MITCH BERGER’S HIGH RIDING, kidney-colored Studebaker pickup truck was not exactly hard to spot in the half-empty Stop amp; Shop parking lot. The man himself was seated there behind the steering wheel, drumming it nervously with his fingers when Des pulled into the empty space alongside of him.
He climbed out and got in next to her, looking rumpled and unshaven. His hair was uncombed, his sad puppy eyes red and puffy. “Morning, Lieutenant. How’s your cold?”
“It was never a cold. And I feel a whole lot better than you look, if you want to know the truth.”
“I didn’t sleep very well last night.”
“Why all of this secrecy?” she demanded as the two of them sat there in her cruiser, engine idling.
“It’s important that no one on the island see us together.”
“You told me that already. What you didn’t tell me was why.”
“I’ve never been in a police car before,” he spoke up, glancing around at the interior with keen, sudden interest. “You don’t have an on-board computer?”
Des shook her head. “Mobile data terminals cost major bucks. And we’re a big public agency. The bigger they are, the slower they are at keeping current. The IRS is still using equipment that’s twenty years out of date.”
“Well, that’s comforting.”
“The only agency using equipment that’s even older is the FAA.”
“Well, that’s not,” Mitch said, his fingers busily probing the dashboard. “What’s this thing?”
“My radio.”
“And what does this do?”
“Stop touching my damned stuff, will you?!”
“Sorry, I’m a little wired this morning,” he said. “Kind of grouchy yourself, aren’t you?”
“I have excellent reason to be,” Des huffed, easing her car out onto Route 1 in the direction of the I-95 on-ramp.
Mostly, she was anxious. When Mitch had said there might be more to the Tal Bliss suicide, she had had to find out what it was. She desperately wanted there to be more-something, anything that would make her feel less responsible for his death. She also knew, down deep inside, that she had agreed to let Mitch tag along because she wanted to see him again. Although now that the man was sitting there next to her she could not imagine why. He was pudgy. He was strange. He dressed like a high school chemistry teacher. Plus he was edgy and annoying and way, way white.
Damn, girl, what were you thinking?
She steered them onto the highway, heading north. Newport was about an hour and a half ride up the coast, much of it through dropdead gorgeous little shoreline towns like Mystic and Stonington and Watch Hill, Rhode Island, which had the distinction of being home to the oldest merry-go-round in America. She settled into the right lane at a comfortable 60, a lengthy procession of cars and trucks falling cautiously into line behind her, and said, “Okay, you’re on. Talk at me.”
“You first,” he insisted. “Why are we going to Newport?”
“We’re going because Superintendent Crowther is the lunchtime speaker today at the annual convention of the Northeastern Association of Forensic Scientists. I can buttonhole him afterward. Otherwise, the man’s totally not accessible. Not unless I snag him outside his house, which would not be appropriate. It would be like I’m stalking him.”
“And this isn’t?”
“I have to talk to him,” Des said firmly.
“Why, what does he know?”
“What actually happened to Roy and Louisa Weems. The real story behind their deaths. The real story behind Dolly Peck’s rape.”
“Wait, Dolly was raped?”
“By Roy,” Des affirmed, glancing sidelong at him. “Tal Bliss found their bodies. Crowther was the investigating officer. His report was full of holes. That’s why I have to see him. I have to find out what he knows.”
“We both do.” Mitch rubbed his hands together eagerly. “Hot damn, my article just got a whole lot better.”
“What article?” she demanded sharply. “You didn’t tell me about any article.”
“I’m writing a piece for my paper’s Sunday magazine.”
“I thought you weren’t that kind of journalist.”
“I’m usually not. But this sort of thing doesn’t usually happen to me. So when they asked me, I said yes. Why, do you have a problem with it?”
“Hell, yes. When I agreed to let you tag along I didn’t realize you were acting as a member of the news media.”
“You’re not going to kick me out of the car now, are you?”
“I’m thinking about it,” she fumed angrily. “I sure as hell am.”
They rode on in charged silence. They were nearing Stonington, the one-time Portuguese fishing village near the Rhode Island state line that was now a yachter’s paradise. Lush green pastures and wetlands surrounded it, the Sound glittering in the distance. There were certainly worse places to be ditched. But it was still a long way from home. And the gentle blue morning sky was streaked with red along the horizon. A storm was due to arrive before nightfall.
“Look, I’ll fill you in on as much as I can,” Des said finally. “But I have to see the man alone. And you are not quoting me as a source on this particular aspect of the case. I am already in enough trouble. Deal?”
“Deal. Only, what makes you think he’ll talk to you?”
“He’ll talk to me.”
“Why, because your father is deputy superintendent?”
“That’s got nothing to do with anything.” She could feel Mitch’s eyes on her.
“How come you didn’t tell me about him?”
“Did you tell me about your people?”
