“Of course, of course,” Greg replied, dropping the card into a drawer, his oh-so-jovial manner returning as quickly as it had vanished. “Anything I can do to help the police—consider it done.”
Back in the chief’s vehicle, I remarked, “I’m tired of the rain.”
“At least it’s slowed up some. What would you call this?” Chief Hunter asked, squinting to see through the windshield.
“Mizzle. That’s New Hampshire for misty drizzle.”
He smiled and said, “Mizzle. Got it.”
My phone vibrated, and I grabbed it. “Erly still in jail. Why?” Wes texted.
“Pal of F. Just ckg,” I typed in reply.
Mel Erly was in jail—a perfect alibi, I thought. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t have deputized a cohort to teach Frankie a lesson about loyalty to old friends. Maybe the guy was only supposed to push Frankie around a little and things got out of hand. If Frankie fought back, it was possible that the attacker grabbed the rolling pin and what had started as a fistfight ended as a murder.
This scenario assumed that Mel had succeeded in learning about Frankie’s whereabouts and arranging for the beating while he was incarcerated, and in only a few hours, which seemed pretty unlikely. Just because something is conceivable doesn’t mean it’s credible, I reminded myself, dismissing him, for the time being at least, as a suspect.
I recalled the material I’d seen in Frankie’s grip and wondered if Wes had learned what it was. “Have police ID’d what was in F’s hand?” I texted.
Wes’s response was immediate. “Leather,” he wrote.
Leather? Everyone, or almost everyone, wore leather. Belts. Shoes. Jackets. It could be anything.
I felt my frustration grow. I didn’t even know enough to ask additional questions.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I sat in Interview Room Two answering Chief Hunter’s repetitive questions, the video camera recording my every word. I felt nail-bitingly on edge. I wanted to be with Zoë, not doing what felt like busywork, answering the same questions that had been asked and answered earlier in the day.
Toward the end of the interview, just before nine, Detective Brownley stepped into the room and handed Chief Hunter a note. While he read it, she turned her intelligent blue eyes on me and watched me watch him. He placed the paper facedown on the table and thanked her, and she left.
He laced his fingers behind his head and leaned back. As he did so, I felt his mood change. What had been conversational became solemn. Seconds ticked by. Under his scrutiny, my pulse began to throb and the muscles in my neck and across my shoulders tightened. I glanced at the note, white-hot curious. Finally, he reached over and turned off the video camera. I watched as the red light faded to black.
“I understand from Detective Brownley that you sometimes talk to a reporter named Wes Smith,” Chief Hunter said.
“Sometimes,” I acknowledged, instantly on guard.
Chief Hunter touched Officer Brownley’s note. “This is the medical examiner’s preliminary report. Based on what it says, I think Mr. Winterelli knew his killer. For some reason, the murderer went ballistic, grabbed the nearest weapon, and killed him—which means the murder probably wasn’t premeditated.”
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked.
He shrugged. “In case you talk to Mr. Smith.”
“You want me to repeat it?” I asked, incredulous. Up until now, the police had always warned me not to talk to reporters. “Why? Why not tell him yourself?”
“That would make it official.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No. It’s my current theory of the crime, but that’s all it is—a theory.”
“Why not explain that to Wes, too? He’s smart. He’ll get it.”
He flipped a palm. “I don’t want the comment to carry the weight of the office. If you say it, it’s an uncorroborated quote from a person close to the investigation.”
I stared at him, unable to decide what to say or do. I didn’t want to admit talking to Wes, but I was intrigued by Chief Hunter’s idea.
He leaned forward. “You can help me—if you will. You know about the antiques. You know everyone who’s involved or who may be involved. You’re on good terms with a reporter.”
I had the discombobulating sensation of having strayed onto unsafe ice. When I was a girl in Welton, Massachusetts, a tractor would drive across Bullough’s Pond to test whether the ice was thick enough for skating. Sometimes the driver would reach the middle and turn back, saying that he’d felt the ice begin to crack. My friends would groan with disappointment, then run off to make snow angels on the flat area near the boat house, mostly unaffected by his revelation. Not me. I stayed close to my mother, holding her hand, as terrified as if I were the one about to plummet through the ice into the murky, frozen depths, not him. He never did, and usually the ice was deemed safe, but I never understood why that man risked dying just so kids could play. Wasn’t he scared?
Chief Hunter again touched the paper Detective Brownley had handed him. “The report contains no surprises. The medical examiner has ruled the death of Mr. Winterelli a homicide, and the rolling pin is definitely the weapon. So we know that, but I don’t know enough about the victim. I need people to tell me things, to repeat rumors. I want anecdotes. I want facts. Someone knows something—and I want it.”
“Maybe his murder has nothing to do with people he knows. Maybe it’s a robbery gone bad.”
“We’re checking into that.”
“But you don’t think so,” I said.
“No. I think he was killed by someone who hated him. You saw his body.”
I shuddered.
“Please talk to Wes Smith for me,” he said.
