“Don’t get sore on me, Tim. I’m just asking you the questions they told me to ask.”
“Sure, okay,” he said grudgingly. Clearly, Tim Keefe was being protective of his childhood friend. He was also not someone who liked having his word doubted. “I understand. Go ahead and ask away.”
“Dirk’s marriage is not so hot, I gather.”
“Straight up, Dirk Doughty’s a guy I feel sorry for,” Tim said, taking another gulp of his beer. “You wouldn’t think a carpenter like me could ever feel sorry for a big leaguer like Dirk, but I do. See, when he was a teenager they told him that he was going to win the lottery. Live a life that the rest of us can only dream about. That was dangled right in front of him, okay? And then-whiff-it was snatched away, and I don’t think he’s ever recovered. When you’re a guy like me you know there are certain things you will never be. I will never be famous. I will never be rich. I will never sleep with a supermodel. I know these things. I know who I am and where I belong and who with. Dirk doesn’t know any of those things. And he’ll never be happy settling for anything less than what he thinks he deserves. That’s how his drinking came about. He gets itchy.”
“And what does Chuckie Gilliam get?” Des asked him.
“Chuckie?” Tim curled his lip at her. “Why do you want to know about that loser?”
“He lived across the street from Melanie, and was mixed up with her. Said he used to work for you.”
“He did,” Tim answered shortly. “Until I caught him loading some of my materials onto his truck. When I confronted him about it the stupid jerk popped me one in the nose. I’d have cut him some slack over it-he has his troubles. But that was over the line. I don’t take that from any of my men.”
“What kind of troubles?”
“Gambling. Chuckie’s poison of choice is blackjack. He can blow his whole paycheck up at Foxwoods in ten minutes.”
“Every time I’m at his place he’s on the computer. What’s up with that?”
“He’s always trying to come up with some formula for how to beat the house. All he’s come up with so far is a way to lose every dime he’s ever made-and then some.”
“And what about that Jesus Saves thing on his knuckles?”
“He saw God for a while,” Tim answered dryly. “I don’t think he sees him anymore. Or maybe he just didn’t like the odds God was giving him. Hey, look, Chuckie’s a swamp Yankee through and through, just like me. Most of us are good, hard-working people. Some of us aren’t.” He hesitated now, eyeing Des carefully. “You don’t really think Dirk’s a killer, do you?”
“Tim, I don’t know what to think. But I had to ask, like I told you.” Des swallowed, steeling herself for what she was about to do. “And there’s something else I need to ask you…”
A wary expression crossed his ruddy face. “What is it?”
“Do you think you could finish my damned house by next week?”
“Oh, hey, we’re getting there,” he assured her cheerfully. “And if everything breaks right we’ll-”
“No, sir. No more ifs,” she said firmly. In her mind, Bella was cheering her on. “I hear that word if again and I will scream. I know that quality work takes time. I have tried to be patient. But the monster is out of her cage. I need my own space and I need it now, understand?”
Tim nodded his head vigorously. “I do. I absolutely do. And if
… I-I mean, I sure will do my best to finish up as fast as I can. You’ve got my word on that. Ask anyone in town-my word’s gold.”
She knew that. She gave him her biggest smile and told him so.
But that still didn’t stop Des from waving her flashlight around inside his garage as she was on her way back to her cruiser. And, yes, there was a blue tarp in there. And, yes, there was a greasy outboard motor sitting on it. But for how long? There was no guarantee that it had been sitting there since Sunday. None.
And she knew that, too.
She swung by the Dunn’s Cove Marina on her way back down Route 156. Found it to be deserted. There were no cars parked in the gravel lot. No cabin lights coming from the yachts and cruisers moored there. The rich boys were all home for the night. Good. She killed her engine and got out, flashlight in hand. It was very nearly pitch-black out. The boatyard was not floodlit, and the moon had disappeared behind some low heavy clouds that had moved in, smelling of rain.
