Dead by Any Other Name

by Sebastian Stuart

  “I’m good, thanks.”

  “I like your friend, anyone who can calm Mom down is okay in my book.”

  “He’s a great guy.”

  “So, what’s up?”

  “I’m a friend of Natasha Wolfson.”

  She took this in and looked at me, I held her gaze. I sensed she was trying to dope out how much I knew. She nodded to herself, seeming to decide there was no point in playing pretend. “I was sorry to lose her, she was a nice girl.”

  “I think she may have been murdered.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes. I want to rule out any of her clients, johns, whatever-you-call-them.”

  “I call them customers.”

  “Can you let me know who Natasha’s regulars were?”

  “Are you kidding? Part of what I’m selling here is discretion.”

  “So you’d protect a murderer?”

  “I’d protect my business.” She got up and crossed the room, stood over me. “Can I see your cellphone?” Her tone was mild, but her eyes weren’t.

  “What cellphone?”

  “The one I’m assuming you photographed the license plates with.” I handed it to her, she quickly deleted the shots and handed

  it back.

  “So you won’t give me the information I need?”

  “Here’s all the information you need: This farm is my life and my livelihood.”

  I decided to change tack, took a handful of Chex mix. “This is delicious.”

  “I add paprika.” She walked back to her lounger.

  “So how long you been running Kelly’s Farm?”

  She was on to me and smiled, “If it weren’t for your little friend amusing Mom, you’d be outta here.” She scooped a handful of Chex mix from the bowl next to her and checked out the basketball score on the television. “This farm’s been in my family for over two hundred years.”

  “That’s a long time.”

  “Too long. The only crop that thrives in this lousy soil is poverty.”

  “So you added a sideline?”

  “You might say that.” In spite of herself she was warming up—

  if you come at them right, everybody likes to talk. “I started it as a bed and breakfast after my husband disappeared. City folks were paying me to shovel manure.” She laughed and scooped another handful of the mix. “Then one day I discovered this guest out in the barn, well … let’s just say he was sweet on one of my cows. He was so ashamed he paid me a tidy sum to forget what I saw. One thing led to another.”

  I felt my blood pressure rise. “Do you still pimp out your animals?”

  “What’s it to you? ”

  “A deal breaker.”

  “Well, don’t bust a gasket. Anyone who grew up on a farm knows these things happen, but my animals are strictly off limits. But otherwise pretty much anything goes as long as nobody gets hurt—unless they want to.” A muffled scream echoed from somewhere in the far reaches of the farm. She sat back and crossed her arms with pride. “It’s worked out—I put my three kids through college, take care of my mom, and I’m socking away enough to buy me a nice place down in the Keys.”

  “That’s all great, but if Natasha was murdered, I still want to nail whoever did it.”

  “You mess with my meal ticket, I will take you out.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “It’s a promise.”

  “I can do this without bringing you into it,” I said.

  “Once oil spills it tends to spread.”

  “What if I gave you my word?”

  “I’d give it back.”

  “I could go to the cops.”

  “Now who’s the one making threats? And the cops aren’t going to touch me, not after two hundred years, and not with the goods I got.”

  There was a knock from the direction of the kitchen. “Stay put,” she said with a tight smile, an iron fist in an oven mitt. She got up, went into the kitchen and I heard, “Gimme ten minutes.” She walked back into the living room. “Party’s over. I assume we understand each other.”

  “I’m not sure you understand how I feel about murder.”

  “Well, as long as you understand how I feel about protecting my farm, we’ll get along just fine. Now where’s your car?”

  “Down at the head of the valley.”

  “I’ll drive you down.”

  “We can walk.”

  “Don’t push your luck.”

  As soon as Mad John and I were in my car and headed back to Sawyerville, he started rattling off numbers. I gave him a questioning look.

  “The license plates,” he said.

  “You’re brilliant.”

  “I know.”

  Then he started bouncing up and down on his seat.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  I called Chevrona Williams the next morning and asked her if she could run the plates. She said she would and that she’d bring me the results in person in a couple of hours. I hung up, took a nice long bath filled with salts and lovely gels, washed my hair, put on some clean clothes and lipstick, I almost dabbed on a little perfume but thought that might seem cheap and obvious.

  The phone rang.

  “It’s me,” Josie said. “The Wolfsons have just signed a six-figure contract for a book about their daughter Natasha’s life and suicide. It’s called Lost Child.”

  A chill raced up my spine. “Boy, they don’t waste any time, do they? And they’re labeling it a suicide.”

  “It probably makes it more saleable.”

  “Yeah. How are things going up there?”

  “Better now that I have something to obsess on.”

  “Oh God, you sound like me.”

  “No comment.”

  “Listen, thanks.”

  “Keep me posted.”

  I hung up and headed over to Chow. It was a very busy morning and Pearl was really struggling to keep up—of course she struggled to keep up when the place was empty. Abba waved me into the kitchen.

  “Hey, you look pretty this morning,” she said, juggling half a dozen orders.

  “Dumb luck, I guess.”

  “You really are the world’s worst fibber.”

  “Chevrona Williams is dropping over.”

