Idyll Threats (16 page)

“Renee?” I said. “Chief Lynch. You still have the diary?”

She didn't want to give it up. She felt guilt-wracked having read it. She cried. I waited her out, and then I told her how helpful the diary would be, how it would help us put her sister's killer behind bars. I didn't point out that her sister was past feeling embarrassment, or any other emotion. Dehumanizing her sister was no way to win Renee's cooperation.

She agreed to meet me at my house, despite the hour. When she showed up, her face was puffy. She held the diary to her chest, her feet planted on the threshold. “Come in,” I said, waving her toward my living room. She walked slowly, looking around. When she spotted my recliner, she said, “So you
are
a bachelor.” As if she'd had a bet with someone about my romantic status.

“How'd you guess?” I pointed to the recliner. “My sister-in-law keeps threatening to burn it someday.”

She glanced at the flower-print loveseat. “You picked this out?” She sat on its very edge, not making herself at home.

“It came with the place.” I ran my hand down its armrest. “I'm thinking it might come back in fashion.”

Her eyes widened, and then she laughed. “Oh, God, I thought you were serious for a second.” Her grip on the diary relaxed.

“I grew up in New York, so I've always lived in an apartment. I wasn't ready to furnish a whole house.”

“Huh,” she said. “How long have you lived here?”

“Seven months.” Seven months. Seemed incredible. Felt like I'd arrived two weeks ago.

“Seven months?” She tapped the arm of the loveseat, holding the diary in one crooked arm. “Maybe you ought to upgrade.” She scuffed her sneakers against the mostly clean beige carpet.

“Maybe,” I said. “Décor isn't my strong suit.”

She let the diary fall to her lap. “Well, beige carpeting went out last decade, and your recliner was never in fashion.”

I pretended to take notes. “Thanks for those helpful hints. Now, may I?” I extended my hand.

She covered the diary with both hands. “I'm sorry,” she said. “It's just…I feel like I'm betraying her. I know it's stupid.”

“It's not stupid,” I said. “Come into the kitchen. Want a drink?”

“Sure,” she said. “What do you have?”

I opened the fridge. “Water, milk, orange juice, and beer.”

“That's two more beverages than I would've bet you had.” She peered over my shoulder. “Is that a vegetable I see?”

“My desk sergeant keeps pushing farm goods on me. And I keep putting them in the fridge. Waiting them out.”

She sat at the kitchen table. Moved aside a stack of junk mail and set the diary down. “You can eat them, vegetables. They make you big and strong.” She blushed.

“So I hear. Water?”

“Make it a beer.”

I grabbed two bottles and opened them using a Yankees gadget John gave me for my birthday. She pointed to it. “Be careful. That could get you beaten up 'round here.”

I cocked a brow. “You think I'll get beat up?” I flexed a bicep.

She blushed redder. “There are some rabid Red Sox fans who aren't very bright. They might try to start something.” Her eyes returned to my bare arms.

I handed her the beer. She took a ladylike sip. I sat down, and slid the diary to me. “Where am I looking?” I asked.

She exhaled so hard her hair fluttered. “Late June. The twenty-sixth,” she said.

As I flipped pages, I asked, “So where did you find this?”

“There's a loose panel in her closet. We used to store stuff there as kids. Treasure. Candy, mostly, and some cheap jewelry. Stuff from our Easter baskets.” She smiled at a memory. I paged through April and May. Cecilia didn't keep a daily account of her activities. “Anyway, Mom was talking about cleaning out some of Cecilia's things, and I thought I'd check the panel, just in case there was something there she wouldn't want found.”

“She has a vibrator hidden beneath her mattress.” I didn't look up.

“How did you know that?”

“I checked her room, looking for clues. It's a common hiding spot.”

“Thanks,” she said. I imagined she'd clear it out soon, before her parents stripped the bed and washed the sheets. It could take them months, years. But better safe than sorry.

And the idea of it brought me back to Rick, lacing up his shoes. Double-knotting them. We were talking of our deaths. Our last wishes. Normal stuff. And I said, “Hey, if I bite it, go to my apartment and empty the blue waste bin.”

“Why?”

“My porn is there.”

