The Facepainter Murders

by Virginia Winters

  At that, Adam left for the short walk to Evan's.

  A north wind blew leaves off trees and into tidy hillocks against the wrought iron fence around the park in the square, where a few scraggly mums still bloomed in the flower beds. Forlorn and chilly pigeons clustered on the lee side of the statue. Cold for this time of year, Adam thought. He hoped it didn't mean an early winter. Cheering himself up with thoughts of sunny Bermuda and Erin, he opened the door of Evan's with a pleasant smile for Mary.

  Mary took Adam through into the kitchen of the restaurant. Chrome and stainless-steel surfaces shone between and above the old oak cupboards. A well-scrubbed pine table filled a bow window overlooking the garden. They sat down to talk.

  "I feel a little silly," Mary said, "but I am sure someone has been through this house."

  "Have you been away?"

  "Yes. We closed for three days to go to a funeral in New York. When we got back, small changes bothered me: drawers open a crack; towels in a different order in my linen cupboard; clothes too close together in my closet. I'm very fussy about those sorts of things."

  "Was anything missing?"

  "Not that I can see. Would you walk through with me? Perhaps you will notice something I haven't."

  "Sure. Your trip to New York was unexpected, then?"

  "Yes. Andre's aunt died suddenly. Fortunately, we were able to get away."

  The kitchen was in constant use since they returned from the funeral and nothing was out of place.

  The dining room told a different story. The glass cabinet on one side of the fireplace, which balanced the inglenook on the other, had been searched, Mary was sure.

  He went through the rest of the house, but he found nothing. Even the attics were orderly. Fussy, she said.

  A thin layer of dust covered the surfaces in the attic. Even Mary couldn't get up here to clean every day. He followed footprints to one corner in which he saw an impression, a vaguely square shape with blurred edges. He squatted and examined the area. Hadn't he seen this shape before? Crates, he thought, the kind the pictures from the library had been in.

  "Did you store boxes up here recently?"

  "No.There was nothing in that corner."

  "Come and look at this clear space on the floor."

  "We didn't have anything there. I haven't been up here for several months, and Andre almost never does. What do you think it means?"

  "It means someone who has access to your home stored something up here."

  "Access to the house? Us, Matilde, and Dylan, our part-time kitchen helper."

  "Who came in while you were away?"

  "Matilde."

  "Where is she?"

  "At her home, I imagine. She is due here at 4:00 pm."

  "And Dylan?"

  "I have no idea. He quit two days ago."

  "Why?"

  "He said he found a full-time job."

  "Could I have the addresses for both of them? And don't mention to Matilde that I was here. I'm going to get someone up here to dust for prints. Should hers be up here?"

  "No, I don't think so. Unless Andre sent her for something, but I can't think what."

  "We'll ask her. What about Dylan?"

  "He never left the kitchen."

  Adam arranged for someone to come and go over the area where the boxes or crates had been. Meanwhile, he drove to the small apartment building where Matilde lived. Alone, Mary thought.

  Matilde's neighborhood of late nineteenth-century homes looked to be in the first stages of gentrification. Most of the houses were compact bungalows with a few square feet of grass in front, some surrounded by newly-painted, wrought iron fences, some given over to tall weeds and crabgrass.

  She lived in one of the few two-story homes, once grand, now converted to many apartments. A broken flagstone walk led past the unkempt lawn to a short flight of steps. The doorbell had been painted over so many times the button wouldn't budge.

  A slight movement of the curtains of the first-floor apartment was the only sign of life in the building. Adam knocked, waited, and then knocked again. Nothing. As he turned to go down the steps, a querulous elderly voice called to him from the front window.

  "What do you want?"

  "Davidson, Culver's Mills police. Have you seen Matilde Gagnon today?"

  "What's she done?"

  "Nothing. I have a few questions for her?"

  The door flew open, and a tiny elderly woman confronted him.

  "No need to shout, young man."

  "Sorry, ma'am. Have you seen her today, Mrs?"

