HIGHWAY HOMICIDE (15 page)

“It would be natural for you to think that, Dave, except for one thing,” Carl said.

“What one thing?”

“The state police had already been into your house and had collected all the evidence that was there, including the murder weapon.
They already had everything they needed.”

“Murder weapon? What murder weapon?” David echoed, “What did he kill her with?”

“It was a heavy bronze statuette of the Venus de Milo,” Carl said.

Almost had put David’s chair upright again and he sagged back down into it.

“Oh, no!” he said in a choked voice, “Not that!”

“Does it have any special significance for you then, David?” Judy asked him gently.

David nodded, biting at his lip to control his emotion.

“It was the first thing
Maria ever bought me,” he said finally, his eyes brimming with tears.

“Why the Venus de Milo?” Carl asked curiously.

“It was a joke really, in a way. When she gave it to me, she said if there was going to be another woman anywhere in my house, it had better be one that couldn’t get her hands on me. It seemed like she was joking but in reality it was a veiled threat because Maria had a very jealous nature.”

The four of them lapsed into silence for a moment. Carl leaned forward and switched off the recorder after making a short comment to end the interview. Without asking, Judy got up and refilled all their coffee cups.

As she sat down again, she said, “Where will you go now, David? I mean, now your house is gone.”

David shrugged his shoulders.

“I don’t really know, Judy. It was insured but everything I owned was in that place. Except for my car, I suppose. You said it had been found, right?”

“Right,” Carl confirmed.

Judy looked over at Carl and he nodded, guessing what was coming.

“When Maria’s sister came up here, David, she stayed over with me. You are we
lcome to do the same if you’d like to. I have plenty of room at my place.”

David looked at her in astonishment.

“But you don’t know me, Judy. You don’t know anything about me,” he said.

“Didn’t know
anything about Erica either and that worked out just fine. At my age, I know when someone could use a helping hand. And after all these years, I think I’m a pretty good judge of character as well. So what do you say? Have I got myself a lodger or not?”

“Well, Judy, what can I say? I say thank you, of course, but all I have is what I am standing up in.”

Jude looked aghast.

“Oh, David, I’m sorry. Please don’t get me wrong. I don’t want you to pay me, for goodness sake.”

“No, Judy, that’s not what I meant either, although I’ll be quite happy to pay to lodge with you. What I meant was all of my clothes and other belongings were in my house.”

“That’s not a problem either, Dave, I guess we can rustle up something to fit you.”
Carl said.

David looked a bit embarrassed.

“That’s very kind of you, Carl, but I was hoping if there are any men’s wear stores around here, I’d like to buy myself some new gear. I have the money.”

“I don’t know how to say this exactly, young man, but without a bath and at least one change of borrowed clothes you shouldn’t be going anywhere.” Judy said.

“What our diplomatic coffee lady is trying to tell you, Dave, is that you smell like a goddamned barnyard,” Carl said.

“If you are going to turn up in our town,
David, you have to remember the first impressions are the lasting ones, especially here.” Judy added.

Almost butted in with, “Listen, Chief, it looks like he’s more my size than yours, so how about if I take him back to my place and get him fixed up with something
. He can take a bath, have a shave and Jennie can throw all his own stuff in the washer. I can take him shopping while it dries.”

“Bring him back to my place later, then, Almost. You want to drop by and join us for dinner, Carl, pot luck?”

David was absolutely speechless. Being a native Vermonter himself, he was well aware of Vermont’s reputation for hospitality. But this was the first time he’d been on the receiving end of it. He knew he’d lost an enormous amount lately, Maria, his home, all his belongings and almost his freedom. But he’d also gained far more than he’d ever dreamed to be possible.

“Just a sec, before you guys go,” Carl said. “Do you have any friends, Dave?”

David smiled.

“I do now, thanks to you.”

Carl reached into the folder on his desk, pulled out a small red book and handed it to him.

“Are any of
the names in there your friends?” He asked.

David flipped through the pages.

“This is quite an old book, Carl. It goes back to our University days. Where did you get it?”

