Chat Page 20

  “How long ago was that?” he asked.

  “Ten years.”

  “That when Dan started acting up?”

  E. T. paused then, staring out at how the ebbing light was casting his pit into shadow, almost like a premonition.

  “Nah, Dan was always a bad kid,” he said darkly. “Annie’s death only took off the last set of brakes. What was yours named?” he asked suddenly.

  Willy hesitated, at first wondering what he meant, before remembering his own cover story. He then couldn’t resist answering, “Joe.”

  “Huh,” his companion grunted.

  Willy then realized the fringe benefit of his private joke.

  “That mean something?”

  “Just a coincidence. I got a guy named Joe causing me problems.”

  Willy pushed his advantage, trusting E. T.’s inebriation to have dulled his perceptiveness. “Gunther? The Mackies were telling me there was bad blood there. He’s a cop, right? VSP or something?”

  “Yeah—something. Not state police. The new one. Bureau of something. Anyhow, a pain in the ass.”

  “I hate cops,” Willy said. “He after you for the business? Is he like the Better Business Bureau?”

  E. T. looked at him with widened eyes. “Better Business Bureau? Jesus Fuck, Butch. You don’t get out much, do you? The Better Business Bureau is a bunch of limp dicks. They don’t have cops. I don’t know what this prick is after. He’s just chewin’ on me, is all—fucking dog with a bone.”

  Willy took another pull on his bottle of tea, wincing at its bitter taste. E. T.’s response didn’t imply that Joe was much more than a generalized pest. But if Willy kept probing, even Griffis was likely to notice. He decided not to respond, but to do some of his own silent gazing out the window, not that the sunset was allowing for much of a view anymore.

  “He’s the one who got Andy in trouble,” Griffis finally said in a low voice, having obviously been mulling over the subject for the past couple of minutes.

  “Andy got in trouble?” Willy asked. “I thought he was your good kid.”

  “He is,” E. T. answered angrily, throwing his empty can into a corner. “Was,” he added a moment later. “Give me another beer.”

  Willy complied without comment.

  “Gunther arrested him on a bullshit charge a few years back. Got him sent to prison. That’s why he killed himself.”

  “I thought you said it was a woman,” Willy protested.

  “You said that,” E. T. countered, knocking off another half can.

  “What kind of charge gets you to jail first time out?” Willy asked. “I thought Vermont was super soft there—never putting anybody behind bars.”

  “You thought wrong,” Griffis replied.

  Willy was starting to worry how much he should pursue this line of inquiry. He’d gotten a fair amount so far. But that was part of the game—how much to pay out versus how much to reel in.

  He went for one more try and then figured he’d give it a rest. “I did time once,” he said. “Wasn’t too bad. Three hots and a cot, like they say. Mostly boring. Your kid must’ve been the sensitive type.”

  That hit a chord. E. T. swung on him in a rage, spilling beer on his pants. “What the fuck you know about it? Three hots and a cot? Like it was some fucking summer camp?” Griffis lurched to his feet and half fell toward Willy, trying to take a swing at him, the forgotten can still in his hand. “He was fucking raped, you asshole.”

  Willy easily swiped away the punch with his good hand, which threw E. T. off balance and sent him stumbling straight into Willy’s lap, breaking the arm of his chair. They collapsed into a pile on the floor.

  “Get off me, you son of a bitch!” E. T. yelled, thrashing around.

  Willy kept his composure, speaking clearly but quietly into the other man’s ear, “You’re on top of me, E. T. Take a breath. I didn’t mean any harm. I didn’t know.” He repeated slowly, “I did not know.”

  Griffis settled down, still lying across Willy like a dropped bear, staring at the ceiling with a wondering expression. “Shit,” he finally muttered. “I know that.”

  Willy planted his hand against E. T.’s back and pushed him to an upright position, rising behind him. He decided to go for broke then and there, figuring the opportunity would never come up again.

  “Who did it, E. T.?” he asked softly. “Who really killed your son?”

