“Second, once we do set it up, the press’ll be standing around outside grilling everyone who goes in or out of that courtroom. An inquest is a rumor mill almost by design.” %200 “If we get what we want, who cares about the press?” Apple countered.
“We’re stuck with ‘em anyhow.” “I don’t think we’ll get anything. Apple, you’ve been scratching at these people for days. What makes you think they won’t stay clammed up in front of a judge?” “He’ll throw them in jail, that’s why.” “That’Il play right into their hands. Sarris can then say his people are being persecuted, that they didn’t say or do anything. I’m afraid an inquest now could stop us dead in our tracks.
We’ve done a lot in a few days. Why risk screwing it all up with a potential circus?” I noticed heads were turning from me to Potter, as if they were watching a tennis game. I looked at Smith to check for any vicarious enjoyment, but as usual, his face betrayed nothing.
Hamilton put an end to it. “The subject’s been broached; if there’s time at the end of this, maybe we can go back to it. I’m sure Mr.
Potter has some feelings on it he hasn’t expressed, and I’m not sure, if I were him, that this would be the place I’d choose to air them.
There’s still a lot we can do on what we’ve got at the moment, and as Lieutenant Gunther pointed out, even with an inquest, we’d still have a week before anything happened. Thomas, what did you get on those phone records-I don’t seem to have anything here.” Sergeant Thomas straightened in his seat. “I just got them, sorry. I was down in Hanover checking on Paul Gorman’s alibi.” He, too, pulled out a sheet of paper and looked it over.
“According to Bruce Wingate, he last called Gorman on Monday night, after his altercation with Fox. That must have been at 17:57-the call was placed from the phone at the Rocky River Inn to the FTC headquarters in Hanover.” “Not to Gorman’s mobile phone?” Hamilton asked. “No.
Later another call pops up from a pay phone in East Burke.” “Where?”
Spinney asked.
“The Mobile station. The call went to a Hanover number belonging to one of FTC’s employees, a Heather SpineIIi. I spoke with Mrs. SpineIIi and she denies getting a call and claims Gorman spent the entire night at her house in the guest room.” “What time was that?” I asked.
“Four-forty, early Tuesday morning.” “The fire was called in at five, more or less, and the arson team figured it might have been smoldering for up to half an hour before then.” “There was one other call from that phone, at 17:18 the same day.” %201 “What had the Wingates been up to just prior to that?” I asked on a hunch.
Smith answered. “We’d given them the lie detector test.” Thomas interrupted. “And the call was placed to the White Horse Motel.” “All right,” Apple muttered with satisfaction. I liked that bit of news myself. If it was accurate, it might mean Gorman was in the area before Wingate died, and didn’t just show up afterwards, as he’d Iaimed.
That would link Gorman tightly to the Wingates, making him ither an accessory to whatever illegalities Bruce Wingate had commited, or at least the repository of some information we badly wanted. ost ominously, it opened the possibility that one of the mysterious ootprints surrounding Wingate’s body had belonged to Paul Gorman.
“It may not mean a thing.” Hamilton cautioned. “We don’t know ingate made the call, and we don’t know who was at the other end.” “It sure puts Gorman on our hit parade,” Spinney smiled. “Yes, but let’s be careful here. Don’t screw this up. We can’t get court order here-it’s all too vague. Lester, why don’t you go down 0 the White Horse tomorrow and nose around a little? See if you can’t et us enough for a warrant.
Crofter, arrange with your team to watch arris’s house and put a tail on him. If we can get anything on him, might be the first crack in the dam.” “What about the call from the Rocky River, the one Ellie Wingate sked Greta to make to Gorman right after she heard of her husband’s eath?
That was supposed to have been made to his mobile phone.” Thomas made a face. “I couldn’t get it. The phone company lost he records.” “What do you mean?” “It happens,” Spinney said. “It’s got something to do with retrievng the records from the computers. Apparently, it messes things up nd sometimes they just lose the stuff.” “All right. We may have enough anyhow. It’s been a long day for verybody. Tomorrow morning, all reports will be available here, inIuding autopsy and Crime Lab updates. Is there anything else? You ant to kick around the inquest idea some more?” Potter spoke up.
“Unless anybody has a new angle, I think I’ve got enough to go on. I’ll let you know tomorrow.” Apple chuckled. “So button your lip, boys.”
Hamilton frowned his maternal frown. “Major Imus? Any last ords?” Imus couldn’t resist. He stood up. “I’m very impressed by what ‘ve seen tonight. As you no doubt know, I don’t show up at meetings %202 like this very often, and I was worried that my doing so would make you feel we were doubting your abilities. That’s what I told the Commissioner.
The Governor, however, is very concerned about all this, and the Commissioner felt there was no choice but that I should come. I can now return to Waterbury and lay their fears at rest. It is obvious to me-“
it was also obvious to me what else the man had to say. I slipped around the edge of the door and wandered down the hall.
I found a small, dark office with a desk, a chair, a phone, and nothing else. Leaving the light off, I settled in the chair, put my feet up on the table and leaned back, mulling over what had just been discussed.
The inquest angle still rankled, although there was little I could do about that now. I also had to sympathize with the urgency to do something, even if it wasn’t particularly well thought out. The frustration of having to constantly fall back onto hypothetical possibilities instead of progressing with accumulated facts was beginning to tell.
Not with me, though. I didn’t see things that way. I remembered going to the seacoast as a child once, and playing in the soft dunes. I’d discovered that when I dug small tunnels into the dry sand, the sides didn’t hold. For each scoop of sand my hand removed, an equivalent amount slid in from around the edges. I placed a small, black stone almost five feet up the dune, and by just digging in one small spot at the base, I caused the stone to trickle slowly all the way down, until it finally fell into my hand.
Investigations are like that. We dig and scoop, piling up evidence, but we also draw things in from the outside, things that before had appeared either out of reach or even superfluous-like Paul Gorman.
Only now, I’d come to realize, Paul Gorman was far from superfluous, and he was quickly coming within reach.
When I got home that night, I found another car parked in Buster’s driveway, something small, blue, and covered with frost. It wasn’t until I got out that I realized it was Laura’s old Toyota. I stopped by the driver’s door to look. The car was empty.
%203 The house looked pretty lifeless, too. It was already almost midzght.
The porch light had been left on, and I could see the hall light as on upstairs, but that was it. I entered quietly. I could hear Buster snoring in his bedroom. I uld also smell the remnants of a meal, something more substantial an Buster’s usual Crockpot glue. I walked back to the kitchen and itched on the light. From the dishes in the drying rack by the sink, could tell two people had enjoyed a dinner together. I smiled at the ental picture of them, comforting each other’s special loneliness.