Chat Page 4

  Gail had arrived at the hospital about an hour earlier, carrying two briefcases and clutching a cell phone as if it were a lifeline. She and Joe had hugged awkwardly before she moved directly to his mother’s bedside to gently stroke the old lady’s hair and murmur her greetings. Joe had left shortly thereafter.

  He sighed, shook his head, and went back outside into the falling snow. Visiting the farm had been useful emotionally, but his instincts told him it was time to get busy. It rarely paid to linger and ponder overmuch.

  Outside the door, under shelter of the roof’s overhang, he pulled out his phone, taking advantage of the farm’s exposure to the New Hampshire hills across the river, and their cell towers. He dialed a number in Burlington, in Vermont’s far northwest corner.

  “Office of the chief medical examiner. This is Suzanne.”

  “Hi, Suzanne. It’s Joe Gunther. I was wondering what you might have found out about that John Doe we shipped you—the damp, bald one.”

  Suzanne laughed. “For that, you want the chief. You really got to her this time.”

  In part, Joe was glad to hear that. He and Beverly Hillstrom went back a long way and had developed, he believed, a possibly unique relationship, cemented last year when, after he’d broken up with Gail and Beverly had been left by her husband, they spent a single night together. In theory, a terrifically bad idea. In fact, the best thing that could have happened to either of them. It had cemented the trust they shared, and had granted each a brief respite in which to reassess their lives. In Beverly’s case, she’d been able to reconcile with her husband; in Joe’s, the night with her had allowed him to better distance himself from Gail’s departure.

  They had never referred to that encounter since, but the nominal formality that had existed before had been replaced by something much warmer and more valued.

  “Joe,” she said when she came on the line. “You usually let me put them in the cooler before you chase me down with questions.”

  “I’m sorry, Beverly. I’ve got nothing with this guy. I hope it’s all right.”

  “Of course,” she said. “I just finished up. But keep your fingers crossed for good tox results, because I didn’t find a thing—aside from a run-of-the-mill drowning, of course.”

  “Nothing?”

  “Not a scratch or a bruise. And his organs are in the same condition. I wouldn’t call him a health nut. He clearly didn’t make a point of exercising, and his personal hygiene could have stood improvement. But all his parts and pieces were working fine.”

  Joe thought back to the man’s clothing, which had seemed unremarkable to him. “You think he was a bum?”

  Hillstrom’s response was immediate. “More like he was heading down the social ladder. He struck me as a man who lives alone and doesn’t get out much, or lives with someone who doesn’t care that he only bathes occasionally. For what it’s worth, and based on a theory I would never share with anyone else, I think he was pure middle class. And from the style of his clothes and their present condition, I’d guess his fall from grace dates back less than a year.”

  “What theory?” Joe asked, intrigued, remembering only now a frayed pant cuff and the worn heels of the man’s shoes.

  “Toenails,” she said flatly, adding, “which I will deny if you quote me.”

  “You guess their social class from their nails?” he asked, taken by surprise.

  “Something like eight times out of ten, I’m right,” she told him. “It’s hardly rocket science, but the worse the toenails are, the worse is the decedent’s economic situation. This clearly only becomes useful when a person’s other outward indicators are conflicting, as with a bum dressed in a fine suit. Which,” she added, “is a little of what you’ve got here—a man on the skids, but whose toenails reflect a regular, if nonprofessional, attention to personal appearance. Do with it what you will.”

  He laughed, shaking his head at the phone. “You don’t have much to worry about there. I won’t touch that with tongs. I appreciate it, though. And I will wait for the tox.”

  “Speaking of which,” she said, “we did do the standard alcohol test on him—the prelim. He’d had maybe a couple of beers, that’s all.”

  “Anything distinctive in his stomach?”

  “No, I’m sorry. He ate too long prior to death.”

  Joe stared sightlessly at the mesmerizing blur of snowflakes falling before him, lost momentarily in thought. Beverly knew him well enough to let half a minute go by.

