The Snow White Christmas Cookie (23 page)

“Girl, you haven’t lost your edge,” Yolie said to Des admiringly.

“What edge?” Grisky asked.

“The Resident Trooper told us last night that Josie smelled wrong.”

“She never served any time,” Toni pointed out. “Just got slaps on the wrist. I spoke to an old-timer on the Lewiston PD who remembers her. He told me she’d been out on the streets, hooking and using drugs, ever since she was sixteen. But that she was a smart, scrappy kid who cleaned up her act. She even enrolled at Bates College. Studied there for one semester, according to her transcripts. Then she left town one day and was never heard from again. According to her Social Security records, she relocated to Castine, home to the Maine Maritime Academy, where she worked as a waitress and chambermaid at the Castine Inn. She lived on the premises until 2005 when she filed for a change of address to the home of one James Allen Miller—better known as J.A. Miller, the author of a series of bestselling science fiction novels featuring someone called Torbor the Reclaimer. Do we have any sci-fi fans in the house? No? Anyway, Josie was twenty-four at the time. Miller, age fifty-six, was a widower with two children who were both older than Josie. I spoke to someone on the local PD. It seems that Miller used to eat dinner at the Castine Inn every night. He and Josie struck up an acquaintanceship and eventually it led to something more. He taught marine systems engineering at the academy before he became a bestselling author and bought himself the historic waterfront home that he invited Josie to share with him.” Toni paused to gulp down some coffee. “James Allen Miller died of an overdose of the prescription sleep aid Ambien in 2007. A therapist had been treating him for anxiety-related depression. They closed it out as a suicide.”

“Damn, this is starting to sound familiar,” Yolie said. “Did the local PD have any reason to suspect it
wasn’t
suicide?”

“None. Miller was seeing a therapist, like I said. Had been increasingly despondent in the days leading up to his death, and he left a suicide note.”

“What did it say?” asked Des.

“It said, ‘
Forgive me, Torbor
.’ But guess what Miller did two weeks before he died: He changed his will. Left his waterfront home to Josie instead of to his two kids.”

Des shoved her heavy horn-rimmed glasses up her nose. “God, maybe she
is
a black widow.”

“What’s a black widow?” Sam Questa wanted to know.

“An attractive young woman who snags rich, lonely men, picks them clean and kills them before she moves on.”

“I never heard of one of those,” The Aardvark said.

“Maybe they only exist in the movies,” Des conceded.

“Maybe not,” Yolie said.

“Miller was well liked in Castine. Josie was regarded as a scheming little tramp. His children contested the will. Threatened to fight her in court if they had to. She accepted a cash settlement of $100,000 and left town.” Toni glanced down at her notes again. “She shows up briefly on our radar screen next in Portland, Maine, then in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she rented an apartment for a few months before she moved to New Haven. When she got to New Haven she enrolled in an online life-coach program. After that she rented a cottage here in Dorset, set up her practice and eventually met Bryce Peck. You know the rest.”

“That’s good work, Sergeant,” Yolie said.

“Real good,” echoed Grisky. “Aside from the fact that we
don’t
know the rest. Is she or isn’t she responsible for the deaths of Bryce Peck and Hank Merrill?”

“And what, if anything, does she have to do with our stolen mail?” Questa wondered.

“Maybe she and Hank were in on it together,” Des said. “The two of them had mutual interests. Hank had serious money problems. And Josie needed drugs—the drugs that she used to kill Bryce. We know that she’s a clever girl. Clever enough to cook up this grinch smoke screen. Clever enough to persuade Hank to steal for her by promising him that when she got hold of Bryce’s house she’d bail him out with his ex-wife.”

“That plays pretty sweet,” Grisky said. “Keep talking.”

“When the grinch thing started setting off alarm bells Josie went proactive. First, she took care of Bryce the same way she took care of J.A. Miller in Castine. Then, last night, she eliminated Hank because he was the one man, the only man, who could link her to Bryce’s death.”

“It was a two-person job,” Toni pointed out. “Who helped her?”

“Casey Zander, who else? That’s why she’s been sleeping with him. She’s got Casey wrapped around her little finger. He’d do anything for her—including help her do away with his own mother’s boyfriend.”

“I’m liking this more and more,” Grisky said. “We’d better make sure baad Josie doesn’t leave town.”

