Three Can Keep a Secret

by Mayor, Archer

  Reynolds stared at him, but without defiance this time.

  “No tricks,” Joe said. “You do the math. This is a straight-up deal, ’cause I know you have something to give me.”

  Still, the young man resisted.

  “Tell you what,” Joe went on. “I’ll add murder to the list for good measure, since you’re the only guy we have for that, too.”

  “What?” Travis exclaimed. “I didn’t murder nobody.”

  “Why do you think everybody’s so interested in that fancy apartment?” Joe asked. “The old-timer who lived there was killed, Travis. Now, I don’t know if you did that or not, but do you really want me to think you have something to hide?”

  Joe slapped his hand loudly on the tabletop, making Travis jump in his chair.

  “Now’s the time to talk,” Joe yelled.

  “I didn’t kill nobody,” Travis said quickly. “It was just a grab job.”

  Joe smiled supportively, his voice again conversational. “Something you were paid for?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Who paid you?”

  “Some guy. I don’t know his name.”

  “Tell me about that.”

  Travis pressed his lips together briefly, and then began his confession. “I got a call, like out of the blue. This guy said he heard I do odd jobs, and did I want to pick up five hundred bucks.”

  “He say how he heard of you?” Joe asked.

  He shook his head. “And I didn’t ask. What do I care?”

  “Of course,” Joe agreed.

  “Anyhow, I said cool, and he tells me to go to the old folks’ home, to go behind a Dumpster near the back, and find a cardboard box with a uniform in it and a key.”

  “How were you going to get paid?”

  Travis tapped his temple with his finger. “Right, right. There was an envelope, too, with half the money in it.” He laughed suddenly. “And I mean it,” he added. “It was cut in half. Five one hundreds, cut in two. A note said I’d get the other half afterward.”

  “You keep the note?” Joe asked.

  “Huh? No. Why?”

  “How ’bout the money?”

  Travis smiled. “Hey, man. Like that was a long time ago. That’s long gone.”

  Joe nodded, resigned. “What else did the note say?”

  “Told me to go to one of the apartments—gave me the number—told me to use the key, and told me to do stuff.”

  Joe merely raised his eyebrows in inquiry.

  “Right,” Travis repeated. “Let’s see. There was a photograph in one room I was supposed to take. He told me to erase the answering machine. And there was a box in the dresser, in the bedroom, with a pin or something in it I was supposed to grab. That’s where I bumped into your cop.”

  “How about some files, from out of the desk?” Joe asked, caught by the omission.

  Travis looked at him. “Oh yeah. I forgot. Them, too, but they were already missing. It was just those three things.”

  “You’re saying you were already in the apartment when the police officer entered?” Joe asked.

  Travis registered surprise. “Oh, yeah. Scared the shit outta me. I was in the office, doin’ the picture and the phone, and I heard him come in. I thought for sure he’d find me, but then he went the other direction.”

  “Why didn’t you leave then?” Joe asked.

  “And miss out on the five hundred?” Travis protested. “I don’t think so.”

  “You knew he was a cop?”

  “Oh, sure,” Travis replied without thought. “You know, he had the camera case. Plus, he looked like one.”

  Joe moved on. “What did you do then?”

  “Snuck up behind him and whacked him.”

  “With what?”

  “I don’t know. Some heavy statuelike thing I grabbed off the hallway table when I went in. I put it back when I ran out with the box.”

  Joe shook his head despite himself, thinking of the multiple errors. No one had even glanced at the marble figurine still sitting on the side table, not thinking that Reynolds might have done something so spontaneous to begin with, and so orderly afterwards. And he could hardly believe that Lester hadn’t double-checked the apartment—except that it was all too human a mistake.

  “You grabbed the whole box?” he sought to confirm.

  “After that, I did, sure,” Travis admitted. “I wasn’t about to hang around with him on the floor.”

  “Yeah,” Joe concurred. “But what exactly had the man told you to take?”