“Erica Ca
spar gave it to me. I think it had been Maria’s. It had your phone number in it. Do you recognize any of the names?”

“Sure. Pretty well all of them. In those days we had ourselves a pretty exclusive fraternity. A group of ten of us. Maria and I were a part of it. Why?”

“Would any of them have borne a grudge against either of you?”

David gave a short laugh.

“Sure, all of the guys at least, I would think. I was dating the most beautiful girl in our year. Probably in the whole of UVM.”

“Maria?” Carl asked.

“Of course Maria, who else?” David answered, “And, yes, Carl, there was a whole lot of jealousy as well as resentment.”

Doc’s words about jealousy being a prime motive rang in Carl’s ears. Was resentment another prime motive?

“Any one guy in particular, Dave?” Carl asked.

“Not really.” David answered. “Maria could actually be a pretty heartless bitch when she felt like it. Not to me, thank God, but she put a couple of the other guys down pretty badly. Ridiculed them in front of the rest of us. A couple of them weren’t even in our group. She wouldn’t let them in. As I said, it was a pretty exclusive group and Maria was our gorgeous queen bee.”

“Do me a big favor then, Dave,” Carl said handing him a pen and some paper. “Just jot down the names of those guys you say she treated badly. And also the names of those who were especially jealous of you.”

David laughed again.

“I’ll need a whole lot more paper than this in order to do that, Carl.
All
the guys were jealous of me and with damned good reason. As I said, Maria was absolutely gorgeous.”

“Jealous or angry enough to kill her then, Dave?”

“Oh, God, do you think one of those guys killed her?” David blurted out.

“Not necessarily, no. But it’
s as good a place as any for us to start again, now we’ve taken you out of the equation,” Carl said.

“Wel
l, you know I’ll help you in any way I can,” David told him.

“We’re counting on it, Dave,” Carl said, with a grin, “Otherwise you might as well be in jail, right?”

“Right,” David said weakly, hoping he was still ‘just kidding’.

Chapter Twenty Two

David Gates had come up with a list of eight guys in total, the other four in his group, plus four others. Carl was going through the list methodically, trying to eliminate each name as a suspect.

Bobo LaRosa was the first one to be bumped off the list. Carl was able to confirm that he was definitely in
California. In Hollywood to be precise. He was there, along with thousands of other hopefuls, trying to pit his looks and physique against all the others seeking fame and fortune in Tinseltown. It wouldn’t be long before he dropped his nickname of Bobo.

He figured
if Arnold Schwarzenegger could do it, and with a name like his, then so could he. No one would be laughing at him or rejecting him when he became Governor Roberto LaRosa, California’s popular choice for the White House.

Ronald Reagan had done it, hadn’t he, so it wasn’t an impossible goal
at all, was it? And he knew he had them both beaten hands down in the looks department.

Carl’s sources also confirmed that Bobo hadn’t been back to
Vermont since he’d left U.V.M. But in spite of his high movie and political ambitions, he was still currently working as a bouncer in a bar in Los Angeles.

Biff Baker had been ano
ther name Carl had found very easy to cross off of David’s list. Whilst at the University of Vermont, he’d been scouted by several A.F.L. franchises and had built himself a very successful career in professional football. After a devastating shoulder injury, though, his playing career had ended abruptly. Carl discovered he was currently on the coaching staff of the Green Bay Packers.

With those two out of the picture, Carl was left with six possibil
ities, provided, of course, one of them was the man he was searching for.

Under normal circumstances, with today’s technology, it would have been a simple matter to arrange DNA tests for every name on the list. But there were problems with using that approach at this stage of the investigation.

The first being, if the sample was obtained illegally by the police, the case would be thrown out of court before the first witness was even sworn in. The second and more important reason, as far as Carl was concerned, was they didn’t have an actual DNA sample on any of their pieces of evidence to compare anything to.

All they had was somebody’s thumb print, and a partial one at that. They had one from the watch and one from the statuette. They were both partials and both matched the same thumb. But the print files had come up dry. Whoever this guy was, his prints certainly weren’t on file.

Carl suddenly sat stock still as a thought hit him like a thunderbolt.