  Abba just gave me one of her knowing smiles as she flipped an omelet with one hand and pancakes with the other.

  “You’ve got to hire some help.”

  “I hear you. Wish I could find someone who could cook and wait tables. Someone like, say, Josie.”

  “But Josie lives in Troy.”

  Abba eyeballed me, “You and I have got to have a serious talk sometime in the very near future. I think you’re fighting your own instincts.”

  Eager to change the subject, I filled her in on my trip to Kelly’s Farm.

  “I’d take what Kelly said very seriously, you don’t mess with those old backwoods gals. And I’m sure she wasn’t bluffing when it came to both the local police and the power of her little black book.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Hey, I’m catering my first political fundraiser, for Clark Van Wyck.”

  “Put humble pie on the menu.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  When Chevrona walked into the store, I felt that little flutter I’d come to know and … feel ambivalent about. On the one hand, I didn’t need any more romantic entanglements, I had a boyfriend, I’d never slept with a woman. On the other hand every time I got within ten feet of Chevrona, I felt this emotional pull. It was the way she looked down and rubbed the back of her neck, the way she narrowed her eyes and that dead-honest look in them, vulnerable and tough at the same time, and the sense that whatever she had she’d earned the hard way.

  “Hi, Chevrona.”

  “Hi, Janet.”

  Channeling my feelings, Sputnik went shortcakes, jumping all over her.

  “Did he drink too much of that amazing coffee of yours?” Chevrona asked.

  “If I’d had a little more notice, I would have gone out and bought gourmet.
You want a cup?”

  “I’ll pass.”

  “So … how are you?”

  “I’m good. You?”

  “Good.” Unless I was delusional, the force field between us was mutual. “Have a seat.”

  She sat and leaned forward, elbows on her knees, she was just so … masculine, in this unforced way men so rarely are, and feminine, too, in her sensitivity and empathy. “So, I ran the plates.”

  “And …?”

  “First, why don’t you tell me where you saw them?”

  “Do I have to?”

  “Yes.”

  I gave her a quick overview of my investigation to date.

  “Janet, you’re wading into some treacherous waters here.”

  “I’m not going to let go of this.”

  “Did you know that Natasha Wolfson was hospitalized for acute drug-induced psychosis after a suicide attempt four years ago?”

  I knew Natasha was troubled, but this information vaulted her into a whole new category. Was it possible she did throw herself off that ledge up on Platte Clove? “That’s sad news. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I just found out yesterday.”

  “I guess this does increase the odds she committed suicide.”

  “That’s what I thought. I’ve been back up to that mountaintop, I’ve walked it, been over it with a fine-tooth comb. There’s just no evidence, no tire marks, footprints, fingerprints, nothing on the ground. When the body was recovered, the officers searched the pool for anything that may have been on Natasha’s person, nothing was found.”

  “Was the entire length of the stream searched?”

  “That’s a long shot.”

  “What if Natasha grabbed at her killer as she fell and ripped off

  a piece of fabric, a watch, a piece of jewelry, and then it washed downstream?”

  “Good point. I’ll request that search be made. But I think you should leave it in our hands.”

  “The more hands the better.”

  She gave me one of her half-smiles. “On the record, I’m advising you to stop. Off the record, I admire the hell out of you.”

  She admired me.

  “You want those plates?”

  “Oh yeah, sure, of course.”

  “Now this will just show you who the cars are registered to, which is not a guarantee that’s who was on the premises last night.”

  “Gotcha.”

  She handed me a printout and one name leapt right out: Clark Van Wyck.

  “Did you see this name? Clark Van Wyck is our very ambitious state senator,” I said, feeling my adrenaline spike.

  “With the very ambitious wife,” Chevrona said. “I’ve heard she’s determined to become the state’s First Lady.”

  “If he was one of Natasha’s regulars and he thought for some reason it might come out, you have a pretty strong motive for getting her out of the picture. And if the wife found out about his specialized tastes—well, that’s math even I can handle.”

  “It’s a long way from wanting someone out of the picture to murdering them.”

  “True. But doesn’t it seem worth exploring? I’d at least like to find out if he was a client of Natasha’s.”

  “That would be good to know. But the bottom line here is that if this was a murder, we need some hard evidence. It’s tough to get a DA to run with a circumstantial argument. Without evidence, reasonable doubt is pretty plausible. When it comes to a murder conviction, juries are tough.”

  “Do you think it’s hopeless?”

  “It’s not looking good so far. And Natasha’s previous suicide attempt and hospitalization don’t help. I’m not convinced this was murder, but if it was it may turn out that the best shot is to go under the radar, build a powerful circumstantial case, and use it to bluff out a confession.”

  We were quiet for a moment and then I said, “Well, now I know what I’m aiming for.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  The next morning I hopped in my car for the quick forty-mile trip up to Albany.

