Was this enough motive for Rennie to stab Bruce Wingate at the bottom of that ravine? I sat back down. “Did anyone else know his affairs?
Anyone in the Order?” “Sarris knew.” “Sarris?” “Sure, he set it up.
Rennie made a deal with him.” “What kind of deal?” “I don’t know exactly. Rennie wouldn’t tell me. He said he had something on The Elephant, something that could shut him down. Rennie told me he was set for life; any of those cunts he wanted he could have.” “Did you ever meet the women?” Chaney did his shuffle routine again instead of answering. I tried a friendlier, more companionable tone. “Rennie and I grew up together, Pete. He’s one of my oldest friends. Now right now, the state cops are crawling all over the place looking to nail him for that stabbing the other day. You think he did it?” “Murder a guy?
No way.” “I don’t think he did, either,” I said with false conviction.
“But we’re a minority, and unless I can find out who did, they’re going to nail him, and maybe you with him.” “That’s bullshit.” But he didn’t say it with much assurance. “You think so?” I stood up, my voice suddenly harsh. “Then let’s stop right now. You can deal with the State Police yourself.” He wearily motioned me to sit. “Yeah, he brought one of ‘em here.” “Why here?” “Maybe I told him I didn’t want to cover his tail when he was getting’ all the action. So he brought the first one over, like a peace offering.” “Who was she?” His voice went up a note. “How do I know? I sure wasn’t going’ to mess with her.” I was becoming impatient. “What the hell’s that mean? You were the one who asked for her.” %181 He glared at me sulkily. “She was a real nut into S&M. She liked be hit, had scars all over her, like she’d been in an accident. They d it and I watched for a while, but I finally threw ‘em out. Told ennie to keep ‘em all to himself.” “So there were others?”
“Hell, yes. He dumped that one later, but he was hooked. I told m I wasn’t interested anymore.” Chaney looked half-embarrassed by e admission. There was a lull in the conversation as Pete Chaney studied his rty knuckles. I felt weighed down inside. Part of my early enthusiasm this case, I suddenly realized, stemmed from my desire to establish ennie’s innocence. Subconsciously perhaps, I’d seen myself as the odigal returning, showing my affection for the town of Gannet by eeing one of its prominent citizens from scandal.
Reluctantly, I pulled the xerox copy of Julie Wingate’s picture from my pocket and showed it to Chaney. “That the woman?” He peered at it in the gloomy light. “Yeah, I think so. She looks little fatter here.
There wasn’t much to her when I saw her.” He shook head.
“Did you ever see her again?” “Not her or anyone else. Rennie took me at my word and never ought any of ‘em around again.” “How long ago was all this?” “I don’t know-a while.” “A month? A year?” “Half a year.”
“Are you sure he dumped her?” “That’s what he said. He had his pick. No need to get hung up on e of ‘em.” “And how did this little cover work, the Wednesday night thing?” “Usually he took them to the firehouse in Gannet. That way, if someone called him here, I could say he was taking a shit and would II right back, or something like that, and then I’d call him at the ehouse and let him know.” “That happen often?” “Not too much-sometimes.” “And he always went to the firehouse? What about if they had a e all of a sudden?” “Didn’t matter. He had a deal set up in the attic. A mattress on e floor, pillows, stuff like that. If the siren went off, he’d just stay put. ever happened anyway.” I made a face. “I know that attic-must have been hotter than hell the summer.”
%182 “He said it was sexy. Anyway, he had a fan set up in the back window, where you couldn’t see it from the street. Before he figured out about the attic, he used to go out in the woods-he had a spot.”
“Where?” “Offthe end of Lemon Road. There’s a kind of rock point that sticks out of the mountainside. You gotta go through the woods a few hundred feet to reach it it’s like a picnic rock. Nobody knows about it.” “You do.” “It used to be hangout of mine. I told him about it when he was Iookin’ for a place to get laid. At the beginning I took my phone off the hook and claimed it was out of order, or I took a message and then said I forgot to give it to him. It didn’t happen ‘cept once in a blue moon.
