“Does he stay out on you regularly?” Des pressed her.
The girl shrugged again, although this time her nostrils flared slightly. Evidently, Tuck Weems was not a one-teenager man.
“Where’s he been working lately?” Bliss asked.
“Nowhere.”
“Big Sister?”
“I guess.”
“Lock ’n Load still his regular hangout?”
Darleen didn’t answer. She’d gone mute.
Des and Bliss exchanged eye contact. They were not going to get anything more out of this girl.
“Thank you for your help, Darleen,” said Des, who felt it was her duty to add, “Girl, exposing your baby to secondhand smoke is a serious health risk. It can lead to ear infections, respiratory disease, even heart disease. You do know that, don’t you?”
“I am a really good mother, ma’am,” Darleen snarled in response. “Why don’t you take care of your own business, hunh?! Why don’t you leave?!”
They did just that. Went out the door and down the steps toward their cars.
That was when Des got the call. It came from Soave, who got it by way of the Westbrook Barracks.
The rain-soaked body of a fully clothed adult white male had just been found behind the dunes on a remote stretch of Dorset town beach called Rocky Neck. He had been shot twice. He had been dead at least twelve hours. And he had been positively identified as Tuck Weems.
CHAPTER 7
MITCH’S IDYLLIC ISLAND PARADISE was different now.
It was no longer secluded. It was no longer peaceful. There was no way it could be. Two local men had been shot dead. The New York Post was now calling Dorset “the murder capital of Connecticut’s Gold Coast.” Inside Edition, the syndicated tabloid news show, had delivered up Big Sister to the entire nation on a platter: “The blue blood is flowing,” declared their breathless correspondent. Dateline, not to be outdone, had unearthed the sordid murder-suicide of Tuck Weems’s parents, complete with grainy thirty-year-old local news footage of troopers with mutton-chop sideburns. Entertainment Tonight had gotten into the act, too, by sniffing out the celebrity angle—Big Sister’s own Jamie Devers.
In fact, there were so many reporters clogging the entrance to the bridge that it was hard for Mitch to get off the island. He ventured out only because he needed groceries. Also a few things at the hardware store, where he found out from Dennis that the villagers bitterly resented how Niles Seymour was being portrayed as one of them by the media—which he was not—while Tuck Weems had been labeled as a low-life, when he was actually a decorated Vietnam vet whose family had lived in Dorset since the early 1800s.
The villagers particularly resented the presence of so many news vans and cameras and microphones. They considered it a gross intrusion on their privacy. In Dorset, the only offense that ranked worse than invading someone’s privacy was selling your land to a developer.
Lacy sent Mitch a tart one-line e-mail message from the office: Still think you can be left alone?
To which Mitch replied: I’m doing my damnedest not to think.
His paper’s Connecticut correspondent phoned him in the hope of getting Mitch’s exclusive firsthand account of how it had felt to dig up Niles Seymour’s body. Mitch didn’t want to talk about it. “Sure, I understand,” the correspondent retorted, thinking Mitch wanted the story for himself. He did not. He wanted no part of it. He didn’t like this real-world invasion. He didn’t like that his photograph had been in all of the newspapers. He thought about going back to the city until the whole mess blew over. But he didn’t want to do that either. So he stayed and tried to work on his book. Only now it seemed hard to get excited about a sagebrush ventriloquist on horseback.
So he was slouched in his easy chair, chasing doggedly after Hendrix’s “Little Wing” on his Stratocaster, when Lieutenant Mitry returned to question him for the second time.
She did not bring her sketch pad. She did not knock. She just stood there in his doorway, smiling at him sweetly. “I learn something new every day, you know that?”
“Oh yeah? What did you learn today?”
“Well, I had no idea that Don Ho ever covered Jimi Hendrix’s songs.”
“Gee. Thank you, large.”
“Hey, don’t get me wrong, Mr. Berger. I hear ‘Tiny Bubbles,’ I go to pieces.”
“I’ll remember that, Lieutenant. Now what can I … ?” Mitch trailed off, frowning. “Wait, what was that noise?” he demanded suspiciously.
