Idyll Threats (20 page)

“No.” Shit. “Are all of his shoes size ten?”

We lifted each pair and checked the numbers. “These are ten and a half.” Hopkins held up a pair of shearling slippers.

I saw no boots. And only one pair of sneakers, which were so white I doubted he'd ever worn them. He favored dress shoes and loafers.

“Come on,” I said. We went downstairs, where Mrs. Clark threatened Wright with legal retribution if he didn't have the place professionally cleaned after we left.

I interrupted her fantasy to ask him, “Are we finished inside?”

Wright nodded. “All but the putting everything back exactly as it was and dusting.” His voice was level, but his eyes laughed at the thought.

“That's not going to happen,” I said. Mrs. Clark sputtered. I ignored her. “Let's pack it in. Bring what we've got and we'll see how Finnegan and Revere did.”

They hadn't done better. Techs had found brunette hairs that might belong to Cecilia in Clark's car. But no gun and no visible blood in the car's interior. And while it was clean, it didn't look “too clean” according to Finnegan. “If he tidied, he's a fucking pro.” He crushed an empty pack of cigarettes and tossed into the trash. “Clark doesn't seem like a pro.”

No, he didn't.

“So he leaves the car, shoots her on the course, wipes down, gets back in,” Wright said. “Problem solved.”

“Where are his clothes? Where's the gun?” Revere asked. “Where's anything that can put the nail in his coffin?”

“I don't fucking know. We've got the shirt missing the button,” Wright said. “We know she was in his car. A jury could buy that.”

But they easily might not. His feet didn't fit our too-big and too-small shoe prints. Maybe Gary Clark wasn't our Cinderella.

“Keep searching for the gun,” I said. “Finnegan, check on his club memberships.” We'd heard that some of the clubs Clark belonged to had shooting ranges. We hoped he was a regular at one of them.

Mrs. Dunsmore approached. “Chief? You have a call. From the mayor.” She waved her hand at the thick cigarette smoke and pursed her lips at Finnegan, the chief generator. He scowled at her, and then grinned. He liked the old bat. They had a long-standing truce.

“I bet your lungs are half tar,” she said.

“Probably so,” he said. “Want to place any bets on my liver?”

She walked away. I went to my office to find out what the mayor wanted.

“Congratulations!” His hearty voice nearly knocked me to the floor.

“Pardon?” I said. Maybe he'd dialed the wrong number.

“Heard you searched the son of a bitch's house.” Where was he getting this information?

“We executed searches today.”

“That's great. Get this mess sorted before the celebration.”

“We didn't find the weapon.” I needed him to temper his expectations.

“You'll find it,” he said. “Or you won't need it. Maybe he'll confess now that you've got his shirt.”

Okay. Who the fuck told him about the shirt? “How'd you know about that?”

“I like to keep informed.” Cagey bastard. Knew better then to tell me. “Well, just wanted to wish you the best, though it doesn't seem you need it. Bye.”

The buzz of the phone matched the dull buzz in my head as I worried. Who was talking to the mayor? And what if Clark wasn't our man? I couldn't put it off any longer. I was going to have to pursue Elmore's list.

Abell tinkled as I entered Sweet Dreams. A kid, elbow deep in a glass jar of Tootsie Rolls, looked up, assessed me, and went back to filling his bag with candy. The place was very clean, very white, and occupied by kids with an occasional adult thrown in for variety. Near the scale where sweets were weighed stood a tall man in his fifties, wearing rimless specs and a pristine apron. “May I help you?” he asked me.

“Mr. Evans?” I said.

“Mr. Gallagher.” He smiled as if used to the confusion.

“Pardon me.”

He asked if I'd like anything. He had some nice truffles from Vermont, filled with maple cream. I told him I hadn't come for candy.

A child stomped to the counter and said, “Where are the gummy worms?”

“Next to the Atomic Fireballs,” Mr. Gallagher said, pointing. The kid hurried to the spot, bag swinging at his side. “Sorry, Chief, how might I help you?”

So he recognized me out of uniform.

“You live on Durham Street?” I asked.

He nodded. Durham was two blocks over from Cecilia's house. Close to the golf course. “Did you hear anything the night of August ninth? We're double-checking reports of loud noises.”

“Oh, I'm sorry.” He knew why I was asking. Everyone knew what that night meant. No way to be sly about it. “We were out of town that weekend. Confectioners' conference. Kansas City. David and I go every
year. When we got back we heard about—” he checked that there were no children nearby, “the murder. Terrible thing. Sorry I can't help.”

The interrupting child in search of gummy worms slapped his bag onto the counter and said, “Ring me up.”

“Please,” I said.

“Please what?” the kid said.

I leaned down and said, “It's polite to say please when you ask for something.”

“You sound like my Nana,” the kid said. He told Mr. Gallagher, “Please ring me up.” Mr. Gallagher weighed the bag and tallied the total. The kid handed Mr. Gallagher a five-dollar bill, accepted his change, and walked out the door.

More kids, hopped up on sugar, raced past me. “That's gross!” and “No, that is!” they shouted.

“I couldn't do your job,” I said.

“Charles?” A man emerged from a red curtain behind the counter. He was squinting at a calculator. Mr. Evans, no doubt. “Oh,” he said, looking up. “I'm sorry. Didn't mean to interrupt.” He stared at me and at his partner. If looks could kill, we'd both be bagged and tagged.

Mr. Gallagher said, “David, this is Police Chief Lynch. He was asking if we'd heard anything on the night of the accident.” A trio of small children lurked near the chocolates.

