The Kind Worth Saving


 
 
 
 
 
 
 Contents
 
 Cover
 Title Page
 Dedication
 Contents
 Part 1: The Tender Age of Murderers
 Chapter 1
 Chapter 2
 Chapter 3
 Chapter 4
 Chapter 5
 Chapter 6
 Chapter 7
 Chapter 8
 Chapter 9
 Chapter 10
 Chapter 11
 Chapter 12
 Chapter 13
 Chapter 14
 Chapter 15
 
 
 Part 2: The Third Person
 Chapter 16
 Chapter 17
 Chapter 18
 Chapter 19
 Chapter 20
 Chapter 21
 Chapter 22
 Chapter 23
 Chapter 24
 Chapter 25
 Chapter 26
 Chapter 27
 Chapter 28
 
 
 Part 3: Dirty Work
 Chapter 29
 Chapter 30
 Chapter 31
 Chapter 32
 Chapter 33
 Chapter 34
 Chapter 35
 Chapter 36
 Chapter 37
 Chapter 38
 Chapter 39
 
 
 Acknowledgments
 About the Author
 Also by Peter Swanson
 Copyright
 About the Publisher
 
 
 
 
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 Guide
 
 Cover
 Contents
 Part 1: The Tender Age of Murderers
 
 
 
 
 Dedication
 
 
 To David Highfill
 
 
 
 
 
 Part 1The Tender Age of Murderers
 
 
 
 
 
 Chapter 1
 
 
 Kimball
 “Do you remember me?” she asked, after stepping into my office.
 
 “I do,” I said, before I could actually place her. But she was familiar, and for a terrible moment I wondered if she was a cousin of mine, or a long-ago girlfriend I’d entirely forgotten.
 
 
 She took a step inside the room. She was short and built like an ex-gymnast, with wide shoulders and strong-looking legs.
 Her face was a circle, her features—blue eyes, pert nose, round mouth—bunched into the middle. She wore dark jeans and a tweedy
 brown blazer, which made her look as though she’d just dismounted a horse. Her shoulder-length hair was black and glossy and
 parted on one side. “Senior honors English,” she said.
 
 
 “Joan,” I said, as though the name had just come to me, but of course she’d made this appointment, and given me her name.
 
 “I’m Joan Whalen now, but I was Joan Grieve when you were my teacher.”
 
 “Yes, Joan Grieve,” I said. “Of course, I remember you.”
 
 “And you’re Mr. Kimball,” she said, smiling for the first time since she’d entered the room, showing a row of tiny teeth, and that was when I truly remembered her. She had been a gymnast, a popular, flirtatious, above-average student, who’d always made me vaguely uncomfortable, just by the way
 she’d said my name, as though she had something on me. She was making me vaguely uncomfortable, now, as well. My time as a
 teacher at Dartford-Middleham High School was a time I was happy to forget.
 
 
 “You can call me Henry,” I said.
 
 “You don’t seem like a Henry to me. You still seem like a Mr. Kimball.”
 
 “I don’t think anyone has called me Mr. Kimball since the day I left that job. Did you know who I was when you made this appointment?”
 
 “I didn’t know, but I guess I assumed. I knew that you’d been a police officer, and then I heard about . . . you know, all
 that happened . . . and it made sense that you were now a private detective.”
 
 
 “Well, come in. It’s nice to see you, Joan, despite the circumstances. Can I get you anything? Coffee or tea? Water?”
 
 “I’m good. Actually, no, I’ll have a water, if you’re offering.”
 
 While I pulled a bottle of water from the mini fridge that sat in the south corner of my two-hundred-square-foot office, Joan
 wandered over to the one picture I had on my wall, a framed print of a watercolor of Grantchester Meadows near Cambridge in
 England. I’d bought it on a trip a number of years ago not because I’d particularly liked the artwork but because one of my
 favorite poems by Sylvia Plath was called “Watercolor of Grantchester Meadows,” so I thought it would be a clever thing to
 own. After I’d rented this office space, I dug out the print because I wanted a calming image on my wall, the way dentists’
 offices and divorce lawyers’ always display