Red Means Run

by Brad Smith

  “You know what?” Virgil said.

  “What?”

  Claire caught up with Joe Brady back at the station. It was a little past one o’clock and Joe was sitting at his desk eating fried chicken and fries from a greasy cardboard box with a picture of a red rooster on the lid. He had his feet up and Claire could see horse manure on the sole of his right shoe. She could smell it too but maybe she just imagined that, after seeing it.

  “I need to take a look at that list of license plate numbers from the park,” she told him. “From the day Dupree was killed.”

  Joe glanced around the desk, as if the list in question might be lying there under his chicken. “I don’t know where it is,” he said. “This minute, anyway.”

  “I need to see it.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?” Claire asked. “Because I want to know who was in the park that day. None of the names jumped out at you?”

  “I wasn’t expecting anything to jump out at me,” Joe said. “I was looking for Cain’s plate number. We’ve been over this, Claire. Either he told them a story at the gate or he walked in along that ravine. Why do you always want to complicate things?”

  “Did you look at the list, Joe?”

  “I had Marina check the list for Cain’s plate. I didn’t have time to search every plate number that drove in the damn park that day. You might recall that right around that time I was out with the dogs, looking for a killer who had escaped custody. You figure I should have been back here, checking out license plate numbers of fly fishermen from Pennsylvania?”

  “Where’s the list, Joe?”

  “That would be a question for Marina, wouldn’t it?” Joe took a handful of fries and shoved them in his mouth. He nodded in the direction of the front desk. “And here she comes right now.”

  Claire turned to see Marina approaching. She had a piece of paper in her hand and was heading toward Joe. Claire intercepted her.

  “Marina, those plate numbers you got from the park the day that Dupree bought it? I know it’s a lot of work but I’m going to need the names.”

  Marina shrugged. “No problem,” she said. She made a point of looking at Joe. “I offered to do it before but I was told it wasn’t necessary.”

  Joe glared at her, munching on his fries. He swallowed and took a drink of his soda. “That’s because it wasn’t.”

  “I can have it in a couple hours,” Marina told Claire.

  “I’ll be back shortly,” Claire said and got to her feet. “By the way, Joe, you got manure on your shoe. Seems like you got shit coming out of you from every direction.”

  Joe watched as she left, then looked at his shoes, one after the other. Marina started to walk away but then remembered why she’d come over. She came back and put the sheet of paper down in front of Joe.

  “Another Virgil Cain sighting,” she said.

  Joe didn’t bother to look at the paper. “Yeah, where was he this time?”

  “Woman said he was looking at a house to rent here in town. Over on Sycamore Street.”

  “Right here in Kingston?” Joe asked. “Imagine that. And here we’ve been looking north of the border. What makes her think it was Cain?”

  “She said she was watching the news about Boddington and they showed Cain’s picture, and she looked out and he was standing in the yard, talking to her husband about this house for rent. The husband is the landlord, I guess. She said it was Cain, no question. He went in and looked at the house.”

  “Was she drunk?”

  “It was ten o’clock in the morning.”

  Joe laughed. “I don’t think Virgil Cain is looking to rent a house in Kingston.”

  “Actually, she was a little fuzzy on that part. First she said he was wanting to rent the house . . .”

  “Yeah?”

  “But then she said he was looking for Buddy Townes.”

  When Claire got back from lunch Marina already had cross-referenced the plate numbers and had the list of names ready for her. Joe was gone and Claire didn’t ask where he went. She sat at her desk and went over the printout and then got up and left.

  The forensics unit was still at the horse farm when Claire got there. She drove past the barns and up to the house, where a silver Mercedes SUV was now parked in the driveway. She found Suzanne Boddington in the kitchen, drinking a Bloody Mary and talking to Henri the chef. Claire introduced herself to Suzanne and then turned to the Frenchman.

  “I need a couple of minutes with your boss,” she said.

