Borderlines (31 page)

We’ve done a lot in a few days. Why risk screwing it all up with a potential circus?” I noticed heads were turning from me to Potter, as if they were watching a tennis game. I looked at Smith to check for any vicarious enjoyment, but as usual, his face betrayed nothing.

Hamilton put an end to it. “The subject’s been broached; if there’s time at the end of this, maybe we can go back to it. I’m sure Mr.

Potter has some feelings on it he hasn’t expressed, and I’m not sure, if I were him, that this would be the place I’d choose to air them.

There’s still a lot we can do on what we’ve got at the moment, and as Lieutenant Gunther pointed out, even with an inquest, we’d still have a week before anything happened. Thomas, what did you get on those phone records-I don’t seem to have anything here.” Sergeant Thomas straightened in his seat. “I just got them, sorry. I was down in Hanover checking on Paul Gorman’s alibi.” He, too, pulled out a sheet of paper and looked it over.

“According to Bruce Wingate, he last called Gorman on Monday night, after his altercation with Fox. That must have been at 17:57-the call was placed from the phone at the Rocky River Inn to the FTC headquarters in Hanover.” “Not to Gorman’s mobile phone?” Hamilton asked. “No.

Later another call pops up from a pay phone in East Burke.” “Where?”

Spinney asked.

“The Mobile station. The call went to a Hanover number belonging to one of FTC’s employees, a Heather SpineIIi. I spoke with Mrs. SpineIIi and she denies getting a call and claims Gorman spent the entire night at her house in the guest room.” “What time was that?” I asked.

“Four-forty, early Tuesday morning.” “The fire was called in at five, more or less, and the arson team figured it might have been smoldering for up to half an hour before then.” “There was one other call from that phone, at 17:18 the same day.” %201 “What had the Wingates been up to just prior to that?” I asked on a hunch.

Smith answered. “We’d given them the lie detector test.” Thomas interrupted. “And the call was placed to the White Horse Motel.” “All right,” Apple muttered with satisfaction. I liked that bit of news myself. If it was accurate, it might mean Gorman was in the area before Wingate died, and didn’t just show up afterwards, as he’d Iaimed.

That would link Gorman tightly to the Wingates, making him ither an accessory to whatever illegalities Bruce Wingate had commited, or at least the repository of some information we badly wanted. ost ominously, it opened the possibility that one of the mysterious ootprints surrounding Wingate’s body had belonged to Paul Gorman.

“It may not mean a thing.” Hamilton cautioned. “We don’t know ingate made the call, and we don’t know who was at the other end.” “It sure puts Gorman on our hit parade,” Spinney smiled. “Yes, but let’s be careful here. Don’t screw this up. We can’t get court order here-it’s all too vague. Lester, why don’t you go down 0 the White Horse tomorrow and nose around a little? See if you can’t et us enough for a warrant.

Crofter, arrange with your team to watch arris’s house and put a tail on him. If we can get anything on him, might be the first crack in the dam.” “What about the call from the Rocky River, the one Ellie Wingate sked Greta to make to Gorman right after she heard of her husband’s eath?

That was supposed to have been made to his mobile phone.” Thomas made a face. “I couldn’t get it. The phone company lost he records.” “What do you mean?” “It happens,” Spinney said. “It’s got something to do with retrievng the records from the computers. Apparently, it messes things up nd sometimes they just lose the stuff.” “All right. We may have enough anyhow. It’s been a long day for verybody. Tomorrow morning, all reports will be available here, inIuding autopsy and Crime Lab updates. Is there anything else? You ant to kick around the inquest idea some more?” Potter spoke up.

“Unless anybody has a new angle, I think I’ve got enough to go on. I’ll let you know tomorrow.” Apple chuckled. “So button your lip, boys.”

Hamilton frowned his maternal frown. “Major Imus? Any last ords?” Imus couldn’t resist. He stood up. “I’m very impressed by what ‘ve seen tonight. As you no doubt know, I don’t show up at meetings %202 like this very often, and I was worried that my doing so would make you feel we were doubting your abilities. That’s what I told the Commissioner.

