Idyll Threats (8 page)

“She seemed fine. She bought Pop Rocks and a Coke. They used to say that if you ate them at the same time, you'd explode. She said she was going to take a big risk.”

“You're sure she was joking about the candy?” Revere asked.

“Sure. What else would she be talking about?” He pushed his lower lip out. The resemblance to a chimp was uncanny.

“Did she say anything about this friend she was meeting?” I asked. “A name? Maybe she said ‘he' or ‘she'?”

“I don't think so. I asked if she was headed out for the night or if she was going home, and she said she was meeting a friend. I told her to have a good night.”

I leaned forward. “Donny, why didn't you mention this? We've been asking everyone to come forward with any information they have.”

His eyes started up like a pinball again. “I don't pay much attention to the news. I didn't know she was dead until this morning.”

“But you didn't call us when you realized.”

Mr. Browning said, “Donny sold her a soda. I don't think he thought that was going to help you find a killer.” He glanced at the walls, then down at his wrist. Checking the time. I'd had the men remove the large school clock from the wall my first week here. I liked to keep the men deposited in here guessing about the time, about how much they had left as free men.

“Your son is the last person we know who saw Cecilia North alive. You think that's irrelevant?”

“I think you should be looking for this woman's friend, the one she was meeting.”

“The one we wouldn't have known about if we hadn't talked to Donny.” Not exactly true. But he didn't know that. None of them did.

“I think he's told you everything he knows.” Mr. Browning looked at his briefcase. His small supply of patience was nearly spent.

“Do you know any kids who hang out on the golf course?” I asked. Donny looked at his father, then away. “Do you?”

“No,” he said, fast. Too fast?

I left some breathing room for him to elaborate. He didn't, so I asked, “Do you know anyone who owns a gun?”

His eyes got skittish and he tapped the table. “Do you?” I repeated.

“Dad,” Donny said. His voice crept toward a whine.

Revere said, “Do you know who killed Cecilia North?”

That took everyone aback. Donny recovered first. “No.” He bit a fingernail.

“We're through here,” Mr. Browning said. “My son answered your questions. I'm going to take him to his place now.” His place. So they didn't live together.

Donny took his cap from the table and followed his father from the room, eyes glued to the carpet. “Interesting,” Revere said.

“Wasn't it?”

We exited the room to find Mrs. Dunsmore waiting, arms crossed. You could lose a dime in her frown lines. “I just saw Douglas Browning,” she said. It sounded like an accusation.

“His son, Donny, saw Cecilia North the night she died,” I said.

“Watch out for Mr. Browning. He's a big-time lawyer. Sued the town years ago. Claimed building permits were being blocked unfairly. Got a quarter of a million dollars. Bankrupted the town and moved his family away.”

“So he's not popular?”

“Not here. But it's best to stay on his good side. Assuming he's got one.”

“Hmm. Any word on when the carpenter is coming?”

“Carpenter? What carpenter?” she asked.

“The one who's supposed to swap the nameplate on my door.” When I'd arrived in mid-January, I was informed that changing the nameplate required the town carpenter. Forms to be filed, work orders to be placed. Mrs. Dunsmore filled out the forms and orders. I wondered if she'd even obtained the forms.

“He's working at Town Hall this week.” She didn't miss a beat.

Unlike the rest of us. God, if Revere hadn't pounded the pavement, we'd still be wondering where Cecilia went between the time she left her parents' house and wound up dead. And they still didn't know about the cabin. I bit my cheek. Ouch.

In my office, tilted back in my chair, I contemplated options. How to get them to the cabin. Call in a tip? Or cut out the middleman?
Leave a pink slip on Wright's desk, saying Cecilia had been seen at the cabin. He wouldn't check who took the tip call until he'd swept the cabin. My gut rumbled. Manufacturing evidence. Did I want to start down that path?

“Needs must,” my gran used to say when I'd complain about chores.

I used the phrase on rookies, years later, when they'd moan about having to interview a drunk whose pants stank of his own filth. “Needs must,” I'd say, and the men would laugh and say, “Ah, lay a little more of that Irish wisdom on us.”

I missed that camaraderie, the quick laughter at jokes heard a hundred times. Idyll wasn't friendly despite the locals' insistence to the contrary. Newcomers were subject to suspicion. And I had secrets to guard. I didn't trust my men here to keep them. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

I could put the pink slip on a desk before any of them arrived tomorrow.

Needs must.

I breathed hard and sharp through my nose as I crunched up, turned to the right, punched fast. Back down to the floor, inhaling through my mouth. Crunch up and to the left. Two more punches in sync to a sharp exhale. Sometimes, when my brain got stuck in a revolving door, I'd work it loose with exercise. My gut was feeling it. My brain remained mired, like those animals that got trapped in tar pits and turned to fossils. I crunched down and up. I wasn't a fossil yet. I sat up and shook my head. A drop of sweat spun off my hair to the carpet. Time for push-ups.

