He’d closed the distance between them. Kirk still had one hand on the bag, the other on the metal lid, but he hadn’t raised it far enough to toss the bag in. The other man slapped his hand on top of it and it slammed shut with a resounding clang. If Kirk hadn’t yanked his hand away quickly enough, he’d be minus a thumb.
“What’s your problem?” Kirk asked. He thought of a good Family Feud question: “Name a place where dickheads are most likely to work?” He’d shout: “Takeout pizza joint!”
But what he said was, “You got a pepperoni stick up your ass or something?” He really wanted to have a go at this guy. Kick his ass good.
“This what you want?” the man asked. “You want to get into it over this? Because if that’s what you want, then that’s okay by me.”
The bag concealing the bloody clothes and bloody purse and bloody cleaning clothes dropped from Kirk’s hand to the asphalt so he’d have both fists ready.
The back door to the pizza place opened again, and a second man came out. White guy, about twice the size of the black guy.
Kirk thought, Shit.
“Hey, Mick, help me out with this asshole!” the black guy said.
If it mattered to Mick that he had no idea what this dispute was about, he showed no sign. He was too busy looking, immediately, for something to use to hit Kirk, and he found it up against the wall. A discarded two-foot length of lead pipe. He raised it like a club, looked at Kirk, and smiled.
Kirk bolted.
He jumped back into the car, slammed the door, did a fast three-point turn, narrowly missing Mick as the front end swung past him in reverse, then floored it, racing back up the side of the building and onto the street.
He was two blocks away before he realized he’d left the bag sitting there next to the Dumpster.
Twenty-one
The crime scene people had arrived at the Garfield house. Rona Wedmore stepped back so they could do their job. Eight uniformed officers had also shown up, and Wedmore had them fanned out across the neighborhood, knocking on doors, trying to find anyone who might have seen anything. The last thing she did before leaving was ask Joy Bennings, the lead crime scene investigator, to let her know what was on the card she’d noticed tucked into Wendell Garfield’s shirt. Wedmore had been able to make out a couple of digits—the beginning of a phone number—in one corner, but that was it. She’d left it in the shirt. Smeared with blood that might not be the victim’s own, she didn’t want to interfere with it. She asked Joy to call her the moment she was able to make out what the card said.
Then she got in her car and drove back to the station so that she could have a further conversation with Melissa.
But on her way to see Melissa, she was told a Mrs. Beaudry was waiting to see her. She’d identified herself at the front desk as Melissa’s aunt, said that she had come to the station looking for Melissa or her father.
Wedmore found the woman pacing in the station lobby. Mid-forties, not much more than five feet, with a tiny frame and a long, hooked nose. She looked, Wedmore thought, bird-like. If you squeezed her too tight, she’d break in your arms.
“Excuse me,” Wedmore said. “You’re Mrs. Beaudry? Are you Melissa Garfield’s aunt?”
The woman’s eyes went wide with expectation. “Yes! I’ve been waiting to talk to someone about—”
“You’re Ellie Garfield’s sister?”
“No, I’m Wendell’s sister. I’m Gail. I tried to reach Wendell at the house and when there was no answer—he doesn’t own a cell phone—I figured they were both down here. And all they’ll tell me is that Melissa is here but not her father and they won’t let me talk to her. What’s going on?”
“Would you like to sit down, Mrs. Beaudry?”
“No, I would not like to sit down! Where’s Melissa? Is she okay? Her father’s not with her?”
“Melissa’s perfectly safe. I need to ask you some questions, Mrs. Beaudry.”
“About what?”
“About Melissa, and your brother, and Ellie.”
The woman, baffled, awaited the first question.
“When did you last talk to your brother?” Wedmore asked.
She looked at the detective, puzzled. “Why?”
“Mrs. Beaudry, please. When’s the last time you spoke?”
“Last night. I called him before I went to bed to see whether he’d heard anything.”
