“They were at… at the foot of our drive,” he gasped. “Practically ran the damned bags over when I was… I was heading out for work. I deal in building supplies. People drop crap off… I got out for a look, saw they were empties and t-took ’em with me.”
“What time did you leave for work?”
“Seven-thirty… maybe,” Milo panted, his chest heaving.
She eased off a little. She wanted him to talk, not have a heart attack. “And where were your boys at the time?”
“Won’t… help you put my boys away.”
“It’s not me you’re helping. It’s them, if you can give them an alibi. Were Stevie and Donnie home by then or weren’t they?”
“Ain’t… ain’t saying a-a word.” His face contorted as if he were straining mightily. “Whip me, I don’t care.”
“You can’t be sure, can you? It’s possible that your boys brought Pete’s load home this morning after they killed him. Is that right?”
“I don’t know who left ’em there! I just… I just told you… I just…” Milo’s eyes flickered and then, suddenly, the resistance went right out of him. He untensed, his breathing returning to normal. Lay there in defeated silence, glaring up at her. Not so much with hate in his eyes. Hate wasn’t what she saw.
She saw humiliation.
As Des looped her belt back onto her uniform trousers a sharp, acrid smell tweaked her nostrils. She recognized it instantly but did not acknowledge it. Did not say another word. Just fetched her weapon and pager from the hood of Milo’s truck and started back toward her cruiser, knowing that from this day on whenever she ran into Milo Kershaw he would flee, his eyes avoiding hers.
She would never forget the look on that nasty little man’s face when he wet his pants.
CHAPTER 15
Rut Peck wasn’t dressed for company. He had on an ancient, food-stained wool robe, long johns and carpet slippers. Still, the old postmaster seemed happy to see Mitch as he led him into the cozy parlor, where a daytime return of Gunsmoke was blaring away on the TV.
“You’ve stumbled onto my dirty little secret, Mitch,” he confessed as he flicked it off. “I’m a Marshal Dillon man. He treats people with respect. Doesn’t act tough. Just is tough. That’s my idea of a lawman. But I guess I’m dating myself, aren’t I? It’s my idea of aresident trooper. Our Des has a lot of Matt’s quiet confidence.”
“That she does, Rut.”
Rut turned up his hearing aids. “What’s that you say?”
“She knows how to handle herself.”
“Say, I’m not being much of a host. What can I get you?”
“Nothing, thanks.” Mitch took his usual seat at the round oak table.
“Kind of thirsty myself,” Rut said, smacking his dry lips. “Just might pour myself a glass of my stout.”
“In that case, I just might join you.”
Rut waddled into the kitchen and opened the fridge. A moment later he returned with two glasses of stout topped with creamy foam. He handed one to Mitch, eased himself slowly into his worn armchair and put his feet up on the footstool. “You come here to lose more money at cards?”
“I wanted to tell you that Justine’s novel is quite good. I think I can help her get it published.”
“Hey, that there’s a piece of good news.” Rut took a celebratory sip of stout, studying Mitch over the rim of the glass. “And yet I’m sensing you’re uneasy. What’s on your mind, son? This about you and Des?”
“It does involve her. It seems her decoder ring is malfunctioning.”
Rut frowned. “Sorry, you’ll have to trot that by me again.”
“She’s in the middle of a case that’s giving her trouble. I told her I’d try to help out if I could. I suppose you’ve heard about old Pete?”
“I have,” Rut confirmed sadly, resting his half-empty glass on his tummy.
“Rut, how much do you know about him?”
“Why are you asking?”
“Because you’re more up on local family history than anyone else I know.”
“I guess I do know a little, being related to so many folks like I am.” Rut scratched at his chin thoughtfully. “What does Des know?”
“For starters, that his last name was Mosher.”
“And how did she come by that?”
“Pete had a lawyer, believe it or not.”
“Young Glynis?”
“Why, yes.”
Rut sipped his stout, nodding to himself. “Folks here in Dorset take an indecent amount of pleasure in swapping tales about each other. But no genuinely decent person takes pleasure in gossiping about someone who’s suffered through no fault of his own. No sir.” Rut’s phone rang on the end table next to him. He reached over, lifted the receiver an inch and hung it back up again, then gazed down into his glass in silence for a moment. “I can tell you some things that Des ought to know. She’ll be hearing bits and pieces soon enough. May as well get the real story-not some pack of lies the village hens cooked up over at Town and Country beauty salon. But you didn’t hear this from me, and it’s not for spreading around. Strictly to help your lady friend catch a killer. Maybe earn herself a pay bump. Not that she needs one. Already has a rich boyfriend.”
“You don’t know much about the newspaper business, do you, Rut?”
Rut Peck got up out of his chair and fetched them two more glasses of home brew. Then he sat back down, shifting around in his chair. “To begin with, Mosher was the maiden name of Milo Kershaw’s mom, Bessie. Bessie was a Mosher. So was my dear wife, Helen, who was first cousin to her. Used to be Moshers all over Dorset. They’re an old, old family. Swamp Yankees, every last one of them.”
“Are you telling me that Pete was related to Milo’s mother?”
“Mitch, this takes some telling, so drink your stout and let me yammer, okay?” Rut paused to sip his own. “Back in the Roaring Twenties there was a big, puffy-chested fellow name of Mr. John J. Meier. Heir to a huge Pittsburgh steel fortune. John J. was the youngest of three boys. His older brothers took over the family business from the father. And a fine job of it they did. John J. was sent off to Andover and Yale to improve the family’s social standing. A strutting, handsome fellow he was. The ladies went for him in a big way. Well, you put that all together and it spells a career in politics. That was the plan, anyhow. Trouble was, John J. couldn’t sell a pair of mittens to the Eskimos. Became the family playboy instead. Cut himself a wide swath through the young ladies of New York, London, Paris. Eventually, he latched on to beautiful young Katherine Dunlop of the Dorset Dunlops.”
“This would be your aunt?”
Rut nodded. “John J. spent buckets of money refurbishing Four Chimneys. Hired a young local couple, Ed and Bessie Kershaw, to be caretaker and cook. And then he and Aunt Katherine settled in at Four Chimneys to start themselves a family. At least, they tried. She lost the first baby at birth, then miscarried. She wasn’t a strong woman. She finally gave John J. a daughter, Poochie, in ’33. But after that Aunt Katherine couldn’t have any more kids, so Poochie grew up an only child.” Rut paused to collect his thoughts. Mitch could hear the old man’s breath wheeze in and out in the warm, airless silence. “I can still remember John J. tearing around the village in that block-long Duesenberg of his. You never saw so much chrome in your life. Nor a more dashing fellow, with his slicked-back hair and waxed mustache. Bought himself one of those forty-five-foot wood-hulled speedboats they made up at the Dauntless shipyard in Essex. He’d go roaring up and down the river in it. Take his lady friends out on the Sound for a little you-know-what. John J. had his way with any number of other men’s wives. Any gal he felt like.” Rut’s apple-cheeked face tightened. “A fella of that sort, it can really get to bothering him as the years pass.”
“What can, Rut?”
“Me, I’ve got three beautiful daughters and I love them to death and I’ve never, ever cared that not a one of
