Plaster and Poison

Plaster and Poison Page 18

by Jennie Bentley

  “Yeah? ”

  My cheeks flushed, I admitted, “Actually, I was listening at the butler door. Mom, Noel, and I were in the kitchen. Getting ready for dinner with you and your parents. Reece and Kate were in the dining room. I didn’t hear very much, but at one point, Reece talked about someone, or somewhere, called Ludlow.”

  “Massachusetts? ” Derek said.

  I nodded. “You know it? ”

  “Not apart from the fact that it’s there. What about it? ”

  I explained that the Hampden County Correctional Facility was in Ludlow.

  “So what?” Derek said. “That doesn’t prove anything. Lots of other things are there, too, I’m sure.”

  “I’m sure they are. So I searched for Gerard and Ludlow instead.”

  He folded his arms across his chest. “And what did you find? ”

  I smiled triumphantly. “I found a newspaper article from six years ago about a community-outreach program. Apparently nobody too dangerous gets sent to Ludlow, so their inmates get involved in the community from time to time. This had something to do with a housing development playground and with building and putting together and painting the equipment.”

  “And Gerard was involved? ”

  I nodded. “There was a picture. Of him and a couple of other guys.”

  “That’s nice,” Derek said. “Good for you, tracking down the information. I’m not sure what good it does us, though.” He made a move toward his tools.

  “Oh, that wasn’t what I was going to tell you,” I said. “I printed out the picture. Here.” I dug it out of my handbag and unfolded it. “See? There’s Gerard. A little less gray around the temples and not as old. And look there, in the background? Recognize him? ”

  Derek squinted. “Shit,” he said. “Peter Cortino? ”

  “I’m afraid so. His name is in the caption underneath, so there’s not much doubt.”

  “There wouldn’t have been any doubt even without the name. I’ve known Peter for five years, and I see him almost every day. When was this published? ”

  I shrugged. “Six years ago? Give or take a couple of months.”

  “Peter’s been here for five.” He uttered an even worse word than the one he’d already employed before he snagged his jacket from the counter again and shrugged into it. “C’mon.”

  “Where? ” I said, trotting after him toward the door.

  He tossed me a glance over his shoulder. “Where do you think? If you could figure this out, surely the police will, especially if they already know about Ludlow. It won’t take genius to come up with the idea of checking the background of everyone here in Waterfield. Or everyone not originally from Waterfield, anyway. They’ll show up at Cortino’s sooner or later, and if Jill doesn’t know about this, I don’t want her to find out that way. You coming? ”

  “Right behind you,” I said.

  We took off down the street like a bat out of hell.

  “Looks like Brandon’s still inside,” Derek remarked, with a glance in the rearview mirror at the patrol car parked at the curb outside the B&B.

  I nodded. “Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean anything. Under the circumstances, it’s more likely that Reece Tolliver would be going to Cortino’s on his own, instead of sending Brandon. Just in case Peter is armed and dangerous.”

  “Peter Cortino isn’t dangerous,” Derek said.

  “How do you know that? ”

  He glanced at me. “Because I know him. Because I’d have seen some sign of it if he were.”

  Maybe, maybe not. It didn’t seem worth arguing about. We took a turn on two wheels, and I was tossed against him and breathed deeply of Ivory soap and paint thinner before I straightened up. “You know, if Peter knew Gerard from before, that explains why he was so upset when we told him about the murder the other day.”

  Derek nodded. “I didn’t think a whole lot of it at the time, but now that you mention it . . . yeah, he did seem rather inordinately surprised.”

  “And . . .” I paused, thinking. “You know, I could be wrong about this, but I think Kate told me that the only person in Waterfield she told about Shannon’s inheritance from Kate’s grandmother was Jill Cortino. Jill does some financial planning on the side, and Kate wanted Jill’s help with investing the money.”

  “So Jill could have told Peter—no real reason why she wouldn’t; they’re married, and she trusts him—and he could have told Gerard, and that’s why Gerard came to Waterfield.” Derek’s hands tightened on the steering wheel.

  “They could have stayed in touch ever since Ludlow. Peter could have been the one who brought the bastard here.”

