Ever So Silent

by Christopher Little

  Emma took a sip of her wine. “Nah, I don’t think so. I’m done fighting for now.”

  “Then what are you going to do with your new-found free time?”

  “Find Will.”

  “Oh,” Vanessa said.

  Emma waited, but she didn’t elaborate.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Emma asked.

  Vanessa looked down and swirled her wine

  Emma said quietly, “Because you think Will is the man behind these murders.”

  Vanessa didn’t respond. Instead, she said, “Look, can we talk about Dave’s trip this weekend?”

  “Of course.”

  “You know me. You know I’m not flighty. But I still have the feeling that somebody is spying on me. Frankly, Emma, I’m scared, and I don’t want to be alone. Can I take you up on your offer?”

  Emma gave her an encouraging smile. “I’d be more than happy. We’ll spend the weekend with you. How long has it been since the two of us had a sleepover?”

  “Um, you can’t bring Pepper.”

  “If it’s protection you’re looking for, Pepper is a hundred times better than I am.”

  “The thing is, Dave is hyper-allergic to dog dander. He’ll come home sneezing and wheezing. Sometimes he even gets hives. He would kill me.”

  “Well,” Emma said, “the whole point is we don’t want anyone to kill you. So, no Pepper.”

  They finished the rest of their lunch recalling old stories about Deb. Vanessa became teary. So did Emma.

  After lunch, Pepper and Emma drove to Archie’s house. Neither had been there since his death. On the porch, Pepper’s entire body quivered. She looked up at Emma as if to say I don’t get why we haven’t been here before.

  As soon as Emma unlocked the front door, Pepper shot inside. Frantically, she ran around, sniffing everything. While Emma stood in the living room gazing at Archie’s familiar possessions, Pepper returned downstairs and sadly lay down beside her. As Pepper often did when in a contemplative mood, she crossed her front paws and sighed.

  “I know, Sergeant Pepper, I’m as heartbroken as you are. We just have to remember him as the good man he was.”

  Emma started going through the house. It was tidy and clean. The housekeeper was doing her job.

  In Archie’s office, she went to his gun safe. She dialed in the combination. September 29th was Pepper’s birthday. The combination was 929. Inside, there were quite a few weapons. Long guns, revolvers, and pistols.

  She chose a Beretta Px4 Compact. Easily concealable, the pistol carried fifteen 9 mm Parabellum rounds. Sixteen, if you counted the one in the chamber. She also took two extra magazines and three boxes of cartridges. At the bottom of the safe, she found two soft holsters. One was an ankle holster, and the other could be concealed inside a waistband.

  Emma again felt a new, steely resolve.

  Stella might have her service weapon and badge. But, if Emma was going to go after a killer, she wouldn’t go unarmed.

  Pepper reluctantly followed as Emma went to the front door and locked it behind them. On the drive home, Emma thought that maybe she should sell Archie’s house. Without a job, she would surely need the money. She had no idea how much it was worth, but it was a solid old structure. Archie had been conscientious with his repairs. He had even maintained the original shutters. He had been proud that they still worked.

  It didn’t take her long, though, to say to herself, “Not yet.” Losing that last tie would be a little too much to face.

  ML LM WL LW M7 W7 7W 7M

  At home, Emma found the list she had made of Mr. Sharpie’s “calling cards.”

  She studied the letters and numbers trying to decipher a meaning or pattern. Suddenly, she had a minor breakthrough. Will always wrote his sevens in the European-style, a continental seven. A seven with a cross-bar. She felt that that exonerated Will from having written the last four combinations. Which left

  LM ML WL LW

  Could they be the killer’s initials?

  She still didn’t feel like she was getting very far.

  She studied the paper some more until she found herself doodling rather than concentrating. She sighed in frustration. Her mind went back to the day when Joe Henderson had kicked her out of his house and then, even further, to the day that she had pulled Sophie King from Joe’s Escalade.

  She found the cordless phone in the kitchen and dialed a friend of hers who was a detective in the Lincoln Police Department. Lincoln was about thirty-five minutes south of Hampshire. Despite being a larger town with American amenities like a Walmart, a Home Depot, and an Applebee’s, Lincoln’s financial future didn’t look much brighter than Hampshire’s.