  There was no response at first. Griffis just sat there, his legs splayed, his hands in his lap, staring at the floor. For a split second, Willy wondered if he might not have passed out, or whether he was even breathing.

  But E. T. proved him wrong with two words. “Wayne Nugent,” he said.

  The name Sam hadn’t been able to uncover. Griffis couldn’t see the smile on Willy’s face. Well, that was at least one puzzle solved.

  In Ardmore, Pennsylvania, and outside Waterbury, Connecticut, Lester and Sammie, respectively, in the company of their host police agencies, conducted separate searches of the homes of the two men they’d once referred to as Wet Bald Rocky and Dry Hairy Fred.

  Lester had gotten lucky with the videotape in the Ardmore Internet café. On film, the same man in the postmortem mug shots that Spinney was carrying around was seen sitting at the right computer and at the same time and date that John Leppman had dug up. Bruce Fellini, the café manager, still didn’t know the man by name, but he did recognize the teenager at the neighboring console. That boy, a regular, was then located and told Lester that the person he was after was Norman Metz. With Detective Cavallaro’s help, the last step to finding Metz’s address—a single room in a house he shared with others in a run-down neighborhood—had been easy.

  For Sam, the journey had been farther but easier still. The car abandoned at the Springfield bus depot had been eloquence itself, containing all the myriad details of its owner’s vital records and habits, from his address to his birthdate, to his taste in music and candy. It had also confirmed the name that Detective Wilson had found through its registration—Frederick Nashman—whose identity was confirmed photographically by comparing Sam’s mug shot with Connecticut DMV computer records.

  Unlike where Lester was searching in Ardmore, however, Nashman’s home outside Waterbury was a sedate, middle-class two-story house. Unfortunately for Sam, it also came equipped with a wife and teenage child.

  Joe sat on what Lyn and he now viewed as his traditional perch, established when they’d first met in Gloucester—at the end of the bar, with his shoulder against the side wall and his hand around a Coke. He watched her traveling along the line of noisy, appreciative drinkers, chatting, laughing, making small talk and change as she served drinks, waved away compliments, and kept an air traffic controller’s eye roaming across the room. He remembered what she’d told him then, after he’d plied her with a milkshake and a lobster roll. She’d said that the bar—the actual physical object—was like a barrier that allowed her access to the public while protecting her from it, thereby becoming the perfect platform for a shy person who longed for company. It had been a comment both intriguing and startling, since he’d always believed—as he figured most people did—that anyone in this business had to be a glutton for bad jokes, other people’s miseries, and attention in general.

  It was Friday night and the place was packed—a harbinger, he hoped, of her business prescience. He knew that many were here out of curiosity, of course. She’d even warned him about that. Not to mention the offer of opening night discount beer.

  Bars weren’t really his preference. He spent most days out in the public eye. Rest and relaxation for him came in isolation, most happily in the woodworking shop that he’d attached to his house on Green Street. He’d supplied almost everyone he knew with lazy Susans, birdhouses, and magazine racks as a result, and himself with some substantial furniture.

  But he recognized the value of bars, and their historical place, as among the earliest of democratic gathering places. Vermont’s own independence, it could be argued, f
ound birth in Bennington’s Catamount Tavern, where the likes of Ethan Allen—an archetypal barroom bully—took time off from being a lout to act like a leader.

  Joe’s gaze swept across the crowd. There were Allens aplenty here tonight, if appearances were telling, from the brooders to the boisterous. But, in Lyn’s favor, they remained a minority, vastly outnumbered by those simply seeking a good time and companionship.

  If she was able to maintain the present mood and clientele, her prospects looked good.

  “How’s it going, boss?” Sam asked, having appeared at his shoulder.

  Joe waved at the activity before them. “See for yourself. A runaway success. You come home with the bacon?”

  But she wouldn’t be so easily derailed. “Dispatch said I’d find you here, with what they called your ‘person of interest.’”

