“Did you report him?”
“I thought of it,” he said. “But he was a real vindictive guy. Might try to do something to get back at me.”
“What could he possibly do?”
Jorge looked uncomfortable. I saw him glance over to where Werzel was still pacing back and forth like a caged tiger in front of Sammy’s guard post. Yeah, smart to make sure the press was out of earshot before talking about blackmailable secrets.
“Before I found out he was spying on his tenants, I sometimes invited the people I was helping over to my apartment,” he said. “I don’t always know their status when they first come to see me. If they’re illegal, I tell them that there’s not much I can do and refer them to an immigration lawyer I know. But what if Doleson spotted someone who turned out to be illegal? He could report me and I’d lose my green card like that!”
He snapped his fingers and shook his head sadly.
“It’d be your word against his,” I said.
“Yeah, but he’d have his digital photos,” Jorge said. “Hard to explain those away.”
“Digital photos?”
“He’s always taking pictures of people coming and going,” Jorge said. “He’s been doing it for years—no idea why.”
“I can guess,” Michael said. “Up until five or six years ago, the Pines was the sort of motel couples went to if they didn’t want to be seen together.”
“Yeah, it always was a dive,” Jorge said, wrinkling his nose as if remembering a bad smell. We all glanced back at the ramshackle building. With several inches of snow softening its contours and hiding some of the shabbiness, it looked almost habitable.
“And it was the only motel like that in Caerphilly County,” Michael went on. “So everyone knew where to look for their cheating spouses.”
“You mean people were still stupid enough to go there?” Jorge asked.
“You’d be surprised,” Michael said. “Not everyone was smart enough to take their infidelities out of the county. But what really did Mr. Doleson’s business in was when people found out he used his digital camera to take pictures of everyone who came there. And sold the evidence for a hefty fee.”
“You’re kidding!” I exclaimed.
Michael shook his head.
“He’d been doing it for years. Of course, until the last few years he used Polaroids. When people learned that he’d supplied evidence in a few bitterly contested divorces, his business disappeared completely. That’s why he converted the place to apartments.”
“Lucky he did,” Jorge said. “Or I’d still be sleeping on someone’s couch.” Caerphilly’s chronic housing shortage was legendary. “Anyway, even if he didn’t have anything to blackmail me with, just reporting me would cause a major hassle. I know people who have spent years trying to clear up completely bogus accusations.”
“But you think he was blackmailing other people?” I asked.
Jorge nodded.
“Everyone assumed his blackmail business folded when he converted the Pines to an apartment building,” Michael said. “I guess everyone underestimated him.”
“You know,” I said, “this could explain why they kept Dole-son on as Santa. Maybe he was blackmailing someone on the town council.”
“I wouldn’t put it past him,” Michael said.
“When they seize his blackmail files, they’ll find out,” Jorge said. “I’m sure that’s what the burglary is all about.”
“You think he kept his files at the Spare Attic?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Jorge said. “Most of the bins have walls made of chain link.”
“I know,” I said. “We still have a bin there.”
“But Doleson’s own storage place is a room with reinforced walls and a huge, fancy padlock on the outside.”
“You’ve seen it?”
“Not myself, but I’ve talked to guys who have,” he said. “And it stands to reason he wouldn’t keep anything really valuable in his unit here at the Pines. The walls are like cardboard.”
“Like?” I said. “The walls are cardboard, period. One night, when his neighbors were making a racket, Rob tried to pound on the wall and ended up putting his fist through it.”
“So the killer is someone Doleson was blackmailing,” Jorge went on. “And then the killer came to steal the incriminating evidence before the police have a chance to find it. This could break the case wide open!”
“Or confuse it,” Michael said. “After all, if Doleson was blackmailing a lot of people, the killer would be only one of multiple people desperate to remove incriminating evidence.”
Maybe Jorge believed his theory that the burglar had to be the killer or maybe he wanted us to believe it because it diverted suspicion from anyone who wasn’t the burglar. Telling us about Doleson’s attempt to blackmail him could be another very clever way to divert suspicion. I was suddenly glad I’d turned over the Blitzen sweatshirt to the police.
Michael and Jorge were so caught up in their discussion that they didn’t notice the sudden flurry of activity at the door of the Spare Attic.
The police were leading out their suspects: Clarence Rut-ledge and Caroline Willner.
Chapter 19
Caroline waved cheerfully at us, as if her midnight arrest for burglary were merely a continuation of the day’s festivities. Clarence looked a little more serious, which meant that the grim reality of their situation had begun to sink in with him. Then again, perhaps Caroline, like Dr. Blake, had become accustomed to the occasional brush with the law in her years of rescuing and defending animals. Clarence would get used to being in hot water if he kept hanging around with Caroline and Dr. Blake.
Curiosity got the better of me, and I began to inch a little closer to the action.
Clarence and Caroline were both dressed entirely in black—black coats, pants, hats, shoes, and gloves—though the foot-and- a-half difference in their heights made the effect more comical than threatening. As I moved closer, I could see that Clarence’s black garb was largely wool and leather, while Caroline had donned a quilted black velvet coat with faceted jet buttons and a fuzzy black crocheted scarf and hat set. What the well-dressed felon wears to an evening crime. Caroline had also smeared eyeblack under her eyes, the way football players do on sunny days, though presumably it was intended to reduce her visibility rather than to protect against glare. Apparently Clarence had decided that his beard made the black paint unnecessary.
