JG02 - Borderlines

by Archer Mayor

  But Gorman wasn’t in. We pounded on the door several times, and then stepped aside to let the manager use his passkey. From the door, the place not only looked empty, but unused. Aside from a suitcase, a few items on the night table, and some clothes laying about, it looked ready to rent bed made, towels unused.

  Hamilton stopped us from going beyond the threshold. “What’s your name again?” he asked the manager. “Petrone, Arthur.” I caught a hint of military obsequiousness lurking in the man’s past.

  “Mr. Petrone, this warrant allows us to search for a pair of shoes whose soles match those pictured in this photograph. We are not here to ransack the room, nor are we allowed to take from it anything not mentioned in the warrant, unless we know it to be directly linked to the criminal investigation now under way. Do you understand all that?”

  “Sure… I think.” “Good. I want you to stand right here and watch us.

  Later, if they ask you in court, you can tell them exactly what we did here, okay? So try to remember.” Petrone nodded silently. Despite the cold air entering through the door, I could see he was sweating. “What did this guy do?” “Maybe nothing, that’s why we’re here.” Hamilton looked at us and nodded. We both made a beeline for %209 he alcove with the sink at the far end of the room. To its left was the athroom, with a toilet and tub; to the right was a doorless closet. We oth fell to our knees like kids at the Christmas tree. “I think we got it, Lieutenant.” Hamilton approached, tugging Petrone behind him, and looked ver our heads. On the floor, still lying bottoms up the way Angie owley had placed them, were a pair of low-cut walking shoes. Hamilon handed the photo to Spinney, who held it next to the shoes. “What do you think, Mr. Petrone? Is it a match?” Petrone, beginning to enjoy the newfound authority, nodded ravely. “I believe it is.” Hamilton pulled a brown paper evidence bag from his pocket and ave it to Spinney. Spinney snapped it open and gingerly placed one hoe inside, careful not to lose any dirt. As he began doing the same with the other shoe, I stopped him. “What?” “I thought I saw something, something shiny.” I took the shoe from him and held it closer, angling it in the light from over the sink. “There it is. I’ll be damned.” “What?” Spinney asked again, this time with some insistence. I moved the shoe so he could see.

  Hamilton stuck his head in from he side for a better view. Even Petrone balanced on one foot and tried 0 see without intruding. It made me think of a bunch of frustrated iners finally catching a glimpse of a tiny speck of gold.

  Which wasn’t far from the truth, for what had caught my eye was small sliver of glass wedged in between two lugs and held there by ried mud.

  It was broken and scarred, but still recognizable. It also went a long way in explaining why Gorman had appeared so nervous when Spinney and I had first met him, the night after Wingate’s death.

  It was a contact lens.

  Gorman, however, wasn’t available. Upon leaving the motel, Hamilton got in touch with the surveillance crew that had been put on him and discovered Gorman had returned to Hanover, New Hampshire, the night before. Spinney was all set to get a court order and hunt %210 the man down. Hamilton, as usual, took the dispassionate, reasonable view.

  Gorman had left his belongings in this motel room and was slated to appear with Greta at a televised news conference at the Rocky River in a few hours. Why not just wait for him to come to us? Spinney continued to growl until it was pointed out that by being in Hanover, Gorman was out of state, and the paperwork to extradite him would take days. That left Spinney frustrated, but without recourse. Not so Hamilton, who decided that since Gorman was temporarily out of reach, he would head off to the Waterbury lab and have the contact lens scientifically matched to the one that had remained in Wingate’s eye just to be sure.

  That had left Spinney at barracks, with me to watch him pace. I went over to the projection screen at the head of the room, released the catch, and eased it back into its cannister near the ceiling. The diagram of the murder scene was still displayed on the blackboard behind with all its multi-colored footprints. “What color are Gorman’s prints supposed to be?” “White.” I studied the diagram, using a pencil as a pointer. “White-the one guy who was standing off by himself.” “And for a long time,” Spinney added. He was now sitting down, with his elbows propped on the table, staring at the board intently.

  “Right. Hamilton said last night the lab had come up with some new information about all this, something about chronological sequencing?”

  Spinney looked over the paper debris Iittering the table and came up with a thick binder. He leafed through it a bit, scanning the indexes.

