Outside, Buzz followed Pepper to Emma’s car. “I don’t know about you,” he said, “but I like her for the murder. Him, too. I really do. She’s got motive: nine million is a lot of dead presidents. And opportunity: the creepy kid provides the alibi, and he’s an athlete, easily strong enough to haul Ethan up a ladder. And, honestly, what rich 45-year-old says, ‘the death of my dear husband’ or ‘I happen to be proud of our relationship?’ ” Catch my drift? What do you think?”
“I like them for it, too, but not enough to stop looking at other possibilities.”
Emma was happy to be outside on a sunny June day, free of the Jackson family. She started the car. “I did learn something from Mary, though. Raising tropical fish is not something the upper classes do.”
“Huh?”
“Not important.”
Back in her office, Emma rubbed Pepper’s head, which elicited a satisfied moan. “Well,” she said to Buzz, “we did get elimination prints from Julian and Mary. The kid’s prints were all over the aluminum ladder—”
“Which proves diddly-squat.”
“You’re right. So, we have a possible suspect or suspects in the family. Then again, they presumably already have the nine million. This afternoon, I’ll send Caroline Stoner to pick up her list. After that, we start interviewing. Was she as happily married as she insisted? I agree with you, that was a little thickly applied. I felt like I was getting a PB&J with way too much jelly. Obviously, Ethan had a sweaty squeeze on the side and a boyfriend, to boot. Did she know? Did they catch them? Someone will talk. When it comes to affairs, someone always talks.”
“Anything else, Chief?”
“No, I’ve got a guy coming in for a meeting,” she glanced at her dad’s old banjo clock on the wall, “in ten minutes.”
Buzz rose. “Tell you what, I’ll go talk to Jerry Rathbun at Paws & Claws. Maybe he’s sold some tropical fish supplies to someone we’ll want to interview.”
“Good idea.”
Emma’s phone rang after Buzz left. “Hey Chief, Stella here. There’s a guy in the lobby. A Mark Byrne. Claims he has an appointment with you? That so?”
Stifling a sigh, Emma said, “Send him up.”
Mark knocked and entered. Pepper growled a low, don’t-do-anything-funny growl and rose to check him out. Undeterred, Mark rubbed Pepper behind her ears and instantly made a new friend. “Mark Byrne, Chief. Pleased to meet you.” His voice was as growly as Pepper’s. They shook hands.
Mark was tall, lantern-jawed, and acne scars pitted his face, which he wore with rugged assurance. His hair was steel-gray, cut short, and curly. Crater-face aside, he struck Emma as handsome.
He sat without being asked, just as he had entered without being invited.
Mark dove right in: “So, we’ve got a missing person who happens to be your husband. One way or another, he vamooses like snow in June. And your department can’t find him. Have I got that about right?”
Emma nodded.
“Let’s go back to the day he disappeared. Tell me everything you remember.” He opened a notebook, licked the point of his pencil, and prepared to take notes.
She told him about Will’s depression. She told him about coming home from shopping and finding Will gone. There wasn’t a lot to tell, but she filled him in on everything else she could think of.
“Do you still own the house?”
“Of course.”
“I’d like to check it out.”
“Sure, but it’s been cleaned since his disappearance. Multiple times. It’s already been a month. You know, I hadn’t thought of this before, but I took some photos after Will disappeared. Some kind of emotional crutch, I guess. I was confused and panicky. In the days after Will disappeared, I had the notion that I didn’t want to stay in my house anymore, that I might want to sell it. I’ve changed my mind since then. I have the photos on my iPad. Want to see them?”
“Yup.”
He scrolled through the photos. In the bedroom shot, Will’s Bible was still squared off on the pillow. She wondered if Mark noticed. Then Mark looked at the images again, more slowly. He meticulously studied each one. He examined a particular one for a long time, zooming in with a touch gesture. Zooming back out, he rotated the iPad to show her the picture of the front hall. “What do you see in this picture?” he asked.
