Death Takes Priority

by Jean Flowers

  While waking up with my coffee and toast, I scanned this week’s paper for events. I played tourist for a few minutes and checked out the “Things To Do” section. Not exactly what my old Fenway neighborhood would offer, but certainly enough to keep me busy for a morning. It had been years since I’d visited the Susan B. Anthony museum, in her birthplace of Adams, Massachusetts, almost next door. I also considered a walk down our own main street, maybe checking on the progress of Tim Cousins’s home-building project and being neighborly for a change.

  Finally, I decided what I’d do with my windfall of free time. I went online and found the address of the telephone company’s North Ashcot Central Office. For old times’ sake, I told myself, to see where Wendell had spent his career. It’s not that I was investigating—even though, if Wanda was right about her brother’s lack of personal life, it was a good bet that Wendell’s murder was tied to his work life. If I happened to meet one of his colleagues who wanted to chat, so be it. You couldn’t be arrested for that.

  * * *

  Dressed in my not-blues, lest I be mistaken for a postal worker, I followed the instructions from my GPS to the western edge of town, where a nondescript two-story building was situated among a few other industrial-looking properties. Beige in color, or noncolor, the telephone company building was surrounded by a high fence, except for a small entrance on one short side of the lot. Also surrounding the facility were rows of various-sized conduits, which, I assumed, held myriad strands of wires and cables. The windows were narrow and multipaned, the bottom ones barred and opaque.

  I parked on the street, so as not to get involved in the barbed-wire section, and approached what looked like the front entrance, set back from the street. It was not a pleasant walk from my Jeep (the tires of which were the newest things around as far as I could see) to the doorway, past trash, bits of glass, and pockets of mud. Wendell’s place of employment was about as unfriendly and unwelcoming as he had become, at least to me.

  So this was a central office. If its appearance was meant to discourage attention, the designers had done well. Five steps up from the street level was an entryway with a double glass door, a large EMPLOYEES ONLY sign filling most of it. In case that wasn’t clear, two other signs were more explicit. THIS IS NOT A PUBLIC OFFICE, read one, and DO NOT ATTEMPT TO PAY BILLS HERE, said still another, discouraging not only visitors but rate-paying customers in no uncertain terms. I wondered if Wanda had ever ventured out to visit her brother at work. I doubted they had a Take Your Sister to Work Day.

  Any hope I had of entering the building and chatting with Wendell’s coworkers was buried in layers of cement and security. There wasn’t even a doorbell, only a keypad and card slot. I wondered why they’d bothered to feature the company logo above the door. In case employees couldn’t tell which was their building?

  One thing that surprised me was the size of the structure. I would have expected that newer technology would fit into a smaller space. Maybe everything was now accommodated in one corner of the building, and the rest of the area was empty or used for storage. If I could only get a peek inside, I wouldn’t have to make up the building’s history.

  I knew I should be relieved that such an important part of my hometown’s communication system was so well protected. I simply wished they were aware that I was no threat and would make an exception for me.

  I returned to my car, looking back over my shoulder now and then on the chance that a human would show himself on the property. From the number of cars in an adjacent parking lot, it seemed that a couple dozen people had shown up today. None were hanging out windows or having a smoke outside. No greeter, as in big box stores these days.

  I got in my Jeep and drove back toward town. I had come to a STOP sign when I ran into an opportunity, figuratively speaking. A telephone company truck was parked in the next block, ahead of me, beside a telephone pole, of course.

  Why hadn’t I thought of this before? Where there was a utility truck, there were humans. Workers. Telephone company workers. Who needed an entry code to an ugly building when there were workers in the field? I could have saved myself a trip to the rough edge of town and simply cruised the streets until I found a truck. Like the one in front of me.

  I drove through the intersection and slowed down by the orange cones, lowering my window on the way.