  “Yeah, here it is. What do you want to know?” “Any sense of who went where first.” Spinney read quickly, flipping through several pages.

  “Well, let’s see. We got Mitch Pearl and Rennie’s tracks on top of all the others.” I scanned the board. “Okay, that’s when they found the body. What else?” “Of the earlier prints, it looks like white is on top… Well, he didn’t hit all the other prints. He is on top of black and red-he missed yellow.” I translated, using Crofter’s color key.

  “Gorman’s white, so he came after black, which is Wingate. So Gorman either entered the picture while Wingate was still alive, hitting some of Wingate’s prints but not all, or he came in after Wingate was already dead.” “Which means he could have killed him.” %211 “Maybe. What else?”

  “White-Gorman is also on top of several reds.” “Red. Crofter called him the busiest-” “And Gorman the least busy-in and out.” “Right, so he is; one line in, one line out, pretty clean if you’re oing to hack someone with a knife a half-dozen times.” “Perhaps.” “Red is stomping all over the place, particularly near where Winate’s head finally wound up.” I stepped away from the board and faced Spinney. “I kick you in he balls; what happens?” “I shoot you and sing soprano the rest of my life.”

  “Which won’t be long. You double over, clutching yourself with ne hand, and I finish you off with the knife. You fall at my feet.

  rgo, my footprints end up all around where your head ends up, ight?”

  “Possibly. Maybe you kick me in the balls and I fall down like a ack of potatoes and the little lady finishes me off.” “Oh?” “Yeah.” He pointed at the binder. “Let’s assume the yellow tracks elong to Julie for the moment, a likely choice since she addressed the nvelope to her father and none of our other suspects fit those small, ight moccasin prints.

  Now, this report says both she and red step all ver each other. No way to tell who went first.” I nodded my acknowledgment. “But Gorman’s definitely on top fred?” “Yeah.” “So if yellow-Julie-and red are intermixed, we might assume orman appeared after Julie, too.” Spinney shook his head and dropped the book in front of him. ‘Maybe.

  This is like reading tea leaves. Just because one set of prints on top of another set doesn’t mean they came later than a few econds. If you have ten guys walking in a line, did the last guy follow he first nine by two hours, or was he holding a short rope attached to he ninth guy’s belt? You can’t tell.” “Okay, I’ll grant you that. But nowhere does it say Gorman’s rints appear under anyone’s, right?” “Right.” “And since yellow’s and red’s prints are mixed together, it’s reaonable to assume they were together at the time.” “Two against one? Yellow and red against Wingate, with Gorman ntering the scene after?” %212 “It works, doesn’t it?” Spinney rubbed the sides of his nose with his forefingers.

  “Yeah, but so does three against one.” “Does it?” I used the pointer again. “Here’s Wingate standing around, shifting his weight, staggering finally, and then falling. Here’s yellow, also standing around, back and forth, in front of Wingate. And the same’s true for red. But Gorman…” I tapped at the two neat parallel rows of white marks, “goes straight in, pauses maybe squats down or something-and then leaves.” “In a hurry.” “What?” Spinney pointed at the book. “In a hurry. The lab says he left running, leaving only toe marks, no heels.” “It fits,” I sai
d, tossing the pencil onto the table. I felt disappointed in some ways: Gorman, obviously, was not our killer.

  “So who’s red, and is Julie yellow?” The first question had a numbing regularity to it; it seemed we had fit everyone except Buster into those red footprints. I ducked answering.

  “And what was Gorman doing there in the first place?” Spinney leaned way back in the chair and locked his hands behind his neck. “You know, Joe, red could still be Rennie.” I shook my head and sat down. “Concede the point. It is possible.” “I’d be happier conceding it if he hadn’t gotten killed.” “That’s because you’re linking all three events together the fire and the two murders. What if they’re not connected?” That struck me as unlikely. “Remember when we visited Rennie’s place, and got the boots and clothes and knife? Well, I asked Nadine, just as we were leaving, whether Rennie ever went without a belt. Remember what she said?” He looked at me closely. “That he always wore a belt.” “So what was blood doing on the waistband of the pants we found? If he always wore a belt, the blood would be on the belt.” Spinney rolled his eyes.

