Nantucket Grand (11 page)

Chapter Thirteen

The Major Domo

The LoGran corporate mansion gave me a jolt of déjà vu—the company had purchased the house out on Eel Point Road where Preston Lomax was killed. I hadn't been back in the two years since, but the place looked pretty much the same—big high-
dormered gambrel roof rising three stories above the crushed-shell driveway and elaborate stonework that terraced the steep front yard. The white widow's walk would have a spectacular view of the harbor.

The house had a shuttered, closed-down look. Haden had told me that, apart from Doug Blount, who lived in the guest cottage during the off-season, the only resident was a woman named Sue Ann Pelzer, who was the “major domo” of the place, making sure everything was clean and sparkly when the visitors showed up, or some big function had to be organized, deploying armies of tradesmen to work on the plumbing or the furnace if necessary, fixing the cracks in the walls and the mold on the grout, filling the fridge and the potholes in the driveway, changing the old shingles and the sheets, restocking the bar and the wood shed and the pantry, making sure the blu-ray players in every bedroom could stream Amazon Prime, Hulu, and Netflix. She made sure the bills were never overdue and the propane tanks were never empty, the pillows arranged and the gardens weeded just so, the window boxes blooming with pansies in the summer, cleaned out and stored for the winter, and the new toilet paper in every bathroom sporting a folded triangle of tissue at the top of every roll.

“Cleaning isn't an easy job,” Sue Ann said to me. We were standing in the giant high-ceilinged living room with its massive fireplace featuring alabaster mermaids holding up the mantel. Sue Ann stood about five-foot-one, with a starved and steely marathon athlete's body and a blocky, wide-eyed face. The piercing blue eyes looked out from below a curtain of bangs, her hair knotted into a tight braid at the back. She wore a gray wool cable-knit cardigan over a white-collared shirt buttoned to the neck, khakis, and running shoes.

Standing feet apart with her fists on her hips, she seemed to be guarding the place. The trumpet of her big Southern voice filled the room.

I studied her while she continued her lecture. “You have to know where to look and you have to be able to see what you're looking at. It sounds simple, but it's not. In fact, it's a talent, Chief Kennis. Just like your poetry. Oh yeah, I read your poetry. I read everything. I'm a reader. I even learned one of your poems by heart, I liked it so much. Don't believe me? Then listen up.

I watch the lawnmower

Make another pass

Across the field of wildflowers

Cut to look like grass;

Hacked to their stems.

The sweet green turf

Keeps its secret,

Trimmed and discreet—

Like a circus clown

In blue jeans

Like an acrobat

Merely walking

Down the street.

“That one's called ‘Incognito.' Am I right?”

I had to smile. “Absolutely.”

She laughed. “You should see the look on your face! Writers love to be quoted. I know that for a fact. The magazine said you were a detective and I loved that. It's a detective's poem. You see what isn't there, and what was there before. It looks like grass now but you know the truth. You see the wildflowers when everyone else just sees grass.”

She had me off-balance; I had actually never thought of the poem that way. “Well…I hope so,” I managed.

But she was already moving on. “Anyway, like I was saying, a good house cleaner has to be able to see dirt. That's their talent. You got to see it to clean it. Most people spend their whole lives trying not to see it! But a good cleaner's got to search it out. I write my girls an instruction sheet for every task. You know item number one on my bathroom clean-up list? Can you guess? No? Okay, I'll tell you: ‘Turn on the light'! Don't laugh. You can't believe how many times I've caught those crazy kids trying to scrub toilets in the dark.”

She ran out of steam for a second.

“So, Sue Ann—”

“You need help solving a crime? Because we've had several break-ins down at the cottage.”

“Mr. Pell told me. I'll take a look while I'm out here, but for right now I need some information. It's about Doug Blount and his truck.”

“That's not his truck, Chief Kennis. That truck belongs to the LoGran Corporation. It's one of three corporate vehicles currently in use on the island. There's also a little Prius for me, and a Range Rover for ferrying the guests to and fro when they hold conferences here or whatever. Douglas Blount can't afford to pay for a brand new F-150. He can't afford to pay
attention
.” She chuckled at her little joke, then dropped a frown over her features. “Is the truck part of your investigation?”

“That depends where it was last Saturday.”

“That's easy. It was in the shop, getting its brake lines replaced.”

“Do you have some proof of that?”

“I have the bill, dated and paid this morning, and Toby Keller was working on it all weekend at his garage. Keller Automotive? It's out by the airport, on Nobadeer Farm Road. I'm sure he'd testify to that. He'd remember. That truck's been in and out of the shop for months. It's a lemon. Toby says we should just give up and run it in the Demolition Derby this year. But Doug loves that truck.”

