Judgment of the Grave (23 page)

She looked up at him, scared, and he grasped her arm more tightly before he said, “Did you kill him? Is that what you were going to tell me? Tell me.” He knew he was hurting her from the look on her face, but he didn’t care. He could feel his heart beating and he felt suddenly seized with rage. He wanted to punch her, kick her, hit her. It was the same rage he’d felt earlier, thinking about Maura. It scared him, but he didn’t let go of her.

“I…no. I destroyed his book. Burned it, everything. That’s what I meant. I was embarrassed. I didn’t want to tell you, but I destroyed his book. When he didn’t come home. I thought it was appropriate. He gave up his family for that goddamned book. I thought he deserved to have it destroyed.”

“You didn’t kill him?”

“No. I just…I burned his book. The copy in his office. His notes, everything. In the fireplace.” He was still gripping her arm. Instead of feeling the anger seeping away, he felt it build and he held her so she couldn’t move. She was looking up at him and suddenly he remembered his dream from the afternoon. He was standing so close to her that he could smell her shampoo, something fruity and sweet. She looked up at him and her eyes reminded him of his own. After he turned away, he realized how close he had come to kissing her, and it was this realization that made him flee.

In the light from the street, he could see that she was crying again, but he ignored her and stumbled out of the cemetery, not looking back as he got the stroller and nearly ran back to the inn.

“This is very nice,” Toby said when they got back to her room after dinner. “No suffering on the job for you.”

“Yeah, well, I haven’t had a vacation in a while, so I figured why not live it up a little.”

“Good thinking.” He walked around the room, looking at the art, and then sat down in the upholstered armchair by the window.

“Want a glass of wine?” She pulled a bottle out of the closet and got two glass tumblers from the bathroom.

He nodded, then said, “I thought you weren’t drinking for a while.”

“I didn’t drink for a while. I had to show myself that I could not drink and I didn’t drink for five whole months. Now I can again.”

“Okay,” Toby said, taking the glass from her. “But just one. I have to drive home.”

“Fine. So, that was the cop who was working on the Brad Putnam thing. The one whose wife killed herself.” At dinner, she had told him about Pres and Kenneth Churchill and the body in the woods.

“Poor guy. Who was the woman?”

“That was Kenneth Churchill’s wife. It was weird, though, didn’t you pick up a kind of energy between them? I don’t know, it was either that they were mad at each other, or some kind of sexual tension, maybe. But it was really strange.”

“I didn’t pick up on anything. But I was pretty much focusing on my prime rib. Now, you have to finish telling me about Ian. You had just started when they came over and you never told me what’s going on.”

“I don’t know. He wants to come visit. It really freaked me out. Why is that so crazy? I mean, we talk on the phone almost every night. It’s not like I don’t know him. But I have this feeling that it will ruin things. If we actually see each other.”

Toby took his shoes off and stretched his legs out in front of him. “Or maybe it would be really great.”

“Yeah, maybe,” she said doubtfully. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Why don’t you just see what happens? It’s not like he asked you to marry him.”

“But he’s serious. I can tell. I’m worried I’ll, I don’t know, hurt him or something. Anyway, he asked about you. He said to say hi, but I think he was really trying to figure out if anything’s going on between us.”

“Between us?”

“Yeah, he was kind of suspicious the whole time we were in Vermont.”

Toby looked away. She knew he was thinking of Rosemary, whom he might have fallen in love with, and of Sweeney’s pronouncement of love and his own angry response to it. He was thinking of the long uncertainty of their friendship.

“Toby?” Sweeney asked quietly.

“Yeah?”

“What you said the other night, about Lily. Do you think it’s true?”

“Do I think what’s true?” He looked embarrassed and she knew he was stalling.

“About being hung up on me?”

“I don’t think there’s any secret there,” he said, and gave a sarcastic little grin.

“So, what do we do about it?” She met his eyes from across the room. It wasn’t the first time they’d had this conversation.

“I don’t know that there’s anything we can do about it. I mean, we’ve both kind of moved on, I think. You’ve got this thing going with Ian, and I’m sure I’ll meet a nice girl. Either that or I’ll die alone. But it’s all good.” Sweeney threw a pillow at him from the bed. He caught it and put it behind his head.

“I don’t know what I have going with Ian. Should I let him visit?” she asked him. “There’s a part of me that’s excited about it and a part of me that wants to tell him not to come.”

“Is it Colm?” He knew her so well, Sweeney thought, he knew exactly what it was.

“Of course. It feels like I’m cheating on him. That’s the problem.”

“Yeah. I don’t know what to tell you. What about the cop?”