  “Wait, I know it’s not evidence, at least nothing that would stand up in court, but to me it shows something fundamentally wrong with Rennie being the killer.” Spinney decided to skirt the issue. “Those red prints were definitely made by his boots, and he definitely had ties to both Wingate and Julie.

  It wouldn’t be the first time lovers attempted murder.” “They were hardly lovers, from what I hear. Chaney said Rennie dumped her.” %213

  “Come on, we don’t know that. For all we know, they were still uts about each other. Plus, Wingate took a swing at Rennie; some people have killed for a parking space.” I remembered something else. “Rennie said he lost his lighter bout six months ago, just a short time after Chaney said Rennie jumped Julie Wingate. Maybe that’s why he clammed up on us. I hought at the time it was odd that he knew when he’d lost the lighter, ut not where or how.

  If he suspected Julie stole it, or that she picked up after one of their trysts, then he also suspected her of planting it nder Wingate’s body.”

  “Which might explain what Julie’s footprints were doing off emon Road.

  Rennie called the meeting to find out if she’d framed Im.

  I got up to look out one of the windows. “So who killed Rennie?” hat, almost more than anything, was what was sticking in my craw. ‘If Rennie was framed, why kill him oIl? Especially when he was the ost obvious suspect?” “How about asking, ‘who didn’t kill Rennie’?” “All right.”

  “Not Julie, because her tracks come and go, leaving Rennie alive.” I nodded, content for the moment that my assumptions about ulie’s actions were reasonable.

  “Not Gorman.” “Why not?” “All right, probably not Gorman. Because he would have used is one pair of hiking shoes, just as he had the night Wingate died, hoes which obviously haven’t been used since. Also, as a city boy, e’d have crashed around the woods like the twosome who met with ennie. He’s no woodsman. The guy who iced Rennie walked around zke a cat.” “So, by the same logic, Gorman couldn’t have been part of the duo ho met Rennie at the rock.” “Right. Plus, it wouldn’t make sense. From what we’ve estabshed, it looks like Julie was there, so what would Gorman be doing with her meeting Rennie?” “All that’s based on the hypothesis that Gorman knows nothing bout moving in the woods which we don’t know for a fact-and that e only has the one pair of boots that he would naturally wear to that ind of meeting. Beverly Hillstrom has a pair of boots permanently ored in the trunk of her car.” Spinney looked sourly at the tabletop. “All right, so it might have een Gorman.” %214 “Among others,” I added, looking out the window. “Like Sarris, or one of his people, or someone we haven’t even thought of.”

  “It gets easier all the time,” Spinney sighed. “Well, at least let’s start with Gorman.” “Jesus, we should have booked ahead.” Cars and pickups lined both sides of 114, and several television trucks filled North Street, across from the Rocky River. We made the corner down Atlantic Boulevard and were damn near back out of town before Spinney said, “Fuck it,” and parked in someone’s yard.

  It had begun to snow as we made our way back up the street, returning to the Inn on foot. “What the hell’s going on? I thought this was supposed to be a small interview,” Spinney said, looking at the trucks.

  “It’s a big story; everybody’s had enough time to send in the hotshots.

  My guess is that Gorman’s been working the phone like a regular P.T.

  Barnum.” “The only crew missing is MTV.” As we rounded the corner into North Street, we found a throng of people milling about the menagerie of electronic equipment. I saw Buster standing by the side of the road, looking like the bear rousted from his cave. “What d’ya think?” He shook his head. “Damnedest thing. They come all the way up here from cities where they get thirty killings in a week, just to jabber about how the country’s going to the dogs. Beats the hell out of me.”

  “Anything happen yet?” “Hell, no. The fancy boys with the hairdos are talking to each other, the local guys are taking pictures of the fancy boys, and the rest of ‘em are taking pictures of each other just to prove they were here. Now I know for sure why we end up with the politicians we get.” He stumped off into the falling snow, presumably to sit in contemplation amid the isolated splendor of his filling station. Spinney and I climbed the steps to the front door, stepping over a nest of tangled wires and cables leading to trucks with dish antennas on top. Inside, on the left, the Library glowed with an eerie blue-white %215 light. People jammed the entrance way, balanced on top of radiators, and challenged the strength of the staircase, all craning to see over or through the forest of lights, reflector umbrellas, cameras, and sound equipment that had been crowded into Buster’s favorite evening den.

