Idyll Threats

by Stephanie Gayle

We had warrants for his car, office, and home. We weren’t allowed to remove files from Liberty Insurance, but we could review them. I assigned Revere to it, along with two helpers. Finnegan would ride with him, to check out Clark’s car. And Wright and I would handle the house. I needed to work on repairing my relationship with my lead detective.

  Wright drove. We listened to the news as we sped down the highway. “You believe this?” He pointed to the radio. “These guys think that opening a casino will have all these wonderful benefits for the Pequot tribe.”

  “Hasn’t it?” From what I’d heard, Foxwoods Casino pulled in tons of money. And it paid subsidies to all people who could prove they had Pequot blood.

  “Sure. For now. But casinos are trouble. Ask any poor cop stuck in a casino city. Crime skyrockets. And this whole ‘we’ll regain out cultural heritage through slot nickels’? I’m not buying it.”

  “So you’d rather they stay dirt poor?” I asked.

  “I’d rather they didn’t sugarcoat that what they’ve done is finagle the law so they can run a gambling empire.” He switched stations until he landed on some Top 40 nonsense. Some man was mumbling quickly to a beat borrowed from Diana Ross’s “I’m Coming Out,” that old standby of pride parades and gay clubs everywhere. Wright was oblivious, tapping the wheel and matching the song word for word.

  “You like this?” I asked.

  “What?” He spared me a glance. “Notorious B.I.G.? Or rap music, in general?” He looked at my face and laughed. “I’m not as old as you.”

  “How can you understand what they’re saying?”

  He grinned and tapped his right ear. “Again. Not old.” He turned up the volume. “Better?”

  I had a glimpse of how Wright was outside the station. Looser, funnier, less quick to offense. I turned down the volume, and he said, “Guess we can test this song’s theory.”

  “Which is?”

  “More money, more problems.”

  “Sounds like something rich people made up,” I said.

  He agreed and checked the rearview. “I’m guessing Mrs. Clark might be worried about her husband, seeing as how he didn’t come home last night.”

  “Maybe she’s used to him being out all night,” I said.

  Mrs. Gary Clark wasn’t used to her husband being out all night. She opened the door before we’d pushed the bell, which was a shame. I’m sure the bing-bong would have been terrific, bouncing off marble surfaces and mirrors wider than I was tall.

  “Where is he? Are you here about Gary? Is he hurt? Is he dead?” She was tall, blond, and pretty, though we weren’t seeing her at her best. The hollows under her blue eyes were violet. Her pale skin was pink in patches. She wore a soft-gray sweater that reached her knees. I bet it was cashmere. Oh, she had money. Only the rich, accustomed to central air-conditioning, would wear cashmere in late August.

  “Ma’am, I’m Police Chief Lynch of the Idyll Police. This is Detective Wright. Your husband, Gary, is in police custody.”

  “Custody?”

  “We’ve arrested him on suspicion of murder.”

  She looked to Wright as if he might refute what I’d said. “Murder?” she said. “What are you talking about?”

  “Ma’am, we have a warrant to search your home.” I showed her the papers.

  She snatched them out of my hand. “You can’t! I want to talk to my husband!” She tossed the papers. I bent to catch them.

  Wright said, “Mrs. Clark, your husband is in custody. If you’d like, you may call his lawyer, Mr. Louis Jacob.”

  “Who’s Louis Jacob? I’ve never heard of him. He’s not our lawyer.” Her pale skin got pinker with each word. She looked behind us, as if her husband might be in view.

  “Your lawyer doesn’t handle criminal cases, so he recommended Mr. Jacob,” I said. “Excuse me.” I stepped past her into the house. Wright followed. I said, “We’ll be removing items from the house. You’ll get an inventory receipt.” Two cars pulled into the driveway. Officers emerged.

  “All of these people are going to search my house?” Her eyes were as wide as half dollars.

  “With a house this size, we need the men.” I wasn’t kidding. You could fit three of my houses inside this one, and still have room to spare. This was going to take all day, unless we found the gun, a signed confession, and some bloody clothes in the first closet we checked.

  “Whoa,” Billy said when he crossed the threshold. He looked up at the sparkling underside of a crystal chandelier. “This place is like a castle.”

