Red Herring (4 page)

She paused at the entrance of the kitchen area. “You want some chamomile?”

“With a good slug of maple syrup and a lot of that vanilla sweetener?” he countered. “You bet.”

Lyn made a face and set to work, still visible across the counter separating the two rooms. “I saw your girlfriend on the news tonight,” she said, her back turned. “Couldn’t hear what she was saying over the noise, but she looked like she was getting ready to lead the nation. You think she has ambitions that big?”

Joe craned his neck to better study the set of her shoulders, but saw nothing obvious. The reference was to Gail Zigman, who had been Joe’s lover for many years, some time ago. She’d been a state senator when they’d broken up, already living part-time in Montpelier, and was now running for governor, head-to-head against the incumbent, James Reynolds. By Vermont standards, which were pretty tame, it had been a bruising campaign, with a grueling primary race between the usual half-dozen disorganized Democrats,
and now it seemed Jim Reynolds and the Republicans—unbloodied, fresh, and eager—were ready to hunt for bear.

“I don’t know,” he answered blandly. “We never discussed it. And she’s my ex-girlfriend.”

At that, Lyn turned and gave him a big smile. “I know. I’m just busting your chops. Can you talk about the case?”

He allowed the subject to pass, although he doubted she was as lighthearted as she pretended. He knew she was sensitive to being not only the replacement of a decades-long, erstwhile companion, but one who was currently the most talked about woman in the state.

“I can, but I don’t have much more than the paper will tomorrow. Fifty-four-year-old woman found murdered in her own home, seemingly a rape/homicide. She lived alone, had no relationships going, and doted on her mother who’s in a retirement home.”

Lyn leaned on the countertop, having put the kettle on the stove. “That’s horrible. Someone raped her?”

“Maybe,” he conceded. “That’s the way we’re playing it for the moment. A neighbor called it in and had already begun spreading the word far and wide based on what he saw through the window, which suggested a rape, so there wasn’t much left for us to put a lid on once we got there.”

He shook his head in wonder. “I suppose I should be grateful that people call 911 at all, instead of just starting with the paper. We’d barely begun when the first reporter showed up, and by the time we planted a guard on the house for the night and headed out, there was already a TV truck from Burlington camped out on the lawn.”

Lyn was looking confused. “So was she raped or not?”

“Maybe. It looks like it at first glance, but some relevant details are missing. The ME’ll tell us for sure.”

“What was her name?”

“Doreen Ferenc. Worked for McNaughton Trucking till recently. Lived on the Back Westminster Road.”

Lyn snorted and set back to work. “Wherever that is. You woodchucks have the weirdest names for roads around here.”

“Speaking of woodchucks,” he asked, “how was work tonight?”

The bar was named Silva’s, in honor of Lyn’s late father, and was the current hot spot on Elliot Street, an honor it had held for over a year by now.

The kettle began whistling, so she killed the flame and began fixing two mugs of tea, not that there was much of that in Joe’s mug by the end.

“Same ol’, same ol’,” she reported, entering the living room, handing over his milky-colored, sweetened concoction and sitting down opposite him. “We didn’t have to call on any of Bratt’s finest, which always works for me, and the band did a good job.”

She took a sip, watching him over the rim of her mug, and then asked, “No idea who did it?”

He shook his head. “Not a clue. That’s what we’ve been doing most of the day, digging into her background, trying to find something to pin down, or someone. But all we’ve found so far is a completely regular human being who seems to have led a completely regular life—at least for her.”

“What’s that mean?”

He tapped the surface of the legal pad he’d been working on when she’d entered. “She made her choices—stuck with one job, seems to have opted for no sex life, dedicated herself to her mother’s
care, and spent her leisure time happily cooking, traveling, and taking pictures.”

“No sex life?” Lyn asked. “That’s unusual. Doesn’t that make the way she died a little ironic?”

He stared into middle space, having heard that reaction before. “On the surface, unless it actually means something.”

Lyn didn’t respond. That was one of the qualities Joe liked about her: She knew when to ask questions and when to just let him think. She was a pragmatist generally, having handled her share of turmoil while still just shy of official middle age. Divorced, she had an adult daughter, one marginally functioning brother with a criminal record, and a mother who sat all day watching TV. Another brother and her father had been murdered by smugglers in Maine. Lyn Silva had earned her survivor merit badge.