  She got Detective Dave Swanson on the first ring. Fingers crossed that the Hampshire Chronicle’s news of her firing hadn’t yet reached Lincoln.

  “Dave, this is Emma Thorne—”

  “Chief Emma, long time no hear. What’s up?”

  Emma didn’t correct the honorific. Her sin of omission would be revealed soon enough. Meantime, she needed a little breathing room.

  “Is a Joe Henderson on your radar?”

  “Hmm, interesting question. What’s your interest in Joe?”

  “As you know, we’ve been investigating several homicides—”

  “Mr. Sharpie.”

  “Indeed. Henderson is not a suspect, not yet anyway. I’m interested in getting a little more background on him.” She told Dave about her interview with him and what Sophie had told her after the pursuit.

  “We have a, uh, highly confidential investigation ongoing. I’m not going to say a whole lot about, because my chief would have my ass. As a chief, you can understand that. Let me just say that we are looking into a sex trafficking ring involving female minors. They’re using a photo studio as a front … and as a lure. It’s in an old mill building on River Street. Yes, Lincoln’s got a River Street, too. That’s about all I can tell you, except, of course, your buddy Joe’s name came up in flashing neon. We think he is the lease-holder through a shell company.”

  Emma said, “Thank you for sharing. I really appreciate it. Don’t be too pissed at me when you hear the news coming out of Hampshire.”

  She hung up before Dave could ask what the hell she was talking about.

  Emma felt guiltily satisfied.

  Emma found the King family landline in the phone book. She dialed them and got Sophie on the phone.

  “It’s Emma, Sophie. How are you making out?”

  “Fine. How come?”

  “Have you seen anything more of Joe Henderson?”

  “No way! Why would I want to see that creep? How come you’re asking?”

  “It’s not important. Do me a favor. If you hear from him, will you let me know?”

  Emma made Sophie promise she would.

  She heard Sophie say, “Weird,” before she hung up.

  36

  Walmart Shopper

  Monday afternoon, Emma booked a pet-friendly motel room in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. On a splendid summer day with puffy cumulus clouds wafting against a picture-perfect blue sky, she drove with the windows open. Pepper thrust her head out the passenger side window, sampling the passing smells. Officially off-duty, she was now permitted to ride in the front seat of Emma’s personal vehicle.

  Pittsfield, where the second burner cell phone had been purchased, was only an hour and one-half north of Hampshire. It was a pretty and pleasant drive past Monument Mountain, in and out of famous towns like Stockbridge and Lenox, and through the Berkshires. While not as prominent, the Berkshires connect with the Green Mountains of Vermont to the north.

  Emma’s room at the Route 7 Motel smelled a lot like the last Fido to have slept there. It was cheap, though. $65 for a night with a $20 “pet deposit.”

  She found a decent burger joint in the middle of Pittsfield. She’d dressed Pepper in a black vest, which Archie had bought for parades. In white letters on both sides was the legend Police K-9 Unit. That way, Pepper would
n’t have to cool her heels outside. She washed her cheeseburger and fries down with a glass of Berkshire Blonde, thinking about her competing interests: Will and Joe.

  She and Pepper went to bed early.

  First stop, Tuesday morning, was the Walmart on Dalton Avenue. Although Stella had confiscated Emma’s badge and gun, she had neglected to take Emma’s laminated ID card, which identified her as a Chief of Police, complete with a photograph. As a poseur, she now had to think of such things. Pepper again wore her cop’s vest, which she quite enjoyed wearing. Emma was confident that she would pass for an active-duty police officer.

  Lastly, she packed the Beretta in her handbag and carried a photograph of Will. It was his last passport photo, a remarkably good one, and he looked very handsome in a tweed jacket and a blue and green tie.

  The Pittsfield Walmart was as grim as the few other Walmarts she had ever entered. Ironically, Emma found the manager in the firearms department. She was wearing a blue vest with its stylized yellow star and standard-Walmart How May I Help You? stenciled on the back.

