“You don’t like old man Harrison in that role?”
“He’s not that old, and he seemed pretty vigorous to me. Still, I’d have to say that Kevin Hawkins and Holmes struck me as being more likely. Holmes obviously was a bit taken with her, and I wouldn’t put it past him to make a pass at her if he thought he had a chance. Kevin, on the other hand, seemed like more the type a woman of her age would fall for. Plus, Amy, his wife, really didn’t like Connie, and I sense there may have been more to that than Connie beating her out of a good part.”
“Maybe, but wives sometimes see things that aren’t there. Take it from a man who’s been married …”
“Five times. I know. Now if that big check to Harrison was as fishy as you think it is, it might account for the nine hundred in Connie’s purse.”
“Hush money, you mean?”
“Something like that. But would that be reason enough to kill her? And, for that matter, why pay up in the first place. If she threatened to expose him, all he’d have to do is go to the county with a check and say he just discovered his billing department screwed up and charged twice for the same thing — sorry, and here’s your refund.”
“Yeah, unless …”
“Unless what?”
“Unless it wasn’t the first time he’d done it. “
“Hadn’t thought of that.”
“In any case, I’m going to be seeing Karen after the meeting tonight. I was going to pump her a bit about Connie, and I’ll ask about Harrison’s dealings with the county, too.”
Gordon gave him a quizzical look.
“If you’re running that by me to see how it might fly with Stella, I’d recommend you don’t try it.”
“You’re right,” Peter said. “Stella has a low, suspicious mind. Probably best not to bring the matter up with her.”
“It’s your relationship, not mine.” Gordon took another bite of spaghetti, and when he finished it, continued. “Speaking of our women, I’m still bothered that I can’t make anything of the name Elizabeth got from Gary’s step-brother, the one Gary thought his wife might be involved with. There’s no Mike to be seen anywhere in this case.”
Peter set his fork on his plate with a clang.
“Mike!” he said. “You’ve been looking for Mike? Why didn’t you say so? In The Philadelphia Story, the reporter’s name is Macaulay Connor, but he goes by Mike. He’s the character who brings Connie onstage in her bathrobe, and he was played by Kevin Hawkins. That’s pretty suggestive, I’d say.”
“Shit!” Gordon said. “I wish I’d known that this afternoon. I might have asked a leading question or two.”
“You need to level with me, Gordon. You’re the one who got the name from Elizabeth, but I’m the one who was reading the play and would know about the character named Mike. If we don’t communicate, how are we going to get anywhere?”
“You’re right. But we’re not going to get anywhere arguing with each other, either.”
Peter nodded. After a bite of spaghetti, he moved on.
“Sounds like you and Pope put a little fear into the DA and sheriff.”
“Only a little. They’ll turn over the evidence, but it didn’t seem to me that they were at all interested in following up on it. Sheriff Ketch has Gary’s pseudo-confession, and as far as he’s concerned, that settled the case right there.”
“Did you say Sheriff Ketch?”
“Sheriff John T. Ketch. I got his card at the end of the meeting.”
Peter laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Gordon asked.
“Have you ever heard of Jack Ketch?”
“Other than this one — no.”
“Jack Ketch was the executioner for King Charles II. He was notorious for bungling the job and needing multiple do-overs before he could separate the culprit from his head. In fact, Jack Ketch became a kind of generic name for hangmen in England over the years.”
“Do tell.”
“And that’s not the only name from that time in this story. Nell Quinn is a homonym for Nell Gwynne, the actress who was King Charles’ mistress.”
“I don’t see our Nell as anyone’s mistress.”
“Neither do I. But this whole thing is starting to take on the air of a Restoration drama.”
“I don’t know about that,” Gordon murmured, “but it is starting to look like a morality play.”
THEY GOT BACK TO TOWN at 7:30, and Peter set out for his meeting. Gordon’s phone rang a minute later.
“Hey, Len, what’s up?”
“Did you see the paper today?”
Gordon had forgotten.
“I’m sorry, Len. I haven’t. I’ve been running around to meetings all day.”
“Can you meet us at the Rope’s End for a nightcap in 15 minutes? I’ll tell you all about it.”
“Can we make it half an hour? I need to make a phone call.”
“Sure thing. See you then.”
Gordon speed-dialed his parents’ home. His mother answered, and after talking to her a few minutes, he asked for the judge, who promptly came on the line.
“Quill. How’s the investigation going?”
“It’s turning interesting. Can I ask you a couple of questions?”
“Go ahead. But first, fill me in on where things stand.”
Gordon did, and when he finished, said:
“So my first question is, how important is the discovery that the prosecution withheld the full medical report, including the detail of the semen?”
“Could be very important. A petition claiming that critical evidence was kept from the defense is usually taken pretty seriously by the appellate courts. But my question would be why the defense attorney didn’t insist on the full autopsy report to begin with.”
“I didn’t press him on it, but I think it was his first big case and he trusted the district attorney to do the right thing.”
“Big mistake. I’ll wager he never does it again.”
“Probably not. My second question is have you ever come across a forensic expert named Preston A. Prescott?
“Oh yeah.” He said it so fast it came out as one word.