  “A pin. A round one, like they wear on a lapel. You know, like those little American flags politicians have. But it was dark purple and had two gold letter C’s on it.”

  “He tell you what they stood for?”

  “The C-C?” Travis asked. “Nope—no clue. But I found it in the box later, after I got away.”

  “What about the picture?” Joe asked. “You said he wanted that, too.”

  “Yeah. I grabbed it,” he said. “It was pretty small. Not much to look at.”

  “Describe it.”

  Reynolds shrugged. “Like I said, small. Black-and-white. The frame was kinda cheap. It was just a group of people.”

  “Recognize anyone?”

  “Nah.”

  “Tell me about it,” Joe urged him.

  He looked faintly irritated. “I don’t know—bunch of old people. Well, old people now, I guess. It was an old picture—the clothes, the hair—you could tell.”

  “How many?”

  “Five, maybe?” he answered. “Men and women. It wasn’t great. Looked like a party snapshot to me. They were drinking, lifting their glasses. That kinda stuff.”

  Joe stood up. “Hang on a sec.”

  He stepped outside to retrieve his case, which he brought back with him, sitting down to rummage through several folders he had within it. He extracted a single photograph and laid it before Travis.

  “This one of the people?” he asked, pointing to a copy of the picture of Marshall posing alongside Carolyn Barber in the Governor-for-a-Day shot.

  “That’s two of them,” Travis confirmed.

  “You’re sure?” Joe asked.

  “Yup. I remember her ’cause she was pretty, even for an old picture, and him because there were other shots of him around the room.”

  “And there were two or three others?”

  “Yeah. At least one more woman—not much to look at—and a couple of dudes. So, yeah—I guess that does make three. I wouldn’t know the other ones, though. Like I said. I just noticed these two ’cause of what I said—they kinda caught my eye.”

  “Like you said,” Joe echoed quietly. He replaced the photograph thoughtfully. “Go back to the files that were missing. What were you told to steal, had they been there?”

  “Everything in the C section. I didn’t like that part, since I didn’t have anything to carry them in, so I was just as happy they were missing.”

  “Tell me what happened after you lost the cop who was running after you,” Joe said.

  “I went back to the Dumpster and picked up the rest of the money.”

  Joe straightened. “It was already there? The missing halves?”

  “Yup. Just like he said. I left the picture, the clothes, and the box—after I looked into it to make sure the pin was there, which it was.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then I walked outta there,” Travis said.

  “You didn’t drive there in the first place?”

  “Nah. That’s not how I work. Never leave the car near the hit—that’s what I say. Makes for a slower getaway, but a cleaner one. Admit it,” he said cheerfully, his eyes bright. “You never would’ve found me if I hadn’t bumped into that cop, right?”

  Joe shook his head sadly. “Wrong, genius. We never would’ve found you if you hadn’t taken off. That cop had no idea who you were. It was your running away that he recognized. You forget you had a stocking on when you clubbed him?”

  Travis stared. “Oh, shit. You
’re kidding me. Really?”

  “Why were you wearing that anyhow?” Joe asked. “If you didn’t expect to meet anybody?

  “It’s my trademark,” he said. “I never work without it.” He sighed and slumped in his chair. “I can’t believe I forgot that.”

  Joe let him stew while he reviewed what they’d discussed. “You said that the man called you,” he said then. “How was that? You have a cell phone?”

  “Sure. You guys took it when you busted me.”

  “That a disposable phone or a regular cell?” Joe asked.

  “Nah. It’s a regular one. I finally splurged.”

  Joe smiled. That meant that they might be able to trace its incoming calls.

  “And he didn’t say how he got your name?”

  “Nope.”

  “You have any guesses about that?”

  Travis hitched a shoulder. “I know a lotta people. Coulda been anybody.”

  That, Joe thought, was unfortunately true.

  “He didn’t introduce himself?”

  “Nope.”

  “How ’bout later?” Joe asked. “After he found out that the files were missing. He must’ve called you back for an explanation.”

