by Archer Mayor
Sam filled in the missing detail. “Maybe not for some of us. We’ve been to Teri’s apartment, where her phone and computer were removed. You ever meet her next-door neighbor?”
Beaupré smirked. “Hard to do, since I didn’t know her.”
“Right. Well, the neighbor knew about you. Turns out girls’ll be girls, you know? Get together, talk about boys. Not only that, but you gave Teri so much stolen stuff from your own warehouse that she passed a few boxes on to the neighbor.”
“Original GreenField boxes,” Lester added conversationally. “Complete with the fingerprints of everybody who’d handled them.”
“Hard to remember to wear gloves every time, isn’t it?” Sam asked.
Beaupré wasn’t close to the verge of tears, ready to confess, but his self-assurance had lapsed into watchfulness. Both his interviewers could almost hear the gears grinding in his head.
In fact, in conclusion, he checked his watch, rose, and announced, “Good story, guys, but it’s got nuthin’ to do with me. It’s also getting late and I’m tired—no offense intended.”
Almost daring them to stop him, he crossed somewhat warily to the door before turning and concluding, “Good luck. I hope you get off this crap and back to chasing the real killer. My people call me J.R. ’cause I’m well liked. I’m not the one trying to bring their world down around them. You oughta try focusing on who’d benefit from all this. The company goes belly-up, I’m out of a job. Hardly a great motivation.”
With that, he stepped into the hallway and vanished.
“You like him?” Lester asked his partner.
“I love him,” she answered. “But your cloud of DNA microbes aside—or whatever the hell you were talking about—it’s gonna be a neat trick tying him to this mess, even with his fingerprints on some boxes.”
“Assuming there are any,” Lester agreed. “I know you and Joe grabbed them as evidence, but did we even order them printed, considering how many people must’ve handled them?”
“We will now,” she said with a grim smile. “Not that it’ll count for much anyhow. It’s no smoking gun for an employee to have his prints on a box with the company logo on it.”
Compensating for that statement, however, she nodded toward Beaupré’s abandoned coffee cup. “That, on the other hand, I’d like to add to the mix, for prints and DNA. Joe said he wanted to start a collection. Might as well be obliging.”
* * *
Philip Beaupré was not surprised when Rachel walked up to him in the parking lot outside the warehouse. He did look unhappy with the cell phone she held in her hand.
“We meet again,” he greeted her warily.
“We do,” she stated, indicating the phone. “Formally, too. On the record, I’m Rachel Reiling of the Brattleboro Reformer. This is a recorded conversation, being sent directly to the paper’s website for safekeeping, and this interview is with Philip Beaupré of GreenField Grocers, who is also otherwise known by the nickname of J.R.”
Philip resumed his by-now-familiar lazy smile and pointed at the phone. “Is that supposed to protect you from being attacked by a nutcase? It’s not gonna happen, Miss Reiling. Having a nickname doesn’t make me a homicidal maniac. I’m one of the many victims of what’s happened to GreenField Grocers. For that matter, I have a bigger interest than most in wanting the cops to find this man as quickly as possible.”
He resumed walking across the lot, heading toward his pickup truck. Rachel fell in beside him, recorder still running.
“Mr. Beaupré,” she went on. “You’ve just been interviewed by the police concerning your possible involvement in the recent attacks against GreenField. What did they want to know from you?”
“You’d have to ask them. I was just doing my best to be as helpful as possible.”
“Why were you at the truck crash in Brattleboro? Is that part of your job for the company?”
“Everything’s my job. I’m what you’d call an executive-level jack-of-all-trades—the one who’s called on at a moment’s notice to solve problems and address emergencies.”
“Is that what you saw when you found me examining and photographing the obvious sabotage to the truck? A problem? You were certainly angry when we met.”