She looked at the image on the screen as carefully as he had. “I see my hallway, carpeted. The front door is at the end. The umbrella stand is full of umbrellas. The Arts & Crafts chair my grandmother left me has Will’s hat on it. The side table has my keys, a lamp, my sunglasses … and … nothing much else. What am I missing?”
“Look carefully at the carpet. I see two faint, parallel marks leading to the front door—”
“Yes, I see them now. So?”
“I’ll give you short odds that those marks were made by a hand-truck or something like a hand-truck carrying something heavy. I’m assuming you didn’t vacuum before you took these photos?”
“Not that I remember, but I might’ve.”
“Let’s assume you didn’t. If I am correct, I have to say that there are really only two possibilities. Get a grip now. Either someone hauled Will, the person, out of your house, probably in a large container. Or Will, the dead body, was similarly removed.”
“God,” she said. Her hand flew to her mouth. “This changes everything. If you’re right.”
18
A See-Through
Mark Byrne leaned over her desk and said, “I’m starving. Does Hampshire have a decent place to eat? You’re the client. You buy.”
Emma studied him. He certainly was direct, but he didn’t seem to be hitting on her. The circumstances would hardly permit that.
“Sure, I could use a bite, too,” she said.
At Group Therapy, Mark ordered a dry martini with olives. “Same for you?” he said.
“No.”
Without asking, Phil Masters, wrote up her usual lunch order. She always had a Cobb salad and an iced tea.
“And for you?” Phil stared at Mark with unabashed curiosity.
“I’ll have the rib-eye, well-done, a side of onion rings, and whatever veg you have today.” He snapped the menu closed and handed it back to Phil.
While waiting for his midday martini, Mark said, “I know you have a lot of new information to swallow. Obviously, I don’t know you very well. I know you are wealthier than the money you make as chief of police. Probably from Will’s parents, the Fosters. I know you never expected to be chief of police. I know you never had children and that dog of yours, whom you adore, bonds you to your recently-deceased father. I know—”
“You seem to know a lot.” Emma said, irritated.
“Google and deduction. Always a good cocktail,” he said, sipping the martini which had just arrived.
“Before you get any more annoyed at me, let me repeat, I hardly know you. But, if I am correct that a person or persons unknown removed your husband from your house—either, to be completely brutal, dead or alive—you are at a critical juncture. It seems to me that your next decision could be the beginning of a new life. Or not.”
Emma felt confused and frightened … and annoyed. “Okay,” she said, “you know so much. Why don’t you tell me about my next decision?”
She felt Ms. Perceptive rest her velvety muzzle on her thigh. Like dogs that detect cancer, Pepper could always sense her mood.
“Sure you won’t join me in a see-through?” Mark asked.
She smiled in spite of herself. She’d never heard a martini called a see-through. But she said, “Nope.”
He stared at her for a moment before continuing. She read his look as one of compassion yet not one of sympathy. “Here’s my take on this. Emma, you are an intelligent woman (B.A., M.A.), an accomplished police officer (“Heroine of Hampshire”), and now a chief (success still to-be-determined). Plus, you are one hell of a looker. I’m assuming that your brown hair is natural. You’re not wearing any make-up, because you don’t
need any—”
“Jesus, will you give it a rest!”
“Simmer down. The more you blush, the prettier you get.”
“Drop it Mark. I mean it. You’re pushing this routine too far.”
“Look, I tell it like I see it,” Mark said. “So, let me finish. What I’m telling you is obvious to anyone. Your decision, and you asked, is whether to move on with your life or to wallow indefinitely in the not-knowing.” He paused, studying her again. “Okay, here goes: as soon as you face the fact that Will is dead, the faster you can live the life you deserve. If he was carried out of your house in a box, he was probably murdered. If a person or persons kidnapped him, why was there no demand for money? You don’t need a private detective to figure that out. Will’s parents have more than enough money to pay a ransom. So, then what have you got? Sexual pervert? I know Will was a good-looking guy. I’ve seen a picture of him on yale.edu. But who keeps a thirty-eight-year-old guy locked up as a sex toy? Nobody’s that cute. Will’s depression could’ve driven him to kill himself. Which he did in a place where no one would find his body. That was the gist of your dad’s theory, right? Lastly, he could have run away. Perhaps with another woman. But who runs away without his wallet, his credit cards, his money? Doesn’t provide some chick with a particularly desirable new boyfriend.”
