“What did he say on the call?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
Nap explained his working theory. The shooter kills Damien Gorse by the Ford Fusion. The shooter starts going through the dead man’s pockets; takes the money, the watch, the wallet; and he is pulling off Gorse’s jewelry when the door opens and Ryan Bailey comes out. Bailey sees what’s happening, runs back inside, hits the alarm, and hides in the closet.
Elena frowned.
“What?” Nap asked.
“Bailey sets off an alarm inside the tattoo parlor?”
Nap nodded. “The panic button is right near the back door.”
“Is it a silent alarm?” she asked.
“No.”
“Loud?”
“The alarm? Yeah. Really loud.”
Elena frowned again.
“What?”
“Show me,” she said.
“Show you what?”
“Inside. The closet where Ryan Bailey hid.”
Nap studied her for a moment. Then he handed her a pair of crime-scene gloves. She snapped them on. He did the same. They walked toward the back entrance.
“Full garbage bag,” Nap said, pointing to one lying split on the ground. “We figured Bailey came out to throw it in the dumpster.”
“And that was when he interrupted the robbery?”
“That’s our theory.”
Except it didn’t make sense.
Another cop handed them each a white crime-scene suit with footies. Elena slipped hers on over her suit. All white — they both looked like giant sperms. There were more white-covered lab guys inside. The closet was adjacent to the back door.
Elena frowned again.
“What?”
“It doesn’t add up.”
“Why not?”
“You figure Ryan Bailey came outside to throw away the garbage.”
“Right.”
“He spots our killer looting Gorse’s body.”
“Right.”
“So our perp didn’t know the kid was inside. That’s most likely.”
“I don’t know, probably. So what?”
“So Ryan Bailey goes outside. He spots the killer. He runs back in and hits the alarm. Then he hides in the closet.”
“Right.”
“And our killer is in hot pursuit, right?”
“Right.”
“So our killer follows him inside. The killer searches for him. All the while, this alarm is blaring.”
“Yeah, so?”
“Why?” she asked.
“What do you mean, why? Ryan Bailey had spotted the killer. He could identify him.”
“So our killer wanted to silence him?”
“Yes.”
“So that sort of rules out a professional hit job,” Elena said.
“How so?”
“Do you know any pro that wouldn’t have been wearing a ski mask or some kind of disguise? A pro would have run when the alarm went off. Because what could the kid tell us? A man wearing a ski mask killed his boss? That’s it. The only reason the killer would follow him in and kill him is that Ryan Bailey could identify him.”
Nap nodded. “Or maybe it was someone they both knew.”
“Either way,” Elena said, “I don’t think it fits in with my case. My guy would be a pro. He’d use a mask.”
“So what is your case?”
And then she spotted the computer on top of the counter. She didn’t know who Henry Thorpe had been in touch with — just that the communications came from an IP address and Wi-Fi located in this building.
Elena turned to Nap. “Can I take a look at that computer?”
Chapter Seventeen
Enid Corval and Simon were comfortably ensconced on the ripped fabric of a corner booth in this “private club.”
Simon had already put most of it together. Not about Aaron’s mother. He had no idea about that. But about this club. They were selling something out back. Drugs probably. This wasn’t a pub or bar. It was a private club. Different regulations. The inn was her front, her legitimacy, and probably where she laundered a lot of the money from here.
He might, of course, be way off in his assumptions. His theorizing, if you wanted to call it that, didn’t even raise itself to the level of flimsy conjecture, and either way, he wasn’t going to bring it up unless he absolutely needed to.
But the theory felt right to him.
“Wiley and me, our marriage is kind of old-fashioned.” She stopped, shook her head. “Don’t know why I’m telling you this. I’m getting older, I guess. Aaron is dead. And maybe you’re right, Mr. Greene.”
“Simon.”
“I prefer Mr. Greene.”
“Maybe I’m right about what?”
Enid spread her hands. “Maybe it’s all related. That stuff in the past. And now. Who am I to say?”
Simon waited, but not long. Enid dove in.
“I’m not from around here. I grew up in Billings, Montana. You don’t need to hear the tale of how I ended up in this part of Connecticut. The winds blow, as they do. That’s life. But when I met Wiley he had a nine-year-old son named Aaron. A lot of women found all that attractive. The single-father thing. Raising the boy on his own. The beautiful inn and farm. Someone would ask Wiley about the boy and what happened to his mother, but he’d politely shake them off. Didn’t like to talk about it. Used to get a tear in his eye. Even with me.”
“But eventually?”
“Oh, I’d heard the story before he told me. Everyone around here knew parts of it. Wiley and the boy’s mother met during a time in his life when he didn’t want anything to do with the inn. Like everyone else who grows up here, Wiley longed to escape. So he started backpacking through Europe and met a girl in Italy. Her name was Bruna. Tuscany. That was what Wiley told me. The two worked in a vineyard for a while. He said working in the vineyard was a little like working on the inn. It reminded him of it anyway. Made him long for home a little, that’s what he said.” She gestured at the Pabst can with her chin. “You’re not drinking your beer.”
“I have to drive.”
“Two beers? Come on, you’re not that big a girl.”
But he was. Ingrid could drink hard liquor for hours and show no signs of it. Simon had two beers and tried to French-kiss a light socket.
“So what happened?”
“They fell in love. Wiley and Bruna. Romantic, right? They had a boy. Aaron. A blissful story until, well, Bruna died.”
“She died?”
Enid kept still. Too still.
“How?” he asked.
“Car accident. Head-on collision on Autostrada A11, and yeah, Wiley always added that detail. Autostrada A11. I looked it up once. Don’t know why. It connects Pisa to Florence. Bruna was going to visit her family, he said. And he didn’t want to go. They had a fight about it before she left. See, Wiley was supposed to have been in the car with her. That’s what he said. So he blames himself. It’s very hard for him to talk about. He gets all choked up.”
She looked at him over her glass.
“You sound skeptical,” Simon said.
“Do I?”
“Yes.”
“Wiley tells the story with gusto. He’s quite theatrical, my husband. You’d believe every word.”
“You didn’t?”
“Oh, I believed it. But see, I also wondered why Bruna would go to visit her family and not bring her infant son. You’d do that, right? You’re a young mom, traveling the” — she made quote marks with her fingers — “‘autostrada’ to see your family. You’d take your baby.”
“Did you ask Wiley about that?”
“No, I never said anything. I mean, why would I? Who’d question a story like that?”
There was a chill in the stale-beer air. Simon wanted to ask a follow-up, but more than that, he wanted Enid to tell it. He kept silent.
“Wiley came back home after the accident. Here. The inn, I mean. He was afraid that maybe Bruna’s family would sue for custody or hold him up — they’d never been legally married or anything — so he flew to the States with the baby. They moved into the inn...”