She looked up at him. “Quinn? What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. It just seems like you’re getting awfully pally with him.”

“I’m his babysitter, is what I am. What are you talking about? You think I…No way. He’s not my type at all.”

Toby just shrugged. “Okay. You know best.”

“Maybe I don’t.” She felt like crying all of a sudden. “I don’t seem to know anything about myself these days.”

“Oh, Swee.” Toby got up and went over to the bed. He lay down next to Sweeney and she rolled into his arms, putting her head on her chest and wrapping an arm around his waist.

“Can you stay?” she asked him. She didn’t want to be alone tonight.

“Of course,” he said. “Don’t worry. You’ll be okay.” And lying there, for just a minute, she felt as though she might.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 21

Quinn got the call at 7
A.M.
He had been awake since five, and he and Megan had already gone for a walk and had breakfast, a bottle and some oatmeal for her and pancakes and four cups of coffee for him.

When his cell phone rang, he checked the display and saw that it was Andy’s number. “Hey,” he said, answering it. “You’re up early.”

“Yeah. Well, a bunch of high school kids out drinking last night found your guy. He’s been in the trunk of his car for a while. Pretty nasty stuff.”

“Seriously?” Quinn sat up and Megan, who was playing with a cardboard toilet-paper tube on the floor, looked up at him, alarmed, and started to cry.

“Yeah, hey, listen, if you can find yourself a babysitter, why don’t you get down here and you can be in on it. We’re out on Monument Street. Fairfield Farms. You’ll see the cars.” Quinn jotted it down on the notepad on the bedside table. Monument Street, he thought. So it wasn’t too far from where the first body had been found. How had it stayed hidden for nearly two weeks now?

“You got it,” he said. “I’ll be down as soon as I can.”

It was 7:45 by the time he knocked on Sweeney’s door. He’d given Megan a quick bath, dressed her, and put together a bag full of her things. He knocked and smiled at her, sitting in her stroller and playing with the cardboard tube.

When the first knock didn’t bring any answer, he tried again, a little bit louder in case she was sleeping. He heard footsteps and then the door was opened by the guy from the dining room the night before. He was wearing boxer shorts, and when he opened the door, Quinn could see through into the room. Sweeney was sitting up in bed and when she saw him, she looked embarrassed and pulled the covers up over her chest.

“I’m so sorry,” he said, unsure of what to do. “I was just checking to see if you could watch Megan for a few hours. But I’ll figure something out, it’s okay. Don’t worry about it.” He turned to go, but Sweeney, in a T-shirt and sweatpants, got out of bed and came to the door. “What happened?” she asked him, and he could see that her eyes were still swollen from sleep, could smell the wine on her. “Did they find him?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I need to go down there.”

“I’ll watch her,” she said. “It’s okay. Where is he? Where has he been?”

“No,” he said. “He’s not…He’s dead.”

It took him ten minutes to get down to Fairfield Farms. It was about half a mile past the Whitings’ house, a large yellow farmhouse surrounded by fields that Quinn was sure must be worth a fortune. You could put about twenty huge houses on so much land. There was a big sign out front saying
FAIRFIELD FARMS. ORGANIC VEGETABLES. FARMSTAND OPEN MAY THROUGH OCTOBER
. The farmstand, a little yellow barn with a rooster weather vane on the roof, had rows of fat orange pumpkins out front.

Quinn showed his ID to the state cop guarding the long driveway. “Andy Lynch said he’d let you know I was coming,” he said. The cop waved him through, and he parked next to the mobile crime lab van. Andy was talking to a couple of plainclothes guys when Quinn wandered up.

“…says they didn’t notice anything. One of the seasonal workers said when they found the car, it was pretty well hidden,” one of the guys was saying. “They’re not down in the fields a lot this time of year, so that’s probably how they missed it. Anyway, we’ll get them in again, make sure there isn’t anything they’re holding back, but my instinct tells me no.”

“Hi, Quinny,” Andy greeted him. “We got him. Similar stab wounds to the other body. We’ll have to get forensics on it, but there are some leaves and debris in the trunk that may match what we found at the Tucker Beloit scene. He’s been dead about three weeks.”

“So that puts us right back at the encampment.”

“Yeah, we’re thinking he was killed that Saturday or Sunday, just about the same time Tucker Beloit was killed. So, we’re probably looking at a double homicide. And goddamn it, we’re way behind, thinking he was on the run all this time. We don’t even have alibis for anybody.”

“How’d you ID him?” Quinn asked.

Andy said, “Dentals you gave us. We didn’t need ’em, though. It’s his car. We checked the registration. And despite the fact that his face is falling apart, it sure as hell looks like him. Looks like he’s been in the trunk the whole time. No animal damage like the other guy. You gotta tell the wife.”

