by Jean Flowers
Wendell’s service was at a different church in North Ashcot, a very small building closer to the edge of town, where he’d been killed, but they were all the same to me. This church was made of blond wood with off-white gauzy banners here and there and a choir dressed in off-white gauzy robes.
Sure enough, the table in the vestibule held standup posters with happy photographs. I caught a glimpse of the young Wendell in his quarterback uniform, cradling a football, and turned away. I could imagine the rest, whether I wanted to or not. I hoped the photograph-album trend would be over by the time someone had to plan my funeral.
I’d arrived late to this service on purpose, when most guests were already seated. I sat at the back. No one needed to see me fall apart, if that’s what was going to happen. Another advantage to my position was that I could see most of the mourners, seated in front of me, in case I decided to take notes. If there was any truth to the myth that killers always attended their victims’ funerals, I was ready. Playing sleuth was a good alternative to breaking down.
I hadn’t expected so many people to attend today. Perhaps Wendell’s self-image, as reported by Wanda, was off-base, and he wasn’t the loser he thought he was.
I spotted the town’s elders, “Call-me-Moses” Crawford and Harvey Stone, who, I figured, were regular funeral goers. Coach was there, more formally dressed than he’d been at the impromptu meeting at the post office right after Wendell’s murder. Under different circumstances, I might have taken my notebook and queried Coach, and everyone else as to why they were present.
I recognized many others from around town or as post office customers. Several people stopped on their way past my pew and greeted me in hushed tones. I smiled and nodded at all the “Hi, Cassie” whispers and the nudges. A few who knew we’d been friends those many years ago offered condolences.
“I know you were close,” said one classmate I vaguely recognized. I didn’t correct her.
“So sorry for your loss,” said another, as if I, and not Wanda and the people in the front row, were Wendell’s family.
I looked around for Barry Chase. I’d never met him, but I’d seen his photo and felt he must be here. Maybe representing his client Derek Hathaway, who had pressing business this Saturday. I examined all the suits I could see, searching for the most expensive looking. I looked for Mr. Comm and Jimmy, Wendell’s replacement at the phone company, but didn’t see either.
Gert was in a middle row. I wondered if she had a purse full of her flyers. What a great venue to spread the word about the evil betting establishment and what it could do to a town.
I shifted my position to see the Graham family in the front row, across the aisle from me. I picked out Mr. Graham, Wanda’s father; her older brother, Walker, from Florida; and her sister, Whitney, who’d moved to Maine for college and stayed there. I wouldn’t have recognized any of them, except in this context.
I wondered if they’d all agreed on using the joyful photo array. I had to remind myself that people were different, that everyone grieved in their own way, and that, for some, the photos were a source of comfort. Maybe someday I’d be ready to derive comfort from such memorabilia, but not today.
At the front end of the aisle was a table with candles and a large photo of Wendell, as if the ones in the entryway weren’t enough to bring us to tears. The setting, the music, the smell of candle wax, the hushed tones made Wendell’s death all too real for me.
“Dear family and friends,” the preacher began.
Family and friends, I thought. And we’re all sitting here, doing nothing useful.
I had a burst of awareness. It was time to find out who did this. No pussyfooting around, no following rules. What did it matter who investigated, who found a lead or searched out information, as long as the killer was caught? Someone murdered Wendell and almost a week later we still didn’t know who. It didn’t seem right. Was I having flashbacks of my parents’ deaths? The challenge thrust upon me to accept what had happened? So what? It didn’t matter.
If the preacher hadn’t chosen that moment to tap the microphone, starting the formal service, I might have stepped to the front of the church and announced an official interrogation of everyone present. No holds barred. Never mind that I noticed one of the last people to arrive, in her dress blue-grays: Chief Sunni Smargon. I was afraid she was going to sit in my row, but she marched toward the front and joined a young couple she seemed to know.
I settled down, but things were different for me now. I wouldn’t be able to live my normal life until the world was put right for Wanda, especially.
I slid to the end of my bench, stood, and quietly left the church. As I walked the few yards to the rear door, with my back to the preacher, the mourners, and the gauzy banners, I felt all eyes on me, but the eulogy had begun and I detected no change in the preacher’s words or cadence, and felt no arm on my shoulder to stop me. I reached the vestibule. Two large men, formally dressed in black, stood at attention as I approached. Without questioning me, they each opened one of the double doors so that I could exit easily, into the sunlight.
Neither man asked where I was going or why; I guessed I looked like I knew what I was doing.
* * *
For lack of other ideas, I drove home. The day was crisp and bright, in direct contrast to my mood. I wished last night’s thunderstorms were back. What right did anyone have to enjoy clear skies?
I knew Wanda would be looking for me at the reception, as would Sunni. But I couldn’t imagine myself standing around with a cup of coffee and a paper plate of snacks, chatting, as if we were having a picnic. Eventually, I’d admit to both women that I just couldn’t take it.
My plan, such as it was, was to brew my own coffee, then sit down and organize my thoughts and information, starting from the beginning, which I defined as last Monday morning, five days ago. I thought of using a storyboarding technique I’d learned as a project manager.
