Mitch considered this news for a long moment, his emotions teetering back and forth between anger and just plain revulsion… No, I really do not understand these people… Finally, he said, “I don’t buy it, Lieutenant. Well, maybe I buy that Bud was hiding there in the apartment. After all, why make up anything so sick? But I don’t buy the rest of it.”
“Neither do I,” she concurred. “The numbers simply do not add up. Mandy Havenhurst weighs in at, what, a hundred and twenty pounds? One-twenty-five? And you must weigh-”
“A lot more than that,” Mitch conceded quickly.
“She couldn’t have pulled you back in time. Not even if she’d wanted to. She’s not strong enough. Only a good-sized man could do that.”
“Which means one of two things,” Mitch mused aloud. “Either Mandy really did intend to kill me or Bud lied to Tal Bliss about who was responsible. What do you think?”
“I think that I’m all done thinking,” the lieutenant replied wearily. “Man, what in the hell do you want, anyway?”
“I don’t think this case is closed. I don’t buy that either. And I can’t believe you do. Surely you’re not satisfied.”
She let out a short, bitter laugh. “Satisfied? That is one strange way of putting it.”
“Okay, fine, I’ll put it to you another way-you don’t believe Tal Bliss did all of this by himself, do you?”
“The case is closed, Mitch.”
“You’re not answering me. What do you believe?”
“I believe in evidence.”
“So do I. That’s why I called. I have a very important question to ask you: Is there any chance that Bliss didn’t shoot himself?”
She fell silent for so long that Mitch said, “Hello…?”
“What, you mean like was he murdered?” she finally responded. “Not a chance. I got there in two seconds flat. I saw no one leaving the scene. And the coroner found nothing to indicate a struggle. The man’s clothes were clean. The man’s skin was clean-other than the powder burns on his face. The only prints on the gun were his. And the handwriting on the suicide note was his. No, it was suicide. Bank on it.”
Mitch thought this over carefully. Sheila could be wrong about that element. But that didn’t necessarily blow his theory out of the water. There was another explanation. An even simpler one.
Now it was Lieutenant Mitry who plunged into the silence. “Exactly where are you going with this, anyway?”
“You said Torry Mordarski registered at the Saybrook Point Inn under an assumed name.”
“Correct. Angela Becker was the name on the driver’s license.”
“Did anyone see Angela Becker and Niles Seymour together?”
“Well, yeah. Bud Havenhurst and Redfield Peck did. And they positively identified Angela as Torry from Torry’s photos. This is old news. You know all of this.”
“No, I mean, did anyone else see them together?”
“Such as who?”
“Such as a chambermaid or room service waiter. Another guest in the dining room.”
“I don’t remember. Why, is it important?”
“Ultra.”
“Then let me get my notes, okay?”
Mitch waited anxiously while she fetched them. He could hear her footsteps as she returned. Hear a whole lot of meowing, too.
“I’m showing no other corroborative testimony,” she said, leafing through her notepad. “That’s a no.”
“So Bud and Red are the only ones who saw them together?”
“That’s a yes. What of it?”
“Where are you going to be tomorrow, Lieutenant?”
“I’m driving to Newport in the morning.”
“Pick me up on your way. I’m coming with you.”
“Um, okay, I don’t recall inviting you.”
“But don’t come anywhere near Big Sister. I don’t want people to know we’re still in contact. I’ll be waiting for you in the parking lot of the Super Stop and Shop in Old Saybrook. What are you driving?”
“My usual ride, but-”
“Fine. Shall I look for you around ten?”
“Give me a reason. Give me one good reason.”
“I can give you two. There’s a place in Newport called the Black Pearl that’s supposed to serve the world’s best New England clam chowder. And we have to talk.”
“About what?”
“Not what,” Mitch corrected her. “Who.”
She drew her breath in, exasperated. “Okay, who?”
“Yogi Berra-as in it ain’t over till it’s over. Good night, Lieutenant.”
Mitch hung up the phone and flicked on his computer. A plan was forming in his mind. One that was ingenious and daring and foolproof. He began to write, setting the wheels of his plan in motion. As his fingers flew over the keyboard he realized he was so excited that he could barely sit still.
It would work. Mitch knew it would work.
He knew it because he had seen this movie before.
CHAPTER 18
MITCH BERGER’S HIGH RIDING, kidney-colored Studebaker pickup truck was not exactly hard to spot in the half-empty Stop amp; Shop parking lot. The man himself was seated there behind the steering wheel, drumming it nervously with his fingers when Des pulled into the empty space alongside of him.
He climbed out and got in next to her, looking rumpled and unshaven. His hair was uncombed, his sad puppy eyes red and puffy. “Morning, Lieutenant. How’s your cold?”
“It was never a cold. And I feel a whole lot better than you look, if you want to know the truth.”
“I didn’t sleep very well last night.”
“Why all of this secrecy?” she demanded as the two of them sat there in her cruiser, engine idling.
“It’s important that no one on the island see us together.”
“You told me that already. What you didn’t tell me was why.”
“I’ve never been in a police car before,” he spoke up, glancing around at the interior with keen, sudden interest. “You don’t have an on-board computer?”
Des shook her head. “Mobile data terminals cost major bucks. And we’re a big public agency. The bigger they are, the slower they are at keeping current. The IRS is still using equipment that’s twenty years out of date.”
“Well, that’s comforting.”
“The only agency using equipment that’s even older is the FAA.”
“Well, that’s not,” Mitch said, his fingers busily probing the dashboard. “What’s this thing?”
“My radio.”
“And what does this do?”
“Stop touching my damned stuff, will you?!”
“Sorry, I’m a little wired this morning,” he said. “Kind of grouchy yourself, aren’t you?”
“I have excellent reason to be,” Des huffed, easing her car out onto Route 1 in the direction of the I-95 on-ramp.
Mostly, she was anxious. When Mitch had said there might be more to the Tal Bliss suicide, she had had to find out what it was. She desperately wanted there to be more-something, anything that would make her feel less responsible for his death. She also knew, down deep inside, that she had agreed to let Mitch tag along because she wanted to see him again. Although now that the man was sitting there next to her she could not imagine why. He was pudgy. He was strange. He dressed like a high school chemistry teacher. Plus he was edgy and annoying and way, way white.
Damn, girl, what were you thinking?
She steered them onto the highway, heading north. Newport was about an hour and a half ride up the coast, much of it through dropdead gorgeous little shoreline towns like Mystic and Stonington and Watch Hill, Rhode Island, which had the distinction of being home to the oldest merry-go-round in America. She settled into the right lane at a comfortable 60, a lengthy procession of cars and trucks falling cautiously into line behind her, and said, “Okay, you’re on. Talk at me.”
“You first,” he insisted. “Why are we going to Newport?”
“We’re going because Superintendent Crowther is the lunchtime speaker today at the annual convention of the Northeastern Association of Forensic Scientists. I can buttonhole him afterward. Otherwise, the man’s totally not accessible. Not unless I snag him outside his house, which would not be appropriate. It would be like I’m stalking him.”