Harry Dolan (29 page)

She wrote Wrentmore’s name and date above Tom Kristoll’s. Below Kristoll’s, she added two more names:
Adrian Tully, October 31; Michael Beccanti, November 3.

In the space between Wrentmore and Kristoll, she added:
Valerie Calnero visits Wrentmore’s storage unit; Calnero sends blackmail letter to Tom Kristoll.

She filled in some other details at the top of the page:
Wrentmore writes novel—Liars, Thieves, and Innocent Men. Tom Kristoll edits Wrentmore’s manuscript.
But Wrentmore’s death was the key event. Everything that followed was connected to it somehow. If she understood Sean Wrentmore, she could understand the rest.

She believed Loogan when he told her that Wrentmore was dead. But she had more than Loogan’s word. Traces of blood had been recovered from between the floorboards in Tom Kristoll’s study—Laura Kristoll and her lawyer had consented to the search.

They had also consented to a search of the woods around the Kristolls’ house. Ron Wintergreen had gone in first with a police dog; afterward, cadets from the academy had trudged through the woods in a widening spiral. But no remains had been found, no signs of a grave.

Wrentmore’s family lived in Dayton. Carter Shan had driven down Wednesday afternoon to meet with them, returning on Thursday morning. Wrentmore’s father had died when he was young. His mother had remarried. Her second husband worked as a carpet salesman, and they had two daughters together, both in their early twenties, both still living at home.

None of them had heard from Wrentmore in the past eight weeks. They were used to long silences from him. Wrentmore’s mother, a heavy woman with graying hair, was at first bewildered when Shan related Laura Kristoll’s account of her son’s death. Later she broke down in sobs. Her daughters did what they could to soothe her. Eventually they took her upstairs and got her to lie down.

The woman’s husband questioned Shan in weary tones. Would it do any good if he drove up to Ann Arbor? Maybe he could help search for Sean’s grave. He thought he should be doing something. Shan discouraged him gently and left him with the promise that he would be in touch if there were any developments.

Now, on Friday morning, as Elizabeth sat at her desk penciling in the details of her timeline, Shan sat across from her sorting through Wrentmore’s mail. Wrentmore’s neighbor had turned over stacks of it: mostly junk, a few bills, some magazines, a form-letter rejection from a literary agent who thanked him for submitting a sample chapter from his novel.

Shan looked up from the mail and said, “How much do you think
Gray Streets
pays when they publish a story?”

Elizabeth tapped her pencil on the desktop. “I don’t know. I imagine it’s not much.”

“Wrentmore published stories in there, right? But it’s safe to say he didn’t make a living that way.”

“Right.”

“And his opus, his twelve-hundred-page novel, that was a bust. So it would be fair to describe Sean Wrentmore as a failed writer.”

“I suppose it depends on your standards,” Elizabeth said. “Tom Kristoll thought he was good.”

“He may have been brilliant,” said Shan. “He may have been a neglected genius. Literarily. But financially, he was a dud. You’d expect a guy like that to be living in a garret, suffering for his art. But Wrentmore owned a condo.”

“Maybe his family helped him out.”

“They didn’t. They were in the dark about the condo. They had his address, of course, but they assumed he was renting. Last they knew, he had a job at a bookstore.”

Elizabeth got out her notebook, found the notes on her conversation with Delia Ross. “Wrentmore told his neighbor he made a living selling used books on the Internet.”

“But we didn’t find a ton of books at his condo,” said Shan. “Just his personal collection. There were books in his storage unit, but if he were selling them—”

“If he were selling them, it would be all wrong. He’d have to drive out to the storage unit every time he needed to fill an order.” Elizabeth closed the cover of her notebook. “Where was Wrentmore’s money coming from?”

Shan held up Wrentmore’s bank statement. “There’s only one deposit for the whole month. Five thousand dollars. Direct deposit from something called InnMan, Limited.”

He picked up his phone and Elizabeth listened as he flirted with a teller at Wrentmore’s bank. InnMan turned out to be an abbreviation for Innocent Man. The direct deposits occurred monthly and went back several years, though the amount had increased over time: from four thousand to forty-five hundred to five thousand.

