The Cold Blue Blood (21 page)

“If by
shlub
you mean a flesh prince, then the answer is yes.” Des drank some more of her juice. “Some kind of weird mental thing is happening. He seems to know what I’m thinking. Like he’s up inside my head.”

Bella nodded sagely. “Morris could read me like a book.”

“Brandon never knew what I was thinking.”

“And what does that tell you, my dear?”

Des didn’t answer. She didn’t want to go there. She’d been there.

“Does he like cats?” Bella asked.

“I’ll have to get back to you on that one.” She put on her glasses so she could see the clock in the kitchen. “Damn, I’ll have to get back to you, period.” She climbed out of the tub, naked and dripping.

“Does he know you have that tattoo?”

“He know, he knows.”

“Does he know
where
you have it?”

“Doubtless. The man knows everything else.” Des wrapped herself in her terrycloth robe and made her way upstairs to shower and dress, the four remaining Spice Girls following her every move like Velcro.

She had no time to retreat to her studio. Not today. She took her sketch pad and charcoal with her. By 7:00 A.M. she was parked out on the bridge to Big Sister with her pad tilted against the steering wheel, stroking boldly in the hazy morning light.

Think only of lines, not of things.

Des was not happy. The case was growing more and more complex on her. The clock was ticking. She had zero margin for error. And she could not get her mind around this place. So she sat here, peering out at the houses and trees, at the rocks that were exposed by the low tide, trying to comprehend it with her charcoal.

Convince yourself you are touching the object.

There was something about these people—their shared history, their family ties, their interconnected lives—that left her profoundly baffled. There was a widow. There was her ex-husband and his new bride. There was a brother and his wife. A son and his lover. One of these people was a three-peater—someone who had coldly and carefully snuffed out an errant middle-aged husband, a young barmaid and the island’s caretaker. Which one? Who had wanted all of these folks dead? Why?

See the subject, not the paper.

She had found Niles Seymour’s Jeep Grand Cherokee in the long-term parking lot at Bradley International Airport up in Windsor Locks. The lot’s automated check-in ticket was dated April 18—one day after Bud Havenhurst and Red Peck reported seeing him at the Saybrook Point Inn with Torry. And the same day Torry’s body had been found. There were no latent prints on the ticket. Crime scene technicians were still scouring the car itself. According to United Airlines, Seymour had purchased two tickets to St. Croix for the eighteenth—one in his name, the other in the name Angela Becker. He had bought them a week earlier by calling the airline’s 800 number. He had used a Visa card jointly held with his wife.

The tickets were never used.

No latent prints had been found on the Dear John letter he had left Dolly. No trace of the letter had been found on the hard drive of their computer or on their floppy disks. The type-face, a twelve-point Helvetica, did match one generated by their machine. And a sample printout was a perfect match. The letter was, they believed, generated in the Seymours’ study. Numerous sets of fingerprints were found on the computer. These were presently being compared to the dead man’s.

Des expected she would soon find it necessary to take fingerprint samples from each of the islanders.

She had spent a good deal of the night in Meriden down in the dimly lit basement of the old dormitory next door to the headmaster’s house. There were cells down there where the bad boys had once been incarcerated—and tortured if one believed the legends. Which Des most certainly did. Central District’s records were stored there now. After pawing through them for several hours, she had found the yellowing thirty-year-old state police report on the Roy and Louisa Weems murder-suicide. The case had been handled with extreme care. The island was an enclave of privilege and respectability. Dolly Peck was an ambassador’s daughter. The matter of her sexual assault was on a separate page stamped confidential. A medical examination confirmed what Bud Havenhurst had told her—she had indeed been forcibly raped.

Witnesses had been questioned. One was a witness Des was surprised to find listed there. She had been startled to discover the name of the investigating officer as well. And not at all pleased.

None of this confidential material had appeared in either the
Hartford Courant or New York Times.