Beaupré paused in midstride, his voice maintaining its polished, practiced, impervious tone. “Absolutely, I was angry. You were in a restricted area, an unauthorized member of the press wearing police identification, contaminating a crime scene, taking pictures, and—I learned later—using your connection to your mother, the state’s medical examiner, as a means to penetrate the security cordon. If you don’t think that’s a bigger news story than my being at the crash site of one of my own company trucks, then you should go back to newspaper school and bone up on both your priorities and the letter of the law.”
He left her rooted in place and continued to his truck, where he swung in behind the wheel, started up the engine, and added through the open window as he pulled out, “Share that with your boss at the Reformer, Miss Reiling. I’m pretty sure he’ll recommend that you cool your jets and do a little homework before ambushing innocent people on private property in the middle of the night.”
* * *
Philip concentrated on negotiating White River Junction’s feeder roads to the interstate, channeling his slowly fading anger.
He’d done well with the pip-squeak reporter. That had felt good. It was the least he could do for her outing him, not that a nickname was going to truly do him harm. He and Bobby—the real Junior—already knew where they stood regarding both each other and their pecking order within the company.
But talking with the cops had been a wake-up call. Despite his care and attention to detail—including referring to himself only as J.R. to Teri Parker—something had slipped through to catch their interest.
That was unfortunate for a couple of reasons. Philip had begun this vendetta reactively, from pure emotion, and largely without a plan—aside from not getting caught. He was a man prone to impulse. It’s one of the reasons the old man had cooked up his special projects job description. Took one to know one, his father had said at the time, and he’d been right in more ways than he’d known.
Mixed blessings, as they say.
Since his initial action involving the firebombs, however, a strategy had begun to develop, one Philip had warmed to in part because it had slow-cooked, and thus grown in value in his mind.
But that had clearly now been derailed. The bitchy cop’s partner had been right. He hadn’t attended to everything, much as he’d tried, and their mention of Victoria Garlanda proved how thorough they were being. And now that they were onto him, considering their resources, he was going to have to reach for an improvised, cruder, and far less satisfying conclusion to all this.
Such a shame. But then, “shame” was the operative word.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“Take a breath, honey,” Beverly counseled her daughter on the phone, wriggling her toes under Joe’s thigh as they sat on his couch in Brattleboro. He had just returned from taking a shower, was dressed in sweats and drinking a mug of coffee. He silently mouthed, “Rachel?” to which she nodded and rolled her eyes, mouthing back, “Work drama.”
He’d guessed as much, hearing Beverly’s soothing voice through the bathroom door a while ago. In truth, he’d always been charmed by this nurturing aspect of her, given her sometimes stern exterior. He’d been impressed, witnessing her support of not just her daughter, but Sammie Martens, too. It had come as confirmation that he’d done well to open his heart to someone one last time, considering how close he’d been to simply abandoning thoughts of further romance.
Tonight, however, was probably not going to hold much proof of its fringe benefits. Despite their both being at his small house on Green Street, he’d gotten home only twenty minutes earlier, she’d been on the phone throughout, and the way events had been unfolding recently, neither one of them was going to escape being paged soon.
“I love
you, too,” she eventually said, and put the phone down with a weary smile.
“Troubles with her love life?” he inquired, massaging the cat, who’d mysteriously appeared on his lap.
Beverly laughed. “Don’t I wish. That child has no love life at the moment. But she is having a crisis. I’ll give her that.”
“What’s going on?”
“She’s been in mad pursuit of the whole GreenField fire, truck crash, gas leak story that’s been consuming you all, but she’s stuck in a quandary because now—officially, at least—she’s more press than family. I’m afraid we got her used to eavesdropping—even participating—in some of our past cases. Getting the cold shoulder because of her new job has come as a shock.”
“Who did that?” he asked. He knew what law enforcement company Rachel had been keeping lately, and suspected bad tidings.
“Sammie tossed her out of the sandbox. Something to do with her being told to leave when Sam and Lester were interviewing Philip Beaupré.”
