by Nina Post
She reeled back and blinked. He could picture her as a catalog model from the thirties. “A crime scene! What happened?”
He wanted to haul her over his shoulder and take her home. He knew these were probably all highly inappropriate things to think. Nevertheless.
“Can’t tell you.” He clasped his hands behind his back and rocked back a little on his heels.
She folded her arms. “Well, who the hell are you? An ambulance chaser?”
“Shawn Danger, County Police, Detective Division.”
She laughed, dropped her arms and turned as though to go to the front door, then swiveled back toward him. “That’s not your name.”
He feigned offense. “It is.”
“C’mon. Shawn Danger? And you’re a police detective?”
“Shawn Danger, of the Coudersport Dangers.”
“Coudersport? Why didn’t you stay there?”
He shrugged. “Terrible weather.” The weather was exactly the same in Jamesville. “And we were of French origin, not Scottish. They chased us out by throwing haggis at us. I still remember the sound, and the smell.” Cue bleak, faraway look. “But now that you know all that about me, why don’t you tell me your name?”
She raised that chin again. It was making his day. “Sarah Baio.”
Now it was his turn to laugh. “Charles in Charge…” he started to sing.
“Oh, never heard that one before.”
“Right. Not in the mood. What are you doing here, Ms. Baio?” He raised his chin at the file she was holding. “Is that a top-secret communiqué?”
“Making a delivery.” She held up the folder as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Now if we’re done being chums, maybe I can do my job.”
“And what is your job?” Shawn asked.
“Our law office handles some of Ms. Sylvain’s legal affairs. I need her to sign this follow-up.”
“You’re an attorney?”
“No, my father is, but don’t try to screw with me, I know better.”
“Chip on your shoulder, huh?”
“Oh, you’ve seen my show, The Sarah Baio Secret Chimp Hour.”
“Chip, like a wood chip. Though it seems heavier than that. When was the last time you were here?”
She peered up at him suspiciously, but said, “Last night.”
He felt heat surge up his spine. “Last night? About what time?” Physically, she wasn’t a likely suspect. The ME had mentioned five-seven or taller, though he had a feeling this woman’s strength was considerable. But maybe she knew something.
“Do I need to call someone?” Exasperated.
He shrugged a centimeter. “I’ll need to interview you anyway.” What kind of things make you happy? What kind of movies do you like? What are your aspirations for the future? Do you like pizza (dealbreaker)?
She gave a little shake of her head and looked up to the left, thinking about it. “Just so you know, it is a hard rule of mine never to talk to cops without my attorney present. Not that this rule comes up a lot. Normally I wouldn’t even say that much.” She looked at him, as though wondering what it was about him that made her talk as much as she had. Half a minute passed. Finally, she seemed to come to some kind of decision, and said, reluctantly — Shawn hoped he was so irresistible that she couldn’t help divulging more information — “It was pretty late. Nine-thirty?”
“Why that late?”
“She’s usually up late. And Robert called our office to ask us to bring it by.”
“She? Haviland Sylvain?”
“Yes.” She drew out the word as though to also say, ‘Why?’
“Did you see Ms. Sylvain last night?” Shawn asked, expecting a no.
“Yes.” Matter-of-fact.
He almost jerked. “I thought she never left the house, or saw anyone.”
“She doesn’t. But she was, uh, ‘making a few changes,’ was how she put it. Answering the door herself was one of those things, I guess. And she likes me, so I guess I was easy practice.”
“She likes you?”
Sarah made a face. “Why, is that so hard to believe? Just because you don’t like me?”
“I don’t not like you,” Shawn said. “Why do you think she liked you?”
“I’ve talked to her on the phone.” A corner of Sarah’s lips curved up and Shawn’s heart beat faster. “Funnier than you would think. And very smart, but not a pretentious ass about it.”
“Why do you think she liked you?”
Sarah looked at him like he was an idiot. He got that a lot, and received it with equanimity.
“Who knows?” she raised a shoulder. “Because she felt comfortable with me? Because I made her laugh once or twice? What else is there, when it comes down to it?”
Shawn considered this and nodded in agreement. That was really all it came down to.
He gestured to the folder she was holding. “What’s the document? And if she already signed it, why did you come back? Is this a different document?”
“Something about her will, I think. You’d have to talk to my father.”
He would. “May I see it?”
She gave him that obstinate look. “This is covered by attorney-client privilege. So, no.”
He would deal with that a little later. “Tell me about seeing Haviland Sylvain last night.” He wanted to know if the heiress had seemed worried, unsettled, fearful, angry — but he didn’t want to lead her. He wanted to leave it open.
“Did something happen to Ms. Sylvain?” That firm chin and jaw again. It tickled him. He’d keep that to himself.
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Yes, you can.”
“No, I really can’t. But we’re investigating a crime.”
She glared at him, then said, “Could you be more specific? What about seeing her last night?”
“How did she seem to you?”
“Relaxed.” Sarah’s face softened. “Almost…happy. Like she was enjoying making whatever changes she was making. Or thinking it wasn’t so bad after all.”
Shawn stepped a few inches closer. “Did she tell you what those changes were?”