He tapped my forehead. “Bright boy. Will do.” And he'd meant it. If I'd taken a bullet, he would've rushed to my place and found that waste bin, tucked beneath a rolling cart. He would've disposed of the magazines, the videos, and the incriminating, large dildo.

My stash was now tucked in that same bin at the back of the guest-bedroom closet. But there was no one to empty it for me now. My family, perhaps. But no friend.

“June twenty-sixth,” Renee said, interrupting my vision of my brother looking at the dildo, surprise all over his face.

“Right.”

I found the page.

JUNE 26, 1997

Processed five new employees today. One of them was handsome, but a jerk. He complained about his parking spot. As if I control the assignments. Ms. O'Donnell made a comment about the length of my skirt today. I think she's a deeply unhappy woman.

Renee was right. Cecilia was generous in her assessments of others. I'd have classified Ms. O'Donnell as a jealous bitch.

JULY 1, 1997

Good day! Got a free bagel this morning. Think the coffee-counter guy likes me. And someone else, maybe. Gary, the hot new guy, apologized for his behavior last week. Says he's going through a rough patch but that he shouldn't have taken it out on me. Promised to make it up to me sometime. Ate lunch with Jenna today. She's so funny. I asked her what actor she'd pick to marry and she had no idea! Mine's Brad Pitt. I kept listing actors, but she kept saying she didn't know them and they wouldn't marry her anyway. She takes things too seriously.

JULY 4, 1997

Watched the fireworks with Mom, Dad, and Renee. Felt like we were kids, especially when Mom warned me and Renee to watch out for traffic. I swear, she still thinks we're in grade school. Saw Will Thompson in uniform. Renee teased me. Kept saying, “Look, your boyfriend!” I smacked her arm to get her to stop pointing. Will's handsome, but he seems young. I think I'm into older men now.

“Your sister liked Will Thompson?” Billy. Our Billy.

Renee said, “She used to follow him like a puppy when she was young. Watched him practice his skateboard tricks for hours. Poor Will. He was always so nice, but she was just his kid sister's friend, you know?”

So Cecilia had a crush on Billy. And he knew. No wonder he wanted on the case.

JULY 7, 1997

Gary asked me out for a drink after work! I said yes. What will I wear? I don't want another lecture from Ms. O'Donnell on the length of my skirt.

JULY 9, 1997

Work boring. Mr. Smythe cannot remember any of his passwords. Seemed like forever til the day ended. I waited a bit for Gary to be done. We drove in our own cars to a place in Vernon. I had a glass of red wine. He paid. Said it was the least he could do. He told me he's married. I knew that from his file. (Yes. I snooped.) His wife was his college sweetheart. But now they can't have kids and she blames him. He says they barely speak to each other at all anymore. He's lonely. Now that he's got a new job, he hardly knows anyone. I said I could show him around, and he said I was the nicest person he's met in ages. He stared at me the whole time. His eyes are like the ocean.

I skimmed, turning pages. Three days later, she slept with him. Instead of an ecstatic description, she wrote: “Not what I expected. He was fast in bed.”

I chuckled.

“You get to her sexual critique?” Renee asked.

“Sorry.”

She waved her hand. “Don't be. It made me laugh, too. Cecilia could always make me laugh. She did great impressions. That's probably another reason the teachers didn't love her. Got caught imitating them once too often.”

“I had disciplinary problems in school,” I said. I took a long pull from my bottle.

“Bully?” she asked.

“Anti-bully. I beat them up so they'd stop picking on the little ones.”

“Ah, so you were born to be a cop, to do good.”

“I don't think my teachers saw it that way. They thought I had self-control issues.”

“Do you?”

“No.” I tilted forward on my chair. “I'm a self-controlled, functional member of society.”

“Who really needs to rehab his house. I didn't even know they still made fridges that color,” she said.

“I don't think they do. It's the last of its kind.”

“Thank God.”

“Hey, now,” I said, all indignation.

“Sorry. I'll stop picking on your abominable taste in furnishing as soon as I ask what is up with your coat rack?”

“I think a child made it.”

“A dim-witted one with poor motor skills?” She slapped her hands over her mouth to stifle her laughs. “I'm sorry.” Her laughter turned to hiccups.

“Probably.”

