Nantucket Grand (20 page)

“How long have you been back on-island? Let me guess. Twenty-four hours?”

“I took the last flight out of Boston yesterday.”

“That was fast.”

“The gate opens, the horse breaks.”

“Alana was frightened.”

“Of course she was. That little wisp of a girl.”

“She didn't want Blount coming after her?”

“He won't be.”

“Because we showed up. By chance.”

“A cell or a box, either way he won't be preying on little girls.”

I stared at him. “You're saying you came here to kill him?”

“Oh no, Chief! You thought I meant a coffin? I'm talking about a box at Fenway Park! Nothing like a Red Sox game to distract a sociopathic sexual predator. Calms them right down. By the seventh inning stretch they're tame as toddlers.”

“Good. We wouldn't want to have any misunderstandings about that.”

“Heavens, no.”

We watched each other for a few seconds. “You're still under arrest, even if Blount chooses not to press charges. Sue Ann Pelzer's going to want you booked for the B and E anyway. Come on. I'm going to have the boys take you back to the station, see about finding you a lawyer.”

“How long will I have to stay there?”

“That depends on Blount. If he chooses to press charges…”

“Of course he will! He hates me. He knows I can take him down. And I will.”

I pressed a hand to his shoulder. “Then I suggest you share the evidence you've found with us. We can take it from here.”

“That sounds lovely. I know what the bastard did. But knowledge isn't proof, Chief Kennis. As you just explained. My hope was to beat a confession out him, and I don't think that's really your style, if you'll permit me the liberty.”

“My way works better, Liam. It might not be as fast or dramatic—”

“The wheels of Kennis grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small.”

I finished the couplet for him: “Though with patience He stands waiting, with exactness grinds He all.”

“You know your Longfellow.”

I shrugged. “Poets read poetry.”

“Of course he was writing about God, not some small town constable. Big shoes to fill.”

“I don't play God, Liam. But I don't miss much, either.”

Jerry Cone was still waiting outside. I led Liam out to the car and stood watching while they drove away. Sue Ann Pelzer had followed me down from the main house. She sat on one of the low stone walls, texting. I walked over.

“Do you mind if I take a look around?”

She glanced up. “The sooner you all are done, the sooner I can start cleaning up the mess.”

“Thanks.”

***

The guest cottage reminded me of a recently renovated show-house, pristine and uninhabited, as elegantly blank as the last time I'd been there. Blount had left no personal mark on the place—no pictures on the wall, no family photographs, no clothes on the floor, no dishes in the sink. His bedroom held a queen-size bed with two pillows and a cotton blanket, no bedspread, a dresser next to the window. The drawers held clothes, a wristwatch, some chargers, some condoms, a passport.

He hadn't bothered with reading lights by the bed, but there was a Kindle Paperwhite on the bedside table, so he didn't need them. I opened the Kindle, slid a fingertip across the bottom of the screen to open it, and checked the library: Tom Clancy, W.E.B. Griffin, some survivalist tracts with titles like
Be Ready
When the Shit Goes Down
and
When All Hell Breaks Loose.
The book he was currently reading surprised me: Robert Stone's
A Flag for Sunrise
.

Stone had a lot to say about being a man. Maybe Blount wanted to hear it.

The kitchen had no information to offer, except to tell me that Blount ate most of his meals out. Canned soup and tuna-
fish in the cupboards, a carton of grapefruit juice, half a dozen eggs, and various condiments in the fridge. A lemon and a wilted head of lettuce in the vegetable drawer, a bottle of Stoli in the freezer. The drawers held the generic rental inventory: silverware, utensils, placemats and napkins, rudimentary pots and pans, an empty trash bin under the sink.

The austerity made it difficult to hide anything, but the place made me suspicious anyway—maybe for that reason. It dared you to find something. It was like a magician ostentatiously showing you his empty hands before the trick began.

I strolled back into the living room and looked around again. The only ornamentation had been built in: nicely worked baseboards, casings with wooden medallions at the top corners, and two wide beams crossing the ceiling.

