“You put her back out on the street.”
“I did what I was told to do by the powers that be. I was a scared, confused kid, just like you are at this very minute. I’d just gotten married. I was living from paycheck to paycheck. And that girl was a Peck. I don’t have to tell you that the wealthy elite get treated differently than everyone else. For crying out loud, that’s how they stay the wealthy elite.”
“How tight were you and Tal Bliss?”
He glanced at her curiously now. “Why, what did he say about it?”
“That you weren’t.”
“Then why ask me about it?”
“He became a state trooper when he got back from ‘Nam, that’s why.”
“Well, it wasn’t any kind of a payoff, if that’s where you’re heading,” he said. “Tal was bright and competent and they were happy to have him. I did try to offer him my counsel on occasion. To me, he was wasting his time as a resident trooper. But he ignored me. The job in Dorset was all he ever wanted.”
For the simplest of reasons, Des reflected. So he could look after Dolly.
“Let’s stop dancing around, Lieutenant,” Superintendent Crowther blustered, abruptly seizing back the conversation. “Who else knows about this story Bliss supposedly told you?”
“No one.”
“The Deacon?”
“No one.”
“Internal Affairs?”
“No one.”
“You came right to me?”
“I came right to you.”
“Okay, here’s what I believe, Lieutenant,” he said. “I believe that you’re either incredibly smart or incredibly stupid. Because your handling of this case is presently under investigation by I.A. And one word from me that you’ve shown up here, peppering me with wild accusations, and you will no longer be in the employ of the Connecticut State Police.” He paused, stroking his chin thoughtfully. “I like to think I know your father pretty well. And he’s not stupid. So I’m going to give you the benefit of your genes. I’m figuring that you’ve come directly to me because you want to cut a deal. You’re thinking I’ll be grateful to you-so grateful I’ll somehow help you out of this mess that you presently find yourself in. Does that about cover it?”
Des said nothing to that.
Crowther narrowed his eyes at her piercingly. “Then again, this could all be a scam on your part. You climbing way, way out on a shaky limb. And me sitting right here with a chain saw in my hand. Which is it, young lady?”
“I’m trying to find out who killed Torry Mordarski, Niles Seymour and Tuck Weems,” she answered quietly.
“Tal Bliss killed them,” Crowther said easily. “It’s clear. It’s clean. It’s closed. Why can’t you accept it, Lieutenant? I have. Everyone has.”
“I can’t accept it because if Dolly murdered those two people thirty years ago she may have murdered again. And if Tal Bliss knew that, he may have taken his own life to protect hers.”
“I don’t buy it,” he said dismissively. “That’s too high a price for anyone to pay.”
“He would have paid it. He’d loved Dolly since he was eight years old. If it meant shutting down my investigation, I have no doubt that he would have paid it. None.”
Crowther got up out of his chair and began to pace around the room with his hands in his pockets, distractedly jangling his coins and keys. He finally came to a stop, gazing at her sternly. “Do you want to know what I think?”
“Yessir, I do.”
“I think I’m not going to tell anybody we had this conversation. I think you’re a good officer who got a raw deal. And I think this flap with I.A. will blow over. In fact, I’m prepared to guarantee it will.”
Outwardly, Des’s expression remained guarded and serious. Inwardly, she was doing cartwheels. Because she wasn’t wrong. Not about any of it.
“When it does,” he went on, “I want you reassigned to my team. Politically, it will be good for both of us. I can help your career. And you can help me in the minority community. You come across very well. You’re an extremely telegenic, well-spoken young lady. I especially like your hair.”
“You do?” Des absolutely could not believe they were talking about her hair.
“I do,” he said earnestly. “It conveys that you’re someone who’s new and modern. Someone who understands what’s going on out there.” Now the superintendent smiled at her tightly, as if it were causing him great pain. Possibly, it was. “So you see, Lieutenant, where the rubber hits the road, we both want the same things.”
“Do we?” she asked him challengingly.
He narrowed his eyes at her again. “Don’t we?”
“I really don’t know, sir. Because I don’t believe this case is closed. I believe the murderer’s still out there, walking around. And I believe you know it, too. And that’s the part I will never, ever be able to accept.”
Now Superintendent Crowther glared at her, a vein in his temple beginning to bulge. “Let me spell something out for you, Lieutenant,” he said in a low, menacing voice. “If you’re not my friend you’re my enemy. And you don’t ever want me for an enemy. Do you understand?”
“Perfectly. Thank you for your candor, sir. And your time. Good day.” Des started for the door.
“Where do you think you’re going, young lady? We’re not done talking-!”
She left him there in that banquet room. She didn’t stop. She didn’t look back. She just marched back down the long corridor to the lobby with her head held high. She was elated. She was smiling. She was definitely smiling.
But the hair would absolutely have to go.
“Awesome move on your part,” Mitch Berger said admiringly as he sat there across the table from Des, hunched over his soup. “You’ve got Dolly for the Weems killings. You’ve got the head guy of the entire state police admitting to a thirty-year-old cover-up. This is major stuff. There’s only one problem with it.”
“What’s that?” she demanded.
He reached for a hunk of bread and tore into it, chewing with his mouth open. “Dolly didn’t kill Niles Seymour or Torry Mordarski or Tuck Weems. I’m positive.”
The Black Pearl was on Bannister’s Wharf in what had once been a sail loft. There was a formal dining room called the Commodore’s Room. And there was the casual and boisterous tavern, where she’d found Mitch slurping up his third bowl of fragrant New England clam chowder, a napkin tucked into the collar of his shirt. When the man ate soup he sounded remarkably like a drain unstopping. There was a huge basket of bread and a schooner of beer in front of him. He seemed positively starved.
Des ordered coffee when the waitress appeared.
Mitch was aghast. “No chowder? You’ve got to have the chowder. It’s a sacrilege not to. Tell her it’s a sacrilege,” he commanded the waitress.
“You’ll go straight to hell, honey,” said the waitress, nodding.
“Just coffee,” said Des.
The waitress went off to get it.
Mitch peered at her across the table. “You don’t eat when you’re tense, am I right?”
She nodded reluctantly.
“Me, I eat like crazy. Which I guess explains why you look the way you do and I look the way I do. This is a big difference between us.”
“Well, what do you know-we found one,” said Des, wondering how he’d look if she cleaned him up. Say, three months on the treadmill. No between-meal snacks, a decent set of threads, proper haircut… Then what would she have?
An average-looking white man who’s hungry all the time, that’s what.
When her coffee came she took a sip, shaking her head at him. “If Dolly Seymour isn’t our killer, then why did Tal Bliss go and kill himself?”
“For the very reason you gave,” Mitch answered. “He was afraid that you’d unearth the truth about Dolly murdering Tuck’s parents. He took his own life so as to short-circuit your investigation. That much is true. But there’s much more to it than that. A boatload more.