“No,” he conceded. “No, I didn’t.”
“So why should I be telling you about mine? Besides, never mind about me. You’re the one who’s up now. Talk at me.”
“Not a chance,” he said, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “If I tell you what I know before you talk to Crowther, then I’m handing you my only leverage. You’ll have zero reason to fill me in.”
“Um, okay, our relationship is deteriorating by the second here…”
“We haven’t got a relationship-not when it comes to business. First you talk to Crowther. Then I’ll talk. For now, let’s just enjoy the scenery. Beautiful part of the country, isn’t it?”
Des promptly pulled over onto the shoulder and came to a stop, seething.
“Hey, isn’t this illegal unless it’s an emergency?”
“Oh, it’s an emergency, all right,” she said as they idled there, cars whizzing past them. “I’m about to call nine-one-one to come save your sorry ass.”
He grinned at her maddeningly. “You probably hear this all the time, but you’re really quite lovely when you’re angry.”
“Stop jamming me, doughboy!”
Mitch’s eyes widened. “Doughboy? Am I detecting a slight racial subtext here again?”
“What you’re detecting is your face on the verge of coming into full frontal contact with my fist!”
“Lieutenant, I’m just trying to do my job,” he explained patiently. “It’s not a nice job. I know that. Reporters are not nice people. I know that, too. But this story is something I need to do in order to get this horrible nightmare out of my system. You can understand that, can’t you?”
“Maybe I can,” Des allowed, studying him. “But I have to tell you-I liked you a whole lot better back when you were… what did you call yourself, mildew?”
“I think the word I used was fungus. And that makes us even.”
“Is that right? How so?”
“I prefer you as a starving artist. So let’s just call it a draw, okay?”
“You can call it whatever you damned please. To me, you’re nothing but a raw dog now-somebody’s who’s strictly out for himself. But I’m fine with it. These eyes are wide open.” She resumed driving, her eyes on the road, back straight, both hands gripping the wheel.
Neither of them spoke for a long while.
It was Mitch who finally broke the quiet. They were in Rhode Island by then. “Okay, maybe I overplayed my hand a little,” he conceded.
“No maybe.”
“Then again, maybe you’re just trying to make me feel guilty so I’ll show you the cards I’m playing.”
She let that one slide on by. Just drove. And waited.
“Allright, I’m playing the Fibonacci Series,” he finally revealed.
Des furrowed her brow at him. “Wait, wait… That was the name of the picture hanging on your wall, wasn’t it? The one with all of those lines.”
He nodded. “My wife’s design plan. It’s a variation of the Golden Section-one of the basic systems of proportion dating back to antiquity.”
“Mitch, why are you talking at me about geometry?”
“I’m not talking at you about geometry, Lieutenant,” he said quietly. “I’m talking at you about people.”
And with that Mitch Berger shut down on her, same as he had the first time she interviewed him in his carriage house. She would get no more out of him. Not now, anyway.
Damn, what was he talking about?
At Hope Valley Des got off I-95 and onto Route 138, a two-lane rural road that snaked its way through low, fertile farm country before it hit Narragansett Bay. A bridge took them over its narrow West Passage to Jamestown, where the tollbooths for the Newport Bridge were. It took them out over the bay’s broad East Passage and into Newport, the scruffy colonial seaport that New York robber barons had turned into their summer playground at the end of the nineteenth century. These days, yachters were drawn to its marinas. Tourists came to gawk at the gargantuan Bellevue Avenue mansions and to stroll the historic waterfront, where the streets were narrow and the traffic impossible.
Des turned right at the bottom of the exit ramp and followed the signs for downtown Newport, passing in between two vast cemeteries before she turned right onto America’s Cup Avenue. Her destination was the Doubletree Inn out on Goat Island, an old naval installation that was situated out in the harbor across from Market Square. The Goat Island connector road was just past Bridge Street. There was a small park at the mouth of the connector road. Benches overlooked the shipyard and the neighboring district of immaculately restored three-hundred-year-old houses that fronted on Washington Street.
Des glanced at her watch. It was just past twelve-thirty.
“I can find the Black Pearl from here on foot,” Mitch said. “I’ll be waiting for you there, spoon in hand.”
She pulled over at the park and rolled down her window. The breeze was cool and tangy with the scent of the bay. Soft gray clouds were beginning to form in the western sky beyond the Rose Island lighthouse.
“Look, I owe you one,” she said. “I’m sorry I called you doughboy.”
“Not to worry, I’m a pro. It won’t affect our negotiations.”
“That’s not why I’m sorry.”
He gazed at her curiously. “Just exactly how often do you get that angry?”
“Never. Well, almost never.”
