“I see,” he said, clenching and unclenching his jaw muscles. “Mind if I ask you where you are going with this?”
“Trooper, I am trying to get my mind around what’s going on.”
“And what do you think is going on?”
“If I knew, I wouldn’t be asking you questions.”
The resident trooper stood there in brittle silence a moment. “Questions like-Does a fellow officer who has been in love with a victim’s widow since he was a child know more about that man’s murder than he’s telling me? Questions like-Is he shielding someone? Is he in over his head? Does that about cover it?”
Des remained silent. She was waiting for his answers.
“Lieutenant, may I be candid with you?”
“Please, by all means.”
“These are good people here. Good friends. Don’t step all over the ashes of their ruined lives just so you can make a name for yourself in Hartford. I won’t allow it, do you understand?”
“Not entirely. But I’d very much like to.”
A trace of uncertainty crept into the resident trooper’s eyes. Briefly, Des sensed him wavering. She thought he might give in to her and spill it-whatever it was. But he would not. Could not. And, in a flash, that flicker of doubt was gone. All she could read in his eyes now was unyielding resolve and righteous anger.
“If you’ll excuse me, Lieutenant,” he said coldly, “I’ve got a couple of funerals to get ready for.” He strode heavily toward his front door and flung it open wide. He was throwing her out, politely but firmly.
“I’m sorry if I’ve offended you,” said Des. “I respect you and the work you do. Sometimes I have to do things I’d rather not do.”
“I can appreciate that,” he said curtly, his back stiff, his eyes daggers.
“Thanks for lunch.”
He stayed there in his doorway, grimly watching her as she got in her slicktop. She wondered what it was that he was holding back from her. Wondered if it was he who had tidied the Laurel Reservoir murder scene. Someone had. Just as someone had driven Niles Seymour’s car to the long-term parking lot at Bradley Airport, making sure to leave no traces anywhere on the vehicle. He was a big man with big hands. She wondered what size shoe he wore. Might he wear a size eleven or twelve?
As she eased her car slowly down the hill Des decided to pull over at the house where Tuck Weems had lived. She got out and tapped at the screen door.
Darleen was watching a soap opera now, a can of Budweiser in her hand, her baby gurgling next to her on the sofa. The redheaded girl’s eyes were puffy from crying. Otherwise, the scene was exactly the same as before-dirty dishes and ashtrays piled on the coffee table, the smell of dirty diapers fouling the air.
“I’m Lieutenant Mitry, Darleen. I was here the other day with Trooper Bliss.”
Darleen’s gaze was somewhat unfocused. Des would likely find the remains of a joint in one of those ashtrays if she cared to look. Which she did not.
“I’m, like, I remember you,” the girl responded, still way more interested in her TV show than she was in Des. “What do you want now?”
“To see how you’re doing.”
“What for?” demanded Darleen, going from zero to ultra-defensive in nothing flat.
“I’m concerned, that’s what for. Do you have any family who can be here for you?”
“Tuck was my family.” Her eyes never leaving the TV.
“That’s what I mean. How will you and your baby get by now?”
“That ain’t none of your business, bitch!” Darleen snarled at her. “And don’t you dare try to take my baby away from me, y’hear? Or I’ll mess you up so bad nobody will ever want you!”
The phone rang. Darleen got up off the sofa and went flouncing off to the kitchen to answer it.
Des stood there a moment in that dingy living room looking down at the baby. More human wreckage that the killer had left behind. First Torry’s little boy, Stevie. Now here were two more children-helpless, clueless, lost. Des took two twenty-dollar bills out of her billfold and tucked them under the beer can Darleen had left on the table. Then she went back outside to her cruiser.
She was just getting in the car when she heard the gunshot.
It came from above the lake.
It came from the direction Des had just come from-Tal Bliss’s house.
She floored it madly back up the hill. She encountered no car on its way down. She saw no one on foot.
His front door was wide open. She slammed on her brakes and jumped out, her eyes zeroing in on the shrubs that surrounded the house. Then flicking across the road at the neighboring houses. Not a leaf stirred. Not a curtain moved. She went in slowly with her Sig drawn and her back to the wall. Her mouth was dry, her heart racing. She called out his name. She got no response. Only silence. The stereo was off now. It was so quiet in there she could hear the blood rushing in her ears. And the house still smelled of the quiche he had baked for them. She called out his name again. No response.
The resident trooper was a very tidy chef. He had put all of their dishes in the dishwasher, refrigerated the leftovers, wiped off the counters, swept up the crumbs. He had written a short, succinct note and left it on the counter under a paperweight of polished stone, his lettering neat and precise: “I did what I thought was right. Just as I am doing now.”
And then Tal Bliss had blown his brains out.
He was seated out on the deck at the redwood table where they had just eaten, weapon still clutched in his hand. It was not his service piece. It was a. 38 caliber Smith and Wesson revolver. Des had no doubt that it was the same weapon that had killed Torry Mordarski, Niles Seymour and Tuck Weems. None.
Dirty Harry rubbed up against her ankle now, a low yowl of protest coming from his throat. Des gathered him up in her arms and took him downstairs and closed him in one of the bedrooms. Then she went out to her cruiser to phone it in.
Tal Bliss was tidy, all right. Except that he had left his mess behind for her to clean up. Des was so damned mad at him that she could spit.
CHAPTER 15
THE VILLAGE WENT INTO deep, heartfelt mourning over the death of its long-time resident trooper.
Flags were flown at half-staff at town hall and the fire house and the barber shop. Voices at the market were hushed. Tears were shed, hugs exchanged. Tal Bliss, Mitch discovered, had been one of those rare individuals who virtually everyone seemed to look up to. He was a big brother, a father figure, a friend. Above all, he was one of their own.
And everyone had a story to tell about him.
Dennis shared his when Mitch stopped by the hardware store to pick up two quarts of oil for the truck: Back when Dennis had been something of a wild child, Tal had pulled him over one night at three in the morning. Both Dennis and his high-school girlfriend were high on pot-and holding. Instead of busting them, Tal Bliss had escorted them home, confiscated the dope and never said a word about it to their parents. “He knew we were good kids,” Dennis recalled fondly. “He just wanted to make sure we didn’t screw up big-time.”
This, according to Dennis, was Tal Bliss. Not the deranged killer who had taken three lives before he took his own.
The gun he had used on himself turned out to be the same one that had killed Torry Mordarski, Niles Seymour and Tuck Weems. And he had owned a pair of size-twelve Timberland hiking boots that were an exact match for a shoe print that had been found at the Torry Mordarski murder scene. These were proven facts. But beyond that, no one really understood why Bliss had done what he did. All that he’d left behind in the way of explanation was his two-line handwritten suicide note. Everything else died with him. No one knew anything-except that when Lieutenant Mitry had begun to close in on him, Tal Bliss had chosen to take his own life rather than face the music.