“What if I’m the one asking? I can access most of those figures, and I really do not appreciate having bodies turn up in my
front yard.”
“I guess you don’t.” There was a little too much speculation in the look he gave me. “Okay. Bring them on out, if you want,
and I’ll give you a read.”
• • •
From a distance I could see that my driveway was blocked just short of its end by a sheriff’s department car. Approaching,
I recognized my visitor as Baxter himself—in the process of dismantling the crime-scene corral. I parked behind his car and
walked on in, Roxy racing ahead. “Hi, there. I like the looks of that.”
“I thought you might. It was a useless formality, but we could lose points in court for closing up shop before everybody was
sure they didn’t need anything else from it. How was the north country?”
“Rustic. Invigorating water temperature. Noisy. Seven people and a dog in a trailer is a lot.”
He thought about that. “You, Roxy, your sister, the boys, their sister and her boyfriend. Did your mother come along?”
The involuntary noise I made sounded much like a snort. “Mommie Dearest called me Friday—didn’t like seeing her name in the
paper. It was our first contact in twenty-five years. Fine with me if it went another quarter century.”
“Is your sister out of touch with her, too?”
“Vicky split the day after Ma and Jon Keegan made it official, which was a few months before I got packed off. They did not
want either of us back. Her being so young—she’d just turned sixteen—the state wouldn’t go with Vicky as my guardian, so it
had to find a place for me to live.”
“Birchwood.”
“Do you have a private source for that, or did Jack Garrett’s follow-up story make the
Record
?”
“First page, today’s Capital District section. I was surprised. It was like pulling teeth trying to get personal information
out of you the other day. You opened right up to this guy.”
“We negotiated a trade: more about me for his source on the Keegans’ names and that inaccurate account of what happened in
family court.”
“Kate Etlinger. She told me, too. Stopped by my office Friday afternoon.”
“Nice of her.”
“A little payback, maybe, for sleeping with her husband?”
Whatever reaction he wanted from that, he wasn’t going to get it. “Could be,” I said calmly. “So how did Jack’s story come
out? Birchwood saved my life. When I start talking about Pete and Janey and what happened there, I tend to gush.”
“Hey, it’s nice that we manage to do the right thing for our troubled kids once in a while. My daughter was impressed with
your basketball career. How come I don’t see a hoop anywhere on the premises?”
“The boys haven’t screamed loud enough yet. Three high school and two college years were plenty for me. You take a lot of
elbows when you’re typecast to hang out under the basket. I’m not that fast and all I can shoot reliably is fouls.”
“You were good enough for college level.”
“A two-year ag and tech school like Marysville is minimal college level. They were willing to spring a few bucks for a big
body, and since my higher education was a self-financed proposition I said why not. When I went on to Cornell they offered
a teensy partial scholarship to be a backup center. Third on the charts. I decided I could bring in more money in a lot less
time working. Besides, I’d purely hate to sit the bench.”
“That I can believe. Also your preferring work to playing games. I had no idea I was talking to a corporation. Was this story
a coming-out, or did the Etlingers know?”
“Of course they knew—they’re a corporation themselves, and it’s the corporate me they signed on as an independent contractor.
It’s no big deal.”
“I didn’t quite get what this other thing you do—rehabbing land?—is all about.”
“Well, you start with a property that doesn’t look like anybody would want to own it. Which usually means you can pick it
up cheap from whoever does own it. Then you do some reshaping to bring out its good features and sell it for lots more than
you paid.”
He looked skeptical. “It’s amazing every square inch of America hasn’t been prettied up, if it’s that simple.”
“Did I say simple? First you need to know the area. Really know it: zoning and all the other externals, the general economy,
what’s on the boards in the way of development. Then the key is to find a property that has good bone structure. Twenty-nine
out of thirty are every bit as hopeless as they look. Go to contract, make yourself a plan, and tear in. I have a talent for
exposing those bones, and I enjoy physical work. I also enjoy making money. Garden designing rewards the soul more richly
than the pocketbook. So I’ve been affiliating with places like the Garden Center for that type of work and doing the land
improvements on my own. Now I’ll be doing both on my own.”