“Where's the truck right now?”

“Oh, Doug has it. I think he's picking up a new filter for the dryer. I like to keep him busy. Idle hands are the devil's playground. Anything else?”

“Could I take a look at the invoice?”

She got it for me; she had it filed away with all the other invoices for automotive repair, in a special file for the truck. I followed her to the little office off the living room and I noticed that the house was immaculate—not a speck of dust or an un-fluffed pillow anywhere. Whatever Pell paid her, it wasn't enough.

She gave me the bill, and it proved I had hit another dead end. Every truck on the island was accounted for, but one of those accounts had to be a lie. Unless someone had come over on the steamship. The Authority records the make, model, and length of every car that crosses with them. But no Ford F-150s had come over from Hyannis in the last month—at least, none with an originating ticket off-island. Some trucks had come and gone, but always departing from Nantucket and returning in a day or two.

So someone was lying, or Alana Trikilis was hallucinating, but I had no way to verify either of those theories and nothing to do but fret about it. I had a suspect I didn't believe in for Todd Macy's death, which meant some kind of frame I couldn't verify, a lot of hysteria and suspicion about a drugs-for-sex ring that I couldn't prove, and an arson fire with no meaningful leads. The only new piece of information from the State Police was the aviation fuel, but no one involved owned a jet or had any dealings with the airport. It was just one more jagged little jigsaw piece that didn't fit anywhere in the puzzle. Nothing fit, nothing came together. We couldn't even track down Jill Phelan's drug dealer.

But then, the next morning, not ten minutes apart, Kyle Donnelly handed me the State Police forensics report on the tire tracks at the Macy crime scene, and Alana Trikilis' father showed up at my office with a letter he'd fished out of a garbage bag that turned those tread-marks into a death sentence.

Or so it seemed.

Chapter Fourteen

Crimes of Passion

November 10th, 2015

My dear darling Daisy –

I don't know what to do or say any more. I feel like an old fool and there is no fool more pathetic than an old one. How could I have imagined you might be truly interested in someone like myself? One unguarded glimpse into a mirror should have disabused me of that illusion. Yet your kiss felt so real to me. Words lie, but the touch is true. You must have known that when you touched me. Everything brings me back to you. The harbor is an iron gray this morning, exactly the color of your eyes. The wind is relentless from the Northeast and I can hear you say, “I feel like it's brushing my teeth.” I don't know what to do with these memories. There is no one I can share them with. My friends are all dead, and these revelations would surely kill Phillipa. My thoughts turn to suicide, and even in the dark hours before sunrise, to murder. It would be so easy to kill one of my rivals, with his habitual walks through the moors, and to vacate the island of the other would only require a lit match in the wrong place. He has remarked in my hearing on more than one occasion that the only filament connecting him to this place is his little cottage, which lies a stone's throw from my own house. Or I should say, a stone's throw in the old days, when my arm was stronger. I think about these things and Phillipa says, “Darling you are brooding again,” and I have to invent some plausible excuse for my despondent mood. It gets harder and harder and I know that just seeing you once would

The letter ended there, unfinished and unsigned, dated almost two weeks before Todd Macy's killing. I dropped it on my desk as if it were radioactive, pushed my chair away from the desk feeling contaminated by it, the Geiger counter-crackle sizzling up from my fingertips.

I glared at Sam Trikilis, hunched over my desk, memorizing the wood grain. “Where did you get this?”

“It was…I got it—from the trash.”

“It was sitting on top of an open trash can?”

“No, I had to open the bag…and—you know…rummage through it a little.”

“Jesus Christ, Sam.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Why would you do this?”

“It's—Alana's got me worried. All the crazy stuff going on. Andy's house burning down. Lattimer was right there when it happened, and everybody knows firebugs like to watch things burn. And, I mean…the rumor is that Todd Macy got shot—like, by a sniper, a real military kill. Everybody knows about Lattimer, Vietnam and the tattoos and all. It adds up. Except for the motive. So that's why I started digging around myself. And I found that.”

He pointed down at the letter as if was a dead animal.

I said, “Lattimer kept the letter for a long time.”

“Maybe he was trying to figure out how to finish it.”

“Or get up the nerve to send it.”

“Or both.”

“Yeah.” We sat in silence for a minute or two. I had more questions. “So, who is this Daisy?”

“That's Ms. DeHart—she's one of the guidance counselors at the school.”

I wasn't sure how much Alana had told her father about that night in 'Sconset at McAllister's house. I decided on a gentle prod. “Have you met her?”

