Silent Auction

by Jane K. Cleland

  I drove slowly. The rain had stopped, but the roads were still slick. As I turned north onto the secondary road, I realized that I was so tense I was grasping the steering wheel as if it were a life preserver. I couldn’t stop thinking about the murder. A faceless someone had stood across from Frankie, arguing with him, fury blazing in his eyes, blinding him to reason. Yet even as the killer’s rage exploded, cold calculation drove his actions. Heat and ice. Heat grabbed the rolling pin. Ice covered his tracks. The killer had been simultaneously furious and shrewd. Who, I wondered, fit that profile? No one I knew.

  I raised and lowered my shoulders and rolled my head, trying to ease the knots in my neck and upper back. It didn’t work.

  What, I wondered, had happened to make the killer lose control? One man’s cutting insult or cataclysmic betrayal or monumental rejection was another man’s yawn. Some emotions simmered, sometimes for years, only to explode for a seemingly absurd or insignificant reason. I’d read an article about a fifty-year-old accountant, a man known in his community as a stand-up guy. He’d killed his seventy-five-year-old mother. When he turned himself in to the police after butchering her, he’d explained, “She burned the lamb chops.” Burning the lamb chops was, to him, the last straw.

  Had Frankie been killed because he had metaphorically burned someone’s lamb chops? According to Zoë, Mel hated him. Hate, left unchecked, grew more toxic over time, fermenting into what could become deadly menace. Maybe the killer had felt cornered, figuratively or literally, and panicked, his hate erupting into murderous rage.

  My phone vibrated, and I checked the display. It was Ty. I slipped my earpiece in and said hello. In his greeting, I heard the sound of strength.

  “Are you still at the station?” he asked.

  “No. I’m almost home.”

  “How are you holding up?”

  “I’m beat. And I’m starving.”

  “I’ll take a sandwich with me to Zoë’s for you. She called a minute ago—the kids are asleep and she doesn’t want to be alone.”

  I told him I’d be back in about ten minutes, and when I got there, I sat in my car for a moment and listened to the quiet. The night was still and darker than dark. I looked up toward the sky. The rain had stopped, but the cloud cover remained absolute. Outside, I heard a rustle in the woods on the far side of the stone wall that marked the border of the undeveloped property across the road and the who, who, who of an owl from somewhere in back of the house. The temperature had dropped steadily throughout the eve ning, and as I walked to Zoë’s door, I could feel winter closing in.

  “Zoë told me about Mel Erly,” Ty said after we were settled in the kitchen. “I made a phone call. He’s still behind bars.”

  I was eating a turkey sandwich. Not wanting to admit that I’d spoken to the reporter Zoë had hung up on only hours earlier, I didn’t tell them that I already knew about Mel.

  Ty sat next to me, his long legs stretched out in front of him. He was drinking a Smuttynose from the bottle. Just seeing him took my breath away. Everything about him appealed to me—his brains, his kindness, his looks. His eyes were dark and observant. His hair was deep brown and cut short. The bulk of his Homeland Security work was overseeing emergency responder training. With his spending so much time outdoors, his skin had weathered to a nut brown. Tonight, he wore jeans and a dark green collared T-shirt.

  Zoë sat on the other side of the table, hunched over, staring into the middle distance. Her eyes were puffy and red. “Then he must have hired someone. He’s a thug.”

  “I’m sure the police are looking into that possibility,” Ty said.

  “But you don’t think that’s what happened,” she said. Her tone had an edge, as if she were daring him to disagree with her.

  “A rolling pin is a weapon of opportunity, not an assassin’s tool.”

  “Maybe the killer brought a gun, then when he got there, he used the rolling pin instead to throw the police off the trail.”

  Ty shook his head. “Not likely.”

  “Why not?”

  “Are you sure you want to talk about this now?” Ty asked. He finished his beer and placed the empty on the table.

  Zoë stood up, grabbed the bottle, and stomped to the recycle bin, then grabbed a replacement from the fridge and handed it to Ty.

  “I’m sorry I sounded so … what … impatient? Irritated? I always want to talk about everything, no matter what,” she said.

