Winter held up the tablet. “Ever see this woman here?”
The guy, wearing a suit jacket with no tie, tan khaki’s and loafers, didn’t even ask who Winter was or why he was asking. “Sure, she’s here a lot. Right, Steve?”
Steve, outfitted by the same blue jacket and tan slacks tailor, leaned over to look, but the video had ended. Winter started it up, tried to fast forward, realized he didn’t remember how to do that. “I’m kind of new at this.”
“Let me,” said Steve, and took the tablet, got the video going.
“Right there,” said the first guy.
Steve did something to the screen and the image froze on Upton.
“How’d you do that?” asked Winter.
“Tap this icon. Her, oh, yeah, I remember her. She’s—.” He looked up at Winter. “Wait, you’re not her old man, are you?”
“No, I’m a cop. Finish what you were going to say.”
Steve glanced at his friend, shrugged, and said, “She’s hot. Even better in person. George and I were just talking about her, as a matter of fact. Hoping she’d be here tonight.”
“She usually with someone?”
“That’s the weird thing,” said George. “Never. She comes in, even when it’s slow, has a drink, leaves. Barely talks to anyone.”
“You mean she wouldn’t talk to you,” said Steve.
“Not just me. I’ve seen plenty of guys hit on her.”
“You here a lot?” asked Winter.
“We’re sales reps for a metals fabricating company,” said George. “We’re through here every few weeks.”
“You see anyone else tonight you recognize?”
Steve looked over the crowd. “The usual bartender isn’t on tonight, big guy with an earring. I think your video woman knows him—at least she talks to him. The other bartender too, skinny guy with red hair. Other than that—they’re filming some kind of tv show in town, we’ve seen some of the crew.” He pointed to a booth. “Maybe those guys?”
Winter thanked them and bumped his way across the room. Five men and two women were crowded in a booth for four and a small table that had been pulled alongside. Winter identified himself.
“Some kind of problem, officer?”
“No, I’m just wondering if you’ve seen this woman.” Winter held up the freeze frame of Upton.
“That’s Jason’s squeeze,” said one of the women, her spiked pixie dyed black and silver hair sticking out like she’d seen a ghost. The woman sitting next to her, this one with a pierced nose, nudged her in the ribs. “What?” said Pixie. “It’s not like everyone doesn’t know.”
“We don’t want to get anyone in trouble,” said one of the men, crossing his arms, showing thick biceps that pressed against his ribbed pullover.
Winter changed tactics. “You with the television crew?”
Thick Arms said, “Contractors. We help set up for the location shoots.”
“Okay. Look, I’m just following up on something. I spoke with this woman, she said she’d been here, I just needed to find out if anyone had seen her.”
“Sure,” said the woman with the nose ring. “She’s here all the time, because, you know, the cast is here.”
“Oh, jeez, just say it,” said Pixie. “She’s here because Jason is here.”
“I hear he’s pretty famous,” said Winter. “You see them together a lot?”
No one said anything, and after a moment one of the guys said, “As a matter of fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen them together.”
“Here or on the set?” asked Winter.
“Anywhere. She’s never been on the set, at least when I’ve been there, but I just do the initial setup.”
“I’m there all the time,” said Nose Ring. “I handle the equipment scheduling. She’s never been on set.”
“Of course not,” said Pixie. “They have to keep it quiet, you know, because of Ashley Hanna.”
“I’ve never seen her either,” said Nose Ring.
“Me neither,” said the beefy guy. “And I’ve been looking.”
Everyone laughed, Winter joining in. Just a bunch of hardworking locals. “You from Marburg?”
“I’m from Boston,” said Pixie, “but these lowlifes are local.”
“You’re from Braintree, not Boston.”
“It’s close enough,” said Pixie. “Not the sticks.”
“Hey, I’m from Marburg,” said Winter.
“Then grab a chair and have a beer with us,” said the big guy in the ribbed shirt. “Unless you’re on duty.”
Winter’s shift had technically ended five hours ago. “Sure.”