  Mrs. Clark said, “I’m calling the lawyer. Don’t touch anything until I get back.” She hurried out of the room, her light steps leaving echoes behind in the vast entryway.

  I said, “Billy, Hopkins, and Clyde, you’re upstairs. Wright and Smith, take the downstairs. I’ll check the garage and outside.”

  The garage housed a silver Mercedes Benz. Garden tools were arranged neatly on a pegboard. A shining, metal garbage bin stood near the retractable doors. Other than a broom, bucket, and cleaning cloths, there wasn’t much else. I checked the cloths, but they were spotless. I sniffed them. No bleach or detergent. New. Not freshly laundered.

  I left the garage and walked around the house, poking in and out of rose bushes. I overturned small statues but found nothing but worms. The lawn was less vast than I’d feared. But it still took hours to walk the property, searching for evidence of fire or recent digging. Any signs that someone had attempted to destroy evidence. Nothing. I’d nearly returned to the front door when I spotted it. A bit of paper stuck near the house’s foundation, obscured by a tall hedge. I crouched and grabbed it with gloved hands. A paper packet. Yes! I pulled it close, avoiding twigs. And read the print on back. It was a seed packet. Nasturtiums. Not Pop Rocks. I dropped it.

  “Chief?” Wright yelled.

  I jogged around the side and found him calling for me near the garage. “Find anything?” I asked.

  He held up a dress shirt. “Found this hidden in the back.”

  Mrs. Clark called from the doorway, “It needs mending. Clara was going to bring it to the tailor.”

  I walked to where I could read the label. Ralph Lauren. “Let me guess,” I said to Mrs. Clark. “It’s missing a button.”

  “Yes.” She scowled at me.

  “Anything else?” I asked Wright.

  His eyebrows pinched together. “We found a note from the victim, arranging to meet him at work. But aside from that—” he kicked the ground, “nothing. No weapon.”

  Mrs. Clark moved indoors, where she began complaining about a rug.

  Wright flexed his hands together. Knuckles cracked. “She’s been scolding the men every time they move something.” He rolled his eyes. “I understand why her husband went looking for company.” He didn’t bother to lower his voice.

  “Chief!” Hopkins stood in the doorway, waving. His gut wobbled.

  I hurried to him. “What is it?” Please let it have DNA. Great big blobs of DNA.

  “Phone call.” He handed me a mobile phone, like the one the selectmen had said I should own, so I could be reached at all times. I’d promised I’d look into it. I hadn’t.

  “Yeah?” I hoped it was Revere or Finnegan about to report a major find.

  “Chief Lynch?” an unknown voice said.

  “Speaking.”

  “This is Dan Bergen from the forensic laboratory. We got footprint matches from your golf course. Mike Shannon said I should phone you.” Looked like last night’s adventure had scored multiple payoffs. “Frigging miracle we retrieved them, given what the scene looked like. We lifted two prints around the scene and her body. Men’s. A work boot, size eight and a half, and a sneaker, size eleven and a half. The sneaker’s a partial, but it’s fairly distinct. We’re checking treads to see if we can ID the brand and style.”

  “Great. Thanks.” Two footprints. Two men. The ones Mrs. Ashworth saw? Maybe not. They could’ve been made earlier. Or perhaps the techs hadn’t excluded everyone from our squad.
Still, two prints—it made my stomach feel sour. Never a good sign. My stomach went sour before a suspect pushed me down a stairwell sixteen years ago. I’d bumped my way down three flights. One of those bruised vertebrae can now predict rainstorms.

  “Where are Clark’s shoes?” I asked Hopkins. Might as well check them.

  “Upstairs.” He stepped inside and walked past Mrs. Clark, who said, “Slow down! That’s a Tiffany vase there!” I followed him up the stairs to the second floor, down a hall lit with frosted-glass fixtures, and into a bedroom the size of my own. That’s where the similarities ended. It was done up in gold and army green. The furniture glowed. Someone spent time polishing it. I doubted it was either of the Clarks. “He has his own bedroom?” Everything in it was masculine.

  “Yup. She has her own. You should see the closet. And they have a shared master bedroom. This place is nuts.”

  I approached the open closet. Suits hung on cedar hangers, the scent strong enough to scare moths miles away. Below were his shoes. Nine pairs. I picked up a pair of loafers. Size 10.

  Hopkins asked, “Is it a match for something?”

