“I don’t think so. They didn’t say so.”
“Are they still out there?”
“Yes. I mean, it’s only been . . .” He heard her talking away from the phone. “That’s okay, honey, Mommy’s just . . .” He missed the rest of it, and then she was back with him. “I’m sorry, where were we?”
“Are Bracco and Schiff still there?”
“I think so.” A pause. “Yes, they’re just standing outside, talking.”
“Could you let me speak with Inspector Bracco, please?”
“Sure, if you think . . . just a second.”
“Darrel Bracco here. Who’s this?”
“Darrel, it’s Dismas Hardy. How are you doing?”
“Fine, maybe a little cold standing outside in the fog, but okay. Call me a mind reader, but Mrs. Townshend’s your client?”
“She is. I could be there in fifteen minutes. How does that sound?”
“Frankly, sir, it sounds like she’s got herself lawyered up.”
“Every citizen’s right, Darrel.”
“No question, sir, no question. Though as you know, it sometimes gives a cop pause.”
Hardy well knew. “Sometimes it should,” he said. “But I don’t think this is one of those times. Although I’ll tell you frankly I don’t know how much I’m going to let my client say to you until I’ve had a chance to talk to her a little more. Maybe not much.”
“Why am I not shocked?”
“Experience, Darrel. It’s a beautiful thing. Can I talk to Mrs. Townshend again?”
“Sounds like it’s your show. Here she is.”
“Maya,” Hardy said, “why don’t you ask the inspectors in and I’ll be there very shortly. But don’t answer questions until I get there. Is it really your gun?”
“It might have been. If they say so, I’m sure they’re right.”
Hardy wondered why she hadn’t seen fit to remember that detail in their earlier interview, but this wasn’t the time to bring that up.
“But what about Joel?” she asked.
“What about him?”
“He’s going to be coming home. I mean, maybe we could meet someplace else later. You and me and these people.”
“We could do that,” Hardy said evenly. “What time does your husband get home?”
“Sixish. Six-thirty. Usually. But sometimes not. It’s hard to predict.”
Hardy took a beat, checked his watch. “It’s just past four now. I’m sure we can get this all cleared up by five if I come right over.”
“But if Joel gets home early . . .”
“You’re going to have a hard time keeping this from him in any event. Maybe you want to get that part over with now. But meanwhile, I’ll be there in a heartbeat.”
“Or sooner if you could,” she said.
The two unknown guests in the living room—a man and a woman—stopped Joel Townshend in his tracks as he was coming in. He looked a question at his wife, who was sitting with them making small talk.
She had turned and now she stood up, wiping her hands nervously on her skirt. “Oh, Joel. You’re early.” Walking back to him, her face a map of her worries, she kissed him on the cheek, then turned to present the couple on the couch as they were getting to their feet together. “These are inspectors Bracco and Schiff. They have some questions about Dylan and BBW.”
Joel put on a welcoming smile, took a few steps forward, and shook hands all around. Thirty-five years old, tall and thin with short-cropped brown hair, he projected an easygoing, casual style only slightly belied by the perfectly tailored tan business suit, light yellow shirt, and brown and gold tie.
In fact, though, he gave no sign that these unexpected visitors bothered him in any way. They were guests in his house, and he was their host. End of story. “Please,” he said, “sit back down. I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”
“That’s all right,” Debra Schiff replied. “You didn’t interrupt anything. We’re waiting for your lawyer anyway.”
Joel’s face clouded in confusion. “My lawyer?”
“Actually, mine.” Maya reached out and took her husband’s hand, facing him now, cutting off any further response. She added, “A friend of Harlen’s. He thought we ought to have a lawyer if we’re going to be talking to the police about a murder.”
Joel made a dismissive gesture and shook his head with a bemused humor. “That’s ridiculous. You know I love your brother, My, but sometimes he’s a bit too much of a drama junkie, don’t you think? I hardly believe we need a lawyer to tell these people the simple truth, do we? You didn’t have anything to do with Dylan’s death.”