Her hiccups evolved into tears. Some hard-asses at the old precinct melted under a woman's tears. Me? I just fetched toilet paper from the bathroom and offered it to her.

“Thanks,” she said. She blew her nose.

I sat and waited. She settled in two minutes. Took another sip of beer. “God, I'm sick of crying. My nose is going to fall off soon. Just secede from the rest of me if I keep it up.” She patted it. It was a good nose. And she knew it.

“I doubt that will happen.” I glanced at the clock. “It's late.” It was. Half past two in the morning. I'd convinced her to drive over right away. Not very chivalrous of me.

She yawned. Nodded. “Yup. So it is. Hope I'm okay to drive.”

She'd only drunk a third of her beer.

“I'll vouch for you,” I said, taking her elbow and tugging upward.

“Don't suppose you have a guest room?” She was half slurring her
words now. Over reaching. She was confusing our intimacy for the sexual kind.

“I do. It's filled with boxes.”

She subtly resisted my forward push, but I was stronger. “Thank you,” I said. “You did the right thing, bringing the diary to me.”

Her face collapsed, as if it had sprung a leak of air. “Every day I feel like I'm losing more of her. It's stupid because she's dead and I can't lose her more. But I guess I mean that soon I'll wake up and I won't even forget to remember she's not alive.” She leaned into me. I let her. I rubbed circles onto her jean-jacket-clad back.

“I know,” I said. And I did. Because I could still remember the morning I woke up and thought, “Rick's dead,” and there was no hesitation or doubt. I'd thrown the nearest thing to hand against a wall. It had been an alarm clock. The breaking plastic did little to console me.

“Is it stupid to want the hurt to last?” she asked. Her eyes were pink-rimmed.

I opened the door. The night air was cool. The moon, a half circle in the sky. It always looked sadder when half full. I walked Renee to her car. Closed her door. Watched her drive away.

I stood, my arms prickled with cold, and whispered, “If it's stupid to want the hurt to last, I'm the world's biggest idiot.”

Mrs. Dunsmore had rearranged my desk. Folders were stacked in piles. Atop one was a sticky note that read URGENT. I glanced inside. Idyll Days stuff. Should I draft a memo to her defining
urgency
? I could list examples including fire, plague, and masked gunmen.

“Chief Lynch?” A male voice interrupted my daydream. The man with his hand raised to knock on my open door was Mr. North. He wore a flannel shirt that made his hazel eyes browner. Cecilia's eyes. It's a little disorienting, seeing the features of the dead repeated in the living.

“How may I help you, Mr. North?” I gestured to a chair, but he didn't sit. Had Renee told him about the diary?

“I wanted to know how the case is coming. My daughter's murder investigation.” His hands moved convulsively. He glanced at my desk. I was grateful for Mrs. Dunsmore's tidying. There were no autopsy or crime-scene photos on display.

“Mr. North, we're continuing our investigation. Pursuing leads. I can't share the details with you.” I used my patient tone. He was grieving. He wanted answers. And not the kind I had. But I wasn't the only one withholding information. Apparently Renee hadn't mentioned our conversation to her father.

“I'm her father.”

“I can't share details of an investigation with family members. I'm sorry.”

“Can you at least tell me if you have a suspect?”

“No.”

His mouth twitched. “No, you can't tell me, or no, you don't have a suspect?”

“I can't. I'm sorry.”

“Sorry?” He moved closer. “Everyone says nothing has happened, that you haven't questioned one person in connection with her murder. Instead, you've run around town chasing men who steal video games.”

“Sir, I understand that you're upset.” I kept my tone low, even. He'd run out of steam, soon enough. They all did, eventually.

“Upset? My daughter is dead. And the person who shot her is still out there.” He waved his arm toward the open door. “And he's happy! Because he got away with it. Don't tell me you understand. Tell me you've found her killer.”

Through the doorway I saw a small crowd had assembled. Damn gawkers. “Sir, I think perhaps you should go home.”

He said, “I think you should—”

“Mr. North?” Mrs. Dunsmore appeared at his elbow, a steaming cup in her hands. “Would you care for a cup of coffee? I was just having some. I could pour you another.”

He started and looked down at her creased face. Then he brushed his shirtfront and said, “No, I, no, thank you.” He left the room and the spectators scuttled.

