Three Can Keep a Secret (21 page)

Joe moved on. "What did you do then?
"

"
Snuck up behind him and whacked him.
"

"
With what?"

"I don't know. Some heavy statuelike thing I grabbed off the hallway table when I went in. I put it back when I ran out with the box."

Joe shook his head despite himself, thinking of the multiple errors. No one had even glanced at the marble figurine still sitting on the side table, not thinking that Reynolds might have done something so spontaneous to begin with, and so orderly afterwards. And he could hardly believe that Lester hadn't double-checked the apartment
—
except that it was all too human a mistake.

"You grabbed the whole box?" he sought to confirm.

"After that, I did, sure," Travis admitted. "I wasn't about to hang around with him on the floor."

"Yeah," Joe concurred. "But what exactly had the man told you to take?"

"A pin. A round one, like they wear on a lapel. You know, like those little American flags politicians have. But it was dark purple and had two gold letter C's on it."

"He tell you what they stood for?"

"The C-C?" Travis asked. "Nope
—
no clue. But I found it in the box later, after I got away."

"What about the picture?" Joe asked. "You said he wanted that, too."

"Yeah. I grabbed it," he said. "It was pretty small. Not much to look at."

"Describe it."

Reynolds shrugged. "Like I said, small. Black-and-white. The frame was kinda cheap. It was just a group of people."

"Recognize anyone?"

"Nah."

"Tell me about it," Joe urged him.

He looked faintly irritated. "I don't know
—
bunch of old people. Well, old people now, I guess. It was an old picture
—
the clothes, the hair
—
you could tell."

"How many?"

"Five, maybe?" he answered. "Men and women. It wasn't great. Looked like a party snapshot to me. They were drinking, lifting their glasses. That kinda stuff."

Joe stood up. "Hang on a sec."

He stepped outside to retrieve his case, which he brought back with him, sitting down to rummage through several folders he had within it. He extracted a single photograph and laid it before Travis.

"This one of the people?" he asked, pointing to a copy of the picture of Marshall posing alongside Carolyn Barber in the Governor-for-a-Day shot.

"That's two of them," Travis confirmed.

"You're sure?" Joe asked.

"Yup. I remember her 'cause she was pretty, even for an old picture, and him because there were other shots of him around the room."

"And there were two or three others?"

"Yeah. At least one more woman
—
not much to look at
—
and a couple of dudes. So, yeah
—
I guess that does make three. I wouldn't know the other ones, though. Like I said. I just noticed these two 'cause of what I said
—
they kinda caught my eye."

"Like you said," Joe echoed quietly. He replaced the photograph thoughtfully. "Go back to the files that were missing. What were you told to steal, had they been there?"

"Everything in the
C
section. I didn't like that part, since I didn't have anything to carry them in, so I was just as happy they were missing."

"Tell me what happened after you lost the cop who was running after you," Joe said.

"I went back to the Dumpster and picked up the rest of the money."

Joe straightened. "It was already there? The missing halves?"

"Yup. Just like he said. I left the picture, the clothes, and the box
—
after I looked into it to make sure the pin was there, which it was.
"

"
Then what?"

"Then I walked outta there," Travis said.

"You didn't drive there in the first place?"

"Nah. That's not how I work. Never leave the car near the hit
—
that's what I say. Makes for a slower getaway, but a cleaner one. Admit it," he said cheerfully, his eyes bright. "You never would've found me if I hadn't bumped into that cop, right?"

Joe shook his head sadly. "Wrong, genius. We never would've found you if you hadn't taken off. That cop had no idea who you were. It was your running away that he recognized. You forget you had a stocking on when you clubbed him?"

Travis stared. "Oh, shit. You're kidding me. Really?"

"Why were you wearing that anyhow?" Joe asked. "If you didn't expect to meet anybody?"

"It's my trademark," he said. "I never work without it." He sighed and slumped in his chair. "I can't believe I forgot that."

Joe let him stew while he reviewed what they'd discussed. "You said that the man called you," he said then. "How was that? You have a cell phone?"

"Sure. You guys took it when you busted me.

"That a disposable phone or a regular cell?" Joe asked.

"Nah. It's a regular one. I finally splurged."

