CHAPTER FOUR

By nine o’clock the following morning, news of Jack Tucker’s murder had started making the rounds around Ashton. It was the main reason why it was so easy for Kate and DeMarco to get in touch with Jack’s friends—the names and numbers of which Missy had given them last night. Not only had his friends already heard the news, they had started to come up with plans on how to help Missy and the kids as they dealt with their loss.

After a few quick phone calls, Kate and DeMarco had set up a meeting with three of Jack’s friends at the yacht club. It was a Saturday, so the lot was already starting to fill up, even at nine in the morning. The club was located right along the Long Island Sound and had what Kate thought was probably the best view of the sound without all of the pretentious boat traffic getting in the way.

The club itself was a two-story building that looked nearly Colonial in style, with a modern twist, particularly to the exterior and landscaping. Kate was greeted by a man who was already standing at the doors. He was dressed in a simple button-down shirt and a pair of khakis—probably what passed for weekend casual for someone who belonged to a yacht club like this one.

“You Agent Wise?” the man asked.

“I am. And this is my partner, Agent DeMarco.”

DeMarco only nodded, her anger and bitterness from the previous night still very much present. When they had parted ways at the hotel last night, DeMarco hadn’t said so much as a single word. She had managed a simple “good morning” over their quick breakfast but that had been it so far.

“I’m James Cortez,” the man said. “I spoke with you on the phone earlier this morning. The other guys are out on the veranda, ready and waiting with coffee.”

He led them through the club, its high ceilings and warm environment utterly charming. Kate wondered how much it cost to be a member here for a year. Out of her price range for sure. When they stepped out onto the veranda that overlooked the Long Island Sound, she became certain of this. It was beautiful, looking directly out onto the water with the tall shapes and haze of the city on the other side.

There were two other men sitting at a small wooden table that held a large plate of pastries and bagels as well as a carafe of coffee. Both men looked up at the agents and got to their feet to greet them. One of the men looked rather young, certainly no older than thirty, while James Cortez and the other man were easily in their mid-forties.

“Duncan Ertz,” the younger man said, extending his hand.

Kate and DeMarco both shook the men’s hands as they went through a quick round of introductions. The older man was Paul Wickers, freshly retired from his job as a stockbroker and more than willing to talk about it, as it was the second thing that came out of his mouth.

Kate and DeMarco took a seat at the table. Kate took one of the empty coffee cups and filled it, doctoring it up with the sugar and cream that sat by the plate of breakfast pastries.

“It hurts to think about poor Missy and those kids this morning,” Duncan said, biting into a Danish.

Kate recalled the trauma of last night and felt that she needed to check in on the poor woman. She looked across the table at DeMarco and wondered if she needed to check in on her, too. Removed from the situation, Kate was starting to understand that perhaps DeMarco had taken it so hard because of something in her past—something she had still not gotten over yet.

“Well,” Kate said, “Missy specifically mentioned you gentlemen as those closest to Jack outside of his family. I was hoping to get some insights into the sort of man he was outside of his home and work.”

“Well, that’s the thing,” James Cortez said. “From what I know, Jack was the same man no matter where he was. A straight shooter. A kind soul that always wanted to help others. If he had any flaws, I’d say it was that he was a little too involved with his work.”

“He was always good for a joke,” Duncan said. “They weren’t funny most of the time, but he loved to tell them.”

“That’s for sure,” Paul said.

“There were no secrets he told you guys about?” DeMarco asked. “Maybe an affair or even thoughts of an affair?”

“God no,” Paul said. “Jack Tucker was insanely in love with his wife. I’d feel safe saying that man loved everything about his life. His wife, kids, work, friends…”

“That’s why this makes no sense,” James said. “I mean this in the most respectful way possible, but from an outsider’s perspective, Jack was a pretty standard guy. Boring, almost.”

“Any idea if he might have any connections to the victim of a murder that occurred eight years ago?” Kate asked. “A guy named Frank Nobilini who also lived in Ashton and was killed in New York.”

“Frank Nobilini?” Duncan Ertz said, shaking his head.

“Yeah,” James said. “Worked for that big-ass ad agency that does all the sneaker jobs. His wife was Jennifer…your wife probably knows her. Nice lady. Into community beautification projects and is very active with the PTA and things like that.”

Ertz shrugged. Apparently, he was the newbie of the group and knew none of this.

“You think Jack’s murder is linked to Nobilini’s?” Paul asked.

“It’s far too early to know that just yet,” Kate said. “But given the nature of the murder, we have to look at it from that viewpoint.”

“Do any of you happen to know the names of anyone Jack worked with?” DeMarco asked.

“There’s only two people over him,” Paul said. “One of them is a guy named Luca. He lives in Switzerland and comes over three or four times a year. The other is a local guy named Daiju Hiroto. I’m pretty sure he’s the supervisor over the Adler and Johnson NYC offices.”

