* * *
* * *
“I thought Ginny Reavis lived in Manchester,” I said, when Mort followed the signs for Concord, New Hampshire, instead.
“It’s Ginny Genaway, and we’re making a stop here first. By the way, one of my deputies found the motel where she’d checked in earlier in the day and then checked out before heading to that scenic overlook. She must have used it just to kill time between meeting you and meeting her killer.”
“Just a place to change her clothes, pretty much,” I elaborated. “Get out of the disguise she’d used to convince me she was a high school student.”
“When was the last time you had your eyes checked, Jessica?”
“Have you seen how young women look these days, Mort?”
“Adele would have my head if I even thought about it.”
I gazed out the windshield. “Okay, so now we’re headed to meet the person Ginny Genaway, formerly Reavis, assaulted, but who then dropped the charges, you seemed to enjoy telling me a few minutes ago.” I gazed across the front seat of Mort’s SUV. “You’re being uncharacteristically cryptic today, Sheriff.”
“Well, Mrs. F.,” he said, casting me a sidelong smile, “I’m just enjoying being a step ahead of you for a change.”
“Did I miss something here?”
“How about the name Vic Genaway?”
“What about it?”
“Doesn’t ring any bells?”
“Should it?”
Mort gestured out the windshield at a sign on the side of the road.
“Oh,” I said, starting to realize what he meant.
* * *
* * *
The sign announced the exit for the New Hampshire State Prison for Men, a sprawling facility of interconnected institutional buildings that sat in a lush, green, bucolic sprawl of land in the Merrimack Valley. I seemed to remember from research for a past book that it housed around twelve hundred inmates, all men since women incarcerated by the state were housed in a separate, dedicated facility.
From a distance, it might have been an apartment complex, until the twelve-foot steel fence, topped by twisty razor wire, came into view. The buildings initially appeared to be made of rustic red brick, but up close, I could see they were formed of painted concrete. I’d say the purpose was to make the inmates feel more at home than they would surrounded by institutional drab gray concrete slabs. But inmates didn’t get to view their domain from the outside very much.
“Okay, Mort, I’ll bite,” I said as he slid onto the side road accessing the prison. “Why the pit stop?”
He grinned.
“Stop that.”
“What?”
“Smiling.”
“I’m not allowed to be happy?”
“Not when it’s at my expense.”
He looked across the seat at me. “How’s it feel, Jessica?”
“What?” I asked now.
“Not knowing something. Being in the dark. Playing catch-up.”
“Is this a multiple-choice question?”
“No, all of the above. I just want to savor this moment as long as I can.”
“Okay.” I settled back in my seat. “We’re going to see this Vic Genaway.”
“Ding,” Mort chimed, doing his best imitation of a bell sound.
“He’s the former Ginny Reavis’s husband.”
“Ding, ding.”
“And the man she assaulted.”
“Ding, ding, ding!”
“Care to tell me what Vic Genaway is in prison for?”
“Your specialty, Mrs. F.”
“Murder . . .”
Mort nodded. “You sure his name doesn’t ring any bells?”
“You know I don’t get out much, Mort.”
“But you love to watch movies. What’s your favorite one featuring the mob?”
“The Godfather, of course.”
Mort looked at me as if I’d made his point for him. “Substitute Boston for New York. That’s all you need to know about Vic Genaway.”
Chapter Eight
As we pulled onto the prison grounds, Mort explained that Vic Genaway was a high-ranking member of the Boston mafia, current head of the former Angiulo mob. The state of New Hampshire had made a case for conspiracy against him, thanks to a man the police there had dead to rights for murdering a liquor board employee. In New Hampshire all liquor stores were owned and operated by the state, bringing in huge revenues and helping to offset the lack of a state income tax. According to Mort, the Boston mob had enjoyed an “in” on the supply chain and distribution channel for some years, until a certain official either reneged on, or tried to renegotiate, the terms. The mob’s means of renegotiation, under the direction of Vic Genaway, was to dispense the most serious of punishments for the man’s indiscretions, while setting an example for whoever assumed his position.
My mind was wandering when Mort got to the part about the killing itself. But I did get my focus back in time to hear about him figuring it must’ve been one of the hit men who’d done the actual deed who’d fingered Genaway as the man who gave the order. Since Genaway was much higher on the food chain, New Hampshire authorities would have jumped at the chance to put him away instead, while putting the informant into witness protection.
“But you’re not sure about that,” I surmised.
“The informant? No. Genaway pleaded out, so the case never went to trial, and the informant never had to testify. He’s probably working at a Home Depot in Boise or someplace as we speak.”
We were passed through security into the maximum-security wing of the prison, where we both checked our phones and Mort checked his gun. Then a guard escorted us to an interview room normally used for conferences between inmates and their attorneys. We waited five minutes before a key jangled in the lock and the door opened to allow another guard, who reminded me of my fisherman friend Ethan, to escort Vic Genaway inside.
