“I was looking for Claire Sanders when I was at Patchett’s last night. It was important to me to find her then, but it’s far more urgent now in light of Hanna’s death. Her father’s asked me to find her. Once I have, and made sure she’s okay, I’ll be asking if she has any idea who might have killed Hanna.”
Pearce nodded. “Of course. But what brings you to my door?”
“Last night I got the impression not much happens in this town you don’t know about. And you invited me to come back if I had any questions.”
A weary smile. “I did, didn’t I? I doubt I know anything useful, but if you have something you want to ask me, go ahead.”
“Did you ever notice Claire around Patchett’s with a young man named Dennis Mullavey? He might have stood out some. He’s black, and Griffon’s not exactly Motown.”
Phyllis pursed her lips. “Maybe. But I think you’re being a little unfair about Griffon. There are plenty of people of color living here. There’s Dr. Kessler, for example. She’s the coroner around here.”
“Yes, I know her. So did you ever see Claire and Dennis Mullavey?”
“I might have.”
“I have a call in to who I think he worked for, but do you have any idea where he was from? He’s not a Griffonite.” I smiled. “Is that we call ourselves? Griffonites? Sounds like something that grows in a cave.”
“I’ve always said ‘Griffoner.’ I’m not always crazy about being a Griffoner, but it beats being a New Yorker.”
“The traffic’s better,” I said. “Anyway, he wasn’t from around here, but I’d like to know where home is for him.”
“I have no idea,” she said.
“I was thinking he might have put drinks on his credit card at Patchett’s. You might have receipts. If I got a number, I could check with the credit card company, maybe track him down that way.”
“And why are you looking for him, exactly?”
“He was Claire’s boyfriend. Claire’d been going out with Roman Ravelson, but broke off with him to go out with Dennis. But then Dennis up and left town a few weeks ago, breaking up with Claire at the same time. She was pretty upset about it. I’m wondering if they got back together, if she might have gone looking for him.” I ran my fingers through my hair. “I was trying to think of what would make a young girl take off. I can only come up with two things: fear or love.”
Phyllis Pearce gave that some thought. “So if she disappeared to be with Dennis, it was love. But what would she have been fearful of?”
“This trouble between her father and the chief. It’s been pretty stressful in that household.”
“Or maybe the ex-boyfriend,” Phyllis said.
“Roman?”
“We’ve had to throw him out of Patchett’s once or twice. Of course, seems we end up throwing every young man out at some point.”
“You think Claire could have been scared of Roman?”
“Who knows? As for Mr. Mullavey, I think you may have overestimated my knowledge of what goes on around here. I don’t know anything about the young man, I’m afraid.”
“Bert Sanders is calling everyone he can think of who might know where Claire has gone. You have any ideas?”
She shrugged.
“Did you know that Hanna and her boyfriend, Sean Skilling, were delivering booze for Roman Ravelson?”
That made her sit up. “I’m impressed,” she said. “You really are starting to find out how Griffon operates.”
“Roman’s old enough to buy the product, and Sean and Hanna were delivering, and far outside the town limits. But I’m not telling you anything you don’t know, am I?”
“Yes and no,” she said. “I didn’t know Sean and Hanna were involved.”
“But you knew about Roman.”
She nodded.
“That bother you?”
“Bother me?” Phyllis said. “Does my place look like it’s suffering? You come in there any night of the week, the place is hopping. If Roman wants to help out a few home parties, I couldn’t care less about it. Is there anything else I can help you with, Mr. Weaver?”
“No, you’ve been most generous with your time.” I surveyed the porch and the surroundings. “This is a beautiful house, and a gorgeous location. You’ve lived here long?”
“My first husband and I bought this house in the early eighties. Had to do a lot of work on it over the years. When I met Harry, he moved in with me.”
“You decided to hang on to it after he passed away.” Seven years ago, I recalled her saying.
“That’s right.” Phyllis Pearce smiled wryly at me. “Everyone knows the story, but if you moved here six years ago, you probably don’t.”
I nodded. “You’re right.”
She had to collect herself. “Harry could be so stupid. He was a damn fool, is what he was. Late one night, he gets it in his head to go fishing. He hitches the boat—just a fourteen-foot aluminum thing with a ten-horsepower motor bolted to the back of it—to the car and drives down to Niagara Falls, finds a place to launch the boat just off the Robert Moses Parkway, and out he goes, less than a mile upriver from the falls.”
Pearce took another moment, steeled herself. “He had to have been drinking. There’s no question in my mind. If he’d been sober he’d have had the presence of mind to have some oars in the boat, and make sure he had a full tank of gas. He got out there, buzzing around, and the tank ran empty. Motor died on him. Couldn’t get it started. And the current started taking him away, over into the Canadian channel, and then over Horseshoe Falls.”
“Dear God,” I said.
“They called it an accident, but really? It was so preventable, in so many ways,” she said. “A stupid, stupid man, Harry was.” She sniffed, and smiled. “Doesn’t mean I didn’t love the son of a bitch, but that was a man who didn’t always have his head screwed on right.”