“Why me?” Quinn felt his stomach drop.

Andy looked surprised. “Because he was yours before he was ours. She knows you. You’ve got all the background. And you said you needed to be part of this. So, whaddya think? How does this change things?”

Quinn wasn’t sure, but he thought there was a hint of sarcasm in Andy’s voice. “I don’t know. We probably have to discount Churchill as the murderer.” He thought for a minute. “It still doesn’t make any sense. Where was he going when he left the encampment in his car?”

“Maybe here,” Andy said.

“But then how is it connected to Beloit?”

“I don’t know. Let’s just think about Churchill for a minute. I like his kid for it.”

“Yeah, that sounds good. Kid kills his father, steals the credit card, thinking he’s gonna take off somewhere.”

“Okay, I’ll pull him in. We gotta talk to him again.”

“Wait until the wife knows, so she can tell him, though, will ya? If he didn’t do it, it’s gonna be a big shock that he’s dead.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Andy said, without promising. “Give me some scenarios.”

Quinn thought for a minute. “We have the witness saying that Kenneth Churchill was heading back to his car Sunday morning, looking like something was very wrong. So, maybe it doesn’t discount Churchill as the murderer. Or maybe Kenneth Churchill saw Tucker Beloit being killed. So he’s scared and he takes off. But the murderer, whoever it is, tracked him down and killed him, and put him in the trunk of the car, then left the car at Fairfield Farms.”

“That’s pretty good, Quinn,” Andy said. “I like that. The problem is, we don’t have a hard tie between Beloit and Churchill yet. So we’ve got to focus on Churchill. What do you think about his wife? He was having an affair. Could she have wanted to kill him?”

“Maybe,” Quinn said.

“Okay, so I want you to find out about her alibi around the time Churchill was last seen. What about the mistress?”

“Cecily Whiting? She was pissed, but I don’t think I buy it. I’ve been thinking some more about the ex-husband, though. Maybe he was still in love with her, and he wanted Churchill out of the way so they could reconcile. I’d like to take a shot at him.”

“You got it,” Andy said. “Who else?”

“Well, here’s the thing. He was working on this book about this Revolutionary War stonecutter guy. When he was out there, it seemed kind of crazy, but I’ve been wondering if there’s anything there that might have led someone to want to kill him. You find anything in the car? Notes, laptop, anything like that?”

“Yeah to both,” Andy said. “You want to take a look?”

“Yeah,” Quinn said, thinking of Sweeney. “Beyond that, I don’t know who might have wanted him killed. Except that…” He thought for a minute. “His wife told me that he’d had lots of affairs. With graduate students, waitresses. Lots of women. What if there’s some connection there?”

“Sounds good to me. I want you to do the ex-husband, the mistress, and the wife. The rest of that family while you’re at it. See how they respond to the news. Are they surprised? Get some alibis we can check out. You know the drill.”

“Yeah,” Quinn said, picturing Beverly Churchill’s tear-stained face in the darkness of the cemetery. “Got it.”

He headed back up to his car and made his way past the line of gawkers who had parked along the road, hoping for a glimpse of the grisly discovery.

He was back at the inn in under five minutes and he went straight up to her room, knocking on the door and steeling himself. He realized that his fists were clenched and he made an effort to unclench them, taking a deep breath and trying to slow his racing heart.

“Hi,” she said when she answered the door, and he felt his stomach pitch when he realized she was happy to see him. “I’m so sorry about last night. I’ve been wanting to apologize for the way I acted…. I…”

Quinn broke in. “Is Marcus here?”

“No, why?”

“I have some bad news. Can we go in and sit down?”

“Of course. Is it about Kenneth?” She didn’t seem afraid. She stood there almost defiantly, bravely, waiting to hear whatever it was.

“Please. Sit down.” He couldn’t say her name.

“No, I want to know.”

There was no other way to do it. “Your husband’s car was found this morning. His body was in the trunk. He’s been dead for three weeks.”

“Three weeks? You mean, he didn’t disappear? All that time, he was dead?”

“It looks that way. Is there anyone I can call for you? Do you want someone else to be here when you tell your son? I can arrange for someone to stay here with you.”

“No,” she said. “I just want to be alone.”

“Mrs. Churchill.”

“Oh, please don’t call me Mrs. Churchill. Besides, I’m not Mrs. Churchill anymore. Just leave me alone. I’ll tell my son on my own.” She was pacing back and forth, working furiously at the cuticles on her right fingers.