  Henri looked to Suzanne for guidance. She nodded and he left, casting a nervous glance toward Claire as he departed. Suzanne watched him, then turned to Claire.

  “He thinks you want to deport him.”

  “I really don’t care who you hire to flip your burgers,” Claire said. “Strange thing for him to be worrying about, though. Given the circumstances.”

  “He’s a little on the neurotic side. He can cook, though.”

  On the drive out there, Claire had been thinking it was odd that—despite the fact she had personally arrested Miller Boddington on the animal cruelty charges and had appeared in a courtroom with the man on several occasions—she had never actually been in the presence of Suzanne Boddington. Unlike a lot of wives married to rich guys with a propensity for fucking up, Suzanne was not one to stand by her man, at least in a literal sense, in his times of trouble.

  Now Claire was face-to-face with her. The woman was tall and curvy, very tanned. She wore a number of bracelets on both wrists and a heavy gold necklace. No wedding ring, though. She had on a summer dress, rather short, and sandals. Her toe-nails were painted bright red.

  And she was as dry-eyed as any woman Claire had ever encountered on the day of her husband’s demise. Claire was certain Suzanne had been discussing dinner with the chef when she had interrupted them. Now she asked if Claire would like a Bloody Mary.

  “No thanks. I’m working.”

  “There’s coffee,” Suzanne said. “It’s fresh.”

  “Sure.”

  They sat at the table, Claire with the cup of coffee, which was possibly the best coffee she had ever tasted, and Suzanne with the vodka mix. Suzanne sat watching Claire patiently, her finger absently tapping the side of her glass, as if Claire was keeping her from something but she was too polite to mention it. Claire kept quiet for the moment, sipping from the cup while pretending to be interested in the ongoing activity around the barns down the hill. She wanted to see if Suzanne had anything unsolicited to offer. When the woman finally spoke, though, there was little to suggest she had anything to hide. It seemed as if she wanted to get on with things, maybe because her mind really was on dinner. For someone who’d just become a widow a few hours earlier, she oozed confidence.

  “So,” she said. “Does anyone have a theory on this?”

  “None so far,” Claire said. “They’re still looking for prints. Any physical evidence.”

  “He was strangled?”

  “Who told you that?” Claire asked.

  “Nobody has told me anything,” Suzanne said. “One of the troopers was talking to Henri.”

  “They won’t have a definitive cause of death until they do an autopsy.” Claire drank her coffee. “But strangulation is a possibility. Do you have any idea who might want to kill your husband?”

  Suzanne didn’t hesitate. “Somebody who didn’t like the fact that he was exonerated yesterday from the charges that he abused a bunch of thoroughbreds?”

  “He wasn’t exactly exonerated.”

  “No, but he did walk. Didn’t he?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “I recognize your name,” Suzanne said. “You’re the one who arrested Miller on those charges in the first place. So I assume you weren’t a very happy woman yesterday.” She paused and then smiled. “Now that I think of it, how unhappy were you? You didn’t kill my husband, did you?”

  “No, I didn’t,” Claire said. She looked at the woman for a moment. “I have to say—you have a s
trange way of grieving.”

  “Do you bare your soul to strangers? Believe me, I’m crying on the inside.”

  She had a point. Claire nodded.

  “Who do you think did it?” Suzanne asked. “If it really was some horse lover, it sort of seems contrary to the whole notion of being a proponent of animal rights.”

  “It does, doesn’t it?”

  “Now, as I was driving home, all I kept hearing on the news is that someone is on a killing spree in Upstate New York. And this Virgil Cain character keeps getting mentioned. The guy your department arrested and then, what, forgot to lock up or something?”

  “Something like that.”

  “But Cain killed Mickey Dupree and Alan Comstock because of the situation with his wife. Isn’t that the theory? Miller had nothing to do with that. So how can anybody tie Cain to my husband’s murder?”

  “No one has,” Claire said. “Except maybe the media. That’s why I tend to listen to CDs when I drive.”