“She’s not going anywhere,” Des assured him. “Bryce’s half-brother, Preston, is on his way here from Chicago to contest Bryce’s will. Odds are she’ll accept a financial settlement just like she did in Castine. But she’ll stay put until then.”

Grisky turned his attention to Yolie. “Please tell me you’ve come up with some forensics that actually tie her to these deaths.”

“The M.E.’s office fast-tracked Bryce Peck’s autopsy,” she responded. “Bearing in mind that it takes them longer to find what they
aren’t
looking for than what they
are,
the toxicology so far confirms that it went down exactly as it appeared—Bryce washed down massive doses of Vicodin, Xanax and Ambien with a bottle of tequila. They’ve found no bruising. His skin and fingernails have yielded nothing. It still looks like a straight suicide.”

Grisky frowned at her. “Then how’d she do it?”

“Maybe she forced him to swallow the pills at gunpoint,” Des suggested. “There’s a .38 in the mix, remember?”

“Maybe,” Grisky allowed. “But good luck proving that. How about the Kinney Road crime scene, Lieutenant? You find the missing bourbon bottle?”

“I’ve had eight trainees digging through the snowbanks around that parking lot for six solid hours. And more men searching the woods seventy-five feet in every direction just in case Hank got out of the car and heaved it. So far we haven’t found so much as a shard of broken glass. There are no fingerprints on Hank’s cell phone. No partials or smears, no nothing. It was wiped clean. We tracked the so-called suicide text message that he sent to Paulette Zander. It did originate from that locale on Kinney Road. And when Paulette received it she was in the vicinity of her home on Grassy Hill Road.”

“She told me she was downstairs doing laundry,” Des said. “Didn’t notice she’d gotten it until a few minutes later.”

“We had troopers canvass her neighbors up and down Grassy Hill Road. A woman who lives across the street, two houses down, said she saw Hank’s Passat go out at about 5:30, which confirms what Paulette Zander told Master Sergeant Mitry. He headed off in the direction of Frederick Lane, which would be the way he’d go if his destination was Kinney Road. She also saw Casey’s Toyota Tacoma go out an hour or so later. Casey went the opposite way—toward the Old Boston Post Road, which is where the Rustic Inn is located.”

“Could the neighbor confirm that Hank was alone in his car?” Des asked.

Yolie shook her head. “Couldn’t even confirm that it was Hank behind the wheel. Just Hank’s car. Same goes for Casey’s Tacoma.”

Grisky frowned at Des. “Where the hell are you going with this?”

“Just playing out the what-ifs.”

“We can’t build a case on what-ifs,” he said pointedly.

“My bad, Agent Grisky. Next time I have a question I’ll raise my hand. Will that make you happy?”

“
Results
will make me happy,” he barked, swiveling his jarhead back to Yolie. “Did you get anything from Hank Merrill’s autopsy?”

She glanced down at her notepad. “The M.E. confirmed that the cylindrical bruise on his forehead is a dead-nuts match for the nose of a Smith and Wesson .38 Special. Hank didn’t have a permit for any such weapon. No handgun permit at all. But he did have a coworker who owns one. A carrier at the Dorset Post Office named Abe Monahan.”

“Monahan, Monahan…” Sam Questa leafed through his own notes. “Here we are: Abe’s been at the Dorset branch for seven years. His wife’s a Realtor with Coldwell Banker. They have two kids, ages ten and twelve. Own a home on Bittersweet Lane. Abe keeps the .38 Special on a shelf in his bedroom closet.”

“How in the hell do you know that?” Grisky asked him.

“After Lieutenant Snipes mentioned the bruise this morning, I instructed my people to ask each and every employee if they own a .38 Special.” Questa’s eyes hardened at him. “Like I told you—we’re professionals.”

“We’d better take a good look at this Abe Monahan,” Grisky said.

“He’s in Boca Raton with his family,” Questa said. “Has been for the past three days. We had to interview him by phone. It was a planned vacation. He bought the travel package two months ago.”

“His neighbor on Bittersweet has a key to the house,” Yolie reported. “She let us in so we could determine if his .38 Special was still in his bedroom closet—which it was. There’s always a chance it was removed and then put back, so we’re having our people examine it for prints and skin residue.”

“Do we know if anyone has been inside of that house since the Monahans left for Boca?” Des asked.

“Yeah, we do.” Questa stuck out his lower lip as he scanned his notes. “A lady who cleans for them once a week—Tina Champlain.”

Grisky looked at Des curiously. “Is she related to Lem Champlain?”

