The man was sitting in a chair. He was tall and elderly, with thin, gray hair.
And he was also quite dead, which accounted for the stench.
And by the decomposing state of him, his life had been over for a while.
Chapter 5
The police cruiser spun to a stop in front of the mansion where Gibson perched on the steps. She rose and walked over to the car as two uniformed deputies from the Isle of Wight sheriff’s department stepped from it.
“You the lady who called this in?” said one.
Gibson nodded, showing them her ID. “I’ll take you to where it is.”
She led them inside and to the room where the body was. One of the deputies stopped her at the threshold into the secret room, and asked her to go back and wait outside. One of the officers accompanied her — on the long shot that she was the killer, Gibson knew. Within thirty minutes more officers arrived, this time from the Smithfield Police Department and a lieutenant investigator from Isle of Wight. Five minutes after that another man showed up. He introduced himself to Gibson as Wilson Sullivan, a senior CID agent with the Virginia State Police’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation.
Sullivan was about six two, muscular and broad shouldered and around forty, with a square-jawed face and short hair that was as rumpled as his off-the-rack suit.
His eyes were pure cop’s eyes, thought Gibson. Alert, suspicious, roving, and contemplative.
They all went in to see the body just about the time a forensics team showed up, offloaded their equipment, and shuffled inside to look for microscopic clues that criminals always left behind.
Sullivan came back out later and sat on the steps next to Gibson.
“Will I have to stay much longer?” she asked. “I’ve got two little kids to get back to. I’ve already given a detailed statement.”
Sullivan lit up a cigarette and blew smoke away from her. “I really need to quit this, but the patch doesn’t work. Neither does anything else. And the fact is, I like it.”
“I know a lot of cops who smoke. Sort of comes with the territory for some.”
He ran his gaze over her. “You look like you wore the uniform.”
She gave him an amused expression. “How can you tell? From my extreme fitness?”
“You found a dead body in a creepy mansion. You’re not hysterical or crying or otherwise upset. That means you’re either the killer, or you’re used to seeing dead bodies. Plus, I see it in your eyes, the way you handled yourself around all the law enforcement flying around here.”
“Okay, I’m busted. Jersey City. Forensic tech for two years, uniform for six, detective for four.”
“And a mom of two small kids. And your husband?”
“Divorced.”
“So, can you tell me how you came to be here? I know it’s in your statement, but I’d like to hear firsthand.”
Gibson explained who she worked for and the call that she received.
“Can I see some ID that shows you work for ProEye? Which I’ve heard of, by the way.”
Gibson pulled out both her driver’s license and ProEye credentials.
Sullivan studied the twin cards before handing them back. “They good folks to work for?”
“They are for me. And it gives me flexibility. I mostly work behind a computer at home.”
“But not this time,” said Sullivan pointedly. He finished his smoke, pocketing the butt. “Don’t want to contaminate the crime scene,” he noted. “So, Rutger Novak?”
“Yes.”
Sullivan got a look in his eyes that Gibson did not like. “I’ve heard of him, though not too much lately. Didn’t know he was living around here.”
“I didn’t even know this place was here. I’m a relative newcomer to the area. I was told it was built by some robber baron named Mason Rutherford back in the 1920s. And that a British Lord’s house used to be here before it was burned down during the Revolutionary War.”
Sullivan gave her another look that Gibson liked even less than the first one.
“What?” she asked.
“I’ve only been in this area a couple years, too. Came up from North Carolina. But I learn pretty fast. And I’ve never heard of a British Lord having a home here. Never heard of this Mason Rutherford, either. And I checked on this Stormfield place before I headed out here. Rutger Novak never owned it.”
Gibson looked perplexed. “I... I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I,” retorted Sullivan, giving her a sharp look that Gibson had given many suspects in her time as a cop and detective.
Shit.
Sullivan took out his phone and scrolled through some screens. “Stormfield wasn’t built in the 1920s. It was built in 1950 by a man named Richard Turner. He was the great-grandfather of the people who lived here before the current owner. He made his money in advertising up in New York, but he was from Tidewater and returned home to build this mansion. The Turner descendants owned it until about six years ago.” He stopped and eyed her.
“I... I don’t understand any of this. I was told that Laura Rutherford lived here until she was a hundred in 1998 and—”
Sullivan turned when a uniformed officer came out and called to him.
“Excuse me,” said Sullivan, standing up and joining the man for a minute. They had a whispered conversation that included several glances at Gibson, who was growing more uncomfortable by the minute. She looked at her watch and was expecting a call from her mother at any moment demanding to know where the hell she was.
After the officer went back into the house, Sullivan rejoined Gibson on the steps, his features grim but otherwise unreadable.
“Problem?” said Gibson.
Sullivan took out his cigarette lighter and clicked the top back and forth like his personal fidget toy.
“We called ProEye about you. They just got back to us.”
“And they confirmed that I worked for them.”
“Yes they did.”
“I sense a but coming.”
“But they never asked you to come out here to do an inventory on this place. They never called you at all about Stormfield. They have no idea what it is or where it is.”
Gibson caught a breath and gaped. “Who did your people talk to?”
“Fellow named Zeb Brown. He said he was your immediate supervisor.”
“He is.”
“So care to explain the discrepancy? Because one of you seems to be lying. And I’d like to know which one it is.”
“I told you. I got a call from Arlene Robinson from the Albany office—”
“There is no Arlene Robinson in the Albany office. There is no Arlene Robinson that works at ProEye, period. So let me ask you again, what are you doing here?”
Gibson looked at the old, ugly building as a number of scenarios played out through her mind.
“I got a call from someone identifying herself as Arlene Robinson a couple of hours or so after I spoke with Zeb about an unrelated case. The woman said she worked with him.”
“And you just accepted that at face value?” He held up his phone. “It took me all of five minutes to look up the history of this place.”
“Look, she knew that Zeb and I had spoken earlier and she even had numerous details of our conversation. She pretty much quoted a line that Zeb said to me this morning. So I just assumed that she worked there because how else would she know all that? And she also knew I had kids. She said that since I was local, which meant she knew I lived around here, they wanted me to come over and do an inventory of this place. She said the owner, Rutger Novak, had run out on some big debts and the creditors wanted to salvage what they could. And that’s basically what ProEye does, so I had no reason to doubt the authenticity of the call or the nature of the assignment.”