“That’s too bad.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because the next time it happens I just might have to kiss you. I really don’t think I’ll be able to stop myself.” He opened his door now, smiling at her brightly. “Good luck, Lieutenant. I hope the superintendent is in a talkative mood today. In fact, I hope he can’t keep his mouth shut.” Then Mitch Berger slammed the car door shut and went gallumphing off down Washington Street in the direction of the wharves.
Des watched him go, feeling as if she’d just been plunged headlong into one of her recurring bad dreams, the one where she suddenly found herself boarding an airplane without any luggage or even any idea where the plane was going or why she was getting on board.
But this was no dream. This was really happening. She and Mitch Berger. The two of them. Even though it made no sense. None.
He was more than three blocks away, nothing more than a distant blob on the sidewalk, before Des was able to stop shaking.
The Doubletree Inn was hunkered at the northernmost tip of Goat Island, the better to see Newport Harbor from. Apart from the awesome view, it was a standard issue convention hotel-fairly new, fairly big and about as charming as a military supply depot.
Des left her slicktop in a loading zone and went inside. The lobby was small and low-ceilinged. There was a piano bar. There was a gift shop. There were potted palms. A long corridor led to the ballrooms. She followed the arrows.
Registration tables were set up in the ballroom foyer, where a couple hundred lab rats from all over New England were milling around with soft drinks in their hands and name tags on their chests. Many of these forensic scientists were shes. The crime lab had long been considered law enforcement’s kitchen-it was okay for women to excel there. Once a year, they got together to network and to attend workshops on subjects like Capillary Electrophoresis Analysis and Headspace Gas Chromatography. Display booths had been set up in one of the ballrooms by the makers of lab microscopes and cameras.
Her timing was good. The annual awards luncheon had just let out.
The man himself was standing in the ballroom doorway in a navy-blue suit and gleaming black wingtips, shaking hands with the commonfolk and being charming. John Crowther was sixty, starched and straight-laced, a family man, a church-going man, a Brylcreem man. He was very good at being charming. He was also good at being open-minded, approachable and caring. In reality, he was none of these things. He was a mean, vindictive son of a bitch, a consummate political in-fighter, a man who was always on his toes, ready to deliver a punishing blow. He was also known to be someone with his eye on the governor’s mansion.
When he spotted Des standing there on the edge of the crowd, he welcomed her warmly. Introduced her around. Then steered her smoothly away from the others and murmured, “I’ve been expecting you, Lieutenant.”
“You have?” she said, surprised. “Why is that?”
“You’re Buck Mitry’s daughter, that’s why,” he replied, the politician’s public smile never leaving his narrow, rather pinched face. “You’ve been knocked off of your horse. You don’t like it. Not one bit. Neither would the Deacon. Although I’d be willing to wager my entire pension plan that he doesn’t know you’re here. And, believe me, I have one helluva pension plan.”
“Sir, the reason I am is that we have to-”
“Not here!” he cautioned her, waving at the conventioneers as he led Des across the foyer and away from them.
The superintendent found the two of them an empty banquet room and shut the door behind him, immediately dropping the smile and the charm. “I know perfectly well why you’re here, Lieutenant,” he said to her brusquely. “And I have nothing to tell you. Not one thing.”
“You don’t have to tell me anything, sir,” Des said. “Tal Bliss did-before he shot himself.”
Superintendent Crowther stared into her eyes, long and hard. “You wouldn’t be wearing a wire, would you?”
“Of course not.”
He raised his chin at her imperiously, looking her up and down. “I shouldn’t think you’d be transmitting. You’d need backup, and if there’s a soul who’s more alone at this moment I can’t imagine it. But if I were you I’d certainly have considered a tape recorder.” She had. “Not that I’d be that stupid.” She wasn’t. “Still, I’m going to have to pat you down, young lady,” he concluded with steely resolve.
“That’s fine, sir.” She removed the lightweight navy blazer she was wearing and held her arms out to her side. “You go right ahead and pat.”
He checked over her blazer first, expertly inspecting the lapels, the pockets and the lining. Then he started in on her, carefully turning back the collar and placket of her blouse, his fingers probing her stomach, her sides, the small of her back, the waistband of her slacks, her thighs, calves, ankles. He searched her scalp and dreadlocks as if he were checking her for head lice-all the while staring deeply and coldly into her eyes. Des stared straight ahead, her gaze neutral. West Point had trained her well for this particular head game. She could tolerate this, although she could barely breathe and her heart was pounding so hard she was positive he could hear it in the sound-proofed silence of the banquet room.
His own eyes were eerily opaque and dead. The superintendent never so much as blinked.
Finding nothing, he handed her back her blazer and said, “You’re running a bluff, Lieutenant. Bliss told you nothing about what happened on Big Sister Island thirty years ago.”
“I wish that were the case, sir. But it’s not.”
He turned a dining chair around and sat down at one of the bare banquet tables, swatting at a scrap of harvest-gold carpet lint on his knee. He took out a pack of Parliaments and lit one with a disposable lighter, inhaling it deeply.