“She’s his wife. Hmm…”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Des smiled at him sweetly. “Not a thing, Agent.”

“The .38 Special’s a common weapon,” Yolie pointed out. “Someone else who Hank knew could have purchased one illegally.”

“Or someone who he
didn’t
know,” Toni said.

“Could be,” Yolie acknowledged.

“
Could be
won’t get me to Cancún,” Grisky huffed. “That’s not good enough. The ball’s yours, Inspector Questa. What have
you
got?”

Questa took another bite of his sandwich, chewing on it thoughtfully. “A very well-run branch office of the U.S. Postal Service. The building security is excellent. The keypad code has been updated according to proper procedure. All keys to the deadbolts are accounted for. All vehicle keys and scanners are stored overnight in the safe. Only Postmaster Zander and her senior clerk know the combination to the safe. The U.S. Postal Service isn’t perfect. We encounter branches that are sloppily run. Branches where the employees take liberties. This isn’t one of those. Postmaster Zander’s people respect the job and they respect her. These are all first-rate employees—with the possible exception of that son of hers, Casey, who comes across like a bit of a whiner.”

“Only because he is one,” Des said.

“Bottom line? The only blemish on Postmaster Zander’s record is that she didn’t report these mailbox thefts to us in a timely fashion. But I think it’s obvious to everyone at this table why she didn’t. We’re continuing to explore every possible avenue. Delving into the bank records and spending patterns of every driver, loader and clerk in Norwich who comes in contact with the Dorset-bound trucks. My opinion? We won’t turn up a thing. It looks to me like Postmaster Zander’s boyfriend, Hank Merrill, by all accounts an otherwise decent guy, got into financial trouble with his ex-wife and resorted to stealing his own mail in order to pay her back. When he realized he was going to be subjected to the public humiliation of a criminal investigation he decided to take his own life.”

“Makes sense,” Yolie said. “Except we’re positive he
didn’t
take his own life.”

Questa nodded his huge head. “Which means we’re back to looking at Josie Cantro, his alleged partner in crime. She killed him and tried to make it look like a suicide. That’s the only way it makes sense to me.”

Grisky turned to The Aardvark now. “Do you have anything new? Please, God, say yes.”

“I have a name,” he answered, slurping loudly from his coffee container. “Richard Paul Fontanella, age fifty-four. Better known as Slick Rick.”

“He deals in black-market meds?” Grisky asked.

“Not exactly. He’s a bookie and loan shark.” The Aardvark passed around copies of a surveillance photo of the man getting out of a silver Cadillac Coupe de Ville. Slick Rick had gray hair and wore a Kangol cap. “He operates out of a dozen or so bars, clubs, and VFW halls in Southeastern Connecticut under the protection of the Castagnos. Not a big player, but a good, steady earner. As I mentioned this morning, the black-market meds gang that we took down in Bridgeport was operating under the protection of the Castagnos, too. There are still plenty of those bastards out there doing their thing. And, according to our contacts, there’s a direct link between them and Slick Rick.”

“What kind of a link?” Grisky asked.

“Slick Rick has a muscle man who goes everywhere with him just in case anyone needs to be persuaded to pay up. A fellow who grew up here in Dorset by the name of Thomas Burke Stratton, better known as—”

“Tommy the Pinhead,” Des said, nodding.

“You know him?” he asked her.

“We’ve tussled. He’s a local lout. Low-level muscle, like you said.”

“He also does a spot of pimping on the side,” The Aardvark said. “Runs a girl named Gigi Garanski who has herself a serious heroin habit. Tommy keeps Gigi supplied with smack in exchange for which she does guys out of a motel called the Yankee Doodle Motor Court. But it’s not just a business arrangement between these two. This is a truly heartwarming love story. They live together and everything. Most days and nights, Gigi can be found at a bar on the Old Boston Post Road called the Rustic Inn. The Rustic’s owner, Steve Starkey, lets Slick Rick set up shop there two afternoons a week in exchange for a sweet discount on his beer from the regional distributor, which happens to be owned by the Castagnos. If anyone falls behind to Slick Rick, Tommy the Pinhead takes a mighty dim view of it. We know that Tommy’s supplying Gigi with heroin. That means he has drug contacts. We also know that Hank Merrill used to drop in at the Rustic from time to time. So put two and two together. If Hank was stealing prescription meds from his postal route then it stands to reason that his local buyer was Slick Rick and/or Tommy.”