Still, David’s Monday-to-Friday commute was growing exhausting. Some nights he wouldn’t get home until after nine, when Ethan was already asleep. Some weeks he didn’t make it home at all. The new promotion at Justice was what David had dreamed of. Why he left private practice in the first place and sacrificed all the money. A chance to really do something and make a difference. Before law school, he’d taught English in Guatemala. A chance to serve.
Speaking of which…Wendy glanced at the kitchen clock again—it was already after ten! He had wanted to be on the road by nine thirty. She tried David’s cell one more time. Again, his voice mail came on.
What the hell is going on, David?
She started to get worried. She knew she sometimes tended to overstress a bit. She’d lost her dad at eighteen to a sudden heart attack. And David had this mild arrhythmia himself, though the doctors convinced her it was nothing to really worry about. Even at forty-one. Still, she always carried around this tiny fear…That one day she would be alone, just like her mom had been left alone. That she would have to bring up Ethan by herself. Stupid, she knew, maybe even a little selfish. But where the hell was he, anyway?
That’s when she spotted the two cars pulling up in the drive outside the kitchen window.
One was a black SUV, just like theirs. Except it had lights on top. Flashing lights! The other was a regular blue and white Greenwich police car.
The wave of worry in her chest had now grown into full-out panic. What are they doing here?
She told herself that there were a million things it could be. It could be the car had broken down, or that he’d had a little accident. But then David would’ve called! Or that he’d been taken to the hospital. It could be he’d just taken sick. It could be anything.
“Ethan, you stay right here, honey…Mommy’s just going outside.” Wendy put down her phone and ran to the front door.
But as she opened it, heart starting to race, and stared quizzically into the face of the man coming up her walk—saw how he stopped, solemnly met her eyes, and how there was just something in them—she knew.
She knew it was the worst. What she’d always feared.
“David!” she yelled, though there was just this man, staring at her.
She always knew.
Wendy Sanger sat numbly on the couch, her daughter’s raw face pressed into her shoulder, eyes bleary from tears. A neighbor had come over to take care of her son, who seemed a bit handicapped, in a TV room.
Hauck sat across from them in the pleasantly decorated living room.
“I just can’t believe it.” She shook her head. “He just went into town to wash the car. He did that every Saturday. That was David’s thing. How he relaxed. You know…David’s a prosecutor with the U.S. Justice office—in Hartford. We’re supposed to be moving up there before Christmas. We were just…”
She caught herself, tears rushing into her eyes, her face a blank. Hauck noticed the packed suitcases at the door. “You were all headed somewhere?”
“We were just going to pack up the car. We were heading up to our place in Vermont. Stratton.”
Wendy Sanger cupped her face in her hands and shook her head, trying to keep from crying. Her daughter sniffed back tears.
“I know how hard this is for you, Ms. Sanger…” Five years ago, Hauck had had to pick up his own four-year-old daughter in his arms. He looked at Haley and tried to give her a supportive smile. “But if you can manage it now, there are some questions I need to ask…”
She didn’t say yes or no, just shrugged, her head shaking like a door off its hinge. “Why would anybody want to kill David, Lieutenant?”
“I don’t think anyone intended to shoot him, Mrs. Sanger. A truck pulled up and someone sprayed dozens of bullets all around the station.”
“Like a drive-by?”
Hauck nodded. “I was there myself. With my daughter. Your husband was standing just behind us in line. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“Wrong place at the wrong time…This is fucking Greenwich, Lieutenant, not Newark. He just went out to wash the goddamn car!”
“We’re not sure yet, but we’re pretty sure this was aimed at something else. But I have to ask—you say there was no one who would want to hurt your husband? Were there any cases he may have tried where someone might have threatened him? Anybody he ever spoke of who he felt was out to get him? Maybe gang-related…”
“Gang-related?” Wendy Sanger looked back, incredulous. “My husband tried mostly bankruptcy cases. CEO malfeasance. He didn’t try gang-related cases.”
“And none of these people ever made threats toward him? Sent him letters, calls at the house? Maybe he wouldn’t even have told you?”
“No.” Wendy shook her head. “He would’ve told me. David and I didn’t hide things from each other. No one was threatening him. They were grooming him for bigger cases. That’s why we had to move up there.”
“Daddy said they were going to put him in charge of this big department,” his daughter said. She wiped a Kleenex across her nose. “That we had to move up there. I made it so tough on him, Mom. I—”
“It’s okay, baby, it’s okay.” Wendy Sanger squeezed her tightly. Hauck swallowed hard.
“My son, he’s got Asperger’s syndrome, Lieutenant. He needs a lot of attention. David commuted up to Hartford for two years. Left before dawn and came back at ten sometimes. He didn’t want Ethan’s situation to have to change. That’s the kind of man he was. He pushed off this promotion for over a year. Didn’t want to upset the kids’ life. Haley’s just finishing up at the middle school. Ethan’s in a special program…”
“I understand,” Hauck said, giving her a little time. “Listen, I know this is a long shot, Ms. Sanger, but does the name ‘Tarantino’ have any special meaning to you?”
Wendy Sanger looked confused. “Like the director?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
She shook her head. “No.”
“What about ‘Por Sephina’? In Spanish. I know how tough this is. I know this is out of the blue.”
“This is crazy, Lieutenant. I can’t do this! No one wanted to kill my husband! No one had any ax to grind with him.”
“Why did this have to happen, Mom?” Haley dug her fists into her mother’s sweater and cried.
Wendy stroked her hair. “I know, baby, I know…”
Hauck looked into Wendy Sanger’s swollen eyes. Her straight blonde hair falling over her Fair Isle sweater and turtleneck. Her sharp chin and high cheekbones. There were pictures on the walls. The four of them together. Skiing. At Disneyland. Posing with Goofy. He knew there was no reason to press. He could check with Sanger’s office in Hartford about his cases.
“Do you have anyone that we can call? Give you some help in getting someone here?”
Numbly, she shook her head. “My sister lives in New Hampshire. I don’t