The door was opened by a heavyset woman in a wheelchair. Her ice was as high and soft as a young girl’s. “Yes?” Smith brandished his warrant.
“I am Detective Sergeant Crofter with of the Vermont State Police. I have a warrant allowing me to rch this house for any shoes whose tread may match those we’ve llected at the scene of a recent crime.” Christ, I thought.
Buster stepped out from the mob in front of the woman. “Hi, dine. The police found Rennie’s lighter at the scene of a murder. ey gotta check it out.” “A murder?” She spoke the word as if it were foreign. The look her eyes reminded me of a small child’s when confronted with its rst imaginable fear. I was glad Buster had come along. He stepped around her and pulled the chair away from the door, the others could enter.
Her hands lay motionless in her lap. Smith the warrant on top of them and directed his men to spread throughthe building.
Buster moved Nadine across the living room to a large window erlooking the yard, and positioned her so she could see out. It was entle, thoughtful gesture, designed to help her turn her back to the aos overtaking her house. I thought it all the more considerate when oticed the house was as neat and tidy inside as it was tumultuous tside. Like a tidy, conscientious model prisoner, she’d maintained trol over that part of her world she could reach-until now. That, however, brought to mind a further point. I remembered even before Nadine’s accident, their house had reflected this odd trast. In other couples, I would have taken it as a sign of conflict, a difference of styles so sharp that it could only split the marriage. not with Nadine and Rennie; with them it had been a badge of cessful compromise, reflecting a decades’-old ability to walk a cenI line. The apparent disparity had been a curious symbol of enduring %134 affection, as when, I suddenly recalled, he always took off his boots a’ soon as he entered the house through the kitchen door. Buster sat facing her on a small table underneath the window, one of his hands around hers. I half-perched on the sill.
“You remember Joey, don’t you?” Buster asked her. She gave me a wisp of a smile and nodded. “Buster, I don’ understand.” “It may not be anything, Nadine. Some guy from out of town waG killed, and Rennie’s lighter was found with him.” I finished what Buster didn’t know. “We talked to Rennie, and h
said he hasn’t seen that lighter for six months. Do you remember what happened to it?” “No… Who was murdered?” Her voice was so soft, it was hard to hear, especially with the clomping of feet in the rooms around us “Nobody you know,” said Buster. “The father of one of the kid’ in the Order.” “Bruce Wingate,”
I said, watching her face for a reaction. Theri was none. “Did Rennie know him?” she asked. Buster squeezed her hand.
“No-barely.” He was trying to shield her with a tenderness exceeding his usual soft touch with people in distress. I wondered what it was I didn’t know about their friendship. I hadn’t known Nadine when we were all growing up; she was from another town, and I’d only met her briefly during the few times I’d visited over the past thirty years or so. I’d heard about her accident-falling down a flight of stairs or something.
It had happened almost ten years ago.
I decided to let him take care of the sensitivities while I asked the questions, although his look showed me he wished I’d turn to dust on the spot. “A few nights ago, Rennie helped us rescue a guy who got in a fight with some people from the Natural Order.” “Yes. I remember.”
“Well, that was Bruce Wingate. He’d followed his daughter to one of the Order houses, and was determined to go in and get her. Later he picked a fight with Rennie and ended up punching him. Did Rennie tell you any of that?” She dropped her eyes, as if admitting to a crime herself.
“Yes-he was pretty angry.” “What did he say or do?” “He slammed a few doors and talked about it a bit, but you have to understand Rennie.” She reached out and touched my arm. “He wasn’t angry at… What did you say his name was?” “Bruce Wingate.” %135 “He was angry about more than just that. The slap was only a gger, sort of. He’s had fights before; they don’t mean as much as u’d think.
They’re just a way for him to blow off steam.” “What else was he mad at?” She shook her head sadly. “Oh, everything in a way: the flatlands, the economy, how the town’s falling apart. If anything, he was ore frustrated with Greta than with Mr. Wingate. He kept saying e’s gotten obsessed about the Order, that she’s letting it ruin her life, d that she’s bringing everybody down with her.” “He took her problem that personally?” “They’re old, old friends.” Buster shifted his weight. I could tell he was becoming angry with e. “You don’t have to answer these questions, Nadine. You’ve got thing to do with all this.” She looked over her shoulder at the sound of a loud bang. A ooper across the room had dropped a picture off the shelf he was ecking.
Buster stood up. “Hey, do you mind? This ain’t your house.” The trooper looked genuinely embarrassed. “I’m sorry. It zpped.” He carefully replaced it on the shelf a small framed photoaph of a grinning young man in mountain-climbing gear, with a coil rope slung over his shoulder.
I brought it back over to her. “It’s fine no breakage.” “Thank you.”
Nadine placed it on a small table next to her. hat’s my favorite picture of my brother-.” She pulled at Buster’s nd. “Sit down, Buster.
I don’t mind all this. Maybe I can help ennie.” I smiled at her.
“Thanks. When did you see Rennie last night?” She looked down at her lap and shook her head. “I never did. I ink I heard him very late, but I don’t know. Wednesday nights he ways plays cards with Pete Chaney.” I wondered why Rennie hadn’t told me that earlier. It was a stom-made alibi, for at least part of the evening. “Where does he ay?” “Pete lives in East Burke. He runs a small market there, out of the nt of his house. They play at his place. They’ve been doing it for ars.” “And that’s where he was?” “I think so.” “He didn’t come to bed when he got home?” “Well, we don’t… I mean, when he comes in late, he usually eps in the spare room. He doesn’t like to wake me.” “And that’s what he did last night? Slept in the spare room?” %136 “I think so. I didn’t see him this morning, either. I usually don’t.
He gets up early… Always been an early riser, even before this.” She tapped the arm of the wheelchair.
“How about after work? He said he left work around six-thirty and got home about seven to change. Did you see him then?” Again, she looked elsewhere and sighed. “No. I wish I had. I’m not being very helpful, am I?” “Were you in the house?” “Oh, yes. I was in the bedroom. At seven, I would have been watching television and knitting, like always, but it makes a lot of noise.” “The television?” “The knitting machine,”
Buster growled. The “you jerk” went unheard, if not unnoticed.
“You didn’t have dinner together?” I asked. “Oh, no. But that’s not unusual-Rennie eats out a lot.” She shook her head suddenly. “This is coming out all wrong, Joe. It makes it sound like we never see each other, or care for each other. We do, but differently from other people. That was true even before this blasted thing.” She thumped the chair’s arm. “People are always looking at it, thinking they know everything.” I wondered how many times that was true of other couples whose lives centered around a wheelchair. “Joe.” I looked up. Spinney was standing near a back hallway. He motioned to me.