“According to Jack,” Duncan said, “Daiju is the kind of guy that practically lives at work.”

“Was it common for Jack to have to work weekends?” Kate asked.

“Here and there,” James said. “He’d done it a lot lately, actually. They’re in the middle of some huge job to help bail out a nuclear decommissioning company. Last time I spoke with Jack, he said if they straightened it all out in time, there could be a lot of money involved in it.”

“I’d bet good money you’ll find almost the entire crew working today,” Paul said. “They might be able to tell you some things we don’t know about.”

DeMarco slid one of her business cards over to James Cortez and then picked a cherry Danish from the plate in front of them. “Please give us a call if you think of anything else over the course of the next few days.”

“And maybe keep the idea of the case from eight years ago to yourself,” Kate said. “The last thing we need is for the people living in Ashton to get into a frenzy.”

Paul nodded, sensing that she was speaking directly to him.

“Thanks, gentlemen,” Kate said.

She took one more long sip of her coffee and left the men to their quiet breakfast. She glanced out at the sound where a sailboat was slowly coasting out into the water, as if tugging in the start of the weekend behind it.

“I’ll get the address to Jack Tucker’s office at Adler and Johnson,” DeMarco said, pulling out her phone. And even in that, her tone was distant and cold.

She and I are going to have to hash this out before it gets out of hand, Kate thought. Sure, she’s a hard-ass but if I have to put her in her place, I won’t hesitate to do so.

***

The offices of Adler and Johnson were located in one of the more glamorous-looking high rises in Manhattan. It was located on the first and second floors of a building that also contained a law firm, a mobile applications developer, and a small literary agency. As it turned out, Paul Wickers had been correct; most of the team Jack Tucker had worked with was in the office. The workspace smelled of strong coffee and though there was a great deal of busyness among the eight people working, there was a somber mood as well.

Daiju Hiroto met with them right away, escorting them into his large office. He looked like a man torn—perhaps between his need to get this massive project finished on time and the humane reaction to the death of a co-worker and friend.

“I learned the news this morning,” Hiroto said from behind his large desk. “I had been at work since six this morning and one of our workers—Katie Mayer—came in with the news. There were fifteen of us here at the time and I gave them all the option of taking the weekend off. Six people thought it best to leave to pay their respects.”

“If you did not have this team to oversee, would you have done the same?” Kate asked.

“No. It is a selfish answer, but this job has to be done. We have two weeks to finish everything and we are a bit behind. And more than fifty people’s jobs are at risk if we don’t pull it off.”

“Of your team, who do you think would have known Jack the best?” Kate asked.

“Probably me. Jack and I worked very closely together on several large jobs over the last ten years or so. We’ve traveled all over the world together and pulled late nights and meetings that the rest of the team didn’t even know about.”

“But you said someone else knew about his death first?” DeMarco asked.

“Yes, Katie. She lives in Ashton and is fairly good friends with Jack’s wife.”

Kate wanted to say something about how it seemed a little offensive that Hiroto was not calling it a day so that he, as well as the others who had dutifully stayed behind, could grieve. But she knew the demons that sometimes drove men who were possessed by their work and knew that it was not her place to make such a judgment.

“In all of your time with Jack, did you ever know him to keep secrets?” DeMarco asked.

“Not that I can think of. And if he did, I apparently wasn’t someone he wished to divulge them to. But between the three of us, I find it very hard to believe that Jack had a secret life. He was on the straight and narrow, you know? A good guy. Polished around the edges.”

“So you can’t think of any reason someone might have wanted to kill him?” Kate asked.

“No. The idea is insane.” He paused here and looked out through the glass walls of his office and to the rest of his team. “And it was here in the city?” he asked.

“It was. Did you not call him when you realized he had not come in?”

“Oh, I did. Several times. When he didn’t answer by noon or so, I let it go. Jack was always very sharp, very smart. If he needed a few hours just to get away—which he did from time to time—I let him have it.”

“Mr. Hiroto, would you mind if we spoke to some of the others out there?” Kate asked, nodding toward the other side of the glass walls.

“By all means. Help yourself.”

“And could you get the contact information of those that decided to leave?” DeMarco asked.

“Certainly.”

Kate and DeMarco ventured out into the workspace of cubicles, large desks, and rich coffee. But even before they had spoken to a single person, Kate got a pretty good feeling that they were going to get more of the same. Usually, when more than one person described someone else as being very plain and uneventful, it usually turned out to be true.

Within fifteen minutes, they had spoken with the eight other workers currently in the office. Kate had been right; everyone described Jack and sweet, kind, not one to rock the boat. And for the second time that morning, someone referred to Jack Tucker as boring—but in a good, non-offensive way.

In the back of her head, Kate felt something stir, some memory or saying that she had heard somewhere along the roads of her life. Something about watching out for a bored wife or spouse—how the boredom might make them snap. But it wouldn’t come to her.