The beams drew my attention. They were too big to be solid wood—no new construction specs would call for hugely expensive old-growth timber in a guest cottage. I dragged the battered-up chair from beneath the folding table, climbed up and tapped on the shiny white painted wood.

Hollow.

I saw a hairline rectangle in the paint, barely visible even from my perch. You'd never see it from the floor. I pushed up at it, felt a catch and heard a click as a spring released. The panel opened, oiled and silent, until it was pointing down at the floor. The workmanship impressed me. Blount was quite a carpenter, along with everything else.

I paused for a second. I knew exactly what I was going to find up there. I reached up and proved myself right: a Barrett M107 sniper's rifle, the weapon that had killed Todd Macy, along with a box of ammunition. David Lattimer's rifle, still waiting to be switched back. Time had run out for that trick, but it would never have worked for long, anyway. The rifle I found in David's closet felt new and unused. This one was worn and battered, with a patina of age on the wooden stock. This weapon had seen history, and made it. That one was just a replica. The ballistics were an afterthought.

Blount was finished.

Fraker's forensics team had arrived. They were working the crime scene at the main house. I started over. I wanted to check out the mansion and give them the heads-up about the rifle.

Sue Ann fell into step beside me. “Did you find something in there?”

“That's police business, Sue Ann. Sorry.”

I was thinking, why would someone who went to such lengths to hide one murder weapon ditch another one only half-hidden in the mulch beside his house? Panic? Phelan was on his way and Blount had to move fast. The rifle's cubbyhole was the product of a lot of thought and craftsmanship, virtually a hobbyist's project. Maybe Blount wasn't as good when he had to improvise. He called 911, knowing that anyone who cared to look would see the butt of his knife sticking up like the mumblety-peg prize winner. He must have been terrified. But I didn't buy that, either. He and Liam made an even match and Blount struck me as the kind of guy who enjoyed a good tussle.

Maybe he thought Liam was armed, and Blount's only weapon was a blood-smeared blade he didn't dare to use. Still, it was crazy to call the cops when you'd just left a dead body next door. Or else that was the strategy. Do the crazy thing precisely because you wouldn't. It made you look innocent—or diabolical.

I couldn't figure it out. But Blount might have some answers for me when I talked to him at the station.

The Crime Scene Unit boss consisted of a fat fifty-year-old with granny glasses and a ponytail named Rick Rogers.

He waddled over to me. “Jesus. This fucking house, am I right? They keep killing people here. Make a good ghost story if they all came back to haunt the place.”

“And then they all left because the Nantucket summer people scared them too much.”

“They're scary, all right. One of Lonnie's boys was canvassing the neighborhood just now. Some old turd in a bathrobe told him, ‘I'll sue you and your department for harassment and ruin your career. Now get off my property.'”

I nodded. “Oh, yeah. That's one of their favorites. As if standing on their sod square insta-lawn smelling the fertilizer stink was a divine privilege and they could ruin your life by revoking it.”

“Yeah. Fuck them.”

I told him about the rifle, eased past the chalk outline on the stained carpet and started up the stairs to the second floor. I was trying to visualize exactly what had happened. Blount had known that Phelan was coming but the road was invisible from the cottage, and the 911 call came from there. If someone had been in the big house they could have seen Phelan's car; from the second floor they could have seen all the way to Madaket Road and the Eel Point road turn-off. But the house had been deserted: no cleaning staff scheduled for the day, Pell on his boat, Sue Ann birding at the west end of the island. I went inside and checked the rooms with a view of the road anyway: the master bedroom, with the heavy curtains drawn and the shades and louvers closed behind them; and the study, with its dark stained wood paneling and brown venetian blinds, closed against the daylight. The place felt abandoned, the air stale and chilly. The mild weather hadn't penetrated this mausoleum. It felt at least ten degrees colder than the day outside.

I pulled out my iPhone, turned on the lights, and took some pictures of the two rooms. Something struck me as askew—there was some wrong note I couldn't identify. The pictures might help.

I lingered for a few more minutes, but I didn't notice anything unusual—no clues. Finally I left the CSI boys to do their work and drove back to the station.

