Cutter's Run (24 page)

“She needs to talk,” said Alex, as if that explained it. Which I suppose it did.

I nodded. “Okay. I’ve got plenty to do.” I stood up. “I’ll go say good-bye to Susannah.”

Alex put her hand on my arm. “You okay?”

“I’m sad about Noah,” I said. “I’m sad for Susannah. I’m sad for all of us. Angry, too.” I smiled. “Otherwise, sure. I’m fine.”

I went into the kitchen, gave Susannah a hug, and said I’d be back. She held on for a minute or two, and when she pulled back, her cheeks were wet.

Alex followed me to the car. “Give me a call later on,” she said.

When I got back to the house, I put on some coffee. Then I went to Alex’s office, turned on her computer, and inserted the disk Ellen Sanderson had given me. A minute later the screen was again filled with rows and columns of numbers and combinations of letters that looked like acronyms. It probably would’ve made logical sense to an accountant, but none of it made any more sense to me now than it had the night before.

I went to the kitchen, poured a mug of coffee, brought it back to the computer, and studied those numbers and letters some more; I wondered if there was some secret code embedded in them. That struck me as unlikely.

I scrolled through it slowly, and then, at the very end of the file, I found: “Account #147. First quarter, 1997. C. Gillespie, CPA.”

Ellen had guessed that the disk was “insurance” for Charlotte. If so, then this one—number 147—must have been the account that had gotten her fired, and somewhere in those numbers a trained person could probably find the discrepancy that Charlotte had refused to change.

I picked up the phone and dialed the Keith agency. When Ellen Sanderson answered, I said, “It’s Brady. Can you talk?”

“Yes,” she said. “For a minute. Look, I’m sorry, but I haven’t had a chance—”

“It’s account number one forty-seven,” I said. “The first-quarter report. On that disk you gave me. As you said, it’s all just a bunch of numbers. I can’t make any sense of any of it. But I’d like to know what account this is.”

“Okay,” she said. “It’s almost lunchtime. I’ll call you back within an hour. Knowing the account number will make it easy. You said one forty-seven, first quarter?”

“Right.”

“If you don’t hear from me,” she said, “send the cops. It means they caught me.”

“Jesus, Ellen. Don’t take any chances.”

She laughed. “I’m just kidding. Don’t worry about me.”

After I disconnected from Ellen, I went upstairs, retrieved my personal phone directory, and jotted down Skip Churchill’s e-mail address.

Churchill is an accountant who works out of his home in Belmont, just outside Boston. I handled his divorce for him a couple of years ago, and as usually happens with my clients, we became friends. He always said if I ever needed a favor of the accounting variety, I should call on him.

So I downloaded the contents of the disk to a file and e-mailed it to Skip. Then I took the phone and a mug of coffee out onto the deck, where I slumped in a rocking chair. I called Skip, got his answering machine, and told him to check his e-mail and give me a call.

I rocked and gazed at the countryside. More and more autumnal color was showing up every day, little patches of gold and auburn and crimson splotched against the green. New England autumn, of course, can be spectacular to look at. But it always depressed me. It was the season of death.

I pondered what I knew. The cabin on Arnold Hood’s property was down the hill, over Cutter’s Run, and up the next hill from Noah Hollingsworth’s orchard. If Charlotte Gillespie had been murdered—and so far, I reminded myself, there was no actual evidence either to prove or disprove it—that made two murders within about a week and barely a mile of each other. And that, as Sheriff Dickman had said, was not the kind of coincidence one could easily swallow.

I could come up with theoretical villains easily enough. Arnold Hood and Susannah made two, and there was William Keith, who’d fired Charlotte. Any of them could’ve had the means and the opportunity to murder Charlotte and Noah.

But I couldn’t think of a motive for any of these suspects to kill both of them. Maybe Hood had killed Charlotte simply because he hated African-Americans. Or William Keith, because she threatened his business. But I couldn’t think of a reason for either of them to kill Noah.

On the basis of a complicated and highly unlikely set of scenarios, I supposed I could make Susannah the killer of both Noah and Charlotte. But I’d have to ignore one thing that I didn’t believe she ever could have faked—her obvious devotion to her father.

I had seen Susannah cry for Noah, out of love and frustration and worry. I had kissed her then, and she’d responded to me. As illogical as it was, I found it impossible to imagine that a woman I had kissed could be capable of patricide.

