by D. A. Keeley
“No,” he said. “That isn’t it, although that would be nice.” He grinned, but saw that she wasn’t smiling. “Bad joke,” he said. “I just need to know where I stand in your life.”
“Pete, maybe it’s my job, maybe it’s everything going on with Tommy, or maybe it’s just me. But I take things a day at a time.”
“You never look to the future?”
She hesitated. Did she look to the future?
“Because I do,” he said.
“Don’t put me in a position where I have to choose between you and everything else in my life.”
“I’d never do that, Peyton. But I need to know some things.” Again, he looked like he might kiss her but didn’t. “You mean a ton to me,” he said. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Then he climbed in his truck and drove away.
She stood alone in the driveway for several minutes after he was gone.
Ten
Peyton was at her desk by 8:15 Thursday, reviewing a file from the FBI’s counter-terrorism office in Washington.
She was reading about Simon Pink.
Next she scanned her email and spotted a message from Secret Service Agent Wally Rowe that Hewitt had forwarded to Garrett agents. The message was cryptic, as expected: the Secret Service would be “in the region in the coming days” and agents “might be called upon” to serve in “various activities.” (Even the CBS Evening News had guessed that much.) And people said government officials spoke in vagaries.
“Here you go.” It was Hewitt, setting a second file on her desk. “Come to my office when you’ve read it.” He turned and was gone before she could tell him what she’d learned about Simon Pink.
It took her twenty minutes to read Hewitt’s new delivery and learn that the cause of the fire was officially arson. But she was more concerned with what the fire marshal had found at the site.
“What do you make of page four?” she asked, taking a seat across the desk from Hewitt.
Hewitt shook his head. “I have a call in to Mitch Lincoln, the fire marshal, about that. Looks like they were building bombs.”
“IEDs?” she said.
The light reflected off the gold leaf pinned to his lapel. The leaf was a designation of his status as Patrol Agent in Charge.
“Sure looks like it,” he said. “They found detonators.”
“Why torch a place with bomb-making materials? You know it’ll blow up.”
“It makes no sense,” he agreed.
“I got background on Simon Pink,” Peyton said. She glanced down at her iPad, checking her notes. “He immigrated to Montreal at age eighteen. According to a contact I have with the Mounties, Pink never got so much as a parking ticket in North America.”
“That’s your background info?”
“There’s more,” she said.
“From the Feds?”
“FBI,” she said.
“If the FBI has background on him, there has to be something in his file.”
“Of course.” She smiled. “Simon Pink wasn’t Russian, like everyone thought. He was Czech.”
“Just never bothered to correct anyone?” Hewitt said.
“It appears so. He had a few scrapes with Czech officials in Prague when he was a kid there. Fights at an anti-government protest.”
“And Canadian Immigration welcomed him?”
“You know how that goes,” she said. “A couple fights as a kid on his record. That’s all. He was coming to study chemistry.”
“And he ends up shot in a torched cabin with bomb-making materials,” Hewitt said. “Was the FBI watching him?”
“If he was on any of their lists, obviously he was way down at the bottom.”
“I want to talk to Mitch Lincoln about the cabin again,” Hewitt said.
Peyton heard the stationhouse door open and saw Hewitt look past her.
“You having breakfast with Karen Smythe?” he asked.
“No.”
“Uh oh,” Hewitt said. “Then she’s here on business.”
Peyton turned to see Maine State Police Detective Karen Smythe cross the bullpen with receptionist Linda Cyr. Peyton knew Karen had done a triathlon the previous year. She also knew she was single. By choice.
Miguel Jimenez, the station’s youngest agent, who was also (very) single, looked up at Karen and absently fixed his hair after his night shift.
“Got a minute?” Karen said when she reached Hewitt’s office. “I need to speak to you both.”
“Peyton,” Linda said, “is Pete Dye bringing coffee this morning, or should I put the pot on?”
“Make a pot.”
“Everything okay, sweetie?”
“Make a pot,” Peyton repeated.
“You’re here on business,” Hewitt said to Karen.
“And I come bearing gifts,” Karen said.
“Marie St. Pierre purchased two plane tickets to Prague for next month,” Karen said. She pulled a second metal folding chair from the wall and sat next to Peyton. “Did either of you know that?”
“No,” Hewitt said. “No one here knows that. That’s your gift?”
“I’m always thinking of you guys.”
Hewitt scribbled notes on a yellow legal pad. Peyton shared her new information regarding Simon Pink with Karen.
“And Simon Pink is the other name on the two tickets we found under a pot in a cupboard over the stove,” Karen said. “Marie hid them, apparently, where she knew Fred would never find them.”
“Because he never cooked,” Peyton said.
“You’re smiling,” Hewitt said.
“I appreciate little victories,” Peyton said.
“Meaning she pulled one over on her husband?”
“Kind of. He treated her terribly.”
“She should’ve left the sonofabitch,” Karen said. “That would’ve been the real victory.”