  “How may I help you?” said the store manager.

  Emma explained that a cell phone under investigation by the Hampshire Police Department had been purchased at her store. “Oh dear,” she said, leading her to the section of the store where cell phones were sold. Patrons gave Pepper wide berth as they navigated the aisles.

  Emma asked the on-duty salesman if he had been working on Sunday, April 11. He scrolled through his cell phone and announced, “As a matter of fact, I was.”

  She showed him Will’s photograph and her ID.

  “You have got to be kidding, Chief. That’s more than two months ago. Do you know how many people walk in and out of this store even on a Sunday?”

  “Please,” Emma said, “just look at the photo.”

  To be fair to him, he did study the photograph. He even said, “Not a bad looking guy.” But he shook his head. “The face doesn’t ring a bell. I’m sorry not to be any help.”

  Emma asked if anybody else was working on that day, but again he shook his head. “Sorry.”

  “Are there any security cameras that cover your counter?”

  He pointed at the ceiling directly behind her. She looked at the unfortunately-placed camera, realizing immediately that it would only capture the back of the patron’s head.

  “Crackerjack security system,” she said.

  She left the store after politely thanking him and the manager.

  At the door, she noticed that the Pittsfield Walmart was open from 7 a.m. until midnight, i.e. seventeen hours a day. Checking the security tapes for one month would mean scanning the backs of peoples’ heads for five hundred and ten hours. Less on fast-forward, but still … a tad too Herculean for her.

  Their next stop was the Pittsfield Post Office on Fenn Street, a block and half off Route 7.

  Emma stood in line at each window. Each time she got to the front, she showed Will’s photograph to the postal workers. Negative all around. As she was leaving, one of those annoying women who greet all dogs with in-your-face enthusiasm started to coo-coo at Pepper. Emma warned the woman, “I wouldn’t get near her if I were you. She’s vicious.”

  Emma spent the afternoon visiting post offices in the towns of Lanesborough, Dalton, Lenox, Stockbridge, and Great Barrington, a waltz through the Berkshires of over eighty miles.

  All her stops drew blanks.

  On the way back to the Route 7 Motel, she parked at a package store and bought a couple of bottles of wine.

  Before going to her room, she ducked into the motel office to tell the guy on duty that she would be checking out on Wednesday. The receptionist was a young man with dirty blonde hair, a ponytail, and a tattoo crawling out of his T-shirt and up his neck. The Notorious B.I.G. was printed on the T-shirt. Emma figured that he couldn’t have been alive when Biggie Small died in a drive-by shooting. In addition, Emma thought that this ambassador for the Route 7 looked like a stoner.

  “Man, that’s some freaky lookin’ dog you got lady,” he said.

  His eyes were red and his pupils, dilated. His weed was probably laced with something more than THC.

  “She’s a police officer.”

  Emma noticed that the Ambassador’s hands were busy shuffling something underneath the counter. She realized that she couldn’t bust him even if she wanted to, which she didn’t.

  On a whim, she pulled out the weather-beaten photograph of Will.

  “Did this guy ever stop here, spend the night?” she asked.

  He picked up the photograph and looked at it. “Yeah, maybe.”

  Emma jumped. She watched him carefully. “What did you say?”

  “Said I mighta seen him.”

  His eyes drifted from the photograph to a place on the wall somewhere behind Emma’s right ear.

  “How sure are you?”

  “Like I said, maybe.”

  He looked like he was dissembling, but, damn, she couldn’t be sure.

  “Does the name Will Foster mean anything to you?”

  “With faces, I’m good … names, not so much.”

  “But this face, you remember, no?”

  “Like I said,” he repeated, “maybe.”

  Emma took a fifty-dollar bill from her purse and placed it on the counter.

  The Ambassador suddenly looked nervous. “I thought you said you was a cop.”

  “I am. Have you ever seen this man? How about giving me a Ulysses S. Grant’s-worth of the truth?”

  “Lady, the fuck you talking about?”

  She pointed to the picture on the bill. “That dude’s Ulysses S Grant. What I want to know is,” she said pointing to Will’s photo, “have you ever seen this dude?”