“I’ll have to ask you some questions, but we can do that later. Are you sure you don’t want me to—?”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake! Just go.”

He left her alone, shutting the door quietly behind him.

He told himself he should stop and see how Sweeney and Megan were doing, but he wanted to see Bruce and Cecily Whiting as soon as possible, so he settled for dialing her cell phone number as soon as he was in the car. “Everything okay?” he asked when she answered.

“Yeah, she’s been great. We went for a walk and now she’s playing with a shoebox.”

“A woman of simple tastes, my daughter.”

“So, what’s going on?”

“It was him. He’s been dead three weeks, so we’ve got what looks like a double homicide. I’m going to talk to some people now but I just wanted to make sure everything was okay. I’m sorry about dropping her on you. And I’m sorry about this morning…. I didn’t know that…”

She hesitated for a moment before she said, “Don’t worry about it. Toby’s just a friend. And I’ll forgive you for dropping her on me if you promise to tell me everything when you get back.”

“Okay,” he said. “It’s a deal. I’ve got something else for you as well. They found a laptop and notebooks. If I can get hold of them, can you look through and see if there’s anything there? Anything related to his book on Josiah Whiting that might have caused someone to want to kill him?”

“You got it,” she said.

He was at Whiting Monuments in a few minutes. A bell on the front door jingled as he entered, and he found himself in a little waiting room, complete with a couple of couches and a coffee table covered with magazines and, he saw when he leaned down to read the titles, catalogs of tombstones.

At the other end of the room, a tall, dark-haired man was showing a young couple a series of little square blocks of stone. “Had you thought at all about what you want the monument to say?” He looked up quickly, his face fixed in annoyance. “Can I help you?” he called out a little rudely.

“I’m sorry, I just wanted to talk to you for a few minutes. I’ll wait until you’re done.” To show his willingness to wait, Quinn sat down on the couch and held up a magazine. Bruce Whiting still looked annoyed, but he went back to the couple.

“We were thinking her name and something like ‘beloved daughter,’” the woman said. “Will that look nice?”

“That will look beautiful,” Bruce Whiting said soothingly.

Quinn leafed through a couple of catalogs of tombstones. He still hadn’t picked one out for Maura. Her remains—“cremains,” the funeral home director had called them—were still in a square box in the hall closet. He’d have to do something, but he didn’t like the look of these stones, big and boxy and plain.

Bruce Whiting finished up with the couple and came over to Quinn.

“I’m really sorry to barge in on you like this,” Quinn said before Bruce Whiting could get a word out. “I’m Detective Tim Quinn and I just wanted to ask you a few questions.”

Whiting looked at the badge and said, “Sorry about that back there. Their two-year-old daughter died. We usually try to let them come in on their own.”

“I’m sorry,” Quinn said, feeling awful. “I had no idea.”

“Of course not. Are you here about the body in the woods? I told the Concord police the same thing I’ll tell you. I have no idea who he is.” It sounded rehearsed, with a sub-text of minor annoyance.

“Actually,” Quinn said. “It’s about Kenneth Churchill.”

Bruce Whiting looked perplexed, then said, “Who?”

“Kenneth Churchill. He’s a historian from Cambridge. He was writing a book about your ancestor Josiah Whiting.”

“Oh, him. My father and I talked to him a few times. Gave him some information about the family.”

“But you never met him?”

“No.” Whiting picked up a pencil and doodled a few little designs on a piece of paper lying on the desk. Quinn was pretty sure he was lying.

“Did you know that he was married and that he’d been seeing your ex-wife since February?”

Genuine surprise. “What? Shit, no. Jeez, poor Cecily. Makes sense, though.” He reached up to stroke his beard and he looked suddenly thoughtful. “Did she know he was married?”

“Yes. She did.”

“Would he have left his wife for her?” There was something hopeful in his voice that caught Quinn’s attention.

“I don’t know. What’s your relationship with your ex-wife like?”

“It’s okay. We have a son who’s very sick. We’ve tried to make the best of things for him.” Bruce Whiting cleared some catalogs off one of the chairs across from the couch and sat down. Quinn noticed that he kept looking nervously over his shoulder, as though he was waiting for someone to show up.

“Your ex-wife was sleeping with this man. Were you jealous of him?”

“Detective Quinn, you have to understand. I left Cecily for another woman, for a woman Cecily knew, a woman who worked for us. I was dishonest with her, I broke her heart. The worst thing I’ve ever had to do in my life was to tell her that I was in love with Lauren and that she was pregnant. I have been paying for it in ways big and small ever since.” He raised his eyebrows in a self-deprecating little smirk. “It’s something I will always have to live with.”