“Like as part of the Catamount Cavaliers?” Willy suggested, adding, “I been reading the reports.”
“Perfect example,” Joe agreed.
“How solid are we on Marshall being a homicide?” Lester asked. “I know Hillstrom found a stab wound in Friel, but are we still relying on Marshall’s damaged upper lip as our only proof of foul play?”
“You got circumstantial stuff, too,” Sammie contributed.
Joe pointed to her and nodded. “Right. It’s not bulletproof, but somebody made an effort to stop us from reaching back into Marshall’s history.”
“There’s no downside to working him as a homicide,” Willy said generally.
“Speaking of Marshall,” Joe said. “Did we get anything more out of his phone records?”
“Not much more than what I told you,” Lester said. “There was a reporter from the old days who told me they just reminisced. The guy said he was writing a history book and found Marshall to be pretty useless. And there was a call from an outfit named Scott and Company. Sheldon Scott is a conservative lobbyist who used to be buddy-buddy with Marshall way back when, but from what they told me, it wasn’t Scott who phoned.”
“Who was it?” Willy asked.
“They didn’t know and couldn’t track it-or wouldn’t-but Scott himself was out of town.”
“It still may not be a dead end,” Sammie said.
“The phone records?” Joe asked. “Or Scott and Company?”
“Either. The messages on his machine were erased. To me, that sounds like it wasn’t ‘who’ that was being covered up, but ‘what’ that person said.”
“What do you think was in the files from Marshall’s desk?” Willy asked. “There doesn’t seem to have been much follow-up about them.”
“Probably related to the Catamount Cavaliers,” Joe stated, “but no way of knowing.”
“Except,” Willy pursued, “that Travis Reynolds said they were already missing, which means they were probably taken at the time Marshall was snuffed. The rest-the picture and the lapel pin and the phone messages-happened later.”
“The killer forgot the other stuff?” Lester asked. “Or he was interrupted?”
“Crazier things have happened,” Willy answered. “But I’m betting on something else.”
“There were two of them,” Joe filled in.
Sam and Lester looked back and forth at their colleagues.
“What?” Sammie asked.
“Somebody knocked off Marshall and boosted the file-,” Willy began.
“-And somebody else hired Travis to rip off his apartment,” Joe finished. “I like it.”
“Two separate parties covering their tracks?” Lester asked.
Sam was already nodding in appreciation. “It does work. I mean, it’s as good a theory as anything else we got.”
“Why, though?” Lester challenged them. “Why kill Marshall, why steal his file, and why would somebody different come back later to steal the other stuff? Pretty unpopular guy.”
“Not just that,” Joe mused. “But the second party heard about the death almost before Marshall’s body started cooling.”
“The former Cavaliers,” Willy suggested. “Horny old fuckers still covering their asses. He was supposed to have coffee with pals on the morning he turned up dead. Think one or all of them might be old Cavaliers?”
“And, if not,” Sam said, “we know how fast news travels in that place.”
“It can’t be that hard to find out who the Cavaliers were,” Lester suggested. “Go back to the archives, find out who was in power, who the local cops were, the hotel owners, all the other players. There’ll be others like Nancy Kelley, with stories to tell.”
“How ’bout Travis’s phone records?” Joe asked then. “We get anything there?”
“We got the numbers,” Sam said. “I’m still connecting them to who they belong to. Won’t be much longer.”
The buzzer went off on Joe’s desk phone. He picked it up and answered, “Gunther.”
“There’s a man down here who’d like to talk to you. Name’s Michael Nesbitt.”
“Hang on,” Joe said. He covered the mouthpiece and asked the group, “Anyone know Michael Nesbitt? He’s downstairs. Wants to talk.”
He got a universal response of blank stares.
“Send him up.”
Minutes later, there was a tentative knock at the door. A small, round, unremarkable man in a baseball cap appeared in their doorway.
“Mr. Nesbitt?” Joe asked. “Come in. What can we do for you?”
Their guest reached into his pocket and extracted a crumpled piece of paper. “I saw this on a wall,” he said, “and thought you’d like to know that I saw this lady. It said to contact you, but my phone’s still out, and I don’t own a cell, so, since I had to be down here on other business anyhow today, I thought I’d just come over.”
Sam, being nearest to him, took the poster from his hand and flattened it on her desk. It was Carolyn Barber’s BOL advisory. Sam held it up silently so the rest of them could see what Nesbitt was talking about.
“You saw Carolyn Barber?” Joe asked.
“I gave her a ride,” he answered.
“From where?” Willy asked.
“Near Waterbury. I live in Williston-well, a little south of there-and I was heading home in the storm when I saw her by the side of the road. She was a mess, so I stopped to see what I could do.”
“This was during Irene?” Lester asked.
“Yeah. I’d been doing some catch-up work on Sunday. I work-well, I worked for the state-Natural Resources-and I was heading home, like I said.…” He paused and looked around, increasingly at a loss for words.
Joe walked over to him. “Mr. Nesbitt, I’m sorry. We’ve been very rude. Have a seat and take a breath. We were just caught off guard by your news. We’ve been looking for Carolyn for a while.” He pulled a guest chair away from the wall and steered Nesbitt into it, asking, “Would you like a cup of coffee?”
Nesbitt sat but waved away the offer. “No thanks. I’m all set.”
Joe pulled out another chair and sat near him. “Okay,” he resumed. “From the top. The storm was getting bad, you were told to head home, and you saw Carolyn by the side of the road. Is that about it?”
“Right. She was just standing there, soaking wet.”
“How was she dressed?”
“A long … kind of, I don’t know. I guess it was like a robe or a coat of some kind. Not very thick. And she had like a dress underneath it.”
Joe tried to interpret the description. “Did it really look like clothing, or was it maybe more like the kind of thing they give you in a hospital? Was it a robe like that?”
“Yeah, yeah. It was. And she didn’t have shoes.”
“Both shoes were missing?” Lester asked pointedly.
“Yeah. I know that ’cause I commented on it. I was really worried about her. She was out of it.”
“You didn’t take her to the hospital?” Willy wanted to know.
Nesbitt faced him with his hands spread out. “I tried. I really did, but she got so worked up, I didn’t dare. I didn’t want to make her any worse than she was. Plus, she told me where to go.”
“Where was that?” Joe asked.
“To her sister’s, in Shelburne. That’s not that far from me-not when you consider the circumstances. So I was happy to help her out. I mean, I was heading out anyhow, and it felt good to lend her a hand. She was in a bad way.”
“How so?” Sam asked. “Cold and wet only, or something else?”
“Oh, no,” Nesbitt emphasized. “She was that, sure, but she was like, funny, you know? Talking weird and stuff. It kind of made me nervous at first, when I thought maybe I’d picked up a nut. But she was super nice once the heater kicked in and she knew I was doing what she asked.”
“Taking her to her sister’s, you mean?”
“Right. After that, she quieted down. I had a blanket in the back seat that I gave her, too, and that helped, I think.”
“What did you talk about?” Joe asked.
“I asked her what had happened, and she said she’d been flooded out, which wasn’t hard to believe. That’s why she wanted to go to her sister’s. It wasn’t exactly clear with all her muttering. After I saw the poster, I guess I was pretty stupid. She said she was surprised by the rising water, and barely got out with her life.” He paused again and added ruefully, “Guess that’s what happens when you fill in the blanks on your own. I couldn’t have been more wrong.”