“Oh.” David put his small hand to his chest. “I see.” He smiled, and a dimple appeared in each cheek, perfectly symmetrical. “We were traveling. Confectioners' conference.”

“So I heard. Sorry to disturb you.”

“Not at all,” he said. “It's a pleasure to meet you. Would you care for a sample?”

Mr. Gallagher and I exchanged a look. Mine said, “He always this jealous?” and his said, “Yes, but I keep him anyway.”

“No, thank you.” I patted my abdomen. “Trying to stay in shape.”

“You're doing an excellent job,” Mr. Gallagher said, smiling. Mr. Evans swatted his ass. The kids didn't see it, but I did.

I stopped by the post office on the pretense of investigating a package I was expecting. Mr. Nichols, the gay postman, was only too happy to help. He was too short to be the man Mrs. Ashworth had seen standing on the course, but perhaps he was the other. The 8.5-size boots. In between his questions about ship dates, I looked at his small feet. He wore graying sneakers. “Are those comfortable?” I asked. “I need new sneakers.”

“These?” he pointed. “Absolutely. Need good shoes in my line of work. Of course finding my size is tough.” He grimaced. “I'm a six. Tough to come by. I had to special-order these from Massachusetts.”

Not everyone I spoke to was so forthcoming. Mr. Sidorov, who ran the lumberyard outside town, squinted at me when I asked about his boots. “My boots?” he said. “They're okay. Steel-toed.” He jerked his head toward the stacks of wood. “Save your foot if you drop a plank.” I'd said I was thinking about reflooring my kitchen. Which was true. In a way. I thought about it every time I noticed the linoleum was peeling upward in bigger patches.

“Are those Timberlands?” I asked, checking his feet. Our crime-scene boots were.

Mr. Sidorov looked at me like I was soft in the head. “Yeah. You like oak? Or maybe walnut?” He gestured to different woods, and I pretended to consider them.

“Maybe walnut,” I said. “Are the boots good in snow? Do you need to size up? Or are they true to size?”

He chafed his chin stubble. “Fine for snow. I wear an eleven. Always eleven. This maple is good. Probably fit your kitchen. Your house was built when? Fifties? I can cut you a deal.”

I told him I'd think about it and then retreated to my car, where I sat, thinking. I wasn't getting anywhere. One more conversation like this, and the town would think I had a foot fetish.

Then again, there were worse things they could think about me, or know.

Back at the station, I did some math. I'd winnowed Elmore's list by fifteen names so far. Not bad. Time to see if my detectives had made any progress. In the pen, Revere sat alone, rereading the fibers report.

“Any word?” I asked, hoping against hope that Gary Clark had confessed while I was away.

He shook the report. Slapped it onto his desk and said, “Nothing. He's sticking to his story. He dropped her off. She walked away. He drove away. She got shot and died. He knows nothing.”

“You believe him?” I asked.

He gave me a look like I'd offered to sell him the Brooklyn Bridge. “No,” he said. “But what I wouldn't give for the gun.”

“Any progress on our needles?” I asked, adopting Wright's description of the two men on the course Mrs. Ashworth had told us about. The ones I'd been systematically eliminating from Elmore's list.

Revere rubbed under his eyes. “Based on the old lady's stunning descriptions?”

I took that as a no.

He grabbed an apple from his desk, polished it on his shirt. Then he strolled to the board and looked at our case, such as it was. “So why'd you become a cop?” Revere asked. He tossed the apple up, let it fall to hip height, and caught it.

Guess we were through discussing our lack of progress. That suited me fine.

“You know, my father offered me two grand not to join,” I said.

He whistled. “Adjusting for inflation, that must've been what? A million dollars?”

I crumpled a ball of paper and, without leaning forward, tossed it at his head. It nailed his cheek. “You're no spring chicken, Grandpa,” I said.

“I'm a toddler compared to you,” he said. “So why was your father so set against you being a cop?”

“It just wasn't what he or my mother wanted for me. They wanted me in some safe, boring job they could brag to their friends about.”

“Such as?” He tossed the apple up again. His grip made me think he'd played a bit of ball, back in the day.

“Professor of ecology, like my brother.”

He whistled again. “Fancy.” He set the apple down on Finnegan's desk. Where it would likely go unnoticed until it rotted and attracted flies. “My whole family is cops or firemen. And the women are nurses or they stay at home.”

“I had a partner like that.” Except all the women in Rick's family stayed at home, working their rosaries and ovens with equal diligence.

He looked right at me. “The one who died?”

I nodded.

“Sorry to hear about that.”

“Why? You don't even know if I liked the son of a bitch.”

He said, “Did you?”

“More than my brother.”

Revere chuckled. “A least you've got just the one. I've got five.”

“Sweet Jesus.”

He pointed at me. “That's right. We're good old-fashioned Irish Catholics, being fruitful and multiplying, unlike you and yours. What, just the two kids?”

“Yeah. My parents didn't go in for housefuls of children.”

He tsk-tsked, shaking his head. “No wonder you're such a crap copper, with an example like that. I blame your parents.”

I lobbed another ball of paper, but he ducked it.

“Crap aim too,” he said.

I laughed and challenged him to a game of wastebasket ball. We paced out ten feet. First shooter to make three shots wins. It was cute the way he trash-talked. What was cuter was how I won, three to one. What I hadn't told Revere was that I hadn't just played wastepaper ball for years. I was on the all-star team.