“Know what? I hate it when you invoke your holy journalistic calling this way. It’s like you have a bubble of moral superiority around you and if I try to burst it I’m being all evil. It’s not fair, Mitch.”
“I don’t disagree, but here we are. Doing any better on that self-portrait?”
“Much better. I drop-kicked it.”
“Good.”
“Why good?”
“Because you obviously weren’t enjoying it. That’s a clear sign that you should be doing something else. I had a dream about you last night.”
“What was I doing?”
“Drowning in Long Island Sound. We both were, actually.”
“Did you rescue me?”
He took her hand and squeezed it. “No, you rescued me.”
“Glad to be of service,” she said huskily, her eyes softening.
“I believe in you, Des. This is a tough case, but you’ll crack it open.”
“Right now, I don’t see how.”
“Well, I do have another idea.”
“Somehow, I knew you would.”
“We go with my plan but we don’t tell Soave. I’ve got a tape recorder back at my place. We can stash it somewhere in the parlor with Poochie while she braces the suspects.”
“Mitch, we both know that’s not going to happen. I’d lose my job, my pension, my…” She drew back from him, stiffening. “You know who Poochie places that first call to, don’t you? That’s why you’re so sold on this.”
“Not really. But it wouldn’t surprise me if Poochie has her suspicions. She might even be protecting them out of family loyalty.”
“And you think she’ll give them up if we hold her feet to the fire?”
“The thought did occur to me.”
“You may not be wrong,” Des conceded. “But it’s Rico’s investigation, and we move the ball downfield his way. That’s how it has to be. And now I’d better get back.” She started to get out, then stopped, staring at him intently. “Will you promise me you won’t pull anything suicidal the minute my back is turned?”
“Why would you think I’d do that?”
“How about because you always do?”
“You make it sound like I have a death wish.”
“No, never. I think you’re a good-hearted man who sometimes does truly hose-headed things.”
“That’s one of the nicest things you’ve ever said to me.”
“Mitch, promise me you won’t do anything crazy. Otherwise, I swear I’ll handcuff you to that steering wheel right this instant.”
“You’re serious about this, aren’t you?”
“Promise me.”
“Okay, okay. I promise.”
CHAPTER 22
Des spotted him out in front of the white farmhouse on Frederick Lane where the Jewett sisters lived. Marge and Mary absolutely doted on their Jack Russells, Huey and Dewey. Des often saw the sisters walking the feisty little dogs on Dorset Street, all four of them wearing the matching kelly green turtleneck sweaters that the sisters had knitted.
Dr. Andre had just finishing calling on them. When Des pulled up, the tall Frenchman was depositing used syringes in a medical waste bin in the back of his red truck, his appointment book and medical bag set before him on the tailgate.
“How goes it, Andre?” she called to him as she climbed out of her cruiser. “Are Huey and Dewey well?”
“Just needed their booster shots,” he responded in his Tennessee-tinted French drawl. “And the sisters needed a talking to, eh? They spoil those two beasts rotten. Sauteed sirloin tips for breakfast, can you imagine?” A hint of a smile crossed his lean face, which was about as much warmth as Andre the Drip ever displayed. “And what may I do for you?”
“Just passing by,” Des replied. Actually, she’d called his answering service to find out where he was. “Andre, there’s something I need to ask you.”
Andre immediately held up a warning hand. “I know precisely where you are going, and the answer is no.” He glanced down at his opened appointment book, then began restocking his medical bag from the supply drawers. “Believe me, Des, I always ask if anyone wants to adopt a cute kitten. Particularly when I visit families with young children. But I have no takers. Which reminds me, I’ve heard that there is some activity by the Dumpster out behind the Rustic Inn.”
“Ferals?”
“Full grown, I’m afraid.”
“Damn…” For rescuers, adult feral strays were almost always a source of heartbreak. They were the hardest to catch and most likely to be diseased. “We’ll check it out right away, Andre, but that wasn’t what I wanted to ask you about.”
“What is it then?” A slight edge of impatience crept into his voice. “Not that I mean to rush you, but I have many stops to make this morning.”