“Poor man,” she said. We watched him walk away. His posture had slackened, his head and shoulders bowed low.

“Thanks,” I said. Her timing had been impeccable.

Mrs. Dunsmore turned to me. “Word has it you paid Elmore Fenworth a visit.”

“Yes.” Small town. I should've known word would get out.

“What about?” she asked.

None of your damn business.

She continued. “I hope you've managed to convince him we're not hiding the remains of extraterrestrials.”

I don't think I had. Though there was no evidence of aliens in our basement, Elmore had seemed encouraged by his visit.

Annoyed by my silence, she huffed and said, “Have you reviewed the folders? The Idyll Days review committee meets tonight. Seven p.m., Porter Room, Town Hall. You'd better be up to speed.”

Was she serious? I sighed. “You heard Mr. North. You think I should spend hours reading about the pony-ride location rather than work his daughter's murder?”

She blew at the steam escaping her coffee cup. “Very well. You solve the murder, and I'll create the work detail.” She picked up the folders.

“Deal.”

So Dunsmore knew I'd visited Elmore. What other visits had she and the town gossips logged? I tugged at a hangnail. If they paid careful attention, they'd notice a pattern soon. All men. Mostly single. With one common denominator. Shit. I tugged harder, and the hangnail came loose. Blood welled in the exposed slit of raw skin.

“Oh, here,” she said, handing me a pink message slip. “Techs called earlier. Something about a button.”

A button? She was gone by the time I remembered. The button from the cabin. I'd grabbed it along with the Coke cans. I swung by the pen. Wright was on the phone. He looked up when I came in, then back down. I hadn't forgotten what he'd said about me being dirty. Revere sat, tracing an area map, muttering under his breath.

They didn't like me. So what?

I set Cecilia North's diary on Revere's desk. He glanced at it. “What's this?”

“Victim's diary. Her sister brought it to me last night.”

He cracked the cover. “Anything good?”

Wright had the phone to his ear, but he was listening to us.

“Just the details of her affair with Gary Clark.”

“No shit,” Wright said. Whoever was on the phone heard him. “Sorry. I have to go. Call you back.” He hung up.

“Get Finnegan in,” I said. “Start reviewing Clark's alibi. I'm going to visit the techs. Seems they might have some info on the button I found at the cabin.”

“Bring them sugar,” Revere advised, looking up from the diary.
“They live off it.” His words were warmer. Maybe we weren't friends. But we were no longer enemies.

I followed his advice and picked up two boxes of donuts, bear claws, and crullers. Sure enough, the techs loved it. They mumbled their thanks through full mouths.

When I asked about my button, I was directed to a dark-eyed man who looked like a lumberjack. He gave me a once-over and said, “New here?” He was fit. Had nice teeth. He needed a haircut, though.

“A recent addition to Idyll,” I said.

He gave me another going over, eyes lingering on my groin. “Welcome to the neighborhood. I'm Mike Shannon.”

“Thomas Lynch.”

We shook hands. As I pulled away, he ran his middle finger across my palm. A jolt shot through me.

“A pleasure.” My pants were tight. I adjusted my stance. “Now, about my report?”

“You want Dave.” He pointed to a corner. “Good luck.” His tone implied I'd need it.

The corner was an alternate universe. Cartoons featuring crime scenes covered two walls. Star Wars figures were arranged in rows on a low bench. Dave, a pale man in a lab coat, fiddled with a microscope and ignored me. His mug had a chemical equation on it I didn't understand. Beside it, six nutrition bars were stacked.

“Do you want something, or do you enjoy hovering over people while they work?” He turned. He had a face full of freckles and wore glasses thicker than double-paned windows. The freckles formed shapes. Near his right eye, I saw a bear.

“Cruller?” I offered the last of the treats.

“You know what's in that thing?” He reached for a nutrition bar. “Six grams of saturated plus trans fat. That's a third of your day's worth.” He unwrapped his bar. “Whereas this little bar has twenty percent of my protein and only three grams of fat.” Perhaps, but it looked like raisin-studded feces.

“You did a report for me, on a button found at the Sutter cabin?” I asked.

“Which?”

I had the report request. I recited the number for him.

