“Good morning,” he said. “In case you’re interested, I just spoke with Jackson Pynne. He came by my house. I got the impression he knows the woman we found in the church.”
“Really.” Hunter stood and walked toward the window. “Please. Tell me more.”
He did. Hunter let him talk, glancing several times back at Shipman, who was hunched over, eating the last of his pancakes, straining to listen.
“And what was he doing in Tidewater County?”
“He said he was passing through, looking at a piece of property. I almost got the idea that he came here to talk with me. To ask about the woman in the church. He said he was working on some kind of deal down South. I don’t know that it means a lot, but I thought you’d like to know.”
“Yes, I do. Thank you for telling me. I’ll call you later,” Hunter said, watching the sparse morning traffic, figuring out where to go with this.
“Jackson Pynne,” she told Shipman, setting her phone down on the table. “That’s the new development.”
“Really? Are you sure?”
Hunter nodded, and explained. Afterward, Ship got a look in his eyes, one she recognized.
“Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“Just that Pynne had a connection with Fallow,” he said. “Pynne tried to buy his property a few years ago, when he was living here.”
“Haven’t a lot of people tried to buy it?”
“I guess.”
Hunter put the lid on her empty parfait cup.
No, she thought, looking past Shipman to the highway. The case is shifting. But not necessarily in the ways the sheriff thinks it’s shifting.
“Actually,” she said to Ship, “I don’t think we’re looking at the right things yet. I think maybe we need to go in a completely different direction.”
Chapter 15
THE SOUTH COUNTY Sheriff’s Substation was an old four-room fisherman’s cottage at Linley Point on property owned by the county. During the early summer months, some of the largest blue crabs in the world were pulled from Linley Creek, and the deputies would often hang crab traps from a dock in the morning before they went on patrol and then carry dinner home in their trunks at the end of their shifts.
Sheriff Clay Calvert squinted unpleasantly at Hunter, who was standing now in his doorway, surprised she had finally cornered him. He closed his laptop. There were several magazines on the desk, including Time, People, Sports Illustrated, and the National Enquirer. He seemed to be the only one working today. If that’s what he was doing.
“Sheriff. How are you this morning?”
“Doing fine.”
“Pretty quiet out this way.”
“Yep. What do you need?”
“Just thought we might talk. Glad I finally caught up with you.”
He didn’t respond or offer her a seat.
Hunter took in the room. The furnishings were old and utilitarian. Metal office desk, file cabinets, bookshelves. The only personal item a photo of his wife and son. Sheriff Calvert’s wife Shana worked for the County Records Department, a pretty, brassy-looking woman with big blond hair, who’d grown heavyset over the past few years. The night before, sitting home, Hunter had told Winston the cat that she might try to flatter the sheriff, as a way of getting him on the team; but seeing the resentment in his face now, it no longer felt like an option.
“I’ve left several messages for you since Tuesday morning, sir,” she said.
“Have you? Been a busy couple of days. Also, my wife’s not been well.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
His nose crinkled as if picking up a bad smell. “So, what can I do for you?”
“Just thought we might lay our cards on the table. About Robby Fallow. Before things escalate anymore.”
Hunter waited.
“Do what now?”
“I visited Robby Fallow yesterday. He wouldn’t talk with me.”
“Well, I guess that’s his right, isn’t it?”
Hunter met his smile. “Yes, except that we’re working together here, as a task force, to solve a homicide case.” She felt her heart begin to thump. “Or supposed to be. I know you’ve talked with Mr. Fallow and I’m told you may have found some evidence at his motel. He seems a little rattled by it all.”
“Robby?”
“Robby.”
“I’ve talked with Robby about any number of things,” he said, still pretending to be confused over what she was saying. “I couldn’t comment on whether or not he’s rattled.”
“Mind if I sit?”
“Help yourself.”
She did. “Sheriff, is there anything you’d like to share with me? Anything that might be considered evidence that was found in Junior Fallow’s cottage? A .22 caliber shell, for instance?”
“No, ma’am.” His eyes went flat. It reminded her of how quickly her cat Winston could look feral when he felt trapped. “These were private conversations,” he said. “I’ve known Robby since we were little boys. I knew his daddy. Went to school with Robby and his wife, rest her soul. Do we talk from time to time? Why, of course we do.”
“Sir, you’re aware of the agreement with the county regarding homicide investigations. If you’re withholding evidence or deliberately not cooperating with this investigation, I can go to the county commission and ask to have you removed from this task force.”
He stared at her. Then he pulled out his trash can, leaned forward and spit into it, his saliva making a hard pinging sound on the metal. He slid it back under his desk and nodded, giving her his attention.
Hunter went on, “I’m told you wanted to hold off releasing information about the numbers in the woman’s hand to other agencies. Perhaps we should talk about that. Because that would have to be at my direction.”
“Do what, now?”
She repeated herself, using slightly different language, her voice nearly cracking at one point. The sheriff sighed as she finished, and Hunter saw something she’d never seen before—a trace of sadness in his eyes. For just a moment she almost felt for him.
“No,” he said. “I wouldn’t have an opinion on that. I’m sorry if someone gave you the wrong impression.”