“Do you have any rehab properties around here?”
“One over near Bolton Lake that I picked up last year. I used to think of this property we’re standing on that way.” It was
the first time I’d past-tensed it out loud, though I’d more or less known for a while.
“It’s definitely a keeper. By the way, I still don’t know who number seven was up north.”
I burst out laughing. “Calvin was right yesterday—he said you just have to keep nosing around until you find out how everything
goes together.”
He didn’t even look embarrassed. “So?”
“So your missing character’s name is Jason. Vicky has four children: Gina, who’s twenty-three, Jason, who’s fifteen, and the
two you’ve seen. She loves them all dearly. Alex and Galen live down here because Vicky’s not well and Jason’s … difficult.
Anything else I can tell you?”
“How about which button to push to get you started? Calvin extracted a couple of candid assessments out of you, plus some
hints on how to do our jobs.”
“I don’t recall you asking if I thought Johnny or Skip were hot suspects. I’d have told you no. Now that you mention it, I
wouldn’t put anybody else who works for the Etlingers on my top ten list either.”
“You could be right. But, Val, not every murderer kills for well-thought-out reasons, and sometimes stupid people get lucky.
Besides, if you decide one person’s not worth talking to, you may be overlooking a critical piece of information. I gather
you think we don’t have the entire picture on his finances?”
“The man was making close to fifty thou, and he wasn’t visibly spending anywhere near that much. Unless he had some heavy
obligations back in Watertown, I’ll bet you a month of fishing rights on the creek he was squirreling something away somewhere.”
“I sent a man up to Watertown. Ryan was raised in the area, went to business college, worked for one firm a few years, went
on to another at a pretty good jump in salary. They hardly remember him at the first place and didn’t have much to say about
him at the second. Father’s dead, mother’s in a nursing home on Medicaid and pretty much out of it. There’s one brother, eleven
years older, lives in Colorado; they weren’t close. Ryan never married or fathered any kids, at least officially. He rented
an apartment, bought a car every few years, nothing fancy; his license was clean. He belonged to the same two service groups
he joined here. Oh, and somebody remembered he liked to hunt. By himself.”
“Sounds like he never did have any people skills. I’ve been wondering if the Garden Center books would shed any light on what
got him into trouble.”
“The Etlingers reluctantly turned them over this morning. Our department auditor is taking a look.”
“Is there any chance I could, too? Since I know quite a bit about the operation—”
“Val, I can’t authorize that. Which doesn’t mean I don’t need all the help I can extract from you. The physical evidence has
given us about all it’s going to, which is pathetically little.”
“And where does that leave you?”
“Pretty much where I was: convinced that it was a thoughtfully planned and well-executed operation, involving at least two
people. They should have rubbed some of your driveway dirt into Ryan’s sneaker treads. But frankly, if you hadn’t been able
to substantiate your alibi, they wouldn’t have much to worry about at this point.”
“I should write Schwarzenegger and the
Tonight Show
thank-you notes.”
“You should also try harder to aid and abet your friendly local sheriff.”
I frowned. “Not by analyzing Ryan’s books, obviously.”
“I was thinking more along the lines of analyzing people.”
“You mean gossip about them? Jack Garrett was trying to pull me into that, too. It’s really not my thing. If we compared lists
of people who might have killed Ryan, wouldn’t they have pretty much the same names on them? I honestly don’t suspect anyone
in particular more than the others.”
“But you may know something I can put together with something else and build on.”
“Well, I could make some assessments people wouldn’t like much, or want to have circulating. I couldn’t begin to guess which,
if any, of them might be connected to the murder. Sorry, but I’m not comfortable dissing somebody for no good reason.”
“Even people who aren’t exactly reluctant to diss you? You should give it some thought, Val. If we don’t find out who killed
Ryan Jessup I doubt you’ll ever get to uncork any celebratory champagne. At least not around here.”