“You didn’t speak to him at all today?”
“No.”
“What about Melissa? Have you had any conversations with her in the last twenty-four hours?”
“I saw both of them at the press conference. For moral support. But I haven’t talked to her since then.”
“What can you tell me about her state of mind?” Wedmore asked.
“She’s distraught, of course! Who wouldn’t be?”
“Did she say anything to you?”
“No, not really. I just told her, and Wendell, we’d do anything we could to help. Like them, we just want Ellie to come home safe and sound.”
Wedmore nodded. “I see. And about Wendell …”
“Yes?”
“Do you know whether your brother was involved in any business deals, any personal relationships, where he might have made enemies?”
“No, no, of course not.”
“You’re unaware of anyone who might be angry with your brother for any reason?” Even as she asked the question, Wedmore thought about Laci Harmon’s husband. She’d said he didn’t know about the affair. But what if he did? What if he went to Garfield’s house to confront him?
But wait. Laci Harmon had told Wedmore that morning that her husband was driving back from Schenectady. With the kids. Wedmore would want to double-check that, but it made her think the husband probably wasn’t a suspect.
“What on earth are you getting at? Why are you asking these questions? Shouldn’t you people be looking for Ellie? Shouldn’t you be finding out what’s happened to her?”
Wedmore took a long breath. “Mrs. Beaudry, I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but your brother’s dead.”
Gail Beaudry cocked her head, like a dog who’d heard a whistle. “Wendell’s—what?”
“Your brother is dead. He died this morning. In the last few hours.” She reached out and touched the woman’s arm. “I’m very sorry.”
The woman needed a moment for this to sink in. “How do you know? Is he here? Where did it happen? At home? Did he have a heart attack? Oh God, he probably had a heart attack. Is that what happened? Was it a stroke? That’s probably what happened. The stress of all this, of not knowing what’s happened to Ellie, oh no oh no …”
“It wasn’t a heart attack,” Wedmore said gently. “And it wasn’t a stroke. Your brother is a homicide victim.”
“He’s—he’s a what?”
“Someone killed him, Mrs. Beaudry.”
The woman put her hand to her chest and gasped. “Dear God. First Ellie disappears, and now Wendell is dead?” A flash seemed to go off in her head. “Does this mean—oh no—does this mean Ellie’s been murdered too?”
Wedmore hesitated. “In fact, we believe so, yes.”
Gail struggled to comprehend the news. That two members of her family were dead. She took several seconds to catch her breath. “So there’s someone roaming around out there, someone who’s killed Ellie and Wendell?’
Wedmore steeled herself. She was going to have to get to it sooner or later. “Whoever killed your brother, yes, that person is still out there.”
“I don’t … I don’t understand.”
“The facts we have so far suggest your brother and sister-in-law were killed by different people. In totally separate circumstances.”
“Different people?” Gail Beaudry was starting to put something together. “You said whoever killed Wendell is still out there, but you didn’t say that about Ellie. You have the man who killed Ellie?”
It struck Wedmore as natural that Gail Beaudry would assume a man had killed her sister-in
-law. Most killers were men.
“Mrs. Beaudry,” Wedmore said, “we’re going to be charging Melissa with your sister-in-law’s death. The reason you can’t see her is because she’s in custody.”
The woman took no time at all to react to this. “That’s ridiculous. That’s not true. That’s absolutely preposterous.”
“I’m afraid not,” Rona Wedmore said.
“She’d never do such a thing. Never! Melissa and her mother were very close. I’ve never heard anything so outrageous. For heaven’s sake, whatever evidence you think you have, I’m sure there’s an explanation. Talk to the girl! She’ll set you straight.”
“Melissa has confessed,” Detective Wedmore said. “She came in here of her own accord.” Gail was speechless, so Wedmore added, “But she was here, in this building, when her father was killed. We don’t know what the connection is.”
