Willy had taken an instant liking to him.
* * *
“I have nothing saying Herb Rozanski’s dead,” Willy reported. “Much less murdered.”
Joe awkwardly shifted his cell phone against his cheek and ear to hear more clearly. He’d once taken the ergonomics of old-fashioned phones for granted. Never again. “Based on what?” he asked.
Willy did his own readjusting, only in his case, it was Emma’s access to her mother’s bottled breast milk that he was struggling with.
“I interviewed the old family doctor-a retired old coot I know named Racque. Bud took Herb to him after he finished beating Nate half to death. Herb’s arm had taken the brunt of the saw blade, and Racque sewed it back together.”
“There any records of this?” Joe asked. He was driving west through the early darkness from a day at The Woods, where he’d been helping Sam and Lester prepare to interview all residents with any ties to Gorden Marshall.
“That was the whole point,” Willy said contemptuously. “Bud wanted it under the radar and Racque was happy to oblige. Not that Racque thought it was that big a deal. It wasn’t like Bud came to him and said, ‘Hey, one son tried to murder the other; patch him up.’ Racque thought it was an accident, and neither Bud nor Herb said anything different.”
“So why the subterfuge with the box of rocks?” Joe asked.
“I met with Nate Rozanski today, too,” Willy said. “Up in the middle of Lockjaw, Vermont, in the Kingdom. He thought he’d killed Herb, till I told him otherwise. After he gave me Racque’s name, we got to talking more easily, and I asked him the same question. He’s a little dim-been living like a hermit too long, for one thing-but he told me Bud said something along the lines of, ‘You’re dead to me now; both of you are.’ I think Bud got to have his cake and eat it, too. He screwed Nate by making him think he’d killed his brother, on one hand, and I bet he convinced Herb that the fake funeral was to protect the kid’s back, while sending a not-too-subtle message that a queer son was not welcome at home.
“Herb may have been gay, which his old man hated. But if I’m right, Bud got to throw each of them out as embarrassments in one fell swoop, and kept the daughter until she jumped ship on her own. Father-of-the-year material, he was not.”
“So you’re done?” Joe asked reasonably. “’Cause we could do with some help up here.”
Willy demurred. “I think I have a line on Herb. Should be quick, though.”
The favor was implied, and Joe was struck by the way it had been phrased. Willy was not taken to asking for permission. He kept to himself, didn’t reveal case details, and delivered results like some TV cowboy from the ’50s. Joe occasionally fantasized that had it been feasible, Willy would have slung some of his bad guys over a saddle before bringing them in for questioning.
“You all right with this?” Joe asked. “Is there something else bugging you?”
“You want me to do a half-assed job?” Willy challenged him, his attitude surfacing.
“Just make it short,” Joe told him. “You can give me the details later.” He hung up before Willy did the honors.
Willy smiled at the phone before putting it down and readjusting the bottle, watching his daughter’s contented face as she worked her cheek muscles rhythmically.
“Hey, daughter,” he said in a near whisper, his face inches from her downy hair. “I may not be father of the year, either, but you will never not be the love of my life, no matter how screwy I get.”
* * *
Joe reached Burlington at a little after seven, and knew without thinking which of Beverly’s two primary addresses-home or office-to visit first.
Sure enough, after letting himself into the medical examiner’s office via the coded keypad on the employees’ entrance, he wandered through the quiet, tenebrous suite, enjoying the stillness here as he did in his own office in Brattleboro, until he reached her corner enclave, which predictably was filled with light.
He paused at the doorjamb and made a slight brushing noise with his shoe, enough to draw her attention without startling her.
She looked up from her desk, a quizzical expression immediately yielding to happiness.
“Joe,” she said, smiling and rising to circle the desk. “God, what a sight at the end of the day.”
She’d exchanged her standard scrubs for a summer dress with buttons running down the front, the bottom few of which she’d left open, for freedom of movement and style-of which he thought she had plenty.
Abandoning the reserve she wore along with her uniform, she looped her arms around his neck and kissed him long and passionately as he ran his hands along her back and below, inventorying what she was wearing underneath the thin fabric.
“Good Lord,” she said finally, pulling away just enough to speak. “I do like what is developing here.”
He laughed, kissed her again, and leaned slightly to one side to swing her door closed, his other hand gathering up the hem of her dress. “You mind?” he asked.
She kissed his earlobe, reached out as his fingertips touched her naked thigh, and snapped the lock shut on the door. “This is a first I’ve been dreaming about for years.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Rob Perkins entered Gail Zigman’s office and this time closed her door himself. He sat heavily in the chair opposite her and said, “We’ve just been royally fucked.”
Gail removed her reading glasses and stared at him. “What?”
“Sheldon Scott,” he reminded her in a dull monotone. “You sent me to meet with him. Turned out to be a classic bait and switch. If this goes the way I think, I will take full responsibility, say I acted unilaterally, and resign. I don’t know if that’ll be enough, but it can’t hurt, and I deserve it anyhow for not having advised you better. For what it’s worth, from the bottom of my heart, I apologize, Governor. You should have been better served.”
Gail was openmouthed. “Rob, what the hell are you talking about? What happened?”
Perkins took a breath and tried again. “I’m sorry. It was just so boneheaded. So amateurish-exactly what they were expecting from a bunch of tree-huggers. I feel like an idiot. My own arrogance made me careless.”
Gail quietly slapped the top of her desk a couple of times. “Rob. Enough. You can beat yourself up later. Tell me what you’re talking about.”
“I went to see Scott, as we discussed, at his office. Only it wasn’t at his office. It was upstairs.”
“What’s that mean?”
“In the Monday-morning quarterbacking coming next, it’ll mean I was there for a secret meeting with the Dark Side-if you’re on the left-or that the Zigman administration was being offered holy insight and guidance by the Yoda of politics, if you’re on the right.”
Gail nodded silently, preparing for what was coming.
“Scott has a room to make Jay Gatsby drool, all lined with books and photographs of him and the conservative glitterati. I’d never been there before, and I should’ve smelled a rat right off, but instead, I just wandered in-witnessed by some photogenic female flunky who no doubt will have a memory like an elephant’s.”
“Okay,” Gail prompted him gently.
“Anyhow, he never actually said that LeMieur put a deal on the table, at least not like what Raffner outlined. Instead, he danced around, referencing LeMieur, avoiding any details, and babbling about how dear Harold is getting old and sentimental, wants to give back to his state, and is at death’s door-which I don’t believe for a second. Basically, it was contrived to make me suggest-very reasonably, of course-that the plan we heard from Raffner would be a bear to put in place in a timely fashion, that FEMA would probably freak out, and that I’d have to report back to you in any case-all of which I said right on cue. What it amounted to was a gigantic stall, designed to interest us, but without enough details to make it actionable.”