After all his sexist folderol, Emma understood where this was heading. As meanly as Mark had whipped her emotions, she recognized that she had been homing in on the same conclusion. Hadn’t she had the stirrings of this conversation yesterday with Vanessa and Deb? And she trusted them. Mark? She wasn’t so sure.
She breathed in a deep lungful of air and hoped that she wouldn’t have to ask him again to stop. Thankfully, he down-shifted: “So, after all that, do you still want to hire me?”
Emma swallowed a forkful of blue cheese, bacon, and lettuce and sipped iced tea while she thought.
He was an over-confident son of a bitch. No question about that. Yet his arrogance had an effect. He had done more homework than she would’ve expected. He’d zeroed in on some truths. She had a hunch that he was good at what he did … despite his annoying presentation. The more she thought about it, the more she found his acidic pitch persuasive. Her own colleagues had failed and Archie, Archie had come up short, too. But she had to give it one last try. Didn’t she?
“Yes,” she finally said. “I’d like you to look into this for me. Do me a favor, though, take your swagger down a notch.”
“Good,” he said with a grin, “I’m not successful enough to turn down work.”
“Jesus.”
“Hey, I’m kidding. I’ll get right on this. I’ll give it my best shot. Just don’t get your hopes up. No guarantees about my ego, though.”
She reached into her purse. “I brought these along just in case,” she said. She handed him a list of Yale contacts, faculty and a few students whose names she knew, and a separate list of Hampshire contacts with addresses and phone numbers. Reluctantly, she had included Frank, Joan, and Georgia Foster. She had to get at the truth, and, if including them, got her closer, well, so be it.
They discussed his fees, which seemed reasonable to her and to which they agreed.
“I want to give it one last shot,” Emma concluded, “before I take your advice and moveon.com.”
Mark put out his hand, they shook.
19
Gone Fishin’
While Emma was dining with Mark Byrne at Group Therapy, Stella and Buzz ate lunch together at Marco’s Pizzeria. Extra anchovies on Stella’s slice, none on Buzz’s. Stella took a sip of her beer. When in uniform, Marco always served her Bud Light in a paper milkshake cup. Buzz sipped from a can of Coke. Both slid another slice of Marco’s house favorite, Marco’s Magic, onto their plates.
They sat across from one another in a window-side booth with a view of Main Street. The pizzeria wanted for a sprucing-up. Marco had nailed 1970s record album covers to the walls where the printed likenesses of Led Zeppelin, Sly and The Family Stone, and David Bowie were fading toward nothingness. There were holes in the Naugahyde benches, the table tops were sticky, but all the cops agreed that the pizza was the best in the county.
Buzz stared at Stella. He found her cute, but he had never had the nerve to hit on her. She was round-faced with an appealing ski-jump nose and fluffy blonde hair, worn that day in a ponytail threaded through the adjustable strap at the back of her Hampshire P.D. baseball cap. As always, she’d painted her eyes with blue eye shadow, her lips a color Buzz thought should be called fuck-me-red, and her lashes were teased out with black mascara.
As they often did, Buzz’s eyes strayed south to Stella’s chest.
“Jesus, Buzz, are you checking out my knockers again? You men are so pathetic. Haven’t you ever seen a woman’s breasts?”
Buzz blushed. He quickly averted his gaze.
“Pretty awesome we got an honest-to-God murder on our hands,” he said in a clumsy changing-of-the-subject.
Stella smiled and said, “We did catch a murder ’bout fifteen years ago—”
“Before you and I were on the force.”
“—but it was a slam-dunk. Jenny Prichard blew away her no-good, piece-of-shit husband and walked into HQ with her gun still smokin’.”
“Doesn’t seem like Ethan is going to be so easy to solve.”