“I’m afraid we’ll have to take you down to the station for questioning,” the chief was saying.
“Oh, dear,” Caroline said. “In this weather?”
The chief scowled at her but said nothing. I couldn’t help myself.
“If you’d wanted better weather for your arrest, you should have picked better weather for your burglary,” I said. “Do you need anything? Like the name of a good criminal defense attorney?”
I had pulled out my notebook-that-tells-me-when-to-breathe and flipped to the back, where I keep a list of useful phone numbers—including two local lawyers who had represented wayward friends and family members in the past. I ripped out a clean sheet and began copying the names.
“Thank you, dearie,” Caroline said. “But I’m sure we can work this out amicably.”
Clarence gave her a startled glance and stuck out his hand. I gave him the numbers. The chief looked annoyed, and Caroline shook her head as if sorrowful over his lack of confidence, but Clarence tucked the paper away in his pocket and seemed a little less stunned.
“Thanks,” he said. “Say, could I leave my motorcycle at your house for the time being? I don’t think the chief can spare anyone to ride it into town, and there’s no place here to lock it up.”
“Fine with me,” I said. “Maybe Michael would be willing to try riding it back to our house.”
“Absolutely,” Michael said, stepping forward. “Happy to oblige.”
The chief nodded.
“Sammy,” he said. “It’s getting colder by the minute. Why don’t y
ou check out that motorbike so Meg and Michael can be on their way?”
Sammy went over and removed the saddlebags from Clarence’s motorcycle. We watched as he gave the bike itself a cursory once-over, then nodded. Clarence pulled his keys out of his pocket, held them up so the chief could see them, and then, after the chief nodded his permission, tossed them over to Michael.
“I should get going,” Michael said. “In case the snow starts up again earlier than predicted. And while there are still some people coming along behind me to dig me out if this thing gets stuck.”
“We’ll have someone here for another hour or so,” the chief said.
Michael nodded. He climbed aboard the motorcycle, started it, and began riding it slowly across the snow-covered parking lot toward the only slightly less snow-covered road.
I watched while the officers guided Clarence and Caroline into the back seat of one of the cruisers. The cruiser followed in Michael’s wake, with the chief’s car bringing up the rear.
There were still two police cars in the parking lot, though, along with an enormous truck that I recognized as Caroline’s—the one she’d brought the elephants in.
Had she driven the truck out here in this weather? Or did they have another partner in their scheme, whatever it was?
Where was the animal angle in all this? With both Clarence and Caroline involved, there had to be a bird or animal welfare issue behind the burglary. In the several years we’d had a storage unit at the Spare Attic, before moving to our enormous house, I’d never seen any wildlife other than mice in the walls and birds nesting in the rafters. There were probably whole colonies of birds and mice there still—while Doleson might not cherish them and want to protect them, he would never have bothered spending money on extermination. No wonder the Spare Attic was rapidly emptying.
If the place had been a cosmetics testing lab, a fly-by-night puppy mill, or a dog-fighting ring, I could understand their interest in burgling it. In fact, if that had been the case, I’d have been surprised that they’d left Dad and Dr. Blake behind. But the Spare Attic?
Was the burglary related to the murder or just a distraction?
I wasn’t going to get any answers here, and I wasn’t getting any warmer, either. The inhabitants of the Pines were starting to drift back indoors, and I saw that Ainsley Werzel had taken refuge in his car and was talking to someone on his cell phone.
Make that trying to talk to someone on his cell phone. As I watched, he threw the phone violently onto the floor and I could see him mouthing what I suspected were curses. Cell phone reception in the remoter parts of Caerphilly County was unreliable at the best of times, and tended to shut down entirely in bad weather.
I got back in the truck and headed slowly for home.
Michael was just wheeling the motorcycle into our barn when I pulled into the driveway. I spotted a cluster of vehicles farther toward town, where the road wound through a small stand of trees. I went out to the middle of the road to get a better view.
Michael strolled up beside me.
“Motorcycles are definitely a lot more fun in the summer,” he said. “I’m chilled to the bone. What’s going on down there?”
“No idea,” I said. “Should we go and see?”
“Not me,” he said. “My teeth are chattering. I’m going to go in and build up the fire. You should join me.”
“In a minute,” I said. “There’s someone heading this way.”
Apparently Michael’s curiosity was as strong as mine. Even though his teeth really were audibly chattering, he stayed with me until we recognized Deputy Sammy trudging toward us through the snow.
“Are your phones working?” he called.
“Went out with the power hours ago,” Michael said. “And I haven’t tried my cell phone recently, but I wouldn’t count on it.”
“Darn,” Sammy said. “Ours aren’t working either. And a big old tree fell across the road while we were out at the Spare Attic. No way to get over or around. Do you have a chain saw?”
“Sorry, no,” Michael said. “We’ve got a couple of bow saws.”