His eyes got bigger behind his lenses. “Ah, right. It came from a pale-blue Ralph Lauren man's dress shirt. Style 4281906.”

“You sure?”

He rolled his eyes. “No, I just guessed.” He slapped his palm to his forehead. “Of course, I'm sure. We have a guy in the office with a similar shirt. From there it was just a matter of search and match.”

“That's great. What about the soda cans?”

“No joy. Your girl's prints weren't on either can.”

Shit. I couldn't place her at the cabin without saying I'd seen her there.

He bit his bar. Whatever it was made of, it required lots of chewing. He swallowed. He swiveled his chair and rolled it to a file cabinet. A magnet on it read T
HE
N
ERDS
W
ILL
I
NHERIT THE
E
ARTH
. He looked at the files. “Here.” He pulled one out. “You thought the victim was near Hought's Pond. The gravel in her sneakers is conclusive. They have a special type of rock, imported when they first landscaped the area, ages ago. The only other place she would've encountered it would be in Vermont.”

“That's great!” From the pond to the cabin was a logical leap. I'd have preferred fingerprints on the soda can, but this would do.

He said, “You want the fiber report too?”

I checked my report. “There's nothing about fibers in here.”

“You didn't ask. I thought of that myself. The cabin and the golf course are miles apart. I figured if she was in a car, maybe her clothes had fibers from it. Her shoes were unlikely. Fibers only stay there between five and thirty minutes. After that—” he closed his hand and then opened his fingers, “
poof!
Gone.”

“Did you find car fibers on her clothes?”

“Yup.” He bit the bar and took his time chewing. He was enjoying this little power play.

“And?” I said.

He picked up a pen. Clicked and unclicked the end. “She had fibers on the seat of her pants and the left arm of her shirt.”

“Can you match it to a car type?”

“I can do better than that. Using polarized light, cross-sectioning, and dye extraction, I found your car.” He pushed his glasses up. “It's a Honda Accord. Gray. Brand-new model. That gave me some trouble. I was checking the ninety-sixes. They changed the upholstery in the new model.”

“You're sure?”

He brushed a crumb from his lab coat. “Dye extraction doesn't lie.”

“Can I have a copy of that report?”

“Sure.”

I tucked the warm copy papers inside my jacket and dialed Jenna Dash from a phone in the lab's hallway. She was surprised to hear from me. Even more surprised by my lunch invitation. We agreed to meet at a small Italian place she recommended near her work.

I was sitting at an off-balance table, deciding between chicken parmigiana and gnocchi, when she came in. She smelled of pencil shavings and her hair was down.

“So,” she said, picking up her menu.

“Relax,” I said. “Take a minute. Get a drink. Place your order.” When our server arrived, he welcomed Jenna and asked what we'd have. She ordered a Caesar salad. I chose the gnocchi. “You ought to have more than a salad,” he said to Jenna. “You're gonna disappear. You don't eat enough protein.” She turned red and said she was fine. She leaned against the table and it tipped toward her. The waiter apologized and stuck a matchbook under one of the legs. He said sorry again and left, looking over his shoulder. He liked her. Her face showed no recognition. She didn't realize. Civvies are so damn unobservant.

I told Jenna about Gary and Cecilia's relationship.

“Oh,” she said, eyes glued to the waterproof, gingham tablecloth. “I wondered. I mean, he was
very
familiar with her. But she never said, so I didn't want to speculate.”

Then I told her how Gary had lied to us. She'd been in his car the night she died. Jenna listened, her hands folded in her lap. When I'd finished, she said, “How can I help?”

“Has anyone else been talking about him at work? Any gossip?”

“I don't really mingle at work.” She tucked her hair behind her ears. Right. She'd said as much, before.

“Maybe you can see if everything seems kosher. Any complaints from other female staff, that sort of thing.”

“I don't have access to HR stuff. In fact, I only have access to the studies I run, except—” She bit her lip. “I could review his accounts. I shouldn't be able to, but I got access months ago for a report I was running and they forgot to close me out. The IT guys are too busy playing around in chat rooms to monitor that stuff.” I couldn't ask her to look at his private files. She said, “I doubt it will be of help, but I'll take a look tonight. You think he killed her?”

“He was having an affair with her. He lied about it, and now she's dead. We call that a one-plus-one where I work.”