  Although I was focused on one thing—a certain state senator—I was always happy to visit Albany. From 1810 to 1850 it was one of the biggest cities in the country and its downtown has some cool vestiges of those boom days, like sylvan Washington Park and the brownstone neighborhoods that surround it. Being the state capital the town has a permanent safety net, so it’s escaped that romantic melancholy place-that-time-forgot aura that hangs over so many struggling upstate towns. It also escaped the decimation of urban renewal, that 1960s fad that gutted scores of amazing old neighborhoods across the state and replaced them with soulless car-centric wastelands. Don’t get me started.

  I parked my car and crossed Empire State Plaza, which is always a thrill. The plaza is a blast, a stunning modernist expanse built by lovable hyperactive grandiose former governor Nelson Rockefeller—he who died with his pants off in the arms of his mistress. There’s a vast reflecting pool in the center of the plaza, surrounded by four identical skyscrapers and an egg-shaped theater that balances on a narrow base, all anchored at one end by the airy arch-graced state museum and at the other by the state capitol, a massive Gothic-Romanesque pile designed by H. H. Richardson in 1899. All in all, Empire State Plaza is one of the great urban set pieces—fabulous and futuristic. Worth a detour.

  I walked into the capitol and passed through security. This was my first time inside and I was kind of amazed at how grand and ornate the place was—lots of marble and tile and this amazing central staircase, carved red sandstone, with more landings and turns than an M. C. Escher. I walked past the senate chamber: plush, dignified, right out of a history book, it exudes gravity, wealth, the high ideals of laws and men, the days when New York State really was an empire.

  Which makes it all the more ironic that today the capital is hack central, filled with sweaty sleazy cheesy politicos working every crooked angle to make themselves and their cronies not-even-rich. The folks I passed in the hallways were a dead giveaway—oblivious to their noble surroundings, they kept their heads down, their faces impassive, you could almost smell the guilt and corruption wafting around corners and through the air ducts. I peeked in a few offices—the gray faces “working” at their desktops looked like they were playing online poker, watching porn or buying new towels from overstock.com—or maybe all three at once.

  I found Clark Van Wyck’s office and walked in. The contrast was striking—freshly painted, bustling with wholesome staffers, the posters on the wall extolled the benefits of organic farming and wind power with the tagline “A New New York.”

  “Welcome,” a friendly middle-aged receptionist said.

  “Hi, I’m a constituent of Senator Van Wyck’s and I was wondering if I could have a few minutes of his time?”

  “May I ask what this is in reference to?” she asked.

  “A farm in the district.”

  “Senator Van Wyck is passionate about saving our farms. May I have your name?”

  “Janet Petrocelli.”

  “And where is the farm?”

  “Delaware County.”

  “Hold on just a moment, please.”

  She got up, walked down a short hallway and was back in a jiff. “The senator would be delighted to see you.”

  Van Wyck’s office was spotless, orderly, with a rolled-up yoga mat sitting ostentatiously on the couch, more New New York posters on the walls, pics of the senator and his wife with the Clintons, Cuomos, Obamas, Nelson Mandela, Deepak Chopra, George Clooney, Arianna Huffington. His desk was so awash in family pictures of him, his wife, and their three kids—on a Catskill peak, ziplining in the rain forest, serving turkey to the homeless—that I got he-doth-protest-too-much vibe. There was also an open Tiffany’s catalogue on the desk.

  The senator—boyish, lanky, pretty damn cute—stood up and extended his hand.

  “Clark Van Wyck, what a pleasure.”

  “Janet Petrocelli, likewise.”

  “Please, have a seat. … So, I understand you have a fa
mily farm. That makes you a hero in my book. I’ve just introduced a bill called the Organic Initiative, which will provide a tax break to every organic farm in the state. I’m also working to exempt family farms from the state inheritance tax. We need to keep you folks in business. Linda tells me you’re up in Delaware County. Whereabouts exactly?”

  “It isn’t my farm.”

  “Oh?”

  “It’s a farm I have an interest in—Kelly’s Farm.”

  All the color drained from his face but this cat was quick and came right back, “I’m sorry, I don’t know it.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely sure.”

  He looked at me and I got the distinct impression he was willing me to dematerialize. Must be all that yoga. Sorry, Charlie, no namaste.

  “A friend of mine worked at Kelly’s Farm,” I said. “She’s dead and I think she was murdered.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” He picked his cellphone up off his desk, looked at it, put it back down. “Have you contacted the authorities?”

  I wasn’t taking that bait. “No.”

  He relaxed a bit, leaned back in his chair, and then leaned forward, solicitous. “It’s always so hard to lose a friend.”

  “Her name was Natasha Wolfson, she died on Platte Clove eleven days ago.”

  “Oh yes, of course. That was very sad. I thought I read that her death has been ruled a suicide or an accident.”

  “It has.”

  “But you think it was murder?”

  “I do.”

  “Do you have any evidence?”

  “Did you know Natasha Wolfson?”

  “No.”

  “Someone took a picture of your car parked at Kelly’s Farm.” This was true: I had taken a picture, no need to tell him it no longer existed.

  He swallowed and then smiled, but looked a little sick around the gills. “I visit district farms as often as I can.”

  “Apparently you’re a regular at this one. You were there two nights ago.”

  “You mean my car was.”

  One good bluff deserved another. “Actually, my sources tell me you were.”