“What time did she die?”
She consulted the file she was still holding in her hand. “Dr. Riley declared her dead at 2:08 this morning. I have no way of knowing when she actually died.”
“Right,” I muttered, “but there was no sense of alarm about her death?”
“None at all. She was a heavily medicated congestive heart patient, with both COPD-that’s bad lungs-and diabetes complications, and she was grossly overweight. We’d all been expecting her to die for months.”
“But she could still get around.”
“Oh sure-lots of people can, right up to the end. She wasn’t fast on her feet-don’t get me wrong-but she did all right.”
“I gather she wasn’t too popular.”
Janet Kohler looked at me steadily for a moment, as if weighing her options. I was pleased with her final choice. “She was a bitch.”
“Thanks for the honesty. Did she have any enemies, or people who disliked her more than others?”
“I’d say the second more than the first.”
“I’ll have someone get those names from you. How about the home in general-is it a good place to work?”
The tension in her face eased a bit. “I love it here. For the most part, the residents are wonderful, the staff knows its stuff, and management is very supportive. We spend a lot of time coming up with things the residents can do together, and it helps everyone stay young, at least mentally. I used to work in places-some of them pretty famous-where the residents might as well have been animals. All cooped up, with nothing to challenge their minds. We’re very interactive here. It doesn’t cost any more, and when you think of it, it helps us, too-makes the job more interesting and rewarding. You were talking with Mrs. Pallini-how did she seem to you?”
“Very content,” I admitted. “Speaking of her, she implied the patients have pretty free rein to wander.”
Kohler smiled broadly. “She tell you about the hanky-panky? It’s absolutely true. Some of that goes on. As for the more innocent wandering, we do have people that bear watching-the Alzheimers tend to roam, especially at night, and a few others need to be restricted to a single area of the home. It’s a passive kind of restraint, though-just so they don’t hurt themselves, or somebody else by mistake. Except that we keep a sharp eye peeled for any health changes, all the rest are pretty much free to come and go as they please. The only restriction we impose is that no one spontaneously leave the building.”
“You do bed checks, then?”
“Yes, and we monitor the building’s exits and access to some of the home’s special areas. The residents try to pull a fast one now and then, sneaking around for some late-night high-jinks, but we usually know what’s going on-we just pretend we don’t.”
“Is there a fair amount of activity in the halls after hours?”
“No. I think we play it up slightly because most of them get such a kick out of it-keeps them young in spirit, anyway. To be honest, we’re not talking about more than a handful.”
“You said the Alzheimer’s patients wandered at night.”
“Oh-I see what you mean. Yeah-that happens sometimes-it’s fairly typical of the disease, but… You’re not thinking one of them did this, are you?”
I smiled to reassure her. “No, no. I’m not thinking much of anything right now. We’ve got a lot more digging to do still. I am curious, though, about Mrs. Sawyer’s next of kin. Who do you have listed?”
She opened the file and began leafing through it. “It’s funny-I’ve never met them. As far as I know, she’s never had an outside visitor-family or otherwise… Here it is. Annabelle Tuttle-Spruce Street. You’d think she would drop by every once in a while-must be all of a ten-minute drive.” She handed me the file so I could copy the address.
There was a knock on the door as I was finishing up, and the patrolman who’d been guarding Mrs. Sawyer’s door poked his head in. “Phone call, Lieutenant-from St. Johnsbury. I think it’s line three.”
“Thanks-be right there.” I turned to Janet Kohler. “I guess that’s it for the moment. If you’d like to get back to what you were doing, go ahead. I appreciate all your help.”
Kohler rose and crossed to the door. “Happy to do so, Lieutenant. I’ll bring Sue and the doctor to see you as soon as they get here. Shouldn’t be too much longer.” She pointed at the phone on the desk. “Feel free to use that.”
I waited until the door had closed behind her before picking up the receiver. “This is Joe Gunther.”
“Hi Joe, it’s Mel. Sorry it took so long to get back to you. We had to hunt around for your friend. We ended up just taking him to the barracks-easier than finding a pay phone. I’ll put him on. Good luck, buddy.”
“Thanks.”
A few moments later, Ned Fallows’s voice came on the line, sounding cautious. “Joe? What’s the problem?”
I decided to play it hard-nosed, hoping that might get me better mileage than the approach I’d used last night, but also because I was tired and angry and no longer interested in games. “Things have changed down here, Ned. I want some straight answers.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Mary Wallis disappeared last night. It’s looking like an abduction, and it’s anyone’s guess if she’s still alive. Since the building project’s the one common denominator we keep coming across, I need to know who put the squeeze on you. Now.”
“It’s not connected, Joe.”
“I’ll decide that. You talk to me now, or I’ll charge you in connection with her murder if Mary Wallis turns up dead.”
After a long, deliberating pause, he said in a barely audible whisper, “Tom Chambers-NeverTom.”
“Why?”
“He’d discovered something I’d done years before-a mistake. I thought I’d buried it, but he’d known all along. He’d just put it in his ‘rainy day fund,’ as he called it, for future use.”
“What was the deal? Vote his way just this once, and he’d let you off?”
“The way things worked out, he got his money’s worth.”
I couldn’t argue the point, although I was hoping the State’s Attorney might eventually.
His next comment, however, made that a more complicated issue. “I won’t repeat what I just said, though, no matter how many subpoenas you hit me with. Nor will I answer any more questions. I only told you this much so you’d let it be.”
I opened my mouth to give him hell but then realized the futility of it. The Ned Fallows of old had been drowned by self-pity and perhaps self-loathing. I’d gotten what I wanted for the moment. Finding him later wasn’t going to be a problem.
“We’ll see, Ned. I’ll do what has to be done. But if Mary Wallis suffers because of something you’re not telling me right now, you will bear the consequences.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” he replied, his voice emotionless. “I’m way ahead of you.”
The line went dead.
18
Talking with Ned Fallows had both angered and saddened me. In the same way domestic disputes show how love can turn to violence, Fallows had shown me how a man’s ego, once used as a beacon for righteous behavior, could be twisted to stand for self-absorption and denial. Now faced with two homicides, a suspicious death, a disappearance, and a corruption case touching the town’s leading family, I had little tolerance for Ned’s mourning his own fallen image. That his vanity might be impeding our locating Mary Wallis made me furious.
I looked up from these reflections to see a middle-aged woman in jeans and a sweatshirt with her hair tied back, timidly standing by the half-open door. Her voice was strained with tension. “Janet said you wanted to see me? You didn’t answer when I knocked. I’m Sue Pasco.”
I rose and beckoned her to sit. “Joe Gunther. Thanks for coming. Please-make yourself comfortable.”
She perched on the chair’s edge, her legs tucked under her and her hands flat by her thighs, looking like a diver about to spring into the water.
“Is it all right if I call you Sue?” I asked.
She nodded tightly. “Everyone does.”