  “Ah,” he said, “I get it.” His pupils seemed to dilate further, but the fifty-dollar bill disappeared from the counter in a magician-like sleight-of-hand.

  “Yup. I seen him.”

  “When?” she asked.

  “A week ago? Maybe?”

  She realized that both his sentences ended with a question mark and that she was fifty dollars poorer.

  And yet she couldn’t be sure.

  She asked him when he went off duty. He answered, eight o’clock tomorrow morning.

  “Later,” she said.

  In her room, Emma uncorked one of the bottles of wine. After struggling with the plastic wrapper of the plastic “glass,” she poured herself a big one. She lay on the bed, briefly considered TV but decided against it. Pepper joined her, stretching the full length of her long body against Emma’s thigh and leg.

  As she lay there thinking, Mark Byrne popped into her head.

  She found and dialed his number.

  37

  Re-Alphabetizing

  She told Mark everything that had happened. Her job termination, her search for and suspicions about Will, Vanessa’s concerns, the state police “helping” with the investigation, everything she could think of. It was oddly reassuring to speak with him.

  “Where are you?” he asked.

  She told him.

  “I’m about an hour away. Why don’t I come see you?”

  Emma thought about that one. Why not?

  She said, “That would be nice.”

  She was three quarters of her way through the first bottle of wine when Pepper growled. A moment later, Mark knocked on the door.

  After giving Pepper some hearty pats on her withers, he said in his gruff voice, “Christ, this room stinks. Let’s find a bar and get a drink.”

  Mark drove Emma to an Irish bar he knew. Pepper sat in back of the car wearing her parade vest so she could join them inside.

  “Ah, here it is,” he said, parking in the back of the building.

  Erin Go Bragh was noisy, crowded, and a complete dive. The walls were covered with photographs of women in green T-shirts. “From the Erin Go Bra-less contest,” Mark explained, “every year, the night before St. Patrick’s Day.”

  Emma thought the place was perfec
t, such was her mood. They couldn’t find a free booth. So, they squeezed into two empty stools at the bar, hips touching. Mark suggested they have a Guinness, and Emma readily agreed. The bartender was exacting in his pouring, and they were each served a pint with a creamy white head. Mark tipped his glass, plinking hers. He said, “Sounds like you’ve had a rough few days.”

  “I haven’t had a Guinness in years. It’s delicious.”

  “Tired of rehashing things?”

  “Yup.” She thought for a moment, studying Mark’s life-beaten face, which, as before, she decided was quite handsome. “Actually, no. How the hell am I ever going to find Will?”

  “What will you do when you find him?”

  “As I told my friend Vanessa, I’m either going to clear his name or make a citizens’ arrest.”

  Mark laughed.

  “It’s not funny.” But she laughed along with him.

  “Maybe I should give you a hand.”

  “For pay.”

  “Naturally.”

  Emma said, “I forgot to tell you about the night clerk at my motel. When I showed him Will’s photo, he seemed to think that he remembered him. I emphasize seemed. Then I made the mistake of giving him a fifty-dollar bill which only made him positive. He really got my hopes up, but now … I don’t know.”

  “I have quite a lot of experience with liars. Why don’t we pay him another visit? But no need to rush. Another Guinness?”

  Emma ordered two more and was beginning to feel a buzz.

  “Tell me about yourself. I know nothing about you,” she said.

  “Hmm, I grew up in a shitty part of Boston, Jamaica Plain. Which is probably why I feel at home here.” He waved his arm around. “My dad was a cop. Irish, of course. So, I became a cop, too. But the corruption wore on me. Every beat cop I knew was on the take. After a few years of collusion, shaking down the neighborhood bodegas with the other cops, I quit. Before quitting, though, I got to know the crème de la crème of Beantown’s shadier types. So, becoming a private investigator was kind of a no-brainer. Right off the bat, I had plenty of well-paying clients. Eventually, I moved to Connecticut to start afresh and clean up my act a bit.” He looked her in the eyes as if he was trying to gauge her reaction. “Married once, no kids, no girlfriend. I guess that’s about it. And you?”