The Ragman's Memory

by Mayor, Archer

  “Jesus, Joe. You don’t have one iota of evidence tying Sawyer to any of the others. And saying Milo was murdered is a pretty big stretch.”

  “Is it? According to Katz, the Satanist and rabies angles were both leaked to the Reformer by the same anonymous caller. Besides, part of our job is fitting various hypotheses to the crimes we’re investigating, and seeing if they make sense. I’ll concede leaving Sawyer outside the pattern—for now—but the connections are beginning to grow among the others. We’d be nuts to ignore that.”

  To his credit, Willy swallowed his criticisms. He merely looked at me for a long, quiet moment, muttered, “I’m freezing my ass off,” and left me standing by the curb.

  · · ·

  Although it was closing in on midnight, I didn’t go home from the Skyview. My afternoon nap had thrown off my sleep cycle, so I returned to the office instead. I was also restless with the theory I’d propounded to Willy Kunkle. Coming up with hypotheses was fine early on, but the end result of our job always had to be a solid case, and I agreed with Willy’s silent skepticism that I had a long way to go yet—assuming I was even headed in the right direction.

  I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t sleep. Once again, Sammie was hard at work in her cubicle, burning hours she probably wouldn’t put on the overtime clock, driven as I was to get the job done, and not bothering to scrutinize her reasons. Across the squad room, I noticed Sol Stennis had caught the same bug.

  “How goes it?” I asked her quietly. “Besides the fact you should be home in bed?”

  She checked her watch, her face worn and tired. “I’ll knock off in another hour or so. I’m just going over what everybody dug up today.”

  As my second, that was her job only when I was away or on vacation. I didn’t protest, however, since I knew it would be useless. “What did you find out about Adelson, Knox, and Garfield?” I asked.

  She folded her hands over her stomach. “I’m still digging, but it’s already gotten interesting. As director of community development, Lou Adelman handles some big chunks of money. Mostly, there’re enough controls on them to make pilfering pretty difficult, but part of his job is to hobnob with fat cats—eat out, go to parties, play golf—so the suspicion that he’s padding his pockets basically goes with the job, especially in a penny-pinching town like this. As far as we can tell, though, he’s clean. He has been tight with Gene Lacaille for years, which only makes sense, and he’s been known to hang out with Tom Chambers, but so have a lot of people.

  “Eddy Knox is a different story. I’ve almost got enough for a warrant to grab his records. His lifestyle has seriously improved since he wrote that glowing ZBA report on the project. I put out some subtle feelers among his friends, neighbors, and acquaintances, and all of them pinpointed last year as the time when his fortunes suddenly improved—a lifetime membership at the fanciest golf course in Keene, a new car, an aboveground swimming pool out back, new clothes. A friend of mine at the Keene PD checked on who sponsored him for the country club—it was Thomas Chambers, Esquire.”

  “Nice work,” I said softly. “Eddy works out of the town planner’s office. Any indication his boss was involved?”

  “None—he looks as clean as Adelman. But Rob Garfield may be dirty. Gail said she didn’t think he was bought off, since as ZBA head, he’d backed the project from the start, but I’m still looking into that. He and Tom Chambers go way back, and he lives well. Rumors are his wife is rich, so that may account for it, but I’ll find out soon enough.”

  “Anything more on what Chambers has on Ned Fallows?”

  Sammie’s face clouded briefly. “Nope—Ron can’t figure it out—it’s driving him nuts. I did get something on Milo Douglas, though.” She smiled at my surprised expression. “During his inquiries into some of this financial stuff, J.P. was told by one of his banking contacts that Milo had a checking account with ten thousand bucks in it. She said she only thought of it because of the rabies publicity—stuck in her mind.”

  I leaned forward. “New deposit?”

  “Yup. Lump sum about two weeks before he died. Milo walked in with the cash and opened the account himself.”

