Plaster and Poison

Plaster and Poison Page 21

by Jennie Bentley

  I sat back on my chair. “That’s not a bad idea, actually. It would explain a lot.”

  “Maybe we should give Melissa a call,” Kate said.

  “Wait a second. I just had another thought. When we were out there the other day—was it only yesterday?—to look for Beatrice, Melissa couldn’t let us into the model home above the office. She said she’d given the key to someone.”

  Kate blinked. “You think she gave the key to the model home to Gerard? Why?”

  “Could be any number of reasons. She was sleeping with him and wanted somewhere private they could meet. Or he needed a place to live and offered to pay her.”

  “That’s true,” Kate said. She was quiet while I finished the rest of my sandwich. Then she said, “Maybe we shouldn’t call Melissa after all. Maybe we should just go out there and have a look around.”

  “Break and enter?”

  “Extenuating circumstances,” Kate said. She got up and reached for her winter coat again. “Beatrice could be inside, in need of medical attention.”

  “Wayne already looked. Although he was looking for Bea and not information about Gerard. Yesterday, we didn’t know there was a connection. Wait for me.” I hurried out the door behind her.

  “I already checked the model home,” Wayne said when I pulled the truck to a stop next to his patrol car, which was parked on the side of the Portland road just outside town. “Beatrice isn’t there.”

  “You mean, she wasn’t there when you checked,” Kate retorted. “She could be there now. But that’s not why I want to see it. Listen to this.”

  She went through our reasoning and our suspicion that Gerard had been living in the model home since he came to town. Wayne’s eyebrows crept up as he listened. “Do you have any proof of this?” he asked eventually.

  Kate and I looked at one another. “Not exactly.”

  “It makes sense, though,” Kate argued.

  “If you go back there and take us with you,” I added, “maybe we can find some proof. I’m sure you didn’t make a very thorough search when you were there yesterday. You probably just made sure that Beatrice wasn’t there, right?”

  Wayne agreed. “I did look in the closets and under the bed, though. People hide in the strangest places sometimes.”

  “Was there anything in the closet?”

  Wayne shook his head.

  “Someone must have cleaned Gerard’s clothes and things out after the murder, then, if he was staying there.”

  “And vacuumed and cleaned up,” I added, remembering Derek’s comment about vacuum tracks across the carpet. “He couldn’t have done it himself.”

  “If he ever stayed there,” Wayne admonished us both.

  “Maybe it was Beatrice,” I suggested, paying Wayne no heed. “Maybe she killed Gerard for some reason, and then she didn’t want anyone to put two and two together and realize that she’d known him, so she decided to get rid of all his things. Maybe that’s why she disappeared. So she could go to Canada and dump it all.”

  “Without her car?” Kate said.

  “Maybe she took Gerard’s car. I don’t think the state police have found it. Have they?”

  I looked at Wayne. He shook his head.

  Kate thought for a moment. “I suppose that’s possible,” she admitted. “Or maybe it was . . . what’s his name? Steve? What if Gerard and Beatrice had something going, and he found out? Maybe he came to Waterfield to talk Beatrice into coming back to Boston, and then he found them together, so he killed Gerard and took off with Bea so she couldn’t call the police.”

  “Or Gerard was bothering her, and Steve was protecting her?” I suggested.

  Wayne was shaking his head at both of us. “If Gerard had been hit over the head, maybe. But poison is always premeditated. It’s not a crime of passion.”

  “Oops.” I bit my lip.

  Kate shrugged. “Whether it was Beatrice or someone else who cleaned out Gerard’s belongings—Melissa, maybe?—I doubt he or she would have known about Gerard’s secret stash.”

  “Secret stash?”

  “The hiding place where he put his extra cash and anything else he thought was important. He had one everywhere he lived.”

  “How many places did he live?” Wayne wanted to know. Kate turned to him.

  “He moved a lot. During the four years I knew him well—one year before Shannon was born and three after—he lived in at least three different apartments. The next ten years I didn’t keep up with him, but every time I heard from him, or ran into him accidentally, he had a new place to live. And in every place, he had this certain hidey-hole where he put his valuables.”

  “Where is it?” Wayne wanted to know. I guess he was thinking he could leave us behind and go to the model home alone.

