He told her where the body would be taken, and that her husband’s personal effects would be returned when they no longer needed them. He emphasized that no one was to enter the room Eddie was sealing.
He also got a list of people living at or frequenting the house. Mr. and Mrs. Blake lived there, of course, and Ms. Heflin had a bedroom on the third floor. The cook and a cleaning woman came in daily. The Blakes’ two married children lived out of state. There had been no overnight guests for two weeks.
While he was getting this information, Miss Heflin took a phone call and interrupted gently, telling Mrs. Blake the medical examiner’s office wanted to know what funeral home she would be dealing with.
She lay back on the pillows, her face very white, and closed her eyes for a moment. “Coopers’, I guess. You’ll have to help me with the arrangements, Barbara.”
“Of course.”
“We’ll leave you,” Harvey said, “but we’ll want to talk to you again soon.”
Eddie drove to the police station, at the corner of Middle and Franklin, and parked in the garage. They went up the stairs to the third-floor Priority Unit office. The main room was large for a small unit, but full of computer equipment and files and desks. The brick building had a lot of glass, and Harvey’s area looked out over Franklin, at a legal office across the street.
He had moved up from Homicide eight years before, when the Priority Unit was organized. Captain Mike Browning was the driving force behind the squad, and they had proved its worth many times to the skeptical city officials who scrutinized the budget with a microscope every year.
Harvey liked his desk. He spent a lot of time there on the computer, and he’d made it comfortable, more comfortable than his apartment. The outstanding feature was an eight-by-ten photo of Jennifer on the breakwater at Rockland, her blonde hair blowing out in the wind around her. When he saw that, he sat down in his chair, took out his cell, and speed-dialed her.
“Hey, gorgeous.” It was her second week working in the records department, in the basement of the police station. Her temporary job was only for the summer, a stopgap between her software designing job that fizzled and marriage. “Eddie and I got a new homicide case this morning. Can I see you?”
“No time now,” Jennifer said. “Lunch?”
“Sure.”
Mike Browning approached with coffee mug in hand.
“You guys up to your elbows in the Blake case?”
“At least,” Harvey said.
Eddie had made a list of Blake’s effects and tagged the items, and he came over to join them.
“The press is onto it,” Mike said. “You’ll have to talk to them.”
Eddie swore, and Harvey felt like it. He would rather look at a corpse than a TV camera.
“What have you got so far?” Mike asked.
“Not much,” Harvey said. “I’m thinking Blake went out for a walk in the neighborhood last night and got mugged on the bridge at Stroudwater. He had an abdominal wound. Could be a stabbing.”
Mike scrunched up his face, thinking about that. “You might get a prelim autopsy report by this afternoon.”
“Yeah. We’ll try to get more on his movements last night.”
Harvey went downstairs and logged Blake’s possessions into the evidence room, then asked the liaison to set up the press conference for three o’clock. Some hotshot reporter had already heard that the medical examiner had been out by the bridge that morning, but as far as Harvey could tell, Blake’s name hadn’t leaked out.
He and Eddie got coffee and over their notes on the case.
“Well, we’ve got to talk to the widow again,” Harvey said at last. “We need to know more about that class reunion and where else he might have gone last night.”
“Maybe a neighbor saw him go out,” Eddie suggested.
“Could be. We’d better get some patrolmen to help with this.”
Harvey asked the patrol sergeant to loan him Nate Miller and his partner for the day. He’d worked with Nate before. He was methodical and good at recognizing significant details. His partner, Jimmy Cook, was still on leave from a wound he’d received a few weeks earlier, and Nate had a new recruit riding with him.
“That okay with you?” Sergeant Terry Lemieux asked. “It would give him some experience—first homicide for him. Nate will keep an eye on him.”
“I guess.” Harvey sighed. It wasn’t the case he would pick to train a rookie on. “When’s Jimmy coming back?”
“Not for another week. He needed physical therapy for his leg.”
Harvey felt bad about that. Jimmy had been hurt while trying to arrest a man hired to kill Harvey.
