A Bookmarked Death by Judi Culbertson Page B

daughter was veering into tragic mode.
    “Don’t be silly. She definitely wants you there. She probably just forgot to charge the battery on her phone. Are you all set for tomorrow?”
    “I put gas in the car over the weekend.”
    “Are you sure it will get you there?” That would be tragic, if her car broke down and she missed everything. “Maybe you should take the bus.”
    “ Mom. It’s fine. I always use it to go to Boston.”
    “Okay. I figure we’ll get to the parking garage about ten so we can get good seats in the stadium. Where should we meet?”
    “By the big eagle?”
    “Fine.” I remembered the large bronze statue from the day I found Elisa, when I’d gone to the college in late January.
    “Is—Dad coming?”
    Something about the way she asked, the question mark in her voice, made me wonder if Elisa had told her about Ethan’s letter,
    “No. He can’t get away.” The old family pattern of trying to shield the children from bad news. Most famously, we had repressed all mention of Elisa and her drowning when they were growing up, believing that they had been too young to remember and that they were better off not being raised in the shadow of death. Now I wondered if it had been more Colin’s and my attempt to bury the pain rather than anything to do with the children.
    “And Mom? They still haven’t released her parents’ bodies! How can she plan a funeral without her parents being there? I mean—”
    “I know what you mean. I know one of the detectives in the department and I’ll talk to him.”
    After I hung up with Elisa, the next call I made was to England, to the Stratford-upon-Avon police constabulary about Nick and Micah Clancy. I had forgotten to do it yesterday until it was too late. As I dialed, I imagined DCI Sampson with his precise salt-and-pepper mustache, his military posture, seated in his office surrounded by his antique prints of fish and birds, and his tea-brewing paraphernalia. He had been the policeman involved both in Elisa’s initial disappearance when he was a young constable, and when I had returned to Stratford last December. He hadn’t believed my story initially, though after interviewing Nick Clancy he became more convinced.
    I asked for his extension and listened to the pulsing tone. Had it been only five months since I had walked into the constabulary in Shakespeare’s hometown? Perhaps it was because it had been winter—snow icing the stucco half timbers and curling wrought-iron signs—that it felt like something from a storybook.
    “Sampson here.”
    “Good afternoon!” I said, surprised at how happy I was to hear his calm voice. Somewhere in the world there was sanity and orderly procedure rather than grasping at any debris floating by. “This is Delhi Laine.” Your American pen pal.
    “Ms. Laine.”
    “Things have been happening here. The Crosleys—my daughter’s kidnappers and Priscilla Waters’s killers—died here in a house fire over the weekend.”
    “Really. No news of it here.”
    “So it means you don’t have to pursue extradition. If you were going to. The police here think it was arson, that the fire was deliberately set.”
    Silence as he waited for me to go on.
    “When they were trying to figure out a motive, I remembered Nick Clancy. I did tell Micah about the Crosleys and he asked me where they lived. I know Nick was vowing to get revenge on them for killing his mother . . .” I trailed off, waiting for him to pick up what I was suggesting.
    Finally he did. “And you’re thinking that one of them hopped a plane, set the fire, and came home again?”
    Would that it were that easy. “They may still find out it was a local arsonist. But is there any way to find out whether either of them left the country last week?”
    “You mean check remotely without their knowledge? Yes, I can do that. All travel itineraries in and out of the UK are computerized now. Since 2009, and held for ten years.”
    “Can you let me