I noticed Genaway’s hands were strung together with a chain manacled to either wrist, a picture right out of an old B movie on the late show. He wore a prison outfit of a khaki shirt and matching khaki pants, the shirt a tight fit across his broad chest. He held his furtive eyes low, holding on to something resembling the upper hand by not so much as acknowledging our presence. Even when the guard sat him down, Genaway continued to act as if we weren’t there at all. Speaking of Ethan, Genaway had the raw, scarred, and calloused hands of a fisherman. He had the look of a thug who’d climbed his way up on the docks, working the rackets and longshoremen’s unions before climbing the ladder to the top of the mafia cadre.
The thing that struck me most about Genaway, though, was the difference in age between him and the former Ginny Reavis; she’d been thirty-three, while I had her husband pegged as early to mid-fifties. And it wasn’t like Genaway was going to win any trophies for his looks, even discounting the inherent deterioration in appearance prison stretches were known to result in virtually overnight.
“How you doing, Vic?” Mort asked him.
Genaway looked at him. “Who’s asking?” Then he looked down again.
“Sheriff Mort Metzger of Cabot Cove, Maine.”
“I don’t know anybody in Cabot Cove, Maine.”
“We think your wife did.”
Genaway looked up at that, concern flaring briefly across his features. He had a thick mane of silvery hair flecked with black and the typically sallow skin tone of an inmate who barely saw the sun. I haven’t visited a lot of prisons, but when I have, I’ve been struck by their uniformity: the same sights, the same sounds, the same lighting, and the same smells.
Especially the smells.
I’d call it generally a combination of must, mold, and stale perspiration, all adding up to what I deemed to be hopelessness. That scent of hopelessness hung in the air, just as it hung on the person of each in
mate, permeating the clothes and baked into the skin too deeply for any shower to relieve.
“You listening to me, Vic?”
Genaway turned his gaze on me, while addressing Mort. “What’s my wife got to do with anything?”
“I’m afraid I’ve got some bad news for you, Vic. Your wife is dead.”
Genaway smiled, pretending the situation was under his control. “What kind of game you playing, Sheriff?”
“No game. Ginny was murdered last night, shot once in the head in a way I’m sure you’re familiar with,” Mort said in a tone and a demeanor that must have been part and parcel of his twenty-five-year career with the New York Police Department. “Since it happened in my jurisdiction, I thought we’d come down to deliver the news personally.”
“Who’s ‘we,’ Sheriff? You and Miss Marple here?”
“‘Miss Marple’?” I repeated.
Genaway held his steely gaze on me longer. “I recognize you from the prison library. I work there. You’ll be happy to know you’re real popular between these walls. Fresh stack of your books to reshelve every week. Not the newer ones, just the old ones. We get them used, hand-me-downs from other libraries.”
“Perhaps I could arrange to send some of my latest titles down.”
“Yeah.” Genaway snickered, a man no longer able to recognize a simple kind gesture. “Don’t knock yourself out over it or anything.” He looked back toward Mort. “I don’t believe your crap about Ginny. I don’t know what kind of game you’re running here, Sheriff, but play it somewhere else.”
Mort reached into the pocket of his uniform jacket and came out with a crime scene photo of Ginny Genaway taken inside the BMW. He slid it across the table, holding his stare on her husband the whole time. “Sorry, Vic.”
Genaway gave the picture a quick glance, then looked back up, lost in that transitional moment before an awful truth finally sinks to the bone. “What is this? What happened?” he said, his eyes glued to the picture now.
“We were hoping you could tell us that.”
Genaway’s stare, cold and hooded, fastened on me. “What’s she doing down here? Why tote her along?”
“She met your wife yesterday.”
“She can speak for herself. Can’t you, Fletch?”
“Fletch was a character from a series of mysteries by Gregory Mcdonald, Mr. Genaway.”
“And now it’s your nickname, too.”
“I met your wife yesterday,” I told him. “She came to interview me in the guise of a newspaper reporter,” I said, leaving out the high school part. “I was one of the last people to see her alive.”
“You plan on solving her murder?”
“That’s the sheriff’s job, Mr. Genaway.”
“You got your own rep in that regard, Fletch.”
For some reason, I wasn’t intimidated by him at all. “Why did Ginny assault you?”
“I dropped those charges, like it didn’t happen.”
“But it did happen, didn’t it?”
“And what makes that your business, lady?”
“The fact that she was murdered last night, and I’m sure you want to do everything you can to help Sheriff Metzger find her killer.”
Genaway’s eyes misted up, a brief crack showing in his concrete veneer before he quickly recovered his tired bravado. But his voice turned softer, losing the edge based on the illusion he was the one in charge here.
“You said she interviewed you, Fletch? What’d she want to know?”
“I think she was poking around to find out about her father’s murder.”
“The high school principal? So why ask you?”
“Because I taught at the school,” I told him, leaving it there.
Genaway shook his head. “What do you make of that? Father gets whacked and, a bunch of years later, his daughter. I mean, what are the odds?”
“Slim to none, Vic,” Mort said. “That’s why we wanted to see you in person.”
“As long as you don’t think for one second I had anything to do with this, Sheriff.”
“Well, there was that assault beef she was charged on. She clean your clock that bad?” Mort said, pushing Genaway; he was all the way back in NYPD mode now.
The remark had been aimed at getting a rise out of Genaway but all he did was smile sadly. “That whole mess was over kids.”