“This is crazy, insane. I have to … I have to call someone.” Gail Beaudry fumbled in her purse for her phone. “And my husband, I’m going to have to call my husband.”
Wedmore excused herself. She had to go back and see Melissa again.
*
The girl howled like a wounded animal.
She threw her arms around Detective Wedmore, put her face on her chest and sobbed. “No, no, no.”
It wasn’t, strictly speaking, procedure to take murder suspects into one’s arms and comfort them, but Wedmore found herself doing just that. She placed her hands on the girl’s back and patted her ever so gently, thinking to herself what a pathetic gesture it was. Might as well be saying, “There, there.”
“Daddy,” she whimpered. “Daddy.”
“I have to ask you some questions, Melissa,” Wedmore said.
But the girl continued to weep, and it was ten minutes before Wedmore could get her back into the chair in the interrogation room. Instead of facing her from across the table, she brought her own chair around next to Melissa’s and allowed the girl to hold onto her hands.
“Someone killed him?” Melissa asked disbelievingly. “Are you sure?”
Wedmore thought back to what she’d seen. “Yes,” she said with certainty. “What haven’t you told me, Melissa? What aren’t you telling me?”
“I’ve told you everything, I swear.”
“Who would want to hurt your father?”
“No one. Nobody.”
“Did someone else help you, Melissa? Was there a third person involved in getting your mother, and the car, up to the lake?”
“No, I’m telling you, it was just me and Dad. And he didn’t even hurt Mom. That was me, that was all me.”
“What about the man who’s the father of your child?”
“Lester?”
“That’s right. Did he and your father get along? Is it possible they could have had some kind of argument?”
“My parents liked Lester,” Melissa said. “They were mad at me because I didn’t want to marry him.” She put her face in her hands again and wept.
Wedmore sighed, and got up.
This was the damnedest thing she’d dealt with in a while.
She was just leaving the interrogation room when her phone buzzed. It was a text, from Joy.
It read: “Got something. Call me.”
Twenty-two
Keisha tried to think how she would explain it.
Because she would have to explain it. There was no doubt in her mind. The police would eventually find Wendell Garfield, if they hadn’t already, and sooner or later they’d discover her business card, tucked into his shirt pocket.
If the card had been anywhere else—in a drawer, in his wallet, even—it wouldn’t have been such a big deal. Over time, everyone collects lots of business cards. You find them in your car, your coat pocket, pinned to bulletin boards.
But a card that’s been tucked into a shirt, well, that’s a card that has to have been acquired, or at the very least referred to, very recently. Assuming that Wendell Garfield did not wear the same, unlaundered shirt for days or weeks on end, it would be reasonable for the police to assume he’d acquired, or been looking at, that card in the last couple of days. Since his wife had gone missing.
And how did most people acquire cards? From the people whose name was on them.
It was just a matter of time before the police would be at Keisha’s door, asking whether she’d met with Wendell Garfield. When was this meeting? Where was it held? What was its purpose and who had initiated it?
What would she tell them?
“I have no idea how he got that card.”
That’s what she would tell them.
It might be a hard story to stick to, but now that Kirk had gotten rid of everything else linking her to the Garfield house, she believed she could ride it out.
She’d tell them that she often left her cards pinned to noticeboards in grocery stores. Sometimes she’d leave a few out on tables at craft shows and community center events. She’d distribute them to random people she might meet waiting in a checkout line, or at a bus stop.
The cards were out there, she’d say. Who knows where he might have gotten one?
Maybe he’d come across one weeks ago, put it in a drawer, and after his wife disappeared, he went hunting for it, thinking maybe a psychic could assist him in ways the police had not. He’d found the card and slipped it into his shirt, and probably would have called her if he hadn’t ended up with a knitting needle in his brain.