“Sir, why were you concerned about releasing the numbers carved into her hand to other law enforcement agencies?”
“Well.” He softened his voice into a near-whisper, showing the edges of an unpleasant smile. With the scars on his face, it made him a little scary. “Between you and me, Sergeant? Because that may be exactly what Robby wants.” Emphasizing the last four words. “All right?”
“Sir?”
“I just don’t want us—any of us, and least of all you—to be manipulated by Robby Fallow. You understand? It’s possible—and I’m not saying I have any direct evidence of this yet—but it’s possible Robby may’ve carved those numbers hisself to throw us off.”
“Where would you have gotten that idea?”
“Didn’t get it anywhere. Why don’t you ask him, if you’re going to question everything I say?”
“As I just said, he won’t talk to me. But you talked with Robby about it,” she said.
“That’s right. I did. But as I say, you have questions, you need to take them directly to Robby, not to me.”
Hunter took a breath, lost somewhere between a Kafkaesque labyrinth and an Abbott and Costello routine. “Evidence to the contrary, Sheriff, we are on the same team.”
She smiled, to shift the tone. But also to keep her cool.
Sheriff Calvert surprised her by chuckling and shaking his head, gazing off toward the creek, letting his smile fade slowly. “You know something, Sergeant?” He took a long moment to reach for his crotch and elaborately adjust himself, something he did every time she’d met with him one-on-one. “Let me just share something with you. I’ve been
at this a little while, all right? And I can see exactly what you’re doing here.”
Hunter let him engage her in a brief staring contest. “And what is it that you think I’m doing?”
“I know exactly what you’re doing, Sergeant. You’re acting like you want to solve this case, bring justice to the community. But you know, and I know, that’s not what you’re doing at all.” His eyes hardened. “You know and I know that you’re using this job—and this county—as a stepping-stone. You’re not invested in Tidewater County. You don’t even own property here. Don’t even own one square inch of dirt in this county. You don’t want to solve this case, you want to make a big splash so Amy Hunter comes out a little hero and rides off into the sunset on a white hearse.”
She blinked at him several times, wondering if he’d really said hearse or if she’d mistaken his pronunciation of horse.
“And all the things that you think we’re doing? Well, you’re doing the exact same things,” he continued. “Don’t think we haven’t figured that out. You’re withholding evidence from us because you don’t want us figuring anything that might take any of the credit away from Amy Hunter. When you get right down to it, it’s pretty goddamn obvious what you’re doing.”
Hunter just looked at him, a little stunned, partly because he had never spoken to her like this and partly because there was a kernel of truth in what he was saying.
But there was something about this last accusation that got to her.
“What do you mean, withholding evidence?”
He smiled, his face becoming handsome, the pockmarks all disappearing. “Well, you tell me. Sounds like you know exactly what I mean.”
Hunter wasn’t sure. Was he referring to the Psalms? Jackson Pynne? Or was this just a bluff? She hadn’t told anyone at the debriefings meetings about the Psalms. Hadn’t told anyone, in fact, except for Ben Shipman. But that was her prerogative. It was her case.
“Just for your own edification. Miss Hunter, I was born in this county, as was my daddy. My daddy was an arsterman, was out in that bay every morning at five-thirty. And there’s no place me or my family plans to go, or wants to go, ’cept right here. This is my home. It also happens to be, far as I’m concerned, the greatest place on earth.”
“Okay, sir, that’s all well and good,” she interrupted. “I respect that you’ve been here a long time and I’m sure you know many things I don’t know. But none of that changes the simple fact that our unit is in charge of this investigation. And I’m in charge of the unit. I’m sorry, but that’s the reality we all have to deal with. You may be upset about what was done to you by the county commissioners. But that’s not my doing. I’m just abiding by the way things are. And if you or anyone else isn’t able to deal with that, we’ll have to make a change.”
“Is that a threat, little missy?” he said, giving her his angry squint.
“No,” she said. “Just the way it is.”
Her body was shaking as she climbed back into her unmarked police car and started the engine.
Chapter 16
“THIS IS DETECTIVE Mike Gale returning your call,” the voice at the other end said, speaking in a country drawl, using only five or six syllables.
Hunter was back at her desk, still a little shaken from her meeting with the sheriff. She scrambled to find the folder with printouts from the Delaware arson/murder that had been e-mailed to Sonny Fischer. “Thank you, I appreciate you calling back,” she said. “I’m, uh, investigating a Jane Doe here in Tidewater County. And looking at other cases in the region for possible similarities. I don’t see that there has been an update on the case there in several days.”
“Right. Nothing to update,” he said. “Insurance investigator has it right now.”
She scanned the case summary: a storefront wax museum in a small town about a half hour from Dover. The badly burned body of an unidentified woman found inside, among melted wax figures of presidents and comic book heroes. Dental and DNA tests hadn’t drawn an ID so far. Nothing from missing persons reports.
“What similarities do you see, you don’t mind my askin’?”
“I didn’t say there were similarities. I said I was looking for them.” Hunter glanced through a news clipping about the case. “This was a wax museum?”