  “Thanks,” he said, tipping the bottle toward her. “No problem.”

  “So, talk to me. What’s wrong with my theory?”

  Ty said, “A hired killer wouldn’t bother with the kind of subterfuge you described. One bullet to the back of the head, boom, he’s outta there. That’s what professionals do. Sure, sometimes they mutilate the body to send a message, but that doesn’t figure into this case. Trying to confuse the police is too risky because staging a crime scene isn’t easy, and professionals know that. If Mel called on a friend to do it, not a pro, he’d have been even more eager to get in and out than an assassin, and with as little fanfare as possible.”

  Zoë looked unconvinced. “Maybe it’s a stupid professional. You hear all the time how criminals are stupid.”

  “Unquestionably, many criminals are stupid, but not that kind of stupid. Almost all hired killers, professional or semiprofessional, are risk-averse.”

  She sighed. “I suppose you’re right.”

  I pushed my plate aside. “Wouldn’t whoever killed Frankie have been covered in blood?”

  “Probably,” Ty said. “Regardless, if I were running the investigation, I’d be working on the premise that this was a crime of passion, not a hit, until I heard otherwise.”

  Zoë looked forlorn. “I just don’t understand how someone could have killed him.”

  “Did he ever mention any friends besides Curt?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “How about girls? Was Frankie dating anyone?”

  “No. He talked about wishing he met more girls, but that was it.” She looked at me, then Ty. “You said that if you were running the investigation, you’d assume this was a crime of passion. That’s why Josie is asking about girls. What else would you look at?”

  “I’d want to know about his relationships with everyone in his orbit—his family, co-workers, buddies, even the mailman. Unless we’re talking about a crazy person, and I don’t think we are, this level of anger usually isn’t a secret.”

  She nodded, sighed again, and looked at each of us. “Do you know anything about Chief Hunter?”

  “He’s retired NYPD,” I said. “A captain. Homicide.”

  “The city took its time replacing me,” Ty said. “That’s a good sign.”

  Zoë sighed. “I hope he’s good enough,” she said.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The next morning dawned with the golden warmth of Indian summer. I cranked open the window over the kitchen sink. The air was fresh and bright. There was no wind. The thermometer Ty had installed outside the window read seventy-one degrees, downright balmy for a New Hampshire morning in September. I looked out into the woods. Some leaves glowed in garnet red, others in canary yellow.

  I made coffee for one. Ty was long gone, up to Presque Isle for the rest of the week. Through the side window I noticed Zoë leaning into her car, buckling Jake into his car seat. I stepped onto my covered porch and called to her. “Hey, Zoë. You’re leaving early. I was going to pop over to see you. How are you doing?”

  She shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep, so I decided to get an early start.” She closed the car door and crossed the driveway so she wouldn’t have to shout. “Do you think it’s tacky that I’m sending them to school? I mean, I can’t even think about the funeral yet, you know?”

  “I think you’re smart. There’s no point in keeping them home. How about you? What are you going to do to keep yourself from fretting?”

  “I’m going to show up with them and let the principal put me to work. They’ve got to need an
extra set of hands somewhere.”

  “If they don’t, I do. Eric always needs help setting up for the tag sale.”

  “It’s only Wednesday. Does he really start setting up this early?”

  “We’re always either setting up or breaking down,” I said. “I keep trying to think of ways we can only tweak it from one week to the next, but it never looks fresh unless we reshelve everything and start from scratch. So yes, he starts setting up today. And yes, you have a job anytime you want one.”

  Her eyes moistened. “Thank you, Josie.” She took a step back toward her car, then paused, turned full around to face me, and said, “Can you believe this weather? I figure God’s so glad to get Frankie up in heaven, he’s shining down on us.”

  Tears sprang to my eyes. “Oh, Zoë.”

  Her lip trembled. Even with worry lines furrowing her brow and a downturned mouth, she was beautiful. Her raven-colored hair hung in lush waves to her shoulders. Her skin was radiant, her figure willowy and graceful.

