Cutter's Run

by William G. Tapply

  He backed down the driveway, waved out the window, and drove off.

  I slipped my hand into my pants pocket and fished out the leather folder with my badge inside. It felt solid and important in my hand.

  I couldn’t wait to show it to Alex.

  CHAPTER 14

  AFTER THE SHERIFF LEFT, I gave the hood of my Wrangler two coats of black Rustoleum. Up close, you could still see the outline of the swastika, but from a distance it just looked like somebody had dumped a can of black paint on the hood.

  Leon was right. I should’ve bought three cans and done the whole thing.

  I waited until after lunch, when Alex and I were sitting on the deck sipping iced coffee. “Got something to show you,” I said casually. I took the badge folder from my pocket, flipped it open, and held it in my palm.

  She laughed. “Where’d you get that, from a Cheerios box?”

  I handed it to her. “Just heft this sucker. It’s made of real metal.”

  She took it and bounced it in the palm of her hand. “I’ll be damned,” she said.

  “I’ve been formally deputized,” I said. “Sheriff Dickman himself administered the solemn oath.” I shook my head. “Cheerios box. Humph.”

  “Oh,” Alex said, fluttering her hand over her heart. “A solemn oath.” She shook her head. “Seriously, Brady.”

  “What do you mean, ‘seriously’? There are serious things going on around here.”

  “I know,” she said. “Of course there are. But a badge?”

  I held out my hand and she put my badge in it. I stood up and slipped it into my pocket. “Well, I got work to do, woman.”

  She looked up at me and smiled. “Go git ’em, Deputy.”

  I went inside, found the portable phone, and sat at the kitchen table. I opened my wallet and fished out the business card that Charlotte had been using for a bookmark. Harrington, Keith & Co., Certified Public Accountants. I dialed the number.

  A woman answered. “William Keith,” she said. “This is Ellen. How may I direct your call?”

  “Is this the accounting firm?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I’m looking for Harrington, Keith and Company.”

  “You’ve got the right place, sir. Mr. Harrington retired. Our name is now William Keith and Company.”

  “Oh, dear,” I said. “How long has Mr. Harrington been gone?”

  “Over a year. Can we help you?”

  I tried to think. Charlotte Gillespie’s bookmark was old and outdated. Suddenly, this business card did not appear to be such a great clue.

  But I’d come this far. I decided to push forward anyway. “Well, actually,” I said, “I’d like to speak with Charlotte Gillespie, please.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. Ms. Gillespie is no longer with the company.”

  “But this is where she worked?”

  “Oh, yes. She was with us for over two years.”

  “Boy, I’m really behind the times,” I said. “Do you happen to know how I might reach Ms. Gillespie?”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t.”

  “Can you tell me when she left you?”

  She hesitated. “Several months ago. May I connect you to someone else, sir?”

  “Thank you anyway,” I said, and hung up.

  I sat there smiling. The sheriff had been smart to deputize me. I was a helluva deputy. I didn’t know if it would help me actually find Charlotte, but I knew my duty. I had a case to pursue, and I had to follow every lead, however slim.

  I poked my head out onto the deck. Alex was sitting there in her rocking chair with her eyes closed. “Hey,” I whispered.

  Her eyes fluttered open. She turned her head and smiled. “Hey,” she said.

  “Wanna go to the big city?”

  “New York?”

  “Would you settle for Portland?”

  “Why?”

  “I gotta do some sleuthing.”

  She pushed herself out of the rocking chair. “It sounds almost like a date,” she said.

  By asking directions, we found the street in downtown Portland where the William Keith accounting firm was located. I left the car in a parking lot, and Alex and I agreed to meet in an hour at a little café on the corner. She said she intended to go buy herself a frock.

  I found the Keith offices in a newish glass-fronted building halfway down a steep hill, on the ocean side. At the foot of the hill stood a row of old brick warehouses that had been renovated into chic bistros and boutiques. Portland, Maine, like Newburyport, Massachusetts, and Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and other old New England cities with “port” in their names, had enjoyed resurgences over the past twenty-five years after a century or more of decline and neglect. Nowadays, these old seafaring deep-harbor cities capitalize on their settings. They thrive on high-tech industry and yuppie trade, and it takes a lot of accountants to keep them going.