  “We don’t know anything yet,” I warned, “so when we get there, don’t fly off the handle.”

  “When do I ever fly off the handle?”

  “There was that time you punched the birch tree in Aunt Inga’s yard.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Besides that.”

  “I can’t remember. Just don’t do anything you’ll regret. It may all be one big misunderstanding.”

  “Sure,” Derek said, but he didn’t sound like he believed it.

  A minute later, we pulled into the lot outside Cortino’s Auto and got out. Jill waved at us through the office window, and inside the nearest bay, Peter looked up from vacuuming out the back of a ratty ten-year-old Explorer with the Stenham logo on the side. If he had a guilty conscience, I couldn’t see it on him. He did look a little the worse for wear, though. Pale under the olive skin, like he hadn’t slept well, and with dark circles under his eyes.

  “Looks like he’s got something on his mind,” Derek muttered. I nodded.

  The car Peter was working on didn’t look like one of the shiny, new vehicles the Stenhams usually drove, and I asked, hopefully, “Have the Stenhams fallen on hard times, so they have to buy used cars now?”

  “I wish,” Derek answered, glancing at it. “I’ve heard rumors that times are tough for them, just like for everyone else—especially with Clovercroft just sitting there—but that’s probably just one of the beaters.”

  I nodded. “That whole concept is bizarre to me, how I don’t even have one car, and some people have cars they use only in the winter.”

  “Some people have cars they use only in the summer, too,” Derek said, opening the door to the office for me. “They’re called convertibles.”

  Before I could formulate an answer to that, we were inside, in the warmth, and Jill was looking up at us, smiling.

  16

  “Hi, Derek. Avery. What brings you out? Something wrong with the truck?”

  Derek shook his head. “Came to talk to you.”

  Her smile dropped off in the face of his serious expression. “What’s wrong? Is it Bea?”

  “How do you know about Bea?” I interjected.

  Jill turned to me. “Derek called me yesterday. I’m so sorry she’s missing.”

  “It’s not Bea,” Derek said. “Bea is still gone, and so, it seems, is Steve. Her husband. This isn’t about either of them. It’s about Peter.”

  “Peter?” She glanced over her shoulder into the shop, where Peter was still busy with the Stenham vehicle. “He’s right out there.”

  “Yes, I saw him. Jill . . .” He looked down, cleared his throat, glanced up, then away again. Jill was starting to look alarmed when I stepped in.

  “What Derek is trying to say is that the police will probably want to talk to Peter.”

  I waited for her reaction. As a bombshell, the announcement fell distinctly short. “All right,” Jill said slowly, as if trying to figure out why this might be a big deal.

  “About Gerard Labadie’s murder.”

  “Peter doesn’t know anything about that. Why would he?”

  I glanced at Derek. “Apparently they knew each other before,” he said.

  “In Boston?” Jill shot another glance over her shoulder at her husband.

  “In prison.”

  As bombshells go, this one had more oomph, if not as much as one might have expected. Jill turned as pale as a sheet for a moment, and then her cheeks flushed. “How did you hear about that?”

  “Obviously you know.”

  Jill
nodded, anger flashing in her eyes now when she looked at Derek. “Of course I know. Did you think I wouldn’t? He told me before we got married. It’s one of the reasons the business is in my name and not his. No bank would have lent Peter money, but my credit is excellent.”

  “So . . . ?”

  “Peter came here to start over. He wasn’t a criminal; it was just a misunderstanding. I mean, I know he broke the law, but he wasn’t one of the main guys behind the operation, or anything.”

  “Operation?” I repeated.

  Jill looked at me. “It happened about eight years ago, when he was in his mid-twenties. He got involved with a chop shop. You know, stolen cars?”

  Derek nodded. “We know what a chop shop is. I guess that’s where he got in the habit of working fast.”

  He must have meant it as a joke, but Jill wasn’t in the mood. “It belonged to someone else, and all Peter did was work on the cars. But when the police came down on them, Peter got swept up with the rest of the people involved. Some of the others got much longer sentences, but since he was just the hired help, he spent a little less than two years in prison.”

  “And that’s where he met Gerard?”

  She shrugged. “If you say so. He’s never mentioned meeting Gerard.”

