“Some ramps and a half-pipe, that’d be, like awesome.”
Blake did not know what a half-pipe was but guessed it would, indeed, be very awesome, or awful. He’d have to think about that. The boy walked away to explain to his friends what had happened to their ramp prop.
Sylvia Parks and then Schwartz drove up a moment later. He looked at his watch. Five forty-five. Close enough. Sylvia alighted from her Mercedes SUV at the same time the sheriff slid out of his standard government-issue Crown Vic. She began talking in full stride. “Krueger, I assume, must be Waldo in another life. I will pursue that later, but I have something else to tell you first, Sheriff,” She dug a sheaf of papers from her purse. “This is a court order authorizing us to ‘enter, inspect and remove as appropriate any and all such church property as may be found on or about the premises known as’…etcetera, etcetera.”
“How did you manage that?”
“It happens that Attorney General Croft is my son-in-law, and Judge Landis, who signed this rag, is my husband’s old college roommate. It’s a small world, don’t you think?”
Schwartz stood motionless in the parking lot, staring at her, eyes hard. Blake shifted his gaze between the two of them. He sensed Schwartz had something on his mind but had no idea what it might be.
“You look shocked,” she said, her face serene. “Don’t be. When you need to, you pull strings to get things done all the time, am I right? I just have more and bigger strings than you do, that’s all. So let’s go.”
Sylvia drove them into Westerfield and parked in front of Waldo’s house. Blake counted doors and saw they were only four houses from Mary’s. A few neighbors gawked at them from their front yards. The house was locked, but there was no crime scene tape on the yard.
Schwartz pulled out a ring of keys, inspected them and inserted one in the lock. It turned and the bolt clicked over.
“Thought so,” he muttered, and stepped in, followed by Blake and Sylvia.
“Did the FBI search the house?” Blake asked.
“Don’t know. I don’t think so, but they didn’t say.”
“Well, I guess that answers your question,” Schwartz said and surveyed the chaos in the house. The first floor looked like Millicent Bass’ house, with papers and belongings strewn everywhere.
“I don’t think the FBI made this mess. I think they are very professional when it comes to running searches. They wouldn’t leave a place looking like this, would they?” He said it positively, but Schwartz heard the doubt in his voice.
“We were in and out. Took his computer, some records, and that’s all.” He looked puzzled. He had not made the search, Sam and Billy had, and left everything looking perfectly normal…still.
They spent the next hour and a half sifting through files, drawers, cupboards, and cabinets, re-searching the house. Ike rolled back the rugs, checked the bottoms of drawers and even the ice dispenser. Nothing out of the ordinary turned up. Blake removed the grilles on the hot air ducts and reached in as far as he could. The desk turned up only a computer-generated list of names, most of them members of the church. A few Blake did not recognize, and there were one or two more names that did look familiar, but he could not tell why. His name had been handwritten at the bottom, apparently a later addition to the others. It had a question mark penciled in after it. The list probably did not qualify as “church property,” but he pocketed it anyway.
Sylvia found a collection of old newspapers from San Francisco and an application for a handgun dated several months before. The approval line was not filled in.
“Ike, can you call somebody and find out if the FBI got here before us? Ask them about the keys, too,” Blake added.
Schwartz nodded and pulled out his cell phone.
It took Schwartz several minutes to get through to the Agent in Place, and several more to persuade him to release the information. Schwartz told him he was with a close personal friend of the Governor and looked at Sylvia for confirmation. She gave him a thumbs-up. He muttered “okay” four or five times and “yep” three times and ended with an “I see.”
“The feds did not search this property, they assumed we did, and, no, they did not find any keys. Now what?”
“No keys. There were supposed to be two. If Krueger had the files, he was killed for them. The killer took his keys and searched the house but could not find them, so then he must have thought Millie had them and—”
“It’s too thin. Blake. The search could just as easily have been done by a hit man. He could have been looking for more evidence that could incriminate the mob. You saw those newspapers. He was scheduled to testify. The only link between the two murders is a mess in their respective houses.”
“There is a way to tell.”
“How?”
“If we could find those keys, we could check them. Amy said there were two on that ring. One must have unlocked the organ. What did the other one do? If it fits the box, we have a link.”
“We don’t have the box anymore, remember?”
“And that’s another thing. Where is the box?”
“If you ask me,” Sylvia said, “it’s buried in the town’s sanitary landfill.”
“But I have a key to the box,” Blake cried. “We could match the keys even if we can’t find the box. If they match, the murders are linked, but how and why?”
“I don’t know. You’re right. Unfortunately all we can do is link them circumstantially—not causally. Still, it would be a start. We have to find that key ring.”
They left the house, locking the door behind them. Schwartz called his office and ordered a team to the house to reseal it and mark it off with yellow tape.
Chapter Thirty-six
Thursday morning started out cloudy and threatening. By the time Blake ran to the corner convenience store to get coffee and a newspaper, it started to rain. At the cashier’s counter his eye caught the word “half-pipe” blazoned on the front of an extreme sports magazine. On an impulse, he bought it.