Of course, only Keisha knew it would have made no sense for Garfield to engage the services of a psychic to find his wife. He knew all about his wife’s fate. But the police didn’t know that, did they? So far as they were aware, Wendell Garfield was still a distraught husband desperate for his wife’s return. Maybe the police would even start working on the theory that whoever got rid of Ellie—at some point they’d conclude that she was the victim of foul play, even if they never found her body at the bottom of that lake—was the same person who’d killed her husband.
That would make sense, right?
And really, what did her business card have to do with all that?
It’s just a card.
She tried to tell herself not to worry about it. Play dumb, stonewall, act perplexed. However he came into possession of her card, it wasn’t her responsibility to explain it.
The phone rang.
Keisha looked at it but did not move. Probably Chad calling back, or some other needy client. Let it go to message, which it would do after five rings. The ringing stopped, and Keisha waited for the light to flash to indicate a message had indeed been left, but the light never flashed.
Just as well, she thought.
There was a loud rattling at the front door, then the sound of it opening. Keisha jumped almost as much as she had the first time the phone had rung.
Who the hell was this? Wasn’t it too soon for Kirk to be back?
“Hey, babe!” he called out.
Keisha met him in the hall. “What are you doing here?”
“Whaddya mean?”
“Where did you go? Where’d you get rid of it?”
“It’s all taken care of,” he said, waving his hand dismissively.
“Okay, but where?”
“I did what you asked, okay? It’s done.” He tried to get past her to go into the kitchen, but she laid her palm on his chest.
“I told you to take it to Darien or someplace far. You didn’t go that far, did you? You’re back too soon.”
“Well shit, that was just a stupid idea you had. I mean, the main thing is, don’t dump it in your backyard, right? Just because you don’t want to put it out in front of your house on pickup day doesn’t mean you got to drive it to hell and back.”
Keisha shook her head angrily. “Where did you toss it?”
He waved her off. “Look, you owe me some money. I had some expenses, at the car wash. Used every quarter I had.”
“Where did you ditch the bag?” It came out more like a scream than a question.
“Jesus,
don’t get your panties in a knot. Almost all the way to Bridgeport,” he said.
“What did I tell you?”
“I heard what you said, but once I was out there, I had decisions to make. I saw a good spot behind this strip of stores so that was where I left it.”
She shook her head in exasperation. “I swear to God. Did you at least shove it way down into the Dumpster with a bunch of other bags?”
Kirk hesitated.
“What?” Keisha asked.
He shrugged. “Pretty much.”
“What do you mean, pretty much?”
“Okay, so I drive behind this place and I’m getting ready to put the bag in the Dumpster, right? Then this asshole comes out the back door of this pizza place and starts giving me attitude about putting my trash in his bin, so—”
“Wait a minute? He saw you? And the car? He saw you putting the bag in there?”
“God, woman, let me finish,” Kirk said. Keisha was really starting to get on his nerves. “So anyway, the guy’s all in my face about it, and I’m thinking, what’s the big deal, one lousy bag of garbage, so what if I dump it in his bin, you know? So he’s acting like he wants to get into it, which is okay by me, but then some other guy the size of a refrigerator comes out to back him up and he’s swinging this fucking pipe like a baseball bat, so I had to get the hell out of there. I can take on one guy, no problem, but two, that’s a bit much.”
“Oh my God,” Keisha said. “Do you think they called the police?”
He shrugged. “Why would they do that? A fight over a bag of garbage? Who’s going to call the cops for that? It’s a couple of pizza guys. Don’t worry about it.”
Keisha was very worried. What if they made a note of the license number of her car?
She asked, “So where did you end up putting the bag?”
“Okay, so here’s the thing,” Kirk said. “When that shithead started coming at me with the pipe, I had to take off, right then. So I left the bag there.”
“You left it there? Where they’d seen you?”
“That guy would have killed me with that pipe,” Kirk said.
Keisha was wishing he had. “Tell me you at least got the bag way in there before all this happened. I mean, nobody’s going to want to go into a Dumpster after a specific bag. Not after you’re gone.”
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