  We ucled 0UE way through to tee double doors, where we found a man with a headset around his neck uard1n the entrance.

  “Greta Lynn and Paul Gorman in there?” Spinney asked in his best G-man tone. The man looked at us like we’d just wandered out of the woods.

  “Yeah, they’re the show.” “We need to talk to them now.” “We’re about to tape.” Spinney pulled out his badge. “Now.” The man caught his breath for a moment, apparently fighting down a hysterical reaction. “Wait here.” He returned a minute later with a flabby-looking man with blowdried hair, a gold chain around his neck, and tinted aviator glasses, a look I thought had faded years ago. “What’s going on?” he asked with thinly veiled hostility.

  Spinney smiled~arely and introduced us, complete with lofty titles.

  “We’re conducting a criminal investigation. We need to talk to Mrs.

  Lynn and Mr. Gorrnan.” “Is this going to take long?” “I don’t know.”

  “You know, we’ll be out of here in an hour. Maybe you could wait. I’ll give you a ringside seat.” “No.” The man, presumably a producer or director, pursed his lips. “Since what we’re both doing ties in with your case, why don’t you let us film your talk with them, and then we’ll do the interview right after? Kind of like “Sixty Minutes,” you know?”

  Spinney just looked at him.

  “You may be missing the boat here. People open up when a camera’s rolling-we might be able to help you get more out of them. It’ll make you look good. Your boss’ll be happy and your family can see you on TV.” That explained the tinted glasses and neck hardware, I thought.

  The network put this guy out to pasture years ago, at least I hoped so.

  Again Spinney said, “No.” Finally, the producer caved in. “Kill the lights. We’ll hold for a while.” The other man checked his watch. “We can’t hold forever.” %216 “I’m aware of that fact, Charlie. If it takes too long, we’ll fold our tents; this is hardly a summit conference.” I was grateful Greta wasn’t within earshot. They might have been suddenly covering a live homicide.

  Several reporters had caught wind something was up and began to cluster around the doorway.

&n
bsp; “Aren’t you Joe Gunther?” one of them asked. “Oh, for Christ sake,”

  Spinney muttered and grabbed my arm. “Don’t let anyone past,” he told headset-Charlie as we plowed into the electronic jungle littering the Library.

  Greta and Gorman were on the other side, sitting in director’s chairs, having their noses dusted. Spinney stepped up in front of Gorman.

  Show’s over. We need to talk.” Greta looked around at the dying lights.

  “What the hell’s going on?” “Actually, Greta,” I said, “unless Sergeant Spinney objects, I’d like you to hear this.” The makeup man was standing awkwardly to one side. I waved him away. Spinney shrugged.

  “Fine with me.” He reached forward and took Gorman’s arm. “Come on, let’s go find a quiet corner.” Gorman shook the hand off. “Am I under arrest?” “You might be, depending on what you’ve got to say.” Several technicians and hangers-on discreetly gathered within earshot, straining to hear. “On what charge?” Spinney looked around. “You know and we know what the charges might be, Mr. Gorman. If you want to have this conversation in front of the network crews, that’s fine with me.” Greta crossed her arms. “Fine, let’s do it.” Gorman hesitated. “No, I think maybe a little privacy is called for.” Greta stared at him, her mouth half open.

  He quickly covered himself. “I’m sure what they’ve got to say is totally ridiculous. But there’s no point feeding it directly into the pipeline.” He stood up. “Where to?” Spinney shot me a questioning look. I turned to Greta. “The stairs are blocked. Is there some place on the ground floor we can go? The kitchen, maybe?” Reluctantly, her face mirroring her suspicions, she got up and began to lead the way. I noticed she kept looking back at Gorman as if he had suddenly sprouted horns. Deceit was not something she handled with grace, especially from those for whom she’d let down the drawbridge.

  %217 The side door to the kitchen was off a short hallway around the corner from the Library’s entrance; our wade through the crowd was short and without comment, at least from any of us.