  "Armitage, Madge Armitage. No, and I don't care if I ever set eyes on that nosy, unfriendly woman again,"

  "Nosy and unfriendly at the same time?"

  "Oh, yes. Always asking if anyone had been around, knocking at her door or snooping around the place. Who would snoop around this place? And not even so much as a hello if you passed her on the street."

  "Had anyone been around?"

  "Not that I saw."

  "Thank you for your help, Mrs. Armitage," Adam said, giving her his card. "Please call me if you think of anything else."

  On his way back to the station, Adam considered Dylan Halpearn. He had been surprised to find him working in the kitchen of Evan's or, in fact, anywhere. He was about twenty, Adam thought, and in trouble off and on for the last ten years. His record as a juvenile would be sealed but Pete, whose memory was lengthy, would be able to tell him about every time he had found Dylan when he had answered a call. Not that Dylan was likely to be involved in a sophisticated art theft, not as the principal anyway. He parked beside Pete's Ford 150.

  Anne and Brad huddled over a computer printout at one desk, while Pete, his face furrowed with concentration, punched keys at another. Office work wasn't his favorite part of the job.

  "Anything on Matilde, Pete?"

  "Nothing. I can't find her in the system anywhere. Do you have an employment record from the restaurant? I'm going to need her Social Security number."

  "Yeah, I brought it," he said. "What do you know about a kid called Dylan Halpearn?"

  "Too much. Kid lives out on Maple Road, near the Bassett place, with his grandmother. Always in trouble. Mostly minor stuff. He started drinking heavily when he was about fifteen after his mother died in a car accident. After that, I took him in a few times for drunk and disorderly, bar fights, underage drinking. Last time the judge met with the grandma and him and arranged for him to go to an alternative school. That's when he started in the cooking. Went to AA. Either that or jail. No trouble since then."

  "He quit two days ago."

  "Better go find him. I kinda liked the kid. Hoped he would stay straight."

  "Maybe he has. He told Mary he got a better job."

  Pete grimaced and shook his head.

  "Sure he did."

  * * *

  Dylan's grandmother had a small but tidy property on the road to Bassett's but on the opposite side. A few chickens roamed a fenced-off part of the yard, guarded by a bone-thin mongrel dog. The hair on the back of the dog's neck rose as he circled the truck. Pete leaned on the horn.

  The kitchen door opened and a tall, gaunt, woman, her grey hair hanging in loose braids down her back, came out and stood on the tiny porch, her arms folded tightly against her body.

  "Oh, no. He's not in trouble again, is he, Sergeant Graham?"

  "Not that I know, Mrs. O'Neill. I need to ask him some questions about the restaurant."

  "He don't work there anymore."

  "Where is he?"

  "He went to Burlington to work in that big resort down there. One of the teachers from the school he was at when he went away, is running the kitchen there now and he called him to come and work for him. He's a good boy now."

  "He was trying hard. Do you have an address for him?"

  "I have a phone number."

  "Can I have it, please?"

  "All right," she said as she handed him the number. "So long as you aren't after him to charge him with so
mething."

  "Just a question."

  When he called to the station, Adam told Pete to go to Burlington the next morning and check on Dylan. Adam wanted someone the boy knew to talk to him.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  The winding drive in from the four-lane took Pete through a copse of trees, under-planted with green plants and shrubbery, and past a few holes of a well-kept golf course. The sprawling red-brick inn, including the main house and two wings twice the length of the original building, overlooked Lake Champlain. His goal was the kitchen, but if there was a back entrance with trash cans and dumpsters, he couldn't see it.

  He asked for directions from a crew working on the garden beds near the hotel entrance. A gardener pointed to a fieldstone arch, covered with red-leaved vines, opening into a cobblestoned square. Ahead, a discreet sign pointed to Executive Offices, Dining Rooms.

  Pete hadn't noticed the driver of a black half-ton, waiting and watching from behind its darkened windows.