  He smiled, shaking his head. “That sounds like Maxine. God, what a small town.”

  “So, where is she?”

  Joe finally turned in his seat to look at her. “You that much out of the loop?”

  Sam punched him gently in the shoulder. “Come on, boss.”

  Joe faced forward again and gestured to Lyn, who’d been subtly keeping tabs on him.

  She came down the length of the bar with a smile.

  “Lyn Silva,” he said as she drew near, “this is Sam Martens, my right hand. You don’t call her Samantha, and she won’t call you Evelyn.”

  The two women exchanged greetings, laughing at the introduction and eyeing each other carefully.

  “I have to go,” Joe told Lyn. “Duty calls. Congratulations again on making the deadline.”

  Lyn leaned over the bar and kissed him on the cheek, which he felt was as much for Sam as for him. There were a couple of moans and whistles from nearby customers.

  “Thanks for coming, Joe. If you’re still up at two, come back.”

  “I will,” he said, sliding off his stool and heading toward the door with Sam.

  “Dishy,” she said, grabbing the knob and letting in a blast of cold air.

  “Dishy?” he asked, incredulous.

  Chapter 19

  Lester Spinney was already at the office, writing his report about the Pennsylvania trip on his computer. It was late, after nine.

  He looked over his shoulder as Joe and Sam entered, and raised his eyebrows at Sam. “So, what does she look like?”

  “Enough,” Joe told him. “Her name is Lyn Silva. She just opened up the new bar on Elliot, and we’re just friends.” He circled his desk and dropped his coat across the back of his chair, sitting down heavily before adding, “Christ. I can’t believe I just said that.”

  “It’s okay, boss,” Lester said. “Rumor has it that’s a nice way to start a relationship. Good going.”

  “Thanks,” Joe said, hoping to end the conversation. “What did you both find out?”

  Fitting her character, Sam began first, pacing the small office as she spoke off the cuff. “Red Fred, Ready Freddy, or R. Frederick, as he registered at the motel, turns out to have been Frederick Nashman, of greater Waterbury, Connecticut. Middle-class, married with a kid, worked at an insurance office. He had no record to speak of, was unremarkable at work, according to his boss, and, from what I could get out of the wife, was about the same at home. He bowled, played cards with the boys every Saturday night at the Elks, took the family out to the movies about twice a month, and—again per the wife—spent a lot of time online, alone, in his office. He told her he had an eBay business going on the side to benefit the Legion, which wasn’t true when I checked it out. What I found after we got past the locks on his desk and filing cabinet . . .”

  She stopped and looked pointedly at Gunther, adding, “Legally—don’t worry. The locals were great. I got names and numbers for your Christmas card list. Anyhow, what I found was a huge collection of child porn—pictures, articles, X-rated stories, DVDs, videotapes. Some of it printed or downloaded off the Web, some of it ordered through various sites. It was all neat and tidy and organized like a stamp collector’s dream world, with categories and subcategories in carefully labeled files and boxes. It was textbook obsessive-compulsive.”

  “The wife was clueless?” Joe reiterated.

  “Totally. I even tried the girl-talk approach, to see what he might’ve been like in bed. Nothing. Unless she was either bullshitting me or as dumb as an ox—which I didn’t get—he performed perfectly normally, if maybe not like a sexual athlete.”

  “The kid a boy or girl?”

  “Boy. I only met him in passing, since I didn’t have that much time, but he seemed as normal as his mom.”

  “So did his dad, from the outside,” Joe mused.

  “True,” Sam agreed. “It’s early yet. We’ll get a better crack at both of them soon enough.”

  “How come they didn’t report him missing?” Lester asked.

  “They didn’t think he was,” Sam told them. “He said he’d be in Vegas at a week-long convention, and that maybe he’d extend his stay to enjoy the sights afterward.”

  “It’s been a hell of a lot longer than a week,” Joe commented.