  “Yeah, he did,” Travis said. “But he didn’t seem to care once I told him. He just heard what I said and hung up. He sounded funny, but he didn’t say any more.”

  “How do you mean, ‘funny’?”

  “Different, you know? Like he had a cold or something.”

  Joe frowned as he considered another possibility. “A cold?” he then asked. “Or maybe wasn’t the same guy?”

  Travis nodded receptively. “Oh, yeah. That would work. It wasn’t a great connection—like a bad cell phone. But sure. It mighta been somebody else. I didn’t think of that, ’cause we were talking about the same thing. But that would explain it.”

  Glad it explained something to you, Joe thought.

  * * *

  He met Lester outside, who immediately said, “I was listening from next door. I’ve already started the paperwork to get into his phone. Who do you think it’ll be?”

  Joe shook his head. “Damned if I know at this point. Someone who’s clearly hoping to erase the past, along with Carolyn Barber’s role in it.”

  Lester looked at him steadily before he asked, “You think she’s dead, don’t you?”

  Joe’s own cell phone went off as he replied, “I wouldn’t be surprised. If I were some of these people, I wouldn’t want her alive with her name plastered all over the state.” He hit the ANSWER button without looking at the screen. “Gunther.”

  “It’s Beverly.”

  He broke into a broad smile and moved away from his colleague, crossing to an adjacent office. “Hey, there. How’re you doing?”

  “Actually, pretty well,” she answered in her precise language. “I’ve discovered something I think you’ll find valuable.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I’m all ears.”

  “Following our last conversation,” she told him, “I returned to the two house fire victims from Shelburne. I couldn’t let it go.”

  He nodded appreciatively at the phone. “God, you are good.”

  She responded, “I don’t know about that, but I like to be thorough. As you know, I was troubled by my inconclusive findings concerning Mr. Friel. So I tried a few things that lie just a bit outside the protocols.”

  “Yes…,” he encouraged her.

  “Well, one of the by-products of the fire was that his heart suffered from charring and shrinkage, as did the rest of his body. I therefore took several of his major organs and analyzed them more carefully, including the heart, which I rehydrated so that it would return—at least in part—to its original dimensions. It was far from perfect, of course, but it was an improvement over what I’d first analyzed.”

  “You did find that bullet,” he stated, now only half joking.

  This time, she remained serious. “Not quite. It was a hemorrhagic wound track.”

  He tightened his grip on the phone. “A knife wound?”

  “More like a skewer,” she answered, “as in a shish kebab. I was thinking of an ice pick, except that those have become virtual antiques by now.”

  “You’re sure?” he asked. “I mean, enough that you’ll be amending the death certificate?”

  “Oh, yes. That’s why I wanted to tell you first.”

  “You are something else, Beverly. Nicely done.”

  “You’re very welcome, Joe. My pleasure.”

  He snapped the phone shut and returned to where Spinney was filling out paperwork.

  “Good news?” Les asked at his boss’s expression.

  “Depends on who you are, I guess,” Joe said. “Hillstrom just figured out that William Friel was stabbed in the heart.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The entire squad was back in Brattleboro, for their first staff meeting in days. They’d been dropping by individually, to catch up on paperwork and collect messages, but it felt odd to have them all in the same room again.

  “It’s been a bit of a grind,” Joe told them from his spot of preference, sitting on the windowsill. “But we’re making headway, and I thought we should compare notes face-to-face. Willy, let’s start with you and Rozanski.”

  “Nothing to tell,” Willy reported with predictable brevity.

  “Aside from what you will tell us,” Joe responded pleasantly and without hesitation.

  Willy, feet propped on his desk, sighed. “No runs, no fouls, no errors,” he said wearily. “Herb Rozanski is alive and well, if a little mangled, and living under a legal alias in Burlington. He and his brother, Nate—also alive and a hermit in the Kingdom—agree that they had a fight and that their dad covered it up by pretending Herb got killed. Was it against the law? Yeah, but the old man’s dead, and nobody gives a damn, so I’m declaring the case closed.” He waited for a reaction before adding, “Unless there’s an objection.”

