The gentleman whose nose I had played with slowly got up, rubbing at it.
“What the fuck was that all about?” he said.
“I don’t take kindly to rudeness,” I said. “Especially having a door slammed in my face.”
His hand rubbed at his nose. “Then what the fuck do you call this?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “An unusual meet and greet.” I looked around the room again, noted that down the hallway, I could make out the bedroom and a number of mattresses on the floor.
“What are you guys up to?”
Silence, save for the faint hum of the computer equipment.
“All right, who’s the leaseholder here? Which one of you has signed the lease?”
A car horn from outside. More humming from the technical gear.
“Gee, this is fun,” I said. “Let’s kick it up a notch.” I took out Special Agent Krueger’s assignment letter, unfolded it so everyone could see the FBI seal at the top, and said, “My name is Lewis Cole. I’m on assignment from the Boston office of the FBI, so all of you be a dear and answer some questions, and I’ll be on my way.”
One of the young men sitting toward the rear, wearing a MISKATONIC UNIVERSITY sweatshirt, said in a defiant tone, “Screw the FBI.”
“Tommy,” a young woman whispered.
I nodded in his direction and said, “Fair comment. But I think all of you know that in this day and age, it’s the FBI delivering the screwing, not the other way around.”
The same young woman—with heavy inked-in eyebrows and a ring through one nostril—said, “What do you want?”
“Let’s start with the basics, work our way up,” I said. “Who’s the one who signed the lease?”
“It was me,” she said.
“Your name?”
“Holly.”
“Nice to meet you, Holly,” I said. “I’ll make this quick. I’m doing work concerning the murder that took place last January, up on the third floor.”
“None of us were here when it happened,” said the young man with the now-sore nose.
“How do you know that?”
The second young woman spoke up. “We were all at a gaming convention, down in Boston. BunkerCon.”
“That a weekend affair?”
“Starts Friday afternoon, ends on Sunday afternoon,” Holly said. “If you need to, you can find out we were all registered there, that we picked up our IDs on Friday afternoon, and that we signed up for different seminars during the night. Like I said, we weren’t here.”
“All right,” I said. “We’re making progress. I’m almost done here. Who lived up on the third floor?”
“Nobody,” Holly said. “There was a nice old lady who lived up there, was half-deaf, didn’t mind the noise we were making. Not like the Army bitch downstairs.”
“Air Force,” I said. “She’s in the Air Force. And I know nobody was renting up there, but I want to know about the visitors. How many times did somebody go up there for a brief get-together, maybe some drinks, laughs, and a tumble on a pullout couch.”
Now we were back to the silence of the servers. They eyed each other like they were trying to decide if they could all keep their stories straight.
“Holly.”
“Yeah?”
“You said you were the one who signed the lease, correct?”
“That’s right.”
“Just a reminder, that’s a legal contract. And I’m sure in that contract is a limit to the number of adults who are allowed to live here. And I’m pretty sure you folks are violating the terms of that lease.”
Some murmurs, but Holly held fast. “Prove it.”
“I don’t have to prove it,” I said. “All I have to do is go see my friend the health inspector, and then make a phone call to another friend who’s a reporter from the Porter Herald, and your little slice of paradise is taken away. No more living on a budget by skimping on the rent.”
Holly said, “And if we talk to you, you leave us alone?”
“Sure,” I said, “and before you do talk to me, I already know some of what was going on up there. So keep that in mind.”
The man with the twisted nose said, “Holly, you better—”
“Oh, shut up, Stan,” she said. “If you didn’t have to be so damn macho and be the first to answer the door, me or Sue could have gotten there first, talked to him out on the landing.”
She turned to me. “It was random. Morning. Afternoon. Sometimes the weekend. Didn’t last long. Always a couple, never arriving at the same time. You could hear either one of them running up the stairs like they don’t want to be caught. We called ’em our resident rats.”
“What do you think they were doing?”
She laughed. “What do you think? They were getting laid, away from home, at a place with no one tracking them in, no registry to sign in. Nothing like that.”
“When was the last time you heard anyone visit?”
“I don’t know, maybe three weeks before the murder.”
“And you never saw their faces?”
“Nope.”
I said a bit louder, “Anybody else see their faces?”
Shakes of the head. One guy said, “Hell, the girl, she was the same, though. A real moaner and groaner. You could practically hear her out on the street.”
“And the police didn’t ask you about this?”
Holly hesitated. “Look, we’re cooperating with you, okay?”
“You sure are.”
She said, “When we got home from BunkerCon, there were cops everywhere. I told the guys to go crash somewhere else for a while. Sue and me, we’re the legal tenants. We went in, said we weren’t around, didn’t see anything, didn’t know anything. We got a sweet gig here, we sure as hell didn’t want to give it up over some old guy getting whacked.”
“I see.”
I took a better look at the computer screens. They were frozen in action. Two of the monitors just displayed lines of numbers and letters. Code. A third screen showed a beautiful princess or queen, wearing silver armor, standing on a stone staircase, holding a broadsword in two hands over her head, as a bulky warrior wearing armor and furs advanced up against her.