The Governor, however, is very concerned about all this, and the Commissioner felt there was no choice but that I should come. I can now return to Waterbury and lay their fears at rest. It is obvious to me-“

it was also obvious to me what else the man had to say. I slipped around the edge of the door and wandered down the hall.

I found a small, dark office with a desk, a chair, a phone, and nothing else. Leaving the light off, I settled in the chair, put my feet up on the table and leaned back, mulling over what had just been discussed.

The inquest angle still rankled, although there was little I could do about that now. I also had to sympathize with the urgency to do something, even if it wasn’t particularly well thought out. The frustration of having to constantly fall back onto hypothetical possibilities instead of progressing with accumulated facts was beginning to tell.

Not with me, though. I didn’t see things that way. I remembered going to the seacoast as a child once, and playing in the soft dunes. I’d discovered that when I dug small tunnels into the dry sand, the sides didn’t hold. For each scoop of sand my hand removed, an equivalent amount slid in from around the edges. I placed a small, black stone almost five feet up the dune, and by just digging in one small spot at the base, I caused the stone to trickle slowly all the way down, until it finally fell into my hand.

Investigations are like that. We dig and scoop, piling up evidence, but we also draw things in from the outside, things that before had appeared either out of reach or even superfluous-like Paul Gorman.

Only now, I’d come to realize, Paul Gorman was far from superfluous, and he was quickly coming within reach.

When I got home that night, I found another car parked in Buster’s driveway, something small, blue, and covered with frost. It wasn’t until I got out that I realized it was Laura’s old Toyota. I stopped by the driver’s door to look. The car was empty.

%203 The house looked pretty lifeless, too. It was already almost midzght.

The porch light had been left on, and I could see the hall light as on upstairs, but that was it. I entered quietly. I could hear Buster snoring in his bedroom. I uld also smell the remnants of a meal, something more substantial an Buster’s usual Crockpot glue. I walked back to the kitchen and itched on the light. From the dishes in the drying rack by the sink, could tell two people had enjoyed a dinner together. I smiled at the ental picture of them, comforting each other’s special loneliness.

I returned to the front of the house and poked my head into the zm living room, lit only from the small flames in the open wood stove.

aura was asleep on the sofa, covered with a blanket. Her face looked ry serious, her eyes shut tighter than they should have been; it reinded me of a child wishing the evils of its world away.

I sat on the sofa next to her and watched her for a while, all ndled up, her cheek half-covered by her dark hair. I brushed it aside d she turned her head and looked at me. “Hi,” I said.

She reached out and laid her hand on my chest. The gesture swept e blanket back and revealed she was wearing a light blue shirt with veral of the top buttons undone. She saw me taking that fact in and iled.

“You and Buster have a nice dinner?” I was suddenly feeling ncomfortably warm, aware that I’d both dreaded and wondered about is situation possibly arising. Now that it had, I was as torn as ever er my role in it. “Yup.” She Ianguidly rubbed a warm hand against my shirt, her eyes still alf-closed in sleep. She looked very seductive, especially by the light the fire. I swallowed hard, hoping she wouldn’t notice. The cliche as it that at times like this, the air becomes electric. Suddenly, I didn’t d that hard to believe. “I wanted to see you. Buster said I could stay.” Her voice was as it as water held in the palm. “I fell asleep thinking of you.” She slid her hand down my arm to my hand, which was resting the cushion next to her. She lifted it and placed it on her breast, osing her own hand on top of it. Her eyes closed and she sighed ntentedly.

The heat of her under my hand was mesmerizing. I could feel her art, the slight movement of her skin under the shirt fabric, even the sh of blood through her veins. I made the most minute gesture-a rely perceptible flexing of my fingers. She took in a deep breath and %204 I felt her nipple grow against me. Her eyes were closed, her whole body as sensitive as sunburned skin.

Gently, carefully, but no longer reluctantly, I removed my hand. Her eyes opened in surprise, her mouth forming a question. She looked at me, studying my face. Her eyes moistened with tears and her mouth quivered. “Why not? What’s wrong?” “I’m a guy in a scrapbook; it’s got little to do with the real me.” Her expression darkened. “That’s right, you’ve already got a job, people who need you, even a girlfriend.” I bit off the knee-jerk objection and kept silent for a moment, struggling to put honesty over diplomacy. “I told you I was selfish.” She seemed to close in on herself for a while then, her eyes averted and half-closed. I stayed where I was, waiting to take her cue.

