“What are you telling me-that Bliss did kill them?”
“Yes and no.”
“Man, don’t talk at me in riddles.”
“It’s like I was telling you-it all comes back to the Fibonacci Series.”
“And don’t you start gas-facing me about geometry either, because I am so trying not to hear that.”
“You have to hear it,” Mitch insisted. “It’s a law. Not your kind of law, but a fundamental principle of proportion based upon-”
“I know, I know. The Golden Section. Which is…?”
“Which is a line that’s divided such that the lesser portion is to the greater as the greater is to the whole.”
“Which means…?”
“The Fibonacci Series is an algebraic variation in which each number represents the sum of the two preceding numbers. So instead of counting out one, two, three, four, five, you count out one, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen, twenty-one and so on. Get it?”
Des thought about this long and hard before she said, “No, Mitch. I don’t.”
“Okay, here it is,” he explained. “Two men acting together are capable of doing something that’s twice as heinous as a man who is acting alone. When you add a third man you’re not just adding another player. You’re ratcheting up the disease quotient-each man’s capacity for evil represents the sum total of the previous players combined. Add a fourth and you’re taking a quantum leap over into the dark side. Add a fifth and you’ve got yourself a lynch mob. It’s a law of human nature, Lieutenant. It explains the insanity of mob rule. It explains the atrocities of war. And it explains what happened on Big Sister Island. Hell, it’s the only way this whole crazy thing does make any sense.”
She gaped at him in disbelief. “You’re saying that every man on Big Sister was in on it, is that it?”
“And Tuck Weems, too. Don’t forget Tuck-he played a very valuable role.” Mitch paused to take a gulp of his beer, swiping at his mouth with the back of his hand. “We can exclude Evan. He wouldn’t have fingered Bliss as the man who locked me in the crawl space if he had played any part in this. And we can for sure eliminate Dolly, Bitsy and Mandy. This was strictly a guy thing. The ultimate act of male chauvinism, if you stop and think about it. They felt Dolly was too fragile and misguided to make the right choice, so they made it for her. Are you with me so far?”
“I wouldn’t say I’m with you,” Des said doubtfully. “But I’m listening.”
Mitch leaned forward in his chair, his eyes gleaming at her. “Okay, here’s what we know. We know that Bud Havenhurst hated Niles Seymour for stealing Dolly away. We know that Red Peck, her big brother, hated Niles because he was a low-class con man who roughed her up-and wanted to build condos on Big Sister. Jamie Devers hated him for killing Evan’s dog, not to mention his constant gay-bashing. And Tal Bliss wanted him gone because he wanted Dolly for himself. It was he who recruited Tuck Weems, a man who had already threatened to kill Niles for beating up on Dolly.”
“But why would Tuck come rushing to her defense?” Des objected. “Dolly’s the one who murdered his parents.”
“For which he was exceedingly grateful,” Mitch countered. “Tuck hated his parents. His father was abusive. His mother was an alcoholic. The only real structure in his life was Tal Bliss. They’d been best friends since they were kids. Totally inseparable. Did you know that?”
“No, but so what?”
“We’ll call our boys the Fab Five-better that than the Garbagemen, which is what they were. Together, they took it upon themselves to rid Big Sister Island of a man who they regarded as utter human garbage. Alone, not one of them had the nerve or the cunning to pull it off. As a group, they were able to achieve staggering heights.”
Their waitress came by now to refill Des’s coffee. Des stared down into her cup, her head spinning. “Um, okay, how do you know this, Mitch?”
“Because it’s what happened. That’s how I know it.”
“That’s not even close to good enough. You have to give me a reason to believe.”
“Not a problem,” he said easily. “Let’s play it out, starting with Torry’s married boyfriend, this shadowy Stan person who none of her friends ever saw. We’ve been supposing all along that Stan and Niles Seymour were one and the same. And that’s exactly what we were supposed to think. It’s what they told us to think. Jamie told me that Niles told him he had a girlfriend in Meriden. Bam, we immediately jumped to the conclusion that the girlfriend was Torry. Bud and Red told me they saw Niles and Torry together at the Saybrook Point Inn. Bam, we assumed that they in fact had. Why wouldn’t we? Even though, as you may recall, I said I thought it seemed like a very odd place for a married man to stash his girlfriend.”