“Thanks,” Sammy said. “But the trunk is two feet in diameter. I don’t think a bow saw’s going to be much use.”
“I’m really sorry,” Michael said. “I’ve been meaning to get a chain saw, but I just haven’t gotten around to it.”
News to me. I wasn’t even sure Michael had ever used a chain saw in his life, and I couldn’t think of anything he ever did that seemed to require one. Then again, chain saw cravings were definitely Y-chromosome linked. Michael and Sammy were shaking their heads solemnly, as if Michael were confessing and Sammy graciously absolving him of a serious moral failure. If only I’d known, I’d have given him a chain saw for Christmas instead of the llama.
“Maybe we can borrow one from a neighbor,” I said. “Seth Early’s only a mile away.”
Sammy and Michael looked at each other, then shook their heads, as if admitting that even a chain saw wasn’t worth floundering another mile through the snow with temperatures in the teens.
“Meanwhile, invite whoever’s trapped on our side of the tree to come in and warm up,” I added.
“You’re got heat?”
“We’ve got a fire in the fireplace,” I said. “And blankets. And we can make instant coffee on the camping stove. If you’re hungry, we could even grill something.”
“I’ll go tell the chief,” he said. He trudged back toward the cluster of vehicles.
While Michael stirred up the fire and started the water for coffee, I readied beds for the overnight guests we’d probably be having. I changed the sheets in Rob’s room and the guest room, added extra blankets, and dragged the rest of the available bedding to the living room. Anyone who valued privacy more than heat could drag his bedroll into one of the empty bedrooms, and the rest could have the two sofas or bivouac at the foot of the Christmas tree on our camping mattresses.
“Do you think we’ve got enough blankets?” Michael asked.
“Probably not, but this is all we have,” I said. “And it’s not as if we can go out in the middle of the night in a snowstorm and buy more.”
“We could borrow some gear from the Boy Scouts—I doubt if they made it back out to their campsite tonight.”
“Great idea,” I said.
Just then the door opened, and our guests stumbled in. Caroline, Clarence, Chief Burke, Sammy, two other Caerphilly officers, and Cousin Horace. The officers were all carrying plastic garbage bags and powerful flashlights.
“Meg, do you mind if we take the truck and the van into your barn,” the chief asked. “We can’t leave the evidence unguarded, and I can’t ask anyone to stay outside with it. The temperature must be in the teens by now.”
“Fine with me,” I said.
“And I’d like a private room where I can talk to Mrs. Will-ner,” he said.
“How about the dining room?” I suggested.
He thought about it for a moment.
“Fine,” he said.
I followed him to the dining room. He flicked the flashlight around, inspecting the room, while I tidied some of the gilded fruit and greenery off the table so he’d have room to work, and lit a few of the oil lamps we kept handy for our frequent power outages. Caroline came in and sat down. Clarence followed her and hovered nearby.
“We don’t want to talk to you,” Clarence said. “Do we, Caroline?”
“I’m sure we can clear this up,” she said. She looked ashen, and I wanted to order her to bed.
“But we don’t want to—” Clarence began.
“Fine,” the chief said. “You’re not talking. You can not talk to me some more later, but right now it’s Mrs. Willner’s turn not to talk.”
“Coffee?” Michael said, appearing with a trio of cups. Clarence grabbed one and fled to the living room after one last pleading look that was wasted, since Caroline was sitting back with her eyes closed. She smiled faintly as Michael handed her the second cup. He handed t
he third to the chief and left.
“Anything else you need?” I asked.
The chief walked over to open a small door in our dining room wall, pulled the rope until the dumbwaiter was level with the opening, and then ostentatiously propped the door open. Clearly he hadn’t forgotten the time last summer when I’d used the dumbwaiter to eavesdrop while he was questioning suspects in another case.
“This will do fine,” he said. “Thank you.”
I walked out and closed the door.
“I’m going to do some laundry,” I called to Michael. Which wouldn’t sound implausible to him or anyone who knew me. I clean under stress.
“With no power?” he called back.
Rats. There was that small flaw in my cover story.
“I can still sort the dirty stuff and fold the clean,” I called back. And I did go down and throw a load of sheets in the washer, so it was ready to run when the power returned. Then I waited until I heard Michael and Sammy going out the back door.
“We’re off to burgle the Boy Scouts!” Michael called downstairs.
As soon as the door closed, I crept up out of the basement and dashed into the powder room off the kitchen. The powder room had originally been a short servants’ hallway between the kitchen and the dining room. When indoor bathrooms became popular and servants too expensive, the owners had put a door at the kitchen end of the corridor, installed a sink and toilet, and blocked off the dining room end with built-in china shelves. But since only the back of the shelves separated the powder room from the dining room, sound traveled rather well. And given how much the boards at the back of the shelves had warped over the years, I easily found a chink to peek through.
Chapter 20
Caroline Willner sat at one end of our dining table. The coffee had revived her. She had clasped her hands over her stomach and was smiling benignly at the chief, as if this were a social visit rather than an interrogation.
“So of course, when Dr. Langslow asked me to bring the elephants, I thought it was a wonderful idea,” she was saying.
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