“What are you guys working on?”
“What does it look like?” Holly said. “A fantasy game. Sword and sorcery. This time, though, the women are in charge. We’re tired of women being victims, being the ones who get rescued.”
“Me, too,” I said, and I left the apartment.
Out on the landing, I went back up to the third floor. The door was still locked, and there was the seal of the Porter Police Department across the crack of the door and the frame, with the initials of Detective Josephs and the date we’d last visited.
I just stood there, staring at the empty door. The night of the murder, Fletcher Moore comes up here. A little while later, the CCTV cameras from across the street record Felix going in. Then there’s a report of two shots fired, followed by the security camera recording Felix’s exit.
Oh, by the way, the recordings didn’t cover the time when visitors were coming and going into the third-floor apartment.
Very neat and tidy indeed.
It took less than five minutes for me to get from historic downtown Porter to the not-so-historic Porter outskirts, where I ended up at Port Harbor Realty Association, the owner of the building on Sher Avenue. It was time to ask a few more questions of Russ Gilman and find out what the heck was going on at his busy apartment building. I pulled into the parking lot of the strip mall just as I saw a gray Audi 6000 pull out.
Well.
I didn’t see who was driving, or if the vehicle had Massachusetts license plates, but it went out and then headed to the Porter traffic circle, and from there, it’d be a quick drive south back to Massachusetts.
Should I do a quick surveillance, see who was driving that Audi?
Or stay here?
I got out of the Pilot, making a decision that would eventually be revealed to
be the wrong one.
Inside the real estate office, the receptionist, Carol, was still diligently at work, her iPhone being held in both delicate yet strong hands, the Marine Corps coffee mug apparently still in the same place. She offered me another slight smile from her pretty face. It was like there was a lot going on behind her dark blue eyes and she didn’t want to reveal a damn thing.
I said, “Is Russ here?”
“I’m afraid he’s not,” she said, putting her iPhone down, picking up a pen. “Would you like to leave a message?”
“No, I’ll try to get to him later. But can you tell me, was he supposed to meet with Hollis Spinelli?”
“Who?”
“Mr. Spinelli,” I said. “He’s an attorney from Massachusetts.”
She shook her head.
“Sorry, I don’t recognize the name.”
“Ah, but I was sure I just saw him leaving the office.”
“You’re wrong. I’ve been here all day, and you’re the only visitor we’ve had.”
She looked up at me with clear, innocent eyes, and I suddenly felt sorry for her. No doubt she had been instructed to keep whatever was going on with Russ and Hollis quiet and undercover.
“Carol?”
“Yes?”
“It must be rough working here,” I said. “I mean, well, it must be rough working here, dealing with visitors, phone calls, keeping your boss happy.”
She put the pen down, picked up her iPhone.
“Best job I’ve ever had,” she said.
At home dinner was takeout from the local McDonald’s, heavily weighted to the special Dollar Menu, and as I was cleaning up my meager meal and going over my meager day, the phone rang.
A quick “hello” on my part was answered by a storm of crackles and static.
My mysterious caller, once again.
“Hello?”
I was about to hang up when the static cleared for just a moment, and a word broke clear.
“Lewis?”
That got my attention. I shouted “hello” again a few times, but then the static faded away to nothing, so I hung up the phone, and didn’t do much of anything else that night.
The next day I went to the courthouse again, but only at lunchtime, and I waited outside the courtroom until Paula Quinn appeared. I said, “Lunch? My treat? Interesting conversation included?”
That caught her attention, and she gave off a slight smile, which made me feel good. She stepped aside as other spectators streamed out, including Kimberly Moore, Fletcher’s now widow, and her two daughters. Paula said, “How did you know I’d be starving?”
“Just lucky, I guess. Applebee’s once more?”
She shrugged. “Why not.”
“I’ll even drive.”
“You thinking of taking me someplace far away?”
“Excuse me?”
She made a point of rolling her eyes. “Testimony was pretty dry and tedious today. The ME was called back, lots of discussion on what was found in the victim’s stomach and bloodstream. Ick. Let’s go.”
We went down the wide staircase and outside, where it looked to be threatening rain. As we went across the parking lot to my Pilot, Paula slipped her arm through mine, and I was pleased at how good it made me feel. When we started driving, I said, “I promised interesting conversation when we got to the restaurant, but can I ask you a couple of questions beforehand?”
“So we can have a peaceful and stress-free lunch?”
“You got it.”
Paula settled back into her seat. “It’s only about a ten-minute drive there, so make it count. Any questions you might have about the trial or me, give it your best shot.”
I started up the Pilot and maneuvered out onto Route 125, driving north. I said, “When we chatted last time about Fletcher Moore, you said something about his death and the impact on the upcoming election. What did you mean by that? Was he up for reelection?”
“Nope.”
“Then what did you mean?”
A quick laugh. “Christ on a crutch, Lewis, don’t you ever read the Chronicle? Even online?”