  “Okay,” he finally said. “I can’t thank you enough.”

  “You already did,” she said, and hung up.

  He punched in Sammie Martens’s number.

  “Anything new?” he asked after she answered.

  She knew he was in business mode, and kept to it for the moment. “Zilch. I expanded and double-checked the VSP canvass of the area, went over where we found the body with everything from a metal detector to a thermal imager, and ran the guy’s prints through AFIS, which admittedly only rules out major crimes—and only those that’ve made it into the database. Still, he’s not there. I’m now working on the theory that he was dropped from a plane, wearing a parachute, and that we should be out hunting for a used-parachute thief. How’re you faring?”

  “Nothing. I just called the ME. Waste of a dime. Isn’t a mark on him, inside or out. If your jumping-from-an-airplane idea is right, he didn’t even die of a heart attack. She called it a run-of-the-mill drowning.”

  “But the tox is still pending,” she stated.

  “Right,” he agreed. “It’s the only straw we have left.” After a pause he added, “Well, maybe not entirely. Circulate his picture to all the motels in a ten-mile radius. He might not have been a local.”

  “Got it,” she said, and then asked, “How’s the family?”

  “Leo’s a wreck but awake. Mom looks fine but won’t wake up.”

  Sam was clearly nonplussed. “Wow. That sounds bad.”

  Joe pursed his lips. “Could be,” he admitted.

  “What’re you going to do?”

  He hesitated. “About what?”

  “You going to stay up there to be with them?”

  That, of course, was at the heart of what was gnawing at him. “What’s it sound like if I say I’d rather be down there with you guys?”

  “Like you think they’re in good hands and that you’re already getting stir crazy.”

  “I’m not really,” he conceded.

  “What, then?”

  He was less sure of himself here. “I’m sort of poking into this.”

  She instantly took his meaning. “The accident? You think something’s funny?”

  “I just want to rule it out. Leo said he thought it was the car, so I’m having the sheriff look into it.”

  Sam kept with him. “Like the brakes?”

  “He didn’t say. Just that it wasn’t the road conditions. He was a little out of it.”

  “So it could’ve been a blown tire?” she asked doubtfully.

  Joe shrugged, standing all by himself. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen the car yet.”

  He was greeted with dead silence. They both knew how many cars went off the roads in New England in the winter—and how many of those accidents were the result of sabotage. Even Joe had never heard of a single instance.

  “Leo knows cars,” he added lamely.

  “He service this one himself?” she asked, following a more rational line of thought.

  “No. Mom wouldn’t let him.”

  He could almost hear Sam switching gears with her next comment. “If I were you, boss, I’d stay up there a little longer. Get this car thing out of your mind one way or the other. You come down here to play with us now, you’ll only drive us nuts thinking about it.”

  He nodded, knowing she was right. “All right. Thanks for the advice.”

  She laughed. “That’s a first. I don’t think I’ve ever done that for you before.”

  He joined her. “Don’t sell yourself
short, Sam. You have no idea what an influence you are. Keep Willy from burning the place down till I get back.”

  “Roger that.”

  Joe closed the phone, reviewing his situation. Sam was right, of course, and perhaps wiser than she knew. He was between a rock and a hard place emotionally. The John Doe needed his full attention, but to ride shotgun with Deputy Barrows on a doubtlessly futile case would keep him busy, near the hospital, and out of his team’s way.

  He stepped out into the snow, which, as expected, had tapered off to just a few desultory, drifting flakes, and scuffed down the path between the house and the barn, enjoying kicking through the fresh crystalline cover and sending it flying into tiny swirls of white.

  At the barn door, he fumbled with the clumsy hasp and put his shoulder to the door, swinging it open on groaning hinges, just wide enough that he could slip inside.

  It was a typically cavernous barn, open in the middle, soaring up to half-seen rafters high overhead, and surrounded by long abandoned animal stalls, now filled with junk. Joe groped for the old-fashioned light switch and turned on a bank of haphazardly placed fluorescent tubes that dangled from the cross beams. Leo was an impatient and practically minded electrician.

