by David Waters
“I live here. Professor Hendricks lets me have a room in exchange for looking after the place while he’s away.”
“Are you an engineering student?”
He nodded.
“From Winston University?” I asked.
He gave me a disdainful look. “No. How did you get in?” He asked, eying me suspiciously.
“The door was slightly open.” I said. “I hollered. Got no answer. I was puzzled.”
He was a good twenty feet away, and a little unsure of what to do. But the way he looked at me made it clear I was unwelcome.
“Nice deer head.” I said, pretending an interest I did not feel. “Didn’t know that Hendricks was a hunter.”
He gave an indifferent shrug, but glanced at the gun collection. Finally he said. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave. I’m in the middle of a project.”
Safely at the door, I turned back.
“I notice there’s a rifle missing from the collection, do you know what kind it was?”
He had followed me to the door. He stopped and glanced back at the gun cabinet. He looked puzzled. This time when he looked at me there was both suspicion and a growing belligerence in his stare. “Who the hell are you?” He asked.
I turned and as I left the cottage, I threw over my shoulder, “Were you here last Sunday?” I swiveled my head to watch his reaction. But he just stared at me.
I nodded and walked down the gravel driveway listening for footsteps behind me. A few seconds later I heard the door close and the click of a lock being slipped into place. But it was only when I was in the car and moving away that I began to relax. I don’t have the nerves for this kind of work, I thought.
I checked my watch and headed back for the I-89. I drove to the exit for Saint Albans’s where I switched to highway 105 heading back east to North Troy. It played a key part in the cross-border compound that Gerald Bull had set up as an artillery range.
It had taken me thirty-five minutes to get to the border. I crossed it without significant delay and reached the site of Naomi’s cottage in under 15 minutes. If I allowed about 20 minutes for the murder of Naomi, the return trip early on a Sunday morning would be just under two hours for either the Symanskys or Hendricks. I stopped only long enough to take some photos. I then drove north around the tip of Lake Memphramagog to Georgeville. Elapsed time roughly 30 minutes. Assuming time for a round trip, the murder could have been committed by Gooden with less than an hour and a half absence from his cottage. I was presuming that his cottage was less than a few minutes from the center of Georgeville. He could, of course, have continued right on to Montreal. I stopped at the only local grocery store and asked directions to Gooden’s cottage. The young girl at the counter did not know, but after a brief discussion with her parents at the rear of the store, she gave me directions. It was less than five minutes away. I was surprised to find a for sale sign on the property. It was a modest cottage for that part of the countryside. Something that must have been built before Gooden was born, and there was little evidence that he had bothered to make significant changes or improvements. Perhaps he did not have the time. It did not look as if he spent as much time here as Hendricks did at his cottage in Essex Junction. That would not be surprising. Hendricks was a professor with a work load which probably allowed him to be absent for considerable periods from the university. Gooden was a dean with administrative responsibilities which no doubt tied him down for long stretches of time.
There was a car on the property, and I was about to take a photo, when four young people emerged from the building. Their general demeanor made it clear they had been partying. When one of the young men saw me he suddenly hesitated. His glance was not hostile. More sheepish and puzzled than anything else. He moved slowly towards me. He was wearing jeans torn at the knees, a crumpled plaid shirt and underneath what had once been a white polo shirt.
“Can I help you?” He asked.
“Is this Dean Gooden’s place?”
He nodded. “I’m his son. Are you a potential buyer?”
I shook my head. “I’m an acquaintance of your father. I happened to be passing by, thought I’d check to see if he was here. When I saw the sign I thought I’d take a picture in case one of my friends might be interested. Guess I should have dropped by on the weekend. Probably could have seen him then.”
He nodded.
“Will he be down this weekend?” I asked.
He shook his head. “It’s my mother’s turn.”
I gave him a puzzled look.
“They separated last year.”
“Oh.” I said. I shrugged. “That kind of thing happens.”
He nodded again. He began to fidget. My presence was probably an intrusion. I smiled.
“I’ll give him a call at the university.”
Another nod. The sheepish look returned to his face as I turned to get back into the car.
“Actually he doesn’t know that I’m here.” He mumbled.
I grinned conspiratorially, “then I won’t mention it to him.”
“Thanks.” He said, looking relieved.
I drove away leaving the foursome to their indulgences.
It was after eight when I got back to Montreal. I dropped the disposable camera at a store which promised overnight development.
The house felt empty. I ordered in some Chinese food and poured myself a glass of wine. Against my better instincts I was becoming a fast-food, take-out victim. While I was waiting for the food to arrive, I went upstairs to the den and checked my messages on the answering machine.
There were two of them. The first from Joe Gibbs. The fact that I had agreed to call him earlier today had slipped my mind. It would now have to wait until tomorrow. The second was from Jim Haylocke, the newspaper’s stringer in Washington saying that he had some information for me. He didn’t indicate that it was of great importance. I decided I would call him after I had eaten. Back downstairs, I picked up three days of mail and newspapers from the foyer and took them into the kitchen. The food came. I paid for it and while eating went through the mail and the newspapers. The mail contained nothing but bills and circulars. A glance through the newspapers bored me. So much of it was irrelevant garbage. Gossip and hearsay instead of facts, pandering subjectivity raised to celebrity status. I took the remains of my supper, the circulars and the newspapers and put them in the garbage. I made myself some coffee and took the bills up to the den.