Shan’s second call was to the office of Michigan’s secretary of state. He learned that Innocent Man was a single-owner limited liability company—with Sean Wrentmore as the single owner. The same call netted him the name of the lawyer who had filed the company’s articles of organization.

As Shan hung up the phone, Elizabeth already had the yellow pages open.

“Who’s driving?” he asked her.

She found the lawyer’s address. “It’s close,” she said. “We can walk.”

 

 

 

Todd Barstow, Esquire, had a soft, unanimated face. His forehead was unlined, his pale blond hair slicked back, immobile. The walls of his office were paneled in dark wood and the carpet was tan, and the suit he wore was a shade of brown that fell somewhere between the walls and the carpet.

He held three stapled pages in his thin fingers and his lips drew tight together as he read them. The pages were Laura Kristoll’s statement on the death of Sean Wrentmore. Elizabeth and Shan sat silently until he was finished with them.

He laid the pages on his desk and said, “I agreed to talk to you only out of courtesy, and with great reluctance.”

“We appreciate that,” Elizabeth said. “The courtesy.”

“Not the reluctance,” added Shan.

“This document”—Barstow pointed to the statement—“is hearsay. Mrs. Kristoll relates events described to her by her late husband. Yet you’re asking me to take it as evidence of Mr. Wrentmore’s death. I’m not inclined to. Do you have any other evidence? Physical evidence?”

Shan nodded. “We have a blood sample from the floor of the Kristolls’ study. The blood type is the same as Sean Wrentmore’s.”

“That’s far from conclusive,” said Barstow.

Elizabeth watched a spider crawl along the rim of the lawyer’s in-box.

She said, “We also have a statement from a friend of Tom Kristoll’s—a man named David Loogan—saying that he helped dispose of Sean Wrentmore’s body.”

“Would this be the David Loogan whose picture was on the front page of the
News
yesterday, the David Loogan currently being sought in connection with another homicide?”

“That’s right.”

“Then he’s hardly a reliable witness.”

The spider found the edge of the desk and began to descend.

Elizabeth said, “Do you have reason to believe that Sean Wrentmore is alive, Mr. Barstow?”

“You’ve given me no solid reason to believe he’s dead.”

“When was the last time you spoke to him?” asked Shan.

“Several weeks ago, I’m sure. Eight weeks? Twelve? Something on that order. But that’s not unusual. We have no need to be in constant contact.”

“Well, his neighbors haven’t seen him for a month,” said Shan. “His parents haven’t spoken to him for longer than that.”

“Sean Wrentmore is a competent adult. He can come and go as he likes, and doesn’t have to answer to his parents.” Barstow held up his open palms. “But let’s leave that aside. You believe he’s dead. I have no knowledge of his alleged death. There’s nothing helpful I could tell you.”

Shan shifted in his chair. “What can you tell us about Innocent Man, Limited?”

“I can tell you nothing at all about Innocent Man, Limited,” said Barstow.

“You prepared the paperwork that created the company. It’s a matter of public record.”

“That’s true.”

“What sort of work does Innocent Man do?”

The lawyer’s small mouth made a frown. “Mr. Wrentmore is my client. I’m not at liberty to discuss these matters.”

“The paperwork describes it as a consulting firm,” Shan said.

“Then you can be sure that’s what it is.”

“What sort of consulting did Sean Wrentmore do? Who did he consult with?”

“I’ve already said I’m not going to discuss my client’s business.”

“Innocent Man paid Sean Wrentmore five thousand dollars a month. Where did that money come from?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

Elizabeth broke in. “Did any of it come from Tom Kristoll?”

Barstow’s face was unreadable. “I’m not at liberty to say.”

Elizabeth got out of her chair and crossed to the room’s lone window. The blinds were thick with dust and cobwebs.

She said, “Mr. Barstow, are you aware that Sean Wrentmore has been renting a storage unit for the last five years?”

He looked at her blankly. “No.”

“So you have no idea what he might have kept in that storage unit?”

“No.”

“Do you think it’s just a coincidence—that he formed a company and started renting a storage unit at about the same time?”

“What else would it be?”

“Are you aware of any relationship between Wrentmore and a woman named Valerie Calnero?”

