Name Games (19 page)

After a long hesitation, replete with lip-pinching and neck-scratching, he told me simply, “Carrol Cantrell.”

Ahaaa…Attempting not to seem surprised by this news (which, in fact, I wasn’t), I explained, “I had a hunch you were having a little fling—to each his own, Doug. And if you prefer to keep your liaisons discreet, that’s your prerogative. No one else needs to know.”

He leaned toward me on the concrete slab. “But they do know.”

Uh-oh. I’d nearly forgotten that the object of Pierce’s tryst was also the subject of a murder investigation. The sticky nature of our conversation was quickly becoming clear to me. I asked, “Who else knows about this?”

Pierce paused—not so much with hesitation, it seemed, as for dramatic effect—before answering, “Harley Kaiser.”

I puckered and whistled a sigh of commiseration, telling myself that this couldn’t get much worse. “How’d he find out?”

“That’s the best part.” Pierce’s voice now carried the slightest ring of sarcasm, suggesting that the situation could indeed get worse. “My relationship with Carrol was nothing more than a fling, as you’ve described it. We certainly didn’t ‘love’ each other, but we, well…enjoyed what we did together, and after spending three nights with the man, I came to feel a measure of affection for him. You can well imagine my shock at learning he was killed yesterday, mere hours after I’d left him. I hate to sound melodramatic about this, but I’ve been driven to solve his murder not only because it’s my job, but because I want to see his death avenged—I owe him that much.”

He paused, and I could see that he was choked up over what had happened—a rare display of emotion. With his voice momentarily silent, the gurgle of the creek seemed magnified. A bird chirped somewhere, sounding faraway. I offered Pierce the consolation of a pat on the knee, and he nodded his thanks.

He continued, “Since the discovery of Carrol’s body yesterday, I’ve been directing an ongoing investigation of the crime scene. I’ve relied heavily on the efforts of Dan Kerr, the department’s top-ranking detective—other than myself.”

Thinking aloud, I interjected, “Deputy Dan also happens to be the man who has aspirations for your job.”

“True, but he’s a professional, and the issue of the election, believe it or not, has never come between us on the job. He’s a good detective. So I gave him, among other items taken from the crime scene, Carrol’s laptop computer, hoping we could get into his files. We weren’t sure what we were looking for, but it seemed reasonable to expect that we could learn something of Carrol’s business dealings in Los Angeles, which could possibly shed some light on the murder.”

“Did Deputy Dan find anything?”

“Yes, indeed. But it didn’t relate to the victim’s business ties in California. No, what Deputy Kerr found was the draft of an extortion note.”

“A note
from
Cantrell? To whom?”

“To me.” Pierce waited for the full impact of these words to
Register
on my face before elaborating. “Kerr found a computer file of a document, supposedly written by Carrol, demanding hush money from me, or else he’d go public with information about our ‘dalliance’—that was the word used. It went on to suggest that this would do irreparable harm to my bid for reelection.”

“It just might,” I thought aloud, spicing the comment with a dash of understatement, immediately wishing I’d kept the opinion to myself. “Do you have a copy of the note?”

My question was already answered, as Pierce was extracting something from the inside breast pocket of his jacket. He unfolded the single sheet of bond and handed it to me, explaining, “Carrol didn’t print this; Kerr did, downtown. Carrol didn’t even have a printer with him, which raises two questions to my advantage: If Carrol was going to blackmail me, why would he write an electronic note that he couldn’t print and deliver to me? And if I never saw the note—the hard copy wasn’t printed till after he died—what motive would I have to silence him?”

While Pierce spoke, I looked over the printout, finding the message to be exactly as he’d described it. The wording was terse and generic-sounding, using only the term
dalliance
to describe their sexual encounters, offering no details. The amount of money being demanded was not specified, nor was any deadline. The ostensible purpose of the note, extortion, was barely addressed; seemingly, its underlying purpose was simply to incriminate Pierce.

He continued, “Kerr found the message this morning, and because it implicated me, he took it directly to Kaiser—a tough call, but under the circumstances, I don’t blame him. This, of course, is what Kaiser wanted to tell me about, and in retrospect, I have to thank him for his discretion at lunch. Obviously, this’ll all come out—it’s part of the investigation. But at least I’ve got a bit of time to work on a strategy to deal with it.”

