Red Herring (24 page)

“Jeezum,” Les murmured, admiring the contrast with the sales room. “Command Central.”

Silverstein glanced over his shoulder as he walked. “This is our version of a casino banking room—where we make all the money. The repairs are reasonable enough. That can be a competitive market. But the custom work? Watch out, credit card!”

He led them to the far end and through one last door labeled “No lighters, matches, or flammables beyond this point. No metals capable of causing a spark.”

“Comforting,” Spinney commented.

“It is to the guy who works here,” Ed agreed.

On the other side of the heavy door, which closed automatically with an airtight sigh behind them, was a room not unlike the one they’d just left, but smaller, laced overhead with heavy-duty fire extinction water piping, and occupied by a single man wearing a soiled lab coat, a face mask, and rubber gloves.

Ed slapped Lester on the back and opened the door again. “I’ll leave you two alone—gotta get back to the counter.” He pointed to the masked man and made hurried introductions as he turned away. “Les, this is our own Ammo-Mike. Good seeing you again, Les.”

Lester muttered something to the closed door before facing his new host, not bothering to offer a hand in greeting. “How’re you doin’? Sorry to barge in like this.”

The mask stayed in place. “No problem. Who are you?”

Lester smiled. “Right. I guess Ed needs a crash course on manners.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his credentials. “Lester Spinney, VBI.”

That caused the face mask to be pulled down to Mike’s neck, revealing surprise mixed with a hint of concern—a combination Lester was used to.

“VBI?”

“Nothing serious, and nothing to do with you,” Les assured him. “We’re just running an investigation that may or may not have something to do with reloaded ammunition. I knew the Back Stop caters to that kind of customer, and Ed brought me to you.”

Mike pointed to one of the stools parked by the central table. On
shelves all around them were rows of large cans and assorted other containers. Some of them he could tell held powder, brass, or bullets; the rest were a mystery. The heavy worktable itself was a parking zone for arcane equipment, some of it quite large, and all presumably used in the craft of self-loading. Lester, with his lack of knowledge, had no clue about most of it.

“Have a seat.”

Lester sat, still wearing his coat. The room was also quite cool.

The Back Stop technician sat opposite him. “I don’t know what I can tell you,” he said. “A lot of people load their own ammo. Thousands of them, probably.”

“Is it a complicated thing to do?” Les asked. “I’ve never had anything to do with it.”

Mike pulled a long face. “It can be. It’s not just black powder shooting that’s involved, like people think. More shooters load modern loads than they do muzzle loaders. It’s the cost of ammo. Through the roof. If you shoot a lot, it makes sense to buy the equipment and load your own. You could retire the upfront cost in a year or two, depending, and then not only start saving, but start finding out all the ways you can fool with the stuff.”

Les furrowed his brow. “How do you mean?”

“Part of the fun,” Mike explained, “is combining different bullet weights and styles with different powder loads. You can go crazy with that. And every time you cook up something new, you have to try it out at the range. There, you got interests like rapid firing, distance, accuracy, trajectory, kick, take-down power, and all the rest. And that just sends you back to invent some more recipes. I know people—rich or retired or maybe they just don’t have a life—who spend all their time doing this. It’s a little crazy.”

“But you do it.”

Mike laughed. “I’m paid to. I mean, it’s interesting, but I’m no nutcase. I used to like it more before I got this job.” He waved his gloved hand around to encompass the room.

“So,” Lester challenged him, “if it’s for do-it-yourselfers, what’re you doing here?”

Mike smiled ruefully. “I’m the rich man’s loader. Guys from the flatlands call ahead and have me fill a special order for a weekend blowout. Maybe they brag to each other about having custom ammo, or lie that they’re doing it themselves. I don’t know. It costs them way more than if they just bought it up front from Ed, but to each his own, I guess. I don’t try to figure out rich people.”

Lester thought back over to the elusive portrait they had so far of their quarry. A rich weekender from Connecticut was not on the A-list.

“How ’bout locals?” he asked. “You get a lot of them?”

“Sure, but I’m not gonna be doin’ their loads. They just buy the raw materials from us.” He hesitated. “Well, some of them do; the rest’ll shop on the Internet, like everybody else.”

