“The one Kelly heard?”
“No, the one Darren admitted to. Just before Ms. Slocum went out, Belinda Morton called her. But she never said that was what it was about.”
“You’ve talked to her?”
Wedmore nodded. “I was out to her house.”
I debated with myself whether to tell her the messy truth about George Morton’s relationship with Ann Slocum, and how she’d been blackmailing him. At the moment, withholding that information was my leverage with Morton to get Belinda to back off her story about Sheila. I weighed being totally open with Wedmore against the financial future of my daughter and myself, and decided, at least for now, to look out for my own. But if and when I found out Morton’s handcuff games had anything to do with Sheila’s situation-I didn’t see how they could, unless Sheila really did know about them and that knowledge had gotten her into trouble-then I’d tell Wedmore everything I knew.
“Were you about to say something?” she prodded.
“No. That’s it for the moment.”
Wedmore made a couple more notes, then looked up.
“Mr. Garber,” she said, adopting the same tone my doctor used when telling me not to worry while I awaited test results, “I think the best thing for you to do is go home. Let me look into this. I’ll make some calls.”
“Find this Sommer guy,” I said. “Bring in Darren Slocum and ask him some tough questions.”
“I’m asking you to be patient and let me do my job,” she said.
“What are you going to do now? When you leave here?”
“I’m going to go home and make some dinner for myself and my husband,” Wedmore said. She glanced over at the McDonald’s counter. “Or maybe just take something with me. And then, tomorrow, I’m going to give your concerns all the attention they deserve.”
“You think I’m nuts,” I said.
“No,” she said, looking me right in the eye. “I do not.” Even though I believed she was taking me seriously, her comment that she’d wait until tomorrow to look into this wasn’t good enough. So I’d have to start doing something tonight.
She said she’d be in touch, got up, and joined the line to place an order. I watched her a moment, and then did something of a double take.
There were two teenage boys ahead of her, jostling each other playfully, both looking down at an iPhone or some other kind of device one of them was holding. One of the boys I recognized. He’d been with Bonnie Wilkinson when I bumped into her at the grocery store. He’d stood there when she told me that I was going to get what was coming to me. And not long after that came news of the lawsuit.
Corey Wilkinson. The boy whose brother and father were dead because Sheila’s car was blocking that off- ramp.
I didn’t want to be sitting here when they walked past with their food. I couldn’t even look at him.
I was sitting in my truck, about to turn the key, when the two of them came out of the McDonald’s, each holding a brown paper bag and a drink. They walked briskly across the lot, then got into a small silver car. Corey got in on the passenger side while the other kid slid in behind the wheel.
The car was a Volkswagen Golf, a model from the late nineties. Stuck onto the top of the stubby antenna, which angled up from the back of the roof, was a decorative yellow ball, slightly smaller than a tennis ball. As the car drove past, I could see a Happy Face painted on it.
FORTY-FIVE
Arthur Twain was propped up on the bed in his room at the Just Inn Time, his laptop resting on the tops of his thighs, his cell phone next to him on the bedspread. He had definitely stayed in better places than this, but everything else in town was booked.
He wasn’t making much progress. Belinda Morton didn’t want to talk to him. Darren Slocum didn’t want to talk to him. The only one who’d talked to him at all was Glen Garber. But he had other names, other women who’d attended purse parties Ann Slocum had given. Sally Diehl. Pamela Forster. Laura Cantrell. Susanne Janigan. Betsy Pinder. He’d give Milford another day or two, see if he could talk to some of them, get a better idea how many different places the purses that were being sold out here were coming from.
One thing Twain was certain of: Slocum and his dead wife were like the hub of a wheel out here. They’d brought all sorts of merchandise into this part of Connecticut. Ann sold the purses, they had a couple of people taking pharmaceuticals off their hands and reselling them, and they even dabbled in some home construction supplies, at least the goods that were easy to move, like electrical components. No toxic drywall.
It wasn’t that Twain didn’t care about all that other stuff, but it was the fashion companies that were paying his tab. If following a drug trail led him to the bogus purses, terrific, but otherwise he wasn’t being paid to worry about all those other things. One time, tracking down some fake Fendis, he’d stumbled upon a DVD counterfeiting lab in the basement of a house in Boston. They were stamping out about five thousand copies of movies, some that were still in theaters, every single day. Twain made a call to the authorities who cared about that sort of thing, and the place was raided within the week.
He was composing an email back to the office about how his investigation was unfolding when there was a rapping at the door.
“Second!” he shouted. He set aside the laptop and swung his stocking feet onto the floor. He was over to the door in six steps and peered through the security peephole. There was nothing but black. Twain had never looked through the peephole before. Maybe it was broken, or someone had stuck gum to it on the outside. It was the kind of place where someone might do that, and where the cleaning staff would never notice.
Or maybe someone was holding a finger over it.
“Who is it?” he asked.
“Glen Garber.”
“Mr. Garber?”
He hadn’t remembered telling Garber the name of his hotel. He hadn’t even booked in here yet when he went to visit him. He’d given Garber a card, he was sure of that. So why didn’t the man phone him, instead of tracking him down here?
Unless there was something he wanted to tell Twain that he didn’t feel safe discussing over the phone.
If it was Garber.
“Can you stand a bit back from the door?” Twain asked, putting his eye to the peephole again. “I can’t quite see you.”
“Oh, sure,” the man on the other side said. “How’s that?”
The peephole was still black. Which meant it wasn’t working, or the man was still holding his finger over it.
“Can you give me a minute?” Twain asked. “I just got out of the shower.”
“Yeah, no prob,” the voice said.
Twain’s briefcase was on the desk. He opened it, reached into the pouch on the underside of the lid, took out a short-barreled handgun, felt its reassuring heft in his right hand. He looked at his shoes, on the floor next to the bed, and considered slipping them on, but decided not to take the time. He returned to the door, checked the peephole again.
Still black.
He slid back the chain with his left hand, then gently turned the handle.
It all happened in seconds.
The door slammed into him with tremendous force. If all it had done was hit his body, that would have been bad enough. But the bottom of the door mashed the toes of Twain’s shoeless left foot. He screamed in anguish as he went sprawling across the carpet.
A figure came into the room. Low, and fast. Twain had never seen him in person before, but he knew instantly who he was. And he could see that Sommer’s hands were gloved, and that one of them was holding a