“We had some meetings after Jill Phelan's overdose. Everyone was worried about the kids and they brought in some kind of grief counselor from off-island. But Ms. DeHart was right there, too, coordinating with the administration and the parents.”

“So you like her.”

“I did. I mean—at first. Until I found out she was…procuring, is that the right word? Getting girls involved with this…this…”

So Alana had told him everything. “I know what she was doing.”

“So why not arrest her?”

“I have to be able to prove it, Sam. And I have to be sure myself. That's not the kind of mistake you want to make in a small town. Unless you're planning to move. With no forwarding address.”

He nodded. “Good point.”

Another thought occurred to me. “Where did you hear that Todd Macy was shot by a sniper?”

“I don't know. Someone was talking about it at Bartlett's when I went to get my Christmas tree. Two guys were arguing about it at the Stop&Shop. It's all over the island, Chief. Sorry, but it's like—what are you gonna do? People talk. It's how we get through the winter. But the letter…Is it—can you use it? I mean, in a trial?”

I nodded. “It's admissible. And you didn't even break any laws. Trespassing would be the usual charge but you had business on the property.”

“So, I'm not in trouble?”

“Nope.”

“And Lattimer's going down.”

“We'll see about that. Meanwhile, I have to ask you to be quiet about this. For Alana's sake, as well as for the good of the investigation.”

He nodded vigorously—maybe too vigorously. “Not a word, Chief. Not a word.”

“Not even to Alana.”

“But I—okay.”

“I mean it, Sam. If this gets out I'll know they heard it from you.”

“Okay, okay. I understand.”

“Good. I appreciate that. Thanks for coming in.”

He left and I picked up the report Kyle Donnelly had brought me. The tracks at the scene were Goodyear Wrangler AT/S tires—the most common you could find on an F-150…and various other light pickups, also. So it wasn't conclusive, but Kyle had also attached a separate report, detailing his alibi investigation for the date of the shooting. He managed to locate and clear every truck on the island—except Lattimer's.

Out of curiosity, I double-checked the LoGran vehicle—it was in the shop getting a coolant leak fixed, along with an oil change and new brake pads. The sinking feeling in my stomach was buoyed slightly by the thoughtful, meticulous work Kyle Donnelly had done to give it to me. The kid was turning into an effective police officer. That was good news for the NPD.

And bad news for David Lattimer.

I drove out to his house after a quick lunch at the airport. I took my second coffee in a takeout cup, and before I got to the house—driving the long way around, skirting the whole east end of the island—I had my thoughts in order.

***

I parked on Polpis Road and walked up his driveway. The old Jeep Wagoneer was gone and the F-150 was parked in the grass beside the house. The day was still and cold and silent. I could see the harbor through the screen of trees—the livid water that had reminded Lattimer of Daisy DeHart's eyes. Interesting word, livid—from the latin
lividus
—an exact translation that filtered into English mostly as a descriptive term for bruising: black and blue.

Lattimer would probably appreciate that fragment of etymology this afternoon.

I walked up the driveway and circled the truck. The hood was cool to the touch, the cab scrupulously neat, the bed empty except for a fitted rubber liner. But I immediately saw something wrong. Somewhere in an interview transcript, Lattimer mentioned that he rarely drove the big Ford. They used it mostly for antiquing trips off-island, or the occasional dump run.

That was where I had to start.

Worst case scenario: Lattimer took the Jeep, leaving Phillipa at home. I didn't feel like manufacturing some bogus reason for my visit, and I certainly didn't want to tell her the truth, at least not yet. But Lattimer came to the door. After a moment of surprise he invited me in and offered me a cup of coffee.

“Thanks, David. I'm wired enough as it is.”

“Well, what can I do for you, Chief?”

“I just have a few questions. The first one would be—when was the last time you drove your truck?”

He rubbed his chin, the perfect pantomime of the thoughtful patriarch. “Hmmm, excellent question. I would have to say…Oh, my goodness, quite a while ago. I think it was the final toxic waste collection day last summer. Late August sometime. I could check the date. We cleaned out the basement, found paint cans from the nineteen sixties all the way up to a couple of years ago! The labels made a fascinating study in the changing styles of graphic design over the decades. I prefer the older, simpler labels. But I suspect people who mourn for past eras. They're really just missing their own youth.”

I let him chatter. It was classic suspect behavior. Finally he wound down. “Tracks matching your vehicle were found at the blind where the sniper took his shot.”

“You mean the perch.”

“I defer to your greater knowledge, sir.”

“My military record is no secret. I'm proud of it.”

“Of course. Thank you for your service.”