“There’s no smoking in here.” Des motioned to the sign over the door.
“Arrest me, why don’t you.” He glanced around for an ashtray. Finding none, he flicked his ash on the carpet. “Go ahead, then,” he said impatiently. “Say what you came to say.”
Des took a seat. She was not the world’s most gifted natural-born con artist, so she had prepared her pitch carefully. “What Tal Bliss told me,” she began in a low, steady voice, “is that when he arrived at the murder scene, young Dolly Peck was seated on the stairs. She was sobbing uncontrollably. She was incoherent. And she was clutching that shotgun in her own two hands.”
Superintendent Crowther said nothing to this. Merely sat there puffing on his cigarette and watching her, the light from the ballroom’s chandeliers gleaming off his shiny, stay-put hair. His eyes remained utterly expressionless.
Des plunged ahead: “Bliss told me he took the shotgun away from her and positioned it in Roy Weems’s dead hands so it would look like Roy shot himself. Which was exactly how it went down-even though that wasn’t what happened. It was really Dolly who killed Roy. The bastard raped her and she shot him for it, right there in his soiled bed. His wife, Louisa, was working in the main house. She came running when she heard the gunshot. And when she came up those stairs Dolly shot her, too.” Des halted for a reaction out of the superintendent. Still nothing. But he didn’t deny it. Not any of it. “You walked into a real, first-class mess, sir. Dolly should have gone down for their murders. Well, maybe not Roy’s. Maybe that was self-defense. But Louisa? Not a chance. The reality, however, was that Roy and Louisa Weems had no chance. They were yankees. Dolly was an ambassador’s daughter. A rich, troubled girl who was clearly headed for a good long stay at a mental hospital no matter what you did. So you tidied up their mess for them. There was no mention about finding her prints on the gun. No mention of conducting any kind of a test to determine whether she had fired that gun. Even the matter of her rape was kept sealed. You simply let her go, even though you knew she did it. Everyone knew.”
Superintendent Crowther took one last pull on his cigarette before he ground the butt out against the heel of his shoe. He laid it on the table and clasped his hands together in his lap, raising an eyebrow at her. “What do you want from me, Lieutenant?”
“The truth, sir. That’s all.”
He let out a grim laugh. “The truth? I’ve been in law enforcement for thirty-five years, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that the truth is whatever someone wants it to be. O. J. Simpson was telling the truth when he said he was busy practicing chip shots on his front lawn while someone else was cutting up Nicole and Ron. Bill Clinton was telling the truth when he wagged his finger at us and told us he never had sexual relations with that Lewinsky woman. Did Dolly Peck kill Roy and Louisa Weems? You want the truth? Maybe she did. I don’t know. I never knew.”
“You put her back out on the street.”
“I did what I was told to do by the powers that be. I was a scared, confused kid, just like you are at this very minute. I’d just gotten married. I was living from paycheck to paycheck. And that girl was a Peck. I don’t have to tell you that the wealthy elite get treated differently than everyone else. For crying out loud, that’s how they stay the wealthy elite.”
“How tight were you and Tal Bliss?”
He glanced at her curiously now. “Why, what did he say about it?”
“That you weren’t.”
“Then why ask me about it?”
“He became a state trooper when he got back from ‘Nam, that’s why.”
“Well, it wasn’t any kind of a payoff, if that’s where you’re heading,” he said. “Tal was bright and competent and they were happy to have him. I did try to offer him my counsel on occasion. To me, he was wasting his time as a resident trooper. But he ignored me. The job in Dorset was all he ever wanted.”
For the simplest of reasons, Des reflected. So he could look after Dolly.
“Let’s stop dancing around, Lieutenant,” Superintendent Crowther blustered, abruptly seizing back the conversation. “Who else knows about this story Bliss supposedly told you?”
“No one.”
“The Deacon?”
“No one.”
“Internal Affairs?”
“No one.”
“You came right to me?”
“I came right to you.”
“Okay, here’s what I believe, Lieutenant,” he said. “I believe that you’re either incredibly smart or incredibly stupid. Because your handling of this case is presently under investigation by I.A. And one word from me that you’ve shown up here, peppering me with wild accusations, and you will no longer be in the employ of the Connecticut State Police.” He paused, stroking his chin thoughtfully. “I like to think I know your father pretty well. And he’s not stupid. So I’m going to give you the benefit of your genes. I’m figuring that you’ve come directly to me because you want to cut a deal. You’re thinking I’ll be grateful to you-so grateful I’ll somehow help you out of this mess that you presently find yourself in. Does that about cover it?”
Des said nothing to that.
Crowther narrowed his eyes at her piercingly. “Then again, this could all be a scam on your part. You climbing way, way out on a shaky limb. And me sitting right here with a chain saw in my hand. Which is it, young lady?”