For the moment, though, he was considering none of that. “We always tend to emphasize the who-what-where-when-how in these cases. I’m just wondering if ‘why’ isn’t going to be carrying the most weight this time.”

“Why the rape, or why the killing?”

“Yeah,” he answered. “Course, I’m probably getting ahead of myself. The one person we haven’t talked to yet is likely to shed some light.” He raised his eyebrows at her. “Chuck McNaughton inherited Doreen when he inherited the business from his father. Certainly Willy’s thinking there might be something interesting there, given that she was personal secretary to both of them.”

Lyn made a face. She was no more fond of Willy than most people. “What do you want to bet it just proves he’s a smart businessman, keeping the one person who really knows how the company works. You said it was a trucking firm?”

“Yup,” he said. Lyn had only been in Brattleboro a little over a year, and was still so immersed in creating her own business that she barely knew who was who in town, much less the bigwigs operating just across the river.

“Why did you hold off on talking with Chuck?” Lyn asked. “He go AWOL?”

Joe smiled and checked his watch. “He’s most likely in bed. He was out of town, due back tonight. I asked Sam to intercept him at the airport, hoping she’ll get to him before he catches wind, although I doubt we’ll get that lucky. She’ll let us know in a few hours at the office.”

“You going in early?” Lyn asked, already knowing the answer.

He smiled at her. “In four hours. You should’ve gone home tonight, instead of coming here.”

She put her tea down, got up, and came over to give him a long, seductive, chamomile-scented kiss. “Not on your life. I’m here to make sure you go to sleep with pleasant dreams . . .”

In fact, Charles “Chuck” McNaughton was not in bed. His company’s Falcon jet was taxiing off the Keene, New Hampshire, municipal runway, heading toward their private hangar.

Where, unbeknownst to him, Sammie Martens, the fourth and last member of Joe’s small Brattleboro team, was waiting for him.

Standing just inside the hangar’s yawning open door, between the frozen black night and the heated, glaring cavern of metal trusses and walls behind her, she watched the jet roll toward the hangar’s embrace. Unlike in Brattleboro, the falling snow had moved on, leaving behind an inky void overhead.

She’d spent the afternoon researching Chuck McNaughton, prepping
for her interview of him, before discovering that he wasn’t available. He’d been running the company for six years, about half of them with Doreen in the front office. That was a significant detail, given what Sam had heard of Doreen’s prowess and Chuck’s limitations. He was better on the back of a motorcycle, or at the controls of his boat, or his ATV, or his various snow machines, or simply flying around the country. Sometimes, if rarely, he even hung out with his wife and two kids.

He was not an idiot, she’d been told in discreet conversations, and perhaps even a chip off the old block. But he was untested so far, first overshadowed by his late powerhouse father, and then by Doreen’s complete if carefully muted competence.

He was also sleeping with Dory’s replacement, according to the scuttlebutt, which had added that the girl had better be good in bed, because she sure wasn’t much at a desk.

Did that mean that he’d enjoyed such an arrangement with Doreen? Interestingly, Sam’s informant hadn’t rejected the idea outright, but had conceded that if so, discretion had been absolute. Dory had been a good-looking woman, though, Sam had been told. Whatever that meant . . .

Like a sci-fi movie set designer’s vision, the jet slid into the hangar, shimmering, clean, and muscular. Sam waited for it to coast to a stop, the enormous doors to rumble shut, and finally for the plane’s side door to split away from its skin and metamorphose into a stairway. Only then did she push away from her station and stroll up to where she stood near the bottom step.

The hangar attendant, to whom she’d introduced herself an hour earlier, eyed her warily.

“You gonna arrest him?” he’d asked her at the time.

“Should I?” she’d countered.

He hadn’t spoken to her since, preferring to sweep the floor until she thought the concrete might start peeling. She’d understood the guy had been here for hours already, waiting for the plane, which had been delayed by the bad weather.

There was movement at the top of the stairs, and Sam looked up to see a young man in a blazer stick his head out the door and ask the hangar man, “Car ready?”

“Yeah, but . . .” The man merely pointed at Sam.

Blazer stared at her. “I help you?”

She showed him her badge. “Depends.”

He scowled a moment, muttered, “Shit,” and disappeared back inside.