“You do make your share of rounds, don’t you? You must travel these roads a lot.”
“I do, yes.”
“Early in the morning?”
“Quite often.”
“Did you develop any kind of relationship with Pete Mosher?”
“Who, The Can Man?” Andre puffed out his cheeks. “I would wave to him. And he would sometimes acknowledge my existence by nodding to me. He accepted that I was making rounds of my own, and therefore was no threat to him. But I did not try to speak to him. There was no point.”
“I imagine Glynis saw him pretty often, too. Training early in the morning the way she does.”
“She did. We both did. When it’s warmer out I often run with her. But my knees act up in the cold, and the footing is terrible. She twisted her ankle on a patch of ice just yesterday.”
“I noticed. Looked pretty painful.”
“Not too bad, no. The hard part is convincing Glynis to rest it for two or three days. When my wife sets her sights on a goal, forget it.” Andre looked down his nose at Des. “Why do you ask me about Pete?”
“It’s a funny thing, actually,” she replied, feeling a slight uptick in her pulse. “I know so much about Glynis’s family history. How she took over her dad’s law practice. How he took it over from his dad before him. But I don’t know a thing about yours, beyond the obvious fact that you were born and raised in France. I don’t suppose you had any further connection with him, did you?”
Andre closed the supply drawers and set his medical bag in the front seat. “We’re still talking about Pete?”
“We are.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand. What kind of further connection?”
“By blood, Andre.”
“By blood? How in God’s name have you gotten such a crazy idea?”
Honestly, that’s how. Because if Dr. Andre Forniaux’s arrival in Dorset had not been a chance occurrence, if it was all part of a calculated plan, then everything added up.
“Pete did sow his wild oats in France in the Sixties,” she said to him. “Which would make you about the right age.”
“The right age for what? I truly don’t…” Andre halted, turning six different kinds of chilly now. “My God, you think Pete was my father, don’t you? You think that I’m the bastard son’s bastard son, come to claim my rightful share of the treasure. This is beyond preposterous, Des. It’s truly insulting!”
And yet it made so much sense. After all, Andre was married to a woman who enjoyed detailed inside knowledge of John J. Meier’s will and the wills of his two children, Poochie and Pete. Who better to secretly help him contest those wills than the family’s own lawyer?
“I mean no offense, Andre. From time to time, this job compels me to ask even my friends some very unpleasant questions.”
“It does indeed,” he shot back, his jaw clenching. “And here I thought my job was unpleasant. Telling a lonely widow that I have to put down her beloved poodle, that’s something awful. But this… Des, you are grossly underpaid.”
“You won’t get any argument from me.”
“Still, we do what we have to, you and I,” Andre conceded grudgingly. “And we get up every
morning and we do it again, eh? So I will not sputter at you like an angry headwaiter. I will honor your professionalism by granting you a civil reply.”
“I appreciate that, Andre.”
“I never met Pete Mosher before I moved here,” he said, his voice calm and quiet. “I have no dark secrets in my past. Merely a conventional middle-class upbringing in a suburb of Paris. My father was a civil servant. When I was sixteen I came to America as a foreign exchange student. I lived in Scarsdale, New York, with John and Diane Alterman and their three children. The Alter-mans ran a veterinary clinic. From them I learned to love animals and America. I went home to finish my schooling and be a ski bum for a while. Then I met Glynis and followed her back here. After veterinary school, I never returned home. Dorset is home.”
“Are your parents still living?”
“They’ve retired to Collioure, a small fishing village on the Mediterranean coast near the Spanish border. You’d enjoy Collioure, Des. The likes of Picasso painted there in their youth. There is a restaurant called Les Templiers where many fine paintings still hang-the starving young artists paid for meals with their work, you see.”
“Sounds great,” she said, barely hearing his words. She was too busy sagging inwardly. She’d thought for sure she’d nailed it. Had felt it down in her gut. Now where the hell was she?
Her cell phone rang. Glancing down at it, she saw that it was Mitch yet again. “Still kind of busy here,” she growled into the phone.