  The doubts I’d had following my conversation with Willy faded one step back. The circumstances surrounding Milo’s death were looking ever more suspicious. “I bet whoever gave it to him never dreamed he’d put it in a bank. Sam, we need to organize a time and date chart—pinpoint as closely as we can every fact we’ve got on all five of these cases—see if we can find a common link. I want a database we can compare to all the alibis we’ll be collecting. When are you starting actual interviews?”

  “If I get the warrant for Knox’s records and can sort through them fast enough, I might pick him up tomorrow afternoon. I don’t know about the others—depends on how much I can dig up on them.”

  I got to my feet, suddenly more hopeful. “Okay. But don’t forget to get some sleep.”

  She smiled up at me. “Yes, mother.”

  · · ·

  I walked in on Sol Stennis as he was packing up to go home, his mouth wide open in a yawn. “How did it go today?” I asked him. “Willy said he put you on Sawyer’s background.”

  “That he did, although if today was any indication, we’ll have more potential murderers than we can handle. She sure didn’t win any popularity contests.” A photograph slipped out from among a pile of papers he was stacking and fluttered to the ground. I bent over and picked it up.

  “This is the family picture Sammie found in Sawyer’s room, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah—I’ve been using it like an index, crossing off each person as I interview them.”

  But I barely heard him. Scanning the small faces staring unsmiling into the camera, I saw something that spread through me like hot coffee on a cold day—a confirmation that my strategy so far had merit, and that I hadn’t been letting some fanciful notions subvert my instincts.

  I waited until Sol had slipped his paperwork into the drawer before laying the photograph flat on the desktop. I placed my index finger under the face that had caught my eye—a few years younger but still easily identifiable, and an undeniable link between Sawyer and the construction project, and thus possibly through the project to our other cases. “You talk to him yet?”

  “Nope. Don’t even know who he is.”

  “Paul Hennessy. He’s project manager for Carroll Construction. His office is located right under where Milo spent one of his last nights alive.”

  21

  TRADITIONALLY, WHEN A COP HAS ZEROED IN on a suspect, the actual interview is kept for last, after all available background information has been uncovered. Supposedly, this allows us to know best what questions to ask—and what the answers are likely to be.

  That, however, is in a perfect world, after the details of a case have begun revealing a predictable logic.

  My problem was that for all its intensity, I didn’t know what to make of the link I’d discovered. Had Hennessy killed his own aunt? And if so, why? She was broke, she was dying, and nothing incriminating had been found among her possessions.

  Had she been killed by someone else to influence or intimidate him? Then why had her killer selected the one member of Hennessy’s family nobody would miss? By the time I returned to the office the next morning, after a restless night’s sleep, I had no answers to any of these questions.

  Which meant, I finally rationalized, that I would have to interview Paul Hennessy first, since I had nothing else to go on.

  · · ·

  Sol and I were at the building site by eight that morning, climbing the same staircase Willy and I had used two days earlier. While the whole place was busier now that construction was back up to speed, most of the work was still occurring on the lower levels. Which made the shouting we heard as we reached the fifth-floor landing all the more jarring.

  Paul Hennessy’s distinctive voice floated down the half-finished hallway. “Look, you tell that stupid son of a bitch to get his act in gear and get tha
t shit here today, or I’ll make goddamn sure he never does business with us again.”

  The response to this was muffled by the office door we were now approaching, but Hennessy obviously didn’t like what he heard. “I don’t give a flying fuck. Just tell him to do it.”

  The door opened and a short, round, harried-looking man brushed by us with the speed of a scalded dog.

  I poked my head around the corner and saw Hennessy leaning on his makeshift desk, both hands flat on its surface, his head hanging as if he were recovering from a thousand-yard dash. “Paul?”

  He snapped to attention, startled and red-faced. “What?”

  “Joe Gunther—police department. Remember? This is Sol Stennis, one of my colleagues.”

  His eyes widened as if caught by oncoming headlights, making me suddenly happy I’d decided on this trip. “What do you want?” It was more a demand than a question, and distinctly laced with panic.

  “Something wrong?” I countered. “Sounds like you’re under some pressure.”