  “Good morning,” I said to the nearest man in an orange vest and yellow hard hat. Not the man who was perched in a red cherry picker at the top of the pole, or the third man, who was shuffling tools around in the back of the truck. I was looking at the poster boy for a telephone company promo. A tall, fit guy with a perfect smile, exactly the right amount of stubble, and clear blue eyes that said, “Trust your important calls to me.” Mr. Comm, I named him.

  Once he realized I wasn’t moving on, he asked, “Can I help you with something?”

  “I just came from the central office, hoping I’d be able to talk to someone there, but I couldn’t find a way in.” Impenetrable came to mind.

  “That’s not a public office,” he informed me. Something I’d gathered from all the signs and bars on the windows, but I felt no need to be sarcastic.

  “Is there a phone number I could call to talk to someone inside the telephone company?” Oops, the sarcasm escaped.

  “Nope.” No smile; apparently Mr. Comm didn’t see the irony. “What is it that you need?”

  I took a deep breath. “Well, I’m a friend of Wendell Graham. I’m trying to help his sister by getting the word out about his memorial service tomorrow.” I paused. It took all the strength I had to shove thoughts of Wanda and what she’d think of this ploy to the back of my mind. “I assume you knew him?”

  “Oh yeah, yeah. Awful that he died that way. Nice guy. He came into the field a lot. When’s the service?”

  I gave Mr. Comm the details and a big smile. “You know, as long as Wendell and I were friends, I’ve never understood exactly what his job was.”

  He smiled back. “Graham was an installer, like us”—he waved his hand toward his two coworkers—“connecting lines, disconnecting lines, hooking lines to central, unhooking lines to central. The usual.”

  “There a problem here?” We’d been joined by a decidedly not camera-ready worker. A heavier, older guy whose orange vest hadn’t seen a washing machine for a while, and whose hard hat was dented all around.

  “No problem,” I said.

  “This here’s Jimmy, Graham’s replacement,” Mr. Comm said of the newcomer to the conversation.

  “That was very quick work, bringing you in so soon after Wendell’s death,” I said, pretending to shade my eyes from the sun, when I was really hiding from Jimmy’s sharp, dark eyes.

  “It’s an important job. Can’t keep customers on hold no matter what happens.” Even murder, I supposed he meant.

  “I guess it will take you a while to get up to speed.”

  “Not really,” Jimmy said, in a “what’s it to you?” tone.

  “He’s a veteran,” Mr. Comm said. “He’s been in Albany for almost twenty years.”

  “What’s your interest in all this, anyway?” Jimmy asked, cutting Mr. Comm off.

  “Like I told”—I paused while Mr. Comm filled in the blank and said I could call him Kyle—“Like I told Kyle, Wendell’s sister asked me to be sure everyone he worked with knows the arrangements for tomorrow’s memorial service.”

  Jimmy gave me a skeptical look. “You don’t say.”

  “I can give you the details,” Mr. Comm offered.

  “We have work to do,” Jimmy said. At least he touched his hat to me while he waved me on.

  With the window down, I was getting cold anyway.

  * * *

  It was clear that I couldn’t be trusted with even a little free time. I sat in Café Mahican, distressed at how I’d wasted my morning so far. I couldn’t let go of the fact that Wendell’s
killer was still at large. Even more puzzling was why I thought I could be the one to solve the mystery.

  What if the killer was a drifter, now long gone, as some gossipers had theorized in my post office that first day? A stranger, on the way from crime number one, happens to pass through North Ashcot and decides to commit crime number two, with Wendell in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  How many murders fell into that category? Random shootings or stabbings, never solved. I smiled as I thought of all the television dramas I’d watched in my lifetime, and how not a single one of them was ever due to a random act or even the cliché “robbery gone bad.” Fifty minutes and the connections were made, the means, motive, and opportunity checked off, and the guilty party nailed.