“True. But she’s not like you or me, Karen. She’s more like my mother—not that my parents’ relationship was like theirs. But that’s the kind of woman she was. She’d stay with him no matter what.”
“Submissive?” Karen said.
Peyton made a face. “That’s not it, exactly. More like dedicated. That’s the word. She’d stay with him because she believed you have to lie in the bed you make. People up here see things through to the end. It goes with the territory. You grow up in a farming community, you understand there are many things you can’t control, and the way through it all is riding it out.”
The phone on Hewitt’s desk rang.
Hewitt lifted the receiver, introduced himself, then said, “Leo, settle down.” He listened, then said, “Slow down and tell me.” As he listened for nearly a minute, his eyes moved from Peyton to Karen. “Got it. Thanks.”
He hung up, then scribbled more on his legal pad, set the pencil down, and blew out a long breath, eyes returning to Peyton.
“How well do you know Fred St. Pierre Jr.?”
“Not very. Like I said, I knew him a long time ago, when we were kids.”
“Well, we have a ballistics match on the .22 slug in Pink’s head. It came from Fred Jr.’s pistol. Leo Miller has him in lockup, wants to move him to Houlton. He’s salivating at the idea of interviewing a real live murder suspect.”
“He has jurisdiction, right?” Peyton said.
“Yes, we do,” Karen said, “but even I don’t think Leo’s the best candidate to interview a murder suspect.”
“I’ll play the Homeland Security card,” Hewitt said.
“State cops hate hearing about that card,” Karen said and smiled.
“I know,” Hewitt said, “but it’s a really useful card. We have a lab that was destroyed close to an international border. It can buy us a little time. Peyton, can you talk with Fred Jr. when I get him here?”
“You can get him here?” Peyton said.
“I think so. There’s one other thing you should know. His sister is coming up here. She was handling the funeral arrangements. But now she’s bringing a Portland attorney, too. You said you knew her.”
“In middle school,” she said.
“The attorney makes me think she’s going on the offensive.”
“Probably looking out for her brother,” Peyton said.
“Maybe you could happen to run into her, feel her out, get an idea of what she thinks, see where she falls on her parents’ death and her brother’s arrest.”
“Sounds like you want me to interview her.”
“I’m sure her attorney wouldn’t allow that. I just think it would be convenient if you happened to bump into her and have a talk.”
“I was planning to offer my condolences if and when she came to town. Let me know when Freddy arrives here. I’ll interview him.”
“Great,” Hewitt said, and reached for the phone. “Now you two will have to excuse me. I have an ace in the hole to play.”
“Before we go,” Karen said.
“Yes?” Hewitt waited.
“Have you typed up the reprimand yet?” Karen said.
“For Peyton?” Hewitt said. “We talking about the St. Pierre shooting?”
“Yeah,” Karen said.
“Let it go, Karen,” Peyton said.
“Karen,” Hewitt said, “you’re way out of line getting involved in that.”
“I’ve lost a lot of sleep over that, Mike. Peyton shouldn’t be punished for what happened. Anyone would’ve made that call. I’m asking you to think about it.”
“You’re out of line,” Hewitt repeated and looked at the door.
“And you’re wrong, Mike. I don’t work for you. I can say that.”
She stood, and Peyton followed her out.
Eleven
Peyton entered the interview room Thursday at 9:45 a.m. with two Styrofoam cups of coffee. She set the coffees down, removed a recorder from her pocket, started it, and recited the date, stated who she was, and said the suspect’s name. Then she asked Fred St. Pierre Jr. if he’d been read his rights.
“Yeah, sure,” he said. “Whatever.”
She handed him a coffee, and he took it without thanking her.
“Place ain’t exactly cozy, eh?” he said, the French accent reminding Peyton of his now-late father’s. He smelled like fertilizer, an earthy, pungent scent.
“It’s an interview room, Freddy, not a Marriott.”
“One metal desk, one chair? Feel like I’m on NCIS. You know me, eh, Peyton. You know I didn’t shoot Simon Pink, right?”
“The slug is from your .22.”
“That don’t mean nothing. Don’t prove I did it.”
She sipped her coffee. Tim Hortons wasn’t Starbucks, but it was popular in the region, and until Aroostook County got a Starbucks (or pigs flew), it was as good as it got.
“Any theories,” she said, “as to how a slug from your pistol ended up in Simon Pink’s head?”
“I got no idea. Last I knew, my .22 was on top of my closet.”
The state troopers had found it in his sock drawer. Following the shooting, they’d gone through the St. Pierre house. Aside from the .357 Fred Sr. had used to kill Marie, it was the only other gun discovered.
“You know what the last two days been like for me?” He was staring at the Formica tabletop.
“I should’ve said this earlier,” she said. “I’m terribly sorry for your loss. I truly am.”
“I mean, I get home, see the blood on the porch—”
That was a relief to Peyton: Fred Jr. hadn’t seen the corpses.
“—then I get questioned by Leo Miller about my parents. He tries to tell me my father shot my mother then shot himself. I still don’t believe him.” He looked away. “Leo says you saw it happen.”