“But you keep track of the names, I guess,” Lester suggested. “So you can send them flyers and junk mail?”

“Sure,” Mike agreed. “I mean, I guess so. I don’t do that myself.”

“But you have lists. Surely.”

Mike tilted his head slightly, wondering what the question was. “What’s the case, if it involves gunpowder? Sounds unusual.”

Lester rose from the stool, nodding. “It is. Wish I could tell you more. Would Ed be the guy to give me your customers?”

“Not really. He’s just a counter man. Bill Shiffer does the marketing. Ed’ll show you how to find him. You like working for VBI?”

Les paused, halfway to the exit. “Yeah, I do. Good outfit.”

“You get all the big cases, right?”

“Yup.” Lester resumed his departure, sensing what was coming next—the questions, the I-wanted-to-be-a-cop confessions. He placed his hand on the doorknob.

“You doing those murders that’re in the paper?”

“Some of us are,” Lester said vaguely. He pulled the door open. “Thanks for your help, Mike.”

“Ike,” the other man said.

Les stopped. “What?”

The reloader was still seated at the central table. “Ike,” he repeated. “Ed slurred his words when he called me Ammo-Ike. That’s my nickname here. He made it sound like Ammo-Mike. Happens sometimes. Too many ‘M’s.”

“Ike,” Les echoed.

“That’s it. Ike Miller. Good luck with Shiffer.”

“Thanks,” Lester said again, and eased himself out the door.

After his departure, Ike stared at the closed door, as if trying to read its surface.

“I know goddamn well you’re working that case,” he said under his breath.

He then switched his gaze to the rows of cans, boxes, and bags, and muttered, “But what the hell’s gunpowder got to do with it?”

He stood up and walked around the room, thinking hard. He continued talking to himself, “Ike, you may have to start watching your back.”

He reached out and removed a .50 bullet, shiny gold and heavy, from a bag at eye level, and hefted it in the palm of one hand, voicing another thought. “Or maybe you should throw a little smoke in their eyes.”

. . .

Joe got out of his car and checked for traffic in both directions. He had just parked on Elliot Street, in Brattleboro, opposite one of the town’s taller structures—a seven-story apartment complex reserved mostly for the elderly on limited income. It wasn’t much to look at—square in all dimensions—but clad in red brick, like so much else in New England, and a well-known local artifact. As modern as it appeared, it still had been built decades ago, and by now had become part of the social fabric.

He crossed the street. The earlier snow had by now virtually disappeared, aside from a few well-shaded corners where plow trucks had created dirty thaw-proof deposits.

He was here to meet Elise Howard, Mary Fish’s companion, who had called to say that she had something to tell him. He’d been surprised by the address change, and had said as much when she’d phoned. Apparently Raddlecup, the school headmaster, had wasted no time in asking her to leave school property, further enhancing the impression he’d left with Joe upon their first meeting.

Elise lived on the third floor, on the side of the building overlooking the street. When she opened the door, he’d expected piled boxes and strewn-about packing material. Instead, it was neat, spare, and warm, looking as if she’d been there for years. There were even pictures on the walls, including a significantly sized portrait of Mary, smiling broadly at the camera.

“My Lord,” he said, stepping inside. “You move in fast.”

“I hate a mess,” she admitted. “It used to drive Mary crazy. Back at school, half that little house was filled with her junk—stuff neither one of us really wanted. I just took advantage of the move to throw most of it out. Would you like some tea?”

Joe entered the small living room and took in the simple surroundings,
admiring how she’d done such an effective job with so little. “No, I’m all set, thanks. This is really nice.”

She sat on the sofa and gestured to an armchair across the coffee table from her. “Please, have a seat.”

Leaving his coat on, he settled down and studied her closely. “How’re you doing, Elise? Really.”

She sighed. “My heart is broken. I feel numb and powerless and spend most of my time wondering why I bother continuing.”

He nodded, knowing the sensation well.

“That’s partly why I called,” she added, surprising him.

“Why’s that?” he asked.