“I’m not privy to Mr. Wrentmore’s personal relationships.”

“What if I told you that after he died—”

“Allegedly died.”

“After he died, Valerie Calnero took something from his storage unit. And shortly after that, she attempted to blackmail Tom Kristoll.”

Barstow shot her a condescending look. “In that case, I would say that this Calnero woman is in need of a lawyer. But I fail to see how her actions reflect on Mr. Wrentmore.”

“I’m sure you can look at it from our point of view,” said Shan. “Sean Wrentmore has this mysterious company, and an unexplained income. Then if we toss in the idea of blackmail—”

“You should be careful what you toss in,” Barstow said sharply. “Do you have evidence that Mr. Wrentmore is guilty of blackmail, or any other crime?”

Elizabeth shook her head slowly. “No. And we’d like to be able to eliminate it as a possibility, so we can move on to other matters.”

Barstow rose behind the desk, picked up Laura Kristoll’s statement, and held it out. “You should move on then,” he said. “Mr. Wrentmore’s income is from entirely legitimate sources. You have my assurance.”

 

 

 

Shan was silent on the elevator and through the lobby of Barstow’s building. When they hit the street he said, “Well, if we have his assurance . . .”

They were within sight of City Hall when Elizabeth’s cell phone rang.

“Where are you?” Harvey Mitchum asked her.

When she told him he said, “Do you have time to do me a favor? Run by Sean Wrentmore’s place?”

“What for?”

“I need to know his shoe size.”

Chapter 30

MITCHUM HAD CALLED FROM THE NICHOLS ARBORETUM, A PARK ON THE shore of the Huron River. Elizabeth and Shan drove there together, left their car in a lot by the water, and walked along a broad dirt path to a spot at the foot of a hill where Mitchum stood with a tall, thin black woman in her fifties.

The woman had a dog on a leash, a mixed breed that was mostly grey-hound. For the benefit of Elizabeth and Shan, she explained that she had let the dog off his leash and he had run up the hill and into the woods. He had been gone a long time. He had returned with a shoe in his mouth—a white running shoe covered in dirt and stained with something that looked like blood.

The shoe was a size ten. Wrentmore had worn a nine-and-a-half—too close to rule out a match. Still, Elizabeth had her doubts. According to Laura Kristoll, Wrentmore had been struck on the head; it wasn’t clear how his blood would have ended up on his shoe. A call to David Loogan could have resolved the matter, if she could reach him and if he were willing to talk, but when she tried his number she got connected to his voice mail as usual.

In the end, there was nothing to do but have a look around. She and Mitchum and Shan climbed the trail up the hillside and fanned out into the woods. After an hour or so Ron Wintergreen joined them, bringing along one of the department’s police dogs. At three o’clock Elizabeth and Shan departed. Shan had been called away on another case. He dropped Elizabeth at City Hall.

Back at her desk, she worked up a report on their conversation with Wrentmore’s lawyer, then gathered Wrentmore’s mail from Shan’s desk and began to sort through it piece by piece. She was still at it when Alice Marrowicz came by, wearing a flowered dress like faded curtains.

“I’ve been calling hotels,” Alice said. “We already sent out a fax with David Loogan’s photo and description, but I’ve been following up like you suggested—asking if they’ve had anyone registered under the name Ted Carmady. I’ve gone through every hotel in town and a bunch in Detroit and the surrounding area. No luck yet. I’ll keep trying.”

“Thanks, Alice. But he’s smart enough to come up with a fresh alias. Don’t let this keep you from other work you have to do.”

“It’s no problem. I wish there were some other way I could help.”

Elizabeth combed her fingers through her hair. “You can help me with Wrentmore’s mail if you want.” She picked up one of his credit card bills. “About all I’ve uncovered is that the man bought gas and groceries and occasionally went to a restaurant—where, from the looks of things, he ate alone.”

She had the mail in two piles. She transferred one of them to Shan’s desk. “This is the stuff I’ve already gone through,” she said. “See if anything jumps out at you.”

Alice settled into Shan’s chair and set to work, poring over each piece of mail as if it might lead her to a buried treasure. She was still there when Elizabeth left at five o’clock.