A hour and two beers later, Winter had managed to gather a few additional tidbits from the show contractors. They all recognized Melanie Upton. And the all assumed she was seeing Jason Ayers. Yet no one had actually seen them together.
Odd, but maybe explainable, the whole Ashley Hanna angle. Winter filed it away, he’d fill Ryder in on it tomorrow. He wanted to make one more stop.
The Marquee had been closed the last time he’d come by, but now the place was hopping, a long line at the door to Marburg’s only real higher end club. Winter bypassed the line, the bouncer recognizing him, letting him through the rope with a nod.
“Anything I should know about?” the bouncer asked.
“Nah, just talking to a few people. I may show you a picture on the way out, okay?”
“Sure.”
The club was busier, louder, and even younger than the Hilton bar, a brain numbing repetitive beat shaking the floor. Winter glanced at the front bar, packed, he’d have to yell to make himself heard. He skirted the dance floor, heading for the back bar. Here it was marginally less deafening.
One of the bartenders, a thin shouldered blonde in all leather, looked familiar. Winter stood at the end of the bar until she noticed him. She held up a finger, and after pouring a cocktail came over.
“Help you, Detective?”
Winter held up the tablet. “Seen this guy?” He was trying to remember the bartender’s name. Fiona? No, that was another one. Brandie, that was it. “Brandie?”
She smiled, he had got it right, her smile fading when she saw the photo of Gruse. “He’s been here a few times, hitting on the ladies.”
“Isn’t that what clubs are for?”
“Sure, but this guy—he was always staring, you know? Creepy. Always by himself.”
“He ever bother anyone? You get any complaints?”
“No. And I would have heard, the owner tries to keep the place safe. Should I be looking out for him?”
“No, he won’t be a problem,” said Winter. “Thanks. Hey, while I have you,” he pulled up Upton’s photo. “You know her?”
“Sure, Melanie Upton. She’s a regular. Although I haven’t seen her around much lately.”
“She come in alone?”
“I think. But it’s hard to tell, she’s here five minutes and guys are all over her.”
“They try to pick her up?” asked Winter.
“She lets them buy her drinks. I never got the sense she was looking to hook up.” Brandie looked wistfully at Upton’s photo. “If I looked like her, I’d probably never have to pay for another drink in my life.”
Winter didn’t get home until well after midnight, but he was too wired to sleep. He lay in the old lounge chair, the sports channel on mute, the overhead light in the kitchen bleeding out into the living room. The chair had been his father’s favorite, the arms long stained from sweat and condensation from the countless beer bottles that had rested there, just as Winter rested one now.
It was odd, he thought of his ex-wife Sylvia every time he sat in that chair, even more than his father. He actually thought of his father more than his ex wife, but the chair brought back memories of one of the few topics he and Sylvia had argued about, his furniture. Winter and Sylvia had moved into the house after his parents had passed away. She had wanted to throw out the furniture, not because she didn’t like his parents—the
y actually had got along great—but because she wanted to make the place feel like it was hers. Winter had acquiesced on everything except the recliner, even after needing two rolls of duct tape to cover the tears. He smiled, a little sadly; the fights hadn’t been the cause of their divorce, they just had different dreams, she wanted stuff, not just furniture, and he wanted . . . to fix things, to rid the world of troublesome people, get answers for families who needed resolution, not some pablum about a random crime.
Like this Gruse case. Seemingly random, a poor guy in the wrong place at the wrong time, a confluence of unforeseen factors leading to his death. Just some average Joe, maybe a little desperate, down on his luck—but who hadn’t felt that way, at one time or another? Trying to pick up women, and what guy hadn’t been there, too. Winter had never roamed around with a camera pretending to be a photographer, but guys would try anything.
Winter sipped at his beer, the television casting a dancing glow on the mostly bare walls. Sylvia had done all the decorating, and had taken most of the photos and all of the art; Winter had replaced very little in the intervening ten years. Someone seeing a mishmash of furniture and blank walls, a guy alone on a lounger, would immediately think divorce. It was a pretty obvious connection. Some connections weren’t so obvious, and yet, in his experience, often there were connections, you just had to find them.