But hell, I’d been wrong plenty of times before. Especially when it came to women.

I’d been sitting out there for fifteen minutes or so when the phone rang. “It’s Ellen,” she said.

“That was quick. What’d you find?”

“Account number one forty-seven is, in fact, the firm that got Charlotte fired. It’s called SynGen, Inc. They’re right here in Portland, and we’ve had their account for several years. It’s a research laboratory. They have some ties to the University of Southern Maine, here in Portland. They’re financed mostly through government grants and contracts with the university and a couple of private foundations.”

“Yeah,” I said. “That makes sense. Some of the acronyms on that disk—USOME, for example. The University of Southern Maine, I bet. And UMORO—U. Maine Orono. All those acronyms contained five letters. I remember thinking USFDA might be the Food and Drug Administration.”

“SynGen has dealings with them,” said Ellen. “So I’m helping you, huh?”

“You’re a secretary,” I said. “Secretaries always know a lot.”

“Oh, I don’t know much,” she said. “But I know how to find it. What else can I tell you?”

“You sure it’s safe there?” I said.

“Here? In the office?” she said. “Right now, yes. Everybody’s gone to lunch. It’s just me, guarding the phones. I’ve got the SynGen file up on my screen. I can delete it in one second.”

“Does that file give you any names?”

“At SynGen? Sure. Hang on. Just let me punch that up… There. Okay. The president and CEO is a guy named Gerald Stasio. Two VPs—Roland Passman and Arthur Tate. Passman’s head of operations, and Tate’s the CFO. They’ve got seventeen employees, nine of them full-time, and two unpaid interns from the university.”

“Have you met these three guys?” I said.

“I’ve greeted them, brought them coffee, taken their phone calls. We secretaries don’t exactly get introduced to the clients, you know. Not as if we were real people. They come in a couple times a year to meet with—well, to meet with Charlotte, and since then, the three of them were in one time to see Mr. Keith. Who, by the way, has taken over that account. Mr. Keith and Stasio are hunting buddies from way back, I know that. When Stasio set up his firm, he retained Keith and Harrington to do his accounting. After they got it up and running, Mr. Keith turned the account over to Charlotte.”

“Hunting buddies,” I repeated.

“Oh, you know. They go out on Casco Bay in December, when it’s ridiculously cold, and shoot sea ducks so Mr. Keith can show off Raisin.”

“Raisin?”

“His black Lab. Mr. Keith is awfully proud of that dog. I guess he’s a pretty good retriever. They go deer hunting every fall, too. Far as I know, they’ve never actually shot one. I think they just go to drink and play cards and tell jokes about women’s breasts. Guy stuff.”

I wondered if they rented a certain cabin in Garrison from Arnold Hood for their guy stuff. Keith had denied ever renting a hunting cabin. To Ellen I said, “Would you know who Charlotte would’ve dealt with at SynGen?”

“That would be the CFO,” she said. “Tate.” I heard a sharp intake of breath, and then she said, “Whoops. I gotta go”

“Hey,” I said. “Wait a minute.” But the phone had gone dead.

I gazed off toward New Hampshire. Three more names that I could, without much imagination, add to my list of suspects in Charlotte Gillespie’s disappearance—or whatever had happened to her. Tate, the CFO, was probably the one who got her fired.

On the assumption that Charlotte and Noah were linked, the SynGen guys could be suspects in Noah’s murder, too.

When I called Susannah’s number, Alex answered. “The Hollingsworth residence.”

“It’s me,” I said. “How’s it going?”

“Okay,” she said. “The state police were here poking around and asking questions. I expected yellow crime-scene tape, with photographers and forensics experts swarming all over the place dusting for fingerprints and looking for tire tracks and footprints and cigarette butts, grilling Susannah, playing good-cop-bad-cop. But there were just two of them, very polite young men. I served them coffee, and they talked with Susannah and sleuthed around for maybe a half hour, tipped their hats, and left. Paul got here a little while ago. He and Susannah are out on the deck now.” She dropped her voice. “Remember what we were saying?”

“About their lack of passion?”

“Yes. It’s pretty obvious. He’s very solicitous of her. Says all the right things. When he got here, they hugged each other, and he kissed her cheek, and she thanked him for coming, and…”

“No passion.”

“Yes.”

“Brother and sister.”

“Sort of. First thing he said was he can’t stay long.”