  “You know, Josie, I’m a rule-follower,” she said. “Line up single file, I do it. Line up by height, no problem. And you know what it’s got me? More heartache than I ever would have had if I’d just gone after a good time. Who makes the frigging rules anyway?” She took in a breath and rubbed her temple, as if she had a headache. “Don’t mind me. I’m a little upset.”

  “It would be odd if you weren’t. Come for dinner. Ty’s in upstate Maine. We can share a martini and toast to better days.”

  “Thanks … great … but let’s do it at my place, okay? So I can keep the kids on a regular schedule.”

  I glanced at them. Jake was absorbed in a book. Emma was talking softly to her teddy monkey, a battered stuffed animal she’d found in the attic and christened Mary-Rose. “Sounds good. I’ll bring everything.”

  “Can we tell good Frankie stories?” she asked.

  “You bet. And there are a lot of them. Do you remember the time he—”

  I broke off as Chief Hunter drove up. He parked in back of my car and stepped out. His jacket was dark green, his shirt yellow, his slacks brown, and his tie was gold with brown and green dots. He wore dark-tinted sunglasses, and I couldn’t see his eyes as he approached us. He nodded at me, then turned to Zoë.

  “I’m glad I caught you,” he told her. “I interviewed Mr. Erly last eve ning. He hasn’t made bail, and from what he told me, he doesn’t expect to. We’ve just finished tracking down his known associates.” He removed his sunglasses and blinked several times as his eyes adjusted to the light. His scar looked bloodred in the harsh daylight. “I’m convinced that he had nothing to do with the murder.”

  She held his gaze and nodded, but she didn’t reply.

  “I wanted you to know that I took your concern seriously,” he continued. “If you have any other thoughts, please get in touch right away.”

  “I will,” she said. “And if you learn anything, anything at all, please tell me. I can deal with anything, but I hate not knowing. Thank you for taking my comments seriously.”

  She reached out her hand, and he took it and held it for an extra beat.

  “I’ll keep you as up-to-date as I can,” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  He nodded at me, and Zoë and I watched him back out and head off toward Rocky Point.

  “He seems awfully nice, doesn’t he?” Zoë remarked.

  “And sensitive. And thoughtful.”

  She nodded. “I don’t know what I would have done last night without you and Ty,” she said, her tone soft and ripe with emotion. “Thank you.”

  As I stood in the early morning sunlight, I tried and failed to formulate words of comfort. Her shoulders began to shake, and she turned her back to her children. After several seconds, she stopped crying.

  “I wish I could think of what to say,” I told her.

  “You have. You do.” She touched my arm. “You’re such a great friend, Josie.”

  “You, too,” I whispered, fighting tears. “You, too.”

  She offered a wavering smile, enough to reassure me that for the moment at least, she would be all right. After she’d driven away, I remained where I was, staring over the stone wall and into the forest. Through slashes of sunlight, I could see deep into the woods. The turning leaves formed a mosaic of deep reds and rich golds and bright oranges, lit, perhaps as Zoë thought, by the will of God. I stood for several moments, transfixed, and then I drove to work.

  Three people, two men and a woman, lay in wait as I pulled into my company’s parking lot. I recognized the woman as a New York reporter named Bertie Rose, a journalist with the ethics of a cockroach. The others were strangers. All three ran after my car as I drove toward my building, shouting questions and snapping photographs. I parked near the front entrance, and one of the men tried to open the passenger’s door, but couldn’t because it was locked. Their clamoring felt like a full-on assault. My pulse began to race. I forced myself to breathe deeply, to try to calm myself.

  Years ago, I’d been the prosecutor’s star witness in a price-fixing scandal that had rocked Frisco’s, the high-end New York City antiques auction house where I’d worked. I’d been the whistle-blower, and as a result I’d been shunned by most of my friends, treated like a pariah at work, and ultimately dismissed from my dream job because, according to the feckless acting CEO, I wasn’t a team player.

