It had been a ham-handed ploy, and it didn’t work. After what I thought was a telling pause-just enough to ruin what should have been innocent spontaneity-Rose gave me a wide-eyed look. “We didn’t do cocaine. Charlie never wanted anything to do with that stuff.”
My patience was wearing thin. She was naïve, true enough, but also selfish, clever, and manipulative, much like Charlie Jardine was beginning to sound. I decided I’d better quit before I gave myself away.
I got to my feet, the fuse-equipped secret Brandt and I shared at the forefront of my mind. If McDonald, Katz, and company got hold of this in its present nebulous, volatile form, there would be hell to pay. “I hope all this hasn’t been too much of a strain, Rose. Right now, we’re all trying to keep you and John out of this; you might want to keep a low profile.”
She stood and I opened the door for her. “Sure, Lieutenant. Thanks.”
In the hallway, a bank officer whom I knew, and whom I thought worked upstairs, came swinging out of the men’s room in front of us. “Hey, Joe, how’re you doing? Oh, oh.” He playfully checked Rose’s wrists for handcuffs. “You’re not busting our customer-relations people, are you? A simple nasty letter would have done the trick.”
Rose and I both handed him weak smiles. He waved and walked on.
So much for the low profile.
9
Maxine Paroddy, the morning-shift dispatcher, rolled her office chair across the small room and handed me a phone message through the slot below the bulletproof glass separating her from the entrance hall. “Call Gail,” she said.
I glanced at the pink slip. “There wasn’t something from the medical examiner’s office, was there?”
“Not on this shift. You heard the radio yet?”
“Why?”
“WBRT got hold of Jardine’s name somehow.”
A small pop of disappointment went off in my chest; so much for any press conference. “I was afraid of that. I saw McDonald lurking.” I crossed the hall to the detective bureau. Jardine’s identity was no deep, dark secret, and would have been released soon in any case, but McDonald’s scooping the information early made me feel like a man holding a stray kitten, surrounded by a pack of gathering mongrels. I didn’t doubt they’d be joined by others before too long.
I closed the door to my office and sat at my desk, eyeing the phone and thinking of Gail. I’d been looking forward to our planned dinner the night before with the enthusiasm of a teenager hoping he’d get lucky. It astounded me that, after so many years, such moments of intense sensual anticipation should hit me so hard… and that being deprived of one should make me all the more eager for a rematch. For years after my wife’s death, I never dreamed that the vitality of my courtship days would ever come my way again.
Now, however, my eagerness was tainted with my growing concerns about the case, and I became downright alarmed when her opening words today were: “You’re in deep shit now.”
“Why?” I suddenly knew she was speaking as a selectman, and that Brandt’s and my little conspiracy to keep Woll’s name under wraps had been revealed.
“First, you never went to bed; I have that on high authority. That means you’ve probably been fueling yourself with enough chemical by-products to drop a horse.”
I thought back to the Dunkin’ Donuts, my brain flooding with relief. “Horses are over-bred, makes ’em weak. What’s the second reason?”
“I got a call from Mrs. Morse. She’s beginning to twitch.” Barbara Morse was the chair of the board of selectmen, and one of Gail’s major opponents on most issues. Everyone called her “Mrs.” Morse with the same cringing optimism that they call obnoxious, willful children “sweetheart”; it was an unconscious peace offering made before each and every encounter. I put the relief on hold.
“What does she have to twitch about? The body’s barely cold.” I heard the wariness in my own voice.
“You heard the radio?”
“I’ve heard about the radio. What are they saying?”
“That a young, successful local businessman has been found dead and that the police are totally stymied. That’s my shorthand, of course.” Her voice dropped slightly. “I met him once, at a chamber-of-commerce thing. He was a bit like a used-car salesman, but it’s odd knowing someone who’s been killed that way.”
Depends on what you do for a living, I thought. “What does Mrs. Morse’s twitching mean for us?”
“Not too much right now. Most of us are reacting just like you did: It’s too early to start getting hysterical. Still, she’s working the phone, wondering out loud if the town’s going to be turned inside out like it was by your friend in the ski mask, and whether we should be better prepared, just in case. I don’t think she’s getting far. On the other hand, it won’t take much to make the board overreact, once they’ve built up enough steam.”
I let out a sigh; it was depressing, but predictable-so far. Nevertheless, her comments did make me feel the first twinges of guilt. I was indeed keeping her in the dark, because of her official position, which made me feel doubly uncomfortable when I asked, “Do you want to know if you should fasten your seat belt?”
“Nope. I’m calling to ask if you’d like yesterday’s dinner tonight. I just wanted to let you know the drums were beginning to beat.”
I chuckled at that, off the hook again. “What’s on the menu-sliced tofu on sprouts flambé?” Gail was an unbending vegetarian.
“Worse.”
“You got a date… And thanks for the warning.”
“My pleasure. See you soon.”
I hung up and turned on my pilfered fan, both to cut through the heat and to soothe my conflicting emotions.
The state medical examiner, Beverly Hillstrom, and I had become fast friends over time. We were both wary of pat answers and distrustful of the expedience that often pushes through red tape. We had more than once compared notes privately just to make sure her findings hadn’t suffered in translation from her office to mine. But, as I’d reminded Klesczewski, I always waited until I had those findings in hand before I called. Until now.
“Hello, Lieutenant.” Her voice was cool and pleasant, as usual. There were times that second adjective slipped, allowing the first to freeze the air. But this time I’d caught her in her office, presumably grateful for a paperwork interruption. “What can I do for you, as if I couldn’t guess?”
“Ouch. I tried leaving you alone as long as possible, but I’m afraid my sweaty palms got the better of me.”
She chuckled. Despite our friendship, we always referred to one another by title. Somehow, I’d felt early on that was a line she preferred to leave in place, for whatever reasons. “Well, I take it that Dr. Gould told you what he told me.”
“Acute cerebral ischemia?”
“Correct. That was definitely the cause of death.”
“Do you also agree with his hypothesis that the victim was taped to a chair and, quote-unquote, strangled by having his arteries shut off?”
“I find that entirely consistent.”
“What about the possible injection site? Was he shot up with anything?”
Again, I heard her soft laughter. “I give you high marks. A more impulsive man would have made that his first question. It was an injection site-we definitely ruled out an insect bite-and it’s also the reason you don’t have my report yet. I could fill out the death certificate now and be satisfied it was correct, but I agree with you and Dr. Gould that something about this whole thing is off-key.”
There was a pause. I could hear classical music in the background being reduced to a murmur. “So I took the liberty of contacting Dr. Isador Gramm, who works for the Department of Health on environmental matters.”
“Like pollution?”
“Yes. Primarily his focus, and most of his funding, is EPA. But he is also one of the only board-certified forensic toxicologists in New England, which makes him an invaluable resource. We’ve worked together in the past, and I respect him immensely.” Her choice of words, especially when coupled with that almost aloof tone, always made me think Dr. Hillstrom was just two steps away from bursting into Old English.