“No, but—”
“Well, then? And now we’re making them wait here in their busy day. And for what?”
“Well, Harlen thought . . .” She tried a conciliatory smile. “Mr. Hardy will be here in just a minute anyway. He thought it was worthwhile me calling him and asking him to come by.”
In a bit of theatricality Joel cast his eyes to the ceiling. “Well, of course he did. You ask a mechanic if he thinks you need a brake job. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, guess what? You do. New pads all around, more brake fluid and lots of it, maybe balance the tires while he’s at it. Oh, and PS, that’ll be five hundred dollars.” He looked at the inspectors. “Am I right?”
Bracco wasn’t completely successful hiding his appreciation at this response. But he kept it low-key. “We’re not encouraged to argue when citizens say they want their attorney, sir,” he said. “But I think it’s fair to say they’re probably overused, especially in situations like this one, where your wife is not a suspect.”
“Well,” Joel said, “her brother’s a big, important city supervisor now and when he gets dumb ideas, nobody ever calls him on them.”
“I know Harlen pretty well, sir,” Bracco said. “I used to be his partner when he was a cop.” Now he broke a broad grin. “The ambition thing makes him a little cautious.”
“There you go,” Joel said. “Excessive caution. Sometimes it’s just unnecessary.” Still holding Maya’s hand, he gave it a little confident squeeze. “I’m sure my wife will be happy to talk to you. What do you want to know?”
“Joel.” Maya now squeezed his hand hard, warning him off.
“Really, My. Come on. This is silly.”
And the doorbell rang.
“There he is now.” Maya jumped as she let go of her husband’s hand and ran to the door.
Townshend watched her for a second, then turned back to the inspectors and shrugged with some exaggeration. “Fantastic,” he said.
Hardy, walking in to a cool reception at best from both the inspectors and the husband, didn’t make matters any better when, first thing after the introductions, he asked Maya if he could speak to her alone, or with her husband if she wanted.
“I don’t think we need to do that,” Joel said. “Maya doesn’t have anything to hide. She can say anything she needs to in front of me and these inspectors.”
“Absolutely,” Hardy said. “If she wants to, of course she can. Maya? Your call.”
They stood in a frozen tableau for a long moment, until she finally turned to face Hardy and said, “Maybe Joel ought to come with us.”
After his initial stunned expression Joel took in the cops again with an apologetic shrug, then came back to Hardy and Maya with a terse, “All right. Let’s go, then.”
Maya led the little party of three off to a front working den—flat-screen TV, bookshelves, fireplace. Closing the door, they remained standing because Joel gave no one any time to sit down before he more or less exploded, although he kept his voice in check. “Maya, you want to tell me what this is about?”
She threw a glance at Hardy—and again, clearly, this didn’t get her any points with her husband—nodded, took in a breath. “Mr. Hardy knows that I went by BBW on Saturday morning and saw the body, and then got scared and drove away without calling the police.”
Joel’s mouth went tight. “You went to BBW Saturday m
orning? Why?”
“Because Dylan called me Friday night and said he needed to see me first thing, that it was an emergency.”
“What kind of emergency?”
“He didn’t say that.”
“But you went?”
“Yes. I went. But the real problem, ask Mr. Hardy here, is that the first time I talked to those people, I didn’t say anything about that. I told them I went to Mass.”
“The first time you talked to who? Those inspectors out there? This isn’t the first time?”
Hardy finally felt that he could join the conversation. “They talked to your wife yesterday morning.”
Joel couldn’t take his eyes off his wife. “Why didn’t you tell me you’d talked to them? And not told them the truth?”
“I don’t know, Joel. I don’t know. I panicked. I was afraid, or embarrassed, or something. I thought you’d be mad at me being in this on any level, for getting you involved.” She had her arms crossed over her chest, displaying more defiance than her words indicated. “The point is I’m telling you now, all right? I don’t know what I should do right now. And by the way, you should know, Joel, that the gun they think is probably the murder weapon is the one I left down there back when I first opened the place, like ten years ago, and it’s registered to me.” She looked from one man to the other. “And in case either of you are thinking it, if I were going to have shot Dylan, which I never would have done under any conditions, period, I never would have been so stupid as to throw it away where the police could find it.”