To which he blurted out: “I know, I know. And I’m sorry to bother you again. But something slightly urgent has come up…”
CHAPTER 23
The snug little package from Vero Beach, Florida, was waiting for him at the post office, tightly bound in a manner reminiscent of the wrap job on Boris Karloff in The Mummy. It was the only way Mitch’s mom knew how to wrap packages. While he was at the post office, Mitch express-mailed Justine’s manuscript to his literary agent. The note he attached read simply: Am I crazy or is this great?
From there, Mitch picked up a load of nonperishables at the A amp;P and frozen day-old bread from The Works. Then he too-dled his way through the exquisite calm of the Historic District to the Congo church. It was not yet eleven o’clock, but two dozen or so people were already lined up outside the door to the Fellowship Center. He parked around the back. Lem the custodian had unlocked the Bilco cellar doors for him. Mitch raised them open and stashed the loaves of bread in the freezers down in the old coal cellar. Then he lowered the doors and toted the rest of the load into the kitchen, where a pigtailed Danielle was at the stove heating up a vat of soup.
“Morning, Danielle. How are you today?”
“A bit ashamed,” she confessed, blushing. “I was feeling sorry for myself last night, and I needed to unload on someone.” She stirred the soup pot, chewing on her lower lip. “Thanks for being such a good listener.”
“No need to thank me. Friends talk to each other. It’s what they do. Not a big deal.”
“Yes, it was,” Danielle insisted, her eyes avoiding his. “And I’m grateful. I want you to know that, okay?”
“Okay,” Mitch responded, glancing around. The long dining tables were set up for the soup kitchen regulars, but they were shy at least a dozen folding chairs. “Where are all of the chairs?”
“I’ve sent Eric off to find them. You could give him a hand.”
Mitch tried the parish offices but found no sign of the chairs there. Or Eric. But he did hear sounds coming from inside the meetinghouse itself. The connecting door was propped open. And the missing chairs were arrayed up on the horseshoe-shaped dais behind Reverend Sweet’s pulpit. Eric was folding them up.
Mitch had to pause there in the doorway to gather himself. He hadn’t set foot inside a church since Maisie’s funeral.
The Congo Church was not nearly as grand inside as he’d expected from its towering profile out on Dorset Street. Its ceiling was barely high enough to accommodate the wraparound balcony. And the decor was spare and unadorned. Bare, polished wooden pews. Whitewashed walls. Wide-planked oak floors. There were windows everywhere. Two stories of windows. The low March sun flooded the sanctuary with sunlight.
“Ah, an extra pair of arms,” Eric remarked, spotting him there.
“That’s me.” Mitch started toward the dais. “How goes it?”
Eric snapped the folding chairs shut and leaned them against the wall. “Just had to do a sucky family thing this morning,” he replied a bit edgily. “Mother’s all freaked out because her ‘friend’ is dead. Like we’re supposed to care about some old fairy who was sponging off of her. Hey, if Tolly made her happy, I was all for it. But now that he’s dead I’m supposed to care? Sorry, that’s something I’ve always had trouble with.”
“What is, Eric?”
“Being a phony. Can you grab half of these?”
“Absolutely. I just have a quick question. Did you pay the Ker-shaw brothers to kill Pete and Tolly or did you actually kill them yourself? I still can’t figure that part out.”
Eric froze, his eyes widening at Mitch. “What?…”
Mitch’s powerful microcassette tape recorder was stuffed in the pocket of his wool jacket. He flicked it on, convinced tha he was not breaking his promise to Des. He’d told her he wouldn’t do anything crazy, and he wasn’t. What he was doing was very sane. And necessary. “You offered Stevie and Donnie work on the farm when they got out of prison. You had them start the same morning that Pete would be pedaling past Four Chimneys on his rounds. They were still around the place when Tolly was killed. Did you arrange it that way because you’d hired them to do the killings or because you wanted people to think they had?”
Eric continued to gape at Mitch, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “Are you hallucinating? This is me.”