Joe smiled. That meant that they might be able to trace its incoming calls.

"And he didn't say how he got your name?"

"Nope."

"You have any guesses about that?" Travis hitched a shoulder. "I know a lotta people. Coulda been anybody." That, Joe thought, was unfortunately true. "He didn't introduce himself?
"

"
Nope."

"How 'bout later?" Joe asked. "After he found out that the files were missing. He must've called you back for an explanation."

"Yeah, he did," Travis said. "But he didn't seem to care once I told him. He just heard what I said and hung up. He sounded funny, but he didn't say any more."

"How do you mean, 'funny'?"

"Different, you know? Like he had a cold or something."

Joe frowned as he considered another possibility. "A cold?" he then asked. "Or maybe wasn't the same guy?"

Travis nodded receptively. "Oh, yeah. That would work. It wasn't a great connection
—
like a bad cell phone. But sure. It mighta been somebody else. I didn't think of that, 'cause we were talking about the same thing. But that would explain it."

Glad it explained something to you, Joe thought.

He met Lester outside, who immediately said, "I was listening from next door. I've already started the paperwork to get into his phone. Who do you think it'll be?"

Joe shook his head. "Damned if I know at this point. Someone who's clearly hoping to erase the past, along with Carolyn Barber's role in it."

Lester looked at him steadily before he asked, "You think she's dead, don't you?"

Joe's own cell phone went off as he replied, "I wouldn't be surprised. If I were some of these people, I wouldn't want her alive with her name plastered all over the state." He hit the answer button without looking at the screen. "Gunther."

"It's Beverly."

He broke into a broad smile and moved away from his colleague, crossing to an adjacent office. "Hey, there. How're you doing?"

"Actually, pretty well," she answered in her precise language. "I've discovered something I think you'll find valuable."

"Okay," he said. "I'm all ears."

"Following our last conversation," she told him, "I returned to the two house fire victims from Shelburne. I couldn't let it go."

He nodded appreciatively at the phone. "God, you are good."

She responded, "I don't know about that, but I like to be thorough. As you know, I was troubled by my inconclusive findings concerning Mr. Friel. So I tried a few things that lie just a bit outside the protocols."

"Yes . . . ," he encouraged her.

"Well, one of the by-products of the fire was that his heart suffered from charring and shrinkage, as did the rest of his body. I therefore took several of his major organs and analyzed them more carefully, including the heart, which I rehydrated so that it would return
—
at least in part
—
to its original dimensions. It was far from perfect, of course, but it was an improvement over what I'd first analyzed."

"You did find that bullet," he stated, now only half joking.

This time, she remained serious. "Not quite. It was a hemorrhagic wound track."

He tightened his grip on the phone. "A knife wound?"

"More like a skewer," she answered, "as in a shish kebab. I was thinking of an ice pick, except that those have become virtual antiques by now."

"You're sure?" he asked. "I mean, enough that you'll be amending the death certificate?"

"Oh, yes. That's why I wanted to tell you first."

"You are something else, Beverly. Nicely done."

"You're very welcome, Joe. My pleasure."

He snapped the phone shut and returned to where Spinney was filling out paperwork.

"Good news?" Les asked at his boss's expression.

"Depends on who you are, I guess," Joe said. "Hillstrom just figured out that William Friel was stabbed in the heart."

The entire squad was back in Brattleboro, for their first staff meeting in days. They'd been dropping by individually, to catch up on paperwork and collect messages, but it felt odd to have them all in the same room again.

"It's been a bit of a grind," Joe told them from his spot of preference, sitting on the windowsill. "But we're making headway, and I thought we should compare notes face-to-face. Willy, let's start with you and Rozanski."

"Nothing to tell," Willy reported with predictable brevity.

"Aside from what you will tell us," Joe responded pleasantly and without hesitation.

Willy, feet propped on his desk, sighed. "No runs, no fouls, no errors," he said wearily. "Herb Rozanski is alive and well, if a little mangled, and living under a legal alias in Burlington. He and his brother, Nate
—
also alive and a hermit in the Kingdom
—
agree that they had a fight and that their dad covered it up by pretending Herb got killed. Was it against the law? Yeah, but the old man's dead, and nobody gives a damn, so I'm declaring the case closed." He waited for a reaction before adding, "Unless there's an objection."