For a minute no one spoke. Eyes flashed between husband and wife. Hardy kept his own counsel in silence until he felt again that he would be heard. “The thing to do right now, in my opinion, Maya, is to go out there and tell the inspectors the truth. As your husband has said. If you don’t do that, and somebody did witness you in the alley on Saturday morning, it will look much worse and be a lot harder to explain. As for the gun, you owned it. So what? If you kept it at the shop, Dylan undoubtedly knew about it and probably had it with him illegally for protection while he was carrying the weed.”
“What weed?” Joel asked.
Maya shook her head in anger and frustration. She spoke under her breath. “Oh, Jesus!”
“Dylan was selling marijuana out of your wife’s store,” Hardy said in his most neutral voice. “I don’t know why it hasn’t been in the papers. The cops have known this all along.”
“How special for them,” Joel said. Clearly seething now, he spoke in a near whisper. “How long were you going to keep all this from me, Maya? What is that about? I thought we talked to each other.”
“We do.”
“Not so much, though, as it turns out.” Finally, Joel brought his attention to Hardy. “So you’re suggesting we go outside and tell these people that my wife lied to them, is that it?”
“Omitted,” Hardy said. “Not lied. At least then we start over with a clean slate.”
“But Maya’s at the murder scene within, apparently, minutes of the crime.”
“That’s true. And in point of fact, she was.”
Now Joel came back to her. “And you don’t know what the emergency was?”
“No.”
“No idea?”
“No, Joel, really.”
This wasn’t enough for her increasingly furious husband. He kept at her. “So the situation here, correct me if I’m wrong, is that Dylan called you on Friday night saying he needed to see you first thing next morning, and you dropped everything and got up at five-thirty, lied to me and the kids about going to Mass—”
“But I did go to Mass, after—”
Joel waved that off. “After you went to see Dylan first, for some reason that he wouldn’t even tell you. Is that what you expect me to believe?”
Tears glistened in Maya’s eyes. “That’s what happened, Joel. That’s exactly what happened.”
“That twerp calls you, doesn’t even give you a reason, and you come running, and now we’ve got the cops sitting in our living room and your lawyer here says we need to tell them the truth, except that the truth leaves you going down to visit the murdered man just about the time he was killed, and with essentially no reason.” He turned to Hardy. “How can we tell them she went down there if we can’t tell them why? Can you answer that for me?”
“Keep it simple. He asked her to, that’s all. Some problem with the business, some decision she had to make in person.” Hardy slowed himself down. “I’m sure Maya thought it was going to be a quick little meeting and then she’d have time to make it back to Mass. Isn’t that right, Maya?”
Hardy had given her the answer and was glad to see her embrace it. “That’s exactly it, Joel. I didn’t think it was anything really important. I wasn’t hiding anything from you. It was just a small business hassle that I thought I’d take care of like I have a million others.”
Another silence, finally broken when Joel asked Hardy, “You really think this will fly?”
“It’s the truth,” Hardy said. “All things considered, honesty’s still the best policy.”
Husband and wife stared at each other for a long beat. Maya reached out and took Joel’s hand in hers. “That ought to be the end of it,” she said.
“Not exactly,” Joel said, extricating his hand from his wife’s. “You and I are going to have to have a discussion.”
“We can do that.” She looked up at Hardy. “Meanwhile, let’s go tell ’em,” she said.
He nodded, no-nonsense. “All right,” he said. “But let me do the talking.”
At ten-thirty that night Hardy threw the next-to-last dart of his round at the Little Shamrock bar and it landed in his “out” spot of double eleven. He plocked the next shot directly in the center of the bull’s-eye, ending the game. He was playing “301” and he’d gone out ahead of his opponent, Wyatt Hunt, by hitting his last eight throws in a row, a fairly nice run.