She shook her head and chuckled, adding, “And I can fill in the details because, just before my real daughter phoned, my surrogate daughter did the same, to unload about the same encounter.”
“Sam?” he exclaimed, startling Gilbert enough to make him leap for safety. “Oh, that’s not right.”
She dismissed it with a shake of the head. “Oh, it’s fine. I’m glad they feel free to reach out. Better that than bottling it up. They love each other, in their way, and Rachel’s new job has put them at odds. I’m happy to be the go-between.”
“What did Sam say?” he asked. “If that’s not being indiscreet.”
“It’s not. Hers was actually the simpler complaint. She was just beating herself up for being such a hard-nose. I told her that she’d acted professionally and correctly and that she had a good heart—things that often run afoul of each other.”
“Why was Rachel’s problem more complicated?”
Beverly’s face became more serious. “It didn’t stop with Sam’s banning her from the room. It turns out my intrepid daughter intercepted Mr. Beaupré in the parking lot after the interview, and challenged him, recorder in hand.”
Joe stiffened. “He didn’t do anything to her, did he?”
“It depends on your meaning,” she explained. “He threw in her face that she was using her relationship to me and her connections to the police to violate the rules, and maybe the law, to gain unethical access to sources.”
Joe looked pained. “Ouch,” he said. “I guess that makes me guilty, as well. Yes, I smoothed her way into the warehouse that night, and I know she pulled some strings to get those truck crash shots. Beaupré’s probably right. Why all the hoopla about him, though? As far as I know, nobody until now had even put an interview into him. She say what Sam and Les found out?”
“Yes,” she said. “That’s at the heart of the drama. They were chatting with him at the warehouse tonight when Rachel walked in and identified him by his nickname. That apparently lit a fuse under both your folks. Up to then, they’d been ignorant of it.”
Joe furrowed his brow and reached for his phone, which he’d left on the coffee table before them. He knew Sam would have updated him by text with any news of importance. “She say what the nickname was?”
“J.R.”
He stopped in midmotion and stared at her. “Really?” he asked. “At the rate she’s going, your daughter may be pursuing the wrong profession. She should become a cop.”
* * *
Lester glanced at the clock above the nurse’s station as they walked by. They’d just arrived at the area’s health-care behemoth, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. “You sure this is a good idea?” he asked halfheartedly.
Sam didn’t look back at him, nor did she break stride—a woman on a mission. “Hey,” she said. “Where’s the downside? People in hospitals don’t have normal sleeping hours, and chances are she’s still in a coma anyhow. And weren’t we in the neighborhood?”
He couldn’t argue with that. White River Junction was just one town south of where Victoria Garlanda was struggling to survive her Ebola virus. He also couldn’t deny his own curiosity about why and how Garlanda kept surfacing in the context of the GreenField case.
As it turned out, they were in luck. When they paused at the window separating Garlanda from the rest of the world, they saw that she was not only awake, but talking to an industrially gowned and masked Susan Spinney, as well.
“Great minds think alike,” Sam said, rapping her knuckles on the glass, to the alarm of several nearby nurses. “You and your wife oughta talk more often,” she kidded Lester.
Sue looked up and came to their rescue, quickly approaching the window and gesturing to one of her DHMC counterparts to pick up the intercom on the counter near the door. The nurse did so, exchanged a couple of sentences, and handed the phone to Sam.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey, yourself,” Sue answered.
“How’s she doing?” Sam asked.
“They’re saying she beat it. You want to talk to her?”
“That’s okay?”
“Since she’s still pretty weak, you’ll have to gown up. That’s what I was telling them, assuming that’s what you want. I told them you two’re on the access list, given the circumstances. Just let that nurse know.”
Sam glanced at the woman who’d handed her the receiver and nodded, smiling. The nurse gave her a thumbs-up and retreated to fetch the proper clothing.