“Agreed. Way too public. Only, she was there.”
“I know that,” Mitch acknowledged. “But no one from the hotel ever saw her and Niles together. All we have is the word of Bud and Red.”
“And you’re saying they made it up?”
“Exactly.”
“Why would they do that?”
“To make us believe that Niles was dating Torry, that’s why. He wasn’t. It wasn’t Niles who they saw there with her. Niles never even knew the woman. Niles wasn’t Stan.”
“So who was-Tal Bliss?”
Mitch shook his head. “No, no. He was pathologically shy with women. Dorset’s resident cocksman, according to Sheila Enman, was none other than Tuck Weems. Tuck had the midas touch when it came to women. He was Stan. He had to be, if you stop and think about it. Jamie’s a former child star. Too recognizable. Also gay. Red is away too much. And Bud has a jealous, psychotic wife. That leaves Tuck. That’s why he was recruited-to seduce an unsuspecting girl from some low-rent town far enough away from Dorset that no one would connect her death up with Niles Seymour’s disappearance.”
Des considered this a moment, recalling how Tuck’s young live-in love, Darleen, had admitted that he wasn’t always home nights. “Keep talking.”
Mitch continued: “Their plot was put in motion when Tuck, who now had Torry good and hooked, asked her to check into the Saybrook Point Inn. She paid cash, per his instructions, and used a fake driver’s license. Thus enabling the Fab Five to cover their tracks. That’s why he had her wear the red wig, too. Poor Torry probably just thought it was good, kinky fun.”
“Wait, pull over a minute. Why go to so much trouble? Why not just pretend they saw her?”
“Because they wanted documented evidence that Niles had abandoned Dolly for another woman,” Mitch replied. “That way Dolly could begin divorce proceedings immediately. Otherwise her case might drag on through the courts for years. His relatives might come crawling out of the woodwork… No, no-the so-called other woman had to exist. They needed a disposable Jezebel. Someone like Torry who the law would simply write off as a borderline hooker who got what girls like that get.” Mitch paused to take another gulp of his beer. “And it all worked like a charm. As far as the world knew, Niles Seymour had run off with another woman. Meanwhile, your investigation of Torry Mordarski’s murder…”
“Went nowhere,” Des admitted grudgingly.
“Exactly. But what they hadn’t counted on was the X-factor-me digging up Niles’s body. When that happened they were screwed, because they’d used the same gun to kill both of them… But wait, I’m getting ahead of the plot. How do you like it so far?”
“I think it sounds like just exactly that,” she replied skeptically. “A plot. As in one of your movies. As in not real.”
“Oh, it’s real, all right,” Mitch insisted, rubbing his hands together eagerly. “Now, then, the Fab Five were good and thorough. When Niles ‘disappeared’ they made it look as convincing as possible. They left Dolly the infamous Dear John letter. They ordered plane tickets for two. They parked Niles’s car at the airport. Bud liquidated Dolly’s accounts-supposedly to protect them from Niles-thereby making their case seem all the more convincing. Tuck Weems disposed of Torry, I suspect. And Tal Bliss tidied up the crime scene for him. Who better to make sure that it was spotless than an actual state trooper? Then they sat back and congratulated themselves on a job well done. They had pulled off an elaborate, carefully planned operation to rid themselves of the most odious man they had ever come in contact with. Everyone, most especially Dolly, thought Niles had left town. Only he hadn’t. He was buried right there on Big Sister. Don’t ask me which one of them shot him. I don’t know. I only know that they would have gotten away with it if Dolly hadn’t suddenly decided to take on a tenant. That was strictly her doing. They tried to talk her out of it. Even tried to scare me half to death. But they failed. And you know the rest of the story.”