Rick had challenged me to a push-up contest two weeks into our partnership. I laughed, sure he wasn't serious. “What you afraid of, Sasquatch? Losing?” he'd asked. I'd checked the room to see if there was some joke I didn't get. Nearby, Detective Lee shrugged. So, after more taunts from Rick, I'd agreed to set my hands on the less-than-clean linoleum and complete a set of push-ups until one of us gave out. The son of a bitch had surprised me. His arms were wiry and he fought for it, but eventually he'd collapsed, cheek to the floor, and had said, “Christ, were you a Marine?” And I'd kept doing reps, just to show what a good sport I was. When I'd stopped, he'd given me his hand and helped pull me up. “Guess that makes you the muscle,” he'd said, his smile revealing a chipped tooth. “That makes me the brains.” And he'd insisted on buying me a soda, which was the traditional prize awarded in the station. The prize for closing a stone-cold case or for winning the March Madness pool. Always a goddam can of soda from the wheezy, tilted vending machine.

I stopped, my elbows bent, stomach quaking. A soda can. I'd seen soda cans inside the cabin the night I'd tried to hook up with Leo Wilton, where I'd met Cecilia North. She'd bought a soda that night. One of the cans could be hers. Could have prints. Could put her at the scene. I pushed myself up and toward the shower. If I hurried, I could make it into the station before the others. And fake a note pointing them to the cabin.

A half hour later, I sat behind my desk. My office plant stood at attention as I tried my hand at forgery, again. This was my eighth attempt at replicating the floral script of our tips line coordinator, Joanne. I botched the victim's name, making the C's spike too hard. No good. Checked my watch. Fuck. Wright would be at his desk in twenty minutes. A knock at my door. Damn it. I fanned my folders over my handiwork and said, “Come in.” Billy entered, looking all of sixteen years old.

“Hi, Chief. I heard about the videotape.”

I expected half the town knew by now.

“And?” I pinched the skin between my thumb and finger, trying to stave off the headache I felt at the base of my skull, its tendrils squeezing my nerves.

“Is there anything I can do?” he asked. “To help?”

No, unless…“You know where Cumberland Farms is. Where might Cecilia go from there? If she was meeting someone and wanted to keep it private?”

His face crinkled in thought. God, if I'd looked like him twenty years ago, I'd have brought the West Village to its knees.

He said, “There's the railroad museum. And the woods by the golf course.”

“Anywhere else?”
Come on
, I thought. He had to know.

“The cabin by Hought's Pond.”

“Hought's Pond?” Did my voice sound anxious?

“Yeah. It's between Cumberland's and the golf course, but the woods are closer.”

“I thought they were going to tear the cabin down?”

Billy relaxed against the door. “They've been saying that for years.
It belongs to the Sutters. Well, the son now that his parents passed. But he lives in California. The town's been all over him to fix the cabin or demolish it, but he says he has fond memories of it. Doesn't want to spend the money, more like. And he's got the town over a barrel because they want him to leave the farm as is.”

“Really? Why?” Its lonely pastures and sinking barn gave me the creeps.

“They think it looks old-timey. And they don't want shiny, new condos on the land. It would ruin the whole Idyll Days image.”

“I see. Why don't you check the railroad museum? We know she bought a Coke and some Pop Rocks. See if you find any trace of 'em near the museum. You know how to bag evidence?” He got red, remembering his crime-scene massacre. He nodded. “I'll take a look at the cabin.”

“Should I radio you if I find something?” he asked.

“No. Just bring it in.” It was a fool's errand. He'd find nothing of value, but he felt included, valuable. We both got something we wanted.

The cabin looked worse in daylight. It leaned toward the pond, as if drunk. Ivy crept through its sunken steps and twined around a front window that looked like a jagged tooth, only its bottom third of glass intact. I used my foot to open the door. A leaf skittered across the floor. Bottles, wrappers, condoms, and matchbooks littered the place. A charred section of wall showed where someone had played firebug. I looked for evidence of my last visit. There were faint smudges in the dust that could be partial footprints. I could sweep, erase any traces of myself, tamper with the crime scene, as Rick had done once. My mind seesawed.

“Where's the baggie?” I'd asked Rick. We'd gone through the crack house where Marshall Clements had died. Now it was time to submit our evidence. I couldn't find the baggie with white powder. Rick had grabbed it, though it was on my side of the scene.

“What?” He stretched like a cat in a puddle of sunlight.

“The baggie. You had it last.”

His eyes were blank, like a shark's. “Tommy, boy, I don't know what you're talking about.” He picked up his bags. Whistling as he walked away. The sunlight glinted off his copper hair. A golden boy.

I hadn't thought he'd tamper with evidence. His grandfather was awarded a Medal of Valor. He was a third-generation cop. It was his birthright. And now he was corrupting, from the inside out. And still my partner.