  “It’s the job,” he answered curtly. He ran his hand through his thick red hair. “A delayed shipment.”

  “Oh,” I exclaimed, as if suddenly enlightened. “I thought it might have been your aunt’s death.”

  He stiffened, caught off guard. “Yeah, that was a real shock. The radio keeps saying she was murdered. Are you people sure about that?”

  I was struck by the emphasis to the question, as if her manner of death was more important than the end result. “You were close?” I asked mildly, seemingly admiring the view out the window, but actually hoping the little homework I had done during the half hour before coming here might pay off.

  He seized on the question for some conventional camouflage. “Yeah—I haven’t been able to shake it. Maybe that’s why I’m a little on edge. Who would want to harm her?”

  I faced him then, hardening my voice for effect. “Interesting. Every other family member we talked to—without exception—said your aunt was one of the most unpleasant people they ever knew. They also told us you hadn’t communicated with her since that family reunion several years ago.”

  Given his earlier bellicosity, his reaction should have been immediate. What I’d said was at least rude, even outrageous. But Paul Hennessy merely turned red in the face and stammered a few times, as if groping among a variety of inadequate responses.

  “Mr. Hennessy,” I finally asked. “Where were you the night before last, between ten p.m. and two in the morning?”

  “At home,” he blurted, and with apparent relief. “My wife’ll swear to it.”

  Sol Stennis silently raised his eyebrows at the defensive tone. “All night?” I persisted. “What time did you go to sleep?”

  “Eleven, like always. Before that, we watched TV. I got home around nine, after a meeting with Carroll about getting this project back on track.”

  There was a pause I let linger for several seconds, during which Hennessy looked from one of us to the other. “And my wife’s a light sleeper,” he added unnecessarily. “She would’ve known if I’d gotten up.”

  The smile I gave him was genuine. Whatever else he was, Paul Hennessy was a man under a great deal of stress—and feeling the weight of some considerable guilt.

  “I wonder why you thought you should add that last little detail,” I mused aloud. “Of course, you’re right. A man under a magnifying glass should try to think of everything.”

  Not giving him a chance to respond, I crossed the room and left, Sol Stennis in tow. Halfway down the stairs, Stennis asked, “What was that all about?”

  Still feeling the adrenaline rush of a lucky shot in the dark, I laughed quietly. “Damned if I know. I just put on the heat to see what would happen. Doesn’t sound like he killed his aunt, but he sure is skittish. From what I’ve seen over the years, you squeeze a guy like that, he either cooks up an alibi, compares notes with a confederate, or he takes off. They’re usually too wired not to do something. I want him tailed. You stay with him until I have you relieved. I’ll radio for a car to pick me up here. But keep a low profile. He knows what you look like, and now he knows we’re watching.”

  Linking Hennessy to Adele Sawyer filled me with a sudden sense of movement. After risking the hypothesis that all these cases were somehow interconnected, I’d been frustrated and troubled by their remaining as inert as a pile of logs. Now I was hoping the high-strung project manager would be the loosened wedge that would send the entire pile rolling free. For the first time, regardless of where Hennessy fit into the overall scheme of things, I felt that a long-sought opponent might be about to break cover.

  As we reached the car I saw two young women getting out of a vehicle farther down the lot. One of them, Nicole, I’d known since her highly precocious high school years. “Call in for someone to pick me up, will you?” I asked Stennis before heading toward them.

  Nicole caught sight of me and waved as I approached. “Hi, Mr. Gunther. Wow, I haven’t seen you in a long time. What’re you doin’ here?”

  I shook her hand and introduced myself to her friend, who was named Nancy. “Nothing much. You work for this outfit?”

  “Yeah—bookkeeping. There’s a ton of it with something this big.”

  “Must be hard to keep track of,” I said sympathetically.

  Nancy answered. “Oh yeah. They’ve got four of us here, and a bunch more at the head office. It’s like it never stops, especially after a big interruption like what happened.”

  “So you work mostly for Paul Hennessy?”

