“Or maybe it just had cash.” I fooled with the rubber band some more in silence and then changed tack: “At least we have an idea what she was blackmailing him about, even if we don’t know how.”
“Resnick’s murder,” Ron suggested.
“Right. If Brenda knew about that, it not only explains why he killed her, but why he tried to use a surrogate to do it.”
“How did she know he killed Resnick?” Willy asked.
I steepled my fingers in front of my mouth, the rubber band looped loosely around them. “Okay, let’s go back-Billy, Walter, and somebody else knock Resnick senseless. Where we don’t know, but presumably wherever he went after leaving the truck-or somewhere he could take care of those burns. That’s the first place she might’ve seen them.”
“Hold it,” Willy said, as if glimpsing a vague light far off. “Why go so far back? How many people did we talk to who saw the three of them at the tracks? Half a dozen. Why couldn’t Brenda have been there, too? She knew Walter. She might’ve recognized him by the way he walked or something.”
“She didn’t show up in the canvass,” Ron countered.
Willy smiled broadly, suddenly looking very self-satisfied. “She was a hooker, right?”
Ron’s mouth opened, but I answered for him. “And the four guys at the poker party were celebrating a birthday.”
The sense of epiphany we all shared at that split second totally eclipsed from my mind that one of those four had been Sammie’s Andy Padgett.
James Lyon didn’t look comfortable, which suited me fine. He sat in the small interrogation room we had tucked into a corner of our bailiwick, facing the one-way mirror with his hands in his lap. He had nothing to read, no one to talk to, and no window to look out of. He’d been sitting in there for forty-five minutes, during which I’d periodically come out of my office, stepped into the closet-sized viewing room, and checked on his psychological progress.
I liked what I was seeing. Of the four poker players who had been interviewed following Phil Resnick’s death, Lyon was the one Willy Kunkle had described as nervous. If we were right about what had gone on that night-in addition to the card game-I could now understand why. Andy Padgett was unattached-or had been up till then-Frankie Harris had been one of Brenda’s regular customers, Don Carter had the longest rap sheet and was therefore presumably a hard-ass, but Lyon-married, with kids, and as clean as a whistle-was another matter entirely. If anything untoward had occurred at that party, Lyon was going to tell us about it.
Eventually, I opened the door and stepped inside to face him.
I parked myself on the edge of the table, my eyes glued to an open file. “James Lyon,” I pretended to read, my voice grim, “married, three kids, age thirty, you’ve worked at Span-Lastic for the past five years. No record, no parking tickets-says here you play on the softball team, too. All-American boy.” I finally looked at him. “How long you been married, Jim?”
He swallowed hard. “I, ah… guess eight years.”
“You guess?” I laughed harshly. “I thought you were supposed to know that stuff-get into trouble otherwise. Is it eight years or not?”
“Yes,” he said hesitantly and then added, “Why have I been brought here?”
I didn’t answer him. “Eight years, three kids. Place must be like a nuthouse when you get home. Your wife easy to get along with?” I glanced back at the file, “Sherry?”
“Sure, and the kids aren’t bad.”
I raised my eyebrows. “A glowing report. In my line of work, that usually means a cover-up. You hiding something?”
He opened his mouth to answer, but I cut him off. “Tell me how long you’ve known Frankie and the boys. You play poker together often?”
He flushed red and stammered, “N-no. That was the first time I’d done it.”
“Done it? Done what?”
“Play… cards.”
I smiled. “Wasn’t sure what you meant there for a second. Four guys out at a bachelor birthday party. One thing leads to another.”
“We just played poker.”
I looked at him for a long, measured ten seconds and then went back to the file. “Right. So how come you got invited?”
“I know Don Carter from softball. They’d asked somebody else for the card game, but he couldn’t make it. I said I’d go to even things out. Sherry said it would be okay.”
I nodded. “Well, I guess if we had to, we could ask her about that. She know you’re down here?”
“No. She thinks I’m still at work.” He feigned looking at his watch, although his shirtsleeve covered half its face. “I ought to be getting back, too. Did you want to ask me something about that man getting killed?”
I placed the file on the table, crossed my arms, and stared at him. “I want to know about the poker party.”
He made a pointed effort to maintain eye contact, but I could see his Adam’s apple working hard. “What about it?” he asked, his voice almost breaking.
“I want to know what happened besides card playing.”
“We drank a little. It was a birthday.”
“Any gifts?”
He hesitated. “There was a bottle-”
“Who from?”
His fingertips nervously brushed his chin. “I think it was Andy.”
“What did Frankie bring?”
Sweat began to appear high on his forehead. “Frankie? I’m not sure-”
I interrupted again, “I’m sorry. I should’ve asked, who did Frankie bring?”
He just watched me.
I leaned over so my face was inches from his. “Jim, either talk to me now or talk to Sherry tonight. Does the name Brenda Croteau ring a bell, or was your hand too good to notice her?”
Interrogations are a little like dancing with a blind date-lots of preliminary subtle body language establishing boundaries and intentions. Jim Lyon made it easy-he merely doubled over sobbing.
I watched his trembling curved back for a moment before announcing quietly but clearly, “Okay, time to come clean. I like what you tell me, this whole conversation stops here. Your choice.”
He wiped his eyes with his fingers and took a couple of deep, shuddering breaths. “I’m really sorry I didn’t tell you before. We were worried we’d get into trouble-that I’d get into trouble. I had the most to lose, being married and everything. They did it for me.”
“Lied, you mean?”
“Yeah. We couldn’t believe it-all you people suddenly there asking questions. It was like a nightmare. And I’d only said I’d go at the last minute. It was unbelievable.”
I kept my voice at a monotone to try to calm him down. “Was it Frankie who brought her to the party?”
“Yes. You were right. She was Don’s gift. Frankie even had her wear a red bow around her neck. I didn’t know anything about it till they walked in. I wanted to get the hell out of there as soon as I saw her, but then I thought, how would I explain it to Sherry? I was stuck.”
“Did you also figure, what the hell? And sample some of the goods?”
He looked genuinely horrified and began to fidget in his chair. “Oh, my God, no. That’s what I was worried about. I’m totally screwed now, if word gets out. There’s no fucking way anyone’s going to believe me.”
I placed a hand on his sweat-dampened shoulder. “Relax. You’re doing fine so far. Don’t fall apart on me. Tell me what happened, and in what sequence.”
He worked to control himself. “Frankie got there late, I guess on purpose, to make a big entrance, and she was like I said, wearing that bow. There was a lot of laughing and drinking and talk, and after a while, Don and her went into the bedroom down the hall.”
“And the rest of you did what?”
“We played cards and talked and drank… watched TV. Finally Don came back-”
“About when?”
“I’m not sure. After midnight, I think. I was so nervous, I sort of overdid it with the booze.”
“Okay, so Don came back.”
“Right, and then Frankie went to the bedroom to… you know.”
“How long did that last?”
“I fell asleep around then. They woke me up to play cards-I don’t know what time. The girl was gone. And the next thing that happened was you people came in asking questions about the guy who got killed by the train.”