  Joe smiled at the scene: a virtual car park of dusty vintage vehicles, some of them dented and scratched, none of them covered. Leo loved them and collected them for the memories they evoked and for the hours he could spend tinkering with them. He wasn’t the least bit interested in museum-level preservation. He drove these things when he could get them to run, and he didn’t mind if they got dinged now and then. It was a casual man’s casual love affair.

  Joe shook his head and switched off the light again.

  Christ, he hoped they got home in one piece.

  Goth Gurl: hi

  Jiminy: how are u

  Goth Gurl: great u

  Jiminy: same - how u like the snow

  Goth Gurl: it sucks

  Jiminy: why

  Goth Gurl: cause i dont want to shovel

  Jiminy: well don’t

  Goth Gurl: u tell my mom that

  Jiminy: ok i will

  Goth Gurl: u will what tell my mom

  Jiminy: i will tell her that u won’t shovel

  Goth Gurl: k - u like to shop

  Jiminy: yeah why

  Goth Gurl: that is like my favorite thing

  Jiminy: ok

  Goth Gurl: u like shopping for clothes

  Jiminy: yes

  Goth Gurl: kool - o what u doing now

  Jiminy: nothing

  Chapter 5

  Deputy Sheriff Rob Barrows was a compact man, as if whoever created him had run out of room at the last minute and sat on him before snapping him shut for delivery. He was in no way fat but seemed, from head to foot, as bunched up as a clenched fist. This was in total contrast to his manner, which Joe found almost gentle. Joe’s wild guess was that Barrows would be a good man in a bar fight, and perhaps not just for his musculature.

  They met the following morning back at E. T. Griffis’s car yard, where, as they emerged from their separate vehicles, they were greeted by the hirsute Mitch, who didn’t look as though he’d changed a molecule of his appearance since Joe first laid eyes on him.

  “Back, huh?” he said as Joe came within earshot.

  It was an inarguable comment, which Joe didn’t bother contending.

  Barrows, however, didn’t hesitate, shaking hands, introducing himself, and even pulling a Dunkin’ Donuts bag out of his marked cruiser and offering them coffee and doughnuts all around, apologizing for not knowing their particular tastes.

  It proved to be no obstacle. Mitch and Joe filled their hands and voiced their appreciation. Rob’s gesture was all the more thoughtful because of the kind of day it had become—crystal clear and bitterly cold, where even breathing in sharply hurt your nostrils.

  As their host put it, leading them toward the warmth of the garage, “Colder than a well digger’s pecker.”

  Given Mitch’s appearance, the garage was predictably strewn about with cast-off debris. In fact, Joe had rarely seen worse. The whole interior looked as if a metallic glacier had burst through the far wall, with the only efforts at reclamation being a narrow path and a couple of small semiclear oases directly before the two closed overhead doors. Mitch led the way into its midst with the practiced ease of an archaeologist navigating a dig he’d known for decades, which, in fact, he may have.

  Barrows explained as they went, “This is one of the few secure places we have for vehicles around here. The sheriff’s got a contract with Griffis.”

  Mitch reached a door on the far wall, indistinguishable from its neighbors aside from the large padlock barring its use.

  “It’s all yours,” he said, stepping aside. “Let me know when you’re done.” He pointed at Joe. “And like I told him, the sooner we can get this bay back, the happier the boss’ll be.”

  “I’ll let him know, Mitch,” Rob tried soothing him. “Shouldn’t be much longer.”

  Mitch shambled back into the garage’s gloom while Rob pulled a set of keys from his pocket and selected one for the padlock. “We have the only copy,” he said. “Maintains the chain of custody.”

  Joe nodded, having figured that out for himself. In addition to the lock, someone had signed, dated, and attached crime scene tape across the doorjamb, which Rob broke through as he twisted the knob and pushed back the door.