  “Yeah,” Nicole said briefly.

  I laughed and gave her a conspiratorial look. “Uh-oh, I know that tone of voice. Sounds like you and Mr. Hennessy don’t get along.”

  The two girls exchanged guilty glances. But before they could think of an evasive response, I added, “He’s not my type either. I was just talking with him upstairs. Made me feel like a farmer.”

  “Yeah,” Nancy said disgustedly, despite Nicole’s warning glance. “He thinks he’s pretty cool—like he’s a big wheel. He just works here like everybody else. It’s not like he’s Mr. Carroll or anything.”

  “And he won’t keep his hands to himself, either,” Nicole said softly, reluctantly, and yet not wanting to be left out.

  “You don’t want to be bending over when he’s around,” Nancy chimed in. “And I only wear turtlenecks when I’m here.” She opened her coat to show me. “I wear anything with a scoop, sure as shit he’ll be copping looks. He’s married, too,” she added in naive outrage.

  Nicole had been watching me carefully, more familiar with my ways than her voluble friend. “Mr. Gunther,” she finally said, “are you checking up on him?”

  I considered the heat I was applying to Hennessy. It couldn’t hurt if he caught wind we’d been asking questions. “That’s not usually something we talk about,” I answered.

  “Oh—far out,” Nancy laughed gleefully. “That means you are. I hope you nail him—he’s such a creep.”

  “What else does he do?” I asked. There was a second’s hesitation, and I realized I might have pushed them too far. Nicole proved me wrong. “There are rumors he’s ripping off the company.”

  “How?”

  “I don’t know exactly. I don’t know if anybody does, but he lives pretty well.”

  “He’s got a girlfriend,” Nancy said, her eyes bright. “She’s in Payables at the head office—”

  “You don’t know that,” Nicole protested.

  “I sure do. I saw them once. They were all over each other. They didn’t see me. I ducked out. They play it really cool otherwise—pretend they barely know each other. I bet they’re in cahoots cooking the books.”

  It wasn’t textbook logic, but it worked for me. “What’s her name?”

  “Ginny Levasseur.”

  “How could they be cooking the books?”

  They looked at each other and shrugged. Nicole said, “There’s tons of ways to rip things off. Trucks come in here all day with stuff. Th
ere’re bills of lading and invoices and whatever, but it’s all paper. I mean, nobody actually climbs onto the trucks and counts to make sure every item’s on board that’s supposed to be.”

  “And then it sits here forever,” Nancy added. “The guard’s a joke. Almost everybody’s got a pickup, and he never checks to see what’s in the back. All they have to do is grab something and throw a tarp over it. I bet they lose a fortune that way.”

  “How ’bout someone higher up? Like one of the supervisors or the clerk of the works?” I pressed them.

  But I could tell before they shook their heads that I’d gotten all they could give me. “Is that what you’re looking at him for?” Nicole asked. “Ripping off stuff?”

  This time, I opted for caution. “I wish I could tell you. I want to thank you for your help, though. I need all the information I can get.”

  “Well,” Nancy reiterated as they walked away, “I’d go after Ginny Levasseur.”

  Nicole gave her friend a scolding nudge with her elbow, but it sounded like good advice.

  · · ·

  I radioed Dispatch from the patrol car that picked me up and asked them to have Ron Klesczewski meet me at the office. He’d been looking into what Tom Chambers was holding over Ned Fallows. But as important as that could be, I felt spurred by this morning’s discoveries to redirect him to better use.

  He met me in the Municipal Building’s central hallway a quarter-hour later. “If you still have nothing on Fallows,” I began, “I think I’ve found something with more meat on it. Adele Sawyer was Paul Hennessy’s aunt. When I spoke to him just now, he reacted all wrong. A couple of on-site bookkeepers told me afterward he’s rumored to be ripping off the company and has a girlfriend in Payables at the head office. It may all be bullshit, but I put a bee up his nose about our being suspicious of him, and Sol’s watching him to see if he makes any sudden moves.”

  “You think he killed his aunt?”