  Everything about that era was horrible—and through it all, my nemesis had been Bertie, a devil-woman who stalked me for New York Monthly and made my life a living hell. Back then she’d pretended to be my ally, a lie it had had taken me weeks to uncover, damn her eyes. Now, here she was again, standing in my parking lot, pounding on my car window, her strident voice yelling something about the Whitestones, and had I talked to them, and did I know who killed their caretaker, and what did the murder scene look like. The men shouted, too, asking whether I knew Frankie well and what I thought had happened.

  I ignored them all, emotionally distancing myself the way I’d learned to do, protecting myself from their rabid attacks, focusing instead on how to handle their assault. Once I had decided what to say to them and what to do as a follow-up, I grabbed my tote bag and prepared to exit my vehicle.

  They backed away enough to allow me to step out, but not one inch farther. I locked my car and, with my front door key in hand, edged my way to the building’s entrance. I turned to face them. I held up a palm, and they quieted down, smiling, holding digital recorders in outstretched arms, ready to memorialize my every word.

  “Bertie, I know you’re from New York Monthly,” I said, managing to keep my tone civil. “Who are you guys?”

  “Mark Jenson, Manchester Sentinel,” one man said, naming New Hampshire’s largest-circulation newspaper.

  “Dwayne Malloy, Boston Trumpet. Tell us what happened.”

  The Trumpet was a tabloid that mostly featured stories about babies born with three heads and aliens camping out in suburban backyards.

  “You’re all trespassing on private property,” I said politely. “Get out now. As soon as I’m inside, I’m calling the police.”

  Ignoring their clamorous protests, I turned my back to them and entered, shutting the door without slamming it. I spun the dead bolt and deactivated the alarms, then ran to the window. They were leaving; probably, I thought, to loiter on the public street.

  The immediate crisis over, I began to shake, but I also smiled. I felt proud of how I’d handled myself. Previously, in the face of a media onslaught, I would have panicked or become a quivering mass of helplessness. Now, I was in control.

  I called Chief Hunter’s cell phone and got him. Three minutes later, I’d won his commitment to send a police officer to remind the reporters that my office and my home were private property. Secretly, I wanted the evil Bertie to ignore our warning, scuffle with the officer, and end up behind bars. That would be a trial where I’d relish testifying.

  “Thank you for talking to Wes Smith,” he said before he hung up. “His
article is exactly what I’d hoped for.”

  “Any payoff yet?”

  “Thanks again, Josie,” he said.

  I took the hint. “Glad to help,” I replied.

  Upstairs in my private office, I turned on my computer. As soon as it booted up, I went to the Seacoast Star Web site and read Wes’s front-page article.

  WHITESTONE CARETAKER MURDERED

  WAS THE MOTIVE ANGER OR GAIN?

  The article first presented the facts. I learned two things. First, while the police had collected a mishmash of fingerprints from all over the light house, including several on the sill by the open window in the kitchen, and were sorting through them, using them to prove who’d wielded the rolling pin was probably going to be a bust. The prints found on it were smudged beyond recognition. Second, the rolling pin had been positively identified as being owned by the White-stones. Ashley had been able to recall that there was a small burned spot near one of the handles, and Maddie, reached at her apartment in New York City, had confirmed it.

  Wes concluded with a question: “Frankie Winterelli lived among us in the Seacoast region for less than two years. If this murder resulted from anger, as many in the police theorize, what do you know that could explain it? The police need your help.” No wonder Chief Hunter thanked me.

  CHAPTER TEN

  I glanced at the time display on my computer monitor. It was a quarter to nine, too early for my pal Shelley to be at work. It was probably too early to call Shelley, period. She was not a morning person. As far as I knew, it was she who had invented the disco nap. She slept for several hours in the early evening, so she could go out clubbing at ten or eleven, get to sleep at four or five, and still perform at full throttle the next day.

  During the dark days of the trial and its aftermath, Shelley had stayed neutral, no easy task when most of her colleagues were gunning for me. We rarely saw each other anymore since I only got to New York City once or twice a year, and to Manhattan-centric Shelley, Rocky Point might as well have been located in the Antipodes. Shelley still worked at Frisco’s, and her day started around ten. I decided she’d forgive me and called her at home.