She shook her head and made a face. “Aside from answering the door to me, no idea. If I had to guess I’d say she didn’t want to be so isolated. Answering the door was a big deal for her. It’s not like you answering your door.”
“Would you be willing to make a statement?”
“You mean, I have to make a statement, but you’re asking more politely than you need to?”
He smiled.
She looked over the driveway. “This day just gets better by the minute.”
Shawn’s hackles weren’t raised by Sarah. He didn’t think she was involved, but she could have been the last person to see Ms. Sylvain and talk to her, so that made her extremely interesting to him. Though he found her extremely interesting, regardless. And adorable. He didn’t think that of everyone he interviewed.
“You won’t even need to come down to the station.”
“Not without an attorney.” She took out her phone, called someone – possibly her father – had a brief discussion, then hung up.
He shrugged. Most people, they would put them in one of the interview rooms at the squad offices, get their best interview guys to work on them, and get them to talk at least a little while before they invoked. But her father was an attorney and she worked for him, so Shawn wasn’t surprised at her adamancy.
“That’s fine.” He called out on the radio to Mitchell, the patrol guy who found the tortoise in the backyard, to come back to the house. “I’ll have them interview you in the house – “
She opened her mouth to speak and he put up a mollifying hand. ” – after your attorney gets here. Mitchell’s pretty good, I got to warn you.”
“Good at what?” she asked.
“Well, he’s a crack pool player, and can whistle loud enough from here to hail a cab in the city. But in this context, he’s not going to treat you like a hard
ened felon.” He reminded himself that she could be working with the killer, or somehow involved.
“What are you good at?”
He smiled. “Solving cases.” Solving homicides, but that aspect of Shawn’s presence at the scene wasn’t public information.
Mitchell drove down the driveway a few minutes later.
“You can call me Sarah,” she told Shawn, then went with Mitchell into the house.
Sarah.
Shawn took out his phone and called all of the metro police departments in surrounding counties. He asked each of them if any of their patrol officers had pulled someone over between midnight and four a.m. close to the mansion. He didn’t have a suspect yet, but he wanted them to be aware of the crime. This task seemed to take approximately four hours.
He also called a number of local agencies, including the local FBI office and the County Sheriff’s Office to inform them. He didn’t care who he had to call, if there was the slightest chance they could help with leads. And by the time he was done, he felt ready to take that pension.
Then he called the division office and asked for one of the squad’s tech guys to drive to the mansion. Shawn said that he wanted to see them show up inside of fifteen minutes, and gave a brief description of what he needed.
A man — Sarah’s father, he presumed — pulled up in a Volvo sedan that looked like it had put in many years of trustworthy service. A lanky man with short graying hair hurried out, wearing a navy suit and toting a briefcase. He nodded to Shawn before going in through the front doors, confident he knew where he was going.
The tech guy showed up just short of fifteen minutes later, and Shawn led him up to the second floor and into the tortoise’s room.
Shawn indicated the console in the corner. “Can you put a web cam on this?”
The tech guy, washed-out blond, considered the console with a befuddled expression. “Sure, I — what is this, from the fifties or something?”
“Looks like.”
“Yeah, I can set up a laptop with a cell modem, a built-in web cam, and some recording software. It’ll show you the TV screen, as close as you want.”
“And can I access that from my handheld or laptop?”
“Yeah, it would be a password-protected video feed. I’ll give you the URL and password when I’m done.” He scratched his neck. “Uh, what’s this for, you don’t mind my asking?”
Shawn just looked at him.
The tech nodded. “I’ll take care of it.”
Shawn headed down the opulent staircase to the kitchen, and then into the basement down the short flight of stairs. As basements went, it was nice — something that most men Shawn knew would love to have. Short, rectangular windows lined the side above the sofa, to the right. The floor was dark gray polished concrete, and most of the long, well-lit space was filled with anvils of different sizes and material, like an alien garden.
Ahead was a small kitchen with a full-size white enamel refrigerator, a matching stove, and a white farm-style sink, with a yellow Formica dining table and four chairs under a hanging frosted bubble lamp. To the right, under the windows, was a large green fabric sofa, a rectangular table, and a flat-screen TV. Against the wall, left of the sofa was a cabinet-style turntable stereo system, the kind with record storage and turntable under the lid.
One of the patrol officers was sitting across from the employee, Kendall Peterson.
Shawn wandered over to the anvils, looked them over, then returned to the table and took a chair. “Thanks, Chris. You’re relieved.”
Chris relaxed and hurried up the stairs to the kitchen. Kendall Peterson stood.
“You live down here?” Shawn asked. Kendall, who had found the victim, was tall and burly, with wild and wavy salt and pepper hair, a dark mustache and an incongruously neatly trimmed beard. He was dressed in a well-worn blue plaid shirt, a belt with a narrow oval buckle, jeans, and boots.
“Naw. I just spend too much time in here.”
Shawn took a seat at the table, then so did Kendall.
“Shawn Danger. I’m a detective with the County Police Department. What’s your name?”
“Kendall Peterson.”