He barked out a laugh. “I didn't serve you! I served the politicians and military contractors who reaped the profits. And I never even got a tip.”

We were drifting. “Every other truck on the island that day has been cleared, David. We know exactly where they were. Most of them are work trucks, parked at jobsites. A few were in the shop or off-island. The only one we can't account for is yours.”

“You're saying I killed Todd Macy?”

“You were certainly thinking about it.”

I handed him a copy of the letter. The original was safe in the NPD evidence locker.

His face darkened—a blush of anger, not embarrassment. “Where did you get this?”

“I can't tell you that.”

“You were picking through my trash!”

“Someone was.”

“I knew I should have burned that letter.”

“But you didn't.”

He stalked into the living room and collapsed onto the couch. “This is a nightmare. Phillipa must never know about this.”

“David—”

He crumpled the letter in his fist, as he must have done before. “This isn't real! Nothing happened! This had no…I—it was an old man's dream. I was deluded. I was pathetic. I know that now. Daisy had no interest in me! Of course she didn't.”

“But you were obsessed with her.”

He stared down at his knees. “Yes. Obviously.”

“To the point where you were wanted to kill your rival.”

“That was a fantasy! You can't put someone in jail for a fantasy. You've never dreamed of killing someone…someone who stood in your way?”

“No.”

“In any case, you'd never admit it me.”

I smiled. “No.”

He stood and dropped the ball of paper into the trash near the writing table by the big picture window. “Do I need a lawyer?”

“That's up to you. I'm not arresting you. I just want to talk.”

“Nothing I say will be used against me in a court of law?”

“No. Not today.”

“So what's next?”

“Come outside with me. I want to show you something.”

We walked out into the chilly afternoon. The humid air hung still, poised and tense, as if eavesdropping. That was just my imagination. There was no one around to overhear our conversation and the great dome of blue sky above us was defined by its indifference.

We stopped at the truck. “You shouldn't park on the grass,” I said.

“I know, but there's no room for Phillipa to turn around in the driveway, and we had couple of absurd fender-benders before…what are you saying?”

“Look at the tires.”

“What am I looking for? Tell-tale blood spatter? Some personal item caught in the treads?”

“Just look.” I waited but he didn't see it. “The grass beside the tires,” I said. “Those little rectangles of sod. They're crushed and brown, because you were parked there for a long time. But you didn't put the truck back in exactly the same spot after you finally drove it.”

He stared down. “Yes. But why should I care? I have nothing to hide.”

“You went out driving. Where did you go?”

“Nowhere. I don't remember. It was just a drive. I took the old truck out for a spin! Nothing illegal about that.”

“When was this?”

“I have no idea. Weeks ago.”

“Would Phillipa recall?”

He answered much too quickly. “She was off-island. Our daughter is getting married and she—oh, I see. I do know when. Exactly when.”

“Can you verify that you were at home any time that weekend? Did you make any calls from your landline? Rent a movie from Comcast? Download anything?”

“I don't download. I make clippings. From actual newspapers and magazines. And as you can see, I don't e-mail, I write letters. With a fountain pen.”

“So you stayed home all weekend but you can't prove it.”

“That sums it up, I'm afraid.”

I put my hand to the driver's door handle. “Do you mind if I take a look inside?”

“There's nothing to see.”

“So?”

“Go ahead, Chief Kennis. Be my guest.”

But it was obvious as soon as I pulled the door open. “Who drove this car last, David? It wasn't you.”

“Phillpa may have—”

“It wasn't her, either. She's almost as tall as you are.”

“Yes, but I don't see what that has to do with—”

“This seat is set for the shortest possible driver. As high and far up as it can go. You wouldn't even fit inside. Care to try?” He shook his head. “Who was driving?”

He released a shuddering sigh. “Fine. It was Daisy. We were together that day. But I'll destroy the letter, move the truck, and adjust this seat—you'll never be able to prove anything.”

“That will wreck the only alibi you have. Do you want that?”

“It doesn't matter. I'll go to jail. I'm old. I won't be around much longer anyway. And frankly I'd rather die in prison than have Phillipa discover any of this.”

“Let's say we do arrest you. What will your story be? What was your motive?”

“I went crazy. How about that? I have PTSD. Macy was a liberal pro-immigration gay-rights tree-hugger. I read one interview too many and took things into my own hands. Like the classic George Price cartoon. You know George Price?” I nodded. I had grown up on his
New Yorker
cartoons. “The old man sitting in his rocking chair with a smoking shotgun? The radio blown to pieces? That was before your time. His wife is saying, ‘Harold has his own way of dealing with Walter Winchell.' Something like that.”