She checked her watch, her face worn and tired. “I’ll knock off in another hour or so. I’m just going over what everybody dug up today.”
As my second, that was her job only when I was away or on vacation. I didn’t protest, however, since I knew it would be useless. “What did you find out about Adelson, Knox, and Garfield?” I asked.
She folded her hands over her stomach. “I’m still digging, but it’s already gotten interesting. As director of community development, Lou Adelman handles some big chunks of money. Mostly, there’re enough controls on them to make pilfering pretty difficult, but part of his job is to hobnob with fat cats-eat out, go to parties, play golf-so the suspicion that he’s padding his pockets basically goes with the job, especially in a penny-pinching town like this. As far as we can tell, though, he’s clean. He has been tight with Gene Lacaille for years, which only makes sense, and he’s been known to hang out with Tom Chambers, but so have a lot of people.
“Eddy Knox is a different story. I’ve almost got enough for a warrant to grab his records. His lifestyle has seriously improved since he wrote that glowing ZBA report on the project. I put out some subtle feelers among his friends, neighbors, and acquaintances, and all of them pinpointed last year as the time when his fortunes suddenly improved-a lifetime membership at the fanciest golf course in Keene, a new car, an aboveground swimming pool out back, new clothes. A friend of mine at the Keene PD checked on who sponsored him for the country club-it was Thomas Chambers, Esquire.”
“Nice work,” I said softly. “Eddy works out of the town planner’s office. Any indication his boss was involved?”
“None-he looks as clean as Adelman. But Rob Garfield may be dirty. Gail said she didn’t think he was bought off, since as ZBA head, he’d backed the project from the start, but I’m still looking into that. He and Tom Chambers go way back, and he lives well. Rumors are his wife is rich, so that may account for it, but I’ll find out soon enough.”
“Anything more on what Chambers has on Ned Fallows?”
Sammie’s face clouded briefly. “Nope-Ron can’t figure it out-it’s driving him nuts. I did get something on Milo Douglas, though.” She smiled at my surprised expression. “During his inquiries into some of this financial stuff, J.P. was told by one of his banking contacts that Milo had a checking account with ten thousand bucks in it. She said she only thought of it because of the rabies publicity-stuck in her mind.”
I leaned forward. “New deposit?”
“Yup. Lump sum about two weeks before he died. Milo walked in with the cash and opened the account himself.”
The doubts I’d had following my conversation with Willy faded one step back. The circumstances surrounding Milo’s death were looking ever more suspicious. “I bet whoever gave it to him never dreamed he’d put it in a bank. Sam, we need to organize a time and date chart-pinpoint as closely as we can every fact we’ve got on all five of these cases-see if we can find a common link. I want a database we can compare to all the alibis we’ll be collecting. When are you starting actual interviews?”
“If I get the warrant for Knox’s records and can sort through them fast enough, I might pick him up tomorrow afternoon. I don’t know about the others-depends on how much I can dig up on them.”
I got to my feet, suddenly more hopeful. “Okay. But don’t forget to get some sleep.”
She smiled up at me. “Yes, mother.”
I walked in on Sol Stennis as he was packing up to go home, his mouth wide open in a yawn. “How did it go today?” I asked him. “Willy said he put you on Sawyer’s background.”
“That he did, although if today was any indication, we’ll have more potential murderers than we can handle. She sure didn’t win any popularity contests.” A photograph slipped out from among a pile of papers he was stacking and fluttered to the ground. I bent over and picked it up.
“This is the family picture Sammie found in Sawyer’s room, isn’t it?”
“Yeah-I’ve been using it like an index, crossing off each person as I interview them.”
But I barely heard him. Scanning the small faces staring unsmiling into the camera, I saw something that spread through me like hot coffee on a cold day-a confirmation that my strategy so far had merit, and that I hadn’t been letting some fanciful notions subvert my instincts.
I waited until Sol had slipped his paperwork into the drawer before laying the photograph flat on the desktop. I placed my index finger under the face that had caught my eye-a few years younger but still easily identifiable, and an undeniable link between Sawyer and the construction project, and thus possibly through the project to our other cases. “You talk to him yet?”
“Nope. Don’t even know who he is.”
“Paul Hennessy. He’s project manager for Carroll Construction. His office is located right under where Milo spent one of his last nights alive.”
21
Traditionally, when a cop has zeroed in on a suspect, the actual interview is kept for last, after all available background information has been uncovered. Supposedly, this allows us to know best what questions to ask-and what the answers are likely to be.
That, however, is in a perfect world, after the details of a case have begun revealing a predictable logic.
My problem was that for all its intensity, I didn’t know what to make of the link I’d discovered. Had Hennessy killed his own aunt? And if so, why? She was broke, she was dying, and nothing incriminating had been found among her possessions.
Had she been killed by someone else to influence or intimidate him? Then why had her killer selected the one member of Hennessy’s family nobody would miss? By the time I returned to the office the next morning, after a restless night’s sleep, I had no answers to any of these questions.
Which meant, I finally rationalized, that I would have to interview Paul Hennessy first, since I had nothing else to go on.
Sol and I were at the building site by eight that morning, climbing the same staircase Willy and I had used two days earlier. While the whole place was busier now that construction was back up to speed, most of the work was still occurring on the lower levels. Which made the shouting we heard as we reached the fifth-floor landing all the more jarring.
Paul Hennessy’s distinctive voice floated down the half-finished hallway. “Look, you tell that stupid son of a bitch to get his act in gear and get that shit here today, or I’ll make goddamn sure he never does business with us again.”
The response to this was muffled by the office door we were now approaching, but Hennessy obviously didn’t like what he heard. “I don’t give a flying fuck. Just tell him to do it.”
The door opened and a short, round, harried-looking man brushed by us with the speed of a scalded dog.
I poked my head around the corner and saw Hennessy leaning on his makeshift desk, both hands flat on its surface, his head hanging as if he were recovering from a thousand-yard dash. “Paul?”
He snapped to attention, startled and red-faced. “What?”
“Joe Gunther-police department. Remember? This is Sol Stennis, one of my colleagues.”
His eyes widened as if caught by oncoming headlights, making me suddenly happy I’d decided on this trip. “What do you want?” It was more a demand than a question, and distinctly laced with panic.
“Something wrong?” I countered. “Sounds like you’re under some pressure.”
“It’s the job,” he answered curtly. He ran his hand through his thick red hair. “A delayed shipment.”
“Oh,” I exclaimed, as if suddenly enlightened. “I thought it might have been your aunt’s death.”
He stiffened, caught off guard. “Yeah, that was a real shock. The radio keeps saying she was murdered. Are you people sure about that?”
I was struck by the emphasis to the question, as if her manner of death was more important than the end result. “You were close?” I asked mildly, seemingly admiring the view out the window, but actually hoping the little homework I had done during the half hour before coming here might pay off.