Sam gave it to him and asked, “How ’bout you? Been busy?”
“Yeah-if I have this right, Carolyn Barber is alive and well, driving her sister’s old car and wearing her borrowed clothes. And I’m starting to get the distinct sensation-based mostly on my gut-that she’s reeaally angry.”
Sam stared sightlessly out the window ahead of her. “Are you saying what I think you are?”
“Well,” he said. “It’s a process of elimination, combined with human nature, but of the people we know who’ve been murdered so far-Marshall and Friel and Barb Barber-all of them have Carolyn in common, and all of them did her dirt, except maybe Friel.”
“Barb?” Sam asked, surprised. “I thought they just didn’t get along.”
“You could say that,” Joe agreed. “I found Carolyn’s commitment papers earlier today, signed by her sister nine months after Carolyn announced to her roommate that she was pregnant.”
“Ouch,” Sammie said, instinctively thinking of her own child.
“What happened to the baby?” she asked.
“I have no idea, but I’d love to get my hands on Barb’s financial records for that time, to see if Carolyn’s commitment coincided with any money changing hands.”
“Damn,” Lester said. “That’s harsh.”
“Maybe,” Joe agreed. “But why else would she have done it? If the father was a bigwig, with a reputation to protect, there would have been good reason to make such a deal, especially with no love lost between the sisters in the first place.”
“But why didn’t Carolyn say anything?” Sam protested.
“From everything we’ve heard,” Joe said, “Carolyn was a walking zombie when she was at the hospital, which is definitely not the description I got from the Shelburne librarian I just interviewed. Could be that Carolyn was kept artificially demented all these years. That would take a pharmacologist or someone to say with any credibility, but I can imagine a woman in that situation-madder than hell but locked in suspended animation-really blowing a gasket if she somehow got lucky enough to break free.”
“How did she locate Marshall and get a key to his apartment?” Lester challenged him.
“I think she found him through the Internet,” Joe replied. “And as far as access goes, we found out Nancy Kelley and she knew each other. Could be Carolyn got hold of somebody else at The Woods and finagled a way to get a key. Either that or Kelley’s holding back. We can squeeze her later and maybe find out.”
To the silence he received from his colleagues, he added, “I don’t have all the answers, guys, and I’m not sure I’m right about any of it. It just fits. Finding that baby’s birth certificate wouldn’t hurt, though.”
Lester had been looking out the side window at the entrance to Whitledge’s building, and now interrupted, “Oh, oh. Folks? Hate to break this up, but our mark just came home.”
“You go ahead,” Joe told them. “I won’t be long.”
As it turned out, they all met Aaron Whitledge at about the same time. Checking his mailbox in the lobby, he was joined by a downstairs neighbor, and escorted her to her door on the second floor, loitering to chat as Les and Sam kept out of sight.
The two cops were therefore still introducing themselves at Whitledge’s apartment on the top floor when Joe came climbing up the stairs to join them.
Whitledge-young, slim, well dressed, and haughty in expression-looked surprised at Joe’s arrival.
“Three of you?” he said. “What is this?”
“Maybe the most important conversation of your life,” Joe said as he stepped onto the landing, despite not fully knowing who this man was.
Sam, however, picked up on the line. “Invite us in, Mr. Whitledge, so we can read you your future.”
Whitledge demurred, placing his hand protectively against the doorjamb. “Do I need a lawyer?”
“Not as far as we’re concerned,” Sam continued, taking the lead. “It depends entirely on you.”
She left it at that, allowing a telling silence to settle. Whitledge looked from one of them to the other and finally dropped his arm and backed up, still holding his mail in the other hand.
“Might as well find out what the hell’s going on,” he said, half to himself.
They were in a large room-with Oetjen’s big front windows-that served as living room and kitchen, combined. It was airy, nicely appointed, but not pretentious, although Sammie wondered how Oetjen could ever have taken her boyfriend for an embarrassed file clerk. These were clearly richer digs than that.
Whitledge dumped his mail on a coffee table and nodded toward some armchairs and a sofa. “Sit,” he said, choosing a chair for himself. Joe considered the body language and interpreted a man working very hard to appear unconcerned.
Sam apparently came to the same conclusion and walked over to stand close to their host, forcing him to look awkwardly up at her.
“Just for the record, you are Aaron Whitledge?”
He shifted slightly in his seat. “Yes.”
Lester and Joe, also still standing, spread out to either side of her, a couple of paces back.
“And you are romantically involved with Dolores Oetjen?” she continued.
His voice betrayed his confusion. “Yes.”
“Who is your employer, Mr. Whitledge?”
“Sheldon Scott and Company.”
Joe kept silent, although startled by the name coming up twice in the same afternoon.
“What do they do?” Sam asked.
“We’re a lobbying firm.”
“And your job description there?”
He hesitated for a fraction of a second. “I’m a sort of gofer. A special projects guy.”
“What kinds of projects are those?”
Joe could tell the younger man was still inside his comfort zone. “They vary in scope and complexity. Sometimes, it’s research; other times, it’s just acting as a glorified messenger boy. It’s like the title indicates-a jack of all trades.”
“That’s interesting, Jack,” Sam challenged him dismissively. “But even more interesting is that you seem to have no curiosity about my bringing up your girlfriend. Don’t you like her?”
Whitledge crossed his arms and legs. “Sure I do. Sweet kid.”
“Who happens to be your exact age, correct?”
“Okay,” he said uncomfortably.
“But still no ‘Oh, is she all right?’ Or, ‘Did anything happen to poor Dolores?’” Sam pressed. “What’s wrong, Mr. Whitledge? There something about her you don’t want us to know?”
“No,” he protested loudly, and used that to struggle to his feet, trying to avoid bumping into Sam in the process. He spoke as he moved toward one of the windows, where she immediately followed him. “What’re you saying? Did something happen to her?”
Sammie again crowded his personal space. “Not a thing, Aaron. Did you do something to her?”
“Of course not. You were the one saying that. I don’t understand this. What have I done?”
“We actually know what you’ve done, Aaron, and how you set up that sweet kid, as you call her, to take the fall for it. Who do you report to directly, Aaron?”
Joe answered that. “We know that, too. It’s the boss himself.”
Whitledge’s quick flicker of the eyes betrayed his fear. “I answer to whoever gives me the assignment.”
“Which in this case was Sheldon Scott,” Joe persisted.
“Was it your idea or Scott’s to use Dolores’s phone?” Lester asked, adding to the chorus.
Whitledge opened his mouth and then shut it again.
“Who is Travis Reynolds?” Sam demanded, closing in so that their bodies were almost touching.
Whitledge pressed his back against the window frame. “Who?”
“The man you called at ten forty-three on the night you made sure Dolores got good and drunk and was passed out in her bed. That Travis Reynolds.”
“I don’t know who you’re talking about.” But the voice was sulky now, having lost its edge.
“The man you ordered to enter Gorden Marshall’s apartment,” Joe reminded him.
“The same Gorden Marshall,” Sam picked up, “who was murdered the day before.”
“Did you order that done, too?” Lester asked. “Or did you do it yourself, as a special project?”