I called Haylocke at home.
We exchanged pleasantries.
“So I gather you’ve come across something?” I said finally.
“Yeah. A friend of mine at a party introduced me to someone who retired from the CIA a few years ago. It turned out he was the operative who handled the Symanskys. It may have been a coincidence. It may not have been.”
“Oh?” I tried to keep my mind and imagination from running out of control, “and he talked?”
“Yeah. Pretty freely too.”
“Odd!”
“Yeah. At first I assumed that maybe he had been instructed to do so, but I changed my mind. None of this feels important enough for that kind of high level manipulation. I decided it was just another manifestation of the Washington retirement syndrome.”
“Retirement syndrome?”
He laughed, “Here in Washington, if you have a job of even minor importance, you’re courted. It’s a constant high for insecure egos. The joke around here is that there’s a lineup of retired civil servants with shattered egos outside every psychiatric office in Washington.”
I thought of Ryan and myself. Maybe Gina’s appearance on my doorstep had only delayed the inevitable trip down memory lane with some shrink.
“This guy admitted Washington used its influence to have the charges against Montini dropped.”
“He admitted that?”
“Yeah.”
“To protect the Symanskys?”
“Not according to him. That’s why I’m not sure any of this is of use to
you. To him they were just bumblers. Their reports were little more than gossip and what their man in the consulate could have found out from a few well placed phone calls. I asked what they had filed on Monaghan. He laughed. Nothing, he said, that wasn’t common knowledge.”
“Nothing to indicate that they had broken into Monaghan’s files?”
“Apparently not.”
“But if they had, and if one of them had been caught at it, and murdered Monaghan in the process, wouldn’t they have covered their tracks and said nothing locally? But surely they would have come running in a panic to the CIA for protection.”
“Well, they didn’t. At least not according to this guy.”
“So why did Washington interfere to have the charges dropped against Montini? I don’t get it.”
“He said it was because they didn’t want anyone exploring the connection between Monaghan and Bull. According to this ex-CIA creep, Bull was a two-edged sword. The Pentagon, as you know, had already helped to finance him. They still were interested in his work. On the other hand, to use a bad pun, everyone knew he was a potential loose cannon. His artillery designs had helped to defeat Cuban forces in Angola. And I think the CIA had a covert role in that operation. Some African leaders were angry. The CIA simply wanted to keep Bull out of the news for the time being. Monaghan’s work for him hence posed a potential problem. Besides, they wanted to continue to secretly monitor what Bull was up to. Another reason for keeping the media away. That’s why Canada co-operated. Bull, it seems was developing some unusual contacts.”
“I know. Communist China, for one. Israel, almost certainly. And then there was also some shady European weapons dealers.”
“Precisely. So they wanted to monitor what he was up to. But they didn’t want him to be shut down. Not yet. So the less publicity the better.”
“It sounds like Monaghan must have been in pretty thick.”
“Who knows?”
“But you’re telling me the Symanskys were only small fry, and probably not directly implicated in Monaghan’s murder?”
“Right. If their former handler is to be believed. And my instincts tell me he is.”
“But if the Symanskys had killed Monaghan,” I persisted, not fully satisfied with what I’d been hearing, “surely this guy wouldn’t have admitted it.”
There was a long pause. “Again, who knows. But he had been belting back martinis. He was out to bolster his ego. I think if he had helped to get them out of a hot spot, he would, at least, have hinted at it rather than say the things he did. In fact, he said he considered them useless enough that he had finally told them to stop their snooping and concentrate on their academic careers! I’ll write all this up and send it on to Mel. See if he wants to do anything with it.”
“Yeah sure”, I said. If I didn’t want it used, I thought, I would have to speak to Mel myself. “Thanks Jim. Appreciate all of this. Let me know if anything else comes up will you?”
“Sure. I’ll keep my ears to the ground just in case I’m wrong, and this guy whizzed something by me.”
I thanked him again and hung up. I suspected his gut feeling was correct. I would have liked it to be otherwise, but bits and pieces of what I was slowly uncovering were tending to confirm it.
I went to bed, but I couldn’t get the Symanskys out of my head. To me they had been as smooth as diplomats. To Phil Ryan, they had been as wily as politicians. To their CIA handler, they had been amateur bumblers. To Mary Montini they had been very private people with a social charm unmatched by anyone in their entourage. I began to see them as chameleons. Maybe good enough to confuse all of us including their CIA handler.