He didn’t really even need the attic deal and me calling him up. I just think it made him feel smart, that he had all the angles covered…
Asshole.” I stood up, feeling like hell. It was almost as if the Rennie I knew had died a long time ago. How could he have done that to Nadine? I was struck by a sense of bewildered loss. “You’ve helped yourself a lot with this, Pete. The police or I or somebody will come back and get it all down for the record later.” He didn’t look too pleased at the prospect. I paused as I headed for the door. “What about your end? What did you get out of it?” He was still sitting there, like a fat egg on a pillow, his hands in his lap. He seemed as bereft as I was. He shook his head. “I didn’t get shit out of it none of it was worth it. We used to play cards together way back. He was a good guy. But all this stuff ruined everything. I hardly knew him anymore.” It gave me little satisfaction to have finally solved the riddle of Rennie’s involvement with Bruce Wingate that there’d been something more than a brief flare-up between the two of them. Had Rennie’s affair with Julie continued without Pete Chaney’s knowledge?
Maybe Rennie had taken care of Wingate as a favor to Julie. And what did Rennie have on Sarris that Sarris would kowtow to him in the first %183 lace? Maybe Rennie was innocent of Wingate’s murder and Sarris set im up-killing two birds with one stone, as it were. Much as I’d been isillusioned by Rennie’s behavior, I still hoped the latter scenario ight be closer to the truth.
I was walking into State Police barracks to file the report on my hat with Chaney when Mel Hamilton met me in the lobby. “I just alled your office your secretary said you were headed this way. You ight like to come along.” “What’s up?” I handed the report to the receptionist.
“They found Rennie Wilson’s truck west of Hartwellville on emon Road.
They think whoever was in the truck headed off into e bush. I’m having Fish and Game send a tracker to meet em.
The trip was fast and lugubrious. Hamilton took a patrol car so e could use his blue lights and siren as necessary. He also had to use is headlights, although it was still midafternoon. The air was misty, reasing the road and reducing visibility, and the clouds hung so low at the hilltops vanished from view. The light was gray and dull, and dden patches of ground mist lingered menacingly in odd places, as dropped by accident from the bruised and glowering sky. It suited y mood and helped color my expectations of what we might find in e vicinity of Rennie’s truck. During the trip, I filled Hamilton in on hat I’d discovered at Pete Chaney’s. Lemon Road doesn’t really lead anywhere.
It branches off Radar oad out of Hartwellville, starts out paved, turns to dirt, and then just eters out on the heavily wooded slope of East Haven Mountain. It’s of very long, has only a house or two at its start, and leaves the pression of some half-forgotten municipal project whose planners n out of both ambition and funds. Rennie’s truck was parked at the d, its right wheels in a shallow ditch and its body half-covered with oken branches and dead leaves, a camouflage job either half-corneted or half-cleared away.
Spinney’s unmarked sedan and a patrol car were parked in a line the opposite side of the road. We pulled in behind them to lessen e number of extraneous tire marks in the dirt. A trooper I didn’t ow was standing nervously near the pickup, his right hand picking the yellow stripe that ran down the outside seam of his dark green iform pants; Spinney was stretched out on the hood of his car, his ck against the windshield. He snapped a salute from that position as amilton and I got out of our car. I could tell from Hamilton’s expresn he wasn’t pleased with the informality. %184 Obviously, even Spinney got the message. He slid off the car and gave a boyish smile to both of us. “Car hood was keeping me warm.” Hamilton smiled back and placed his hand on the car, warm vapor escaping from his mouth as he spoke. “I hadn’t thought of that. Fish and Game ought to be here pretty soon; you come up with anythiznew?” “Not here. We looked in the truck without disturbing anything, but there’s nothing unusual. You can see where the grass has been flattened leading into the woods. I didn’t want to risk messing things up.” Hamilton nodded. “No, no. I think that’s right. How long do you think the truck’s been here?” “Hard to tell. Engine was cold; there was frost on the windshield. A blind guess would be last night sometime, but that’s mostly because I figure Joe saw him last around 2300 hours and he must have driven here soon after.” The lieutenant nodded again and shivered slightly.