  “I’d have to see the place,” Kate answered. When Wayne looked at her, she smiled sweetly.

  He sighed. “All right. I’ll meet you out there.”

  “Great.” I put Derek’s truck in gear and we glided off down the street. Behind us, Wayne pulled out into the roadway and followed.

  Clovercroft looked no different from the last time I’d been there, with the only exception being that Beatrice’s car was gone. Derek had driven it back to Waterfield and parked it outside Dr. Ben’s house. For when she came back, as he put it.

  Wayne took us up the stairs from the outside and opened the door to the model home with a universal key from his key ring. Pushing the door open, he nodded to Kate. “Knock yourself out.”

  Grimacing at his tone of voice, she slid past him and into the apartment. I followed.

  It wasn’t a big place; six hundred square feet, maybe, with a living room and eat-in kitchen, a bedroom, and a bath. It was carpeted, so footsteps would be muffled in the commercial space below, and as Derek had mentioned, there were fresh tracks from a vacuum in all the corners. In the middle of the room, they had been obliterated by footsteps. I recognized the tiny, round indentations of Melissa’s spike heels, as well as Derek’s deeply grooved construction boots. The walls were a generic warm vanilla with pictures of ocean scenes in silver frames, and the furniture was serviceable but uninspired.

  “Smells like Gerard,” Kate muttered.

  “Really?” I sniffed but couldn’t smell anything other than air freshener.

  “Trust me. He’s been using the same cologne for twenty years. I still remember it.”

  I hadn’t noticed the body smelling—of cologne or anything else—but maybe they don’t when they’ve cooled. In any case, I was willing to take her word for it.

  “As you can see,” Wayne said, opening the coat closet next to the door, “there’s nothing here. Same thing in the bedroom. But feel free to look for yourselves.”

  Kate shook her head. “I trust you. Whoever cleaned this place out would be careful not to leave anything behind. Anything visible.”

  Wayne put his hands on his hips, just south of the gun belt. “So where’s this hidey-hole of his?”

  “I’m looking.” Kate turned in a slow circle, scanning the room. After a moment, she went into the bedroom and did the same thing there.

  “Well?” Wayne prompted.

  “Give me a minute. There.” She pointed.

  “The air return?”

  “If you open it, you’ll find an envelope or something. He tried using the vents, but the paper he put in would rattle, plus, he’d need a screwdriver to get the covers on and off. And he liked to have things easily accessible. It doesn’t work to put paper in the toilet tank, although sometimes he’d put other things there. That was only if he didn’t have a shower rod he could take off, though. Like, if it was a claw-foot with a shower ring, for instance. Otherwise, he’d take down the shower rod, take it apart, slip whatever he wanted to hide into it, and close it back up.”

  “Sounds like an interesting character,” Wayne said dryly. “I’m not going to ask what he might have put in the shower rod or toilet tank back then, OK?”

  “I appreciate it. Although the statute of limitations has probably run out on most of it. I’ll check the bathroom.” She headed for it, head held high and back straight, but her cheeks flushed.

&
nbsp; I watched her go and turned to Wayne, who was removing the cover from the air vent return. “Anything?”

  “Not so far. Let me take the filter out. And . . . yep, here we go.”

  “What? ”

  “Envelope.” He turned it over in his hands. “Manila. Sealed.”

  “Are you going to open it?”

  “As soon as Kate gets back. You can both watch me do it. If anything comes of this, I’ll need a statement saying you saw me take it out of the return.”

  “No problem.” We stood in silence a minute or two, listening to Kate rattle around in the bathroom.

  “Nothing,” she announced when she came back out. Wayne gave her a searching look but decided not to press the issue.

  “We found this envelope in the air return. I want you both to watch me open it, please.”

  Kate went to stand on the other side of Wayne. We both leaned forward, holding our breath, when he slit the envelope open.

  The first thing he slid out was a couple of bank statements. Kate’s and Shannon’s. Paper clipped to them was an obituary. “Patricia Kathleen Logan?” Wayne read.

  “My grandmother.” Kate’s lips were tight. “Wonder who he bribed to get copies of my bank statements?”