“Sounds like he made quite an impression on you.”
“It was a pretty memorable encounter. Let’s see. It was four or five years ago. The Mendoza case. Armed robbery of a liquor store and market in the Sunset District. The prosecution had the clerk’s ID of Mendoza, but they wanted more, so they brought Prescott in to testify that he found Mendoza’s DNA on the cash register. The claim was that some of his sweat rubbed off on it when he reached over to take the money.”
“And?”
“Prescott got through direct examination from the assistant DA well enough. Then Vanessa Osorio of the Public Defender’s office cross-examined him. It turned out his work was a mess. The evidence was mishandled, the procedure he used was out of date, and even with that, there weren’t enough match points. I’ve seldom seen a witness so completely demolished on the stand. It turned the jury against the prosecution enough that Mendoza was acquitted, though I think he probably did it. And as far as I know, Prescott never worked in San Francisco again.”
“If he’s that much of a screw-up, why would anyone use him as a witness?”
The judge took several seconds to frame his answer.
“I can’t say for certain, but the educated guess would be that the DA in Canyon County used him for the same reason the assistant DA did in the Mendoza case. He tells his clients what they want to hear.”
AFTER BEING IN MEETINGS much of the day, Gordon decided to walk to the Rope’s End. The skies were still clouded over, making for a dark night, so he donned a parka with a hood and brought a small flashlight.
At the saloon, Reg was behind the bar, Carla, the real estate agent, was occupying a stool, and Len and Gloria were not among the few other customers. Gordon ordered a club soda with a twist and sat down next to Carla, who was nursing a Bloody Mary.
“Rough day today,” she said. “I’ve got
one sale going and the title company lost half the documents.”
“Hazard of the trade, I suppose.”
“Something like that. I see your friend got a nice write-up in the Canyon Call.”
“I’ve been so busy myself I haven’t seen it.”
“Everybody else in town did. If anybody has something on Maria, he’ll get a call.”
“You performing Saturday night?”
“Of course. I only miss when I’m out of town.”
“Marlene again?”
“Certainly not. I like to mix it up.”
“Can you give me a clue?”
“The clue is to come at eight o’clock Saturday and see for yourself.”
Len and Gloria came through the front door and headed for Gordon.
“I’m so glad you could make it,” Len said. “Let’s get a table where we can sit down and talk.” He turned to Carla. “As a friend of Maria, you’re invited to join us.”
Gordon walked the two women to a table in the back corner while Len got drinks for himself and Gloria.
“He’s really excited,” Gloria said when they sat down. “I’m trying to keep him grounded. I mean, it sounds interesting, but it could be nothing at all.”
“You got a hit on the article?” Carla said.
Gloria nodded. “I’ll let Len tell you about it.”
He arrived a minute later and sat down, with glasses of wine for himself and Gloria. He took a sip and leaned forward conspiratorially.
“Nothing happened all day, but I tried to tell myself it was a long shot. I mean, if there was something out there, someone else would have found it by now, right?”
“Not necessarily,” Gloria said.
“And that’s what the other part of me said. Then at five o’clock, I got a call from a number I didn’t recognize in the 510 area code.”
“East Bay,” Gordon said.
“It turned out to be a woman from Fremont named Virginia Wilker. Her grandmother, who lived in Dutchtown for years, died this summer, and she was up here cleaning out the house so it could be sold.”
“The Conway place. We’re going to list it,” Carla said.
“Anyway, up in the attic, she found a box of old papers — really old, she says. She doesn’t know if they’re worth anything, and she was thinking of offering them to the historical society. Then she saw the story in the paper and thought maybe I could do a first vetting, see if there’s anything in there worth saving. I jumped at the chance.”
“The thing is,” Gloria said, “we don’t even know what time period the papers are from. Really old to her could be 30 years ago.”
“It’s probably nothing,” Len said, “but even if it’s nothing from Maria’s time, it should be interesting to go through. At least it gives me something to do for an afternoon.”
“So you’re looking at the papers tomorrow?” Gordon asked.
“Actually, no. Virginia will be out of town most of the day tomorrow. But I have an appointment to go over and look through the box Friday afternoon. Can we meet for dinner Friday? I’m sure I’ll have something to share, even if it has nothing to do with Maria.”
“Let’s do that,” Gordon said, lifting his glass in a toast. “To your good luck.”
They talked briefly about other things as they finished their drinks. Gordon was asked about his own endeavors and gave an evasive answer. He didn’t want to talk about the Gary Baxter case and was grateful for the respite from it.
The party broke up shortly after nine. Gordon stayed behind to look at some of the old pictures on the walls, and by the time he left Rope’s End, the street was deserted. The clouds had broken up somewhat and patches of clear starry sky were visible overhead. It was the day after the new moon, so the stars stood out against the coal-dark night sky but provided almost no illumination for the earth below.
Dutchtown looked like a ghost town now. There were lights on in the houses and second-story residences above the commercial dwellings, but not a soul was walking or driving on the streets. The trees, wet with rain, dripped on him when he walked under them, and at one point he heard a truck downshifting on the state highway across the river. The night was so silent the noise seemed almost jarring.