Bruce Leanse’s boat, The Brat, was as huge and beautiful as Mitch had said it was. He had also mentioned that it was scrupulously maintained. Des took off her black brogans and hopped aboard in her stocking feet. Carefully, patiently, she checked over its deck from bow to stern, hunched low over her flashlight beam in search of scuff marks. She found none-the deck’s surface was spotless. Perfect condition. Next she started in on the railings and brasswork, looking for any gouges or scratches, no matter how tiny. Anything that might indicate a struggle had taken place on board. But it was as if someone had just gone over the entire boat with Brasso and a toothbrush. Des found not one thing anywhere on deck to suggest that The Brat had been used to dispose of Melanie Zide.
As for the cabin, well, the cabin was locked. And she had no authority to bust in. No authority to be on board, period. Not unless she thought she’d heard a prowler. Which would be her story if anyone found her there.
And, damn, now she did see headlights. A car coming down the marina’s gravel drive directly toward her. It pulled up right next to her cruiser and somebody got out. She heard footsteps crunching on the gravel. Footsteps coming directly toward her. Des bit down hard on her lower lip. She was in no mood to be found on board The Brat by Bruce Leanse. She really did not want to have to explain herself to that man. Hurriedly, she grabbed her shoes and hopped back onto the dock, where she immediately ran smack-dab into a short, stocky man who grabbed her by the arm, shining his light on himself so she could get a good look at him.
It was Soave. “I was just going to call you when I spotted your car in the lot. Find anything interesting?”
“Didn’t find anything, period. And you can let go of my arm now.” He released his grip on her and she stepped back into her shoes, bending over to tie them. “Why were you going to call me?”
“I got an ID on Cutter from the Internet service. Man, they do not make it easy. I’ve been jumping through flaming hoops for like the last two hours.” He grinned at her. He was pumped. “Take a drive with me, Des.”
“Where to, wow man?”
The Leanses. They took Soave’s slicktop, Des riding shotgun.
“Your father hates me,” Soave said to her as he drove. “Treats me like I’m some kind of a total yutz.”
“Rico, he treats everyone that way.”
Soave glanced across the seat at her. “Even you?”
“Especially me. He demands best effort, and he accepts nothing less. Why do you think I gave you such a hard time when we partnered up? Because I’ve been getting hammered by that man since I was four years old.”
“Are you just saying this to make me feel better? Because I have to tell you something-it’s working.”
“Rico, it’s the real deal.”
He furrowed his brow thoughtfully now. “Tawny thinks that you and me never got along because deep down inside I feel threatened by you.”
“Smart girl, that Tawny. She’s wasting a fine brain, sitting there all day in a beauty parlor with an emery board in her hand.” Des paused, raising her chin at him. “Do you two talk about me a lot?”
“You’ve been on my mind a lot lately, Des,” he confessed, suddenly sounding like a painfully earnest adolescent. “Some of the things you said to me about my future. I guess I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately…”
“Careful, that can become habit-forming. Before you know it, you’ll be doing it every day.”
“You’re never going to let me back up, are you?” he demanded, flaring. “There’s no second chances in this perfect world you and your father live in, is that how it goes?”
“
I don’t live in that world anymore. I dropped out, remember?”
“Like hell you did. You’re still the same ball-buster you always were.”
Des smiled at him sweetly. “You really do miss me, don’t you?”
“Aw, shut up.”
All lit up at night, the Leanses’s post-modern mountaintop home reminded Des of the Mount Rushmore house in that superb Hitchcock movie Mitch had shown her, North by Northwest. This was a brand-new phenomenon, it dawned on her. She never, ever used to compare real life to movies, not until she met that man. Mitch was rubbing off on her. Was she rubbing off on him? She doubted it.
“This house looks like a damned space station,” Soave observed, gaping at it through his windshield.
“Just don’t tell him you find the architecture interesting, or he’ll bite your head clean off.”
“Yo, I wasn’t going to.”
They got out and rang the bell to the big oak front door. It was the little pumpkin head, Ben, who answered.
“Good to see you again, Ben,” Des said to him pleasantly. “Give it up for Lieutenant Tedone. Ben here was our DARE essay winner.”