Otherwise, the case was zeroing in on Hendricks or Gooden, or maybe someone else. But it would have to have been someone who knew Gina and I were trying to re-open the case. Hendricks, I told myself, had the opportunity. He could have left Essex Junction, murdered Naomi, and been back before his boarder woke later that Sunday morning. By his own admission, he left Essex Junction for Montreal late Sunday afternoon. In sufficient time to take a shot at Gina? And a rifle seemed to be missing from his gun cabinet. But what would have been the motive? Jilted infatuation? Hatred and jealousy of Monaghan? Fear of exposure and humiliation? Not very impressive in a court of law. Gooden? Like the Symanskys and Hendricks he had easy access to the building where Monaghan was murdered. He was probably at his cottage in easy striking distance of Naomi. He could have left Georgeville in plenty of time to take a shot at Gina. But why? He had no apparent motive. There was only my personal dislike of the man. According to Mary he was self-centered and opportunistic. And like most of that type he was undoubtedly ambitious. But they were characteristics that this age does not place in its list of serious sins.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“I put the photos in the mail to you.” Joe Gibbs said. “You should get them today. And by the way, at the last minute I found a fairly recent photo of the Symanskys in my files. I suddenly remembered that they came here two years ago for the installation of our new chancellor. I included a copy of it in the package. Tom,” he said, “I’m sure that it’s not a question now of whether you’ll write something, but when. Hope I hear from you before any of the shit really hits the fan. I hate getting bad news from the newspaper while I’m still munching my bran flakes.”
Earlier Gina had phoned to tell me that she and her mother would be arriving around four on Friday afternoon. Phil and I had a day and a half to do some leg work. I gave him a call. “I just spoke to Joe Gibbs. I’m expecting photos in the mail today. I was wondering whether you have time to come over here. We could review what we know until the mail arrives.”
“Sure, why not. Put some coffee on. Jesus, you know, I don’t even know where you live!”
I gave him the address. I made some fresh coffee. An hour later, we were both sitting in the living room, mugs in hand and sheaves of paper spread out on the floor.
“Good coffee.” Phil said. “Strong. Not like that swill we used to have down at the station.” He lit a cigarette and offered me one.
I shook my head. “They’re not called coffin nails for nothing. I’m down to about four per day.”
“Point taken.” With a sigh he passed his copy of the original police file to me. In fact there was more than one file. What he handed me was one of those accordion-type containers, over two inches thick. It must have taken his former colleagues in the department almost a full day to xerox all the material. Giving me free rein with it was a gesture of unusual confidence for a former policeman. He was allowing me to pass judgment on how he had handled the original investigation. I gave him my printed notes. We both put on our reading glasses. For ten minutes we read in silence.
I knew it would take me hours to go through the file. Much of it was technical: photos of the crime scene, autopsy reports, finger-print evidence and the like. Near the front was a list of all the interviews which had been conducted. I was surprised to find that not only all the members of Monaghan’s department, but also all the students who had been failed by Monaghan within the past year had been questioned. I could see why Gooden had not been questioned. He was neither a full-time member of the department, nor was he someone who had been given a failing grade by Monaghan. A poor grade, perhaps, but not a failing one. I turned to the interview with Hendricks. He acknowledged that he had not particularly liked Monaghan. He admitted that he had heard raised voices coming from Monaghan’s office earlier in the day, but that he could not identify either the voices or the substance of the quarrel. He stated that he had been in his office only briefly that afternoon and had then gone home where he lived alone. Not exactly an alibi. But I had to assume that if he had returned later, or had stayed in his office until late in the evening, he had not been seen by anyone. None of the other departmental interviews had suggested that Hendricks might be a possible suspect. There had consequently been no follow up. All in all, thirty-six people had been questioned. A quick skimming through the file left me frustrated.
I spotted nothing of immediate use to our investigation. And I knew that it would take more time than I had to go through it thoroughly enough to be certain. I heard the click of the inexpensive tin mailbox I had attached to the railing of the balcony, but before I checked to see if the photos had arrived I said, “the work you did was more thorough than you had led me to believe.”
“But it wasn’t thorough enough.” He grunted.
“So what else could you have done?”
He sat slumped staring at the blank TV screen. “I should have paid more attention to the contra-indications, or at least to the key one that now strikes me as so obvious. It’s that damn filing drawer that now bugs me in retrospect! It’s obvious that someone had gone through it, and recently, and that person was not Monaghan, nor was it likely to be Montini.”
“Why not Montini?”
“We were assuming manslaughter because of a love affair gone sour. Hardly a motive to go through a drawer full of engineering files.” He was staring at his large muscular hands. “But we had a prime suspect. He had motive. He had been seen entering the building at or about the estimated time of death. An open and shut case, sort of. Or at least that’s what we chose to believe. But that filing drawer leaps out at me now, particularly given what we’ve discovered about Bull and Monaghan’s relationship to him. We didn’t even go through the files in that drawer with any thoroughness. I mean we glanced through it, came across nothing which made any sense to us, and booked Montini. And we did that because it was easy. We figured we’d let the justice system sort things out. If it convicted Montini, fine. If it didn’t we would probably have re-opened the case. After all, we had impounded Monaghan’s files. But when the case got dropped under pressure we just went along with the powers that be. And everything got returned either to the university or to Monaghan’s wife. That damn cabinet drawer is going to haunt me for the rest of my life.”
“Unless we find the killer.”