“I’m trying to find out who killed Torry Mordarski, Niles Seymour and Tuck Weems,” she answered quietly.
“Tal Bliss killed them,” Crowther said easily. “It’s clear. It’s clean. It’s closed. Why can’t you accept it, Lieutenant? I have. Everyone has.”
“I can’t accept it because if Dolly murdered those two people thirty years ago she may have murdered again. And if Tal Bliss knew that, he may have taken his own life to protect hers.”
“I don’t buy it,” he said dismissively. “That’s too high a price for anyone to pay.”
“He would have paid it. He’d loved Dolly since he was eight years old. If it meant shutting down my investigation, I have no doubt that he would have paid it. None.”
Crowther got up out of his chair and began to pace around the room with his hands in his pockets, distractedly jangling his coins and keys. He finally came to a stop, gazing at her sternly. “Do you want to know what I think?”
“Yessir, I do.”
“I think I’m not going to tell anybody we had this conversation. I think you’re a good officer who got a raw deal. And I think this flap with I.A. will blow over. In fact, I’m prepared to guarantee it will.”
Outwardly, Des’s expression remained guarded and serious. Inwardly, she was doing cartwheels. Because she wasn’t wrong. Not about any of it.
“When it does,” he went on, “I want you reassigned to my team. Politically, it will be good for both of us. I can help your career. And you can help me in the minority community. You come across very well. You’re an extremely telegenic, well-spoken young lady. I especially like your hair.”
“You do?” Des absolutely could not believe they were talking about her hair.
“I do,” he said earnestly. “It conveys that you’re someone who’s new and modern. Someone who understands what’s going on out there.” Now the superintendent smiled at her tightly, as if it were causing him great pain. Possibly, it was. “So you see, Lieutenant, where the rubber hits the road, we both want the same things.”
“Do we?” she asked him challengingly.
He narrowed his eyes at her again. “Don’t we?”
“I really don’t know, sir. Because I don’t believe this case is closed. I believe the murderer’s still out there, walking around. And I believe you know it, too. And that’s the part I will never, ever be able to accept.”
Now Superintendent Crowther glared at her, a vein in his temple beginning to bulge. “Let me spell something out for you, Lieutenant,” he said in a low, menacing voice. “If you’re not my friend you’re my enemy. And you don’t ever want me for an enemy. Do you understand?”
“Perfectly. Thank you for your candor, sir. And your time. Good day.” Des started for the door.
“Where do you think you’re going, young lady? We’re not done talking-!”
She left him there in that banquet room. She didn’t stop. She didn’t look back. She just marched back down the long corridor to the lobby with her head held high. She was elated. She was smiling. She was definitely smiling.
But the hair would absolutely have to go.
“Awesome move on your part,” Mitch Berger said admiringly as he sat there across the table from Des, hunched over his soup. “You’ve got Dolly for the Weems killings. You’ve got the head guy of the entire state police admitting to a thirty-year-old cover-up. This is major stuff. There’s only one problem with it.”
“What’s that?” she demanded.
He reached for a hunk of bread and tore into it, chewing with his mouth open. “Dolly didn’t kill Niles Seymour or Torry Mordarski or Tuck Weems. I’m positive.”
The Black Pearl was on Bannister’s Wharf in what had once been a sail loft. There was a formal dining room called the Commodore’s Room. And there was the casual and boisterous tavern, where she’d found Mitch slurping up his third bowl of fragrant New England clam chowder, a napkin tucked into the collar of his shirt. When the man ate soup he sounded remarkably like a drain unstopping. There was a huge basket of bread and a schooner of beer in front of him. He seemed positively starved.
Des ordered coffee when the waitress appeared.
Mitch was aghast. “No chowder? You’ve got to have the chowder. It’s a sacrilege not to. Tell her it’s a sacrilege,” he commanded the waitress.
“You’ll go straight to hell, honey,” said the waitress, nodding.
“Just coffee,” said Des.
The waitress went off to get it.
Mitch peered at her across the table. “You don’t eat when you’re tense, am I right?”
She nodded reluctantly.
“Me, I eat like crazy. Which I guess explains why you look the way you do and I look the way I do. This is a big difference between us.”
“Well, what do you know-we found one,” said Des, wondering how he’d look if she cleaned him up. Say, three months on the treadmill. No between-meal snacks, a decent set of threads, proper haircut… Then what would she have?
An average-looking white man who’s hungry all the time, that’s what.
When her coffee came she took a sip, shaking her head at him. “If Dolly Seymour isn’t our killer, then why did Tal Bliss go and kill himself?”
“For the very reason you gave,” Mitch answered. “He was afraid that you’d unearth the truth about Dolly murdering Tuck’s parents. He took his own life so as to short-circuit your investigation. That much is true. But there’s much more to it than that. A boatload more.
“What are you telling me-that Bliss did kill them?”