“Being dutiful,” I said. “How’s Susannah doing?”

“I admire her a lot, Brady. She is completely blown away by the idea that someone would murder Noah. But I think she’s been preparing herself for his death for a long time.”

“I’ve got to speak to her for a minute.”

“Sure. Hang on.”

A minute later, Susannah said, “Hi, Brady.”

“How’re you doing?”

“I’m okay, considering. What’s up?”

“I know this isn’t a good time, but I wondered if I could run a couple of names past you.”

“Names?”

“Yes. I’m wondering if these men were people Noah might’ve known.”

“You think—”

“I don’t think anything, Susannah. Here are the names. Gerald Stasio?”

“Um… no. I don’t recall Noah ever mentioning that name.”

“Roland Passman.”

“No.”

“Arthur Tate.”

“I don’t… no, I don’t think so.” She paused, then said, “Who are these people, Brady? What’s going on?”

“Probably nothing is going on that has anything to do with what happened to Noah. They used to be Charlotte Gillespie’s clients. They’re officers of a firm in Portland called SynGen.”

“SynGen,” she repeated. “Sure. They’re some kind of research outfit.”

“Well, I believe they’re the ones who got Charlotte fired. These guys might’ve rented Arnold Hood’s cabin for deer hunting.”

“I guess it’s possible my father could’ve run into them if they were using Hoodie’s cabin and hunting around here,” said Susannah. “But I don’t remember him ever mentioning any of those names.” She laughed quickly. “You are taking your deputy duties seriously, aren’t you?”

“I don’t like it when my friends are…” I let my voice trail off.

“Murdered,” she said. “It’s okay. You can say it. I know what happened. And Brady?”

“Yes?”

“I’m not making fun of you. If you can find out who did this to my father, I will love you forever.”

Several responses came to my mind. Twenty-four hours earlier I had kissed Susannah and she had pressed her body against mine, and the memory of it was still vivid. “And if I can’t?” I said.

“Oh, I guess I’ll love you anyway,” she said.

“Susannah…”

“Alex is a lifesaver,” she said. “I love her to pieces.”

“Me, too,” I said. “Why don’t you let me speak to her again.”

“See you later?”

“Yes. Of course. Say hello to Paul for me.”

“Sure. I’ll get Alex.”

A moment later Alex said, “What’re you up to this afternoon?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m trying to figure it out. Want me to come over?”

“Not yet. Call later on. Okay?”

“Sure. You take care.”

“You, too.”

I disconnected from Alex, put the phone on the deck, yawned, and slouched down in the rocker. I tried to concentrate on what I knew, make the connections, play out the possibilities. But the sun was warm on my face, and with my eyes closed and my heels up on the rail I discovered that I could rock gently with no effort, and I was aware of my mind losing its focus…

I was jarred awake by the slamming of a car door, and before I could sit up straight, young Paris LeClair, with his greenish-yellow hair and his earrings and his skinny arms and baggy pants, had bounced up onto the deck. “Hey, hey there, Mr. Coyne,” he said. He was blinking fast and flapping his hands around. “You gotta come with me, man. I got something to show you.”

I
WAVED MY HAND
toward one of the rockers. “Have a seat,” I said to Paris. “Relax, son. Calm down. How about a Coke or something?”

He smacked his fist into his palm. “Shit, man. Come
on,
willya?”

“Can’t. I’m waiting for a phone call.”

He skipped over to me and grabbed the front of my shirt. His yellow-green hair was flying around his face and his eyes were small and glittery. “Fuck the phone call. This is important.”

I looked down at his hand until he let go of my shirt. “Tell me what this is all about,” I said. “Did you find out who made those swastikas?”

“No,” he said. “And I don’t
know
what it’s all about. I gotta show you. Okay?”

“Paris,” I said, “what’ve you been smoking?”

He rolled his eyes. “Oh, man,” he said. “Are you stupid or something?”

“It’s not about those swastikas?”

“No.” He punched his thigh. “I’m trying to tell you—”

“So tell me.”

He shook his head. “Just come with me.” He hesitated, then smiled. “Please, okay?”

I smiled. “That’s better.” I pushed myself up from the chair.

Paris skittered around to the front of the house, and I followed him. A battered old brown Volkswagen Rabbit was parked at an awkward angle in the middle of the drive-way. He went over to my Wrangler. “We better take yours,” he said.