  I had to admit it wasn’t just Wanda’s plea that had motivated me to insert myself into this investigation. As poorly as I was doing in terms of results, at least I wasn’t sitting idly by, and for some reason, that mattered. I wondered how Sunni and the real cops would have handled the boys in hard hats at the utility truck. Would they have asked better questions? Was it just the intimidation of a badge that got them answers where I got nothing? Or did they have special courses in psychology, beyond the management seminars I’d been to? How did they handle dead ends, uncooperative citizens, fortressed buildings? Slashed tires?

  I felt sure that Derek was involved in some way, though I couldn’t imagine that he himself wielded the gun that killed Wendell. I pictured him stripping bills from a wad in his pocket and paying off a minion. All this, without a shred of evidence. Conviction due to creepiness.

  Some detective I’d make, lining up suspects according to whether I liked them personally. In my mental lineup, developer Derek Hathaway, architect and builder Tim Cousins, and Selectwoman Gert Corbin were on one side, and all my friends—Quinn, Wanda, and Ben on the other.

  I thought of another case, across the country in California, and the defendant on trial, Quinn’s mother. I had a surge of sympathy for Quinn, unable to imagine my own frustration and anxiety tripled, or more, if someone as close as my mother were involved.

  I checked the time on my phone. Wanda had called me while I was driving from the central office and asked to meet me at ten-thirty, which turned out to be almost perfect timing.

  At ten thirty-four, Wanda walked through the door of the coffee shop, past several empty tables, made a detour to the coffee bar, then took a seat across from me. She gave one last shiver and rubbed her hands together.

  “Freezing, huh?” she noted. “Sorry, I’m a little late. Had to drop off a project for a client.”

  Wanda had tucked most of her hair into an olive green knit cap, which she left on, a good choice until she had a hot drink to provide some warmth. “Unseasonably cold,” the weather girls had warned today, as if we’d expect a coat-free stroll any day in November.

  I told Wanda about my feeble attempt to garner information at the central office and from the vested boys on the street. “I’m sorry I have nothing to report.”

  “I do,” she said, as her name was called from the bar.

  I could hardly wait until she returned with her drink. She seemed animated enough that I guessed she had good news. I allowed her time to use her cup as a heating pad.

  Once warmed, inside and out, Wanda started in, leaning as far as possible across the table. “I was going through some of Wendell’s things, the ones he left at my apartment. He always stashed a few things there in case he didn’t feel like driving home. He’d crash on my couch and . . .” Wanda stopped to compose herself. “Or, like the time they were painting at his house and he couldn’t stand the fumes, so he stayed with me for a couple of days.”

  I put my hand on hers. “Take your time,” I said. Eager as I was for whatever Wanda had come up with, I understood her need to slow down. It had been less than a week since her brother, and best buddy it seemed, had died.

  “Thanks. I’m okay.” She reached into her tote and pulled out a few pages of text. “I found these e-mails he’d printed out.”

  She placed the pages on the table, facing me. She’d circled the name at the top, the “from” person. Derek Hathaway. As if I would have missed it. I peered at the message.

  The e-mail was to Wendell Graham, copied to Gert Corbin, dated a few days before his murder. The subject was simply: Lines.

  The text began with, “New opportunities” followed by a list of names:

  Barry Chase

  Margaret Phillips

  Tim Cousins?

  Scott James/Quinn Martindale?

  No further text, no other explanation.

  Without thinking, I put my finger on the last named person. I felt my stomach flip and my eyes widen. Wanda was more verbal. “What does he mean by that?” she asked. “Scott’s your friend from the antiques store, right? Does he have a partner named Quinn or something? And who are Barry Chase and Margaret Phillips?”

  I ran Wanda’s questions and my own around in my head. How did Derek know about Quinn’s dual identity? Other than that he knew everything, from the first day we met this week, to news of my slashed tires.

  “Let’s start from the top of this list,” I said, hoping Wanda would let the answer to the Scott/Quinn question slide. I wished I’d cleared up with Quinn just how long he wanted to stay under the cover of Scott James.