I could buy a big whiteboard, or simply use large pieces of paper, and diagram the time line—plotting Wendell’s murder and other out-of-the-ordinary events and activities, the suspects, and whatever shreds of evidence I had that were pertinent to the case. Something might pop out. I hadn’t been that bad at math, and this project was like one of the proofs we used to do in geometry, or the logic puzzles I used to love. If Wendell sat next to Derek, and Wanda did not eat the same snack as Quinn . . .
Maybe it wouldn’t be as easy as I hoped to arrive at a solution, but I had to try.
I parked in my driveway, stomped up the steps, and opened my front door.
And surprised the man standing in my living room, his mouth and eyes wide open. Tim Cousins, in overalls, as startled as I was.
I knew he hadn’t come for sugar.
“Cassie. I thought you were at the funeral service.”
“What are you doing here?” If I’d looked more closely at the scene, I wouldn’t have had to ask. Tim stood next to the easy chair he’d sat in last night, holding a thin black pen between his thumb and index finger.
“I was looking for this,” he said. More of a question than a statement.
I was stopped in my tracks, but not for more than a few seconds. I’d read enough thrillers and seen enough movies and television crime dramas to guess that it was no ordinary pen. Besides, the look on Tim’s face, decidedly not made for poker, showed all. It was looking as though I hadn’t been paranoid, at least not about Tim bugging my house.
He hadn’t come for a pen, or my jewelry, or my cash on hand, or any valuable antique handed down from Aunt Tess, any more than he’d come for a cup of sugar yesterday morning. Tim had put some kind of listening device in my chair, and maybe elsewhere in my home.
“I thought you were at the funeral service,” he said again, clearly having a hard time believing he’d been caught.
“You said that. And I thought you were anywhere but in my house.”
I looked more closely at the pen, tempted to step up to him and grab it.
He followed my gaze to his hand, his expression turning sheepish. “Cassie, I thought—”
“Please don’t tell me you thought I was at the funeral service. You’re bugging me in more ways than one. Is this the first time? Or the tenth?” I asked.
I held out my hand and he placed the pen in my palm. I turned the pen over and over, feeling its surface. I was amazed to find ink on my palm. Could this be nothing but a real ballpoint after all? I ran my fingers around the surface again, pushing here and there, and found the “on” switch, so to speak, by sliding the clip down.
“I guess we’ll be recording the rest of this conversation,” I said.
He gestured to the chairs around my coffee table. “Can we talk?”
I couldn’t believe I acquiesced. How did I catch someone red-handed like this, and two minutes later let him engage me in a conversation? I was determined at least to take charge of the talk.
“Before I call the police, I’m going to ask you once more what you’re doing here. Why are you bugging my house?” For emphasis, I pulled my phone from my purse and maneuvered my thumb into position for action.
He took a breath, picked up the pen, and switched it off. “It’s a really neat thing. A gig of memory. You can listen to the recording through any headset, and you can download the audio onto a computer.”
“Tim!” I couldn’t remember the last time I’d used my scolding voice, except in this room a few minutes ago.
I picked up the pen and switched it on. I hoped it wasn’t more complicated than that.
He shrugged. “I’m sorry.”
“That you got caught, you mean. I need to know why, Tim. What are you doing here?”
“I can’t really say too much.”
I tapped my phone. “Well, you’d better.”
Tim hung his head between his knees. I could barely hear him. “You don’t understand,” he said.
He looked more frightened than anyone in my memory, the fear directed somewhere outside my living room. I almost felt sorry for him. But it took only a moment’s recollection of Wendell’s murder, its effect on his little sister, and the events of the week for me to move past any sympathetic feelings.
I waved the pen between us. “Is this for Derek?” I didn’t say that I thought Tim himself was a little too dumb to be the mastermind of some big operation that required unlawful recording of personal conversations, but he probably got the idea. “Do you want to pay for this crime all by yourself?” No answer. “You know, maybe I’m wrong and this is all your idea.” I moved the phone to my lap and flicked the screen on. I was one slide away from the chief of police, and Tim knew it.
“Okay, wait.” He blew out a breath. “Yes, the recordings are for Derek. They’re voice activated.” He cleared his throat. “I’ve stopped in a few times to download the conversations and recharge the battery with my tablet.”
“You’ve been in this house a few times? Without my permission?” Now my voice wasn’t scolding so much as it was a high-pitched whine.
“Derek needed to know what you were talking about with other people, what you knew about his”—he squirmed and seemed to have felt a shiver—“his activities. I’m just the guy way down the ladder from everything.”
I could believe that, but it didn’t let him off the hook. I thought of my own desire to have Wendell’s murder solved sooner rather than later, and how, in a way, Tim’s intrusion into my home could help me fill in the many gaps in my knowledge. Was I saying the break-in was a good thing? Maybe, but he didn’t have to know that. He just had to think that he had no other choice but to tell me everything he knew.