“When we spoke in the hospital,” she explained, “you asked me two questions I didn’t answer truthfully. You asked if there had ever been a hanging in either Mary’s or my family, and you asked if what happened to her might have been partly directed at me.”

“I remember,” he said.

She had been keeping her focus on the small table between them, but now she raised her eyes.

“My mother hanged herself,” she told him. “I was a child at the time, and I always thought I was to blame—something my father was happy to let me believe.”

“I’m sorry,” he murmured.

Her voice was clear, but he noticed that her hands were tightly clenched in her lap. “He was not a nice man, to me or to her, but I was able to get away from him before it got too bad. Maybe my mother killing herself gave me the courage to leave. I’ll never know. But I always thought that I had the answer as to why she did it the way she did.”

“By hanging?” he asked.

“No. Well, maybe. But I mean the time and place. She made sure
that I would be the one to find her, not my father. People said it was monstrous and unbalanced and proved how far over the edge she’d gone, but I knew it was a message to me: Get out now or you’ll be next.”

Their eyes interlocked, Joe merely nodded.

“That’s why I didn’t tell you about my mother when you first asked,” Elise continued. “I had to be sure in my mind that Mary hadn’t done the same thing.”

“But I told you she’d been murdered,” he protested, his voice very quiet.

“The police tell people all sorts of things,” she countered gently.

He was slightly taken aback, less because of the truth of her comment than because of her being the one uttering it. In his mind, he’d always seen her as the more sheltered of the two women. But sheltered obviously didn’t mean ignorant, and given what she’d just said, she clearly wasn’t that.

“Why did you call me now?” he asked.

“Because of the second thing I avoided,” she confessed, her voice beginning to tremble and her eyes to glisten. “I found Mary just as I’d found my mother. At that moment, when I walked into that room, I asked myself what the message was. It lasted only a second, maybe less, before all the rest came caving in—the panic, trying to lift her, being overtaken by grief, now all this numbness. But when you asked me if someone had been trying to get to me by doing that to her . . .”

Her voice trailed off.

“Who do you think it was?” he asked, his body tense with anticipation.

But she disappointed him. Tears now flowing freely down her pale cheeks, she exclaimed, “I don’t know, but don’t you see? It had
to have been somebody who knew me, knew my history, knew that my mother had used herself to guide me away from my father.”

“Is that something you’ve always kept a secret?” Joe asked hopefully.

Again, she let him down, shaking her head. “No. Mary thought I should tell people whenever appropriate, so it came up now and then in company. I’ve been trying to recall if anyone ever showed a special interest. I knew you’d ask. But I can’t think of anyone. These are usually old women I’m talking about—people sitting around over tea, trading intimate details nobody else would care about.”

Again, her voice faded away, only this time, he let her be, in part distracted by the greater impact of what she’d just told him. Up to now, Elise Howard had been the holdout in a theory voiced earlier—that in each of these three homicides, an intimate knowledge of the victim had been displayed in the manner of death.

Joe got to his feet, came around the coffee table, and squeezed Elise’s frail shoulder, conscious of the fact that every time they parted ways, he left the poor woman in shambles.

“Thank you, Elise,” he said softly. “This was valuable. It’ll help a lot. I am so sorry to keep putting you through it, though.”

She reached up and patted his hand, although speaking to her own lap. “It’s all right. It has to be done.”

He showed himself out.

Joe slid behind the wheel and stared out the windshield for a moment, still pondering what he’d learned and how it fit with everything else. Ahead of him, Church Street T-boned into Elliot, where he was parked—an intersection constructed like a river delta meeting the sea, wide and broad, allowing traffic ample room to negotiate.

He started the engine and nosed away from the curb, moving by instinct up Church, around its short and gradual curve, to where it blended with Green, his own street. Two minutes later, he pulled into his driveway.

Lyn was peeling an orange in his small, low-ceilinged kitchen. “Joe,” she said happily, coming into the mudroom section to give him a kiss. “What’re you doing home? I didn’t think I’d see you till crack of dawn.”

Lyn had the shift at her bar tonight, and would have been gone in half an hour, until probably two or three in the morning.

“I took a shot and got lucky,” he admitted. “I never know which house you’ll be at, but I was around the corner and thought, what the hell.”