  “We can try to find out,” Wayne promised, putting the statements aside. Next came a couple of newspaper clippings about a police action against an organized ring of car thieves some eight or nine years ago in East Boston. A follow-up to the first story had a list of names and prison sentences. Peter Cortino was one of the people mentioned.

  “Bastard,” Kate muttered. I nodded.

  The next thing Wayne pulled from the envelope was a photograph. It was dark and blurry but clearly showed a woman in a state of undress, half sitting and half lying on a sofa, and holding a glass of what looked like wine.

  “Melissa?” I ventured.

  Kate shook her head. “Darker haired. And younger.”

  I peered more closely. “That’s the sofa in the office downstairs, isn’t it? And the picture of the town square behind it?”

  “Looks that way,” Kate said grimly. “It’s hard to tell, but it looks like Bea.”

  “Derek’s Bea?” I grabbed Wayne’s hand and adjusted the angle of the photo. “Dammit. Yes, it is.”

  “This doesn’t look good,” Wayne said. I shook my head. I wasn’t looking forward to telling Derek that Gerard had a picture of an obviously tipsy Beatrice with her shoes kicked off and her blouse open a few buttons farther south than was strictly decent.

  “What’s that?” Kate pointed. Wayne turned the photograph over.

  “Looks like a couple of phone numbers on the back. One local, one Boston.”

  “Steve? ”

  “Or Beatrice. Home and cell.”

  I shook my head. “She lives with Dr. Ben and Cora, and that’s not their number. And she gave me her cell phone number when she’d been here a few days. That isn’t it, either.”

  “Try it,” Kate suggested.

  Wayne was already dialing. The local number first. He put the call on speaker phone and we heard it ring a couple of times, and then a voice answered. “Captain Morgan Inn. Lisa speaking. How may I help you?”

  “Hi, Lisa,” Wayne said politely, “this is Police Chief Rasmussen in Waterfield.”

  “Yes, Chief,” Lisa chirped happily.

  “Do you by chance have a young woman by the name of Gremilion staying with you? Beatrice Gremilion? Twenty-eight years old, thin, with long brown hair? She would have checked in two days ago.”

  “No, Chief,” Lisa returned immediately. I guess the Captain Morgan Inn was small enough that she knew all the names of all the guests without having to look anything up.

  “You’re sure?” Wayne pressed.

  “Yes, Chief. I’m positive. Mr. Gremilion has been here since Monday, and he’s been alone the whole time.”

  Wayne blinked. I did, too. “I beg your pardon?” he said. “Did you say that Mr. Gremilion is staying with you? Mr. Steve Gremilion?”

  “Yes, Chief,” Lisa chirped. “Mr. Gremilion has the honeymoon suite. He said he was waiting for his wife to join him, but I guess she never did. At least I haven’t seen her. Would you like me to put you through to Mr. Gremilion’s room?”

  “No,” Wayne said quickly, “please don’t. I’ll be coming down there myself within the hour to talk to Mr. Gremilion, and I’d just as soon he didn’t know to expect me. I’ll be leaving Waterfield in the next few minutes. If Mr. Gremilion leaves before I get there, would you be so kind as to call me? On this number?”

  “Sure, Chief,” Lisa said. “Anything else I can help you with? ”

  Wayne said there wasn’t.

  “Thank you for calling the Captain Morgan Inn! We look forward to seeing you.” She hung up. Wayne rolled his eyes and did the same thing.

  “I’ll call Derek,” I said.

  Wayne opened his mouth, looked at my face, and closed it again. “I’ll just be going,” he said instead, shooing the two of us toward the door. I was already dialing.

  Derek answered on the first ring. “Avery?”

  I didn’t see the sense in beating around the bush, so I gave it to him straight. “We’ve found Steve.”

  Silence. “What?” he said.

  “Steve. He’s in the honeymoon suite at the Captain Morgan Inn.”

  “In Brunswick?”

  “I have no idea,” I said, realizing I’d never actually heard of the Captain Morgan Inn before now. “Let me ask Wayne. Wayne, is it in Brunswick?”

  Wayne sent me a look. I guess he really didn’t want us going with him. However, if he thought he could keep Derek away, he had another think coming.