“All right, we’ll take Nate and the new guy. What’s his name?”
“Tony Winfield.”
“Oh, boy.” Did it have to be the governor’s nephew? The P.D. was already taking flak for hiring him, but he’d come through the Academy with flying colors and had supposedly been judged by the same standard as everyone else.
“You can have Benoit and Yeaton instead.”
“No, give me Nate and Wonder Boy.” Harvey liked Sarah Benoit all right, and Eddie liked her better than all right, and Cheryl Yeaton seemed competent. But Harvey, having some old-school tendencies, wasn’t totally comfortable seeing females shoot at drug dealers and frisk pickpockets. It didn’t seem like God’s plan for women somehow. He also wanted Eddie to concentrate on the job.
Chapter 2
When they drove back to the Blake mansion, Nate and the rookie followed in a cruiser. Winfield looked about sixteen, a sandy-haired kid with a toothy smile and dimples. Harvey hoped he was as smart as his uncle, whom he considered a pretty good governor.
Barbara Heflin gave him two of Blake’s publicity photos, and he passed them to the patrolmen so they could canvass the neighborhood, asking if anyone had seen Martin Blake the night before.
Ms. Heflin showed him and Eddie to a cozy sitting room, where Mrs. Blake was talking on the telephone. She had on a different wig now, auburn waves to the earlobe, and wore a black border print skirt and a green blouse. She looked almost normal.
She glanced up at them and quickly ended the conversation. “I’ll be going to the funeral home right away, Detective.”
“That’s all right, ma’am. We’ll be working upstairs in the tower room, and we’ll try not to disrupt your household.”
“Thank you. My son and daughter are coming this evening.”
“Before you leave, ma’am, I wanted to ask you more about the reunion you went to yesterday.”
“It was up at Fort Point. Too far away.”
“Fort Point? Where’s that?”
“It’s clear up Route 1, by Stockton Springs. It took us over two hours to get there. They should have had it here in town.”
“And this was a high school reunion?”
“Yes, Martin’s thirty-fifth.”
“Can you get me a list of the people who were there?”
“I certainly can’t name them all. It’s not my class, but the invitation is on my dresser upstairs. The people who organized the reunion might be able to help you.”
“What did Mr. Blake wear to the reunion?”
“A navy blue polo shirt and gray slacks. He had a tan jacket along. It was cool on the coast.”
“Did you see him after he changed his clothes last night?”
“No, I didn’t know he’d changed.”
Harvey described the clothes he was found in, and she pursed her lips. “Oh, that ratty old tweed jacket. I’ve tried to get rid of it, but he says it’s comfortable.” She sobbed a little and shook her head.
“Why did they have the reunion at Fort Point?” Harvey asked.
“His class has a thing about state parks.” She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. “Every five years they go to a different one. The first one, thirty years ago, was at Baxter, and they all climbed Mount Katahdin. Nowadays they just pick one with easy access and a nice picnic area. That one didn’t have a decent
beach, though. The shore access is steep, and it’s rocky.”
“Historical spot?”
“Yes, there are ruins of some old fort. Picturesque, but not spectacular.”
He wrote it in his notebook.
“My class has a banquet and a cocktail hour,” Mrs. Blake said. “I like to be able to get a martini and sit in a comfortable place indoors and talk to people.”
He followed her into the hall. Ms. Heflin was waiting for her.
“Oh, Ms. Heflin,” Harvey said, “I wanted to ask you, did you go to the reunion?”
“Me? Goodness, no. I went to an art opening yesterday and met a girlfriend for dinner.” She named the gallery, restaurant, and friend for him, and he wrote it down.
“Did you come back here after that?”
“Yes. I was here when the Blakes got home.”
“About nine o’clock?”
“A little after, I think. I only saw them for a moment before I went to my room.”
He let them go after getting permission to look in Martin Blake’s wardrobe. In the bedroom, the invitation was where she had said it would be. Harvey pulled out his phone and dialed the number listed on it for Cyndi Rancourt Reynolds, committee chairman. After identifying himself, he asked if she could provide a list of guests at the class reunion the day before. She was curious, but agreed to copy off the list and fax it to him at the office.