After stopping by Hiroto’s office one last time to get a list of the people who had elected to leave work, Kate and DeMarco headed back out into the gorgeous New York City Saturday morning. She thought of poor Missy Tucker, sitting under the weight of this beautiful day, trying to adapt to a life that, for a while anyway, might not seem so beautiful at all.

***

They spent the rest of their morning visiting with the ones who had decided to leave work. They encountered many tears and even a few who were enraged that a man as innocent and as kind as Jack Tucker would have been murdered. It was exactly the same as speaking to the others in the office, only not as stifling.

They spoke with the last person—a man named Jerry Craft—shortly after lunchtime. They arrived at his home just as Jerry was getting into his car. Kate parked behind him in his driveway, catching an irritated look. She stepped out of the car as Jerry Craft approached them. His eyes were red and he looked quite melancholy.

“Sorry to bother you,” Kate said, showing her ID. DeMarco stepped up beside her and did the same. “We’re agents Wise and DeMarco, FBI. We were hoping you might have some time to speak with us about Jack Tucker.”

The irritation quickly left Jerry’s face and he nodded and propped himself up against the back of his car.

“I don’t know what I could offer than what I’m sure you’ve already heard from everyone else. I assume you spoke with Mr. Hiroto and everyone else at the office?”

“We have,” Kate said. “We’re now speaking with those that left today—as it would seem they had a closer connection with Jack.”

“I don’t know if that’s necessarily true,” Jerry said. “There were only a few of us that ever really hung out outside of work. And Jack usually wasn’t among them. A few of them probably took Hiroto up on his offer just to get a day off.”

“Any idea why Jack wasn’t one to hang out after work hours?” DeMarco asked.

“No reason, I don’t think. Jack was something of a home body, you know? He’d rather be at home with his wife and kids in his free time. The job had him working crazy hours as it was—no sense in hanging at a bar with those same people you just left work with. He loved his family, you know? Always doing extravagant things for birthdays and anniversaries. Always talking up his kids at work.”

“So you also think he had the perfect life?” Kate asked.

“Seemed that way. Although, really, can any of us have a perfect life? I mean, even Jack had some strain with his mother from what I know. But don’t we all?”

“How’s that?”

“Nothing big. There was this one day at work where I heard him talking to his wife on the phone. He was out in the stairwell for privacy, but I was using one of the older workstations right by the stairwell door. It stands out because it was the only time I heard him speaking to or about his wife with anything but happiness in his voice.”

“And it was a conversation about his mother?” Kate asked.

“Pretty sure. I sort of teased him about it when he came back in but he wasn’t in a joking mood.”

“Do you know anything about his parents?” Kate asked.

“No. Like I said, Jack was a great guy, but I wouldn’t really call him a friend.”

“Where are you headed right now?” DeMarco asked.

“I was going to go grab some flowers for his family and drop them by their house. I met his wife and kids a few times at Christmas parties and company barbecues, things like that. A great little family. It’s a damned shame what happened. Makes me a little sick, you know?”

“Well, we won’t keep you any longer,” Kate said. “Thank you, Mr. Craft.”

Back in the car, Kate backed out of Jerry’s driveway and said: “You want to grab Jack’s mother’s information?”

“On it,” DeMarco said a little coldly.

Kate again found herself fighting to stay quiet. If DeMarco was going to draw out her little irritation about last night’s events, that was her choice. Kate sure as hell wasn’t going to let it affect her progress on this case.

At the same time, she also found herself having to bite back an ironic smile. She had spent so much time wrestling with whether or not her new position was keeping her away from her family yet here she was, working with a woman who reminded her so much of Melissa at times that it was scary. She thought of Melissa and Michelle as DeMarco was bounced back and forth along the departments within the bureau, searching for information on Jack Tucker’s mother. She thought of how Melissa had behaved and acted the first time she, Kate, had been so enthralled in the Nobilini case. That had been eight years ago; Melissa had been twenty-one, still slightly rebellious and pretty much against anything her mother wished of her. There had been one stretch of time where Melissa had tried out coloring her hair purple. It had actually looked quite good but Kate had never been able to bring herself to say it out loud. It had been a trying time in their lives, even when Michael, her husband, had still been alive and there to help her do the parenting as Melissa had gotten older.

“That’s interesting,” DeMarco said, pulling Kate out of her trip down memory lane. She was setting her phone down and looking ahead with an excited little sparkle in her eyes.

“What’s interesting?” Kate asked.

“Jack’s mother is one Olivia Tucker. Sixty-six years old, lives in Queens. A squeaky clean criminal record, but with one minor ding.”

“What’s the ding?”

“She had the cops called on her two years ago. The call was placed by Missy Tucker, on the same night Olivia Tucker was trying to force her way into their house.”

They shared a look and in it, Kate could feel some of that tension between them start to melt away. Good leads, after all, had a tendency to bring even the most estranged partners together.

Feeling as if she was finally getting somewhere, Kate turned the car around and headed toward Queens.