Back in his office, he put his coffee cup and newspaper on his desk and skimmed the magazine. It took him several tries before he found the reference to a half-pipe, which, he discovered, was a device used by in-line skaters, BMX bikers, and skateboarders. It did in fact look very much like a large piece of pipe cut in half on its long axis. As nearly as he could tell, the skater rolled down one side of the pipe and, propelled by his momentum, flew up on the other side into the air, where he did stunts or tricks with names that made no sense and looked very dangerous. Then, the skater careened down again to the other side to repeat the performance. Very cool, he thought.
He put the magazine aside when Schwartz walked in and tossed a key ring on his desk.
“This it?” Schwartz asked, looking slightly harried.
“Where did you find it?”
“I didn’t. It was in an evidence bag the coroner had. Apparently Krueger kept it on a chain around his neck. Unless you were looking, you wouldn’t notice. Try it against your key.”
Blake searched his desk drawer for the key to the file box. When he had it, he held it up to the key on the ring. No match. He dropped both in the drawer.
“Well, there goes that theory,” he said, disappointed. “But I guess we found the organ key at least.”
“Don’t worry about it. Half the leads I follow in an investigation end up like that,” Schwartz said and turned to leave.
“Sheriff, did anybody do a ballistics test on the bullets from Millie and Waldo?”
“We’re working on it. By the way, how much do you know about your lawyer?”
“Not much. She lives near Roanoke in an area called Floyd or Flood—something like that. She just started—” Ike held up his hand, palm out. He heard the footsteps. He put a finger to his lips and shook his head. Ike greeted Sylvia, coming in as he lef
t. What was that all about?
Sylvia appeared at his door.
“Good morning, Blake. Are you busy?”
“No, not really.”
“I was on my way out,” Ike said. He narrowed his eyes and shook his head slightly. Blake guessed he wanted to be sure their conversation about Sylvia stayed mute. He nodded and turned to the woman.
“You were saying?”
“Right. So long, Sheriff. Good, I have a confession to make. No, that isn’t right. I have two confessions to make. Have I got that straight? If you go to confession and have more than one thing on your list, do you make confession, or do you make confessions? I’ve never been sure.”
“When was the last time you went to any confession, Sylvia, assuming the church you attended encouraged that sort of thing?”
“Never could find anyone to confess to who I thought was tough enough to hear what I had to say. Anyway, listen. First, I found the letters. You know, the ones that Millie sent to the Board and to Miss Miller, and I found the ones that clearly exonerated you. I had to clean up the mess and there they were.
“So—here’s the confession—I copied the good ones and mailed them to all of the Mission Board members, including the ones whose terms expired but who were on the board when you were hired. I put a cover letter with them that said I did it without your knowledge. I didn’t want them to think you were behind it. Might look a little self-serving.
“Second, I called some people I know and told them about the whole plan to deceive, so to speak. These are people, by the way, who shared Millie’s ‘bad habit,’ as you so delicately put it. You can rest assured that the circumstances of your Philadelphia experience are now adequately explained, or will be before sundown. Father, forgive me for I have sinned.”
Blake grinned at her. In fact, he wouldn’t have sent the letters, and she probably should not have sent them. He thanked her.
He stared at the empty door frame and listened to her as she tackled the task of sorting out forty years’ worth of files. He retrieved the key ring and put it on the desk, next to the list he had taken from Waldo’s house, and then remembered the envelope with the clipping. He pulled it out from the drawer and added it to the other two items. He stared at them, trying to piece together a story that reconciled all three. He picked up a pad of paper and began a list of questions.
1. Who dropped the clipping in the vicarage and when? Waldo, Waldo’s killer, or someone else?
2. Why did he still think the keys were important?
3. Why did Waldo make a list of names and why did he include mine, and who were the people that were not members of Stonewall Jackson?
He reread the list carefully. Dan Quarles headed the church list, which also included Grace Franks, Mary Miller, and three others. Mary Miller? She was not a member of the church when Waldo was killed. How did she end up on the list? The other names meant nothing to him.
4. Who called and left the strange message on the answering machine Monday night?
5. Where were Tommy Taliaferro’s files, and what did they have to do with any of this?
6. Why did Ike want to know where Sylvia Parks lived?
He knew instinctively that if he could find answers to the first five questions, he would know who killed Waldo and Millie, and a whole lot more. But try as he might, nothing came to him. He would ask Mary about Waldo when he saw her. Maybe Schwartz would come up with something in the meantime. Sylvia put her head around the door and broke his train of thought.
“I’m leaving now,” she said. “You interested in joining me for lunch? I’ll take you to Le Chateau.”
Le Chateau was a pricey restaurant lost on the mountainside of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It attracted its clientele from the Commonwealth’s elite—those who found its location and relative seclusion useful in the world of deal making and maneuvering that characterized the politically connected and moneyed few. It offered polished oak paneling, privacy, and a superb menu. While they ate, Blake ran his first five questions by Sylvia. She thought long and hard and finally threw up her hands, declaring she did not have a mind devious enough to even guess answers. He asked her to think about them anyway.