Several sport jackets and three suits hung in the closet, with half a dozen sweaters, twenty-one shirts, a bathrobe, eight pair of pants, and a tuxedo. A tan poplin jacket hung at one end.
Harvey checked the jacket pockets, but they were empty. He also checked the two pair of gray slacks that were hanging there, but found nothing. There didn’t seem to be any dirty laundry in the room.
On the nightstand sat a lamp and a novel—someone else’s. In the drawer he found some pens and paper clips, a dime, a memo pad, and a fingernail clipper.
“Anything?” he asked.
“No,” said Eddie, turning away from the dresser.
“Same here.”
Eddie glanced out the window.
“Hey, Nate and Tony are coming up the driveway.”
By the time they got downstairs, Nate was ringing the doorbell. Harvey and Eddie went out onto the driveway, and Harvey said to Nate, “You guys get anything?”
“Well, a Mrs. Potter down the street was out walking her poodle last night, about ten-thirty. She saw Martin Blake—passed him on the sidewalk.”
“Great! Which way was he headed?”
“Down the hill, on this side of the street. She showed us the exact spot where she met him.”
“Did she speak to him?”
“She said, ‘Hello, Mr. Blake,’ and he said, ‘Good evening.’ She’s not sure he even knows who she is, but of course all the neighbors know him by sight.”
“Anything else?”
“He was wearing dark clothes, a sport coat of some kind, and white sneakers.”
“That fits what he had on when we found him.”
“And after they passed, she turned around and looked back at him,” Nate said. “He had stopped at the corner, under the streetlight. She wasn’t sure, but she thought he was writing something.”
“He had a pocket notebook,” Harvey said. “I’ll see if it’s dried out yet.”
Eddie asked, “Did she see which way he went from the corner?”
“No, she and poochie moved on.”
“Okay,” Harvey said. “You and Tony extend you inquiries and see if you can get a line on where Blake went from the corner. It wasn’t that late. Someone else might have seen him. We’ll be back at the office. Call me if you find anything interesting.”
“I was just thinking,” Tony said. “If he died last night between ten and midnight, say, the tide was probably pretty high.”
“I would have been midway between,” Harvey said. He took out his phone and did some quick searching. “High tide at 2:26 a.m., low at 8:35, which is just about when the body was spotted.”
“Okay,” Tony said. “So, he hung up in that cove instead of being dragged out toward the harbor.”
“Yeah. Lucky us. I’m banking on him going off the bridge, but if we can pinpoint the time of death, it will help.”
Harvey and Eddie headed back to the police station, and Harvey got the envelope of Martin Blake’s effects from the evidence room. When he got upstairs, a fax lay on his desk—the list of reunion guests from Cyndi Rancourt Reynolds.
“They couldn’t get a fix on his phone,” Eddie reported from his desk a few feet away. “It’s turned off, or maybe waterlogged.”
“Hmm.” Harvey carefully slid the items out of the envelope. The small notebook was still soggy. “We’d better leave this out to air dry.” He opened it gingerly. It contained several pages of scrawl. The last page Martin Blake had used said ‘M confronts TN—TN is defiant.’
“Notes for a book?” he hazarded.
Eddie came over and looked at it. “Maybe that’s how he plans his plots.”
“I wonder if that’s what Mrs. Potter saw him writing under the street light.” Harvey leafed back a couple of pages, but it was more of the same, ‘RJ crosses border, C follows,’ and the paper was beginning to separate at the spiral binding.
“Sarah’s probably got a hair dryer in her locker,” said Eddie.
Harvey eyed the damp paper. “It’s pretty fragile. We’d better not push it.”
Eddie had picked up Blake’s watch. “Still running. Nice watch.”
“Yeah, an expensive one,” Harvey picked up the thick, plain gold wedding ring. “We can probably take his watch and ring back to Mrs. Blake. She’ll want the ring on him for the funeral.”