Everyone knew better, and Joe also knew that Willy's report would be complete and properly filed, if it hadn't been already. Despite his unregimented demeanor, Willy was maniacal about tending to details.

Joe therefore let the subject slide. "Good. Now to the swamp pit that's been swallowing the rest of us. To begin with
—
right or wrong
—
we thought we had a missing state hospital patient, an ex-politician dead of natural causes, and two people killed by an accidental house fire in Shelburne. Some of us have been pursuing different aspects of these three cases, but since it's become pretty clear that they're all cross-connected and a whole lot more complicated, I'm thinking that from here on, we better treat everything as a single unit, just to be on the safe side."

He held up the photograph of Carolyn Barber and Gorden Marshall on her big day, decades ago. "This, for instance, shows two of our major players, back in the '60s. There is no way in hell that her disappearance and Marshall's suspected murder don't overlap."

"Like as part of the Catamount Cavaliers?" Willy suggested, adding, "I been reading the reports."

"Perfect example," Joe agreed.

"How solid are we on Marshall being a homicide?" Lester asked. "I know Hillstrom found a stab wound in Friel, but are we still relying on Marshall's damaged upper lip as our only proof of foul play?"

"You got circumstantial stuff, too," Sammie contributed.

Joe pointed to her and nodded. "Right. It's not bulletproof, but somebody made an effort to stop us from reaching back into Marshall's history."

"There's no downside to working him as a homicide," Willy said generally.

"Speaking of Marshall," Joe said. "Did we get anything more out of his phone records?"

"Not much more than what I told you," Lester said. "There was a reporter from the old days who told me they just reminisced. The guy said he was writing a history book and found Marshall to be pretty useless.

And there was a call from an outfit named Scott and Company. Sheldon Scott is a conservative lobbyist who used to be buddy-buddy with Marshall way back when, but from what they told me, it wasn't Scott who phoned."

"Who was it?" Willy asked.

"They didn't know and couldn't track it
—
or wouldn't
—
but Scott himself was out of town."

"It still may not be a dead end," Sammie said.

"The phone records?" Joe asked. "Or Scott and Company?"

"Either. The
messages
on his machine were erased. To me, that sounds like it wasn't 'who' that was being covered up, but 'what' that person said."

"What do you think was in the files from Marshall's desk?" Willy asked. "There doesn't seem to have been much follow-up about them."

"Probably related to the Catamount Cavaliers," Joe stated, "but no way of knowing."

"Except," Willy pursued, "that Travis Reynolds said they were already missing, which means they were probably taken at the time Marshall was snuffed. The rest
—
the picture and the lapel pin and the phone messages
—
happened later."

"The killer forgot the other stuff?" Lester asked. "Or he was interrupted?"

"Crazier things have happened," Willy answered. "But I'm betting on something else."

"There were two of them," Joe filled in.

Sam and Lester looked back and forth at their colleagues.

"What?" Sammie asked.

"Somebody knocked off Marshall and boosted the file
—
," Willy began.

"— And somebody else hired Travis to rip off his apartment," Joe finished. "I like it."

"Two separate parties covering their tracks?" Lester asked.

Sam was already nodding in appreciation. "It does work. I mean, it's as good a theory as anything else we got."

"Why, though?" Lester challenged them. "Why kill Marshall, why steal his file, and why would somebody different come back later to steal the other stuff? Pretty unpopular guy."

"Not just that," Joe mused. "But the second party heard about the death almost before Marshall's body started cooling."

"The former Cavaliers," Willy suggested. "Horny old fuckers still covering their asses. He was supposed to have coffee with pals on the morning he turned up dead. Think one or all of them might be old Cavaliers?"

"And, if not," Sam said, "we know how fast news travels in that place."

"It can't be that hard to find out who the Cavaliers were," Lester suggested. "Go back to the archives, find out who was in power, who the local cops were, the hotel owners, all the other players. There'll be others like Nancy Kelley, with stories to tell."

"How 'bout Travis's phone records?" Joe asked then. "We get anything there?"

"We got the numbers," Sam said. "I'm still connecting them to who they belong to. Won't be much longer."