  “Not even after Gerard was killed?”

  Jill shook her head. “Are you sure there isn’t some sort of mistake? I mean . . .”

  “They were in prison at the same time. Some place called Ludlow, in Massachusetts. I saw a picture of them, together. Working on building the same playground. I don’t know how close they were . . .”

  “Close enough,” Peter’s voice said from just outside the door. I wondered how long he’d stood there. Now he came in and put a hand on Jill’s shoulder. She glanced up, and then leaned back against him. Peter continued, “We all knew each other. It was a medium-security facility; no one really dangerous or violent. Dormitories instead of cells, that kind of thing. Lots of time spent together; very little fighting. Mostly, we were all in for nonviolent crimes. White-collar stuff. Check fraud, forgery, that kind of thing.”

  “What was Gerard’s crime?” I asked.

  Peter shrugged. “Blackmail of some kind, I think.” “So when you heard he’d died . . .” Derek prodded.

  Peter hunched his shoulders. “I knew he was here. He stopped by about a month ago asking for a favor. Said he thought he could trust me to keep my mouth shut since I wouldn’t want him to tell everyone about my past.”

  “Keep your mouth shut about what?” Derek wanted to know.

  Peter sighed. “He’d gotten into an accident, and he wanted me to fix the damage to his car.”

  “Well,” I said reasonably, “that’s what you do, right?”

  He turned to me. “Sure, it’s what I do. And I wouldn’t have thought much of it, if not for the timing.”

  “The timing?”

  “It was the day after that hit-and-run near Barnham College.”

  “When Carolyn Tate died?”

  Peter nodded, looking miserable.

  My jaw dropped. “Gerard did that?”

  “I figure maybe he did. He didn’t say and I didn’t ask, but I assumed that must be what it was.”

  “Why didn’t you call Wayne?”

  “How could I do that?” Peter’s beautiful face twisted. “I couldn’t be sure it was him, and if he’d told all of Waterfield that I’m a criminal, we’d lose all our business, and poor Jill and the kids . . . I couldn’t let that happen.”

  “What about afterward?” Derek wanted to know. “When you found out he was dead?”

  “I thought about it,” Peter admitted. He looked from Derek to me and back. “But I was afraid, OK? When the police find out I’ve got a record, and that I knew Gerard from before, and that he’d threatened to tell all of Waterfield that I’m a felon . . . who d’ you think’s gonna top the list of suspects?”

  Peter would. No doubt about it. “Do you have an alibi for the night he died? Or was put in the carriage house?”

  The Cortinos exchanged a glance. “Not really,” Peter admitted. “Jill went out Christmas shopping, and I stayed here in the afternoon. Then she wasn’t feeling good and went to bed early, just after the kids went down, and I spent the rest of the night watching TV. Alone.”

  “So what happened?” I asked. “After you decided you couldn’t tell the police about the damage to the car?”

  Peter shrugged. “I did the work—it wasn’t much; his Lexus was built like a tank. I didn’t fill out a work order or anything; he just sat around and waited until I was done. It took a couple of hours one night, while Jill and the kids were in bed, and then he left and told me to forget I’d seen him.”

  “Did you talk?” Derek asked.

  “While I was working on the car, you mean? Some, sure.”

  “Did you ask him what he was doing in Waterfield?”

  “Sure. He said he was visiting his daughter.”

  “Did you know who his daughter was?” I interjected.

  Peter nodded. “I knew that when I came here. He had talked about Kate and Shannon while we were inside. Said they’d left Boston and moved to this little town in Maine. We even looked it up online, at one of the computers in the prison library. It sounded like a nice place, so I thought I’d check it out. Didn’t want to go back to Boston, you know? ”

  “Was he expecting you to keep an eye on them? And report back? Is that how he found out about Shannon’s inheritance? ”

  Peter shook his head. “I swear. I hadn’t spoken to him for more than five years when he showed up here. I didn’t tell him to come, and I didn’t want to deal with him when he did. If someone told him about Shannon’s inheritance, and it wasn’t Shannon, I have no idea who it was. We didn’t talk about it.”

  “Did he say anything else?” I wanted to know. “Give you any idea who might have wanted him dead?”