“That’s true, Freddy. Again, I’m terribly sorry.”
“I can’t believe it, eh. I mean, that couldn’t happen, right? You know my parents.”
“I hadn’t seen them for a long time. But what Leo told you is true.”
He leaned back in his chair, folded his arms across his chest, and cursed under his breath.
She didn’t speak. He hadn’t requested his attorney yet; he could curse all he wanted, so long as he kept answering questions.
“How long have you known Simon Pink?”
“Known? I didn’t exactly know the guy, eh. Papa hired him. He worked the harvest a couple times.”
“Doing what?”
“Driving, so I didn’t see him often.”
Potato trucks weren’t cheap. Peyton remembered a day when she’d been a girl and was called in from the field to help load a truck. She’d stood beside the conveyor belt, tossing potatoes that had fallen off it back onto the belt. She remembered watching them tumble into the back of the truck before Claude, her father’s most trusted employee, drove them to upstate New York. “Take it slow,” her father had reminded Claude more than once. That truck, it had seemed to her back then, was worth as much as the farm itself to her father since the crop couldn’t be delivered without it.
“You and your father ran the farm together, right?”
He looked at her, nodded, and she saw his face change.
“Jesus, he’s gone. Really gone, eh?” And the tears came.
Fred Sr. had died nearly twenty-four hours ago. Maybe it had taken a day to sink in. She’d lost her own father, had spent a day traveling back from El Paso, had sat on one plane then the next, staring out the window, thinking about him, about the words I’ll never see him again. Fred Jr. was doing that here.
“Who hired the truck drivers, Freddy?”
“Papa. I was in charge of the field, the kids, and the tractor drivers.”
“Who hired Simon Pink?”
“What do you mean?” he said and shifted. “I told you already. Papa hired Simon,” he said, pronouncing the dead man’s name as his father had—See-moan.
“Was he the only truck driver?”
“Papa drove a load once in awhile, but we only have one truck. When it’s on the road, if someone wants a load of potatoes, they send a truck to us, and we load it.”
“What are your responsibilities during harvest?”
“I just told you, eh. I oversee the fields.” The crying had subsided. He’d ridden the emotional wave, been distracted, and had gotten swept away. He’d catch the wave again and be exhausted in a few hours.
“Did your mother prepare a big midday meal during harvest?”
She remembered the noon meal her own mother cooked each day—meat, potatoes, dessert—the entire crew squeezing in on formal and folding chairs around the dining room table, her father leading the conversation. They’d covered local politics, sports, anything but the work at hand. The work was hard, and it would come later. The midday meal had been about welcoming these employees into her father’s home. And he was respected for it. It was a tradition. She wondered if it still existed; hoped it did.
Fred Jr. shook his head.
“Hard to believe that after all the work you and your crew do in the field, you wouldn’t want to know who, ultimately, is handling the potatoes, transporting them. I worked a bunch of harvests, Freddy, remember?”
“So what? I didn’t shoot the guy, Peyton.”
“Where were you Monday night?”
“I got an alibi,” he said.
And with that statement, a red flag went up. Using the A word never made the suspect more credible.
“Let’s hear it.”
“I was with my girlfriend.”
“All night?”
He smiled. “All night long.”
“Lucky lady.”
“Got that right.”
“What’
s her name?” she asked.
“You going to call her?”
“You said she’s your alibi,” she said. “I bet you told her to anticipate a call.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Tell me her name.”
“Nancy Lawrence. She teaches middle school,” he said. “What did I say?” he asked, eyes narrowing.
It had been an amateur mistake: she’d slipped, displayed her disbelief that he and Nancy Lawrence were dating.
“Spend much time in the cabin behind your house?” she asked.
“No.”
“When was the last time you were there?”
“Last fall.”
“What’s it used for?”
“What do you mean? It’s just a cabin. What’s it got to do with the farm?” he said.
“I was hoping you could tell me, Fred. What was it built for?”
“Dad spent some nights out there.”
“When?”
“Last year.”
“Doing what?”
“Sleeping.”
“Your mom go with him?”
Fred Jr. shifted, uncomfortable now. “No,” he said. “Just Dad.”
“There a reason for that?”
“It’s private.”
“Three people are dead,” she told him. “We don’t have time or a reason now to keep things private.”
“More reason to keep them private now than ever,” he said.
“What do you mean, Freddy?”
He shook his head.
“Your mother throw your father out of the house?”
“I told you. It’s private.”
She leaned back in her chair. “Want more coffee?” she said. She wanted to know more about the cabin, but they had time. He wasn’t going anywhere.
“I’ll probably need it, the way this is going, eh.”
“I’ll get us some coffee,” she said, “but one question before I go: Your dad told me you helped him roof the cabin. Is that right?”
“Yeah. So what?”
She stopped the recorder, pocketed it, and left the room.
She paused in the hall outside the interrogation room. The bullpen was at the end of the corridor, but she didn’t walk to it. She stood, replaying bits of the conversation with Fred St. Pierre Jr. in her mind.