  I wondered what the question marks meant, next to his name and Tim’s. Maybe Tim also had a fake name. Or maybe Tim was his fake name. “I’m sure I’ve never come across Chase or Phillips,” I said. By which I meant they did not use the services of the North Ashcot Post Office.

  “Barry Chase owns the barbershop in South Ashcot, I think. Wendell preferred him to the guy in town. But I think he’s retired now. I don’t know who Margaret Phillips is. We can check her out. Everyone has a website these days.”

  Except me, unless you counted the main site for the whole postal system, in which case I’m one of the statistics.

  Wanda pulled out her laptop and searched for Margaret Phillips. “That was easy,” she said, after only a few clicks. “I assumed she was in South Ashcot since neither of us knows her and Barry is from there. She’s the librarian in South Ashcot.”

  “What do you suppose the ‘lines’ are that Derek mentions?” I asked.

  “The first thing that comes to mind is clothing lines or lines of merchandise, but since this message is to my brother, it must mean telephone lines.”

  “I agree, but surely Derek wasn’t ordering telephone lines for these people.”

  “Maybe he’s informing Wendell that these are opportunities for new customers? Tim is in the middle of building his house, so that might make sense.”

  “But it doesn’t tell us why Derek would be involved. That has to mean something.” I didn’t tell her that I had no good reason for saying that. “Then there’s the matter of—why copy one town official and not all of them? We have to figure out how Wendell, Gert, and Derek are connected.”

  “How shall we proceed?” Wanda asked, as if I were the chief investigator of a team of two. I couldn’t blame her. I was certainly acting that way.

  “I’ll talk to Scott and see if he knows what this is all about,” I said, careful not to out Quinn without his permission, though my good friend and ex-postmaster Ben Gentry hadn’t needed my help to figure it out.

  “I can swing by the barbershop. They’ll know how to contact Barry Chase. And since I’ll be in South Ashcot, I can stop at the library, too, and try to catch this Margaret Phillips. Maybe you can stop and chat with Tim Cousins. We’ll meet and compare notes afterwards. Then we’ll decide when and how to confront our elected official.”

  “That sounds wonderful,” I said. “How about asking the chief of police if we can take a cruiser on our rounds.”

  “Yeah, and maybe she can deputize us,” Wanda said.

  At first I thought she was just kidding
.

  15

  Whatever Wanda’s assignment for me was, I knew I’d be starting with the question-marked Scott James/Quinn Martindale. As soon as my partner-in-crime-solving left the coffee shop, which was now filling up with patrons willing to define lunch as coffee and a scone, I called Quinn and asked him to meet me there.

  I felt guilty as I planned to do what I criticized in others—taking up a table and a seat and soaking up Wi-Fi for a long time, on the financial strength of one cup of coffee. To assuage my conscience, I returned to the counter and ordered a cappuccino, a muffin, and a parfait glass with fruit and yogurt. Now that I thought of it, there was nothing wrong with calling that lunch.

  Quinn arrived in record time. The sign of a bored man. “How come you’re not at work?” he asked me. “If I knew you had the day off—”

  “I don’t have the whole day. Ben needed something to do this morning.”

  “Man, I get that. If I don’t go back to work soon, I’ll go nuts.”

  The barista, a fashionably bald young man with chiseled chin hair, called out, “Small macchiato for Scott.” Quinn responded quickly and picked up his drink. I thought it impressive that he was comfortable with both names, but I couldn’t decide whether it was good or bad that he traveled back and forth so easily.

  “You said you wanted to show me something?” he said when he returned to the table.

  Wanda had thoughtfully printed out a copy of the e-mail for me; I placed it on the table, facing Quinn, and pointed to the sender. “First, it looks like Derek knew both your names.”

  “We were already aware that Wendell knew them.” He took a sip of coffee, then a deep breath. “That’s what got me messed up with the police, remember? That paper he was carrying with both names.” I nodded. Of course I remembered that. “So maybe Wendell told Derek,” Quinn added.