“Little historical museum, uh-huh. It’s known as the Haunted History Museum. Was known. The owner bought a few cheap wax figures, I don’t know, ten, twelve years ago. Abraham Lincoln, George Washington. Then added an Elvis, which wasn’t quite life-sized—and wasn’t authorized by the Elvis estate, either, I’m told. And then Wonder Woman. Batman.”
“And the woman who died?”
He coughed. “No ID yet. No connection to the museum we’ve been able to determine. Strange case.”
Yes, Hunter thought. He gave her more, speaking in a slow cadence with drawn-out vowels: the fire probably started around two or three o’clock in the morning. An accelerant, kerosene, was found among the charred remains. Latex glove prints on a wall near the rear entrance. It had rained that night and all the next morning, so footprint and tire track evidence behind the museum had mostly been washed away.
“Who owns the museum?”
“The owner’s name is Mervin Coleman,” he said. “He was charged a few years ago in a tax fraud case involving the museum, so—off the record?—yeah, we’ve treated him as a possible suspect. But so far nothing ties him to the fire. He was on vacation down to Myrtle Beach when it happened.”
Hunter wrote the name on her legal pad. Something about this detail bothered her, she wasn’t sure why. She looked up, saw a pair of Canada geese flapping in the bright sky above the pine trees beyond the parking lot.
“Could’ve been anyone, though,” the detective continued. “Might’ve been a drifter, broke in the back door. Maybe just somebody wanting to keep warm. It’s been brutal cold this winter, I don’t have to tell you. May have even been an elaborate suicide. Or an elaborate dump job.”
“There wasn’t any writing left behind, was there?” Hunter asked. “Any numbers, letters, at the scene, anything like that? On the body, on the premises?”
Detective Gale coughed, and then there was a long pause. Hunter could hear him breathing.
“Excuse me?” he said.
“There wasn’t any writing left behind, was there? Any numbers or letters, that kind of thing?”
“Why you askin’?”
“Sir?”
“I’m not sure I understand your question. Or that I want to talk about it over the phone. I normally like to see who it is I’m talkin’ with. Face-to-face, so to speak. No offense intended.”
“None taken. All right,” Hunter said. She glanced at her desk clock, figuring how long it would take to get there. “Can I meet with you, then? I can be there in less than an hour and a half.”
“UNUSUAL CASE FOR us,” Detective Gale said, poking his pencil point on the open case file. “Homicides, we’ve had, what, three now since I’ve been here? That’s in eleven and a half years. Three including this one, I mean.”
“Were the other two solved?”
“Other two was cut and dry. One the husband, the other the boyfriend.”
“But this one isn’t.”
“No, that’s right. This one isn’t.”
They were interrupted by the whoosh of a toilet flushing next door. Gale waited awkwardly for the whining of the filling tank to stop. Although his voice contained the gruff inflections of someone much older, he looked to be in his mid-thirties, a small blotchy-skinned man who wore thick-lensed tortoiseshell glasses. His hair was blond and thin and he sported a slightly lopsided brush mustache. The detectives bureau was a small office at the back of a dingy brick-facade municipal police station downtown.
Detective Gale gave her the basics of the case again, seeming to enjoy having a visitor in his
office, all the while opening paper clips and bending them every which way until he finally broke them. It didn’t take Hunter long to figure out that Michael Gale was the entire detectives bureau for this town.
“But anyway,” he said, interrupting himself. “You asked me about some numbers.”
“I did.”
“I don’t see any reference to numbers in the Tidewater County case.”
“No,” she said. Hunter suspected he’d been studying the church case since they’d spoken on the phone. She said, “I don’t see any reference to numbers in the arson case, either.”
“Well, that part’s under investigation. Insurance investigators have it. And I don’t know that it means anything.” He cocked his head and opened another file. Pulled out a glossy photo and looked at it. “This is the victim,” he said, grimacing as he handed it to Hunter. “Lovely, isn’t it?”
The corpse did not look human. Just the blackened shape of a head and a partial skeleton.
“Did she die in the fire?”
“No, ma’am, she didn’t.” He was holding out his hand, waiting for the photo back. “But we haven’t released that yet. According to the medical examiner, there was no monoxide in the tissue that was recovered.”
“So she was deceased before the fire started.”
“Well, we know that she didn’t burn to death, anyway, that’s right. May have been a gunshot. Looks that way, in fact.”
Hunter handed the photo back. “If it was a gunshot, that would be another similarity with our case.”
He pushed up his glasses again, interested.
“What about numbers?” she said. “Were there any numbers left behind?”
Instead of answering, he lifted a third file from a corner of the desk, opened it and passed a photo to Hunter. Then another.
“I can’t tell you what this means, but here you go. We thought it might just be something that came on the glass. It’s an unusual paint, though. Fire resistant, gold paint. The owner says he knows nothing about it. Never saw it before.”
The first photo showed the front of the museum, after the arson, the glass and wood soot-blackened. Arced letters on the glass spelled out Haunted History Museum. The second photo was from inside, a close-up of four numbers, maybe an inch and a half tall, painted in gold in the lower right-hand corner of the window: 6823.
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