone. ‘Grayson forwarded it to me. Paige got all the info for us. You can look if you want.’
    ‘I don’t want to, but I will.’ She inhaled sharply as she read. ‘Oh God. I was diagnosed on June 20, a Tuesday. I was thrown out by Nadine on Wednesday afternoon. Hal’s wife threw me out on Thursday night. She died Friday night. She killed herself the day after I saw her. Because she thought I’d stolen her husband.’
    ‘Not your fault, Daphne.’
    ‘Funny how so many things aren’t my fault,’ she said bitterly. ‘Hal did this. He faked that death certificate. For the past twenty years he’s known. All along, he’s known.’ Her expression changed, moving from bitterly aware to horrified. ‘He knew, Joseph. He knew that Beckett murdered Kelly. He let a killer go free just to keep me close to him? I thought I knew him. I trusted him. I trusted him with Ford. He stood there in my house, pretending to be sorry . . . What if he knew where Ford was all along?’
    ‘I’ll have him brought in for questioning.’ Joseph called JD, asked him to pick Hal up, then called Grayson and asked for a warrant to search Hal’s properties. Even if Hal wasn’t involved in Ford’s