Fifteen minutes later, Sam and Lester were in with Sue, looking like stand-ins for a bioterrorist training. They shuffled awkwardly over to the bed, whose occupant was looking remarkably good, given her recent adventure.
“I know you can barely see who we are,” Sam said by way of introduction, “but it’s Sam Martens and Lester. How’re you feeling?”
“Terrible.” Victoria smiled weakly. “And that’s great. Believe me. Sue was telling me you wanted to talk.”
Sam, despite her earlier desire to confer with Victoria after their interview of Philip Beaupré, was now embarrassed by her own good fortune. The poor woman looked precisely as though she’d just escaped from death’s grip, blunting Sam’s ambition to put her through a grilling—all because of what might turn out to be a coincidental happenstance.
Nevertheless, here she was. Plus, what with her drubbing of Rachel and subsequent mea culpa to Beverly by phone, Sam’s self-esteem was close to the basement. Why not give the third degree to someone fresh from a coma?
“Okay, I’ll try to keep it short, but there’re just too many times your name’s come up for me not to want to ask a couple of questions.”
“My name?” Victoria asked wearily.
“Well, yeah. In addition to what put you in here, we’re running a second, maybe related investigation.” Sam awkwardly maneuvered to sit on the edge of the bed, absurdly hoping to introduce an element of friendly intimacy despite her bulky garb. “Let’s start with that, in fact, since we’re on it. Tell us about Robert Beaupré.”
Victoria was completely taken aback, her astonishment tinged with sadness. “Bob? Why are you asking about him?”
“You knew each other?”
She thought for a moment before answering simply, “I wanted to marry him. He was the only man I ever loved.”
“What happened?”
“He married someone else,” she said. “Why are you asking about him?”
Sam ducked the question. “Let me ask you first, have you two kept in touch?”
“No. I haven’t talked to him in years—decades—not since it happened.”
“What was it like? The breakup. Were threats made?”
She scowled. “I was heartbroken, not angry. I don’t understand this.”
Sam reached out a gloved hand and took hold of her wrist, stroking it gently. Garlanda was crying, quietly, without fanfare.
“Victoria, I’m so sorry. It seems to be my day for upsetting people. It’s just that we’ve discovered what happened to you w
asn’t by chance. The Ebola you caught was introduced into your eyedropper bottle.”
Garlanda wiped her eyes with the back of her free hand and stared at her. “My eyedropper? That’s crazy. Who would do that? You’re not saying Bob Beaupré, are you?”
“We don’t know who it was,” Lester said from beside his wife. “That’s why we’re here. We lifted fingerprints from the bottle, but they don’t match anything on file.”
“I asked you about Bob,” Sam resumed, “because your name came up in the GreenField investigation. It just seemed too much of a coincidence, especially since we learned that what happened to you wasn’t accidental.”
“Who would do that?” Sue echoed her friend. “We all love Victoria.”
It was a generalized question, not directed at anyone, but Victoria answered it: “Lillian Wuttke.”
Her three companions looked at each other in confusion.
“Who?” Lester asked.
“Lillian?” Sue echoed. “Why?”
“It was the last thing she said to me before she left on vacation,” Garlanda said tiredly. “And before I got sick.”
“She threatened you?” Sam asked pointedly.
“No. She told me we all get what we deserve in the end.”
No one said anything, prompting Victoria to explain, “I know. It doesn’t sound like anything, but we’d crossed swords before, when she told me she should have gotten my job. She’s made it her mission to undermine me whenever possible, but always indirectly enough to avoid getting herself fired. It’s become a joke of sorts among management.”
“Some joke,” Lester said, looking around at the hyperclean environment.
“I’m not saying she did this,” Victoria said quickly. “You asked who might have. Combining her anger with me and her nurse’s skills, she’s the only one I can think of.”
Sam had headed toward the door. “Don’t worry about that. I’m going to call right now to have somebody drop by her house.”
“She’s on vacation,” Victoria repeated.
“That’s what she told you,” Sam responded.
* * *