I didn’t like it. I was being maneuvered into the middle, always a risky place to be. I shook my head, but before I could begin to explain my hesitation, he leaned toward me and said, “I want you to gossip, not be an envoy. I’m counting on human nature to do the rest. People will start gabbing the way people do. They’ll whisper to their friends and co-workers and family, and with any luck, those whispers will be repeated as insider news and I’ll get wind of it. That’s what I want—the tittle-tattle, as my mother used to say.”
“Tittle-tattle?” I repeated, amused.
“So you’ll do it?”
“Wes has police sources who feed him information—and misinformation—from time to time,” I said, thinking fast, trying to get out from under the burden of the chief’s expectations. “Let one of them drop a hint in his ear and keep me out of it.”
He frowned. “Who are his police sources?”
“I have no idea,” I said, kicking myself for having let anything slip. As I thought of it, I realized I’d only assumed Wes had a police source. I didn’t actually know whether he did or not. It occurred to me that I was proving Chief Hunter’s point—people talk. “I don’t know for sure whether he has police sources. I’m speculating.”
“Speculate some more. Speculate about the police investigation to him. It can do no harm, and it might do good.”
“How can my talking to Wes possibly help more than allowing him to quote an anonymous ‘high-ranking police source’?”
“A story reporting an official police theory reads differently than an article reporting a rumor from some unnamed person who’s ‘close to the investigation.’ That has the sound of in-the-know to it. An official police theory makes people complacent—the police are on the job. Inferences and guesses make people remember tidbits that support or contradict them, and that’s what they talk about over the water-cooler.” He leaned back, his eyes fixed on my face, gauging my reaction. “All you have to do is let it drop that you got the impression that the police think Mr. Winterelli’s killer was known to him and that the murder was probably unpremeditated.”
“And when he asks what gave me that impression?”
“You can say that I asked you if the victim had any beefs with people … if he had a reputation for fighting
… if he was involved with a married woman … or if you’d heard anything about any of his relationships that might suggest that someone was out to get him—and when you said that you didn’t, I revealed that my working theory was that someone was enraged when they killed him.”
“Except that you didn’t ask me any of those things.”
“Sure I did, just not in so many words.”
“I hate this,” I said. “You’re asking me to lie.”
He switched on the video camera. The red light glowed.
“As far as you know, did Mr. Winterelli have any beefs with people?” Chief Hunter asked.
“No,” I replied.
“How about fighting? Did he have a reputation as quick on the draw?”
“No.”
“How about when he was high? Was he an angry drunk?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’ve never seen him drink?”
“Not lately. Not in years.”
“How about his love life? Had he gotten himself into any kind of romantic jam?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Would you know?”
I shrugged. “Probably not.”
“Thank you very much for your assistance,” he said, turning off the camera again. “Now I’ve asked you the questions. So, what do you say? Will you help?”
I nodded. “You’d make a heck of a negotiator, Chief. You’re relentless. I’ll call Wes on my way home.”
“You were going to anyway, right?”
“Wes is a good reporter. I’m curious what he might have learned.”
“Ask me what you’re planning to ask him.”
I blinked at him. He looked wise and knowing.
“I mean it,” he said. “Maybe I won’t be able to answer you, but you’ll never know if you don’t ask.”
I took a deep breath. I understood what he was doing. From my questions, he hoped to gain leads or ideas about avenues he should investigate. “Curt Grimes,” I said. “What’s his alibi?”
“Don’t know yet.”
“Is it true that you found no evidence suggesting that Frankie interrupted a robbery?”
“Yes.”
“Have you excluded an interrupted robbery as a possible motive?”
“No.”
“So in other words … you don’t know anything,” I said.
“Pretty much, that’s true.”
“Inviting me to ask you questions is a heck of a deal. You find out what I’m thinking, and I learn nothing at all.”
“Seems fair. So what else do you want to know?”
I smiled. “What do you think happened?”
“Someone was out-of-their-mind angry.”
I shivered, recalling the blood-streaked scene. “Yeah.”
“How long will it take you to appraise the Whitestone collection?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I never know until we’re into it. There are too many variables both in the authentication and the valuation processes.”
He tapped his pen on the edge of the desk, thinking. “What if all I want to know is if something is missing? How long would that take?”
“Not too long. The first thing we do is video-record everything to create a permanent record. From that, I generate an inventory. Guy told me where the receipts are, so I should be able to confirm that everything is accounted for within a few hours or a few days, depending on how or ganized the paperwork is and whether some objects are hidden away.”
“Let’s hope for a few hours, not a few days.”
“There’s no way to predict.” I smiled. “Sort of like detective work.”
He nodded. “What happens after you have your inventory listing and match the receipts to the goods?”
“I have the Whitestones check the list to be sure nothing is missing.”
“How come? If you have the objects matched to the receipts, can’t you assume it’s complete?”