“Yes and no.”
“Man, don’t talk at me in riddles.”
“It’s like I was telling you-it all comes back to the Fibonacci Series.”
“And don’t you start gas-facing me about geometry either, because I am so trying not to hear that.”
“You have to hear it,” Mitch insisted. “It’s a law. Not your kind of law, but a fundamental principle of proportion based upon-”
“I know, I know. The Golden Section. Which is…?”
“Which is a line that’s divided such that the lesser portion is to the greater as the greater is to the whole.”
“Which means…?”
“The Fibonacci Series is an algebraic variation in which each number represents the sum of the two preceding numbers. So instead of counting out one, two, three, four, five, you count out one, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen, twenty-one and so on. Get it?”
Des thought about this long and hard before she said, “No, Mitch. I don’t.”
“Okay, here it is,” he explained. “Two men acting together are capable of doing something that’s twice as heinous as a man who is acting alone. When you add a third man you’re not just adding another player. You’re ratcheting up the disease quotient-each man’s capacity for evil represents the sum total of the previous players combined. Add a fourth and you’re taking a quantum leap over into the dark side. Add a fifth and you’ve got yourself a lynch mob. It’s a law of human nature, Lieutenant. It explains the insanity of mob rule. It explains the atrocities of war. And it explains what happened on Big Sister Island. Hell, it’s the only way this whole crazy thing does make any sense.”
She gaped at him in disbelief. “You’re saying that every man on Big Sister was in on it, is that it?”
“And Tuck Weems, too. Don’t forget Tuck-he played a very valuable role.” Mitch paused to take a gulp of his beer, swiping at his mouth with the back of his hand. “We can exclude Evan. He wouldn’t have fingered Bliss as the man who locked me in the crawl space if he had played any part in this. And we can for sure eliminate Dolly, Bitsy and Mandy. This was strictly a guy thing. The ultimate act of male chauvinism, if you stop and think about it. They felt Dolly was too fragile and misguided to make the right choice, so they made it for her. Are you with me so far?”
“I wouldn’t say I’m with you,” Des said doubtfully. “But I’m listening.”
Mitch leaned forward in his chair, his eyes gleaming at her. “Okay, here’s what we know. We know that Bud Havenhurst hated Niles Seymour for stealing Dolly away. We know that Red Peck, her big brother, hated Niles because he was a low-class con man who roughed her up-and wanted to build condos on Big Sister. Jamie Devers hated him for killing Evan’s dog, not to mention his constant gay-bashing. And Tal Bliss wanted him gone because he wanted Dolly for himself. It was he who recruited Tuck Weems, a man who had already threatened to kill Niles for beating up on Dolly.”
“But why would Tuck come rushing to her defense?” Des objected. “Dolly’s the one who murdered his parents.”
“For which he was exceedingly grateful,” Mitch countered. “Tuck hated his parents. His father was abusive. His mother was an alcoholic. The only real structure in his life was Tal Bliss. They’d been best friends since they were kids. Totally inseparable. Did you know that?”
“No, but so what?”
“We’ll call our boys the Fab Five-better that than the Garbagemen, which is what they were. Together, they took it upon themselves to rid Big Sister Island of a man who they regarded as utter human garbage. Alone, not one of them had the nerve or the cunning to pull it off. As a group, they were able to achieve staggering heights.”
Their waitress came by now to refill Des’s coffee. Des stared down into her cup, her head spinning. “Um, okay, how do you know this, Mitch?”
“Because it’s what happened. That’s how I know it.”
“That’s not even close to good enough. You have to give me a reason to believe.”
“Not a problem,” he said easily. “Let’s play it out, starting with Torry’s married boyfriend, this shadowy Stan person who none of her friends ever saw. We’ve been supposing all along that Stan and Niles Seymour were one and the same. And that’s exactly what we were supposed to think. It’s what they told us to think. Jamie told me that Niles told him he had a girlfriend in Meriden. Bam, we immediately jumped to the conclusion that the girlfriend was Torry. Bud and Red told me they saw Niles and Torry together at the Saybrook Point Inn. Bam, we assumed that they in fact had. Why wouldn’t we? Even though, as you may recall, I said I thought it seemed like a very odd place for a married man to stash his girlfriend.”
“Agreed. Way too public. Only, she was there.”
“I know that,” Mitch acknowledged. “But no one from the hotel ever saw her and Niles together. All we have is the word of Bud and Red.”
“And you’re saying they made it up?”
“Exactly.”
“Why would they do that?”
“To make us believe that Niles was dating Torry, that’s why. He wasn’t. It wasn’t Niles who they saw there with her. Niles never even knew the woman. Niles wasn’t Stan.”
“So who was-Tal Bliss?”