He was increasing bothered by the Gruse murder and a sexual assault occurring within a few months of each other. Marburg wasn’t the safest place; its violent crime rate was about twice the national average, but it wasn’t exactly Chicago or even Boston. It got its share of what Winter thought of as transient crime, criminals passing through, robberies at all night convenience stores. Most of those were solved, the thieves too high or stupid to know about where the security cameras were. The outlying hotels, run down, always an issue, drug deals. That was the logical supposition for the Gruse murder, as Ryder thought.
Yet the attack on Gruse seemed—personal. Why stab a man, who seemed to have no money, in his run down car? In the groin area, no less. A man who liked taking photos of pretty women. Then there’s a pretty woman who is involved in a possible assault, which is about as personal as you could get.
Two seemingly unconnected crimes, a possible coincidence, and yet . . .
Winter had already stumbled on one connection; both Gruse and Upton had been at the Marquee. That alone meant nothing, Winter had been at the Marquee as well; some cop could just as well have shown the bartender his photo and made the same connection, and yet as far as Winter knew, he hadn’t previously met either Upton or Gruse. Although he’d heard all about six degrees of separation.
Winter finished the last of his beer and reclined the lounger all the way so he could stare at the ceiling. The blank ceiling was a canvas, a universe, anything could happen there, any two experiences or people could be connected. It was a game his father had taught him, listening to the Sox on the radio. They couldn’t afford to go to the games, and when there wasn’t one on tv, his dad would tell him to picture the field on the ceiling, so and so on first base, second, the outfielders, the batter. All of the players standing totally separate, yet in a flash they could be uniquely connected, the pitcher to the batter via the ball, then the defense, the outfielder picking it up, the throw…nothing but connections, the ball serving as a connect-the-dots. And yet if you didn’t know the underlying rules, the story of the game, you wouldn’t see the connections, it would all appear to be just crazed random actions.
Winter no longer thought about baseball as he stared at the ceiling, but instead thought about cases. He placed people up on the ceiling, unrelated at first, just like the fielders, until the play unfolded, then the connections became apparent, even between players the ball didn’t touch, because they were part of the field, part of the play, crucial to the game.
He did it now, on one side of the ceiling placing Gruse, with lines going to a bunch of women, some of whom they’d identified, some still nameless. These women all had connections to Gruse, even if the connection was just that he had photographed them. Perhaps later Winter would discover that some of those connections consisted of more than just being photographed.
On the other side of the ceiling he placed Melanie Upton and Jason Ayers. There was a linkage between the two of them, although the nature of it was still to be determined. For now all that mattered was the connection. Winter had come to realize that you could find a linkage and then look for a reason for it, or find a reason for a linkage and then find the linkage, but if you tried to do both at the same time, the possibilities were so endless you got nowhere.
A big empty white space separated the Gruse and Upton cases. Winter thought about the women Gruse had photographed: young, attractive, especially alluring. That description certainly fit Upton, and it wasn’t just his opinion; he’d already met both men and women who felt the same way about her. Even Ryder appeared to be smitten. Upton could just as well be on the Gruse side of his ceiling whiteboard. Had Gruse taken a photo of Melanie Upton?
Winter shifted the lever on the lounger and raised the seat. The tablet was on the table next to the chair, he spun through Gruse’s photos, looking for a photo of Upton. Nothing. He’d have to ask Cindy and Dan to show him the rest of the photos, he just had the frontal shots. And also find out if Upton was on Gruse’s call list.
He reclined the lounger again, settling in, refreshing his imaginary connection planetarium on the ceiling. He shifted his attention to the Upton side. Upton didn’t seem to be in any big hurry to name Ayers as her attacker. Maybe she really had been out of it, so high she couldn’t remember. Instead of pointing the finger at Ayers, she’d pointed away from him, and yet all her denials kept coming back at the actor, a crooked finger. Perhaps she was torn between naming him and not naming him. Could an actress be blackballed? Winter would have to find out about that.