“Not necessarily. Unless I helped them acquire an object, I might never have seen it, so I’d have no way of knowing that it had ever been part of their collection and was now missing.” I shrugged. “For instance, maybe someone stole an item that they picked up at a flea market or a craft fair, something they didn’t get a receipt for. Or maybe someone stole both the object and the receipt.”
“Does that ever happen?”
“Sure. Professional thieves do it all the time.” I paused. “The Whitestones own some real trea sures. In fact, an article about the collection just appeared in Antiques Insights magazine. The light house was uninhabited. It’s possible that a professional took advantage of the opportunity.”
“And Mr. Winterelli interrupted him.”
“I had that thought.”
“We need to know if the collection is intact, and we need to know it as soon as possible. Mr. Whitestone is in London—he was in the air when the corpse was discovered. He’ll be back in a couple of days. Mrs. Whitestone will be here in the morning, so she’ll be able to help you nail down the inventory. I’m hoping you can get started on the appraisal right away. The crime scene guys tell me they should be done by midday tomorrow.”
“I can do that,” I said. “Should I meet you there?”
“I’ll call you as soon as I get the all-clear, and we can decide then. About Wes Smith … call me after you connect with him, okay?”
“Okay,” I agreed.
“Thank you,” he said, sounding like he meant it. He stood up and extended his hand, and we shook. “I appreciate your help.”
I smiled, disliking my assignment but gratified that Chief Hunter trusted me enough to let me take it on. As I walked down the long corridor, across the reception area, and out into the parking lot through the soft rain to my car, I realized that I was exhausted. My feet felt leaden. I couldn’t think. I wanted to confirm that Zoë was all right, and then I wanted a hug from Ty, a martini, food, a hot bath, and bed, in that order.
CHAPTER EIGHT
I was just about all done in, too tired to talk to anyone where holding up my side of the conversation required either concentration or quick wit. Talking to Wes required both, but I’d promised Chief Hunter that I’d make the call. I took a moment to think through what I wanted to say and how to best express it.
I waited until I was on the interstate, then slipped in my earpiece and dialed.
“Josie, whatcha got?” he said, skipping hello, recognizing my number.
“You don’t sound surprised to hear from me.”
“I’m not. I knew you’d call. So, talk. You’re just leaving the police station, right?”
“Right. I gave a statement.”
“Did you tell them anything you haven’t already told me?”
“No—I don’t know anything else.”
“What did you learn? Do they have any leads?”
There’s my opening, I thought. “Their questions were pretty routine. One thing … I got the impression the police think Frankie knew his killer and are hoping that someone will come forward with information about who might have been angry enough to kill him.”
“What gave you that idea?”
“The questions they asked focused on his relationships with people.”
“Good one, Josie. I like it. What else?”
“Nothing.”
“Why did you text me about that Mel Erly guy?”
When I explained Zoë’s theory, he asked, “You’re thinking Erly hired a hit man? Is he connected like that?” It sounded as if he were salivating at the thought.
“No,” I said. “Mel’s a lowlife druggie, Wes, not a Mafia don.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he said, disappointed.
“How about you? What have you learned?” I asked.
“The Whitestones’ security company reports that the alarm was turned off at six thirty-eight this morning. According to Mrs. White-stone, that’s when they left the light house for their helicopter. They left the alarm off because they knew both Frankie and Ashley would be c
oming in that morning. Frankie had arranged for that guy you mentioned, Curt Grimes, to come at eight thirty to help him hang a door. They were having Frankie convert a display cabinet in the upstairs sitting room into a closed-in storage unit. Ashley was supposed to clean the place top to bottom starting first thing.”
“Did she?”
“No. She said she got involved scrimming. She told the police that since the Whitestones weren’t expected back anytime soon, there was no urgency.”
I wondered whether he learned that tidbit from Ashley herself or from the police, but I knew better than to ask. Wes kept his sources confidential, which is why I felt safe talking to him.
“Do the police know who opened the kitchen window?” I asked.
“No. Do you?”
“It’s possible that Frankie was planning on using chemicals for some project and wanted plenty of fresh air.”
“What kind of project?”
“I don’t know. Polyethylening a table or something like that.” I signaled my exit. “Or the killer was trying to confuse the time-of-death calculation.”
“Yeah … I thought of that. There’s no word yet from the medical examiner about when he was killed.”
“Did Curt show up on time?” I asked.
“Yup, and the door got hung.”
“So when Frankie came to my place after he and Curt finished with the door, the alarm system was still off?”
“Right.”
“Amazing,” I said.
“It’s hard to prevent a break-in if you don’t even set the alarm.”
“So you’re still thinking it was burglary?” he asked.
“I don’t know what to think. Has there been a confirmation as to whether the rolling pin and dish towel belonged to the White-stones?”
“Nothing official, but they found a drawer full of matching towels, so it’s a pretty good bet that it’s theirs. The rolling pin, I haven’t heard anything yet.”
“What about Curt’s alibi?” I asked.
“I’m checking. I don’t have anything yet—but I will. You got more?”
“No.”
“Keep me posted,” he said and hung up.
Silent Auction Page 6