Handing the note back to him, I asked, “What’s your plan?”

He shook his head. “It’s hardly a ‘plan,’ more like ‘damage control’ I’m still thinking it through.”

“Talk it out. Maybe I can help.”

“First of all, Mark, do you
believe
me? I’m telling you plainly: Yes, I’m gay. Yes, I had sex with Carrol—three nights running, in fact. But no, he never even hinted at the threat of blackmail. And no, I certainly didn’t kill him.”

My answer didn’t require a moment’s thought. “Of course I believe you.”

He reacted with a decisive, satisfied nod—at least he had
that
resolved in his favor. “Now, then. If we assume that Carrol didn’t write the note, we can only conclude that someone else did. But who? And why?”

Though his questions were posed rhetorically, I answered, “Offhand, I’ve no idea who could have done it, but the motive seems clear—to cast suspicion away from himself. Whoever planted the note is probably the killer.”

“Right. That fits. Whoever strangled Carrol was there in the same room with the computer, so he had the
opportunity
to plant the note.”

By that point, I was scribbling a few notes of my own, trying to make sense of this new puzzle. I mentioned to Pierce, “The stilted wording of the extortion note is unconvincing—it just doesn’t sound as if it was written with knowledge of the situation’s intimate details.
Dalliance
—what kind of word is
that?
”

Pierce wondered aloud, “Is it French?” His features brightened.

“Might be,” I conceded, attuned to his reasoning. “But my point, Doug, is this: the person who wrote the note may have no direct knowledge that you actually slept with Carrol. I doubt that Carrol
bragged
about it to anyone local, and it’s even more unlikely that you were watched by a Peeping Tom. Whoever wrote the note may simply have reasoned that casting suspicion on you, however farfetched, would throw a wrench into your investigation.”

“That’s putting it mildly.” Pierce chuckled—his first show of humor since our conversation had turned heavy. With his tone considerably lightened, he said, “If the computer note can be proven a fake, and if its reference to our ‘dalliance’ was just a lucky guess, then I’m off the hook. There’s nothing to implicate me in the murder, and there’s nothing to ‘out’ me during the campaign.”

Closing my notepad, I knew that Pierce was right, but I was troubled. I could well understand his eagerness to quash any implication that he’d stoop to murder, but I was disappointed by his apparently equal eagerness to slip back into the closet and tug the door shut behind him. Granted, there are more opportune times to bare the truth about one’s sex life than during an election campaign, but I couldn’t help feeling—

“Mark,” Pierce interrupted my thoughts, having read my concerns from my silence, “you and I are both public figures, but we work in very different arenas. As a writer and now a publisher, you deal in the realm of words and ideas; ruthless honesty is your stock-in-trade. As sheriff, I’d better be honest, but I’m also a politician, and unfortunately, that’s a realm in which the acceptable scope of honesty is very narrow indeed. At the moment, sexual orientation is not included in that scope, and frankly, it’s nobody’s business. Here’s the bottom line: I’m convinced that Dumont County is better served by me as sheriff than it would be by Dan Kerr and the family-values crowd. And I’m far more likely to stay in office if the electorate isn’t forced to wrestle with the issue of whether they can stomach the notion of a gay sheriff.”

He was finished, and I could tell by his tone that he was annoyed. What I could not decipher, though, was the cause of his annoyance. Was it I, for having forced him to explain his view? Or was it the sad reality of his own pragmatism that nettled him?

“It’s your decision, Doug,” I told him quietly. “I’ll support you either way.”

He smiled and, almost imperceptibly, leaned toward me. I thought it was now he who was moving in for a hug, as I had been tempted to do earlier, but I’ll never know because it didn’t happen. Standing, he simply told me, “Thanks, Mark.”

I stood with him, twisting a crick from my back—the concrete slab where we’d been sitting had also left my butt numb. “What’s next?”

“As long as we’re here”—he gestured back up the street—“I’d like to talk to Grace Lord again. Care to join me?”

“Try to stop me.”