She had found their coverage on microfilm at the Dorset Library, a small but growing village institution that had one foot planted firmly in the past and the other dipped tentatively into the future. There was an old building, a charming Victorian with panelled walls, a fireplace and comfy overstuffed armchairs. There was a new building with computer stations and low-slung blond wood counters and recessed lighting. The two buildings flowed into each other but did not exactly interact. It was, Des reflected, very much like Dorset itself.

The newspaper accounts were factual, proper and respectful. They gave no hint of any sexual assault. Or even any possible involvement by young Dolly Peck. There was no insinuation, no innuendo, no speculating by unnamed sources close to the investigation. Times had changed, Des realized. Inquiring minds were much dirtier now, the public way more cynical. They expected the dirty details. And they got them.

So what were the dirty details?

She had almost no time left to find out. The heavy leaning had already begun—thanks to that little weasel Soave, who had gone running directly to big brother Angelo with Jamie Devers’s disclosure that Niles Seymour had a girlfriend in Meriden. Soave had
not
told Des, which would have enabled her to find out twelve hours sooner than she had that the two cases connected. No, Soave had withheld his vital nugget, forcing Des to wait until the trace came through on the slug. She was absolutely furious with him. Especially for the way he responded when she confronted him about it at their makeshift command center in Dorset’s town hall: He just smirked. And lied to her face. “Jeez, loot,” he said. “I thought you knew.” Like hell. Naturally, big brother Angelo had told his good buddy, Captain Polito, that the Mitry girl was way behind the curve on the Niles Seymour investigation. As a consequence, Captain Polito had called her into his office to notify her that he was bringing in additional manpower starting tomorrow. Strictly in an advisory capacity, he assured her. Choosing his words very carefully, for fear of stepping on any powerful toes. He did not bother to mention that said additional manpower was another lieutenant who happened to be one of his hand-picked Waterbury boys. What he did say was this was not about rank or egos. “We are all on the same side, Lieutenant,” was how he put it. “We are all trying to catch the bad guys.”

All of which was true. Except that white males who were chasing the bad guys got at least seventy-two hours before the heavy leaning started. And she was only getting forty-eight. And it was not fair. And it was not right. And, God, she was so tired of their little boy crap. But she did not want to go running to the Deacon about it. She could not. Must not.

As Des sat there stroking the page with her charcoal, she noticed a human figure inching its way in her direction over the rocks and tide pools, subtly altering the composition of her drawing. As the figure got closer she realized it was Mitch Berger, looking a bit like an old-time lobsterman as he slogged along in his heavy dark blue sweater and green rubber wading boots. What was it Bella called him—a
shlub
? He was not a graceful man, for damned sure. He lumbered, his arms held out to his side. When he paused on the slippery rocks to wave at her, he lost his balance and nearly fell over. It also happened he was one truly awful guitar player. No ear. She wondered why she had talked so openly with him when they’d walked on the beach together. She supposed it was because he was observant and bright, because he was not one of them.

No, that wasn’t it. She’d talked to him because she wanted to talk to him. Could not, in fact, shut up. It wasn’t like Des to confide in a civilian. And her candor may have been ill-advised. Because she had no reason to believe she could trust this chubby, sad-eyed man. None. She’d have to be more careful.

She watched him now as he made his way across the rocks and trudged up onto the island-side entrance to the bridge. He was heading right for her. She closed her sketch pad and stashed it under her seat. She wiped her hands clean on a tissue. She rolled down her window.

“Morning, Lieutenant!” he called out to her, pink-cheeked and slightly winded from his morning hike. “How’s your cold today?”

“I told you—I don’t get colds, Mr. Berger. How’s Baby Spice?” she asked, taking note of the tiny scratches all over his hands.

“You mean Clemmie? She slept like a baby. Made her first foray downstairs at around four A.M. Came right back up. Used her litter box like a champ. Chased this wadded-up piece of paper around for a while. Then climbed up on my chest and and went right back to … Hey, what are you laughing at?”

“A man who said he didn’t want a cat.”

“I’m still not sure,” he insisted. “This is strictly a trial.”

“Uh-hunh.”

“May I see it?” he asked her anxiously.

“See what?”

“Your sketch.”

Damn. She had charcoal under her fingernail again. “I don’t know what you mean.”

