I was impressed. Based on a few overheard radio comments, and a knowledge of how we worked, he was close to hitting the nail on the head. It almost saddened me to have to play the charade out to its humdrum conclusion.
“Write what you will, Stanley, but I wouldn’t stick my neck out too far, if I were you. You could end up looking pretty foolish.” Or we could, I thought privately.
One Hundred Main, as the boutique was called, was right where Tyler had said it belonged. The lettering of the sign was pseudo-Art Deco, and the windows picked up the theme, with flapper-clad manikins holding 1920s props. Inside, the decor and the cool air exuded exclusiveness and ritzy class. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why anyone would have such a store in Brattleboro.
A tall, gray-haired woman in elegant clothes slid up the counter toward me, her penciled-in eyebrows arched in inquiry. “May I help you?”
“I’m Lieutenant Gunther from the police department. One of my men called earlier about a blouse you sold.”
The eyebrows came down, as did the sophisticated manner and the mid-Atlantic accent. “Oh, yeah. The Riviera-that’s what we call it.”
She walked back along the counter to the cash register. “I dug it out of the files. Wasn’t hard; it’s the only one we’ve sold. Real expensive.” She began pawing through a drawer.
“You do a lot of business?”
“No. I think the place is a tax dodge, if you ask me. Still, it’s a job. Ah, here it is.” She handed me a sales slip.
Attached to it was a credit-card receipt. She’d been right; the blouse had cost one hundred and ninety-five dollars. More interesting, though, was the name on the receipt.
“Did you make the sale?”
“Yeah. She was perfect for it. Looked great.”
“Can you describe her?”
“Sure. About my height, slim, not too much up top-that’s what made the blouse look so good on her-and she had very blonde hair.”
I thought back to Ned Beaumont’s description of Jardine’s last female visitor. “Almost silvery, cut in a page boy?”
“That’s right.”
I looked at the receipt again, studying the signature: Blaire Wentworth. So Charlie Jardine’s interest in Tucker Wentworth included his daughter. Maybe Stan Katz was on to something, after all.
14
From the soft mutterings emanating from my portable radio as I crossed the street, I knew that part of the team digging in and around Milly’s apartment had returned to the Municipal Building. Not only was I curious to find out what they’d discovered, I also wanted to make sure I’d overturned every rock available to me before I confronted the Wentworths.
My trip to those rocks, however, was interrupted as I walked through the police department’s doors. Gary Nadeau, the town attorney, was approaching down the hallway, a long-suffering expression on his face. “I’d like to talk to you.”
The town attorney, unlike Brandt or Town Manager Tom Wilson, has no employment contract to protect him. He is appointed by the selectmen and confirmed by town meeting in March of every year. His job, therefore, hangs on the good graces of any three of the five selectmen. It is a political thread always ready to snap.
Over the years, there have been aggressive town attorneys, who made it their business to collect as much dirt on the selectmen as possible in order to keep them muzzled; passive types, who did their jobs and kept a packed bag always ready under their rented beds; and supposedly self-preserving types, who believed survival was based on toadying up to the bosses. The last, to my thinking, was the least reliable variety and matched Gary Nadeau to a gnat’s eyelash.
I was, unfortunately, a minority, for Gary had the reputation of being a ready listener and a good old boy, which made him the repository-and the conduit, as I saw it-of a lot of information he didn’t need to have.
“What’s on your mind, Gary?”
He lightly grabbed my elbow-a gesture I’ve never liked-and steered me toward one of the walls, as if seeking earthquake protection. “Well, it’s a favor, actually, about something that really doesn’t come under my jurisdiction.”
I let him dangle in silence.
“It’s these killings. I’ve been getting some heat from, you know, the big brass. They want to know what’s going on. Could you give me something to tell them, just to get them off my back?”
I made a big show of shaking my head in commiseration, as if I were receiving news of his pet beagle’s death. “I wish I could; there’s just not much to tell yet.”
He tossed that away with a nervous wave of his hand. “I heard one of our officers was near the place where Jardine was found.”
I deadpanned. That information was generally available but to pick it out specifically meant someone was paying very close attention, and I doubted it was just Nadeau. “It was a routine patrol-unconnected.”
He lumbered on-Mr. Casual. “Well, I wondered, you know, because if one of your personnel was somehow involved, I should be informed, since personnel matters do come under my umbrella.”
“When there’s a legal problem, yes.”
There was a long pause, during which I stayed absolutely still, the better to offset Nadeau’s nervous twitches. He finally gave it up with a sigh, shoved his hands into his pockets, and gave me an idiotically false grin. “Right. Well, thanks for the chat. Keep in touch.”
“Glad I could help,” I said, moving across the hall toward Brandt’s side of the building, my course changed by this little non-interview.
The usual cacophonous symphony of hammers, saws, and drills outside the chief’s office had been reduced to single, identifiable outbursts. The carpenters were winding down, putting up trim and fitting hardware to doors. It wouldn’t be long before their efforts were restricted to the officers’ room only.
Brandt removed his oral fog machine. “What’ve you got on Milly?”
“I don’t know yet. I was on my way to find out when Gary grabbed me in the hallway. He’s snooping for the ‘big brass,’ as he calls them-asked me about John’s cruiser being seen near Jardine’s grave. I don’t think he’s on to anything, but I thought you should know. By the way, I just found out that woman’s blouse we found at Jardine’s belonged to Blaire Wentworth.”
“Tucker’s daughter?” He mulled that over for a few seconds. “Curiouser and curiouser.”
I reopened the door. “Yup. I’ll let you know about Milly.”
Brandt suddenly held up his hand. “Hold it. You wanted to know about John Woll’s whereabouts while Milly was being shot?”
“Yeah,” I answered cautiously.
“Not good, I’m afraid. He told me he went for a drive in the country, to get some fresh air. He didn’t stop anywhere, and he didn’t see anyone he knew. Sorry.” He looked at me for a quiet moment before going back to his computer and his smoke production.
J.P. Tyler was hunched over his desk, sorting through piles of various-sized Ziploc bags. I looked around the room and saw only Klesczewski sitting at the long table in the meeting room, doing some paperwork. “Hi, J.P., you two the only ones back?”
Tyler looked over his shoulder. “Yeah. Dennis and the others are still interviewing. I think you were right about how the killer got out, by the way. Lucky he didn’t plug you when you went by.”
I didn’t comment, but it was a sobering thought. It lent credibility to my growing concern that the person behind all this, even while forced to act fast, was still coolly following an agenda. Killing me on the stairway would have been easy and uncomplicating-one less cop was surely an asset. My being left to live was therefore chilling: It made me all the more fearful of what our nemesis was up to.
I nodded at the pile on Tyler’s desk. “What’d you come up with?”