  A blond woman, dressed in pink and grey to match the decor, sat behind an antique desk. Her nails clicked on the computer keyboard in the thick-carpeted silence.

  "Ma'am," he said, using the softest voice he could.

  "I'll be a moment."

  "Graham, Culver's Mills Police,"

  Pete interposed his identification between her and her monitor.

  "Police? We didn't call the police."

  "No, you didn't. I would like to speak to Mr. Porter, please."

  "Oh, he's over in the kitchen at this time of the day."

  The question answered she resumed her furious typing. A tiny frown spoiled her perfect forehead when Pete asked where the kitchens were.

  "The quickest way is across the courtyard, past the dumpster and through the back door. He's busy, making the preparations for dinner. Is that all?

  "Yes, thank you."

  Pete walked through the kitchen door and into a wall of noise and white-hatted bodies, all working at incredible speed.

  "Can you tell me where Mr. Porter is, please," he asked the closest, standing well back from the flying knife that was chopping garlic at a furious pace.

  "Down there."

  The knife pointed to the end of the kitchen and resumed its task.

  No one paused in his work long enough to glance at the unexpected visitor. Pete headed for the end of the long room. The man-in-charge issued staccato orders as he moved from station to station.

  "Mr. Porter?"

  "Who are you?"

  Pete introduced himself again and asked to speak to the chef privately.

  "My office."

  A desk and two chairs suggested it was an office, but white coats, kitchen equipment, and a wall of cookbooks took up most of the space.

  "What's this about?" the chef said.

  "I want to talk to you about Dylan Halpearn. He's here working for you?"

  "Yeah, but if we're going to talk about him, I want him in here."

  "Has he been here for the last four days?"

  "Yeah, I called him to come down, and he was only too happy to leave that job. Someone was giving him a hard time."

  "Do you know who?"

  "Nah."

  "Where does Dylan live?"

  "He lives here, in the staff quarters for now. He has been on sixteen and off eight since he came."

  "Long hours."

  "It's a busy season for us, what with tourists coming to look at the leaves and all."

  "Can you call him in here?"

  The tall, well-nourished young man, dressed in whites and a chef's hat, bore little resemblance to the slouching, skinny kid Pete used to arrest for liquor offences.

  "Hi," he said, putting out his hand.

  "Dylan, good to see you," Pete said shaking his hand. "I wanted to ask you a few questions about Evan's."

  "I was glad to see the last of that place. I had it with that old bitch."

  "Mary?"

  "No, Matilde. She thought she owned the place."

  "Did you ever go up to the attics there?"

  "Hell, no. Matilde had a fit if I left the kitchen to take a leak. The day I saw her take the box away, she lost it."

  "What box? How big?"

  "Three feet by four, five or six inches wide, maybe. She said it was hers when I asked what she was doing, and threatened she would tell Andre I wasn't clean in the kitchen if I said anything about her storing it in the attic. I guess Andre didn't know."

  Pete's cell phone started to vibrate on his hip.

  "Have you found Dylan?" Adam's voice on the phone.

  "Yeah, he's with me here, and he's been here for four days, nonstop. He says Matilde took a crate out of the attic at Andre's."

  "Then I think he's in some danger. Can you stash him somewhere safe and come back here as quick as you can?

  "Will do."

  Pete told Dylan and his boss about the need for some protection.

  "I can let him stay in my apartment here. I rarely use it. It goes with the job," said Porter.

  "Where is it?"

  "Across the yard."

  The three men had walked out from behind the screen when a worker called to Porter. As they turned back, a shot hit the wall where Dylan's head had been moments before, and the sound of a rifle filled the quiet courtyard.

  "In, in. Get some police here," Pete shouted at the nearest white jacket. He turned and saw a black truck swerve and screech tires on its way back out the drive.

  "Take him inside."

  Pete ran for his truck, only to pound the side in frustration at his deflated front tire. He phoned a description of the truck to the police from the chef's office and went back to the shaking Dylan.

