Page 19 of Her Last Doubt

Gloria was quiet for a moment as she tried to compose herself. "It was over nothing. Really. Or it started as nothing. She had the television on very loud — she'd been doing it more and more as her hearing got worse, and I'd let it go for months because I understood why. But it was late, past eleven, and I'd already knocked on the wall twice." She smoothed the front of her housecoat with one hand. "When I went to her door, I wasn't at my best. I said things I shouldn't have. I implied that she was using her health as an excuse, which was cruel, and I knew it was cruel even while I was saying it."

"How did she respond?"

"She told me exactly what she thought of me and closed the door." Rivers looked toward the window, where a philodendron was trailing down from the sill. "We didn't speak after that. She was quite rude, and even used curse words! I wanted to apologize, and I kept putting it off. I couldn't humble myself enough to do it. And then, well…then she died." Her voice didn't break, but it went flat in a way that carried its own weight. "So that's where we are."

Rachel noted the genuine sadness that crept into the woman’s face. "In all the years you knew her, before the argument, was there anything else between you? Any other friction?"

"No. Sylvia was direct, sometimes bluntly so, but I respected that about her. Most of the time, it was one of the reasons I liked it. We weren't close friends, but we got along." She paused for a moment, clasping her hands together. "I keep thinking about the fact that I was angry with her when she died. It's not a good feeling and I…I regret it so much."

Rachel went quiet, giving her a moment to process. But before she could ask anything else, or before Novak got the chance, Gloria looked at Rachel directly.

"Are you close to knowing who did this?" she asked.

"We're making progress," Rachel said, which was honest enough.

"Because I have to tell you…I'm frightened." She said it plainly, without apology. "I'm seventy-one years old, and I live alone…and three people in this building have been killed. And with all due respect, as far as I can tell, there is one detective and now two federal agents and no one standing in the hallways at night." She glanced at Novak, her eyes sort of pleading. "I understand you can't post a guard outside every door. But I'd like to know that someone is taking seriously the fact that the rest of us are still here."

"It is being taken seriously," Novak said. "That's why the FBI has gotten involved."

"I know why you're here. I'm asking what happens tonight when you leave." She wasn't hostile about it, just direct, and her directness had a steadiness to it that Rachel respected. “That detective said there will be random police units riding by and checking in at the lobby a few times after hours, but that’s it.”

"We're working to make sure the building is safe," Rachel said. "And we're going to find out what happened." She held Gloria’s gaze when she said it, because she believed it—and she wanted Gloria to believe it, too. "In the meantime, if anything feels wrong — a sound, someone in the hallway who shouldn't be there, anything at all — call 911 and then call us." She took out one of her cards and set it on the coffee table. "Don't hesitate. You can call me directly if you like."

Gloria looked at the card for a moment, then picked it up. "All right," she said. She didn’t look especially reassured but Rachel could tell she’d appreciated the gesture.

They spent a few more minutes with her, covering the remaining questions, and nothing else emerged that was new. When they stood to leave, Gloria walked them to the door and held it open. As Rachel stepped into the hallway, Gloria said, "I should have apologized to Sylvia. I want you to know that I’m well aware of it. I suspect it’ll…well, that it’ll haunt me for whatever time I have left.”

Rachel looked back at her and because she wasn’t sure what to say to that, she simply did her best. "She probably knew it too."

Gloria gave a small, uncertain nod and closed the door.

In the stairwell, Rachel and Novak descended without talking for the first two floors. They decided without discussion to take the stairs, wanting some time to digest the interview and the sadness that seemed to trail after them when they’d left. The walls carried sound differently than the carpeted hallways, and their voices would have echoed in a way that neither of them seemed to want.

On the third floor landing, Novak said, "She didn't do it."

"No," Rachel said. "She didn't. Even if she’d been a hateful old bitch, I don’t know how her frail body would have held those people down."

But it wasn't just the physical reality of it. Gloria Rivers was thin and aging and her hands had looked especially weak and fragile…the sort that struggled with jar lids. Frank Deluca had fought back hard enough to leave defensive bruising on his own arms, and he'd done it from a position of significant physical weakness. Whoever had overpowered him had been stronger than they looked, or at least stronger than a slight seventy-one-year-old with a houseful of plants and a guilty conscience about an old argument.

Beyond the physical, there was the grief. Rachel had interviewed enough people to know the difference between performed remorse and the real thing; Gloria Rivers's regret about Sylvia Marsh had been real and specific and pointed entirely inward. People who killed didn't grieve like that. They grieved outward, toward the circumstances or the investigation or the unfairness of being suspected. Rivers had been grieving toward herself.

They came through the stairwell door into the lobby. The evening had deepened outside the front windows and the lobby's amber light felt warmer against it. Pruitt was near the credenza, refilling the carafe from a second pot he'd brought up, and he wasn't alone. A woman in her mid-fifties stood beside him, still in her coat, with a leather bag over one shoulder. She looked slightly out of place, as if she had just arrived and was getting used to the place. She had auburn hair going gray at the temples and a face that was composed but drawn tight at the edges.

Pruitt saw them come through the door and raised a hand to wave them over. Rachel and Novak crossed the lobby toward them, sharing a confused look.

"Agents," Pruitt said, "I'd like you to meet someone." He gestured to the woman beside him, who was already turning to face them. "This is Samantha Osley. Margaret Osley's daughter."

CHAPTER TWELVE

They found a quiet spot at the far end of the lobby on the opposite side of where they had been working. It was essentially hidden away from Hale's office, the credenza, and the elevator. Pruitt had excused himself with a quiet nod and gone back through the staff door, leaving them with Samantha Osley and three paper cups of coffee.

Samantha had finally taken her coat off but kept it folded across her lap, as though she wasn't fully convinced she was staying. Rachel guessed her to be in her mid-fifties, with steady eyes and a composure that was at least partially an act.

“What brings you to Richmond?” Novak asked. “According to the case notes, you live in Greensboro, right?”

“That’s right, but I drove up this afternoon," Samantha said. "The detective's office called me last night and said they were looking more carefully at the three deaths. Detective Purcell sort of suggested that I should be prepared for the possibility that my mother's death wasn't from natural causes as we’d all originally thought." She set her coat on the chair beside her and simply stared at it for a moment. "I couldn't just sit at home after that. I needed to be here and talk to someone who could actually tell me what's going on. I know I could have done it over the phone but I…I don’t know. I felt I owed it to her to be here in person."

“I can understand that,” Rachel said softly. She thought, for a moment, of Grandma Tate and what she would have done in a situation like this if she’d had the roles reversed. She thought of her grandmother often, usually because Paige brought her up in some unexpected way. To have memories of her surface now, in the midst of this, was more painful than she could properly handle.