A little-known grid of six short, intersecting streets surrounded by two cemeteries, a wooded ravine, and the Brattleboro Union High School, this section of Brattleboro looked airlifted from a quiet Midwestern suburb. It was located on perhaps the highest point of land around, on the southern edge of town, which added to its air of serenity. There was a sense of space here, unlike in the rest of Brattleboro, where most of the homes had a pushed together look, the way a child hurriedly gathers his blocks together in a haphazard jumble on a bunched-up blanket.
Santos pulled a key from his pocket. “Neighbor had it-in case of an emergency. Apparently Jardine lived alone.”
I looked beyond Santos to the house next door. A man in a baseball cap and shorts-and nothing else-was hovering on his front porch, shifting his weight from one foot to the other as if he’d been denying nature’s call in fear of missing our arrival. My glance got him going like a starter’s gun. He bustled through the screen door, came down his porch steps, and crossed over to us, his sunburned belly jiggling with every step. Absurd at it was, I envied him his attire. Despite the hour, it was still suffocatingly hot, and my pants and shirt clung to me like an unwelcome embrace.
“So what happened to Charlie?” The man smiled awkwardly and removed his hat, as if to reveal his honesty.
“I’m Lieutenant Gunther. Are you his neighbor?”
“Ned Beaumont-I lent this officer the key.” He stuck out his hand. I could tell before I shook it what a spongy, unpleasant experience it would be.
I unobtrusively wiped my hand on the seat of my pants. I noticed he did the same with his. “Thanks, Mr. Beaumont. I’m afraid we can’t say much right now-too early yet.”
“Was he murdered? Was he the guy they talked about on the radio? I can’t believe it.”
I liked Beaumont’s open face. His attitude, like his gut, was without guile. This was big news on the block, and he had been the supplier of Jardine’s key-a position of some importance to him. I saw no harm in catering to that and hoped for some fringe benefits. “He may have been. We don’t know for sure, and we’re hoping to keep his name out of the limelight for as long as possible.”
“Oh, sure; mum’s the word. Wow. Murdered. Who did it?”
“We don’t know that either. Where did he work, Mr. Beaumont?”
“ABC Investments. He was one of the partners.”
I’d never heard of the firm; it sounded custom-named for a first listing in the Yellow Pages. “Did you know him well?”
“Not too well-just as a neighbor, you know? This was his parents’ house; they’re dead now. They were the ones who gave me the key, a long time ago, you know how neighbors do sometimes. He seemed like a real nice guy… How was he murdered?”
“An autopsy’s being done on him right now so we can find out. When was the last time you saw him?”
Beaumont looked thoughtful, absentmindedly rubbing his stomach. “I guess it was yesterday morning. We go to work about the same time.”
“Did you notice any activity at the house last night-lights, music, his car in the driveway?”
Beaumont smiled ruefully, perhaps with a touch of envy. “Charlie was a bachelor. Him not being home at night wasn’t all that unusual.”
“So nothing all night long?”
He glanced at the house. “Just the way it looks now.”
“What was he like as a neighbor?”
Again, the thoughtful stomach-rubbing. “Nice. He was quiet, no loud parties or anything. He minded his own business; wasn’t too outgoing, if you know what I mean. It wasn’t that he kept to himself so much-he’d say hi when we saw each other and ask about the family, but he never had us over and never accepted our invites for a barbecue or whatever. But he was nice about it. I figured he just liked his privacy.”
“Did you ever see any of his friends?”
Beaumont leered slightly. “Sometimes he’d have a lady friend over. He had real good taste.”
“Did you know any of them by name?”
“Oh, he never introduced them. I would just happen to notice now and then, through the window or when I was in the yard.”
“When was the last time he had a guest, that you know of?”
“Oh, I don’t know. A week, maybe.”
“A woman?”
“Yeah. Sometimes men would come by too, by the way.”
“What did this woman look like?”
“Blonde-short hair… I guess they call it a page-boy. She was real cute. Not much up here,” he patted his own fleshy chest, “but good-looking. She’d been by a few times before.”
“You’ve never seen her anywhere else?”
“Nope, and I’d remember her-it was real blonde hair, almost silvery.”
He looked at Jardine’s house again and shook his head. “I can’t believe he’s dead.”
I figured I wasn’t going to learn too much more here, and I knew I could find Beaumont again if I needed him. Also, Santos had opened the door by now, and Klesczewski was standing impatiently on the threshold. I stuck my hand out for another soft, warm, damp handshake. “I want to thank you for your help, Mr. Beaumont, and we appreciate your discretion. I’ll keep in touch.”
He opened his mouth to say something but obviously thought better of it at the last moment. Instead, he backed away a few steps, gave us a half wave as Ron closed the door behind me, and muttered, “Anytime-mum’s the word.”
The inside of Jardine’s house was surprisingly cool, and in the brief moment of quiet before we set to work, I could hear the muted hum of air-conditioning.
Santos noticed the same thing. “He must’ve been doin’ all right to leave the AC on when he was at work.” Santos was a transplant from Queens and had a thick New York accent-a detail that had startled more than one flatlander who’d had their vehicle stopped by him on the road.
“Could be a timer. Or maybe he thought he was coming right back,” I muttered. Just because Beaumont hadn’t seen Jardine at home since the previous morning didn’t make it fact.
We divided our labor. Ron took the upstairs, Santos the basement, and Mayhew the garage. I took the ground floor, which consisted of a living room, a kitchen, a study which had once been a dining room, and a combination utilities and mud room.
It wasn’t a terribly revealing environment, at least not on the surface. I’m a bachelor, too-a widower, actually-and my Oak Street apartment is like an old dog’s kennel, filled with books and the bric-a-brac of a lifetime’s memories. This home was store-bought, displaying more of J. C. Penney’s current fashion statements than any of Jardine’s character. The furniture went well with the wall paint, the calendar-art pictures, the fake-wool area rugs, and the occasional chunk of decorative antique farm equipment. Looking at it from the entryway, I thought the one thing none of this was designed for was a human being or two; it was perfect just the way it was-tastefully bland, neat, cool, and empty.
It also spoke of some quick money and not a lot of it. None of what I was looking at would have been called “quality goods.” Indeed, I’d seen similar interior decorating in upscale motels. From what John Woll had said vaguely about Jardine’s occupation, coupled with his being “a partner” in ABC Investments, I guessed Jardine had benefited somehow from the 1980s feeding frenzy on Wall Street, albeit in a minor way.
The house’s sterility allowed me to make quick work of the living room and kitchen, both of which were immaculate and lacking in telling detail. I discovered that Jardine should have checked more often under his sofa pillows for his missing change, that the last time he’d watched TV he’d been tuned to the Playboy channel, and that his culinary talents, although obviously not flashy, far outshined my own-meaning he made more of a meal than a pig-in-a-blanket and a can of fruit cocktail.
I’d been keeping my hopes high for what his office might yield, however, and after a quick look through Jardine’s laundry-in which I found a woman’s blouse-I settled in his desk chair to see if at last I could peel back a small corner of the blanket that shrouded this man’s history.