Three Can Keep a Secret (7 page)

Bonnie Swift lived in the Waitsfield-Warren area, about fourteen miles south of Waterbury
—
if also, some argued, on a whole different planet. There, they'd be speaking economically, although the geography was tellingly different as well. But where Waterbury was dominated by the state office complex and the Winooski River, Waitsfield-Warren was best known for the Sugarbush ski resort
—
among the state's largest
—
and the far more picturesquely labeled Mad River, which had clearly lived up to its name on Sunday.

Lester Spinney's attention was more given to the neighborhood's economic reputation. "This is where they tow your car away if it's last year's model, isn't it?" he commented, observing a large spread, anchored by a mansion standing regally at the back of a manicured if soggy field.

Joe laughed, negotiating a tight curve between traffic cones. Also unlike Waterbury, this was mountainous terrain, which in parts had made traveling the washed-out roads even tougher. "That's Manchester. Get your prejudices right."

"Right," Lester said, jerking a thumb at the big house. "Makes me a believer."

"That's more like Warren than Waitsfield," Joe said. "Back in the old days, which for me stretches pretty far, Waitsfield was for the regular crowd, and Warren was where the rich skiers hung out. Things have changed, though." He slowed to a crawl to show his badge to a flagman, "Especially now.

"We get through?" he asked. It was another blessedly beautiful, dry summer day.

The flagman spoke into his portable radio and eventually waved them past. "Stick far to the right. You goin' beyond Waitsfield proper?"

"Nope."

"You should be okay, then. They're still not sure about the covered bridge in town."

Spinney shook his head. "What d'ya want to bet even the rich guys don't have flood insurance?"

Joe slowed down before cutting onto a side road and heading uphill. Immediately, the road was in perfect condition. "I heard the water reached seven feet above flood level in spots, including parts of Waitsfield."

They continued for another half mile, gaining height, before seeing a mailbox labeled
SWIFT
on the left. Joe took the dirt driveway, rutted and narrow, and drove them another five hundred feet to the parking lot of a well-kept double-wide trailer with another of Vermont's ubiquitous, partially rusted-out, older Subaru station wagons out front.

"Ah," said Spinney, swinging his long legs out of their four-wheel-drive SUV. "This is more what I'm used to."

A woman appeared on the deck at the top of a short flight of wooden steps. "Are you the ones who called?" she asked.

The two men pulled out their IDs as they climbed. Joe spoke for them. "I'm Joe Gunther. This is Lester Spinney. Really appreciate your agreeing to meet with us."

She gave him a rueful expression. "Bonnie Swift
—
and it's not like I have much to do right now."

They reached the top and shook hands. "No, I guess not," Joe said. "What
is
the latest about the hospital?"

"Too early to say," she told him, heading toward a picnic table that was set up at the far end of the deck. "Right now, we're just hearing rumors and waiting around, none of which is doing anybody any good. You want some iced tea or coffee or something?"

They demurred and took places at the wooden table overlooking the parking area and the woods beyond. There was a shrouded gas grill off to one side. Joe imagined this spot saw more than a few pleasant weekend gatherings.

"You lived here for long?" he asked, stretching his legs and pulling out a pad to take notes if necessary.

"Fourteen years," she said. "Brad owned the property before we married
—
he works on the road crew and does jobs on the side. We lived closer to town for about five years, and then took the plunge, moving this monster in. That was a neat trick, coming up the drive. I thought the whole damn thing was going to end up at the bottom of the mountain. But Brad and his pals know what they're doing." She laughed. "They just scare the bejesus out of you while they're doing it."

"You got kids?" Lester asked.

"Two," she answered. "One of each."

"How did you all make out in the storm?"

She looked around. "Here, thank God, no problem. Good thing, since I was stuck in Waterbury and Brad was out in the middle of it for two days straight. The kids helped out at the town shelter, so we knew where they were. All in all, we got off without a scratch, assuming I still have a job."

Joe took advantage of the segue. "Which brings us to why we're here, of course. I heard that you were pretty close to Carolyn Barber. Is that correct?"