  “No.” Shit. “Are all of his shoes size ten?”

  We lifted each pair and checked the numbers. “These are ten and a half.” Hopkins held up a pair of shearling slippers.

  I saw no boots. And only one pair of sneakers, which were so white I doubted he’d ever worn them. He favored dress shoes and loafers.

  “Come on,” I said. We went downstairs, where Mrs. Clark threatened Wright with legal retribution if he didn’t have the place professionally cleaned after we left.

  I interrupted her fantasy to ask him, “Are we finished inside?”

  Wright nodded. “All but the putting everything back exactly as it was and dusting.” His voice was level, but his eyes laughed at the thought.

  “That’s not going to happen,” I said. Mrs. Clark sputtered. I ignored her. “Let’s pack it in. Bring what we’ve got and we’ll see how Finnegan and Revere did.”

  They hadn’t done better. Techs had found brunette hairs that might belong to Cecilia in Clark’s car. But no gun and no visible blood in the car’s interior. And while it was clean, it didn’t look “too clean” according to Finnegan. “If he tidied, he’s a fucking pro.” He crushed an empty pack of cigarettes and tossed into the trash. “Clark doesn’t seem like a pro.”

  No, he didn’t.

  “So he leaves the car, shoots her on the course, wipes down, gets back in,” Wright said. “Problem solved.”

  “Where are his clothes? Where’s the gun?” Revere asked. “Where’s anything that can put the nail in his coffin?”

  “I don’t fucking know. We’ve got the shirt missing the button,” Wright said. “We know she was in his car. A jury could buy that.”

  But they easily might not. His feet didn’t fit our too-big and too-small shoe prints. Maybe Gary Clark wasn’t our Cinderella.

  “Keep searching for the gun,” I said. “Finnegan, check on his club memberships.” We’d heard that some of the clubs Clark belonged to had shooting ranges. We hoped he was a regular at one of them.

  Mrs. Dunsmore approached. “Chief? You have a call. From the mayor.” She waved her hand at the thick cigarette smoke and pursed her lips at Finnegan, the chief generator. He scowled at her, and then grinned. He liked the old bat. They had a long-standing truce.

  “I bet your lungs are half tar,” she said.

  “Probably so,” he said. “Want to place any bets on my liver?”

  She walked away. I went to my office to find out what the mayor wanted.

  “Congratulations!” His hearty voice nearly knocked me to the floor.

  “Pardon?” I said. Maybe he’d dialed the wrong number.

  “Heard you searched the son of a bitch’s house.” Where was he getting this information?

  “We executed searches today.”

  “That’s great. Get this mess sorted before the celebration.”

  “We didn’t find the weapon.” I needed him to temper his expectations.

  “You’ll find it,” he said. “Or you won’t need it. Maybe he’ll confess now that you’ve got his shirt.”

  Okay. Who the fuck told him about the shirt? “How’d you know about that?”

  “I like to keep informed.” Cagey bastard. Knew better then to tell me. “Well, just wanted to wish you the best, though it doesn’t seem you need it. Bye.”

  The buzz of the phone matched the dull buzz in my head as I worried. Who was talking to the mayor? And what if Clark wasn’t our man? I couldn’t put it off any longer. I was going to have to pursue Elmore’s list.

  Abell tinkled as I entered Sweet Dreams. A kid, elbow deep in a glass jar of Tootsie Rolls, looked up, assessed me, and went back to filling his bag with candy. The place was very clean, very white, and occupied by kids with an occasional adult thrown in for variety. Near the scale where sweets were weighed stood a tall man in his fifties, wearing rimless specs and a pristine apron. “May I help you?” he asked me.

  “Mr. Evans?” I said.

  “Mr. Gallagher.” He smiled as if used to the confusion.

  “Pardon me.”

  He asked if I’d like anything. He had some nice truffles from Vermont, filled with maple cream. I told him I hadn’t come for candy.

  A child stomped to the counter and said, “Where are the gummy worms?”

  “Next to the Atomic Fireballs,” Mr. Gallagher said, pointing. The kid hurried to the spot, bag swinging at his side. “Sorry, Chief, how might I help you?”

  So he recognized me out of uniform.

  “You live on Durham Street?” I asked.