“What noise?” she said innocently.
“Meowing. I distinctly heard meowing.”
“Oh, that’s Baby Spice,” she said, retrieving a nylon cat carrier from the front porch. There was a small, wide-eyed kitten inside, predominantly gray, and extremely anxious to be let out of jail. “She’s free of worms and ear mites. She’s had all of her shots. And she comes with a certificate for one neutering, free of charge. She’s my best girl. All she needs is somebody to love her.”
“Lieutenant, I told you I wasn’t interested in taking in a stray cat.”
“You sounded wavery.”
“I did not,” Mitch insisted. “Look, I had one when my wife was alive. That was then. I don’t want to go there again, okay?”
“No, it’s not okay. You can’t take it out on the entire cat population that your wife died of cancer.”
Mitch peered at her, startled. He hadn’t told her anything about Maisie’s cancer. She had been checking up on him.
“We’re living in the here and now,” she went on. “This is today. And today Baby Spice needs a home.”
“Did you have to name her Baby Spice? I mean, that’s really nauseating.”
“So I’m not good with names. I know this about myself. Call her Ashley. Call her Heather. Call her any damned name you please. Just take her. You won’t regret it. She’s the sweetest little thing. She’s excellent company. And it’s a proven fact that a cat’s soothing presence helps reduce a man’s blood pressure.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my blood pressure, or at least there wasn’t.”
“Just try her out for a few days, okay?” She was already barging her way upstairs to his room with the carrier. “It doesn’t work out, I’ll take her back. No harm, no foul.”
“You’re really going to do this to me, aren’t you?”
“You’ve got that right.”
“And my feelings don’t enter into it at all?”
“Not one bit,” she affirmed. “Now I’m going to release her up here in your bedroom. They like to get acclimated in a small, contained space. She may stay up here a few days. When she’s feeling ready to come down, she will. I’ve brought you a week’s supply of food. And I’ve got a litter box in my trunk. All we need is some native sand.” Mitch could hear her cooing softly to the kitten now. “Lookie, lookie … She just loves your bed.”
“How touching.”
The lieutenant charged back downstairs and went into his kitchen to fill a saucer with water.
“Just out of curiosity, do the authorities know about you?”
“I am the authority,” she replied, carrying the saucer back upstairs. Then she returned, empty carrier in hand. “And you may as well know this—when it comes to cats, I am utterly ruthless.”
Mitch did not know what to make of this woman at all. There was something disconcerting about the pale green eyes behind those thick horn-rimmed glasses. Her gaze was so direct, so calm, so lacking in guile or deceit, that he found himself flummoxed by her. Then again, maybe it was just that he had never been alone in a room before with someone who was licensed to carry a loaded semi-automatic weapon. Mitch’s experience with the police was extremely limited. His apartment had been broken into once. That was it. He had never been involved in a serious crime.
The lieutenant had. She tracked down killers for a living. She was obviously tough. She was obviously bright. She was obviously a marshmallow when it came to stray cats. She was also someone who did not like to reveal anything pe
rsonal about herself. Clearly, she’d been bothered when Mitch had noticed the charcoal under her fingernail. Beyond that, Mitch could not read her. Which would not have been of any great concern to him were it not for two undeniable facts.
Fact number one was that she suddenly seemed to be running his life.
Fact number two was that she was good-looking. She was very good-looking. Her skin was smooth and glowing. Her smile, when she flashed it, did warm, strange things to the lower half of his body. And her figure was positively breathtaking. She was a big woman, at least six feet tall, but lithe and loose-limbed and light on her feet. She also happened to possess one of the top half-dozen cabooses he had ever laid eyes on, right up there with Cyd Charisse, Sheree North and Emily Rosenzweig, the girl who had sat in front of him in tenth-grade Biology at Stuyvesant High. Not that the lieutenant was showing it off. Her clothes were downright mannish. She wore no jewelry either. There was no wedding ring.