  William Keith occupied a suite of offices on the first floor. I opened the glass door and stepped into a waiting room decorated with hanging ferns and low-backed sofas and glass-topped coffee tables strewn with Forbes and Business Week magazines. A string quartet played softly from hidden speakers, and a back-lit aquarium was built into one wall. A receptionist behind a large desk guarded the gateway to the inside offices where, I assumed, an army of accountants marched numbers around on their computer screens.

  Her name, according to the plaque on her desk, was Mrs. Sanderson. She had dark hair with some gray in it piled up on her head, reading glasses perched out toward the tip of her nose, and, when I approached her, a well-practiced smile. “Yes, sir? Can I help you?”

  “I’m looking for Charlotte Gillespie.”

  She plucked her glasses off her nose and frowned. I noticed that Mrs. Sanderson did not wear a wedding ring. “Are you the gentleman who called earlier?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “I believe I told you, Ms. Gillespie no longer works here.”

  “You did say that, yes. I’m trying to track her down. It’s rather important.”

  “I don’t think anybody here knows where she went. We haven’t seen her since—oh, back in June sometime.”

  “Did she quit?”

  “Well…” She looked up at me and shrugged.

  “She was fired,” I said.

  “Look, Mr.—”

  “Coyne,” I said. “Brady Coyne.”

  She nodded. “I really can’t talk about it.”

  “Who can?”

  She hesitated for a moment, then said, “Is Charlotte in some kind of trouble?”

  “‘Danger,’” I said, “would be a better word for it.”

  She cocked her head and frowned at me. Then she nodded. “Why don’t you have a seat. I’ll see if Mr. Keith can talk to you.”

  “Thank you,” I said. I sat on one of the sofas, picked up a copy of Down East magazine, and thumbed through it while Mrs. Sanderson spoke softly into the telephone.

  After a minute she hung up and said, “Mr. Keith will be able to see you in a minute.”

  “I appreciate it,” I said.

  Nearly fifteen minutes later a tall athletic man in his fifties emerged from the offices and approached me. “Mr. Coyne, is it?” he said.

  I stood up and held out my hand. “Brady Coyne,” I said.

  We shook. “Bill Keith,” he said. “Come on in.”

  I followed him past Mrs. Sanderson’s desk, through an open room full of copy machines and file cabinets, and into a large corner office. Half a dozen diplomas hung behind his desk, and a shoulder-high bookcase was stuffed with manila file folders, three-ring notebooks, and, dull-looking Volumes similar to the books of case law that lined the shelves in my own office back in Copley Square. On top of the bookcase stood a large framed photograph of a Labrador retriever holding a dead duck in its mouth. A considerably smaller photo—a posed K Mart portrait—showed William Keith about twenty years younger standing with a plain-looking woman and two small boys.

  Keith sat behind his desk. I took the
straight-back chair opposite him. He leaned forward on his forearms. “Ellen said you were looking for Charlotte Gillespie. She indicated that Ms. Gillespie could be in some sort of trouble.”

  “Danger,” I said. “I used the word ‘danger.’”

  “Perhaps you could elaborate.”

  I shook my head. “I couldn’t, actually.”

  “You’re a friend of hers, then?”

  “This is not personal, Mr. Keith.” What the hell, I thought. I slid my deputy’s badge from my pocket, flipped open the leather holder, and showed it to him.

  He squinted at it, then looked up at me. “How do I know that—”

  “Mr. Keith,” I said quickly, “this is an urgent matter. I really don’t have time to argue with you. If you’d like to call my boss, feel free.” I took Sheriff Dickman’s card from my wallet and put it on the desk.

  He picked it up, looked at it, and put it down. “What do you want to know?” he said.

  “Did Charlotte quit, or was she fired?”