A minute later a broad-shouldered, athletic-looking man with the start of a thickening waist and a toothpaste-ad smile stepped onto the top step as if he’d just been summoned onstage.

“Hey there, officer. I come in too fast?”

She waited for him to reach her level before she showed the badge again and asked, “Chuck McNaughton?”

The smile stayed in place. “I sure ain’t the pilot.”

“Special Agent Samantha Martens—Vermont Bureau of Investigation. I’d like to have a few words with you.”

He made a great show of flashing a Rolex wristwatch and announced, “Three
A.M.
I don’t guess we’re talking parking tickets.”

“No, sir. Is there somewhere more private?”

“You can use the office,” the hangar man volunteered, making them both turn toward him.

McNaughton laughed and raised a single eyebrow at Sam. “I don’t think so. How ’bout back in the plane? I can throw everyone out. This won’t take long, right?”

“Probably not,” she conceded.

The plane’s interior was just as she’d expected—both stylish and antiseptic, as if stuck between individual luxury and the practical knowledge that each owner might have to sell out to his successor at a moment’s notice. In that way, she was reminded of a rented limo’s air of nervous impermanence.

She even noticed that the company logo had been Velcro’d onto the fabric-covered bulkhead between the cabin and the cockpit.

McNaughton called out toward the front of the aircraft, “Hey, guys? We need a little privacy back here. Could you give us a few minutes?”

“Yes, sir,” came the response, along with the metallic slap of the door.

Sam’s host waved her to one of the cabin’s leather chairs. “Sorry I can’t offer you anything. They sort of button everything down after we land.”

She sat down at the same time he did, opening her coat to the cabin’s lingering heat. “Mr. McNaughton . . .”

“Chuck,” he said, still smiling. “I insist.”

“Mr. McNaughton,” she repeated, “we were told you just came in from Oklahoma City, is that right?”

He did his thing with the one eyebrow again. “Yup. Is there something wrong with that?”

“We don’t know,” she answered. “What were you doing there?”

“Attending a trucking convention, which I’m pretty sure you know.”

“You were alone?”

He gestured to their surroundings. “You know I wasn’t.” He checked the big watch again and stood back up. “You also seem to think you know some other things you’re not telling me, in real Eliot Ness style. That’s cute, by the way, and I guess it works for you most of the time, but it’s late and I’m tired and I’m not nuts about your attitude . . .”

“Doreen Ferenc was found murdered in her home this morning,”
Sam interrupted him, adding, “I guess yesterday morning, actually. Did you know anything about that?”

McNaughton, his face suddenly drained of color, sank back down into his chair, his hands between his knees. “Fuck,” he muttered.

“You hadn’t heard?” she asked.

He shook his head, staring at her. “And that’s one hell of a way to find out. You guys always this good? No wonder people hate cops.”

“Miss Ferenc worked for you for a long time, and your father before you.”

McNaughton sat back and studied her, shaking his head. “You’re amazing, you know that? What did you say your name was?”

“Samantha Martens.” Sam knew that she’d chosen the wrong approach, colored as it had been by her own prejudice. She considered the man a leech and a cheat, riding other people’s coattails and abusing those around him. But she’d dealt with far worse more subtly before, and was kicking herself now for dropping the ball.

Still, she was headstrong by nature, and instead of trying to remedy the situation, merely stared at him now. Dealing one-on-one with self-confident men wasn’t her strength, as a long string of failed relationships had established. And the fact that she was currently involved with Willy Kunkle, of all choices, seemed only to prove her shortcomings.

She stifled a frustrated sigh.

“Doreen Ferenc,” McNaughton was saying, “was the best, most loyal employee our company has ever had, which includes me and my father.” He now sat forward, his face reddening with growing anger. “And now that you’ve dropped out of the blue and done the worst job I’ve ever heard of breaking the news of her murder, I think you owe me an explanation.”

For a split moment Sam weighed her options—a military-style
“don’t explain, don’t say you’re sorry,” a simple cut-and-run retreat, or something more out of Joe Gunther’s playbook. Joe had been her mentor for her entire career, using an ever-changing recipe of human emotions to open people up. He had more than once urged her to exchange her academy-taught, statistically supported, psychologist-vetted approach for something more dependent on the other guy’s emotions, but she’d too often found it to be a no-man’s-land of pitfalls and mistakes.