She was gazing intently at his right bicep now. It was a warm day and Mitch was wearing the complimentary red T-shirt that had been included in the press kit for Amityville: The Evil Escapes. “What does that mean?” she asked, referring to his Rocky Dies Yellow tattoo.
“It’s the headline from Angels with Dirty Faces.” On her blank look he added, “I guess you’re not into old movies. It’s one of the best films Cagney ever made for Warner Brothers. A true classic. It’s got Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan, Pat O’Brien, the Dead End Kids. Direction by Michael Curtiz … What does yours say?”
“My what?”
“Your tattoo.”
“What makes you think I have one?” she demanded.
Mitch shrugged his shoulders.
“It says The Answer,” she responded grudgingly.
“Are you?”
“On my good days.”
“And where do you have it?”
“Somewhere you’ll never, ever see it,” she said, sneezing.
Mitch shook his head at her. “I told you you’d catch a cold.”
“I don’t get colds,” she objected, dabbing at her nose with a tissue. “It’s mold spores. I’m allergic to them.”
“Then we’d better get out of here—this house is mold city.” Mitch flicked off his amp stack and started for the door. “Let’s get you some fresh air.”
“Mr. Berger, I do happen to be here on official business.”
“Uh-huh. Like Baby Spice is official business. C’mon, let’s walk.”
She wavered there uncertainly, her feet set wide apart. Clearly, she was ill at ease on Big Sister.
“Look, I’ll make this easy for you,” he said. “I am taking a walk. If you want to ask me any questions, then I suggest you walk with me. Do you need to use the bathroom before we go?”
“I’m fine, Mr. Berger,” she said curtly.
“I wish you’d call me Mitch. How about Kleenex? Can I get you some more Kleenex?”
“Let’s walk,” she snapped irritably.
They walked, taking one of the narrow paths lined with beach roses down to the beach. It was a bright, beautiful day. The salt air was clean and fresh. Gulls and cormorants soared overhead. But the tide was in and there was almost no dry sand to walk on. Mitch paused to pull off his chunky Mephistos and his sweat socks. Reluctantly, she did the same with her polished black brogans and gray cashmere dress socks. She had, without question, the longest, narrowest feet Mitch had ever seen.
“My God, what size shoe do you wear?”
“Twelve and a half double-A,” she replied, frowning. “Why are you asking?”
“Has anyone ever told you that your feet bear a striking resemblance to a pair of skis?”
“Um, okay, anyone ever tell you that yours look just like piglets?” she shot back. “Fat and pink and hairless?”
“Hold on,” Mitch cautioned. “I think there was a racial subtext to that remark.”
“There was not,” she insisted, nostrils flaring.
“Was.”
“Man, do you ever stop flapping your gums?”
“As a matter of fact, I do. When I’m working I have to be silent for hours and hours at a time.”
She glanced at him, nodding. “Okay, sure. And then as soon as the lights come up the gas just billows right on out of you. Consider me schooled. Next time I question you, Mr. Berger, it’s going to be in the dark.”
“That’s fine by me, just as long as you bring the popcorn. Extra butter, if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind one bit,” she said, flashing her smile at him. “I’m not the one who has to look at you with your shirt off.”
They walked, her dreadlocks swinging, her stride uncommonly long. His own was plodding and rather heavy. He had to work to keep up with her.
“You ever date a woman named Torry Mordarski?” she asked him.
“I don’t think so—the name doesn’t ring a bell. How long ago are we talking about?”
“In the past few months.”
“Oh, then it’s definitely no. Why, who is she?”
“Was is the operative verb tense. She was a single mother in Meriden. We found her murdered in the woods up there six weeks ago.”
“And …?”
“And the thirty-eight slug that killed her matches up exactly with the slugs we took out of Niles Seymour and Tuck Weems.”
He glanced at her in surprise. “That wasn’t on the news this morning.”
“We don’t tell them everything. Same way you didn’t tell me everything.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you didn’t mention Mrs. Seymour’s episodes in the night,” the lieutenant said with flinty disapproval.
“I felt it was the family’s job to tell you. Besides, I promised Bud I’d keep it to myself.”