  “Right. I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “Did you know Mickey Dupree?”

  “I knew him,” Suzanne said. “He was Miller’s lawyer, which of course you know. He’d been here to the house lots of times. He and Miller were buddies, I guess. They went to the track together. They got drunk together. And I know Miller gave him a lot of money in attorney’s fees over the past couple years. I didn’t care for him all that much, if you want to know the truth.”

  “Why not?”

  “He was a pig.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s enough.”

  Claire had another sip of coffee. She wanted to ask the brand name. “Did you know Alan Comstock?”

  “Yeah. He was a nut.”

  “I like these one-word appraisals,” Claire said. “How did you know him?”

  “Jane and I are good friends.” Suzanne paused for a moment.

  “I have to wonder how much you guys already know when you’re questioning people. I suspect you know Jane and I are friends, and you’re just fishing around for something.”

  “I might not be as clever as you think.”

  “Is that supposed to inspire confidence? After all, you’re investigating my husband’s murder.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Claire assured her. “So you’re friends with Jane Comstock but you didn’t like her husband.”

  “It has nothing to do with whether I liked him or not,” Suzanne said. “When I said that Alan was a nut, I wasn’t being flip. He was fucking insane. Guns and drugs and paranoia were his daily bread. How do you think that girl ended up dead?”

  “Why did his wife stay with him?”

  “We never talked about it but I think she knew that if she left, he’d either kill her or himself. Or both. So she stuck it out.”

  “Nice way to live,” Claire said.

  “Oh, she could handle it. She’s very smart. Not only that, but she loves her life here. She loves the community, and she shows it. That’s how we met, over that landfill proposal a few years ago. Which we defeated, I might add.”

  “The power of grassroots,” Claire said. She looked out the window again, over the impressive property. “Does she think Cain killed her husband?”

  “Well, yeah. Didn’t he?”

  “That seems to be the prevailing theory,” Claire said. “To tell you the truth, it’s just about all theory, though. There’s not a lot of evidence that says he did it.”

  “Do you have somebody else in mind?”

  Claire looked at her now and shrugged. “I hear that Jane Comstock is a runner. You too?”

  “Yeah. I jump in my SUV and run to the liquor store. Two, three times a week.”

  “You ever run at Coopers Falls Park?” Claire asked. “I was told a lot of runners train there because of the hills.”

  “I don’t run.”

  “Have you ever been to the park, though?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Suzanne’s eyes narrowed. “I beg your pardon?”

  Claire took her notebook from her pocket. “I just wondered if you could be mistaken. Because an SUV registered in your name was at Coopers Falls Park a week ago Tuesday. And I just double-checked the plate when I walked by that Mercedes in your driveway.”

  “I’m not mistaken,” Suzanne said, speaking slowly now. “I have never been there. So, somebody’s mistaken but it’s not me.”

  “You’re saying someone wrote down the wrong plate number?”

  “That would be my guess,” Suzanne said. She stood up and walked across the room to where a calendar hung beside a wall phone. “You’re talking about the ninth? I was in Boston that night, having dinner.”

  “Where?”

  “Little Vito’s.”

  “Alone?”

  “You’re asking me if I flew to Boston to have dinner by myself? That would be very suspicious, wouldn’t it?” She stared at Claire, as if she was expecting a reply. “No, it was my sister’s birthday. I was with her and her boyfriend.”

  “I’ll need their names and contact numbers,” Claire said.

  “All right,” Suzanne said. “I don’t know what this is about, but I can tell you that you’re confused. Either that or somebody is leading you astray.”

  “Well, you know what Davy Crockett said,” Claire told her as she got to her feet. “He was never lost, but one time he was mixed up for a week. Or something like that.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Claire smiled. “I’ll still need those names.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Jane was weeding the flower beds along the drive late in the afternoon. It was a job that she usually left to the gardener, but he had been off all week with a recurring bug, one that Jane suspected he kept encountering at the bottom of a bottle.

