First the OCD. Then the locked sideboard.
Was it Wednesday and Thursday’s purging? Had clearing my system enabled me to think better? Heightened awareness born of my battle with microbes? A third dot connected with an almost audible click.
Oh, baby, I was on a roll.
I was poking at the idea a second time when Ryan returned.
“This is nutso, Ryan. Wild barking mad.”
“Where’s my beer?”
I could barely sit still.
“Listen to me.” I pointed two palms at Ryan. “Just hear me out before you scoff.”
“I never scoff at you, buttercup.”
“The floral endearment is scoffing.”
Ryan made a give-it-to-me gesture with his hand.
The waitress arrived with our food. Ryan ordered a Sam Adams.
“That’s it!” My palm smacked the table.
The waitress backed off.
“What are Red O’Keefe-Bud Keith’s other aliases?”
“All of them?”
I nodded.
Ryan pulled his spiral from a jacket pocket, flipped pages. “Red O’Keefe. Bud Keith. Sam Caffrey. Alex Carling.”
“He’s using beer brands!”
Two kids at the next table slid glances our way.
I lowered my voice.
“He mixes and matches. Red-Red Stripe. Bud-Budweiser. O’Keefe-O’Keefe’s. Keith and Alex-Alexander Keith’s. Carling- Carling’s Black Label.”
“Sonovabitch.”
“But listen.” Again the stop sign hands. “Listen.”
“I’m listening.”
“Sam Adams.”
Ryan raised his mug.
“Sam Adamski.”
“Keiser’s third husband?”
I nodded.
“He’s dead.”
“What if he’s not?”
The mug halted en route to Ryan’s mouth.
“According to Otto, Adamski’s body was never recovered. What if he’s alive?”
“What if he is?”
“Keiser and Adamski married in ’ninety-eight. What if she talked to him about sewing her money into the bedroom drapes? What if he looked her up this fall to check things out?”
“The drowning was staged?”
“Or the accident was real, but he survived. Maybe he saw his death as an opportunity to be exploited.”
“Where’s he been since 2000?”
“Maybe he changed his identity and hid out, left the country, got busted and did time under another name. Who knows? Adamski reemerges, needs bread, decides to look up his former wife.”
“Why now?”
I ignored Ryan’s question. I was spitting ideas as they came into my head.
“Or maybe the two kept in contact all along. Maybe they met at the cabin. Adamski knew about it. He built it, for God’s sake.”
“Why keep it secret that he’s alive?”
“The kids hated him.”
“They hated him throughout the marriage.”
“OK. Maybe they weren’t in contact. Maybe he shows up, holds her captive, smacks her around until she tells him about the money. Then he kills her.”
“Take a breath.”
I did.
“Otto said something this morning that got my wheels turning.”
“What?” I asked.
“He remembered that Adamski drowned somewhere in La Mauricie.”
“It was a boating accident. Do you suppose Adamski went down in the Saint- Maurice River?”
“I don’t know. I’ll find out. That’s not important. You know what else is right there, not far from Trois Rivieres?”
I shook my head.
“A little place called La Tuque.”
It took me a nanosecond to make the connection.
“Bud Keith’s alibi. He wasn’t at L’Auberge des Neiges when Rose Jurmain was killed. He was off bear hunting at La Tuque.”
Things were falling into place.
M. Keith, the Villejoins’ tree removal man.
Bud Keith-Red O’Keefe, Grellier’s bar braggart with knowledge of Christelle’s hidden grave.
Bud Keith, the kitchen worker at Rose Jurmain’s auberge.
Sam Adamski, Marilyn Keiser’s third husband.
For the longest time Ryan and I just stared at each other.
Could Caffrey/Keith/O’Keefe/Carling/Adamski have killed all four women?
Why?
Means and motive didn’t matter for now. We had the common link. The explanation of how the victims’ lives touched.
Ryan reached for his mobile.
32
BY THE TIME RYAN DROPPED ME AT MY CONDO WE KNEW THAT Caffrey/Keith/O’Keefe/Carling/maybe Adamski was neither at home nor at work.
Ryan issued a BOL. Be On Lookout. I’d barely cleared the Jeep when he roared off, hands tight on the wheel.
