To pay him his due, I had liked Mark Mullen from the moment we’d met, and I suspected he actually hadn’t played any part in Resnick’s death. Most likely, his knowledge of Danny’s malfeasance was limited to financial chicanery, and Danny-stimulated either by frustration or who knew what quirk of allegiance-had stepped over the line on his own. Many a politician had sprung from a contaminated source. Who was I to say Mark Mullen might not similarly defy convention?
As I climbed the last gentle hill into Bristol, however, I knew it to be a fatuous debate, as easily argued from one side as from the other. The bottom line depended on what evidence I might or might not uncover, and on the vagaries of one hundred and eighty assembled legislators. Gut reactions and/or logic no longer had a place.
Marcia Wilkin’s home was a pleasant, well-maintained Cape with an immaculate yard and a new car in the driveway.
The first thing I heard upon ringing the bell was an urgent but feeble scratching on the other side of the door, followed by footsteps and a woman’s voice saying, “Watch out, Stan-door coming at you.”
I was met by a short, comfortably round woman, whom I knew to be in her forties, accompanied by a cat sitting by her feet like a statue.
“Hello,” she said. I held out my hand. “Hi. My name’s Joe Gunther. I’m from the-”
She lost her smile and ignored the hand. “I know who you are, Lieutenant. What do you want?”
“To come inside if I could. It would spare you some heating oil.”
She stepped back silently and I walked around the cat, who sniffed my leg as I passed. On impulse, I crouched and extended the backs of my fingers for him to sniff.
“He doesn’t like strangers,” she said.
The cat hesitated, came forward, and butted his head against my knuckles, purring loudly. I turned my hand and cupped his cheek, scratching him under the chin.
Marcia Wilkin relented slightly. “He doesn’t usually do that. Do you have a cat?”
“No, but I was raised on a farm. I like animals.” I brought my other hand into action, rubbing his back and really winning him over. “You called him Stan?”
“That’s right-Stan the Cat.”
I looked up at her. “The only other Stan I know is a newspaper editor. A real pain in the neck.”
She laughed despite herself. “So’s this one when he wants to be. You’ll find out if you keep doing that. He won’t leave you alone.”
“That doesn’t sound so bad,” I said, straightening up. Facing the front door, hanging on the wall, was a three-foot long, elaborately carved wooden sign reading, “The Ellis Hastings House.” Beneath it was a small table with an open Bible resting on a cushion.
I indicated the sign. “That’s nice work. It mean anything?” I waved a hand around me. “All this is too new to be historical, isn’t it?”
She gave me an odd smile. “Doesn’t have to be ancient to have history. I like a house with a name.”
“Hey,” I said, looking down. Stan had reared up to rest his forepaws against my leg, seeking more attention.
“I warned you.”
I bent over to ruffle his ears. He closed his eyes contentedly. “I’m sorry my showing up has made you unhappy, Ms. Wilkin.”
It might’ve been the cat acting as ambassador, but she finally relented. “I shouldn’t have been so rude. Let me take your coat.”
I shucked it off and handed it to her. She hung it on a peg on the way to the living room and gestured to me to sit in one of two facing sofas. The room was large, neat, and furnished-it looked to me-straight out of an expensive Ethan Allen catalog.
As soon as I sat down, Stan jumped into my lap, drilling his forehead amorously against my chest.
“If he starts bothering you, I’ll put him in the other room,” she offered, sitting opposite me.
“No, that’s fine. I enjoy the company.”
“That sounds a little lonely.”
I looked up at her. She was composed and serene in a matronly manner, but with careful, intelligent eyes. I was surprised by her insight and her ease in airing it-first impressions had slighted an obvious depth of character. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. Your job is partly to blame. I bet people talk to you a lot like I did.”
I went back to tending to Stan, pondering how to proceed. Obviously unintimidated, Marcia Wilkin was either trying to keep me off balance or merely displaying the habits of a self-confident woman who felt she had nothing to fear.
I decided to push her a bit. “I suppose you know why I’m here.”
She ignored the bait. “Not really.”
“You knew who I was.”
“I know what you’ve done to Danny Mullen, and that you’re part of a conspiracy to keep Mark from being governor.” It was said matter-of-factly, without passion.
I studied her a moment, my hands resting on the cat, who’d settled down in my lap to doze off. “I did help put Danny in jail. That’s my job. As for Mark, I guess I’m damned whatever I say. For what it’s worth, driving into town, I was thinking how much I genuinely liked him. I really do hope I can give him a clean bill of health-but I’m stuck till I get all the facts.”
She frowned, as if holding a private debate. “Maybe you should tell me why you’re here.”
“You know the Mullens well?”
“We grew up together.”
“But it was more than that, wasn’t it? I’d heard you and Mark had once been a couple.”
She smiled thinly. “You hear all sorts of things. We were friends.”
I let that go, despite what my research had told me. “It doesn’t really matter. None of my business. I just wondered what they were like when they were younger. I mean, would you have guessed back then that Danny could’ve done what he did?”
“He hasn’t gone to trial yet, has he?” she asked pointedly.
“No, but regardless of what the jury’s allowed to hear and finally decides, I know the case against him. He did kill that man.”
“So you say.”
“I’d like to hear why, though. We’re not supposed to worry about that-we catch ’em red-handed, that’s pretty much it. But given how close Danny is to Mark, the question begs asking.”
She half opened her mouth to say something and then shut it again, seemingly angry with herself. “Then you better ask them.”
“You seem like you’re wrestling with something, Ms. Wilkin.”
She inhaled a deep breath and let it our slowly. “Maybe I’m just having a hard time staying polite.”
I doubted that and so took a chance. “Would you like me to leave?”
That caught her off guard. “No, I’m sorry.”
I tried a different approach. “Look, let me be honest with you. I know you don’t like my being here, I know your ties with the Mullens run deeper than just friendship, and I know a private detective named Win Johnston’s been bugging you about all this. We don’t live in a world where too many secrets survive anymore. We’ve been taking apart the Mullens’ life for months now, trying to separate what Danny did from what Mark may have known. You’ve popped up as having deep, long-lasting financial ties to them-for well over twenty years. We know they’ve been supporting you all that time.”
Her face had hardened during this, so I quickly added, “I don’t want to make anything of that. I’m here as a guest only, to ask for your help-not to harass or threaten or anything else. I just wanted you to understand I wasn’t being coy or playing games.”
That wasn’t entirely true, of course. Of all of the people we’d connected to the brothers, only Marcia Wilkin had stood out for her very lack of clarity. Born in their hometown and a classmate of Mark’s all through school, reportedly ending up as his lover, she hadn’t had any known ties to either one of them since-and yet had been living all this time without a job or any obvious source of income. What I’d just rattled off had been pure speculation.
And yet she still didn’t throw me out.
Instead, she said, “Go on.”
“As I see it, Ms. Wilkin, my only job here is to make sure the right thing’s done. Your loyalty to Danny notwithstanding, I think you know he’s not innocent. We all make mistakes, sometimes pretty big ones, and sometimes we make them out of misguided affection. That’s what I think happened to Danny. He got carried away-things escalated. Before he knew it, he was in over his head. He didn’t kill that man because he’s evil. He killed him because right then, at that moment, he’d convinced himself it was the right thing to do-that he was acting for the one person in his life who means everything to him.