Chapter Thirty-seven
Bob Franks pulled into his driveway and killed the engine. He was tired and edgy. Grace had spent the last hundred miles of the trip from Virginia Beach singing snippets from The Sound of Music. An hour of the hills are alive with the sound of music and, Doe a deer, a female deer… and he was ready to strangle her.
“Out,” he snapped, “before you make me crazy.”
“You should complain,” she said.
He dumped the luggage on the porch, shuffled into the kitchen, and checked the refrigerator. He wanted to grill but there were no chops, steaks, or even hot dogs.
“We’re out of eats,” he shouted. “Go to the market and get something for the grill.”
“I’m not hungry. I’ll just have a salad.”
“I don’t care what you eat, Grace, I want real food. I’ve been driving for hours and listening to your caterwauling and I need a break. Go get me a steak—now.”
She smiled a secret smile and sailed out the door humming Edelweiss.
***
Back in his office, Blake fought the effects of too much rich dining and the inevitable onset of food coma. He thought about the contrasts in his life, the immediate ones, and the others, the facts he pushed from his mind months ago, but which would not let him go. The luncheon he just ate in a restaurant he could no longer afford, but which six months ago he would have frequented as the guest of one of any number of parishioners. He wondered if he had changed so much. Certainly he felt no great desire to hobnob with the people he met there, but six months ago…?
He liked Sylvia Parks but did not feel the need to curry her favor because of her connections. Six months ago, he would have. She would have been at the top of his “A list.” The contrast between Sylvia and Mary, a woman of simple tastes and relatively little sophistication, were vast. Mary he found immensely attractive. But before, he would have brushed her off without a thought. He wondered if he had lost his mind somewhere along the interstates, 95 and 81, as they bore him south from Philadelphia to Picketsville. Six months ago he was a man on the way up, a comer, a sure bet for bishop. He sat on important commissions and committees. He received inquiries about his availability for jobs from all over the country. He’d made the short list for Suffragan Bishop in the Diocese of Maryland. He was a star.
Now he languished in an undistinguished and forgotten corner of Virginia, the vicar of a failed experiment in evangelism. He had no prospects, no influence, and, probably, no future beyond this elegant but dysfunctional church he now led. But for the first time since he arrived, and in his career, the prospect did not fill him with gloom. He’d discovered there were people who seemed to care about him and, equally important, people he cared about in turn. He thought about the doughnut and the hole and his decision to keep his eyes fixed firmly on the former. Life could be worse. He had come a long way, geographically and spiritually, from Philadelphia’s Main Line to Virginia’s end of the line.
***
The telephone’s insistent ringing woke him up. He sat, dazed and disoriented—the way people are when they’ve drifted off to sleep in daylight or in an unfamiliar place. On the fifth ring he picked up the receiver. Dan Quarles, voice still hoarse, it seemed, wanted to ask Blake a question. Blake asked how he was feeling. Finally, satisfied that Dan was in reasonably good health, he let him ask his question. Dan wanted to know if the files had been found. Blake said no.
On an impulse—it had become an impulsive day, extreme sports magazines, luncheon with the rich and famous and now this—Blake asked him if he could identify any of the names on Waldo’s list. Dan recognized the church people but none of the others. Blake thought he sounde
d strange and wondered if he really was all right. He asked if there was anything else Dan wanted to talk about. A very flustered Dan said no, and hung up.
He started to leave when the phone rang again.
“Are you still locking your door?” Schwartz said. Blake said he was. “You realize, don’t you, that you are the logical next target.”
“I guess so, but why? I didn’t know you cared, Sheriff.”
“I’m not thinking about you, Son, I’m thinking about the folks in your church. Where else can they get a minister who works so cheap?”
“You have a generous spirit and a warm heart. You’d make a great Archdeacon. Anyway, the only reason to shoot me is to get the files, which, as you know, I don’t have, and if I did I’d give them up to the right people and certainly wouldn’t dream of revealing their contents to anyone. So how does that make me a target?”
“We are not dealing with a simple killing, Reverend. There is something else at play here, something about Krueger. I can’t figure out what, but files or no files, you need to lie low.”
“I don’t understand, but I’ll take your word for it.”
“Okay, watch your back, and tell your lawyer friend I appreciate her help.”
“Okay, but what’s with all the questions about Sylvia, anyway?”
“Not important. It’s just that Floyd is a community that attracts a certain type of person, and she doesn’t fit the mold, so to speak.”
“What kind of people are you talking about?”
“People like me.” Schwartz rang off.
People like who? County cops who didn’t seem to fit the stereotype he’d expected?
He left his office, crossed the parking lot, and let himself into the vicarage. He had the television on and a frozen dinner in his hand ready to be microwaved when he changed his mind. He needed, he decided, a change of scene, a break. He put the dinner back in the freezer, donned his blazer, and left. As he locked the front door, he saw the television’s blue flickering through the blinds. He started to unlock the door to turn it off but chose to ignore it. Later he would wonder why, but that night he forgot all about choir practice, about Mary Miller, and the opportunity to try the key. Because he was not at home when his killer came to call, this last impulsive act spared his life for the moment. Small decisions—critical outcomes. The Butterfly Effect.
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