Shawn leaned back and tilted his head at the anvils. “Tell me about the anvils, Mr. Peterson.”
“Kendall.”
“Hobby of yours? I collect Japanese book covers, myself.”
“They’re my job.” At Shawn’s raised brow, Kendall chuckled and rubbed his face. “In my own time, I do some whittling, or some fix-it tasks around my house. As my job here, I look for new anvils at flea markets, auctions, estate sales, et cetera. I purchase and transport them into the basement, where I clean them, inventory them in the book with source, description, and weight. Normally I add a sketch. And I weigh each one weekly.”
Shawn leaned forward. This was a man who took his job seriously. “You weigh them? Why?”
Kendall pulled the corners of his mouth wider. “Ms. Sylvain wants them weighed in case one of them changes.”
“Why does she want to keep track of their weight?”
“If their weight changes, it would indicate an imbalance in the world.” Kendall waved his hand around. “Maybe a change in dark energy.”
“Dark energy.”
Kendall shrugged. “I know how it sounds. And regardless of my thoughts on the matter, I did what she wanted. But the weights did change, once.”
“They changed, huh? When was that?”
“Few days ago, before this latest haul.” Kendall rubbed his head back and forth. “I noticed it with one anvil, then another, and then another. I use a very expensive, very accurate scale. They had all changed weight, just slightly. I’ll show you.”
Kendall started to get up and raised his eyebrows at Shawn to ask if it was okay. When Shawn nodded, Kendall walked over to a shelf near the record cabinet with some books on it, took something from the top, then placed a thick spiral notebook on the table in front of Shawn. It had rigid, cream-colored front and back covers. From the other side of the table, Kendall flipped some pages in the spiral notebook then tapped a finger on a page. Each anvil had a date, description, any notes on its history, its source, and its weight as measured on inventory, along with a good sketch.
“Look at the weight notations for the first few entries.”
Shawn looked at several pages and got the idea. The weights were all the same.
Kendall took the book and flipped the pages ahead. He turned it back to Shawn and tapped on the page. On that date, the weights changed, ever so slightly.
“I — ” Kendall grinned, a little sheepish. “Well, I admit, I was excited about it, so I ran upstairs and I found her outside, working in one of her gardens.”
“You found Haviland Sylvain outside,” Shawn said, to make sure.
Kendall nodded. “Yep. I told her that for the first time since I’ve been here, the anvils have changed weight. She wanted to go see for herself. Never seen her that excited, but, ah, it was more in a nervous way, like I said, ‘Come see these giant pods I found — they’re opening!’ Like she was afraid it might happen, but also a little thrilled. So I took her downstairs and showed her the book with the notations, and then I reweighed them.”
“How many?”
“All of them.” Kendall’s tone implied, ‘of course.’
Shawn looked over to the other side of the room, at the expanse of anvils. Weighing all of those would take a hell of a lot of time. “Because she asked?”
“Yep.”
“Did she stay in the basement while you did this?”
Kendall thumped his fingers against the table. “Oh, sure. Watched me the whole time.”
“Because she didn’t trust you?”
“I think she did trust me. But it was more like, mm… like she wanted to see it for herself. I think she was worried the weights would be back to what they were before.”
“Were the weights what you had noted in the book just before you went and told Haviland Sylvain about it?”
“Yepper.”
Shawn considered this, then asked, “So why this job?”
Kendall shrugged. “I’m paid well.” He lowered his voice and leaned forward. “Hell, I’m paid better than anyone I know. And she’s a good employer. No complaints.” He looked down, sobered.
Shawn nodded and clasped his hands around his knee. Time to get into it. “You made the call.”
“Yes, sir, I did.”
He tapped his notepad. “Why don’t you retrace your steps for me yesterday, from nine p.m. to your call to the police at 4:12 a.m.”
Kendall took in a breath and let it out. “I went to a big estate sale late yesterday afternoon and didn’t get back until late.”
“What time did you leave here?”
“Three-thirty p.m.”
“And when did you get back? You brought the anvils to the house?” Shawn asked.
“Those things take forever, and it was all the way in Vale County, so I didn’t get back here until…well, it was after Camel Toe Intervention, because the show had finished buffering.” Kendall’s mouth twitched. “Guilty pleasure. So it was likely around eleven p.m. when I had a drink here – “
“What did you have to drink?” Checking his reliability.
“Orange juice.”
Shawn raised his brows as though to say, ‘And?’ Kendall gave a slight shake of his head.
“Go on.”
“Then I went back out to the truck and moved eight new anvils into the basement.”
“And how long did that take?”
“Oh,” Kendall rubbed his beard. “Forty-five minutes? Three of those beauties were pretty big.”
Shawn shifted his legs, rested an ankle over a knee. “Okay. So it’s almost midnight. What did you do next?”
“I took out the book — “Kendall flicked his eyes over to the spiral notepad, “and proceeded to inventory the anvils. When I was done, around one thirty, I watched some TV —”
“What did you watch?”
“One of my DVDs, to help me get to sleep. But I was wide awake.”
“What did you watch?”
Kendall actually blushed. “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants,” he said in a near-grumble. “I find it soothing.”