“And you’re the single most amazing scam artist I’ve ever come across,” Mitch said. “I’ve been schmoozed by big-time Hollywood studio bosses, producers, agents. I’m talking world-class talent. But they can’t even touch you, Eric. You present yourself as the ultimate American hero-the small farmer, an idealist who wants to grow things honestly. You perform good works in the community. You’re a loving husband. To know you is to look up to you. Except no one knows you, do they?”
“Mitch, they need these chairs in the fellowship room,” Eric said tightly. “And I re-eally don’t think this is funny.”
“Who actually did the killings, Eric? Who kept bashing Pete in the head with that pipe until he was dead? Who poured that lye down Tolly’s throat? I’d re-eally like to know.”
Eric blinked at Mitch rapidly, saying nothing. He’d grown extremely pale.
“Give it up, Eric. Just admit what you did. I can help you.”
“Guys, what’s taking so long?” Danielle called to them from out in the hall. She appeared in the doorway, looking harried. “Come on, will you? People will have to eat standing up.”
“Lock that door behind you, hon,” Eric blurted out.
Danielle stared at him, bewildered. “But why?”
“Mitch knows everything, that’s why.”
“Well, not everything,” Mitch pointed out. “A whole lot of blanks still-”
“Danielle, lock that damned door!” Eric barked. “Do what I tell you!”
“Don’t do it, Danielle,” Mitch cautioned her. “That would be really stupid, and we both know you’re not stupid.”
Danielle seemed frozen, so paralyzed by fright that she could hardly breathe. Mitch could actually hear her gasp for air. And then he heard something much closer to him.
He heard Eric whip open his Leatherman knife.
Before Mitch could react, the gangly farmer had a strong left forearm wrapped around his throat and the three-inch razor sharp blade held to his jugular vein, its tip pricking his skin.
“Don’t move a muscle,” Eric warned Mitch, hugging him tightly against his own body. “Lock it, Danielle. And go make sure the front doors are locked, too. Hurry!”
She flew into action. Locked the hallway door behind her, then dashed up the aisle and pushed open one of the foyer doors. Mitch could hear her throwing the bolts on the church’s three big double doors out front.
“Don’t do this, Eric,” he said hoarsely, feeling the man’s hot breath on the back of his neck. “It will end badly, believe me.”
“I don’t want to hurt you, Mitch,” he growled in response. “But I will. So just shut the hell up.”
“Eric, what are you doing?” Danielle protested as she scurried back down the aisle toward them.
“Tie his hands with my belt,” he ordered her. “Now, Danielle.”
She obeyed, yanking Eric’s worn leather belt from the loops of his pants, her eyes goggly with fear as she bound Mitch’s hands tightly behind him. As soon as she’d finished, Eric shoved Mitch roughly to the floor. The microcassette recorder tumbled from his jacket pocket. Eric promptly stomped on it hard with his work shoe, then removed the tape and stuffed it in his pocket.
Mitch lay there with his hands bound awkwardly behind him, his shoulders screaming in pain. “You’ll be so much better off if you just turn yourselves in,” he said, squinting up at them in the sunlight that streamed through the church’s windows. “You can’t get away.”
“Yeah, we can,” Eric assured him. “We have a bargaining chip. We have you.” He rummaged in Mitch’s pockets for his cell phone. “What’s Des’s number?”
“Just hit redial.”
Eric did, then held the phone to Mitch’s ear.
Mitch heard her say, “Still kind of busy here.”
To which he said: “I know, I know, and I’m sorry to bother you again. But something slightly urgent has come up…”
CHAPTER 24
Here’s what Des did after she got the call that would change her life forever:
She thanked Andre Forniaux, mobile vet, for his time and she ran like hell for her cruiser, cursing the day she ever met a pigment-challenged New York widower by the name of Mitchell I Am a Big, Fat Fool Berger. From the front seat of her ride she called Soave to scream at him that Eric and Danielle Vickers were holding Mitch hostage inside the Congregational Church and would slit his throat unless they got exactly what they wanted.
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