These thumb prints were the same! But the problem was
, if he was right in what he was thinking, they shouldn’t be!

Because, as Jude, bless her, had pointed out, a person setting a watch would pick it up by its shou
lder using one hand. And he’d use his other one to set it. But, and this was a big ‘but’, in all normal watches, such as the one that had been found, the winding bezel was on the
right
side of the watch. And Jude believed their print was of a left thumb.

Regardless of whether a person was left or right handed normally, they would still probably hold a watch, in order to wind it, with their left hand. But they would
set it
with their right. Carl knew he did. It would be too damned awkward to do it any other way. This then would account for a left thumb print on the crystal of the watch. Perfectly normal.

But, and here was another big ‘but’, Carl thought, in order to strike someone a fatal blow, a killer would
automatically use the hand he favored. The statuette that had been Maria Caspar’s murder weapon had yielded a partial thumb print. A
partial thumb print of the
same
left thumb!

Although the partial print itself may not reveal which
hand it was from, the fact the two prints were of the same thumb proved it was from the left hand. The head of the statue would have to be in the palm of the killer’s hand, putting a thumb print on the statuette’s shoulder.

A
left
thumb print! He also recalled Doc Wayland saying it was his guess the blow that had killed Forrest Appleyard was probably struck left handed.

Carl felt a surge of excitement surge through him. Thanks to Doc, and particularly to Jude, h
e’d just proved the goddamned killer was
left handed
! All he had to do now was to just observe which one of the guys on David’s list favored his left hand.

He had no idea what the percentages were of left versus rig
ht, but he felt pretty sure the lefties were well in the minority. Just to be absolutely certain, he checked both Baker and La Rosa again. Both were definitely right handed.

Even if nothing positive or usable came from the other
six on the list, Carl felt he’d made an enormous leap forward in the case.

So much so,
he didn’t feel like sharing his deductions with the State guys. It would be really something if the small time hick Sheriff could hand them their killer on a platter. All nicely gift wrapped and decorated with handcuffs. He would share his findings with Jude and Doc, of course, but he was a little concerned about letting Almost in on it.

Almost was a nice enough guy and a very good deputy but to tell Almost a secret was roughly akin to getting the local newspaper to put it out as their
next main headline.

Carl smiled broadly with satisfaction as he scanned David
’s list again to see who he’d check out next. 

Chapter Twenty Three

Paddy O’Shaunessey’s Irish Pub was a very popular drinking and socializing spot for those living in and around Cooper’s Corners. In fact, on St. Patrick’s Day, a late arriving serious drinker wouldn’t even be able to get within a mile of the place.

It wasn’t due to the fact that Cooper’s Corners had a particularly large Irish population either, since the majority of them had tended to settle in southern Vermont. O’Shaunessy’s was just one hell of a good place to celebrate St. Pat’s Day.

Paddy would say
half of his customers celebrating the Irish Saint, had probably never even seen a
picture
of the Emerald Isle, let alone to be able to lay claim to being born there.

Then he’
d give his infectious grin and say the money people spent in his pub, whether they were Irish or not, was as green as anyone else’s.

This particular day was a long way from the popular Irish celebration and the pub was quiet. Carl opened the door and strode inside. He immediately spotted who he was looking for, sitting alone at one of the booths. Carl had parked his patrol car further down the street, to avoid any speculation as to who might be in trouble inside the pub.

Carl slid into the seat opposite the solitary drinker, putting his hat down on the seat beside him.

“Do you want to talk to me, Errol?” he said.

Errol Cook looked up from his glass, with bleary eyes.

“I’m in here to drink, Carl, not to talk, so go bother someone else, okay?”

“I’m not in here to bother you, Errol. I’m here to try to help you if I can. Doc told me you were out of hospital.”

Errol just stared down into his drink.

“Errol?” Carl said again, “Talk to me. We’ve known each other for a good many years now and there are a lot of folks around here who care about you. Just give us a chance to help you.”

Errol gave him another bleary eyed look.

“I’m
dying
, Carl,” he said bitterly, “Can you do anything to help me along with that? And after what I’ve done, Christ, I deserve to die, believe me!”