The deposit in Upton’s account could be a payoff from Ayers to keep quiet, or . . . nothing at all. Would Ayers pay Upton off just because of a false accusation? If word of that got around, Ayers might fear that other women would try the same ploy. But what if Upton had some kind of proof of the Ayers assault, and used it to blackmail Ayers for money? That would explain the deposit.
What kind of proof could she have? A video? A photograph? That made Winter think of Gruse again. Did Gruse take videos? Who had shot the video of Ayers pulling Upton at the party? Had Gruse taken that?
Winter bolted upright without remembering to push the lever, which only served to roll him off the side of the chair. He grabbed the side table to save the tablet. He didn’t need his ceiling diagram now, a possible set of lines had connected in his head.
Gruse was a stalker, at least a photographic one. He stalked women just like Melanie Upton. Could Gruse have been stalking Upton, and taken a photo of Ayers breaking in to Upton’s apartment?
Ayers seemed to have the most to lose in the whole deal. And Upton had said he had a temper. No, that wasn’t it, she said he could be rough. If Gruse had some kind of photographic proof of Ayers being at Upton’s apartment, and Ayers found out about it, he might have been trying to get it back from Gruse. If Ayers had in fact paid off Upton, he’d probably be willing to pay off Gruse as well. Ayers couldn’t take the chance meeting Gruse around Marburg, the crowd waiting for him at the Hilton was proof of that. It might explain why Gruse was at the Greenhill Motel, a meeting place suggested by Ayers. Maybe Ayers was threatening Gruse with a knife and things went south.
Winter’s house phone was still in the kitchen, an old style princess model, mounted on the wall. He picked it up and was halfway through dialing the station to leave a voicemail for Cindy when he remembered it was Friday, she wouldn’t be in the office tomorrow, and neither would Dan. He’d go in himself. Cindy would have an active file on both cases, and Winter could see if Upton’s number was on Gruse’s call list. He could also look through Gruse’s photos to see if there was a picture of Upton.
Or he could call
Cindy in the morning, talk her into some overtime . . .
Nothing else to do tonight, so he went back to the lounge chair. He’d unwind watching some sports highlights. The leather, long since molded to his body, welcomed him like a glove.
He drifted off to the murmur of talking heads discussing playoff possibilities, with the nagging suspicion that he’d forgot something.
CHAPTER 31
Saturday morning, the station quiet, missing the normal hum. The night shift had come and gone, the day shift out, as were the two detectives on schedule this weekend. The light on the coffee pot was lit, meaning Cindy was already there. The opportunity for overtime, plus the celebrity nature of the Upton case, had been enticement enough to drag her in on a weekend.
This wasn’t Winter’s scheduled weekend, but he never cared when he was on a case, especially when he felt something might pop. It also didn’t change how he dressed; he wore his usual tactical pants, this pair a deep green, his polo shirt untucked. The polo shirt was his one capitulation to modern clothing, the new tech fabrics multi season comfortable. The station was stuffy, as always, the old air conditioning system not able to keep up with the additions that had been slapped on through the years.
He got his coffee and wandered over to Cindy’s desk. Today her hair was a shade lighter than his pants, but no less green. He’d seen her in so many different colors of hair it looked almost normal on her.
“Thanks for the OT,” she said.
“They probably don’t pay you enough anyway,” said Winter.
“You got that right. But the perks, wow, this incredible office, for instance.”
“What have you got?” asked Winter. When he’d called Cindy that morning he’d explained what he was looking for, a possible connection between the Gruse murder and the Upton woman.
Cindy rotated her screen so he could see. She’d pulled up the Gruse photos, dozens of small icons. “I couldn’t find any images of Melanie Upton. I studied shots of her from her agent’s website, and also stills from The Other Woman video, so I think I’d recognize her. But there are so many photos in Gruse’s collection that are shot from the side, even from behind. I think he had a thing for rear ends, or maybe it was the only shots he could get. She could be in there, but I might not recognize her.”
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