chop shop in Bridgeport. We’re talking high-end operator, which rhymes with m-o-b.”
“I know a task force Fed in New Haven I can reach out to,” Yolie said.
“You also might want to contact the supervisor of the guard detail up at Enfield,” Des suggested. “The Kershaws are strictly small time, but they may have hooked up while they were there. Maybe one of the guards saw them hanging with a guy who has a background in car theft.”
“That’s good, Des,” Soave said. “I’ll get right on that. Could you-?”
“You want me to notify Pete’s next of kin, am I right?”
“Any idea who that might be?”
“Rico, I don’t have a clue. But I do know where to start.”
CHAPTER 11
“Would you tell Bement for me?”
Mitch could not believe what he’d just gotten himself into. As he steered his high-riding Studey pickup toward Great White Whale Antiques up in Millington, he asked himself exactly how he’d let Justine Kershaw rope him into being the go-between with her boyfriend. In his own defense, Mitch could think of several reasons. Her book was remarkable. He wanted to see it published. And he had to find out how much of it was based in reality. All good, sound reasons for taking on such a sensitive mission. And all bull. There was only one reason Mitch was running this fool’s errand and he knew it-because Justine Kershaw was a wily, adorable little manipulator who’d maneuvered him into it.
As he rolled his way through the bare, muddy late winter countryside, Mitch found himself wondering who else she’d been moving around lately, and what sort of things she was capable of making them do.
Millington was a tiny rural hamlet in the rolling farm country about ten miles inland from Dorset. Great White Whale Antiques was housed in an old barn across the road from a family-owned garden center. One lone car with Massachusetts plates was parked out front of the shop. It was still pretty early in the year for tourists and antique hounds to be out browsing. Evan Peck, the shop’s owner, shut it down completely in January and February. Evan was one of Mitch’s neighbors out on Big Sister. He was still wintering at the family compound down in Hobe Sound. His cousin, Becca, was running things with Bement until he returned.
The shop was cluttered, its merchandise eclectic. There were colonial armoires and bedsteads alongside weathered Victorian garden ornaments. An art deco living room set was displayed right next to a slender Danish- style one. There was sterling silver and crystal, quilts, paintings. Some of the pieces were very high end. Others were borderline garage sale material, although absolutely none of it was cheap.
Becca was behind one of the glass cases showing flatware to a pair of elderly ladies. Mitch waved to her and mouthed Bement’s name. She motioned to a door marked PRIVATE. He went through it into a workshop that smelled strongly of turpentine and linseed oil. Here, he found dressers without drawers, chairs without seats, tabletops, table legs. A carpenter’s bench was laden with saws and drills and a dozen different kinds of clamps.
Bement Widdifield was taking a roaring handheld power sander to a gently aged white kitchen table, exposing an old coat of blue paint underneath, as well as some bare pine. A can of paint stripper and a scraper were at his elbow. Bement wore a protective dust mask over his mouth and nose. It was chilly there in the workshop, but he was stripped down to a frayed red pocket T-shirt and cargo pants. A fine white powder clung to his bare arms, which bulged with muscle.
When he spotted Mitch standing there he immediately turned off the noise, yanked off the mask and started toward him with a welcoming smile on his face. “You must be Mitch. Teeny called me on her break. Told me you might stop by.”
“Glad to meet you,” Mitch said, gripping Bement’s dry, strong hand.
Bement had the sort of easy physical confidence that Mitch had always admired in other men. He did not look like any effete rich kid. The day-old beard and purplish mouse under his eye gave him a rugged, scrappy air. He was not particularly tall, but he had the lean, coiled athleticism of a guy who would excel at any sport he tried. Standing there with him, Mitch felt like a different species of animal-a plodder who’d been bred for towing heavy wagons through mud.
“So this is your office?” he asked him, glancing around.
“Evan’s a much better wheeler-dealer than I am,” Bement acknowledged. “He also knows where to find stuff, so he goes on most of the buying trips. Unless he can’t get away, in which case I’ll go. But I’m much happier when I’m working with my hands. It’s good, honest work. I’m not trying to fool anyone.”
Mitch studied the farmhouse table with intense interest. He’d furnished his own cottage mostly with castoffs, and was still learning the refinishing ropes. “Will you strip this down to bare wood?”
“No, I’ll leave a lot of this paint on. People are into the ‘distressed’ look right now. Lends the piece a patina of age. A decorator like my mom will pay top dollar for a table like this, even though it’s a factory-made piece from the 1930s-not really an antique at all.”
Mitch nodded his head in agreement, even as it occurred to him that Bement was trying to fool someone. He’d just admitted so.
“Actually, I’m still pretty new to furniture. I know boats way better. Did donkey work down at the boatyard every summer when I was a kid.”
“Justine told me you two would like to buy a boat and sail away together.”
“All we have to do is win the lottery.”
“Actually, it may not have to come to that. Can we sit somewhere and talk?”
A hooded gray sweatshirt was draped over the back of a chair. Bement flung it on over his head and started toward the back door, pausing at a work sink to wash the white sanding powder from his hands. Next to the sink sat a table with an electric coffeemaker on it. He poured some coffee into a Styrofoam cup and dumped sugar and creamer in it. Mitch did the same. Then they went out the door to a weedy, muddy area behind the barn that served as a boneyard for rusted-out patio furniture and garden gates. Becca’s Honda Civic was parked back there next to a pickup that Mitch assumed was Bement’s.
A wooden picnic table sat invitingly in the winter sunshine. They flopped down there, the rays feeling nice and warm on Mitch’s shoulders. The land out behind the barn fell off sharply into a deep, tree-shaded gorge. The stream down there was still frozen. Bement pulled a pack of unfiltered Lucky Strikes from his sweatshirt pocket and lit one, eyeing Mitch guardedly. The more Mitch studied him, the more aware he became of the intensity that lurked beneath Bement’s apparent physical ease.
“You hear about our latest local crime news?” he asked Mitch, dragging on his cigarette.
Mitch nodded. Des had called to tell him. She always called him when something broke. He liked it that she did. “I tried to talk to Pete just yesterday at the Soup Kitchen. The guy ran from me in sheer terror.”
“When I was in high school he used to sit out on the town green every afternoon,” Bement recalled. “The Kershaw brothers would throw rocks at him on their way home from school. I had to tell them to cut it out.”
“Sounds like you’ve been messing with those two for years.”
“To know them is to mess with them.”
“I guess the poor guy was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure, man.”
“What do you mean by that, Bement?”
“I mean he wasn’t necessarily killed because of what he saw.”
“Well, why else would he?…”
“I can’t say anything more because I’m not supposed to know.” Bement gulped his coffee, staring across the table at him. “Did you ever hide behind the sofa when you were a little kid? Overhear what the grown-ups were saying to each other when they thought you’d gone to bed?”
“Sure, but all they were ever talking about was my Aunt Esther’s gall bladder. I never heard any good stuff.”
“Well, I did. In my family we had lots of secrets. But I don’t talk about them. Besides, that’s not why you’re here. You’ve read Teeny’s book, or as much of it as you could stand, and you don’t know how to tell her it stinks.
