name?”
“No.” She bit her lip and dropped her eyelids, as if she were concentrating intently on remembering. “He said, ‘I didn’t sign up for anything like this.’ He told Mal he wasn’t in it for the money, and Mal laughed at him. Then Mal gave him the…well, whatever it was and told him it was worth ten thousand dollars, and he—Malcolm, that is— would arrange a sale for the other guy. So he could take the money and leave the state. ‘Until this business about Bill blows over’—that’s what he said.” She opened her eyes and looked at Russ. “What do you think? Do you have an idea of who it might be?”
He returned his attention to the road. “Dunno if it’s an idea. A possibility, maybe.” He tapped the steering wheel with two fingers. “According to Elliott McKinley, there was a third man involved in the beatings. Jason Colvin. No priors on him, although we know he used to hang in the fringes of our little local hate-mongering group. We’ve tracked him to his girlfriend’s house, but the last time she saw him was Monday morning.”
“The morning after Bill Ingraham was killed.”
“Yep. Noble’s checked his work, hangouts, family—no one’s seen him since then. He’s disappeared off the face of the earth. Since we found Dessaint, I’ve been wondering if he took a camping trip, too.”
“What do you mean?”
“Dessaint. He was camped out in a remote location in the woods. If he hadn’t died and attracted a flock of carrion birds, we wouldn’t have found him on a bet.”
Clare wrinkled her nose. “That’s awful. And he died of an overdose? Accidentally?”
“Don’t know. It’s mighty convenient that the only person who knew who was passing out drugs and money in exchange for the assaults happened to OD a couple days after Ingraham’s death.”
“But if you think it might have been this Jason Colvin guy who was talking to Malcolm, then Chris Dessaint couldn’t have been the only one to know.” She brought one leg up and tucked her foot under her other leg. “If Malcolm Wintour’s been pulling the strings, maybe he’s trying to tie off all the loose ends. Maybe he adulterated whatever it was that he gave to Dessaint. And now Jason Colvin’s come to him. Maybe the package he gave to him wasn’t a payoff. Maybe it was meant for personal use.”
“If Colvin is a regular user, it wouldn’t stretch the imagination to think he’d dip into the goods. Even if he did plan on selling most of it.” He slowed the truck down as they approached a T-junction, then turned left and headed back into town. “The problem I have is seeing Malcolm Wintour as the bad guy. Why? What’s in it for him? Even granted the spurned-lover scenario, this is way too complicated. People who are enraged that their lover left grab the nearest gun and blow the person away. They don’t hire a bunch of guys and arrange incidents to cover their tracks. Besides, McKinley said the guy who was bankrolling them felt like they did about queers. Wanted to teach ’em a lesson. Wintour’s gay. He’s not going to beat up on his own kind.”
“It’s not a club with a secret handshake and vows of fraternal loyalty, Russ. Besides, from everything I’ve heard about Malcolm, the only person he feels loyalty to is himself. And maybe his aunt.” She twisted in her seat again. “And that’s another reason he may have done it. He’s living with Peggy Landry, relying on her for his housing and his support.”
“If he’s been selling…”
She waved a hand impatiently. “Details. I’m going for the big picture.”
“Oh.”
“He’s living with his aunt, the only other person to whom he’s attached, by both self-interest and affection. He thinks she’s likely to go under if the Algonquin Spa doesn’t go through, which is what Bill Ingraham is considering. So he does away with Bill. Or arranges to have him—” She closed her mouth abruptly.
He knew without asking that she was remembering what Ingraham’s body looked like the night she found him.
“The problem with that scenario,” he said, hoping to distract her, “is that Emil Dvorak was attacked the same night that Ingraham was making his threat at the town meeting to close down the project.”
She looked at him, her expression alert, indicating she’d returned to the present. “Sure, but chances are good that Ingraham had at least discussed the possibility with his other business partners. And if Peggy knew, Malcolm could have known. Or he might have talked about it with Malcolm himself before they broke up. Of course”—she flipped her hand over to indicate another possibility—“no one I’ve spoken with claims Malcolm is a genius of any kind, let alone a criminal one. His aunt described him as a sort of family project, and a man I was speaking with tonight said he couldn’t find—he wasn’t very smart.”
“Well, see, that’s something you would think of, because you’re used to dealing with smart people. Believe me, most crimes are committed by idiots. That’s why we usually catch them. It wouldn’t take intellect for Wintour to set up a series of hits on his ex and the others, just meanness and a few bucks. From what McKinley told me, they had control over the people they targeted and how they did it. The only instruction they had from the lead guy was that there be no thieving. Which, I have to admit, was smart, because once stolen goods start reappearing on the market, we usually have a much better chance of tracking down the thieves.”
“So you do think it could have been Malcolm.” She looked pleased with herself. “Hah.” She twisted toward him. “What are you going to do?”
He felt an unaccustomed warmth, centered in his chest and seeping outward, making his skin flush. It wasn’t sexual arousal, or embarrassment—he couldn’t identify the feeling.
“About what?”
“What are you going to do to be able to get a warrant to search Malcolm’s room? Besides sending Officer Entwhistle out. I can’t imagine he’ll find much, since Malcolm hasn’t been back in Millers Kill very long. He used to live with Bill in Baltimore. Hey, do you think the guys over at the Stuyvesant Inn might know more? Since he and Bill used to stay there together?”
It was pleasure, he realized. Simple pleasure at her genuine interest in him, in what he did, in what was important to him. A cold wave of guilt instantly washed over him. He was comparing Clare to his wife, which was completely unfair. Linda’s lack of interest in his work was her way of protecting herself from fear and anxiety. Her interests and her way of thinking were very different from his, and he had known that when he married her. He had welcomed it, as a respite from all the crap he’d had to deal with day in and day out as an MP. She hadn’t changed; he had. And the fact that Clare somehow seemed to…fit with who he was now should never, never reflect poorly on his wife, who was beautiful and funny and faithful. Not like him, who was driving around in his truck close to midnight, committing adultery in his heart.