A
t what point did I decide to raid the Garden Center that night? Obviously such an excursion had been a theoretical prospect
when I hit Skip about bringing him figures—I wasn’t expecting to saunter in during business hours and ask for them. But the
follow-through hadn’t yet been on my conscious horizon.
It started moving into view when Baxter reminded me of the limitations of official clearance when there wasn’t a declared
suspect on the boards to replace me. I’d already encountered a few people who’d seemed less than certain of my innocence.
Face it: My alibi did not sound impressively solid. I could easily imagine Clete’s dismissal: “They’re taking the word of
a couple of little spics?” There’d be at least a few loud echoes, and lord knows how many silent nods of agreement.
Still, it required a couple of hours of not getting into my Platteville garden design to acknowledge a timetable. I must be
slowing down.
Points for: I hadn’t turned in my keys; the side door is not visible from Route 5; if anybody was working extra late, I’d
see the lights in plenty of time to abort; some of those figures I knew exactly how to get. Then there was my still-unfocused
Ryan memory. I’d kept trying to sneak up on it and was pretty sure, at least, that it hadn’t been a conversation. Something
I saw. The only aspect of the scene I’d been able to clarify was that it was lit by fluorescent lights, and the Garden Center
was the most likely place I’d have seen Ryan in that kind of setting. Granted it was a reach, but maybe if I walked around,
pausing at different spots, I’d manage to land on the right one and more of the image would come back?
Points against: This would not be what Baxter had in mind by all the help I could give him. I could get into trouble. I could
make the killers nervous.
But only if I got caught. The figures, should they turn out to be significant, I could fudge sources for. And if I found my
memory, it wouldn’t be necessary to tell Baxter where.
And after three days, an investigation without any named or even seriously hinted-at suspects except the officially discounted
one is not zooming along.
I have never been a passive person.
The village of Pinehaven is rarely a hub of activity on a Sunday night, but one of the two restaurants you could figure on
staying open until at least ten was across the side street from the Garden Center. It wouldn’t be a good idea to either drive
or walk there before, say, eleven. Not a good idea to take the Bronco into the parking lot, either—it’s fairly exposed. That
wouldn’t erect a major hurdle; I could park in front of the apartment complex a ways back on the side street, among a bunch
of other cars.
So that’s where I was a little after eleven-thirty, dressed dark right down to my Reeboks and the clingy, lightweight but
tough gloves I use when I chop wood. It’s a tree-lined street with shrubby front yards, no sizable open spaces to isolate
an innocent pedestrian in the streetlights’ soft orange glow. Not a soul was out, and hardly anyone’s front windows were lit.
I pretended I was strolling just in case anyone noticed.
The Garden Center had trip alarms for its front doors and windows and a padlocked grill across the wide door in back. Securing
the unalarmed side door, chiefly an employee entrance, were two sturdy locks, for which I held two keys, unless those locks
had been changed. Nope—I was inside in no more than thirty seconds.
Knowing the layout, I tried to direct my flashlight not to show from outside. Grant Oldham’s desk was my first stop. It was
easy to access what I wanted—I’d showed him how to set up his plant data on the computer and I knew his password. In five
minutes, tops, I folded the printout and stuck it in a jeans pocket.
Everything else would be in hardcopy to start with. Kate sent around decorated quarterly reports on the store, a lot of fluff
but even more figures—she was seriously into spreadsheets. The last several of those I separated out from the miscellany in
my bottom desk drawer. Etlingers’ was a paper-generating outfit. My policy had been that when the drawer no longer opened
without a struggle I threw everything out and started over.
Rodney’s office was next. Though forbidden to play with the books anymore, he was acknowledged to be good at designing financial
statements. They’d needed one for the Hudson Heights bid, and I knew he’d done a revamped version last spring for their largest
plant-materials supplier, part of a pitch to upgrade their credit line. The first file drawer I tried was locked; several
unlocked drawers later I found copies of both statements. That locked drawer intrigued me, but I had no idea how to get in,
short of prying it open, and I didn’t intend to make an announcement of my presence.