  He nodded. Durham was two blocks over from Cecilia’s house. Close to the golf course. “Did you hear anything the night of August ninth? We’re double-checking reports of loud noises.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” He knew why I was asking. Everyone knew what that night meant. No way to be sly about it. “We were out of town that weekend. Confectioners’ conference. Kansas City. David and I go every year. When we got back we heard about—” he checked that there were no children nearby, “the murder. Terrible thing. Sorry I can’t help.”

  The interrupting child in search of gummy worms slapped his bag onto the counter and said, “Ring me up.”

  “Please,” I said.

  “Please what?” the kid said.

  I leaned down and said, “It’s polite to say please when you ask for something.”

  “You sound like my Nana,” the kid said. He told Mr. Gallagher, “Please ring me up.” Mr. Gallagher weighed the bag and tallied the total. The kid handed Mr. Gallagher a five-dollar bill, accepted his change, and walked out the door.

  More kids, hopped up on sugar, raced past me. “That’s gross!” and “No, that is!” they shouted.

  “I couldn’t do your job,” I said.

  “Charles?” A man emerged from a red curtain behind the counter. He was squinting at a calculator. Mr. Evans, no doubt. “Oh,” he said, looking up. “I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt.” He stared at me and at his partner. If looks could kill, we’d both be bagged and tagged.

  Mr. Gallagher said, “David, this is Police Chief Lynch. He was asking if we’d heard anything on the night of the accident.” A trio of small children lurked near the chocolates.

  “Oh.” David put his small hand to his chest. “I see.” He smiled, and a dimple appeared in each cheek, perfectly symmetrical. “We were traveling. Confectioners’ conference.”

  “So I heard. Sorry to disturb you.”

  “Not at all,” he said. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Would you care for a sample?”

  Mr. Gallagher and I exchanged a look. Mine said, “He always this jealous?” and his said, “Yes, but I keep him anyway.”

  “No, thank you.” I patted my abdomen. “Trying to stay in shape.”

  “You’re doing an excellent job,” Mr. Gallagher said, smiling. Mr. Evans swatted his ass. The kids didn’t see it, but I did
.

  I stopped by the post office on the pretense of investigating a package I was expecting. Mr. Nichols, the gay postman, was only too happy to help. He was too short to be the man Mrs. Ashworth had seen standing on the course, but perhaps he was the other. The 8.5-size boots. In between his questions about ship dates, I looked at his small feet. He wore graying sneakers. “Are those comfortable?” I asked. “I need new sneakers.”

  “These?” he pointed. “Absolutely. Need good shoes in my line of work. Of course finding my size is tough.” He grimaced. “I’m a six. Tough to come by. I had to special-order these from Massachusetts.”

  Not everyone I spoke to was so forthcoming. Mr. Sidorov, who ran the lumberyard outside town, squinted at me when I asked about his boots. “My boots?” he said. “They’re okay. Steel-toed.” He jerked his head toward the stacks of wood. “Save your foot if you drop a plank.” I’d said I was thinking about reflooring my kitchen. Which was true. In a way. I thought about it every time I noticed the linoleum was peeling upward in bigger patches.

  “Are those Timberlands?” I asked, checking his feet. Our crime-scene boots were.

  Mr. Sidorov looked at me like I was soft in the head. “Yeah. You like oak? Or maybe walnut?” He gestured to different woods, and I pretended to consider them.

  “Maybe walnut,” I said. “Are the boots good in snow? Do you need to size up? Or are they true to size?”

  He chafed his chin stubble. “Fine for snow. I wear an eleven. Always eleven. This maple is good. Probably fit your kitchen. Your house was built when? Fifties? I can cut you a deal.”

  I told him I’d think about it and then retreated to my car, where I sat, thinking. I wasn’t getting anywhere. One more conversation like this, and the town would think I had a foot fetish.

  Then again, there were worse things they could think about me, or know.

  Back at the station, I did some math. I’d winnowed Elmore’s list by fifteen names so far. Not bad. Time to see if my detectives had made any progress. In the pen, Revere sat alone, rereading the fibers report.

  “Any word?” I asked, hoping against hope that Gary Clark had confessed while I was away.

  He shook the report. Slapped it onto his desk and said, “Nothing. He’s sticking to his story. He dropped her off. She walked away. He drove away. She got shot and died. He knows nothing.”