Phyllis Pearce exhaled and seemed to shiver, as if to shake off the memories. “I like to cultivate this reputation as Griffon’s tough old broad. The one everyone should fear. Pretty hard to fear an old bat when she gets emotional that way.”
“I won’t tell a soul you have a heart,” I said.
She smiled. “I would appreciate that.”
I stood. “Thanks for your time.”
She got out of her chair, too. “If you hear anything about Claire, will you let me know? I’m not her father’s biggest fan, but I hope like the dickens that nothing’s happened to her.”
“Sure,” I said, and offered her a hand to shake. “You take care.”
* * *
I was almost back into town when the Griffon police pulled me over and took me into custody.
THIRTY-FIVE
I saw the cruiser in my rearview mirror a few seconds before the lights came on and the siren started to whoop. Like a good boy, I pulled over to the curb and waited for an officer to approach. Another glance in my mirror showed I was about to be visited by Officer Hank Brindle.
I powered down the window as he came up alongside me.
“Officer,” I said.
“Out of the car, Mr. Weaver,” Brindle said.
“What’s the charge, if you don’t mind my asking?” It sounded like such a cliché, but it seemed a logical question. “Busted taillight?”
“Out of the car,” he repeated, resting his hand on the gun hanging from his belt.
I turned off the engine, and as I stepped out I saw Ricky Haines getting out of the passenger side of the cruiser and moving quickly to help his partner.
“Turn around,” Brindle said. “Hands on top of the vehicle.”
I complied. Haines patted me down. I wasn’t carrying the Glock today. But he found my cell phone and confiscated it.
“He’s okay,” Haines said.
“Hands behind your back,” Brindle said. “And don’t do anything
stupid.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll leave that to the experts.”
He secured my wrists with a set of plastic cuffs, then grabbed me by the elbow and started walking me to their car. He opened the back door and I ducked so as not to hit my head as he shoved me in. I brought my leg in just before he slammed the door.
“Isn’t anyone going to help me put my seat belt on?” I asked as the two of them got back into the front seat of the cruiser.
I have to admit, being a wiseass was just covering up the fact that I was nervous as hell. What the hell had they found in my car? Or an even better question might be, What the hell had they put there?
Ricky Haines barely had the passenger door closed before Brindle had the car in drive. He kicked up gravel before getting back on asphalt.
“Last night, I wasn’t a hundred percent sure about you, but I am now,” Brindle said.
“That so?”
“They got you dead to rights on this one,” Brindle said.
“Really.”
“Oh yeah. A slam dunk.” He drummed his fingers on the top of the steering wheel. “I have to say, I’ve never had much use for private dicks like yourself.”
I said nothing. I was struggling to get comfortable with my hands locked together behind me.
“I figure, if you really cared about catching bad guys, you’d be a cop. Me and Ricky, we spend all our time trying to make Griffon a better place. But guys like you, you’re too busy looking for husbands cheating on their wives and vicey versey. You’re not doing anything that matters. You’re not doing anything for the public good, and you’re always getting in the way of people like me.”
“I was a cop once,” I said. I almost said “like you.” But I wanted to think I’d never been a cop like him.
“That a fact? And this was where?”
“Promise Falls. North of Albany.”
“Pretty country up there,” Brindle said. “So what happened? Promise Falls’ high crime rate prove to be too much for you? A lot of people fishing without a license? Moose running wild in the streets?”
“Something like that,” I said. First opportunity I had, I’d call my lawyer, Patrick Slaughter, who could get started on whatever it was the police had against me. “I’d like to make a phone call.”
“I’ll bet you would.”
“When we get to the station.”
“Oh,” Brindle said, whipping his head around for a second. “Is that where you thought we were going?”
He looked in the mirror, caught my look of apprehension, and chuckled. “You should see your face. I was just messing with ya.” He glanced over at Haines. “If you can’t have a little fun, what’s the point, am I right?”
Haines didn’t look happy. Maybe not every Griffon cop enjoyed taunting suspects. “Come on,” he said. “I’m betting this is all bullshit, anyway.”
Brindle shot him a look.
When we reached the Griffon police headquarters, Brindle wheeled the car around to the back and drove into an open garage. He opened my door and led me from the car to the building, a distance of not more than ten feet. From there I was taken to a basement holding cell, where I was left to spend some time on my own.
A person could be here a long time before anyone knew something had happened to him. When I wasn’t there to pick up Donna at the end of the day, she would assume work had interfered, and would find her own way home. Even if she tried calling me, my failure to answer wouldn’t set off any alarms.
Brindle removed my cuffs, stepped out of the holding cell and swung the door shut. It locked automatically. “Back in a bit. Don’t go away,” he said with a smile before leaving me with only my thoughts for company.
I had several of them, and they weren’t good ones. I couldn’t shake the feeling that they’d found something incriminating in the car. There was the wig, but that was easily explained, as was any blood that might be on the front seat, which would be Claire’s. And there was no way, in this short time, that they could have done any kind of DNA testing on it.