  “I said the same thing,” Sam agreed, adding, “I guess it was that kind of marriage. In her defense, I don’t think the wife missed him any. When I told her he was dead, she took it pretty well—more like he was a relative they hadn’t seen in a while. Sad, but not destroyed.”

  “Married how long?”

  “Sixteen years.”

  Gunther cupped his chin in his hand thoughtfully. “He ever do this before? Go off to quote-unquote Vegas?”

  “Nope—overnights only.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Business trips. I checked with his boss. Nashman didn’t have the kind of job that called for any trips.”

  Joe straightened. “Huh.”

  “What?” Lester asked him.

  “Just a thought,” Joe told them both. “Earlier we played with the idea that both he and Rockwell came here following a recipe—come by bus, get two keys at the desk, stick one on the door, etcetera. How ’bout a part of that being that they were supposed to tell everyone they’d be gone for a week or more?”

  Spinney was already nodding enthusiastically. “That’s what happened with my guy. Told his roommates the exact same thing.”

  “Makes sense,” Sammie agreed. “It would guarantee the trail being pretty cold before anyone like us started backtracking.”

  “Except,” Joe then countered, playing devil’s advocate, “why would they agree to that? It would sure make me suspicious.”

  “You aren’t horny out of your mind,” Sam answered. “We don’t know what they were promised.”

  “Okay,” Joe said to Lester. “How ’bout you?”

  Spinney read from notes, sitting at his desk, while Sam settled down on the edge of hers to listen.

  “Rockwell, or Wet Bald Rocky, was actually Norman Metz. Totally different outward appearance. Or maybe just further down the slippery slope than Red Fred. He was divorced, unemployed, living in a dump, and nobody’s best pal among the other tenants I interviewed. They all thought he was weird and antisocial, what little they saw of him. He kept all hours, didn’t go out much, and, like Fred, seemed to spend all his spare time on the Net.”

  “How did they know that?” Joe asked.

  “When it was hot, he’d leave his door open a bit, to allow for circulation. The only thing people saw or heard was him tapping on the computer. Bit of an assumption, I suppose, but borne out by what I found once we got access.”

  “Which was what?” Sam asked.

  “Like you did,” he said, “but a lot messier. Metz had porno all over the place, including on the walls of the bathroom—that was gross; I didn’t want to know what he did in there.”

  “You interview the ex?” Joe asked.

  “Yup. She didn’t live far away. She knew all about it, or him. That’s why they broke up. He had a good job—prospects, as she called them—but got hooked on the Internet and
went off the deep end. That’s her take, by the way. I’m not playing shrink here. Anyhow, lost her, lost his job. All this wasn’t long ago, which explains why his clothes were good but worn when we found him, and probably why he checked into the cheaper motel.”

  Once more Joe thought back to Hillstrom’s comment about Rocky’s—now Metz’s—middle-class toenails. She’d been right—again.

  Joe leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers against his chin, thinking over what they’d reported. “You check into Metz’s background?”

  Lester nodded, scanning his notes. “Not lily white like Nashman. He was busted in a prostitution raid, had a couple of minor drug possession charges. There was at least one propositioning-a-minor case that was dropped. There’s probably more, since he didn’t come from Ardmore originally—moved there only about ten years ago from further west. I’ve got a request in for a total records check.”

  Joe was shaking his head slightly. “If Metz was going down the tubes and his place was such a mess, with porno all over the walls, why did he use the Internet café? He had an online computer at home. What’re we missing here?”

  After a moment’s contemplative silence on all parts, Sam suggested, “Maybe he was asked to.”

  Joe stared at the far wall as he spoke slowly. “I like that. All right, let’s recap a bit. So far, in a nutshell, we have two possibly minor league perverts with an interest in Internet porn involving underage kids.” He paused before asking, “Boys or girls mostly?”

  “Girls,” they both said.

  “Okay—another overlap,” Joe commented, holding up a fist and raising one finger at a time. “Child predators interested in girls; under instructions on how and why to come here; living relatively nearby to us.” He let a second lapse before adding, “And dead under suspicious circumstances.”