“What the hell did you do, for God’s sake
, to make you feel like that?” Carl asked. “Is that the reason you’ve been drinking yourself paralytic all these years?”

“You know it is,” Errol said and drained his drink. “And if you really want to help me, pal, you can start by lining up a few of these little beauties for me.”

Carl turned, motioned to Paddy and inclined his head towards Errol.

“Bottle, Paddy, over here, of whatever this was,” he said, indicating Errol’s empty glass.

“Sure, Carl,” Paddy said, “On your own tab, it’ll be then, will it?”

Carl nodded. From the looks of it, he was going to be driving
Errol home anyway. He may just as well speed the process up a bit. Maybe a few more drinks would loosen Errol’s tongue up some as well. Carl poured Errol a stiff drink from the bottle.

“Not joining me then, Carl?”

“Can’t Errol, can I? On duty. I can’t arrest myself for drinking and driving now, can I?”

“I just
knew
it as soon as you walked in.” Errol exclaimed. “You’re in here to arrest me, aren’t you? You’ve found it then. That’s why you’re here. How’d you know it was me?”

“Found it, Errol? Found what?” Carl asked him.

Errol gave a wry smile and took another drink from his glass.

“You didn’t
know
? You’re kidding me. I’ve really let the cat out of the bag then, haven’t I?”

“Found what?” Carl repeated.

“Jack Finlay’s body,” Errol said. “Yes, Carl, it was me. I shot the poor bastard in cold blood. He hadn’t done a damned thing to deserve it either. I thought my Dolly was running off with him, so I shot him. I think I might have even shot Dolly too if she’d been there with him, but she wasn’t.”
              “Do you know where she is, Errol?” Carl asked. “Dolly, I mean?”

Errol nodded but didn’t answer.

“Where, Errol? Did she go to California?”

“No, poor woman, she didn’t go anywhere.” Errol said. “She barely made it out of the house.”

“Did you shoot her as well, then? Or did you kill her some other way?”

“Didn’t even touch her, Carl, not while she was alive, at least. But she died just the same. Finlay didn’t kill her either,” Errol said, with tears streaming down his face.

“Errol, where is she? I have to know.” Carl told him.

“Oh, you’ll know all right, Carl. I’ll make damned su
re you know. I’ll leave a letter for you when I die, telling you exactly where she is. Until then, the secret is mine and goddamn it, Carl, it’s gonna stay mine!”

Errol finished his drink and held out his glass. Carl refilled it for him.

“She was running away from me, you know, Carl, but not with Finlay. I know that now, so it had to be with someone else.”

Carl reached out and put the palm of his hand over Errol’s glass.

“Just one more question, and then I’ll take you home,” Carl said as Errol eyed the bottle on the table between them. “And, yes, you can take the bottle with you, my treat.”

“Shoot, Sheriff, what’s your question then?” Errol said. “As if I couldn’t guess.”

Carl nodded. “What did the hospital tell you? How long have you got?”

Errol shrugged and gave Carl a slight smile. “A week, Carl, a month, two maybe. Who knows? But it won
’t be long now, even I know that. Why? Are you going to arrest me, put me in jail?”

Carl shook his head.

“No point really, is there, Errol? You’ve solved the crime for me. And if what you’re telling me is true, you wouldn’t last out a murder trial anyway. As far as punishment for what you did is concerned, I think even old Jack himself would have agreed the private hell you’ve put yourself through for years is punishment enough.” Carl looked at him and just shook his head. “So why don’t you and I keep what you’ve just told me between us and save the taxpayers a whole wad of money? What do you say?”

Carl pushed the bottle across the table to him.

Errol took the bottle with one hand and reached out to shake Carl’s hand with the other.

“I’m gonna take this, Carl, but I have to t
ell you this is the first time in years that I don’t think I’m gonna need it. Unburdening myself to you today has taken a huge weight off my mind. I’ve confessed my sin and when I go, I can rest easy now. It doesn’t excuse what I did and it won’t bring Finlay back, but I really thank you. Thanks, Carl; you’re a real gentleman and one hell of a good cop.”