I hated this, for all sorts of reasons. The fact that it was the right thing to do only made it more bitter. She finally sighed and passed a hand across her face. When she looked at me again, the raw emotion was gone, if not the fragility. “If you were really selfish, you would have made love to me first.” I smiled at that. “Now you’re making me feel stupid and selfish.” She smiled back and again placed her hand on my chest. “You’re not either of those.” Her hand slid off and she pursed her lips. “What am I supposed to do?” The question was so soft, I wasn’t sure I was supposed to respond.

Not that I had the answer, in any case. I leaned over and kissed her briefly. “Thank you, Laura.” “For what?” “Thinking of me as you do.”

Her smile returned. “That’s not hard… Joe?” “What’s up?” “I’m not saying I’d ever do this, but would it be okay if maybe I called someday, maybe if things get tough? Or write a letter or something?” I squeezed her hand. “I’m not going anywhere, at least not for a while.” “I know, but I think I need a little time alone at first.” “Want me to stay out of the way?” She pursed her lips, her eyes brimming. “I do and I don’t, you know?

But it might be easier.” “I understand.” I stood up. “You going to be okay for now?” She nodded, just barely. “I’ll be fine. I just want to lie here for a bit.” I bent down and touched her cheek. “Good night, Laura.” %205 As I was getting ready for bed, I found the necklace I’d bought St.

Johnsbury a few nights ago in my jacket pocket-shiny green nes intended for her. I placed them in the dresser’s top drawer. ybe she’d find them while she was cleaning, or Buster would, and nder whose they were, or maybe they would remain there forever, e a gesture never completed.

Never before had a woman made me such a gift, or been so cious when it was turned down. I was too sentimental to think she’d I now. It half made me wish, now that I was safely too late, that I’d epted her offer.

I missed breakfast the next morning. Spinney called me as I was essing, his voice sharp with excitement, to tell me to meet him at the hite Horse Motel in St. J.-“toot sweet.” I was to stop by the barcks on the way and pick up a tape recorder and the footprint photos m the Bruce Wingate scene. He came out to my car as I pulled into the White Horse parking “Got the photos?” I handed him a large envelope and the small tape recorder. “What you have?” He flashed that huge, toothy grin and waggled his eyebrows. “Folw me and learn something about superb police procedure.” I got out and trailed after him up the exterior metal stairs to the cond-floor balcony that ran the entire length of the building.

“I already spoke to the manager,” Spinney said over his shoulder. orman checked in about five in the afternoon on Tuesday, a full irty-six hours before he claimed he did. So we got him in a bald-faced “He could say he got the days confused.” “Yeah, well, he can say what he wants. I still think we got his balls iled to the wall. What was he up to in town that he doesn’t want us know about?” He stopped at an open door, outside of which stood a roomeaning cart, filled with tiny bars of soap, sheets, towels, and cleaning pplies. I could hear a vacuum cleaner whirring inside.

%206 We entered the room and found a small, plump, middle-aged woman pushing the cleaner around in a haphazard fashion. She turned off the machine when she saw us. “Boy, that was fast.” Spinney grinned and patted her shoulder, in an overly friendly manner.

Next to her, he looked like an oversized scarecrow-all bones and straw-colored hair. He placed the tape recorder on a side table and turned it on and recited the day’s date and the time. “We are here with Joe Gunther, who works with the State’s Attorney’s office of Essex County, Vermont. I’m Detective Sergeant Lester Spinney of the Vermont State Police, and you are who, ma’am?” She gave an indulgent half smile.

“Angie Cowley.” “And you work as a cleaning lady?” “Yeah.” “Where?”

“Right where I’m standing-at the White Horse Motel.” “In St. Johnsbury, Vermont, is that correct?” “Right, in Vermont.” “Tell Lieutenant Gunther what you told me.” She looked at both of us as if we’d lost our minds.

“I found a pair of dirty shoes in Room 212, day before yesterday.” “Room 212,” Spinney informed the tape machine, “is registered to Paul Gorman.