Chapter Twenty-four

Confessions

I wanted to interview Doug Blount, but when I walked into the cop shop Barnaby Toll had news that sent me off in a different direction completely. It reminded me of getting trapped in the right lane on the highway then forced off onto an unwanted exit. Suddenly you're cruising some woodsy two-lane road in the middle of nowhere, looking for the on-ramp.

Mike Henderson had been arrested for the murder of Andrew Thayer. Haden Krakauer had picked the housepainter up himself. Mike refused a lawyer and wouldn't talk to anyone but me. This had to be a ludicrous mistake.

I told Barnaby to bring Mike up to my office.

“Do you want him cuffed, Chief?”

“No, Barney. No handcuffs. Just escort him upstairs and then get us some coffee.”

When Mike was seated across the desk from me, I said, “What the hell is going on?”

“I can explain it.”

“I'm sure you can. In fact, I can't wait.”

“Okay…but this has to stay here. It's kind of embarrassing, and unprofessional, so…”

“My lips are sealed. As long as you actually didn't kill anyone.”

“Jesus, Chief! Of course I didn't kill anyone! I can't even discipline my dog. I say ‘sit' and he just stares at me like, ‘you have got to be kidding.'”

“So what happened?”

“First of all, I had no idea there was a dead guy in the house. I was touching up the downspouts, I couldn't clean the paint off them and I mean—you're not supposed to get paint on the copper downspouts, you know? That looks bad. I couldn't clean it, so I painted over it. I mixed the paint and I made a mess—it was on my hands, and someone was driving by when I was walking to the car, and it must have looked like blood…but wouldn't it have been really red if I'd just killed someone? Anyway, they called it in and when Krakauer arrived at the house I was cleaning myself up. I guess I looked like Lady Macbeth or something—‘Out, out damned spot!' But I mean…come on. Why would I kill Andy Thayer? He was one of my best customers. I bid super low on his interior one winter—the house on Union Street—and when he came back to the island he looked around and said ‘No way you could do this job for ten grand.' He gave me an extra thousand in cash and took me out to dinner at the Ship's Inn. That's a guy I'd want to kill? Clone, is more like it.”

Barney came in with two cups of coffee. I waited until he was gone. “Just milk okay?”

“Great, thanks.”

“So, did you notice anything at the house when you were there?”

“Like what?”

“People, vehicles, screams, crashes, doors slamming? Anything at all.”

“A clue?”

“Exactly.”

“Why do I want to say Professor Plum in the billiards room with a candlestick?”

“Don't worry about it. Death makes people silly. Until it sinks in. Until you really feel that hole in the world. And the longer you can put that off, the better.”

“Yeah.”

We sipped our coffee. It had been sitting on the burner too long. “So…anything?”

“I heard a car pull out. But it must have been parked in the garage. I didn't see anything when I got there.”

“So someone was at the house.”

“I guess.”

“Did they seem to be in a hurry? Did you hear the engine revving, or shells getting churned up?”

“No, nothing like that. Just a car heading out.”

“Okay, thanks, Mike. You're a good witness.”

“Painters notice things. They call each other out. Painter's favorite comment? You missed a spot.”

I nodded. “That's the thing. I think I missed a spot here but I can't figure out where.”

“Walk away and look at it again. That's what I do. My old boss used to say ‘step back and admire your work' because he knew if you did that you'd see all your fuck-ups.”

We stood. I came around the desk and shook his hand. “I may give that a try.”

When he was gone I drained the last swallow of my tepid coffee and went downstairs to brace Douglas Blount.

***

Lonnie Fraker was coming out of the interrogation room when I arrived. He grinned at me. “Ho, ho, ho—Merry Christmas.”

“It's June.”

“Yeah? Well Jesus was born in June supposedly. You'll believe it when you get in there with that bum.”

“You broke him with your up-to-the-minute interrogation techniques?”

“Very funny. I didn't have to do shit. He was ready to confess. All he needed was a shoulder to cry on. But just for the record…I told him my theory. And I nailed it.”