  Peter puffed out a breath that sounded more like a cynical laugh. “Other than me, you mean? Not really. He talked about Kate and Shannon. The B&B. The carriage house. And . . .”

  “And what?” Derek said when Peter faltered.

  “And . . . um . . . your sister.”

  “My sister? Beatrice?” Derek’s fists clenched, and I took one of his arms, just to keep him in place. “What did you tell him about Bea?”

  “How did he even know Beatrice existed?” I shot in. “Had he met her?”

  Peter seemed relieved to be able to look away from Derek. “Must have. He knew her name. Knew that she had left her husband. Realized who her husband was; it’s an unusual name. I guess he figured there might be money in it for him.”

  Derek muttered something. It wasn’t complimentary, and I wasn’t entirely sure whether it was directed at Gerard, Peter, or both of them. It might even be Steve.

  “Be nice,” I said. “Gerard had nothing to do with what happened to Beatrice. If anything did. She was alive and well after we found Gerard’s body.”

  Naturally I didn’t say so, but it did cross my mind that the opposite might be true: that Beatrice had had something to do with what happened to Gerard. I had no idea why she’d want to kill him, but if they’d known each other, and she’d vanished the same day his body was discovered, there was at least that possibility. As Wayne had told me once, when two unusual things happen right after one another, chances are they’re related, even if it isn’t readily apparent. Until now, we hadn’t realized there was a connection between Gerard and Beatrice. Now, we did.

  A car drove up outside, and through the office window I saw Brandon’s squad car in the lot. Pulling in next to it was a paler blue state police vehicle. As we watched, Brandon and Reece Tolliver got out of their respective cars and stood for a second, conferring. Jill’s eyes widened. “What are we going to do?”

  Peter shook his head, his face calm, and his eyes steady. “There’s nothing we can do. I’m not going to make a run for it and get shot in the back. That kid out there looks trigger happy.”

  I snorted—Brandon is nothing if not enthusiastic—and Peter’s dark eyes lit up with answering amusement for a second. “I didn’t do anything to Gerard,” he said, his face soberin
g. “I didn’t touch him, and they can’t prove I did.”

  “But everything will come out. Everyone will know. Everything you’ve done to start over will be for nothing. And what if they charge you with obstruction of justice in Carolyn’s death?” Jill’s voice was agonized.

  He looked down at her. “As long as you don’t care, I don’t care. We’ll figure out a way to feed the kids. Even if I have to go back to jail for a while.”

  “I’m not worried about that. I just don’t want anything to happen to you.” She leaned into his side, closing her eyes, and his hand caressed her hair for a second.

  When the door opened, we all turned toward it. Reece Tolliver was the first to come through. He looked at me and Derek—just looked, with those flat gray eyes, until we were both squirming—before he turned to the others. “Mrs. Cortino. Mr. Cortino.” He looked at Peter. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to ask you to come down to the station with us.”

  “Are you arresting him?” Jill asked, her voice higher pitched than usual.

  Chief Tolliver fixed his eyes on her, exuding calm. “Not at this time. We’ve just got some questions we need to ask. And it’s probably better if we’re not parked outside your place of business for too long.” He turned to Peter. “Anything you need to do before we go, son?”

  Peter shook his head. “Just let me get out of these overalls and grab a jacket.” He squeezed Jill’s shoulder before heading back into the workshop. A meaningful glance from Reece Tolliver sent Brandon trotting after him.

  Chief Tolliver turned to Derek and me. “Anything I should know?”

  Derek shook his head.

  “He said he didn’t kill Gerard,” I said, “but I guess you’re probably used to hearing that.”

  He smiled, but it didn’t reach those cool, gray eyes. “That’s mostly what they all say, yeah. Doesn’t mean some of ’em aren’t telling the truth.”

  “Right. Well, for what it’s worth, I don’t think he did it. Not that you asked me.” I turned to Derek. “I guess we should go.”

  “Guess so.” He seemed no more eager than I was to tell the police about Peter’s revelation regarding Carolyn Tate’s accident and Gerard’s hand in it. We’d leave that sobering duty to Peter himself. “If that’s all right?”

 

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