  Everyone knew better, and Joe also knew that Willy’s report would be complete and properly filed, if it hadn’t been already. Despite his unregimented demeanor, Willy was maniacal about tending to details.

  Joe therefore let the subject slide. “Good. Now to the swamp pit that’s been swallowing the rest of us. To begin with—right or wrong—we thought we had a missing state hospital patient, an ex-politician dead of natural causes, and two people killed by an accidental house fire in Shelburne. Some of us have been pursuing different aspects of these three cases, but since it’s become pretty clear that they’re all cross-connected and a whole lot more complicated, I’m thinking that from here on, we better treat everything as a single unit, just to be on the safe side.”

  He held up the photograph of Carolyn Barber and Gorden Marshall on her big day, decades ago. “This, for instance, shows two of our major players, back in the ’60s. There is no way in hell that her disappearance and Marshall’s suspected murder don’t overlap.”

  “Like as part of the Catamount Cavaliers?” Willy suggested, adding, “I been reading the reports.”

  “Perfect example,” Joe agreed.

  “How solid are we on Marshall being a homicide?” Lester asked. “I know Hillstrom found a stab wound in Friel, but are we still relying on Marshall’s damaged upper lip as our only proof of foul play?”

  “You got circumstantial stuff, too,” Sammie contributed.

  Joe pointed to her and nodded. “Right. It’s not bulletproof, but somebody made an effort to stop us from reaching back into Marshall’s history.”

  “There’s no downside to working him as a homicide,” Willy said generally.

  “Speaking of Marshall,” Joe said. “Did we get anything more out of his phone records?”

  “Not much more than what I told you,” Lester said. “There was a reporter from the old days who told me they just reminisced. The guy said he was writing a history book and found Marshall to be pretty useless. And there was a call from an outfit named Scott and Company. Sheldon Scott is a c
onservative lobbyist who used to be buddy-buddy with Marshall way back when, but from what they told me, it wasn’t Scott who phoned.”

  “Who was it?” Willy asked.

  “They didn’t know and couldn’t track it—or wouldn’t—but Scott himself was out of town.”

  “It still may not be a dead end,” Sammie said.

  “The phone records?” Joe asked. “Or Scott and Company?”

  “Either. The messages on his machine were erased. To me, that sounds like it wasn’t ‘who’ that was being covered up, but ‘what’ that person said.”

  “What do you think was in the files from Marshall’s desk?” Willy asked. “There doesn’t seem to have been much follow-up about them.”

  “Probably related to the Catamount Cavaliers,” Joe stated, “but no way of knowing.”

  “Except,” Willy pursued, “that Travis Reynolds said they were already missing, which means they were probably taken at the time Marshall was snuffed. The rest—the picture and the lapel pin and the phone messages—happened later.”

  “The killer forgot the other stuff?” Lester asked. “Or he was interrupted?”

  “Crazier things have happened,” Willy answered. “But I’m betting on something else.”

  “There were two of them,” Joe filled in.

  Sam and Lester looked back and forth at their colleagues.

  “What?” Sammie asked.

  “Somebody knocked off Marshall and boosted the file—,” Willy began.

  “—And somebody else hired Travis to rip off his apartment,” Joe finished. “I like it.”

  “Two separate parties covering their tracks?” Lester asked.

  Sam was already nodding in appreciation. “It does work. I mean, it’s as good a theory as anything else we got.”

  “Why, though?” Lester challenged them. “Why kill Marshall, why steal his file, and why would somebody different come back later to steal the other stuff? Pretty unpopular guy.”

  “Not just that,” Joe mused. “But the second party heard about the death almost before Marshall’s body started cooling.”

  “The former Cavaliers,” Willy suggested. “Horny old fuckers still covering their asses. He was supposed to have coffee with pals on the morning he turned up dead. Think one or all of them might be old Cavaliers?”