  “Like maybe I told you on the phone yesterday, we don’t usually do this—secure a car after a ten-fifty—not unless there’s been foul play.” He stepped inside and hit the lights. “And for all the crime tape and lock, this chain of custody wouldn’t hold up in court. I didn’t do this till after you called me. Before then, it was just in the yard where the wrecker dumped it. Sorry.”

  Joe brushed that aside. “Doesn’t matter. You said you’d give it a closer inspection. Were you able to do that?”

  He was no longer looking at Barrows, being distracted by the familiar car, bent and sagging as if exhausted, standing in what was clearly the garage’s paint room—as pristine and bare as an operating theater, and almost as well lighted by a double bank of color-balanced fluorescent tubes. Having just emerged from the clutter behind them, Joe found the contrast startling—and the sight of the car dismaying.

  Barrows picked up on his mood, saying softly, “I meant to ask, Agent Gunther: How’re they doing? Your family, I mean.”

  Slowly, Joe turned away from the car, where, in the glaring light, he’d just seen some of his mother’s blood on the passenger seat. “They’re hanging in there, Rob. Thanks. And call me Joe.”

  Barrows nodded. “Right.” He gestured toward the car. “I checked it out about an hour after we talked.”

  He crossed over to a control panel mounted to the wall, and pushed an oversize button. There was a loud whirring sound and a slight trembling underfoot before the car began hovering into the air on a lift. Once the tires were at about eye level, Barrows took his hand off the button, returning the room to its otherworldly quiet.

  He then removed his flashlight from his duty belt and crooked a finger at Joe. “I think I found out what happened,” he said, leading the way underneath the battered car and switching on the light.

  Once Joe joined him, he pointed to a spot inside the crumpled right front wheel, which was frozen at a grotesquely unnatural angle. “See that?” he asked.

  Joe squinted at where the light’s halo was holding steady. He was struck by how much debris was clinging to the undercarriage—souvenirs of its trip down the embankment.

  “That’s your tie rod,” Barrows was explaining. “Or what’s left of it. It’s missing the nut that holds it in place. As soon as that sucker drops off and the arm goes free, you lose your steering.”

  Joe paid closer attention, now clearly seeing and understanding the mechanics involved. “Christ,” he muttered. “Seems an iffy way to hold something that important together. Don’t the nuts work free all the ti
me?”

  “They’re usually locked in place with a cotter pin,” Barrows told him significantly.

  Joe cast him a glance and raised his eyebrows.

  His guide kept talking. “Of course, cotter pins can break, or rust off, or be forgotten during reassembly. If that happens, it’s just a matter of time before the car’s vibrations or hitting a good bump make the nut do what this one did.”

  Joe nodded thoughtfully before suggesting the obvious. “But that’s only true if the car’s old enough to have that rusty a cotter pin, or if the tie rod end’s been worked on by somebody.”

  Both men fell silent before Barrows supplied the requisite rejoinder: “And in theory, this car’s too new for either one.”

  Joe returned to studying the broken part. “Well, you never know. We should check out the car’s repair history. Leo always had the same folks work on it—Steve’s Garage in Thetford Center.”

  “Huh,” Barrows grunted.

  “What?”

  “Coincidence is all,” the young deputy explained. “Steve’s and this place are owned by the same person.”

  Joe straightened, glancing his head against the car frame and instinctively ducking back down, although he hadn’t incurred any damage. “E. T. owns Steve’s? I didn’t know that.”

  “That and a dozen other outfits. You just don’t see his name on the door too often. Old E. T. likes his privacy. You know him?”

  “Yeah—I grew up around here. Arrested his son once.”

  Now it was Barrows’s turn to be surprised. “Andy?”

  “Yeah. Down in Brattleboro.”

  “You know he’s dead. Killed himself.”

  Joe stared at him. “My God. He was just a kid.”

  But Rob was studying the damaged wheel again. “E. T. was really broken up about it, and Dan went ballistic. You know Andy’s brother?”