“It doesn’t matter where you are on the ladder, Tim. Do you realize how quickly I can have a cop here, how easy it will be for me to press charges against you? Would you like to spend a night or two in jail while Sunni figures out what else you’re guilty of, besides breaking and entering? And it might take a long time for me to inventory this whole house, to see what’s missing. For all I know you’ve walked out with my property.”
“I didn’t steal anything, and I wasn’t really breaking in.”
“What?”
He reached into an enormous pocket in his overalls, which were colorful as usual from paint drippings. I felt a shiver of fear for the first time since coming upon him in my home. From the moment I saw him here, Tim looked almost innocent, more afraid of me than I was of him. Besides, the funeral service, or walking out on it, had imbued me with a new strength and resolve.
Until this minute, I’d never thought Tim might have a weapon. “Not breaking, just entering,” he said, producing a flat silver object.
I gasped. In some ways, it was worse than a gun. He had a key to my house.
“How . . . where . . . ?” I couldn’t frame the question.
“You probably don’t want to know,” Tim said.
“Wrong!” I said, close to screaming. “I want to know everything, and the sooner you start, the less likely I am to speed dial my best friend, the one with handcuffs, who’s only minutes away at the funeral service you were counting on.”
“What do you want to know?”
“I told you. Everything. But I’ll play it your way for now, Tim. You’d better give me straight answers.” He gave me a shaky nod. “First, was Wendell hooking and unhooking extra telephone lines in people’s homes?”
He seemed surprised that I knew, or guessed, that much. He squeaked, “Yes.”
“So that Derek could use those lines for his own purposes.”
He raised his eyebrows and let out another weak “Yes.”
So far, so good. Confirmation of wild guesses from Quinn, Wanda, Sunni, and me. “What was the purpose of those lines?”
Tim shrugged. “Don’t know.”
I wasn’t buying it, but I was willing to move on for now. “Did the people know that extra lines to their phones were being used by Derek?”
“Some did; some didn’t. Derek wanted to use lines already set up in customers’ homes, without their knowledge. You know, most of us have four lines kind of automatically, though we may only use one. But as you mentioned last night, that one time he tried, the phony billing system he set up didn’t work.”
“How does Derek have so much power with the phone company? He’s a developer, a construction guy.”
Tim gave me a kind of duh look. He used his hands as if they were the pans of a scale. “Housing and construction”—he made a weighing motion with his right hand, then switched to his left hand—“telephone lines, cables, communication systems.”
“Okay, I get it. He’s got everything covered. Why did Wendell get into trouble that one time?”
“The customer’s charge for the second line was supposed to be diverted, but instead he was billed for it and made a fuss, and Wendell got caught. It was cleared up without disclosing the scam, but it was close, and made Derek scrounge around for different ways of doing business.”
I recalled how far the word of that incident had spread, such that even Ben knew about it. “So he brought people in on the operation, people who would agree to have their extra line used but not registered.”
“Right. Ideally, people who had something to hide and wouldn’t make a fuss if something went wrong.”
“Is that why Derek was so interested in Scott James? He even sent his lawyer to get him out of police custody.”
“Derek is always looking for potential recruits to his operation. When a new guy comes to town for no apparent reason, like Scott James—you know, with no family here, or even a job waiting, Derek figures he’s a good candidate. He looks him up, and in Scott’s case, when he finds he’s living under a different name, he figures the guy’s on the run. Perfect. So, if things get dicey, he has something to hold over the guy’s head.”
�
�And that’s the reason Wendell might have had Scott’s name in his pocket. To arrange for that extra line, or whatever.”
Tim nodded. He seemed more comfortable talking to me now. Maybe he forgot what might be in store for him if Derek knew he’d been caught. I realized I’d forgotten to lock my front door, having been thrown off my routine by the sight of an intruder. I got up and locked it now, just in case.
“Good idea,” Tim said.
I gave him an annoyed look. “Why is Margaret Phillips’s name on a list of potential new lines?”
Tim looked surprised, then figured it out. “That e-mail you told me about.”
“Yes.”
“Wendell told Derek he was running out of ways to hide the installation. Also, he was afraid his boss was getting suspicious. And frankly, I think Wendell was getting tired of all the stress. Derek told him to keep it up, just find people less likely to figure it all out, and Margaret happened to be one he thought would be a good candidate. I don’t know why, really. Maybe he met her somewhere and felt her out, you know. Or maybe she had a secret life. Who knows?”
“And someone like his lawyer, Barry Chase—he’d know and agree, of course.”
“Of course,” Tim said.
“Do you have an extra line hooked up in your house?”
“I do now.”
“Since that e-mail went out and Wendell approached you.”
“Yeah.”
“Do I have an illegally used line?”
“No.”
I picked up the offensive pen. “Are there any more bugs in my house?”
“No.” Tim raised his hand, Boy Scout–style. “No, I swear.”
I figured I could decide later what percent of Tim’s responses were trustworthy, perhaps only the ones where he raised his hand and swore? Only the single word answers? It was time to try an early question again. I hoped to catch him off guard. “What was Derek doing with those extra lines?”