  “We, um, we accepted her resignation.”

  “You asked for it?”

  He nodded.

  “So she was fired,” I said. “Why?”

  “Her clients complained about her work. They threatened to take their business elsewhere.”

  “They?” I said. “Several clients?”

  “One client, actually,” he said. “An important client.”

  “She was incompetent?”

  Keith gazed out his window for a minute. “She was a very good accountant, Mr. Coyne. We’d never had anything but praise for her work.” He shrugged. “But…”

  “One client complains and you fire her?”

  “They were quite upset. We’re in a very competitive business here in Portland, Mr. Coyne. This client is in a position to…” He waved his hand.

  “I understand,” I said. “So this very competent accountant has a problem with one client and she’s fired. She must have done something terrible.”

  “I can’t talk about that,” said Keith.

  “Who is this client?”

  He shook his head. “I certainly can’t tell you that, Mr. Coyne.”

  “No, of course not. I’d need a subpoena for that information.” I let the implications of that bluff sink in for a minute, then said, “Actually, that wouldn’t be necessary if I could find her. You don’t have any idea how I might do that, do you?”

  “She lives in Falmouth,” he said. “I assume—”

  “She doesn’t live there anymore.”

  He shrugged. “In that case, I can’t help you. I’m sorry.”

  “Me, too.” I plucked a pen from the mug on his desk, slid a notepad toward me, and wrote my name with Alex’s phone number on it. I turned the pad around and pushed it to him. “If you think of something or have a change of heart, you can reach me here. Otherwise, you’ll probably be hearing from me again.” I stood up and held my hand across the desk to William Keith. “Thank you for your time. I can find my way out.”

  He half stood and shook my hand, and I went to the door. I put my hand on the knob, then turned to him. “Oh, by the way,” I said. “You don’t hunt deer, do you?”

  “Of course I do.” He smiled. “Everyone hunts deer.”

  “Been doing it for a while, have you?”

  “All my life,” he said. “My father started taking me when I was a kid. Shot my first whitetail when I was twelve. Little spikehorn, about a hundred pounds.” He smiled. “Dad smeared its blood on my face and made me take a sip of brandy.”

  “Do you hunt alone or with friends?”

  He cocked his head, and his smile faded. “With friends, usually. Why?”

  “Ever hunt around Garrison?”

  “Garrison?”

  I nodded.

  “I’ve hunted that area a little.”

  “Do you rent a cabin in Garrison?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t rent a cabin anywhere, Mr. Coyne.”

  I nodded. “Thanks, Mr. Keith.”

  I went out into the reception area and nodded at Mrs. Sanderson, who smiled and said, “Is everything all right?”

  “You mean Charlotte?”

  She nodded.

  “I don’t think she’s all right,” I said. “I think something’s happened to her. That’s why I’m here.”

  She frowned, then jerked her chin back in the direction of William Keith’s office. “Did you… um… was it helpful?”

  I put my hands on her desk and leaned to her. “Mrs. Sanderson,” I said. “Were you a friend of hers?”

  She nodded. “Yes,” she said softly. “I liked her very much. We used to have supper together on Fridays after work. We’re both divorced, and…” She shrugged, as if that explained it, which it pretty much did.

  I took out one of my business cards, wrote Alex’s phone number on the back of it, underlined it twice, and put it on her desk.

  She picked it up, glanced at both sides of it, then pushed it away from her. She rolled her eyes back in the direction of William Keith’s office. “I just can’t,” she said softly.

  “Charlotte Gillespie is renting a cabin in the woods,” I said. “She’s been missing for several days. Her dog was poisoned. Someone’s making swastikas on her property. I’m trying to find her. I believe something has happened to her. Or might happen to her.” I dropped my voice. “I’d like to talk to you.”

  She looked up at me. “I—”

  At that moment, William Keith opened the door. “Oh,” he said. “You’re still here, Mr. Coyne.” He grinned. “Flirting with the help, eh?”

  I straightened up and shrugged. “I was just on my way.” I looked at Mrs. Sanderson. “It was nice talking to you.”