Swift showed some reservation at Joe's choice of words. "I wouldn't put it that way. I think she probably tolerated me better than most, but we weren't buddy-buddy. She was too lost in her own world for that. Did you get a lead on where she is?"

"No," he said bluntly, and then hedged his response. "We're working on the premise that she got out alive, but that's mostly because we haven't found a body yet."

Swift looked disappointed. "I really liked her," she explained. "She was out of it, but in a good way, you know? I mean, we can get some real crazies in there, but she was never like that. And she was a lifer, too, which is really rare. The way things go nowadays, it's kind of a turnstile operation
—
they check in, they get their papers, they do their contract, and they leave. They may keep coming back
—
I'm not saying that
—
but the Governor was one of the only ones I know of who stayed put."

"Why was that?" Joe asked. "If she was calm and no threat to anybody, shouldn't she have been placed elsewhere?"

" 'Ours is not to reason why,' " Swift quoted. "I did ask a couple of times, but I just got a runaround. I always figured it was because nobody else knew the answer, either."

"Who would know?" Joe asked.

"That would've been Matt Larson," she told them without hesitation, "but he died last year. I can give you the current guy's name, but he's gonna be pretty useless."

"An on-the-job-retirement type?" Spinney tried commiserating.

Her face opened in laughter. "Oh
—
ouch. That is how that sounded, isn't it? No, no. I didn't mean it that way. He's a good guy. I was talking literally. He'd only be useless because of
Larson."
She tapped a temple with her finger. "Matt kept most of the records in his head
—
at least the older ones. He was lousy at organizing files, even worse with computers, and never shared anything with anyone. The man was a disaster and none of us knew it. We all thought he was just a sweet old throwback who remembered everybody's name and was super nice to work with. I have no idea how he got away with it for so long, but after he died, it was one of the Big Dark Secrets, especially whenever the federal regulators came sniffing around."

She suddenly looked a little shamefaced. "Which means I just screwed the pooch. Is this gonna get out? I don't need that on top of everything else, if I'm going to get my job back. Matt was like a god to some people."

The two cops exchanged looks.

"We won't tell if you won't," Joe told her, more or less truthfully. "Still, even if Barber got lost in the system, surely her medical records and her financials were kept separate. Who paid for her upkeep all these years?"

But Swift was already shaking her head. "No clue. Totally not my department. I'm not saying somebody doesn't know. I mean, I assume they do
—
like you said. But I never had anything to do with who was paying what and how, and I never really knew anyone in the business office, either. They were like a world apart from us. Maybe if you talk to the commissioner or something . . ."

Joe pretended to note that in his pad, to show his support of the suggestion, and then redirected her toward what he hoped was more useful territory.

"The Governor
,"
he said. "How did she become known by that? Was it something she said?"

Swift raised her eyebrows. "Just that she'd been governor once. We didn't take it at face value. That's a little hard to fake, you know? Plus, somebody checked on it, just to make sure. We've only had the one female governor
—
Madeleine Kunin. I know 'cause I voted for her."

She added upon reflection, "Maybe Carolyn was related to a governor, or slept with one, for all I know, and felt close to the office. Some of the more delusional patients have all sorts of associations like that."

"Did she ever go into detail?" Joe persisted.

But Bonnie Swift wasn't going to be able to give him that. She shook her head again sadly and then just as quickly turned the tables by saying, "She could've had a sister, though. She might know something."

Joe and Lester became still. In their business, this was a classic "Oh, by the way" comment, which in the newspaper trade was referred to as "burying the lead."

Joe returned to Bonnie and smiled politely. "Really?" he said. "A sister?"

She held up her hand and wobbled it from side to side. "Maybe. It's so vague, it almost slipped my mind. It was more like I wondered at the time if it might be a sister.
"

"
Go on."

"It was years ago
—
back when I first came on at the hospital. I was going through some paperwork, familiarizing myself with the patients. I saw that Carolyn had someone listed named Barb Barber under next of kin. It stuck with me, I think because of how it sounds, you know? Barb Barber. Kind of musical."