“What’s the business card?” Eddie asked.
Harvey picked up the limp card he’d found in Blake’s jacket pocket.
“Mervin H. Dawes, attorney at law, Maple Street, Belfast.” A thought struck him, and he looked at the reunion guest list. “Bingo. He was at the reunion. An old classmate. Blake probably got his card there.”
Eddie bent to look over his shoulder at the list. “Hey, check this out.” He pointed to the name David R. Murphy.
“The Congressman?” Harvey asked.
“Last time I checked.”
“So, the class has some pretty distinguished alumni.”
“Murphy lives in Portland.” Eddie straightened. “Congress isn’t in session, so we should be able to get hold of him.”
Harvey folded the list and put it in his pocket, then put the effects back in the manila envelope. “I’ll get this back to Evidence.”
His cell phone beeped. Jennifer.
“Hi. Are you ready for lunch?” she asked.
He smiled hugely. Eddie smiled too.
“Yeah, I’ll meet you downstairs,” Harvey said.
Eddie went to get an outside table at the café down the block, and Harvey went to the ground floor and logged the envelope back in, but permanently logged out Blake’s watch and ring. He met Jennifer on the stairs that led to the basement.
“Hey, gorgeous!” He kissed her.
“Harvey, they have security cameras in here.” She looked up toward the landing above them.
“So?” Jennifer was modest, and a bit insecure. He put up with it. “Eddie’s getting us a table.” They went up to the landing, down the hall, and past the front desk.
“How are things in Records?”
“I’m starting to get used to it,” she said. “There’s a lot to remember.”
He held the door for her, and they stepped out into the June sun. Jennifer wore a blue linen blazer over a print dress. Her long, blonde hair hung down her back in a braid. On her left hand was the diamond Harvey had bought her two weeks before. She was always good to look at, and he grabbed her hand, hoping everybody in the department saw them.
*****
Jennifer smiled when she saw Eddie sitting in front of the café, where they had tables out on the brick sidewalk. A cute waitress st
ood talking to him. The girls all liked Eddie. He was sweet and unassuming, despite his killer good looks. Jennifer liked him immensely, now that she knew him, but she realized Harvey sometimes had to rein in his young partner’s wandering attention. Still, Eddie’s devotion to Harvey was a comfort to her. Being in love with a police officer was new and a bit frightening, but she worried less about Harvey when Eddie was with him.
“Hey, Larson,” a man in uniform called, and Harvey returned the greeting.
She was getting used to the stares she and Harvey got when they were together in the vicinity of the police station. It had bothered her at first. Harvey was modest and self-effacing, but he had a lot of friends, and apparently they were fascinated when he started dating again after his ex-wife died.
“Hey, Jennifer!” Eddie’s smile was irresistible, and she forgot the stares.
“Hi!”
Harvey pulled out a chair for her between him and Eddie. They chose their sandwiches and drinks, and the waitress went inside.
“New waitress?” Harvey asked.
“Couple of weeks.”
Harvey shrugged. He wouldn’t notice a new waitress unless she was a witness to a crime, but Eddie always did.
Eddie leaned toward her. “So, Jennifer, how are the wedding plans coming?”
“Pretty good. We’re supposed to get the invitations by the end of the week.” She turned to Harvey. “We need to work on the guest list.” The wedding was set for July 17, less than four weeks away. She’d agreed to a short engagement before she realized how much work she would have to squeeze into the intervening weeks.
Harvey said, “How about if I come over tonight and we work on it?”
“Great.” Jennifer grinned. “Beth will be there.”
“Haven’t seen your roommate for a while,” said Eddie. Beth was a pretty young kindergarten teacher with shoulder-length dark hair and a great smile.
“It’s her last week of school, and she’s been really busy,” Jennifer told him. Not the best time to invite Eddie over. Their sandwiches came, and they started to eat. Mentally she ran down her to-do list. “We need to order the wedding cake, too.”
“Just get whatever you want.” Harvey took a bite of his sandwich.
Fort Point (Maine Justice Book 2) Page 2