  "Take it easy, Dylan."

  "Take it easy. Somebody tried to kill me. What the hell for?"

  "Because you saw Matilde take the crate out of Evan's. He may try again, but he's gone now. I'll ask the local police for protection.

  Hours later, Pete drove back to Culver's, frustrated by the lack of progress in finding the shooter.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The receptionist buzzed Adam to tell him Ted Atkins was at the desk and wanted to talk to him.

  "Come in, Ted."

  Ted had changed, Adam noticed. He had been a mess, drinking heavily, his depression mirrored in his sad face. He used to look as if he showered some time last week and visited a barber sometime last year. This was a new, spruced-up version. He even had a smile on his long face. Maybe a woman in his life?

  "What can I do for you?"

  "I wanted to tell you I'm writing a story about the boys who were missing."

  Adam leaned over Ted, his face a dangerous shade of red.

  "Those boys are still in danger. What do you think you are doing?"

  "Take it easy, Adam. I'm not going to disclose where they're staying. I thought you would react like that, so I brought the copy. There's nothing identifying in it."

  Adam took the papers from Ted and read quickly.

  "Okay, so there is nothing that could identify the boys. Did Anne give you an interview?

  Anne's head came up as she heard her name.

  "Nothing much. Generic information about posttraumatic stress syndrome. Are the boys stashed with the aunt?"

  "No comment, Ted. Your story is good as it stands. I have to get back to work."

  "Okay."

  Adam watched Ted's rapid progress across the office with amazement. He wondered who she was.

  "I didn't tell him anything," Anne said.

  "I know. What have you got so far today?"

  "The Leclerc family tree has quite a few dead branches—family lines that petered out. I was able to construct a partial family tree from Mr. Trevelyan's information and the online census data. He isn't the sole heir."

  "No?"

  Anne showed him a family tree that included a small child, Alice, daughter of Mildred Hall and Aaron Bentley. She was still alive in 1900, but Anne couldn't find her in 1910.

  "What now?"<
br />
  "I want to find Alice. Lots of kids died young, or perhaps she married, so it's back to the church."

  Brad took Anne to the Catholic Church, where she found, to her delight, the years she needed on computer disk. Alice married William Blakely in 1908, and that was the end of the trail. No baptisms followed, so no children, at least not in this parish.

  On their way back to the office, she planned the next step in the search. A museum in New Hampshire had sent the sampler, so perhaps she would find traces in the census there.

  The census, for 1910 in New Hampshire, was available through her Ancestry.com subscription and in the small town of Laconia, Belknap County, New Hampshire, she found them. The trail in the census was helpful, but newspaper records would fill in the gaps between the ten years from one census to another. Perhaps a trip to New Hampshire, Anne thought as Brad drove her back to Catherine's.

  Catherine's other guest, a visiting minister who filled in at one of the local churches, was checking out when Anne walked into the spacious front hall. Anne nodded and walked to the kitchen to make a phone call.

  "Thank you, I'll see you in about half-an-hour."

  Anne put the portable phone back in its cradle. Her face creased into a delighted smile as she turned to Catherine.

  "I guess you and Thomas are talking again?"

  "Yes, and he's going to fly me to New Hampshire."

  "Save you the drive."

  Anne decided the only way to further her knowledge of the Windeman genealogy was to drive to Laconia, Belknap County, New Hampshire and read the newspaper archives. She intended to leave after breakfast, but the early morning call from Thomas and his quick offer to fly her changed her plans.

  Thomas picked her up in his favorite car, a silver Honda Prelude from the early nineties, lovingly restored.

  "What's our mission today," he said.

  "Intell."

  "We'll be in time for an early lunch."

  Thomas's plane was waiting on the tarmac when they arrived at the small municipal airport that served Culver's Mills. Anne had flown once before in Thomas's little red two-seater. She loved small planes and the feeling they gave her of being in the air, not a metal tube. Once they were up, she asked Thomas about their flight plan.