"Any address?"

"Nope. No nothing. And no Barb Barber, either. She never contacted us, never visited, never existed as far as I know. I saw her name that one time, on the form, and that was it. That's why I didn't remember her." She laughed then and pointed at them in mock accusation. "I saw that look. You thought I was holding back. That's not it. I liked Carolyn. She may've been ditzy and thought she was governor, but she was sweet and never caused problems. It's sad that someone like that had a relative who never got in touch. Maybe Barb's dead. You think?"

Joe closed his pad and slipped it back into his pocket. "I think we'll do our best to find out," he assured her.

Gorden Marshall had just settled into his armchair with the newspaper, adjusted his reading glasses, and checked to make sure that his ever-ready scotch-and-water was within reach, when the phone rang in his office next door.

"For Christ's sake," he muttered. "Every fucking time."

He struggled to rise, pushing on the chair's arms and dropping his paper in the process, scattering its pages. Standing at last, he tilted forward, caught the rails of his aluminum walker, and began shuffling toward the incessant ringing. His daughter had nagged him to get a portable phone, or at least a long extension cord, but he'd refused, in large part to deprive her of the victory. But times like these were reminders that she was right.

He got to the phone at last, half expecting to hear a dial tone at the far end, given his long delay, but there was no sound whatsoever.

"What?" he asked petulantly. "You know who this is, Gorden?" He sighed and looked around, trying to strategize how to place the walker, find a seat, and not drop the phone all at once. They'd given him the walker just a week ago, and he hated it with a passion. But the choice had been clear: Either accept the recommendation, or they'd move him out of his apartment to the Level One maintenance unit on the ground floor. Everyone here knew what that meant. "LOM," as they called it, was the next step to the hospital wing. And from there, it was the loading dock for the hearse. The Woods of Windsor may have been the state's fanciest so-called retirement home, but pragmatists like Gorden knew it for what it was
—
a gold-plated conveyor belt bridging his present life to an eventual hole in the ground. He was a practical man, though
—
he'd not only recognized early on that this situation was inevitable, but he'd also played a pivotal role in getting The Woods funded and permitted by the state.

"Of course I know," he grumbled. "Wait a second. I have to sort myself out."

He put down the phone. One of his friends' grandchildren had supposedly entertained him for what had seemed hours last Thanksgiving, detailing the story of Harry Potter to him. He'd hated the obligation and disliked the child, but the reference to Voldemort, whose name was never to be uttered aloud, had made him laugh.

The voice on the phone belonged to such a person.

Paranoid prick.

Gorden got himself situated in his desk chair without mishap, blew out a sigh, and picked up the phone again.

"Sorry. The sons of bitches saddled me with a damn walker. Guaranteed to make me break my neck, if you ask me."

"Sorry to hear that, Gorden."

"No, you're not. What the hell are you calling me for? I can't do you any good anymore. My smoke-filled-room days are long gone. You going soft in the head, too? Want a reference to get into this place? I recommend it. When they give you the lethal injection here, it's by a pretty girl with a big smile. We cater to your needs at The Woods of Windsor. That's what we say."

"Are you done, Gorden?"

That voice. Patient, calm, slightly modulated to sound friendly. Gorden had been listening to it for fifty years. Never seemed to change. Never aged, never rose in volume, never showed undue emotion. In time, Gorden and his political cronies had called its owner Hal, as in the movie.

Except that Hal the computer had been a menace. This Hal
—
for the likes of Gorden and his ilk
—
had been more like a sci-fi commingling of Mary Poppins and Rasputin. A combination of financial support, strategic advice, and the sense that, with his backing, you could have the world by the tail. Or, without it, a world of hurt.

"Okay," Gorden conceded. "I'm done. Let me tell you one thing, though, 'cause I know you're a couple of years younger than me. Don't get old. They're right about it not being for sissies."

"I'll keep that in mind. Speaking of the past, since you bring it up, do you remember Carolyn Barber?"

Gorden Marshall laughed. "That crazy bitch. She finally die?"

"Actually, quite the opposite. We have a bit of a problem."