The buzzer went off on Joe's desk phone. He picked it up and answered, "Gunther."

"There's a man down here who'd like to talk to you. Name's Michael Nesbitt."

"Hang on," Joe said. He covered the mouthpiece and asked the group, "Anyone know Michael Nesbitt? He's downstairs. Wants to talk."

He got a universal response of blank stares.

"Send him up."

Minutes later, there was a tentative knock at the door. A small, round, unremarkable man in a baseball cap appeared in their doorway.

"Mr. Nesbitt?" Joe asked. "Come in. What can we do for you?"

Their guest reached into his pocket and extracted a crumpled piece of paper. "I saw this on a wall," he said, "and thought you'd like to know that I saw this lady. It said to contact you, but my phone's still out, and I don't own a cell, so, since I had to be down here on other business anyhow today, I thought I'd just come over."

Sam, being nearest to him, took the poster from his hand and flattened it on her desk. It was Carolyn Barber's BOL advisory. Sam held it up silently so the rest of them could see what Nesbitt was talking about.

"You saw Carolyn Barber?" Joe asked.

"I gave her a ride," he answered.

"From where?" Willy asked.

"Near Waterbury. I live in Williston
—
well, a little south of there
—
and I was heading home in the storm when I saw her by the side of the road. She was a mess, so I stopped to see what I could do."

"This was during Irene?" Lester asked.

"Yeah. I'd been doing some catch-up work on Sunday. I work
—
well, I
worked
for the state
—
Natural Resources
—
and I was heading home, like I said. . . ." He paused and looked around, increasingly at a loss for words.

Joe walked over to him. "Mr. Nesbitt, I'm sorry. We've been very rude. Have a seat and take a breath. We were just caught off guard by your news. We've been looking for Carolyn for a while." He pulled a guest chair away from the wall and steered Nesbitt into it, asking, "Would you like a cup of coffee?"

Nesbitt sat but waved away the offer. "No thanks. I'm all set."

Joe pulled out another chair and sat near him. "Okay," he resumed. "From the top. The storm was getting bad, you were told to head home, and you saw Carolyn by the side of the road. Is that about it?"

"Right. She was just standing there, soaking wet."

"How was she dressed?"

"A long . . . kind of, I don't know. I guess it was like a robe or a coat of some kind. Not very thick. And she had like a dress underneath it."

Joe tried to interpret the description. "Did it really look like clothing, or was it maybe more like the kind of thing they give you in a hospital? Was it a robe like that?"

"Yeah, yeah. It was. And she didn't have shoes."

"Both shoes were missing?" Lester asked pointedly.

"Yeah. I know that 'cause I commented on it. I was really worried about her. She was out of it."

"You didn't take her to the hospital?" Willy wanted to know.

Nesbitt faced him with his hands spread out. "I tried. I really did, but she got so worked up, I didn't dare. I didn't want to make her any worse than she was. Plus, she told me where to go."

"Where was that?" Joe asked.

"To her sister's, in Shelburne. That's not that far from me
—
not when you consider the circumstances. So I was happy to help her out. I mean, I was heading out anyhow, and it felt good to lend her a hand. She was in a bad way."

"How so?" Sam asked. "Cold and wet only, or something else?"

"Oh, no," Nesbitt emphasized. "She was that, sure, but she was like, funny, you know? Talking weird and stuff. It kind of made me nervous at first, when I thought maybe I'd picked up a nut. But she was super nice once the heater kicked in and she knew I was doing what she asked."

"Taking her to her sister's, you mean?"

"Right. After that, she quieted down. I had a blanket in the back seat that I gave her, too, and that helped, I think."

"What did you talk about?" Joe asked.

"I asked her what had happened, and she said she'd been flooded out, which wasn't hard to believe. That's why she wanted to go to her sister's. It wasn't exactly clear with all her muttering. After I saw the poster, I guess I was pretty stupid. She said she was surprised by the rising water, and barely got out with her life." He paused again and added ruefully, "Guess that's what happens when you fill in the blanks on your own. I couldn't have been more wrong."

"Understandable," Joe soothed him. "What else did you two discuss?"

