Dunn finally let out a long puff of breath, as if he’d been holding it all this time. “Well, it isn’t really my decision to make. It’s still police business at this point. If you want to hold on to it a while longer, be my guests.” He got up and put his cigarettes and lighter into his pockets. “Do try to let me know what the hell is going on, though, will you?”
Brandt nodded. “Absolutely. Thanks for coming by.”
I waited until he closed the door behind him. “Stan tells me I’ve been made acting captain.”
Brandt shook his head. “God, I’m starting to think we ought to hire him as a messenger boy. Yes, you have been.” He paused, feeling for a reaction. “Is that all right?”
I got up. “Yeah.”
He let it be. “So, what’s your first tack?”
“To get reorganized. I want to check on what came in last week. Let me see what’s what and I’ll get back to you. From the way it looks now, though, we’re going to end up putting a lot of people on this. If anything else breaks loose, we won’t have a choice about bringing the state police in.”
Among the pile Max had given me was a letter from Beverly Hillstrom confirming the survival of the samples, the official accident report from the Mass State Police, and a message that Floyd Rubin had called.
He was tending to a customer when I walked in, so I loitered by the magazine rack and waited. He saw me and came straight over, leaving the woman at the counter, money still in her hand.
“Lieutenant Gunther, I heard about the accident. I’m so terribly sorry about the other man.”
“Thanks. Why don’t you finish up with her so we can talk.”
“Certainly.”
He returned to the counter and nervously set to work. His demeanor was totally unlike when we’d first met- I’d expected a far more hostile reception. Now, he seemed more scared than anything else.
He showed the woman to the door and locked it behind her, pulling down a shade marked “Closed.” I started to tell him not to bother but then kept quiet. Maybe it was best we were left alone.
“Did you find those time sheets you mentioned?”
He nodded quickly. “Oh yes. Very soon after we talked. You said you’d be going out of town for a few days, so I held on to them, and then I heard about your accident. I became very frightened.”
“Why?”
He rubbed his forehead. “I don’t really know. When we talked, I was left with an ominous feeling, and then the newspaper started reporting on all those incidents, trying to tie them all together to a masked man. And then you almost died, and the other antally u man did. I couldn’t help but feel that your looking into Kimberly’s death was somehow connected to it all. I began to feel very nervous, as if I was in the middle of something, but I didn’t know what.”
“You are.”
He leaned against the counter. “Oh, my Lord.”
“You didn’t tell me everything that went on between you and Kimberly, did you?”
His eyes closed tightly and he shook his head. “Yes, I did. I may have down played my affection for her, but that’s all.”
“You did love her?”
“Yes, I suppose. I know that’s stupid-it’s like a boy falling in love with his teacher. It’s not real-it wasn’t real. I know she felt no similar feelings for me. In fact, she laughed when I told her. Not cruelly, mind you-I mean, I had to laugh with her. She just saw how silly it was, which I couldn’t see until she showed me. That’s why she left and why I didn’t keep in touch. I was too humiliated to tell you all that. You can see why, surely.”
“Don’t worry about it.” I patted him on the shoulder. He looked so utterly humiliated I didn’t have the heart to ask him flat out if they’d actually made love. Odds are they had, which explained his embarrassment cutting so deep. “I am going to ask you for a favor, though, and chances are it’s going to make you twice as uneasy.”
“What is it?”
“A blood test. There is absolutely no suspicion of your being involved in this case in any way whatsoever, understand? But I’m asking everyone who had any kind of involvement with Kimberly for the same thing, just so the totally innocent people don’t clutter up the picture.” I was overstating the case, of course. For all I knew, this man was a closet psychopath. I doubted it though.
Still, he looked shocked. “You can refuse, of course. This is a request only,” I added quickly.
His voice was subdued. “No, I quite understand. Of course I’ll do it. It’s as if this whole nightmare was happening all over again, isn’t it? I’m beginning to feel her loss again, long after I thought I’d put it behind me. I feel like such an idiot.” He shoved his glasses up on his forehead and rubbed his eyes with his fingertips.
“Why don’t you give me those time sheets and I’ll get out of your hair.”
“Of course, of course.” He shuffled off to the back of the store and returned with a shoe box. “Here they are. I put tabs on all the three-day weekends I gave her.”
“Thank you. That was very thoughtful. I’ll send a man around later to drive you to the hospital for the blood test. What time do you close?”
“Seven. But I can close earlier.”
“Seven’s fine, and don’t worry-really.”
I was almost out the door before he called me back, “I forgot to tell you: I remembered a friend she had when she was here. You had asked me earlier.”
1em' allefto telYes. Who was it?”
“Her name was Susan Lucey. I hired her just for the Christmas season that year. She didn’t really work out and I never saw her again, but I remember that she and Kimberly used to leave together after closing quite often, as if they were going to do something together in the evening-a movie or something. She’s the only one I could remember. I put her address in the box too.”
18
Susan Lucy’s address on Prospect Street was located on a plateau driven into the Y formed by Canal and Vernon Streets-right where John Woll had been mugged-and held tightly in position by St. Michael’s Cemetery, which cut, higher still, across its back. Previously the eighteenth-century neighborhood of a thriving middle class, it had been left behind at some point, high on its exclusive perch, to watch the rest of the city grow prosperous without it. Its homes-the multi-storied gingerbreads and Greek revivals so prevalent in New England-were now weather-beaten and worn, cut up into ramshackle apartments overlooking debris-strewn streets and scruffy yards. It was not a dangerous area, really-although it had its moments-but it was about as forlorn as Brattleboro could offer.
Number 43B was on the second floor of a building half faded red, half bare and graying wood, with a set of stairs attached to its side by pragmatic afterthought. There was no particular reason why Susan Lucey should be home in the middle of the day, but after checking the phone book and finding the address was still hers, the omen was too good to pass up.
I cautiously climbed the unshoveled, icy steps, the banister wobbling under my right hand. The wind whipped at my pant legs and froze my ears. I knocked on the door.
I waited a minute in total silence and knocked again, just for the hell of it. I heard a bang from somewhere inside. Footsteps crossed the floor and the door opened a crack, revealing a young woman’s round, unhealthy- looking face framed by heavy, dull brown hair.
“What do you want?” The voice was flat and hostile.
“Miss Lucey?”
“Who are you?”
“My name’s Gunther. I’m with the police.”
“You got a warrant?”
“Do I need one?”
“Fuck you, Mac.”
“No, wait.” I put my hand against the closing door. “I wouldn’t want a warrant. I just want to talk to you