“Hmm, no,” Stella agreed. “I still think the Saintly One is insane not to get the state police in. What does she know about investigating a murder? I even heard Mary Jackson wants them called in.”
“Sure thinks she’s God’s gift. I’ll say that.”
Stella said, “I hope she falls smack on her snooty butt.”
“Roger that!”
They finished their pizza and drinks. Stella stuck a piece of Juicy Fruit in her mouth to hide the smell of beer, and they thanked Marco, who, as usual, didn’t charge them. “The Saintly One has Caroline Stoner doing something else today,” Stella said. “She wants us to pick up some kind of list at the Jackson house. You coming with me?”
“Sure, but I’ve also got to stop at Jerry Rathbun’s Paws & Claws. I told her I’d check who he sells tropical fish supplies to.”
“Right. It’s on the way.” Buzz joined Stella in her black and white.
Paws & Claws was as seedy as Marco’s. Puppy-mill puppies scratched at the front window. “Aw, look how cute they are,” Stella cooed. Two kittens rolled in a bed of wood chips. Rathbun greeted them with a broad smile. Rathbun had a jaundiced complexion and a monkish fringe of brown hair around his bald pate.
“Looking for a puppy? Or maybe a gerbil for your kid?” Rathbun asked helpfully.
“Don’t have kids,” Stella said. “Actually, we’re here about tropical fish.”
“Great! They’re in the back. Follow me.”
Rathbun’s hopeful face turned to a frown when Buzz asked, “We’d like to know who in town buys fish from you or, you know, tropical fish supplies, like fish flakes, aquarium filters, aerators, that type of thing.”
Stella whispered, “I’m impressed.”
“Truthfully,” Rathbun said, “I don’t sell many fish at all … or much of anything else, I’m afraid.”
“Somebody at least must buy fish food,” Buzz persisted.
“I guess I still have a couple of customers. Less than I used to. Mrs. Georgiade over on Nibang Avenue is my most regular, but, gee, she’s getting on to ninety now, so I doubt she’ll be feeding her fish that much longer.” Buzz and Stella exchanged a look: not a promising lead. “Fern Davenport comes in every once in a while. Not too often. She’s getting on, too.”
“Anyone else?” Buzz asked.
“Couple of people used to buy from me, but now they probably go to Amazon or some other effing dot com.”
“Names?” demanded Stella.
“Georgia Foster and Eileen Perria, but they haven’t been in for ages.”
Buzz whispered to Stella, “Ask him if he knows any fudge-packer fish-lovers.”
; Stella gave Buzz a withering look. In a normal tone of voice, she said, “No male fish buyers among your customers?”
Rathbun shook his head.
Back in the car, Stella said, “Jesus, Buzz. Fudge-packer? You are so retro. Hey, by the way, nice idea going to Paws & Claws. Big, fat waste of time. Let’s go pick up Mary Jackson’s list, do some real police work.”
At 103 Hickam Street, Mary Jackson opened the door with a smile on her face. She acted like a different person. Buzz studied her carefully. He still had her high on his suspect list.
“Can I pour you guys a cup of coffee?”
“Sure can,” Stella said. She removed her wad of Juicy Fruit with a Kleenex and stuffed it in her pants pocket. “I could use some.”
They sat at the kitchen table. Mary distributed coffee, milk, and sugar and joined them. “Here’s the list your chief wanted. I can’t begin to imagine what use it will be. No one on this list knows who killed Ethan … let alone did it themselves.”
Buzz was surprised when Stella said, “I’m sure you’re right. Seems like a stupid idea to me, too.”
“Hmm,” Mary said, looking interested.
Buzz, knowing his partner too well, thought, Don’t go down this road, Stella. No good will come of it.
Mary Jackson grinned. “So, do you agree with me that your boss is totally out of her depth here? That calling in the state police is the only way to catch the killer?”
Buzz shot Stella a frown, but she ignored him.
“I agree with you completely.”
The conversation continued between Stella and her new pal, both trash-talking Emma. Finally, Buzz rose and said, “C’mon, Stella, we’ve got to get back to work.”
Ever So Silent Page 10