"Not much, to be honest. She fell asleep as soon as the heat got to her. I watched her pretty close at first, 'cause I wanted to make sure she was
only
sleeping. Know what I mean? But she was." He allowed for a small laugh. "I actually felt better when she started snoring a little. That seemed like a good sign."

"How did you know where to go?" Sam asked.

"Oh, I woke her up when I got near to Shelburne. She just pointed the way. She didn't seem totally sure about it, but she got it right in the long run."

"You remember the address?"

"Not exactly, but it was a dead end, parallel to Route 7."

"Hillside Terrace?" Lester asked.

"That was it," he said happily.

"And then what?" Joe asked. "Was the sister there?"

"The nephew was. I knocked on the door when we got there, and this guy opened the door. He was really surprised to see us. You could've knocked him over with a feather. He was all pale and at a loss for words. He offered me money, but I said no, that I was happy to help, and that was about it."

"So you never saw the sister?" Joe pursued.

Nesbitt's expression saddened. "I think I did, actually, not that I was introduced. But when the nephew opened the door, I saw an old woman in a wheelchair behind him, just staring at nothing. He saw me looking and just said something like, 'My mom
—
Alzheimer's' or something really short like that."

"How did you know he was the nephew?" Willy asked.

"He came outside to help me get her out of the car," Nesbitt explained. "Called her 'Aunt Carolyn.' "

"How did she act when he did that?"

"She was still pretty out of it," Nesbitt told them. "She didn't really say anything to him, and he seemed stunned anyhow.

Now that I know more about her from the poster, some of that makes sense. I guess he sure didn't expect to have her show up on his doorstep." Nesbitt looked around at them all before asking, "What was she in the hospital for, anyhow?"

"Mr. Nesbitt," Joe asked instead, "Why did you take all this time to get hold of us? It's been a while."

He raised his eyebrows. "Oh. I been out of state. Like I said, I sort of found myself on involuntary leave
—
that's the way they put it
—
so I went south to visit family for a while. Wasn't till I got home yesterday that I saw that poster at the town office, where I was settling a bill. There's no picture, but my eye caught on the name Carolyn. That's what the nephew called her. And then the description on the poster did the rest, mentioning the date and Waterbury and the storm and all the rest. Even down to her outfit. That's when I decided I better get in touch, since I was coming to Brattleboro anyhow."

Joe stood up. "We're glad you did, Mr. Nesbitt."

Lester stood also and took their guest's elbow. "Why don't you follow me next door so I can get this all down as a sworn statement?" he asked. "That way, we'll get the whole process squared away and you can be free of us from now on."

Nesbitt began following him outside, but hesitated at the door to ask, "Is there any reward for what I told you? I'm sorta between a rock and a hard place right now."

"No," Joe told him. "Sorry."

Nesbitt shrugged and left, following Lester.

"Milk of human kindness," Willy said as the door closed.

"Good for us, though," Joe said. "What d'you make of it?"

Willy was first. "Tells me Friel was lying his ass off when you and Spinney dropped by to chat."

Joe nodded, remembering the greeting that he and Lester had received in Shelburne. "Friel asked us to wait at the door, in order to prepare his mother for our coming in
—
more likely, it was to make sure Carolyn had time to go into her bedroom in the basement."

"It also means Carolyn wasn't so far gone that she didn't know what to do once she got out of the hospital," Sammie added.

"Okay," agreed Joe. "But then what? She escapes; they put her up and keep mum to protect her; then something goes off the tracks."

"Marshall gets killed, for one thing," Willy said.

"Right after it's circulated that Carolyn's on the loose," Sam added.

"But not circulated by us," Lester pointed out. "We took a while with her posters."

"So, by an insider," Sam came back.

"And then, one-two-three," Joe chimed in, "Friel gets stabbed, Barb gets cremated alive, and presumably, Carolyn gets grabbed."

"Or killed," Willy suggested. "No point keeping her alive, and it would probably be easier to kill her before smuggling her out of the house."

Joe recalled something Jonathon Michael had told him; "The bulkhead door was unlocked. Anyone could have gotten in, whenever they chose."

The other two stayed silent, playing out a list of variations in their minds. Joe stood up, pushed the guest chair back against the wall, and reached for his jacket.

"Where ya headed, boss?"

"The scene of the crime."