“Like you said,” Joe echoed quietly. He replaced the photograph thoughtfully. “Go back to the files that were missing. What were you told to steal, had they been there?”
“Everything in the C section. I didn’t like that part, since I didn’t have anything to carry them in, so I was just as happy they were missing.”
“Tell me what happened after you lost the cop who was running after you,” Joe said.
“I went back to the Dumpster and picked up the rest of the money.”
Joe straightened. “It was already there? The missing halves?”
“Yup. Just like he said. I left the picture, the clothes, and the box-after I looked into it to make sure the pin was there, which it was.”
“Then what?”
“Then I walked outta there,” Travis said.
“You didn’t drive there in the first place?”
“Nah. That’s not how I work. Never leave the car near the hit-that’s what I say. Makes for a slower getaway, but a cleaner one. Admit it,” he said cheerfully, his eyes bright. “You never would’ve found me if I hadn’t bumped into that cop, right?”
Joe shook his head sadly. “Wrong, genius. We never would’ve found you if you hadn’t taken off. That cop had no idea who you were. It was your running away that he recognized. You forget you had a stocking on when you clubbed him?”
Travis stared. “Oh, shit. You’re kidding me. Really?”
“Why were you wearing that anyhow?” Joe asked. “If you didn’t expect to meet anybody?
“It’s my trademark,” he said. “I never work without it.” He sighed and slumped in his chair. “I can’t believe I forgot that.”
Joe let him stew while he reviewed what they’d discussed. “You said that the man called you,” he said then. “How was that? You have a cell phone?”
“Sure. You guys took it when you busted me.”
“That a disposable phone or a regular cell?” Joe asked.
“Nah. It’s a regular one. I finally splurged.”
Joe smiled. That meant that they might be able to trace its incoming calls.
“And he didn’t say how he got your name?”
“Nope.”
“You have any guesses about that?”
Travis hitched a shoulder. “I know a lotta people. Coulda been anybody.”
That, Joe thought, was unfortunately true.
“He didn’t introduce himself?”
“Nope.”
“How ’bout later?” Joe asked. “After he found out that the files were missing. He must’ve called you back for an explanation.”
“Yeah, he did,” Travis said. “But he didn’t seem to care once I told him. He just heard what I said and hung up. He sounded funny, but he didn’t say any more.”
“How do you mean, ‘funny’?”
“Different, you know? Like he had a cold or something.”
Joe frowned as he considered another possibility. “A cold?” he then asked. “Or maybe wasn’t the same guy?”
Travis nodded receptively. “Oh, yeah. That would work. It wasn’t a great connection-like a bad cell phone. But sure. It mighta been somebody else. I didn’t think of that, ’cause we were talking about the same thing. But that would explain it.”
Glad it explained something to you, Joe thought.
* * *
He met Lester outside, who immediately said, “I was listening from next door. I’ve already started the paperwork to get into his phone. Who do you think it’ll be?”
Joe shook his head. “Damned if I know at this point. Someone who’s clearly hoping to erase the past, along with Carolyn Barber’s role in it.”
Lester looked at him steadily before he asked, “You think she’s dead, don’t you?”
Joe’s own cell phone went off as he replied, “I wouldn’t be surprised. If I were some of these people, I wouldn’t want her alive with her name plastered all over the state.” He hit the ANSWER button without looking at the screen. “Gunther.”
“It’s Beverly.”
He broke into a broad smile and moved away from his colleague, crossing to an adjacent office. “Hey, there. How’re you doing?”
“Actually, pretty well,” she answered in her precise language. “I’ve discovered something I think you’ll find valuable.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’m all ears.”
“Following our last conversation,” she told him, “I returned to the two house fire victims from Shelburne. I couldn’t let it go.”
He nodded appreciatively at the phone. “God, you are good.”
She responded, “I don’t know about that, but I like to be thorough. As you know, I was troubled by my inconclusive findings concerning Mr. Friel. So I tried a few things that lie just a bit outside the protocols.”
“Yes…,” he encouraged her.
“Well, one of the by-products of the fire was that his heart suffered from charring and shrinkage, as did the rest of his body. I therefore took several of his major organs and analyzed them more carefully, including the heart, which I rehydrated so that it would return-at least in part-to its original dimensions. It was far from perfect, of course, but it was an improvement over what I’d first analyzed.”
“You did find that bullet,” he stated, now only half joking.
This time, she remained serious. “Not quite. It was a hemorrhagic wound track.”
He tightened his grip on the phone. “A knife wound?”
“More like a skewer,” she answered, “as in a shish kebab. I was thinking of an ice pick, except that those have become virtual antiques by now.”
“You’re sure?” he asked. “I mean, enough that you’ll be amending the death certificate?”
“Oh, yes. That’s why I wanted to tell you first.”
“You are something else, Beverly. Nicely done.”
“You’re very welcome, Joe. My pleasure.”
He snapped the phone shut and returned to where Spinney was filling out paperwork.
“Good news?” Les asked at his boss’s expression.
“Depends on who you are, I guess,” Joe said. “Hillstrom just figured out that William Friel was stabbed in the heart.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The entire squad was back in Brattleboro, for their first staff meeting in days. They’d been dropping by individually, to catch up on paperwork and collect messages, but it felt odd to have them all in the same room again.
“It’s been a bit of a grind,” Joe told them from his spot of preference, sitting on the windowsill. “But we’re making headway, and I thought we should compare notes face-to-face. Willy, let’s start with you and Rozanski.”
“Nothing to tell,” Willy reported with predictable brevity.
“Aside from what you will tell us,” Joe responded pleasantly and without hesitation.
Willy, feet propped on his desk, sighed. “No runs, no fouls, no errors,” he said wearily. “Herb Rozanski is alive and well, if a little mangled, and living under a legal alias in Burlington. He and his brother, Nate-also alive and a hermit in the Kingdom-agree that they had a fight and that their dad covered it up by pretending Herb got killed. Was it against the law? Yeah, but the old man’s dead, and nobody gives a damn, so I’m declaring the case closed.” He waited for a reaction before adding, “Unless there’s an objection.”
Everyone knew better, and Joe also knew that Willy’s report would be complete and properly filed, if it hadn’t been already. Despite his unregimented demeanor, Willy was maniacal about tending to details.
Joe therefore let the subject slide. “Good. Now to the swamp pit that’s been swallowing the rest of us. To begin with-right or wrong-we thought we had a missing state hospital patient, an ex-politician dead of natural causes, and two people killed by an accidental house fire in Shelburne. Some of us have been pursuing different aspects of these three cases, but since it’s become pretty clear that they’re all cross-connected and a whole lot more complicated, I’m thinking that from here on, we better treat everything as a single unit, just to be on the safe side.”
He held up the photograph of Carolyn Barber and Gorden Marshall on her big day, decades ago. “This, for instance, shows two of our major players, back in the ’60s. There is no way in hell that her disappearance and Marshall’s suspected murder don’t overlap.”