“Your theory?”

“It's a classic love triangle, Chief. Crime of passion.”

I wasn't sure how Blount would fit into the Macy-Thayer-Lattimer intrigue. Then it occurred to me: Blount was the third party, and he set Lattimer up for the crime. Hence the rifle switch. That was where all the evidence pointed, and it looked like Lonnie had gotten there faster than me.

I gave him a neutral nod. “Sounds interesting. Anything on paper yet?”

“We were waiting for you.”

“Thanks.”

“Interdepartmental communication. That's my watchword.”

I couldn't resist. “But that sounds like two words, Lonnie.”

“Fine, whatever. My watch-phrase, then.”

“Your motto.”

“Right.”

“You need to make it catchier, though. Like…working together because togetherness works.”

“Nah—that sounds like we're teaching Kindergarten or something.”

“How about…‘A Safe Nantucket. The State Police and the NPD: Keeping it. Period. Together. Period.' You get a nice double meaning there.”

He gave me a grudging nod. “Not bad, Kennis. Now go inside and open your presents.”

In the box, as we called it in L.A., Blount was sitting at the table, uncuffed, nursing a paper cup of takeout coffee. He looked deflated, unthreatening, like a man who'd been waiting all night in the hospital for the surgeons to finish. Or maybe just after he'd gotten the bad news—that strange combination of sorrow and relief. At least the ordeal was over.

I sat down across from him. “So Captain Fraker tells me you want to confess.”

“Why not?

“Do you want a lawyer present? You have the right to legal representation.”

“If I can't afford a lawyer, one will be appointed for me by the court.”

“That's right.”

“Probably Jim Folger. Or Timmy Congdon. Am I right?”

I nodded. “It's Wednesday so probably it'll be Tim.”

“Either way, I'm better off on my own.”

No one had much respect for our beleaguered PDs. “Just so you know, anything you say—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. They Mirandized me, Chief. Just like on the TV cop shows.”

“But this is real.”

“And here I thought I was dreaming.”

We studied each other across the table. “You killed Andrew Thayer.”

“That's right. In cold blood. Except it's hot.”

“I think they're talking about your blood there, Doug. Not the victim's.”

“Then they know what they're talking about.”

“You cut his throat and never got a drop on you. Nice trick.”

“You do it from behind, Chief. The blood shoots forward. You step back. Like a little dance. You learn that in Ranger training.”

“I missed out on that.”

“Lucky for you.”

“So…You got Andrew Thayer out to the LoGran house. How did you swing that?”

“He knew we needed to talk. I offered to settle things. That was how I put it. He was happy to come.”

“What things?”

“It's a long story.”

“That's how people describe a story when they don't want to tell it.”

“I'll tell it. I'm glad to tell it.”

“Good. I like long stories. The short ones are usually bullshit.”

“Like your buddy's love triangle killing spree.”

“My colleague.”

“Right.”

“According to him it was all because of a woman.”

“Guys who haven't had a woman in long time always think that. Like poor guys always think it's about money.”

“So he was wrong?”

“He saw what I wanted him to see. If he was the top of the food chain the cops would have written the whole thing off as Nantucket winter cabin fever craziness. Shut it down and avoid the bad publicity. But there's too much going on, and there's smarter people than Fraker out there. Not all of them are cops either, due respect. Some of them are high school kids. That was my mistake. I underestimated some shit. I didn't know how fucked up everything was going to get. Actions have consequences, and consequences have consequences, and victims have families, and families have friends and pretty soon it just gets—I don't know, Chief. I'm okay at chess, but three-dimensional chess—forget about it.”

I tipped my chair back, let him run down. “So what was really going on?”

“Well, Fraker got one part right. Cherche la femme, brother. In this case it's one Daisy Pell.”

“You mean Daisy DeHart.”

“I mean Daisy Pell. He adopted her when he married the mom. She kept her real father's name—DeHart. She's been working at NHS for a year or two.”

“Right. She's a guidance counselor, a school psychologist.”

“Which is fucking hilarious. But I guess all shrinks are a little crazy, right? Why else do a job like that?”

