“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.
“Russ? Yoo-hoo. Let me in. What are you thinking about?”
“Jimmy Carter,” he said. He quirked his mouth in a half smile and glanced at her, but instead of the amusement or puzzlement he expected, she met his eyes with a look of such utter understanding that he had to shift in his seat from discomfort and chagrin.
She ducked her head and straightened in her seat as well, facing forward. She looked straight ahead as he slowed and turned onto Meersham Street, with its small, neat houses and evenly spaced trees. “What are you going to do?”
“About Malcolm?”
“Yes, about Malcolm.”
Screw Malcolm, he wanted to say, but instead he forced his mind into the familiar and safe channels of investigation and deduction. “I’d like to have a talk with Peggy Landry about him. Nothing formal—just feel her out. What his relationship was to BWI Development, instead of just what it was to Ingraham. If he has any income she knows about, and where it’s coming from. If she’s noticed any behavior that might indicate drug use.” He glanced at her for a second and then returned his attention to driving. “Do you think she’d talk to me about him? Willingly?”
“She seemed more exasperated with him than protective,” Clare said. “She strikes me as the sort who would throw him out of the house if she knew he had illegal drugs there, for his own good. You know. Tough love. He seemed protective of her, though, in his conversation with the other guy.”
He nodded. “I’ll think of a good reason to drop in on her, then. I don’t want to ask her to the station or make it seem like another round of questioning on what she knows about Ingraham.”
“Help me get my car.”
“What?”
“Tomorrow. It’s still parked at her house. I’ll need someone to drive me up there so I can retrieve it. If you take me, it will seem completely unrelated to the investigation. I can come up with something to ask her—a question about the wedding. Then you can get into a conversation with her.”
“You’re very sneaky, for a priest.” He felt her shrug, rather than saw it.
“What can I say? I was a sneaky kid. Probably a sneaky officer. I was trained to fly under the radar.”
He turned onto Elm Street, approaching the rectory the back way. Her house was the last one on the street, just before you reached the church on the corner. He turned into her drive and twisted the key in the ignition. “Okay,” he said into the silence once the engine had died. “I’ll take you there. Do you need to have your car back at any particular time?”
She opened the passenger door and climbed out. “I have a wedding in the morning. I was going to do some grocery shopping in the afternoon, but I can always walk over to the IGA.”
He popped his own door open and swung himself out. “I’ll walk you up,” he said.
“That’s not necessary.”
“When are you going to get an automatic floodlight so you can see if someone’s in your yard after dark? They’re butt-easy to install. ’Scuse my French. You could probably do it yourself.”
Instead of heading up the drive toward her kitchen door, she walked across the lawn to the wide front porch. “I hate those things. They go off every time a squirrel walks across the lawn. I don’t like lights coming on and waking me up.”
She walked up the three steps, and he followed her. “Get some curtains,” he said. Unlike his own heavily accessorized windows, Clare’s didn’t have a single valance, balloon shade, or drapery.