“I also didn’t think she knew anything about the money,” I said. “But I was going on impressions. It’s hard to argue with what we’ve got now. And she did drop out of the political scene at the exact time Shawna died.”
“Because she was heartbroken.”
Willy laughed. “Oh, come on. She’s fighting one of the biggest political battles of her career, and she dumps it because some teenybopper jilts her? Get real, Sam-it makes more sense she knocked her off and then lost her grip. Look at the woman’s background-she’s a prime candidate for a nuthouse.”
Sammie fell silent, temporarily beaten down.
I gave her a little support. “That’s scenario A. But it doesn’t take anything else into account-Milo’s death and the irregularities surrounding the convention center project. In a town this size, we’d be idiots to assume that two deaths, a disappearance, and the possibility of a corrupt real estate deal are all coincidences. It would be safer to think they might be related, and work from there.”
Everyone looked at Willy for a reaction, but he kept his peace, scowling. He’d often enough said that anyone who relied on coincidence was a jerk.
I tried to dissipate the tension. “So let’s find out if there are any connections. Right now, both the Shawna and Milo death investigations are in a holding pattern, pending developments. The Wallis case is wide open and currently gets top priority, although for the moment, with our own Patrol and all surrounding law enforcement agencies chipping in, we’re doing pretty much all we can. The convention center project’s looking a little more promising. Ron and Justin Willette came up with a few names we need to look at more closely. Sammie will hand out assignments. We’re looking for lifestyle changes or signs of sudden wealth, during the year and a half the project was getting permits. I want to see if we can get enough on these people so a judge will cut us subpoenas for their bank records. But remember to be subtle about it-for our sake. We don’t want a lot of thin-skinned bureaucrats screaming to the media and giving whoever’s responsible enough time to destroy evidence.”
“Is NeverTom on Ron and Willette’s list?” Willy asked contentiously.
“No. But if he is involved, he’s probably the one pulling the strings,” Sammie answered. “First, we need to look at people like Eddy Knox, the zoning administrator, and Ned Fallows and Rob Garfield of the ZBA, and Lou Adelman. They may be the small fry, but if they’re crooked and we can get to them, we can use them to lead us to the top guys.”
“Don’t think we won’t look into the Chamberses, Willy,” I added. “But we need to take the time to do this right, by the numbers. If we’re right about all these cases being interconnected, then we’ll be doing a lot more than digging up dirt on a few bigwigs. We might be saving Mary Wallis’s life.”
Shortly afterward, in my office, I dialed the state police in St. Johnsbury and asked for Lieutenant Mel Hamilton, the barracks commander. Several years ago, I’d worked with the Essex County SA’s office and had coordinated with Hamilton on a case. We’d become pretty friendly and had kept in touch over the years.
“Hi, Joe. What’s up?” he asked.
“You don’t follow the news?”
He laughed. “Well, I figured it’d been twenty-four hours already-time to add an extraterrestrial sighting to your list, or maybe a tidal wave. Is there any truth to that Satanism stuff?”
“Maybe-it’s probably a smoke screen. Unfortunately, smoke is all I’ve got right now.”
“Which is why you’re calling.”
“I need a favor. Could you have someone pick up a man named Ned Fallows? Lives in a log cabin two miles east of Lunenburg, on the dirt road crossing Turner Brook. I want to talk to him, and he has no phone. Something’s come up down here I want him to explain.”
“This a bad boy?”
“He’s a seventy-year-old retired town planning commissioner who got his hands dirty. I was up there last night, but he wouldn’t fess up. I’m hoping I just found the right piece of persuasion.”
“Okay. I’ll put it on the radio.”
“Thanks. Better tell ’em to go slow and polite-he’s got a Rottweiler. Quiet but big.”
“Great.”
I’d barely hung up when Harriet buzzed me on the intercom. “Line one, Joe-Conrad Blessing at Guillaume’s Funeral Home.”
Surprised, I picked the phone back up. “Conrad. How can I help you?”
Blessing’s voice was hesitant, seemingly embarrassed. “I hate to bother you. But I think I found something you ought to see.”
“Something to do with Milo?”
“Oh, no. I’m afraid it’s someone else. We had a customer delivered from the Skyview Nursing Home-an elderly woman who died last night. She has a death certificate listing natural causes, but… I suppose this is crazy. I shouldn’t have called.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll be right over.”
I grabbed my coat and headed for the hallway, calling out to Tyler, “J.P., sounds like I’ll need you on this one. I’ll be at Guillaume’s,” I told Harriet. “I’m expecting a call from upstate-the VSP. If it comes in, get the number and call me at Guillaume’s. Tell them not to leave, okay?”
She smiled and waved me out.
Conrad Blessing opened the front door to the funeral home as we reached the top porch step. “I hope this is worth your while. It’s just that… Well, I think there’s something strange, and considering how things turned out with Mr. Douglas… ”
“Why don’t you show us what you’ve got?” I suggested. Relieved, he led us down the familiar back hallway and through a wide, locked door into a brightly lit room with a gleaming metal table in its center. The body of a dead woman lay there, dressed in a flowered nightgown.
“This is Mrs. Adele Sawyer, eighty-three years old. Apparently, she had a bad heart-you can see that from the swollen ankles-and I guess the Skyview’s attending physician, Dr. Riley, figured nature had taken its course.”
We approached the table, and J.P., already having donned a pair of latex gloves, began to gently examine the dead woman’s head, face, and neck. “I think I see what caught your eye,” he said a minute later.
Blessing moved to the body’s other side and pointed at Mrs. Sawyer’s generously proportioned neck. “It seems bruised, doesn’t it? I thought at first it might be dirt. Some of the older people have a hard time washing themselves, assuming they can move at all, but it’s not, is it?”
Tyler moved to the woman’s mouth and peeled back both her upper and lower lips, revealing the pale gums underneath. “No, it’s not,” he said. “See this piece of tissue stretching between the gum and the inside of the lip, right at the mouth’s midline? It’s called the frenulum. It’s easily bruised when pressure is placed against the lips.”
He paused, looking more carefully, prompting Blessing to ask, “What does that mean?”
Tyler straightened and removed his gloves with a snap. “I’m no pathologist, but from what I see, this woman’s mouth was covered with one hand, to stifle any noise, while she was strangled to death with the other.”
The Skyview Nursing Home had no view to speak of, the local joke being that the name was literally true, no more and no less. It was located in West Brattleboro, on a street off of Route 9, the town’s main thoroughfare, in a large, scooped-out natural depression at the foot of a steeply rising hill. On its other three sides were low-cost, single housing units, mostly painted gray, collectively labeled Skyview Village.
Among homes for the elderly, the Skyview occupied a genteel middle ground-it was neither a clinically supervised resort for the independent rich, nor a medical repository for the abandoned near dead. Several of its patients had Alzheimer’s or a different chronic disorder, while others had simply grown unable to live on their own. Virtually all of them were supported by some form of government assistance. They came to the Skyview to dwindle away in the care of a pleasant, competent staff, which in turn was supported by an outside group of physicians who dropped by for periodic visits. Death here was an accepted part of life and until now a matter of evolutionary routine.