“No way!” Soave exclaimed, sticking out a hand. “Glad to know you, Ben.”
“Glad to know you, too, sir,” the boy responded in that gurgly voice of his. “My dad’s on the phone in the den-whoa, what a surprise. My mom’s down in the gym. Come on in.”
The Leanses’ living room was a cube-shaped lookout of stone and glass. The living room floor was polished concrete, as was the stairway that led down the hill to the rest of the house. There were no rugs. No adornments anywhere. Only bare walls and windows and clean surfaces. What furniture there was-a grouping of low leather banquettes, a table and chairs of polished blond wood-was spare to the point of sterile. It struck Des as something out of an architectural magazine, not a real place where real people lived.
“Ricky Welmers was bragging that he took a ride in your cruiser,” little Ben said to her as he ushered them in, their footsteps resounding on the polished floor like rim shots on a snare drum. “Is that for real?”
“It is.”
“How come you gave him a ride?”
“He needed one. I’ll be happy to give you one, too. Anytime you want.”
“She’ll even handcuff you,” Soave confided.
“Really!?”
Des heard a set of footsteps coming briskly up the stairs now and Bruce Leanse charged into the room with a broad, manly smile on his face. “Trooper Mitry,” he said brightly, showing her thirty or more of his perfect white teeth. “Really good to see you again. And, hey, you must be Lieutenant Tedone. Welcome to my home-both of you.” Bruce was dressed casually in a gray turtleneck sweater and jeans, and he was working the chummy thing hard. Too hard. Underneath, he seemed edgy and preoccupied. “How may I help you?”
“The lieutenant and I just came from your boat…” Des responded.
“Please don’t tell me somebody broke in. That can’t be. This is Dorset.”
“No, nothing like that, Mr. Leanse,” Soave spoke up. “We wanted to talk to you is all. We tried you there first, but nobody was around.”
“Because he’s been working there much too late these past few weeks,” Babette Leanse said pointedly as she came padding up the stairs to join them, perspiring freely from her workout. She had on a blue leotard and sneakers. A towel was around her neck, and her bushy hair was gathered up in a rubber band atop her head. “I insisted he stay home with his family this evening.”
Des nodded, wondering if Attila the Hen was hip to his thing with Takai. Sounded like it. “The lieutenant and I would like to have a talk with you both.”
“This sounds serious,” Babette said, managing once again, somehow, to look down her nose at Des-who still could not figure out how the woman managed to perform such a physical impossibility. “Do we need a lawyer present?”
“Entirely up to you,” Soave answered grimly.
Babette’s mouth tightened. “Ben, would you please excuse us?”
“No way!” Ben exclaimed. “This is just starting to get good!”
“Ben…”
Glumly, the little boy headed downstairs.
Babette waited until he was gone before she turned to Des with a defiant expression on her face. “Well, do you recommend we phone our lawyer or not?”
“That’s your decision,” Des replied, offering nothing.
The Leanses exchanged a hopelessly bewildered look before Bruce shrugged his shoulders and said, “Come on, let’s sit in the kitchen.”
Their gleaming gourmet kitchen was down one flight of stairs from the living room. It was vast. It was to die for. Commercial Jenn-Air range with built-in grill and two ovens. Sub-zero refrigerator and freezer. Copper pots and pans galore. A center island with stools where the four of them sat. In comparison, Des realized, her own beautiful new kitchen would look like something belonging inside a trailer park in Homestead, Florida. But that was okay by her. Because she would never want to trade places with Babette Leanse.
Not now. Not ever.
“You made a play and you lost, Mrs. Leanse,” Soave began, his voice chilly and authoritative. He played the blustering intimidator well. He loved to stick it to people. Especially rich people. “Your days as head of the Dorset school board are over. You are toast. That’s a given. But if you’re straight with us, we may be able to keep you out of jail.”
Babette’s eyes widened with alarm. “Jail?”
“Whoa, time-out here,” Bruce broke in, staggered. “What are you talking about?”