So if they weren’t nailing me with something that was already in the car, it had to be with something that had found its way into it since it had left me.
Was Augie capable of that? Planting evidence against his brother-in-law? Even if I believed he had it in him, I couldn’t think of any reason for him to do it, aside from him thinking I was a horse’s ass. A good reason to punch someone in the mouth, but hardly justification to send him to prison.
I heard a door opening at the end of the hall, then steps coming my way. I’d been sitting on a metal bench bolted to the floor, but sprang to my feet and went to the bars to see who it was.
A cop, in uniform, but not Brindle or Haines.
It was Officer Marv Quinn, partner of Donna’s friend Kate Ramsey. He seemed to be using this hallway to get from one place to another, and looked startled when he saw me with my fingers wrapped around the bars.
“What the hell?” he said. If he was pretending to be surprised, he was doing a good job of it. Given that he was the one who’d passed Augie’s order on to Brindle and Haines that my car be seized, he shouldn’t have been that shocked.
“Hey,” I said.
“What are you doing in here?”
“Just hanging out,” I said.
“No, really, what are you doing here?”
I eyed him skeptically. “I guess the search of my car turned up something. Something that wasn’t there before it got towed off.”
Quinn looked wounded. “Come on, man, we don’t do stuff like that.” This from a guy whose partner, if that kid at the gas station where I’d bought Tylenol was to be believed, had shot spray paint down his throat. Quinn knew how things were done around here.
“Whatever you say,” I replied.
Quinn rubbed his forehead, like there was something that had just occurred to him. “Look, sorry if I came off a bit abrupt the other night. I didn’t know your wife—Donna, is it?—and Kate are friends.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Does she know you’re down here?”
“Kate?” I asked. “Or Donna?”
“Donna.”
“No, she doesn’t. Far as I know.”
Quinn nodded. “I could tell Kate, and Kate could give her a heads-up, if you want.”
That seemed like a good idea, especially if no one was going to give me an opportunity to call my lawyer.
“Yeah, I’d appreciate that,” I said. There was something about the way he said his partner’s name that struck me. “You been partnered long with Ramsey?”
Marvin Quinn nodded. “A year or so.” He looked at me sideways. “I guess Donna’s told you.”
“Told me?”
“I mean, if she and Kate talk, Donna probably knows, and has told you. But we’d just as soon this didn’t get around.”
My mind tried to put the pieces together at silicon speed. “Oh yeah, sure. About you and Kate.”
“The chief doesn’t like it when partners are seeing each other, and in a small department like this, with only a couple of women, it’s not really an issue. But he wouldn’t be happy if he knew Kate and I were, you know.”
“Sure,” I said. We heard the door open.
“Anyway, hang in there,” Quinn said, and continued on. Seconds later, Haines was looking in at me.
“I want to call my lawyer,” I said.
“Yeah, I know,” Haines said. “My partner’s not really big on that. This is kind of, I mean, it’s kind of irregular, but do you want me to call him for you?”
I hardly knew what to make of that. Haines could see that I was taken aback.
“We’re not all bad,” Ricky Haines said.
I weighed his offer. “No,” I said. “But thanks.” First of all, I didn’t want to be in any Griffon cop’s debt. And
second, I didn’t want to think about what Brindle might do to his partner if he found out Haines had done me a favor.
“Okay,” Haines said. “Look, I’m supposed to cuff you, but I don’t figure you’re going to try to make a break for it.”
“Where you taking me?”
“You’ll see.”
He opened the cell door, led me down the hall, up a flight of stairs, down another hall, and finally into a room with four other men. All white, all about my weight and height, but the similarities more or less ended there. One had gray hair, one had black. One man’s face was long with a pointed chin, another’s round with puffy cheeks. One fellow was a bit twitchy, like he was going through some kind of withdrawal. Two of them I was pretty sure I recognized as Griffon cops, although instead of wearing uniforms they were done up like they were about to go undercover as soup kitchen regulars.
You didn’t need a degree in criminology to figure out what was up. We were the cast of an upcoming lineup. Any minute now we’d be led into an adjoining room, stood against a lined backdrop that would help any audience members gauge our height, then told to step forward and turn left and right, like we were all auditioning for, instead of A Chorus Line, a remake of The Public Enemy.
No one said a word. Then a door at the end of the room was opened, and Haines told us to walk out onto the platform. I was second in line.
The five of us stood there under bright lights, unable to see what was out in front of us, although I knew it was a wall with a piece of one-way glass installed.
A voice I didn’t recognize came over a speaker and said: “Everyone turn and face left.”
We did, although the twitchy guy got it wrong and turned right. When we were all asked to face right, he went left.
“Number three, please take a step forward.” That was the guy to my right, one of the two I believed to be cops. He stepped ahead, then turned left and right as requested, then fell back into line.
“Number four, same.”
That was me. I did as I was told. Took a step forward, turned to the left again, turned to the right, then stepped back into line.
A Tap on the Window Page 21