  “He’s not telling me,” I told Derek, “but I think it is.”

  “Come get me.” He gave me directions to Jill and Peter Cortino’s house on the outskirts of the Village.

  “It’ll take me a few minutes. I’m at Clovercroft.”

  “Just get here as fast as you can.” He hung up, presumably to explain the situation to Jill and prepare to leave.

  “He wants me to pick him up,” I said, tucking my phone away.

  “Of course he does.”

  “Steve’s his brother-in-law. Beatrice is his sister. You didn’t really think you could keep him away?”

  “I’ll just be grateful if he doesn’t call Cora,” Wayne said and opened his own car door. “Kate?”

  “I’ll ride with Avery and Derek. Since you’re being so official.” She scooted into the cab of the truck before he could say anything else. Wayne made a face and got into the police cruiser.

  In the summer, with leaves on the trees and flowers in bloom and all that nice stuff, I’m sure the Captain Morgan Inn is a lovely place. At the moment, it was just as dreary as everywhere else, blanketed with a layer of snow. And whatever excitement had gone on, if any, was over by the time we got there. Wayne had beat us to Brunswick by ten or fifteen minutes; it was only because Derek had kept the gas pedal floored most of the way that it wasn’t more. When we pulled into the parking lot, the chief of police was inside the honeymoon suite. With Steve, who I recognized from the photographs in Dr. Ben and Cora’s albums. He was shaking his head vehemently when we walked in.

  “No. I haven’t seen her.” And then he looked up and recognized Derek, and his face twisted. “Derek? Where’s Bea? They say she’s missing.”

  “We don’t know where she is,” Derek said, his voice controlled. “We hoped she was with you.”

  Steve shook his head. “I haven’t seen her. I’ve been waiting for Mr. Labadie to get in touch. For two days now. His phone just keeps ringing and ringing.”

  Wayne, Kate, and Derek exchanged a look. “About that . . .” Derek began.

  “Mr. Labadie won’t be calling,” Wayne said. “He was murdered a few days ago. Just for the record, where were you Monday afternoon between the hours of three and seven? ”

  Steve blinked behind the glasses. “I was here. Waiting for him to call.”

  “Call about what?” Wayne wanted to know, jotting a note in his tiny notebook with his tinier stub of a pencil. “I assume the front desk can verify your whereabouts?”

>   Steve looked uncomfortable. “I hope they can. And he was going to call me about Bea. He sent me a picture of her, on a couch somewhere, with a glass of wine, the way she used to look before I started working all the time and everything got screwed up.”

  She looked happy, in other words.

  “This picture?” Wayne produced it from his pocket. He had put it inside a Ziploc baggie. Steve looked at it, winced, and nodded. Derek looked at it and swore.

  “He said he had others,” Steve said miserably, taking off his glasses to rub his eyes. “More compromising. And that he’d go public with them if I didn’t pay him.”

  “Bastard,” Kate muttered.

  Steve glanced at her. “She’s still my wife, and it won’t do my career any good if compromising pictures of her come out in the papers or online.”

  “And that’s the only reason you came up here?” Derek asked, hands fisted on his hips.

  Steve hesitated, eyeing him. “I want her back,” he admitted. “Unless it’s too late.”

  “That’s why you rented the honeymoon suite?”

  Steve looked around at the king-sized bed with red satin sheets, the heart-shaped whirlpool tub tucked away in the corner. “It was the only room available. I thought maybe it was a sign.”

  “Some sign.” Derek’s lips were tight. “Why didn’t you just call her?”

  “I did. Weeks ago. I asked her to come home. She said no. And then I saw that . . .” Steve shot another glance at the photograph, “and realized why.”

  “Why? ”

  Steve looked at Derek like he suspected his brother-in-law of having lost his mind. “She’s gotten involved with someone else, obviously.”

  “She hasn’t gotten involved with anyone else,” Derek said between gritted teeth. Steve glanced at him.

  I added my two cents. “She was sitting at home waiting for you to realize you missed her so you’d come find her and bring her back. We haven’t met. I’m Avery.”

  “Nice to meet you.” Steve stuck out a hand and we shook. “I don’t understand. Why wouldn’t she come back to Boston when I asked?”

 

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