I tried not to sound too defensive. “I’ve been sort of busy the past few months.”
She reached over, patted my leg. “Sorry. I get it. Well, you have seen signs for Article 13 around town, haven’t you? ‘Vote Lucky 13 for Tyler.’ ‘Vote No on Unlucky 13.’ You’ve seen them, right?”
“That I have,” I said. “The day before election day, I usually grab a sample ballot from the town hall and check out who’s running and what’s on the town warrant. What’s Article 13?”
Paula said, “It’s a zoning article, that’s what. It’s really divided the town, broken up a few friendships, divided a number of families. What it does is to divvy up a stretch of the beach and call it a Special Gaming Zone. Not a big zone, just several blocks, but it’s right in the heart of Tyler.”
“Casino gambling.”
“Ah, now the light emerges for young Mr. Cole. That is correct. Fletcher Moore and two of the five selectmen are sponsoring this warrant article. Two others are opposed.”
“But I thought the state hasn’t approved casino gambling.”
A few hundred yards away I made out the intersection marking where our dining establishment was located, and I deliberately slowed down some. “The state hasn’t,” Paula noted. “But a couple of our state reps who are buddy-buddy with Fletcher, along with the state senator for this district, they’re supporting a bill in Concord to allow casino gambling. If Tyler leads the way and gets a district on the beach already set up for the roulette wheels, we’ll beat any competition in the state.”
“So Fletcher Moore was in favor of allowing casinos at Tyler Beach. Any thoughts on whether his death was connected to his position?”
Paula said, “How? The election’s in less than a week and he was murdered more than two months ago. Even the most rabid opponents of allowing gambling at Tyler Beach—and some of them are really frothing at the mouth—they would never, ever consider something violent like that. No, I don’t see that at all.”
I turned right onto the access road leading to Applebee’s. Paula said, “Your time is running out. Any more questions?”
“Sure,” I said. “Will you show me your left hand?”
“What?”
“Your left hand. Please show me your left hand.”
Silently she held her hand up.
No engagement ring.
“Happy?” she asked.
“Question is, are you happy?” I asked. “What happened?”
Paula put her hand down. “Taking a break, that’s all. For now. Mark . . . I don’t think he’s fully recovered from what happened to him last November, with his life being threatened and his real dad being killed. It eats at him. Makes him darker. We fight a lot, over the damn smallest things, and it was dragging at me, and one night, we had a vicious fight over who was supposed to sand my steps outside of my condo, right after he slipped and fell, and the fight went on for most of the night, until I threw my ring at him and told him to get out.”
“What happened after you threw it?”
“Bastard picked it up, pocketed it, and said that he’d keep the ring in a safe place until I was ready to apologize.”
I pulled into a parking space. “You apologize yet?”
She held up her hand again. “Does it look like I did?”
I switched off the engine. “What now? Does the break remain temporary or permanent?”
Paula undid her seatbelt. “The time for questions is over, Lewis. Now’s the time for lunch.”
CHAPTER NINE
I paid her attention and didn’t say a word about her, her boyfriend, or what was going on with the trial of Felix Tinios, but we did manage to find things to talk about. Paula talked about the week-to-week challenges of helping keep the Tyler Chronicle afloat with the Internet taking away readers and income. “We have a steady subscriber base,” she said while having another chicken Caesar salad, “
but the problem is, each year part of that base ends up at the funeral home. You really can’t forward subscriptions to that address.”
And I took part in telling her about the grueling and slow work in getting my house back on track, and despite edging into forbidden territory, I told her a funny story—though it wasn’t funny at the time—about how Felix Tinios was helping install bookshelves, when one of the shelves, chockfull of hardcovers, fell and nearly crushed his right hand.
“I’ve heard a lot of Italian curses over the years,” I said, “but I think I learned a few new ones from Felix. His hand got dinged up so bad I had to take him to the Exonia ER. While he was getting bandaged up after getting his hand X-rayed, he said, ‘If you make one joke about the pen being mightier than the sword, I’ll kill you.’”
Oops. Bad choice of words there, and even Paula noticed. “Pretty ironic, don’t you think?”
“Only if you think he murdered Fletcher Moore. The jury is still out on that one.”
“The one sitting on those uncomfortable benches or the one between your ears?”
Then my cell phone rang, which always startles me. The number of people who actually know this number can be counted on the fingers of one hand, not including the thumb. What made it even more odd was the word BLOCKED on the little screen.
“Hold on, will you?” I asked, and I stepped up from the booth and answered.
“Lewis? It’s Alan Krueger, FBI.”
Paula was doing her very best to ignore me, and with the ambient noise, I knew I’d have to go somewhere else to take the call, which is what I did, stepping outside in the cool and cloudy March afternoon.
“All right, now I can talk,” I said. “What’s new?”
“No, that’s my question,” he said. “Have you made any progress?”
“Some, but nothing I’d pass on to your supervisor or a judge.”
“I hear that some video footage surfaced of Felix going in and out of the apartment at the time of the murder. That doesn’t look good.”
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