“By that logic all cops are crooks.”

“You said it, Chief. Not me. Anyway, she pulled a little disappearing act last week. She was trying to get away from Papa Bear. Smart move. She went to high school here. It feels like home. Pell comes out for a month or two in the summer and he lives on the boat—easy to avoid. Rich people's Nantucket is a tiny little place. If you don't eat at the Pearl, play tennis at the Yacht Club, or golf at Sankaty Head…you're pretty much in the clear. Just make sure you avoid cocktail parties and fundraisers. That was no hardship for Daisy. She hates those assholes anyway.”

“So you were in love with her?”

“Love is for suckers, Chief. We had a thing from time to time.”

“And the others?”

“Oh yeah—Macy and Thayer, sure. And I know for a fact that Lattimer had a creepy geriatric crush on her.”

“That's why you planted the rifle.”

“I seized the opportunity. I'm an opportunist. Fraker's version makes sense on that level—Daisy driving everyone crazy. You ever meet her?”

“Just once.”

“Then you know what I'm talking about.”

“Really? Why is that?”

“Because you're a mammal, Chief. I'd say because you're straight, but fags fall in love with her too. Dogs follow her around. Her mom bought a cat for herself when Daisy was a kid. It drove Mom crazy because it would only sleep on Daisy's bed. They tried locking the cat out of Daisy's room. Nice try. It dug a tunnel under the door. Shredded the floorboards. What can I say? She has animal magnetism. I mean that literally, Chief. Put the palm of your hand an inch from her bare shoulder and try not to touch her. Just try it. I'd like to see that one.”

“So let me guess,” I said, pulling him back from his swoon. “You used Daisy to get them involved with this dirty movie scheme—”

“They jumped in, Chief. That's like you telling me I used the pastry cart from the Wauwinet to break up the Weight Watchers club. Nice work if you can get it. They've still got the jam and the crumbs all over their faces. Pigs.”

“You supplied the drugs, got the girls hooked, Chick Crosby handled the technical side.”

“And Daisy recruited from her office at school.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why would she do that? Why would any woman do that? Those girls trusted her.”

He shrugged. “People are fucked up. What can I say?”

“That's not good enough.”

“Then ask her.”

“Where is she?”

“You're the detective. You figure it out.”

“Doug, if you know where she is and you withhold that information, it's going to add obstruction of justice to the counts against you. That means another five years in jail.”

“That's like saying, they're going to drill another tooth while you're at the dentist's office. I'm in the chair anyway. My jaw's numb and my calendar's clear, so I say, bring it.”

This was getting me nowhere. And we had other things to talk about.

“We found Lattimer's rifle in the guest cottage,” I said.

“We?”

“I found it.”

“You got your nose twitching after you found the knife.”

“Something like that.” I remembered what Mike Henderson had told me once: a visible mistake at eye-level, like paint on a doorknob or a big miss on a window casing, made the customer inspect the whole job more critically.

“You don't want them to start looking,” he said. “Because once they start looking they're going to find more. And when that critical eye starts squinting, they'll never be happy. You don't want to knock down that first domino.”

Blount had done that with his hunting knife and he knew it. And he knew what it meant. He sighed. “So now you want to know about Todd Macy and the old man.”

“I have a pretty good idea, Doug. Todd wanted to get out of your little movie studio, maybe rat you all out for immunity. You can only drink so much bad water before you get sick.”

Blunt grinned. “He was thirsty.”

“So he makes noises about getting away and then he has a hunting accident.”

“Tough luck.”

“You took the shell casings, but you left the actual bullet in the ground. That was your mistake. You switched your rifle for Lattimer's. I was supposed to find it, and when the ballistics report came back I was supposed to figure out the old man was in love with Daisy and lost control when he found out about her little thing with Macy. He was a trained killer. Any doubts about that got burned off in Vietnam. Plus, he wrote a letter that basically makes your case for you. He threw it away but we found it in his trash. So it would have been the perfect plan, except you never managed to switch the rifles back. The ballistics are going to match up with the gun in your cottage.”