In a few minutes, he got to the bridge over Dutch Joe Creek. Someone had replaced the wilted flowers for Maria in the coffee can with a fresh batch, and he stopped to smell them. Maybe this is a good omen for Len, he thought.
As he began to cross the bridge, he became aware of a shape by the railing on the far side. Two steps closer, he could tell it was something in white. He whipped out his flashlight and shone it in that direction.
The light, faint at that distance, illuminated a blond woman, dressed in white. It appeared to be the same woman he’d seen in the upstairs window Saturday morning and at Scopazzi Creek Monday afternoon, but he couldn’t be sure.
She appeared to give a start as the light hit her, and when he realized what he was seeing, the hair on the back of his neck began to stand up.
“Hey there,” he said. “Hello.”
He took a step forward and stumbled over a loose plank, recovering without falling but swinging the flashlight to the side as he was getting his balance. When he trained it on the far side of the bridge again, no one was there.
“Hello,” he said. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
There was no answer.
He walked across the bridge as quickly as possible and stopped at the road on the other side. He turned right, heading away from his house and shined the flashlight all over the road as he walked down it a hundred yards. He stopped when he could see the road dead-ending ahead and ran the flashlight over the front porch of a darkened house. It illuminated the number, 239, which for some reason seemed familiar. It took several seconds before he got it. He was looking at the Baxter house, where Connie had been murdered.
The hair on the back of his neck rose again.
For a moment, it crossed his mind that the woman he’d seen might be Connie Baxter, but he quickly stuffed the idea. It’s the end of the 20th century, he told himself. Even with Halloween coming up, no one believes in ghosts anymore. Besides, Connie had short, dark hair and the woman I’m seeing has long blond hair. It had to be a real person who got off the bridge and ducked out of sight. There are plenty of places to hide along here, he reasoned.
He turned abruptly and began to walk back toward his house, swinging the flashlight beam back and forth across the road as he went. He got there without encountering so much as a startled cat. After letting himself in, he walked around the interior, turning on every light. He had hoped Peter would be back from his meeting but remembered he was probably having coffee with the woman from the auditor-controller’s office.
He took out his phone and called Elizabeth’s number. It quickly kicked over to voicemail, and he ended the call without leaving a message. He slumped down on the sofa and stared at the ceiling, feeling disturbed and alone.
Thursday October 22
“I HESITATE TO ASK,” Gordon said, “but how did it go last night?”
They were having breakfast at Collier’s before a morning of fishing. Gordon’s eggs were scrambled, with sausage and home fries on the side; Peter’s were over easy, with bacon and hash browns.
“Pretty well,” Peter said. “We went back to her place, a nice little bungalow on Sacramento Street, and she made decaf coffee to go with brownies she’d made earlier. The woman can bake. We talked program a bit, then I got her to open up about Connie. Finally, I went home. All very chaste and proper.”
Gordon looked up from his food.
“Do you believe that?”
“I have to believe it, Peter. You couldn’t make up a story like that. What did you learn about Connie?”
“Not much at first. Karen was into all that piety about not speaking ill of the dead. But eventually the decaf loosened her tongue. It turns out that not long before Connie was killed, she stayed late at work a couple of days. Karen said that
wasn’t like her. She was a good worker, but she came on time and left on time. Karen said she wondered back then if she was looking for something in the records after the office was closed.”
“Interesting.”
“And she said Connie changed a bit in those last days. She was acting like she knew something nobody else did, but she didn’t want to let on that she knew. If that makes sense. Oh, and for whatever it’s worth, she said Connie was the best thing in The Philadelphia Story. I asked if Connie nailed the Dutch Muffin Ear line, and she said yes.”
Gordon set down his fork. “I’ve been meaning to ask. Everybody talks about that line. What’s the big deal about it?”
“At the beginning of the play, Tracy, the character Connie played, is sending thank you notes for wedding presents, with her little sister helping out. There’s one they can’t figure out what it is, and they find a paper with it saying it’s a Dutch Muffin Ear. Tracy — Connie — composing a thank-you note, says something like, ‘Thank you so very much for the lovely Dutch Muffin Ear. I’m sure it will enable us to hear every Dutch Muffin within miles.’ ”
Gordon sat impassively. Peter continued:
“It was probably funnier when Connie said it. And it’s important because it’s right at the beginning, so if it gets a good laugh, it gets the audience in the right frame of mind for the rest of the play.”
“If you say so.”
“But enough about me. Tell me about your wild night.”
Gordon filled him in on the meeting with Len, Gloria and Carla. He was debating whether to mention the woman on the bridge and finally decided to.
“The light went off her for a couple of seconds when I stumbled,” Gordon said, “and she was gone. With all those houses and bushes and trees and no street lights, it would have been really easy for her to hide on the other side and not be seen. The first two times I saw her, it was in broad daylight and just a bit unusual. I have to be honest and say that last night left me a bit spooked.”
“I’ve already told you my theory,” Peter said. “But if it’s not that, she must be a real woman, and the question is why you keep running into her. I can’t think of any logical explanation, can you?”
I Scarce Can Die (Quill Gordon Mystery Book 5) Page 18
