It occurred to me at that moment that pissing off the chief of police at family get-togethers over the years might not have been such a good idea.
Twenty-three
And then there he was, arriving just seconds after his uniformed officers in a white Chevy Suburban. Augustus Perry had a short huddle with them before striding over in my direction.
I stood and let him come to me.
“Cal,” he said without even a hint of a nod. He looked at the teenage boy standing next to me. “Who are you?”
“Sean Skilling.” A pause, then, “Sir.”
Augie squinted. “Ford dealership?”
“My dad’s, yes, sir.”
Augie nodded. “Adam Skilling. You folks do all the servicing on our vehicles. I’ve seen your father at our garage.”
“That’d be him.”
Augie put his eyes back on me. “Show me.”
Leaving Sean behind, I led my brother-in-law to the railing and pointed down to Hanna’s body. “Hard to see all of her from here,” I said.
He grunted. “Tell me how it came to be that you found her.”
“It’s a long story,” I said.
“All the more time I get to spend with you,” he said.
I gave it all to him as quickly as I could. Picking up Claire at Patchett’s, and everything that followed. And then, earlier this evening, two of his men coming to see me, trying to find Claire.
“This part I’m guessing you already know about,” I said.
He stared at me blankly, although I couldn’t tell whether that meant he didn’t know, or did and just wasn’t saying.
“Go on,” Augie said.
I told him I felt a responsibility where Claire was concerned, and started asking around myself. Looking for Claire led me to Hanna, Hanna led me to Sean Skilling, and his recollection of his short phone call with Hanna had led us back here, around the corner from where Hanna had jumped out of my car. “She tossed her wig when she got out. It’s in my car.”
“Mayor’s kid’s missing,” Augie said under his breath. “Girlfriend dead.”
“Yeah.”
He looked over his shoulder at Sean Skilling, who was currently being interviewed by Officer Ramsey and her partner. “What about the kid? Girl gets killed, the first, most logical suspect is the boyfriend.”
“I know. But I don’t think it’s him. And he’s got an alibi courtesy of the Griffon PD. One of your people’d pulled him over to write him up for running a stop sign about the time it all went down.”
“So there’ll be a record of the ticket.”
“No, there won’t. Sean says the cop got another call before he could finish writing it out.”
Augie scowled. “Convenient.”
“Look, maybe it’s the kid, I don’t know. But I think something different’s playing out here.”
“Who were they trying to trick? With the switch?”
“No idea.”
“The Skilling kid know?”
“He claims not to.” We were both looking at him now, being questioned by Ramsey and her partner. “Who’s with Kate?” I asked.
“Hmm? That’s Marv Quinn.” Augie took another look over the railing. Haines and Brindle were searching the hillside around the body, flashlights in hand. “That girl’s missing her drawers.”
“I noticed,” I said.
“You think the Skilling kid and the girl were having troubles? She wants to break it off, he gets mad, things get out of hand, he wants one last go at her?”
“I don’t think so,” I said.
He took one more long look at Hanna Rodomski and said, “These sorts of things aren’t supposed to happen here.” Even in the dim glow of the streetlamps, I thought I saw genuine sadness cross his weathered face.
He rubbed his mouth thoughtfully, then said, “You think it’s turned around somehow?”
“How do you mean?”
“This crazy stunt the girls pulled, fooling someone into thinking it was Claire who got into your car, which allowed her to slip away. Could it be the other way around? Maybe it wasn’t that Hanna was trying to make someone think she was Claire. Maybe Claire was trying to make someone think she was Hanna.”
That made my head hurt. “No. It doesn’t play that way.”
“Maybe you’re right. But it’s possible, whoever killed the Rodomski girl, they could have been thinking she was Claire. Thoughts?”
“That’d definitely cross Sean Skilling off your suspect list,” I said.
He said, “Hmm.”
I asked, “Why are you looking for Claire Sanders?”
“Who said I was?” the chief said.
“The collective you, Augie. Your minions.”
“Who was it again came to talk to you?”
“Brindle and Haines. Haines I know. He was the one... He brought us the news about Scott.”
Augie’s face softened. “About that. Haines should have called me. He shouldn’t have delivered that news to you himself. It should have been me. I’m Scott’s uncle, for Christ’s sake. I’m sorry about that.”
I nodded. It wasn’t the first time Augie had mentioned it.
“I honestly don’t think he made the connection,” Augie said. “If he’d thought for a half a second, seen the name Weaver on Scott’s ID, thought about Donna in payroll — you’re supposed to have some smarts if you’re a cop.” He glanced down toward the creek, where Ricky Haines and his partner were still mucking about. “Anyway, those two came to see you. Tell me about that.”
“They were looking for Claire. They knew I’d given her a lift at Patchett’s. One of them said something about getting picked up on closed-circuit there, but Patchett’s doesn’t actually have any. So my first question is, were they already watching Patchett’s? And the second is, who put them onto looking for Claire in the first place? Her father says he didn’t report her missing.”
“You talked to him?”
“Right after you had your little town hall chat. Could someone else have reported her missing? Her mother? Sanders’ ex lives in Toronto, right? But even if it was her, wouldn’t you have gotten a heads-up?”
Augustus Perry didn’t say anything. If I didn’t know better, I’d have guessed he was thinking.
I interrupted whatever process was going on in there.
“It would seem to me, even with my limited understanding of the inner workings of the Griffon police department, that when the daughter of our beloved mayor, your sworn enemy of the moment, is the subject of a police search, somehow you would be in the loop.”
Augie looked back to where his SUV and the police cruisers were parked. There was another set of lights approaching.
“Coroner,” he said, and started walking.
Twenty-four
A short black woman in her fifties, wearing a shiny blue down-filled jacket zipped up to her neck, approached. It struck me that she was dressed for much colder weather than we were currently having.
“Chief,” she said, blowing her nose and stuffing a tissue into one of her jacket pockets. I could see the ends of some surgical gloves sticking out of both of them.
“You okay, Sue?” Augie asked.
“Freezin’ to death. It’s this goddamn cold. Been trying to shake it for two weeks.”
“Sorry you had to get dragged out when you’re sick,” he said.
Sue shrugged. “Still a hell of a lot better off than that girl down there, I gather.”
“Cal, you know Dr. Kessler. She’s what passes for a coroner around here.”
Sue Kessler sniffed, looked at me. “We’ve met before, I think.” She was right. We’d crossed paths once or twice since I’d moved to Griffon. “I won’t shake your hand.”
I was okay with that.
“Sue, Cal found the body.”