I massaged my eyes. Brought myself back from the past. Set my case down. I'd have to move around the cabin, but I wouldn't brush the floor. I couldn't. Rick had fallen prey to addiction, had briefly loved other things more than being a cop. I didn't.

There were two Coke cans. One under a window, the second by the door. I bagged both. I looked between squeaky, rotted floorboards and in filthy corners for the Pop Rocks or anything else that might indicate she'd been here. She hadn't carved her initials inside a heart on the wall. Unlike “JL + BG.” But under those initials I found a button. Small. White. She'd been wearing a T-shirt, so it wasn't hers. But her date had worn a dress shirt. Could he have lost a button?

I walked outside and breathed deeply. The air was wet. It felt like you could wring it out. Nearby, something splashed in the pond. I checked its edges again but found nothing but a fishing bobber riding shallow ripples. The sickly smell of the water, the cabin, knowing what I'd almost done there—I couldn't get away fast enough.

Back at the station, Billy presented me with five bags. One contained a Coke can so sun-bleached it had to be at least two years old.

I said, “I found some too. They look a bit fresher.”

He rubbed his forehead. “I didn't think it looked likely, but I figured that's not for me to decide.” He hesitated. I waited him out. “Her family's been asking me questions. About the case. I don't know what to tell them.” His face got hangdog.

I put my hand on his shoulder. “Look, I know it's not easy. Most police go their whole careers without having to work an investigation so close to them. I'm happy to pull you off.” I stepped back. Gave him time to consider it.

He didn't think long. “No. It's okay. I'll explain to the Norths that I can't talk to them.” He looked at his shoes and said, “The funeral is set for the eighteenth. They're waiting because Cecilia's grandmother is still recovering from surgery.”

The eighteenth. Five days from now.

“You, uh, got something.” He pointed to my shirt. I started to explain that it was a bloodstain from the autopsy, but then I recalled I'd dropped the jacket at Suds.

“What?” I looked at my shirt.

“You've got, um, hairs. Long ones.” He pointed. Hairs clung to my shirt. Too light and long to be mine. “Maybe you got them at the cabin.” The thought didn't cheer me. Nor did I buy it. I'd been careful at the cabin. Touching as little as possible.

“Or maybe it's your girlfriend's?” He smiled. Eager to hear all about her. He assumed I was straight. Small-town boy. Probably thought everyone he met was.

“Nope,” I said. I pulled the hairs from my shirt and dropped them above my waste bin. They floated slowly, as if reluctant to mingle with the trash. Long, blond hair. Maybe they came from Donna, courtesy of her dye bottle. She got awful close, when opportunity allowed.

Billy left. I shoved aside a folder of parking citations to make way for a report form and found the autopsy folder. My finger stabbed the intercom button. Mrs. Dunsmore was in for it. Hiding vital reports under busywork? Shit. It wasn't her fault. My finger released the button. This morning, I'd pushed the folders around when Billy had come in. Trying to hide my false tip. I'd buried the report. I kicked my desk. Welcomed the pain in my toes.

I opened the report. Cecilia Elizabeth North. Age: twenty-two. Height: five feet, six inches. Weight: one hundred and eighteen pounds. Cause of death: exsanguination. She'd bled out. How long had she been
conscious? A minute? More? Had she known her life was seeping away as she lay on the damp grass, panting her last breaths?

No sign of sexual assault or activity. Disappointing. Sex yielded DNA. We had nothing more. I flipped the sheet. Dr. Saunders had attached a note to the last page. “
Looks like your bullet came from a Smith & Wesson .45.
”

In the detectives' pen, Wright and Revere sat, backs to each other, each sifting papers. “Good news,” I said. They looked up. Revere's shoulder cracked. He winced. “The bullet taken from our vic came from a Smith & Wesson .45 handgun.” Revere stood and wrote this on the board. “And earlier, I spoke to Billy about rendezvous spots and he suggested the train museum—”

“We told you,” Wright said. He did his finger-pistol thing, and then blew imaginary smoke from his finger's end.

“And the cabin by Hought's Pond.”

“Oh, right. That dump.”

“I checked out ‘that dump' and found two Coke cans. Maybe she was there Saturday night.”

“Where's the cabin?” Revere asked. Wright showed him on the map. “You think she walked?”

“Might've got a ride,” I said. “He could've had a car, her friend.”

“We're assuming the friend is male,” Revere said. “What if she's female?”

“She snuck out. Smart money has it her friend was male,” Wright said.

“What if she was romantically involved with a woman?” Revere asked.

“What? A lesbo?” Wright shook his head. “You seen our girl? Too pretty. Besides, she had a boyfriend, remember?”

Revere said, “Maybe college broadened her horizons.”

Wright laughed. “Right. Well, if you find the girlfriend, bring me to the interview. I want to hear
all
about it.” Of course he did. Straight men find the idea of two women erotic. But present him with two men? He'd be revolted. To be fair, I'd always found the idea of a man and woman together puzzling. I get it, intellectually. Survival of the species and all that. But otherwise? Nah.