The afternoon sky darkened some as we walked the short distance from the vacant lot, and a light drizzle began falling again, adding a layer of translucent mist to the still, cool air. As neither of us had brought a raincoat, we quickened our pace to the house and up its driveway, taking cover under the roof of the back porch. Pierce knocked on the kitchen door. As we waited, I noticed that our sport coats had that faint, sweet smell of wet wool.

The storm door opened, and Grace Lord peered up at us through the screen. “Oh,” she squeaked, “good afternoon, Sheriff. Afternoon, Mark. Please, come in.” She swung the screen door wide for us.

“Thanks, Grace,” said Pierce, “but our feet are wet—wouldn’t want to track.”

“My floor’s due for a good mopping anyway.”

But Pierce shook his head. “This’ll only take a minute, Grace.”

So she joined us on the porch, huddling into the copious folds of a comfortable old cardigan she wore. “What can I do for you boys?” Her friendly tone turned momentarily serious: “You haven’t arrested the Frenchman, have you? My name really
will
be mud.”

“No,” Pierce assured her, “we’re still checking his alibi.”

She shook her head, tisking. “Bruno just
couldn’t
have done it. I know that he and Carrol were big rivals and all, but I can’t believe he’d stoop that low.”

“
Somebody
sure did,” I reminded her.

“You’re right about
that,
” she conceded. “I just hope you fellas can wrap this up quick. It’d be awful to have this still hangin’ when the show opens at The Nook on Saturday.”

“We’re doing our best,” said Pierce. “Do you have time for a few questions?”

“Anything to help, Sheriff. Shoot.”

He shoved his hands into his pants pockets, thinking. “I’d like to ask about anyone you happened to see around the coach house over the weekend.” He made no move to take notes, so neither did I, though the itch was hard to suppress.

Grace stepped to the edge of the porch and peered over the railing at the coach house, no more than ten yards away. The yellow police ribbons that now festooned the crime scene, combined with the lush red geraniums and bright green stairs, gave the place an oddly jolly look. Grace turned back to us with a quizzical expression. “We went over all that yesterday. Twice. There were lots of visitors to the coach house. I helped you make a list.”

“I know,” he said patiently, “but there’s been a new development, and it’s promising. Trouble is, of all the people on the list you gave us, there’s no one who matches all the criteria we’re looking for. Think hard, Grace. Is there anyone you might have overlooked?”

She glanced back at the coach house. When her gaze returned to us, she was biting her lip, wrinkling her brow—it was an almost comically cliché expression that said she was hiding something.

I asked, “Is there something you haven’t told us?”

Pierce added, “It’s important, Grace. If there was someone at the coach house, someone you haven’t told us about—please, we need to know.”

She wrung her hands, glancing from side to side at nothing in particular. Then, overcoming her reluctance, she told Pierce, “Well,
you
were there, Sheriff.”

He froze. I said to Grace, “Sunday afternoon, during the investigation?”

Frustrated, not knowing how far she should take this, she waffled, “Well,
sure.
But,
no.
I
mean:
I saw the sheriff visit Carrol several times. He came at night, and I saw him leave early each morning.”

Pierce managed to stay remarkably unruffled by this disclosure. Maintaining his professional tone, he asked, “Why didn’t you mention this yesterday?”

Groping mutely for an explanation, at last she blurted, “Because I didn’t think you’d
want
me to mention it. This probably won’t set too well with certain people.”

No, it certainly wouldn’t. Pierce briefly pronged his fingers to his forehead, as if staving off a headache. He told her, “Thank you, Grace. I appreciate your concern for the delicacy of the situation, but we need to know everything. It’s easier to solve a puzzle when you have all the pieces. We need everything out in the open.”

It was a brave little speech—he’d handled himself better than I would have under the circumstances. His hopes of neatly dispatching the matter of the bogus extortion note had just vanished, as there was now an eyewitness (a highly credible one, at that) placing him at the crime scene on the morning of the murder, consistent with Deputy Dan’s discovery of the computer file. Chances are, even as Pierce spoke, he saw his career in law enforcement swirling down an imaginary drain, replete with gurgles and a final belch from the plumbing.

After an awkward pause—even the birds stopped yattering—Grace asked, “Is there, uh, anything else?”

“No, Grace. Again, thanks for your time. Thanks for the information.”

Nodding an uncertain farewell to both of us, she retreated into the kitchen and softly closed the door.