One night, Caroline overheard the two of them arguing. Kate said she was tired of sneaking around and hiding things from Caroline and the coach. That confirmed Caroline’s worst suspicions. Her mother was gone, she had no other female friends to confide in; by then Kate and Eddie had become her surrogate family. She was devastated.
“I went to Kate again. This time she swore to me that she and Eddie had no romantic connections anymore. She even laughed at the suggestion. She told me they were working for someone, and the less I knew the better.”
Kate had told her once football season ended, she was getting out and would make sure that Caroline was no longer involved either, but for the time being she should just keep going to classes and to the games and try not to think about it. That’s what she did until the day Kate and Eddie were arrested. Hours later, Caroline was arrested, too.
“I thought it might have to do with betting on the games. I wasn’t much of a football fan, but there were a few games we lost that everyone thought we should have won. Kate would never do anything to hurt me.”
“She would never do anything to hurt you? And you know that how?”
Caroline reached for the vodka and this time I let her. She poured us each a stiff one. I took a tiny sip and stared out at the woods through the shade, wondering what to do next.
“Let me ask you something else,” I said. “Do you get a lot of deer around here?”
“No. The reservoir and the dirt road are privately owned by a water company. They use some sort of organic deer repellent. I don’t know what kind. I had to sign an approval form, but it was so long ago I don’t remember what it was. Why?”
Now my eyes were glued to the shades. “Because if you don’t have a deer problem, there’s another large mammal prowling around outside that just ducked into those hemlocks.”
Thirty-three
“Reporters? Kids?” Caroline said. “No matter how many signs the water company puts up, teenagers do trespass. They outgrow it, it’s just kids’ stuff.”
“Kids’ stuff-trespassing-let me guess your name…Monica?”
Caroline asked if I was all right.
“I have a hunch I know who is out there. Some weird guy was in the diner recently asking a bunch of questions. He took a picture of Babe with his cell phone and then broke into her office later that night. He claimed the door was open and he just crawled in to sleep off a drunk, but I don’t think the cops believed him. I know I didn’t.”
Then I remembered what the man had been yelling when he was arrested-something about Babe being the one the cops should be taking in. What if Eddie Donnelley sent him to the diner to look for a blonde named Caroline or Monica, and he thought it was Babe? And after he sent her picture, Donnelley told him to keep looking until he found her?
“I’m calling the cops.”
Once he knew it was me, O’Malley took his time getting to the phone.
“Let me guess,” he said. “You’d like to have dinner? Sorry, I’m busy.”
“Mike, I think Countertop Man is trespassing again, this time on Caroline Sturgis’s property. I think he’s involved with some of the people Caroline knew in Michigan.” Mike told me to lock the doors and set the alarm. He’d be right over.
“Countertop Man?” Caroline said, pouring another one and wondering how much of the story she’d missed with one glass of vodka.
“It’s a long story.”
But it made sense. Jeff Warren sees Caroline at the diner and casually mentions it to a few people, including Leroy Donnelley, who must have told his cousin Eddie. Eddie sends C-Man to Springfield to find out if it’s really her.
“How could this man mistake Babe for me if he knew me in Michigan?”
“Maybe he’s a friend of Eddie’s or someone Eddie met later who owes him a favor. Eddie might not want to scare you off by coming himself.”
Ten minutes later, O’Malley was in Caroline’s kitchen, the shades were up and I was telling him what I thought I knew. I thought I laid out my evidence beautifully, but O’Malley was not convinced.
“That’s why he was yelling that Babe was a criminal, remember?” I said, my voice rising an octave. “He thought she was Caroline.”
“People say a lot of stupid things when they’re being arrested. Or when they’re agitated.” He eyed the bottle on the island. “Or when their senses are impaired.”
“We are not impaired. Can’t you at least confirm that the guy was in prison in Michigan at the same time as Eddie Donnelley?”
“No, I can’t.”
“Well, why not?”
“Because he wasn’t.”
The main real man was Thomas Chase McGinley. According to the mandatory check of his Michigan driver’s license he’d never been convicted of a felony. He didn’t even have any outstanding traffic violations. Okay, he had bad teeth and stringy hair, and there was the faint whiff of Deliverance about him, but maybe that was just me being snobbish. Other than those grooming defects, he appeared to be an upstanding citizen who had until recently worked as a shipping clerk in a sporting goods store in Michigan. Perhaps he would know the difference between a countertop and a kayak.
“The only remotely criminal activity McGinley’s been engaged in was two years ago”-O’Malley leafed through a tiny spiral notebook-“a tussle at a Big Boy restaurant in Tipp City, Ohio, when management said he tried to walk out with someone else’s larger order and McGinley claimed it was all an accident. That’s why no bond was set. We let him go with a promise to appear.”
“Why would he lie about being in prison? To brag?”
“Men have been known to say stupid things. Perhaps he thought it would impress Babe.”
“He’s from Michigan, though. What about that?”
“Lots of people are from Michigan, Paula. Magic Johnson. Eminem. Madonna.”
Caroline’s fingers were playing on an invisible keyboard. She was aching to reach for another drink but didn’t want to fuel O’Malley’s assumption that she was loaded.
A month earlier she had helped to organize the library fund-raiser and had baked brownies for the Unitarian church rummage sale. Both were big successes. Now she was out on bail, hiding from the media, and listening, bewildered, as two people in her kitchen argued about Madonna and a guy they called Countertop Man. Wanting a drink was perfectly understandable.
“Where’s Grant?” O’Malley asked.
“He’s in Hartford,” I said. “With Lucy.”
Now O’Malley looked like he wanted a drink.
Thirty-four
O’Malley refused to let me go with him. He and his partner searched the woods and came back to the house to report. All they found was a flattened area where someone had knelt down and had a cigarette, a can of Bud, and a pee. No way to tell how long ago any of those activities took place.
“Can you really tell about the pee?” Caroline asked.
“No. I’m making an educated guess based on the number of beer cans. Someone was there, but who knows when? It could have been last summer during the fireworks.”
“Were the cans rusty?” I asked.
“Aluminum cans don’t rust, Sherlock, they oxidize.”
“Was it flattened grass or something else? Grass would have sprung back up after a day or so, especially if it had rained.”
His look said it all. Maybe I was letting my imagination run wild. Caroline lived near the woods. All sorts of animals probably trespassed on her property with nothing more on their minds than eating, eliminating, and making babies-and some of them sat down flattening the grass.
“I’ll have a car swing by the house regularly for the next few days,” Mike said. “As annoying as they are, when the press gets wind that you’re home, they’ll probably camp out in front and keep away anyone who might have mischief on his mind. Set the alarm and if you see anything, call us right away.”