  Jane didn’t mind the work, though. It was mindless and simple, and therefore therapeutic. The baptisia along the drive had finished flowering so she trimmed it back. She weeded the black-eyed Susans, now in full bloom, and pruned away some dead growth on the Japanese maples along the front walk. She was pushing a wheelbarrow full of cedar mulch around the corner of the house when she heard a vehicle slow down out front, and she looked up to see Joe Brady pulling into the drive. Jane straightened up and watched as the cop slid his belly out from under the wheel and got out. He said hello in a voice like that of a country auctioneer. Presumably he knew what she thought of him.

  “What can I do for you?” she asked.

  “I’m just here to give you a heads-up,” he said, approaching her. “I guess you heard about that situation with Miller Boddington.”

  “Yes. I heard.”

  “I couldn’t know for sure.”

  “It’s sad news,” Jane said. “But I don’t see what it has to do with me.”

  “I would have said nothing. But it turns out that Virgil Cain is back in the area.”

  “But I thought he was in Canada.”

  “He’s back. And that makes him a prime suspect for this Boddington killing. Apparently this thing runs a lot deeper than we thought. I need to know that you have security out here.”

  “Why would I need security?”

  “Because this guy’s a loose cannon. There was a certain logic to him going after Mickey Dupree and, all due respect, your husband. But this latest, well, he’s either off the deep end or he’s got grievances we don’t know about. We know he keeps rescued horses out at his farm, so maybe that’s the connection. Either way, I’m trying to stay one step ahead of him. I know you’re out here alone. What also bothers me is all the guns your husband owned. Cain knows they’re here. They were in plain sight the night he . . . well, you know.”

  “I’ve turned those guns over to my lawyer. He’s going to consign them to an auction house in Albany.”

  “That’s good.”

  Jane removed her cloth gloves and folded them together.

  “Do you think I’m in danger?”

  “I’m not saying that. I’m trying to c
over all bases at this point. Had I known Cain was back, I could have given Boddington a heads-up.”

  “But why would you have?”

  “Mickey Dupree is the common denominator here. He’s the thread that’s been running through this from the get-go. It’s obvious that there’s more to this than just Cain looking for revenge for his wife being killed. But I haven’t fit it together yet. Until I do, I’m following the Mickey Dupree through line. And you’re part of that, because of your husband.”

  “How do you know Cain is in the area?”

  “He was spotted in Kingston this morning. And he was looking for Buddy Townes. The same Buddy Townes who worked for Dupree all these years. See how this thing goes round and round? Cain was in Buddy’s house. We lifted a fingerprint off the fridge door.”

  Brady was getting all worked up just telling the story. His face was flush and he was perspiring.

  “I thought you should know that the man who killed your husband is back. Be vigilant. Just so you know, he was spotted driving a brown Dodge pickup truck with ‘Ulster Veterinary Service’ on the door.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Brady shrugged. “It’s a long story. He got it from a friend of his, this lady vet. She’s playing cute right now, but she has an accessory charge coming her way. I’m holding her in custody until she decides to talk.”

  Jane nodded and turned to look at the house. She exhaled.

  “I can have the security people send someone over. But I still don’t know what he would want with me.”

  “He knows there were guns here. Better safe than sorry.”

  “Where’s his farm again? Is it near here?”

  “Windecker Road, over towards Saugerties. Close enough.”

  “Yes, it is close enough.” Jane turned to Brady. “I still don’t understand how Cain escaped custody in the first place. And now you say he’s driving around in a truck with a sign on the door and yet you can’t seem to find him.”

  Brady chafed at the accusation. “I give you my word he won’t get away again.” Jane watched in disbelief as he pulled his revolver from his shoulder holster and checked the cylinder loads before putting it back. “This thing is nearing epidemic proportions. It’s apparent that I’m going to have to take this man down. It’s dead or alive now.”