Mitch shook his head. “No, no. He was pathologically shy with women. Dorset’s resident cocksman, according to Sheila Enman, was none other than Tuck Weems. Tuck had the midas touch when it came to women. He was Stan. He had to be, if you stop and think about it. Jamie’s a former child star. Too recognizable. Also gay. Red is away too much. And Bud has a jealous, psychotic wife. That leaves Tuck. That’s why he was recruited-to seduce an unsuspecting girl from some low-rent town far enough away from Dorset that no one would connect her death up with Niles Seymour’s disappearance.”
Des considered this a moment, recalling how Tuck’s young live-in love, Darleen, had admitted that he wasn’t always home nights. “Keep talking.”
Mitch continued: “Their plot was put in motion when Tuck, who now had Torry good and hooked, asked her to check into the Saybrook Point Inn. She paid cash, per his instructions, and used a fake driver’s license. Thus enabling the Fab Five to cover their tracks. That’s why he had her wear the red wig, too. Poor Torry probably just thought it was good, kinky fun.”
“Wait, pull over a minute. Why go to so much trouble? Why not just pretend they saw her?”
“Because they wanted documented evidence that Niles had abandoned Dolly for another woman,” Mitch replied. “That way Dolly could begin divorce proceedings immediately. Otherwise her case might drag on through the courts for years. His relatives might come crawling out of the woodwork… No, no-the so-called other woman had to exist. They needed a disposable Jezebel. Someone like Torry who the law would simply write off as a borderline hooker who got what girls like that get.” Mitch paused to take another gulp of his beer. “And it all worked like a charm. As far as the world knew, Niles Seymour had run off with another woman. Meanwhile, your investigation of Torry Mordarski’s murder…”
“Went nowhere,” Des admitted grudgingly.
“Exactly. But what they hadn’t counted on was the X-factor-me digging up Niles’s body. When that happened they were screwed, because they’d used the same gun to kill both of them… But wait, I’m getting ahead of the plot. How do you like it so far?”
“I think it sounds like just exactly that,” she replied skeptically. “A plot. As in one of your movies. As in not real.”
“Oh, it’s real, all right,” Mitch insisted, rubbing his hands together eagerly. “Now, then, the Fab Five were good and thorough. When Niles ‘disappeared’ they made it look as convincing as possible. They left Dolly the infamous Dear John letter. They ordered plane tickets for two. They parked Niles’s car at the airport. Bud liquidated Dolly’s accounts-supposedly to protect them from Niles-thereby making their case seem all the more convincing. Tuck Weems disposed of Torry, I suspect. And Tal Bliss tidied up the crime scene for him. Who better to make sure that it was spotless than an actual state trooper? Then they sat back and congratulated themselves on a job well done. They had pulled off an elaborate, carefully planned operation to rid themselves of the most odious man they had ever come in contact with. Everyone, most especially Dolly, thought Niles had left town. Only he hadn’t. He was buried right there on Big Sister. Don’t ask me which one of them shot him. I don’t know. I only know that they would have gotten away with it if Dolly hadn’t suddenly decided to take on a tenant. That was strictly her doing. They tried to talk her out of it. Even tried to scare me half to death. But they failed. And you know the rest of the story.”
“The hell I do,” Des said. “Why did they kill Tuck Weems?”
“Maybe he was wracked by guilt,” Mitch suggested. “Maybe he genuinely cared about Torry. I do know that he was very, very tightly wrapped. And getting tighter by the day. I wouldn’t be surprised if he just plain lost it when Niles’s body was found. Bud certainly did-he suddenly had to account for why he’d raided Dolly’s accounts. Maybe Tuck threatened to tell Dolly what really happened. Or even to go to the law. And so they had to kill him. That job no doubt fell on Tal Bliss’s shoulders. Bliss met his old friend down at the beach. Got him so drunk that he wouldn’t feel any pain. And their secret died with him. Everything was cool. Until, that is, you started moving in on Bliss. He couldn’t handle it. The guilt. The shame. The suspicion and scrutiny that would fall upon Dolly. So he shot himself, thereby letting Bud, Red and Jamie off the hook. Except they’re not. We’re on to them.” Mitch grinned at her now. “Well, say something, will you? Take your best shot. Go for it.”
“Straight up, it’s a sweet theory, Mitch,” she said slowly. “It plays. But it’s not nearly enough to go on. I mean, you can’t prove any of it.”
“I know that,” he acknowledged. “That’s why I’m taking steps.”
“Steps? What kind of steps?”
“Ever hear of a movie called I Saw What You Did?”
Des let out a groan. “Oh, God, I have a feeling I’m really not going to like this.”
“No, no. Everything’s cool. Really. It was a grade-Z black-and-white thriller that William Castle made back in ’sixty-five with John Ireland and a somewhat cadaverous Joan Crawford. Budget of about twelve dollars. Serious shlock. Although, interestingly enough, the screenplay was by William McGivern, the novelist who wrote The Big Heat. Which was made into the movie where Lee Marvin threw the pot of coffee in Gloria Graham’s face, remember?”