He peered at her curiously. “You’ve never shown them to anyone, have you?” On her tight silence he added, “You’re afraid to, is that it?” Not accusing her. His voice was very gentle.

“Like I said, I don’t know what you mean.”

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of, Lieutenant. We’re all afraid of something.”

“Is that right? What are
you
afraid of?”

“Spending the rest of my life alone.”

“You think I’m afraid I’m not talented, is that it?”

“No, I think you’re afraid that you
are
.”

She shook her head at him, baffled. “Man, your mind’s on vacation and your mouth’s working overtime.”

Mitch Berger said nothing to that. Just continued to peer at her with his wounded puppy eyes. She was absolutely positive at that particular moment that he could read her mind.

“Do you know a lot about art?” she asked him guardedly.

“I know talent when I see it. That’s
my
talent. And my job. And I’d really love to see your stuff.”

“Why are you so interested?”

“Because I’d like to see what you do to please
you
, rather than to please everyone else.”

“Okay, now I’m
sure
I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Suit yourself. I thought maybe we were becoming friends. No, hunh?” He let out an unhappy sigh. “Too bad, because you’re my idea of a real first-class individual. But I’ll just have to tell Bud he was wrong. See, when he saw us together on the beach he thought we were. Friends, I mean. Which is why he asked me to give you a message.”

It turned out that Mitch Berger had something for her about Dolly’s missing money: Havenhurst had it. He’d quietly squirreled it away on her behalf, fearing that Seymour was about to grab it and run. Or so Havenhurst claimed.

“He figured you’d get on to it real soon,” Mitch Berger added. “And possibly get the wrong idea.”

“Or possibly get the right one.”

“Meaning what?” he asked, frowning at her.

Damn. She was doing it again. “Nothing. Nothing whatsoever.”

“I’m becoming one of them now. I’ve been to the club. I’ve been sailing. I own boating shoes. Soon, I’ll even have my own schoolboy nickname. What do you think of Boopy? Does that suit me?” On her mocking silence he acknowledged, “I’m not really. I could live here for fifty years and to them I’d still be the Jewboy from New York. I think it’s more a case of them circling the wagons—you’re either with us or you’re against us. And I guess they’d much rather have me with them.” He stood there for a moment, leaning his generous flank against her car. “How well do you know Resident Trooper Bliss?”

“We have a decent working relationship. Why?”

Mitch Berger hesitated, choosing his words carefully now. “Is there any chance he’s involved?”

“He’s been helpful to me, if that’s what you mean.”

“It isn’t,” he said heavily.

“Exactly what are you trying to tell me?”

“Bliss was out on the island that day I got locked in my crawl space. One of the islanders saw him. It’s possible that he’s the one who did it to me.”

“Why would he want to do that?”

Now Mitch Berger was the one who fell silent.

Des considered this for a moment. Tal Bliss
was
an old friend of Dolly Seymour. A seasoned veteran at cleaning up local messes. Was there any chance he had tried to clean up this one? That he knew more than he had let on? Was there any chance at all?

Of course, there was.

“Don’t you have a movie review or something you should be working on?” she grumbled at him.

“I was planning to take the train into New York this morning, actually,” he said. “Have to screen a couple of new mega-movies. Will that be okay?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“I thought you might say ‘Don’t leave town.’ Or words to that effect.”

“If I need to find you, I believe I can.”

He grinned at her. “Was that a dare?”

“No, it was an honest response to your inquiry.”

“The key to the front door of my cottage is under the boot scraper,” he informed her.

“You just said what?”

“Well, I can’t take Clemmie with me, can I?”

“Noo …”

“Of course, I can’t—she’s just getting acclimated. And you’ll be around the island, right? So I thought you could look in on her later. Make sure she’s all right. I’ll be back tomorrow morning. Okay?”

Reluctantly, Des said, “Okay.” Then she removed her billfold from the inside pocket of her blazer, dug out one of her business cards and handed it to him. “You happen to find out anything else, you can reach me at these numbers. Any hour, day or night. The one on the bottom’s my pager number.”