“And you’re a man who can keep a secret.”
“I guess. Never gave it much thought—I don’t get asked very often.”
They plowed their way past the lighthouse in the direction of Big Sister’s private dock. Jamie and Evan were working on their sailboat. Bud was working on his boat as well. Mitch supposed that this was what you did when you had a boat—you worked on it. Especially when you couldn’t leave the island without being assaulted by the media. Mitch waved to them. All three of them waved back, watching him with frank curiosity as he strode past with the lieutenant.
Overhead, a news chopper hovered, filming the island for the evening news. Mitch was beginning to get an idea what it must be like to be a Kennedy.
“So the same person who killed Niles Seymour and Tuck Weems also killed this Torry Mordarski woman?”
“Same weapon. Not necessarily the same person.”
“But probably, right?”
“Most likely.”
“Have you found the weapon?”
“Not yet. We did find one freshly dug hole in the woods near Mrs. Seymour’s house, but all we unearthed was—”
“A dead fox.”
She nodded, peering at him.
“I buried it for Dolly the other day.” Mitch furrowed his brow, confused. “Well, I don’t understand.”
“What don’t you understand?”
“How Torry Mordarski and the two dead men connect up.”
The lieutenant explained it to him. She told him that Torry had been seeing an older man named Stan, an elusive figure who had covered his tracks carefully and was the prime suspect in Torry’s murder. She told him that the description of Stan fit Niles Seymour to a tee—although a coworker who had once caught a glimpse of Stan failed to recognize Seymour from his photo. She told him that Torry Mordarski matched the description of the young woman Bud Havenhurst and Red Peck had seen with Niles Seymour at the Saybrook Point Inn the day before he disappeared. All except for the hair color—Torry had been a blonde, not a redhead. The inn had no record of Niles Seymour or Torry Mordarski having been registered there the night of April 17. But they did have a record of one Angela Becker of Lansing, Michigan, having registered there. She h
ad paid cash for the room, so there was no credit card trail to follow. However, since it was standard hotel policy to photocopy the driver’s license of any guest who chose to pay with cash, the inn did have that on file. And Angela Becker’s driver’s license was a fake. In fact, Angela Becker was a fake. There was no such person living at any such address in Lansing, Michigan. Angela Becker’s age, height, weight and hair color—red—matched the woman who Bud Havenhurst and Red Peck had seen with Seymour. And the photocopy of her driver’s license picture bore a fuzzy resemblance to Torry.
“So you think this Angela Becker person was actually Torry?”
“I do.”
“Why use a fake ID?”
“Not so unusual. Seymour was a married man. They worry about leaving paper trails behind for divorce lawyers to find.”
“I see,” Mitch said thoughtfully. “So if Torry Mordarski was the woman who they saw with Seymour, then that means Seymour was her elusive boyfriend, Stan. And someone got jealous and killed both of them. And then turned around and killed Tuck Weems when Seymour’s body was found. Which makes no sense to me at all. Not unless …” Mitch paused, nodding his head at her. “Okay, now I know where you’re going with this.”
Lieutenant Mitry raised an eyebrow at him. “Where is that?”
“You’re thinking Dolly is the killer. She found out that her husband was having an affair with this young babe up in Meriden. So she lured Torry into the woods and shot her. Then she came home and shot Seymour. Tuck Weems, her loyal family caretaker, helped her bury him. Maybe he even got her the gun, too. Then she wrote the Dear John letter she claimed Seymour left her. Everything would have been fine if I hadn’t dug up the body … Do you know yet how long it was down there?”
“Preliminary reports from the coroner and forensic entomologist estimate four to six weeks. It plays,” she concurred. “Go on.”
“Okay, so now she was afraid Weems might talk. Or maybe he threatened to blackmail her. So she met him out at the beach and killed him to cover her tracks. He was killed there, wasn’t he?”
“He was. And his truck was parked nearby.”
“Then it all fits together neat as can be. All except for one thing.”
The Cold Blue Blood: A Berger and Mitry Mystery Page 13