“Man, if you don’t get to the point, and fast, I am going to get way ugly!”
“Okay, okay-what happens is these two teenage girls are home one night making harmless prank phone calls. They pick numbers out of the book at random, call people up and say ‘I saw what you did.’ And then hang up giggling, right?”
“Right…”
“Only, by accident, they happen to call a guy who has just murdered his wife. And he totally freaks out because he thinks they saw him do it. And he comes after them to shut them up. Neat idea, right?”
“Right…”
“In my case, I go with a note. Something simple and direct: I am on to you. I slide it under each of their doors. They freak out. They come after me, thereby showing their hand, and, bam, we’ve got ’em. Perfect, right?”
Des peered across the table at him. “Okay, I’ve really got to nail something down here right now.”
“Not a problem. Go right ahead.”
“Are you goofing on me or what?”
Mitch seemed startled by her question. “I’m being totally serious. Why would you think I’m goofing on you?”
“Because this is real life, not a freaking movie!” Des cried out. Heads at nearby tables immediately turned. She lowered her voice. Or at least she tried to. “You can tell the difference, can’t you? Because they have a technical term for people who can’t-they’re called meshugah!”
“It’ll work,” he insisted stubbornly.
“Mitch, it’s a bad idea.”
“It’s the only way.”
“Mitch, forget it.”
“I’m really sorry you feel that way, Lieutenant.” He ran a hand over his face. He suddenly looked terribly concerned. “You see, I already did it. I’ve set the wheels in motion.”
“You what?!” Out of control. Her life was truly spinning out of control. “When?!”
“Last night,” he replied, swallowing. “Right after we spoke on the phone. I put notes under each of their doors. Anyone who’s innocent will have no idea what it means. Anyone who’s guilty is probably plotting my demise at this very minute.”
“My God,” she gasped. “You are insane.”
“No, I’m not,” he said with quiet determination. “I just happen to like Big Sister. These guys have done something truly awful out there. And they’ve ruined your career. And I don’t think they should get away with it. Any of it.”
“And what if they actually try to kill you?” Des demanded. “Have you given any thought to what happens then?”
“Of course. You’ll arrest them. I have total confidence in you.”
Des took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Mitch, I want you to listen to me very, very carefully. What you’re proposing falls under the legal heading of entrapment. Anything I learned under such circumstances would be considered inadmissable in a court of law. A judge would drop-kick it right out the door. And me with it. I cannot have anything to do with this. I am already under investigation by Internal Affairs. If I am even remotely associated with such a loony-toons stunt, my career in law enforcement will be over and out.”
“And you’ll have to concentrate on your art, instead. Worse things could happen.”
“That’s my decision to make. It’s my career, my art and my life!”
“And I’m not trying to run your life, Lieutenant. Honestly, I’m just trying to help.”
“Why, damn it? Why are you doing all of this? I mean, how did I get to be so lucky?”
“Because Lacy was right,” he explained.
“Who in the hell is Lacy?!”
“My editor. She was positive I’d met someone. I was positive she was wrong. But she wasn’t. I had met someone. And that someone was you.”
All of the air went right out of Des’s body. She was speechless, her mouth dry, her heart racing so fast that she felt light-headed.
“I wanted to see you again,” he continued. “I wanted to get to know you better. Frankly, this all seemed to me like a perfect convergence of priorities.”
She reached for her coffee and took a sip, wondering if he could see how her hand was trembling. “If you wanted to see me again why didn’t you just ask me out?”
“You mean like on a date?”
“What I’m talking about.”
“Would you have said yes?”
“Well, no…”
“There, you see? My point exactly.”
“But there are ways for sane adults to behave, Mitch. And this isn’t one of them. This is not some old Preston Surtees movie-”
“Sturges. It’s Preston Sturges.”
“Shut up! You can’t just go around throwing yourself in front of a moving car because you want to get busy with the driver.” She shook her head at him disapprovingly. “Man, I am so not happy that I ever met you.”
“That’s the nicest thing anyone has said to me in a long time,” he said, beaming at her proudly. At that particular moment, Des felt quite sure she knew exactly what he’d looked like when he was a round little boy with grape jam all over his face.
“Why didn’t you check with me before you did this?” she asked him. “You should have checked with me.”
“You’re absolutely right,” he acknowledged readily. “Next time I’ll check with you.”
“There isn’t going to be any next time, fool! Not if you’re right-they are going to kill you!”
“Will you watch my back for me?” he asked her imploringly. “Will you be there for me.?”
“I just told you-I can’t! You know I can’t!”
“All I know is you have two choices,” Mitch Berger said to her in a low, grim voice. “You can say yes or you can say no. Which is it going to be, Lieutenant?”