Far from my neighborhood, the nineteenth-century Victorian houses grew scarce and gave way to Georgian colonial homes built along the waterfront in the 1700s. These huge redbrick mansions at the edge of the bay were the original manor homes of Bridgeford. Just like back then, the real money lived here now. Manicured lawns and topiary gardens surrounded the three-story houses. European sports cars and luxury SUVs filled the open garages. At the ends of long piers, yachts bobbed and swayed in the waves. Ornate black wooden shutters decorated the windows in which most of the curtains and shades were drawn shut. Instead of fences, short redbrick walls that the salt air and Atlantic storms had worn down over the centuries marked the property lines.
The senior officers of Benton Dynamics probably resided in these colonial mansions, but I had not had any reason to consider that before today.
Bridgeford had been a smuggling port during the American Revolution and an early stop on the Underground Railroad before the Civil War. Subversive and dark stories seemed to lurk just beneath the pleasant surface of this Eastern Shore town. I supposed that reading about those stories might have subconsciously drawn me here.
I headed toward the Sheriff’s Department in the town center. Years ago, green grocers, jewelry shop owners, and pharmacists probably would have swept the sidewalks each morning before unlocking their doors, but those businesses were long gone. No broom had cleared the pavement for ages. Cigarette butts and fast-food wrappers littered the concrete. Dried leaves crunched beneath my worn leather shoes.
About a third of the storefront windows were covered with brown paper and For Rent signs. The only businesses thriving along Main Street were tattoo parlors, second-hand stores, and vape lounges. In the empty coffee shops, customers needed a line of credit from a bank to afford anything worth drinking. I suspected that at least one of the coffee shops stayed open by selling more than just caffeine. During the afternoons, men in filthy tee-shirts and ratty jeans who lived off government assistance passed bottles back and forth in the alleys and argued loudly over pretty much nothing. At night, there were drunken fistfights and drug deals, which kept a few attorneys in Bridgeford busy in the criminal courts. By morning, however, these narrow, bleak sidewalks were deserted except for those of us fool enough to hold down a regular job.
At the front desk of the Sheriff’s Department, I checked in with a blank-faced deputy who had no idea who I was or that Sheriff Tompkins was expecting me. The deputy picked up a phone and buzzed her on the intercom. After explaining that I was here, the only thing he said back to her was, “Okay.” With bureaucratic courtesy, the deputy asked me to wait a few minutes, so I waited.
Sheriff Tompkins emerged from her office at the far end of the busy squad room and extended her hand, which I took as a good sign. The police rarely shake hands with murder suspects. Maybe I was not on her list any longer, but she had proven to be cagey. I shook her hand, reminding myself to keep up my guard.
“Thank you for coming by this afternoon, Mr. Seagraves. Let’s go back to a more private room and talk.”
“Sure,” I replied, handing her the court papers for the Richard Kostas case that I had offered to copy for her last night.
“Thanks,” she said as she looked over the Writ of Summons and Complaint. “Can we get you anything?”
“No, I’m good. Thanks.”
She said, “Normally, I’d take you back to my office, but right now it’s something of a mess. I’d be embarrassed to have you in there.”
“Not a problem. My office is the same way.”
Papers from the Kostas investigation probably covered the sheriff’s desk. Wiping off suspect names and motive theories from her whiteboards and then replacing them after I had left would have been an unnecessary annoyance for her.
She led me back to Interrogation Room 2, but before we entered, she paused and turned toward me. “Figuring that you’re a lawyer, I didn’t think that you’d mind meeting in one of these, but don’t read anything into it. We’re a small department, and there aren’t too many places to speak privately.”
“It’s fine. I’ve been in these rooms before, but for clients. You can shine an overhead light into my eyes, if you like. And that deputy at the front desk can join you and play good cop/bad cop with me.”
She chuckled softly, which was better than some of the reactions she could have had.
Sheriff Tompkins inserted a large key into the doorknob, spun it, and opened the thick steel door. The small, tight, airless interrogation room was made of cinderblock walls painted a mucky shade of mint green. She pointed toward a metal chair on the other side of a small table bolted to the concrete floor. I sat down. A metal loop rose from the center of the table where the sheriff could fasten the handcuffs of violent suspects, but her eyes did not even glance at it. She smiled patiently as I tried to get comfortable. The two-way mirror built into the wall directly across from me allowed her staff to record interviews on video. The only decorations on the walls were a few scattered cobwebs.
She sat down across from me — no file, no notepad. “I appreciate you dropping by, Mr. Seagraves. The reason you’re here is to help us figure out what happened to your client, Richard Kostas. Let me start by saying that I’m sure you’re not thrilled to be here. You probably have other things to do, but to be blunt, we need your help. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“To cut to the chase, you had some