“Melanie Zide is dead,” Soave fired back. “Maybe you heard the news.”
Babette sat there limply, the color draining from her face. “Dead?” Evidently, she hadn’t.
“Someone shot her,” Des said quietly. “And then tried to make it look like she left town.”
“We now have a positive ID on Cutter,” Soave continued, staying on the offensive. “What we don’t have, Mrs. Leanse, is the real reason why Melanie was pursuing her sexual-harassment claim against the superintendent. What was in it for her? Who put her up to it?”
Babette said nothing in response. Just sat there in tight-lipped silence, her small hand wrapped around a plastic water bottle.
Her husband, however, flew into a panic. “Honey, if you know anything, you’d better tell them!” he said in an agitated voice. “I am trying to build something huge here. If there’s so much as a whiff hanging over me I am roadkill-no planning commission approval, no building permit, nada. They won’t let me build a damned phone booth in this town, get it?”
Des was certainly trying to. Mostly, she found herself wondering if Bruce’s little speech was scripted for their benefit. She found it doubtful that anything this elaborate had been undertaken without his knowledge.
Now he was getting up off his stool. “Do you want me to call Jack?” he asked his wife. “Maybe I’d better call him at home in New York. We’ll put this on speakerphone so he can advise you what to say or what not to say or-”
“No, don’t,” Babette said faintly, putting a hand on his arm. “I want to tell them everything I know. I need to. I’m positively ill about this whole thing.”
“Okay, if that’s what you want…” Bruce settled back down on his stool.
Babette sat there for a long moment in silence, a deeply pained expression on her face. “But first I want you officers to understand that this was all my doing. My husband knew nothing about it. You must believe that. Everyone must believe that. If he had known, he most certainly would have told me not to do it.”
“Fine, whatever,” Soave said impatiently. He wasn’t buying this either.
“A few months ago,” Babette began slowly, “I discovered Melanie was mixed up in a kickback scheme involving our district’s classroom supplies-she’d switched us to a new distributor in exchange for money under the table. I found out about it from our old supplier, who’d refused to ante up. It wasn’t a lot of money-a few h
undred here, a thousand there-and it is a fairly common practice among office managers who do institutional ordering. But it’s highly unethical.”
“Grounds for dismissal, too, I’d imagine,” Des said.
“Absolutely,” Babette concurred. “When I confronted Melanie about it she was extremely contrite. And laid this whole sad story on me about her poor sick mother in the nursing home. And then she said, ‘Isn’t there any way we can work this out?’ I said, ‘Melanie, I can’t imagine what you mean.’ And she said, ‘Well, what are our common interests?’ Of course, I knew immediately what she meant. She was well aware that I’d prefer to have a superintendent who backs the new school. Then she said, ‘I have this friend who’s a secretary in the tax collector’s office up in Hartford and she got rid of her boss, a real nasty jerk, by claiming he’d sexually harassed her.’ I said to her, ‘Melanie, has Colin been making improper advances to you?’ Melanie said, ‘No, but he doesn’t even have to.’ All her friend did was buy some gay porn magazines and leave them lying around her boss’s office. Then she filed a complaint against him, claiming that she’d been made to feel sexually harassed by his conduct. The state, which was not anxious to have the story hit the news, immediately offered him a lucrative early retirement package if he’d go quietly. And he did, even though it was a complete fabrication, because he didn’t want to put his wife and family through the embarrassment of having it go public.” Babette paused to drink thirstily from her water bottle. “Melanie knew that Colin was partial to online chat groups,” she continued, her voice low and strained. “Particularly the gay ones. She’d observed him participating in them during his lunch hour. She suggested we find someone to engage him in a male cyber romance. All she had to do was catch him at it in his office one time and she’d testify against him. Faced with public humiliation and shame, she felt sure Colin would fold his tent the same way her friend’s boss had.” Babette took a deep breath, swiping at the perspiration on her face with her towel. “And that’s the whole dirty, rotten little plan-Melanie would keep her job, Colin would lose his, and Dorset would get its new school.”
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