And all too underappreciated by Hunt, his firm’s private investigator, who now owed him not only the tab for the three beers they’d each consumed in the three-game minitournament, but the extra hundred bucks they’d put up as the pot. No sooner had Hardy’s winning shot landed than Hunt handed him the Franklin and offered to go double or nothing.
“That’s a sucker bet, Wyatt, as you well know.” Hardy took the bill and put it into his wallet. “But I’ll buy you a consolation drink to help assuage the agony of defeat.”
“Assuage is a good lawyer word,” Hunt said. “You don’t hear people say assuage every day.”
“No indeed, you don’t,” Hardy replied. “And yet, sometimes it is the perfect choice, le mot juste, as Hemingway would have said.”
“Or me if I spoke French.”
The private eye went about six three, two ten, an athletic hunk comprised of about equal parts gristle and testosterone. If you could be handsome in an ugly way, that’s what Hardy would have said he was. He’d grown up in foster homes, done a stint in Iraq I, then worked a dozen or so years in Child Protective Services, taking kids from abusive environments away from their parent or parents, pretty much the apogee of thankless jobs. Now, and for the past seven or eight years, he ran a private investigations business called The Hunt Club, and Hardy’s firm used it almost exclusively.
Wyatt was leading the way as the two men moved from the dart area and into the narrow recesses of the bar proper, which was having a relatively slow night. Two stools stood open in front of the taps, and they got themselves seated. “That was an obscene run of darts, you know.”
“Admittedly. I’m sure I couldn’t do it again. Although you’ve got to figure that a guy who’s got a board on the wall of his office and his own customized darts probably spends a few minutes playing the game. He’s going to get a lucky run from time to time.”
Hunt was grinning. “I’ll try to keep it in mind.”
Moses McGuire appeared in front of them and they ordered—a club soda for each of them. McGuire, on a club soda regimen himself for the past couple
of years, still couldn’t help himself. “Whoa,” he said. “Katie, bar the door. Want those babies full-strength up or on the rocks?”
“The great thing about drinking here”—Hardy ignored his brother-in-law and spoke directly to Hunt—“is the commentary.”
“I knew there was something,” Hunt replied.
“Rocks,” Hardy said, coming back to Moses, “and hold the pithy observations, thank you.”
McGuire pulled the drinks, and Hardy held up his glass to clink Hunt’s. “I feel a little guilty inviting you down here and then taking your money, but thanks for coming.”
Hunt sipped his soda. “Long day?”
“Actually, fairly brutal.” Hardy filled him in on the dramas surrounding both Glitsky and Wes Farrell, which had continued into the night as Hardy, after dinner at home, went to the hospital to check on Abe and Zachary—Abe still a zombie, Zachary unchanged.
Hardy had stayed on with Abe for a long half hour, then patted his friend’s knee and told him to hang in there, call if he needed anything, and left. Unable to make himself go back home to Frannie, Treya, and Rachel, he’d stopped by the Shamrock and called Farrell, who’d apparently turned off his telephones. Getting an idea, then he had called Hunt. “Anyway, between Abe and Wes, it’s like I’m knocked off my horse. I can’t seem to get my arms wrapped around this Dylan Vogler situation. Not just what it’s done to Wes, or potentially could do.”
“You’re really worried about that?”
“A little bit, yeah.”
“Well, let me lighten your load, Diz. You can get over that. Nobody outside of Singapore cares about who smokes weed. Certainly nobody in law enforcement in this town. ’Course, the bad news in Singapore is they hang you for it. But the good news is we’re not there. Not even Wes. But I’d warn him if he’s thinking about making the trip.”
“I’ll do that,” Hardy said with a strained tolerance. “But in actual fact Wes is an officer of the court. He’s a rainmaker for the firm, he’s—”
Hardy 13 - Plague of Secrets, A Page 8