  She nodded, and as I turned to go I saw her reach casually across her desk, cover my business card with her hand, and draw it back under some papers.

  CHAPTER 15

  ALEX WAS WAITING INSIDE the café when I got there. She was sipping something tall and amber through a straw.

  I slid into the chair across from her. It was one of those tippy wrought-iron things with a hard round metal seat. The table had matching wrought-iron legs and a glass top about as big around as a straw hat. The furniture matched the cute-old-fashioned-ice-cream-shoppe decor of the place—hammered aluminum ceiling, checkered black-and-white-tile floor, mirrors and framed New Yorker covers on the walls, with several signs in fancy calligraphy that read: “Thank You for Not Smoking.”

  “What’re you drinking?” I said.

  “Iced tea. I’m almost done. Let’s get out of here.”

  “Where’s your new frock?”

  She tipped up the glass and sucked the iced tea from the bottom, making gurgling noises through the straw. “No frock,” she mumbled. “I don’t want to talk about it.” She set the glass down, fumbled in her purse, then dropped a five-dollar bill on the table. “Let’s go.”

  “You don’t want to wait for your change?”

  “Change?” She blew out a quick laugh. “You know what a glass of iced tea costs in this place?”

  “I don’t think I want to know. I guess you’ve got to pay for the ambiance. Those are very classy No Smoking signs.”

  We walked out, and I took Alex’s hand. “What about dinner? I bet we can find a place somewhere in this city that has comfortable chairs and big tables.”

  She squeezed my hand and gave me a halfhearted smile.” Can we just go home? I know I’m being a grouchy old poop, but really, all I want to do is change into shorts and a T-shirt and bare feet and grill some burgers and drink some beer. I think I’ll hang myself if Noah and Susannah interrupt us tonight.”

  “Home it shall be,” I said. “And we will decline all social invitations.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Are you disappointed? Did you really want to go to a restaurant?”

  “Hell, no. They’ve all got No Smoking signs.”

  During the hour it took us to drive back to Garrison, I told her about my interview with Wi
lliam Keith.

  “You actually flashed your badge at him?” she said.

  “You betcha. Put the fear of the law in him, I did.”

  “But he didn’t tell you anything.”

  “Valid point. Still, I could tell he was impressed. I think the receptionist, Mrs. Sanderson, knows something. She was friends with Charlotte, and I think I convinced her that Charlotte is in trouble. I cleverly slipped her your phone number. She hasn’t even seen the badge yet. That’s my ace in the hole.”

  “Move over, Wyatt Earp,” she said.

  After we got home, I went onto the deck to get the charcoal started. When I went back into the kitchen, Alex was standing at the counter making the salad. A bottle of Sam Adams stood beside her. I fetched a hunk of ground sirloin from the refrigerator and took it to the table.

  I glanced at her. She was slicing an onion. Her eyes were red. “What’s the matter?” I said. “Are you crying?”

  “I’m peeling a Bermuda onion, for Christ’s sake.” She wiped her eyes with her forearm.

  “Oh.”

  “Okay, goddammit. I have been sort of crying.”

  “Sort of?”

  “Shit. Crying. Okay?”

  I went to where she was standing at the counter and put my arm around her shoulder. “What’s the matter?” I said.

  “Nothing. Nothing new. You know.”

  I sighed. “I guess I do.”

  She shrugged. “It is what it is. You drop in, you stay awhile, and you leave. We talk long-distance on the phone a couple times during the week. Then you drop in again.”

  “Whose fault is that?”

  Her head snapped up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  I took my arm off her shoulder. “It wasn’t me who moved to Maine.”

  She cocked her head and peered at me through narrowed eyes. “I thought we had a commitment,” she said.

  “We did. We do. We are keeping it. I think we’re doing okay under the circumstances.”

  She nodded. “Yeah, well, I guess the circumstances are getting to me. I mean, even when we have an afternoon together, we’re not together.”

  “You mean the Charlotte thing.”