“Don’t tell me,” I said. “She wanted them, and you didn’t.”
“Wrong, Fletch. It was the exact opposite. Ginny might’ve made herself up all prim and proper for your interview, but let me tell you, she was no angel. You ask me, that’s why she bothered giving a lug like me the time of day. I think she had daddy issues and don’t think she ever really got over losing her father the way she did. Mine died in prison, and I might well end up following in his footsteps, just like Ginny did hers. What’s the word for that?”
“Irony,” I said.
“Yeah, that’s it. Irony. I first met her in a bar I owned, a place I wouldn’t try convincing you was an upscale establishment. I got grown kids from my first marriage, who never talk to me, and a pair of ex-wives living as far from me as the map allows. I figured Ginny was my chance at giving it a shot again. Young, beautiful woman like that—I figured I’d be doing her a favor, but she wouldn’t even give me the time of day on the subject of having kids. You want to know why she came at me with a golf club in front of the whole dining room at our country club? Because I’d just told her if she didn’t want kids, maybe she’d made the wrong choice in husbands and needed to reconsider her living options.” A trace of mist returned to his eyes. “I’ll give her credit for sticking with me all the way through the trial after I got arrested on that murder beef. It was me that insisted we get the divorce done before I went to prison.”
“We checked the visitors’ log, Mr. Genaway,” I told him. “Your wife hasn’t been to visit you since you were incarcerated here.”
“People move on. It happens.”
Something changed in Genaway’s expression. He no longer had to hide his sadness and vulnerability, because they were both gone. And in their place was the cold, assured stare more typical of the man he’d been before he was imprisoned.
“You go about your way looking for Ginny’s killer, Fletch. But when you or somebody else nails the bastard, him making it to trial would be the eighth wonder of the world. If I wasn’t stuck in here, I’d do the deed myself. But there’ll be others waiting in line to do the guy.”
“You really think it’s wise to share that kind of information in front of me, Vic?” Mort asked him.
Genaway leaned back and started to cross his arms, until the wrist chains stopped him in mideffort. “I’m already doing life, Sheriff. I can’t die in this hole twice.”
* * *
* * *
“That man was right out of The Sopranos,” Mort said, once we were back in his SUV.
“I wouldn’t know. I never watched the show. Too violent for my tastes.”
“You should do a stint with the NYPD, Mrs. F.”
“I was actually thinking about joining the Marines.”
“I’ll write you a recommendation.”
“Where to now?”
“Manchester, and I mean it this time.”
* * *
* * *
A Manchester detective met us outside the 875 Elm Street apartment complex, located in the heart of the city’s downtown district, where Ginny had moved after leaving Vic Genaway in the wake of the golf club attack at their country club.
The building manager maintained an office on the premises and used his passkey to open the door to Ginny Genaway’s luxury two-bedroom apartment. At first glance, it wasn’t hard to figure why the complex boasted a reputation as Manchester’s finest. It featured sparkling granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, a lavish open-concept kitchen w
ith a sprawling breakfast bar, and oversized windows that featured expansive views of the city. The bedrooms were similarly oversized, and no expense had been spared with the fixtures or finish work, making me wish I’d hired this complex’s contractor to handle the rebuilding of my beloved home at 698 Candlewood Lane.
The furnishings were obviously a work in progress, but it was still clear to me that Vic Genaway was picking up the tab despite his estrangement from Ginny in the wake of her attack on him with a golf club. The fact that it was clear he still had feelings for Ginny told me he’d made arrangements that would allow her to maintain her lifestyle even after he went to prison in the wake of the divorce he claimed he’d insisted upon. Genaway was the kind of man who was old-school like that, his gruff, tough-guy demeanor belying the romantic who’d ended up falling in love with a much younger woman.
According to the building manager, Ginny had been living here for nine months, which jibed perfectly with when she’d taken a golf club to her now former husband. Vic had been imprisoned for about half that time, and I found myself surprised she hadn’t spent more time, and money, decorating the place, which remained sparsely furnished at best with just the bare minimum of furniture, as if Ginny hadn’t planned on staying there all that much longer.
I was hoping the apartment might offer some clue as to what had brought her to Cabot Cove yesterday, particularly to seek me out. Something left in plain sight or easy to find that would tell me what accounted for the timing, given that I didn’t think our interview the day before had been based on a whim.
The first thing I noticed in her bedroom was a framed eight-by-ten family picture on her bureau that was likely the last ever taken of Ginny with her father. It was of just Walter Reavis and the three kids and looked to have been taken at a restaurant by a server or someone who happened to be sitting at the next table. Seeing Walter happy, smiling, and alive was a welcome respite from the rekindled memories of his murder. The latter had too often been how I’d remembered him, especially lately. But this was the real Walter, and spying him with his three kids in a photograph taken just weeks or maybe even days before he was killed cast his mentorship of, and belief in, me in the light it deserved. My memories of Walter Reavis were skewed by the manner of his death and especially by what the subsequent investigation revealed about him, and the memories that had just risen to the surface felt much better.
Murder, She Wrote--A Time for Murder Page 7
