“He knew Harold LeMieur?” he asked Sam.
“Best buddies, from what we’ve been told. Harold’s influence and money helped get Gorden where he got.”
Joe walked up to the small photograph tacked to the end of the line drawn from Marshall’s name to LeMieur’s. It had been taken at a dinner and featured several men sitting at a long table, wearing tuxedos.
“Who’s the Silver Fox?” he asked, tapping on the picture. “Next to LeMieur.”
Sam squinted slightly. “Oh-Sheldon Scott. The biggest conservative lobbyist in Vermont, which means he spends a lot of time out of state, where the right-wing oxygen makes him happier. He and LeMieur are joined at the hip.”
She sat down at the table in the room’s center and opened a master file. “Okay, this is what we have so far, which isn’t much.”
Although she and Lester had been conducting interviews for only a couple of days, they had made remarkable headway. One advantage was the locale-they didn’t often have the luxury of an entire community being under one roof. For another, its population didn’t wander much or far-thus, while the interview schedule had accommodated the odd meeting or bridge game or doctor’s visit, by and large, it had functioned like an assembly line.
Sam, in her typically energized style, slid the file of accumulated interviews over to him, rose to her feet again, and stood beside the chart, in order to guide her boss through their discoveries to date.
“We decided to break the whole into categories, given the total number of people, versus just the ones who had anything to do with Gorden Marshall, which turns out to have been quite a few.”
She tapped her finger on one group of names. “These are people who knew him before he came here to live-fellow politicians, businessmen, lobbyists, and the like. Over ninety percent of them are men, but most of them have spouses or companions, which doubles the interview number for us, since we don’t want to miss any potential pillow talk.”
She continued in this vein, guiding him through her atlas of possible players, segregated into groups and subgroups like offshoots of an animal species. In the end, she stepped back to encompass the overall effort, and concluded, “The interconnecting lines tell us who’s sleeping with whom-whether married or not-who had what kind of relationship with Marshall, and in what context, and who we think is most likely to have had a financial tie to him. In general, the guys have been pretty tight-mouthed, and the spousal/companion route has been a gold mine. The ladies are very happy to throw dirt at each other and the guys, both. But it’s early yet.”
Sammie shook her head. “Sad to admit, the whole deal isn’t much different from what we’re used to in the streets. These people just bathe more often.”
“Amazing work,” Joe complimented her. “Have you been able to figure out how many you have left to interview?”
“Not yet. Everyone we talk to adds somebody we didn’t know about. Of course, many of those are duds-or too polite to talk freely-but a few have told us quite a bit. We’ve got a ton of homework left to do, and then we have to go over it again to make sure we’ve caught all the connective tissue.”
Joe was flipping through the cover sheets, nodding. “Okay. I’m assuming you’ve found nothing so far fingering whoever killed him. We don’t want to lose sight of why we’re here.”
“No,” she admitted.
“You have a chance to check Marshall’s phone records?”
“Yeah. We were hopeful when Michelle told you about the answering machine being empty when it shouldn’t have been, but so far, we found nothing surprising or unusual in the numbers he called.” She waved her hand at the board with all the names. “Whoever left an incriminating message must’ve been one of these-blended right in. We did apply extra pressure on whoever we found in the phone record, but so far, nobody’s standing out.”
She sat back in her chair and let her hands drop to her lap. “Really frustrating, to be honest. To have so many suspects and none of them measuring up.”
Joe closed the file. “Just have to keep digging. Any word from Willy?”
“He was at home last night with Emma. We’re switching off tonight so he can go to Burlington. After that, he’ll probably join us here.”
“He and I talked about that. He said he wanted to finish up on the Rozanski thing, even though he has it on good authority that Herb’s still alive.”
Sam looked thoughtful. “Yeah, he mentioned it.”
“And?”
She sounded quizzical. “I’m not sure. There’s something going on with him and this case. He should have wrapped it up fast, and it’s not really his kind of thing. But he’s been talking about it, which he also doesn’t do, and he’s been super attentive to Emma since it started.”
She smiled at that. “Not that I’m complaining. Don’t get me wrong. He’s a great dad and really helpful with watching her and all. But it’s like he’s going through something private that Emma alone can make better. Only since Rozanski.”
Joe stood up. “You know all the devils he lugs around inside. He probably fell over something that hit home. That’s why I cut him some slack. He actually asked me permission. That’s a first.”
Sam laughed, despite her concern. “Yeah. The boy’s going off the tracks. Next thing, he’ll stop kicking dogs and torturing suspects.”
Joe joined her. “Naaaah.” He checked his watch. “Speaking of which, why don’t you head off home early and let me take over your interviews. I should’ve been on them sooner anyhow, so this’ll give me an opportunity to get my feet wet.”
Sam didn’t need to hear the offer twice. “Thanks, Joe. I really appreciate it.”
* * *
Willy closed the door of his car and looked up at the address number opposite. He was in Burlington’s North End, on a block of nondescript, largely windowless buildings-warehouses and small wholesalers clinging to solvency like shipwreck survivors to flotsam.
He checked the location against the scrap of paper in his hand, crossed the street, and cautiously twisted the knob of the unmarked door in the cinder block wall before him.
He entered a shabby, poorly lighted office with three desks, two of them piled high with old catalogs and computer printouts. Seated before the third was a slender man, before the screen of a dusty, battle-scarred computer monitor covered with columned figures.
He turned at Willy’s appearance, his face registering surprise. “Whoa,” he said. “I’m sorry. We’re not really open. I mean, not to the public. This isn’t a business-not retail, anyway.”
“Herb Rozanski?” Willy asked.
The man froze and the color drained from his face.
“I’m sorry?” he asked in a whisper.
“It’s not what you call yourself now-Jon Fox; very Hollywood, by the way-but you’re Herb Rozanski.” Willy extracted his badge and displayed it.
The man swallowed hard. “Not actually. No, I’m not.”
“You changed it legally. I get it,” Willy said conversationally. “I might’ve done the same. Are we alone here?”
Rozanski pushed away from his desk and stood up, his right arm hanging limply by his side. “Yes. I’m the bookkeeper. The owner, he … he doesn’t come by much.”
Willy pointed at the arm, smiling slightly. “Saw blade. Mine was a bullet. But neither was an accident.” He patted his left shoulder. “We’re sort of mirror images.” He waved casually at Rozanski and urged, “Sit, sit. I’m not here to upset your applecart, Herb. Eileen says hi, by the way.”
“Eileen? You spoke to her?”
“Yup,” Willy confirmed, pulling another chair over and settling down, thereby encouraging Herb to do the same. “How do you think I found you?”
“She told you?” He was stunned.
Willy crossed his legs. “What do you think? That you’re John Dillinger? You’re a dead man. Nobody’s looking for you. Probably nobody cared when you disappeared. You’ve been living a paranoid fantasy for decades now, looking over your shoulder for no good reason.”