“Joe,” he said, “long time, no harassment.”
“Which makes me very happy. How’s life?”
“Lousy. Don’t let anyone tell you that when the nuts take over the nuthouse, things run any smoother. No wonder the Communists went belly-up. I was calling about the dead guy in the quarry. Anything new?”
“What happened to Alice?” I asked. Alice Sims was the current police beat reporter.
“I gotta take a break from this management crap once in a while. Alice’ll write it. I’m just helping her out.”
“I don’t know what she’ll write,” I said. “We still don’t have a name, a motive, a weapon, or anything else. The last press release still says it all, including the Boris Malik pseudonym.”
“Does that mean the guy was Russian?”
Through the sheriff’s initial inquiry, the rental car’s existence had finally leaked, along with its connection to Logan Airport, but we’d still managed to keep the tattooed toes and the buckle knife under wraps. “Could be. But we got nowhere checking flight manifests into Boston, and the car rental people were a dead end.”
I paused a moment, reflecting on my present efforts, and considered how this conversation might be turned to my advantage. “To be honest,” I added, “there’s a growing feeling the body was just dumped here. We haven’t found any neighborhood ties-no reports of strange sightings or sounds or missing persons that might fit. And the fact that the car was abandoned on one of the busiest roads in southern Vermont supports the theory. We’ve shared everything we got with the appropriate agencies, including the Canadians, and nothing’s come back.”
I was hoping he wouldn’t conjure up Kunkle’s logical question about the knowledgeable choice of the quarry as a dumping spot. He didn’t, opting instead to pounce on my purposefully bored tone of voice. “Meaning you’re doing nothing?” he asked incredulously. “It’s a murder, for Christ’s sake.”
“Of course we are, Stan,” I said wearily. “We’re conducting interviews and digging up what we can, but let’s face it, we don’t have a hell of a lot to go on, and off the record, the troops aren’t all that enthusiastic. There’s nothing to charge them up.”
“I can sympathize,” he conceded after a moment, sounding disappointed. “I thought when you found him we had something hot.”
“Not so far, and I don’t see anything on the horizon.”
We hung up after a few closing comments, and I leaned back in my chair, thoughtfully staring at the phone. With any luck, tomorrow’s article would reflect my lack of enthusiasm. It wouldn’t make us look like the FBI, but it would take the edge off the interviews we’d be conducting over the next few days. If the people we were talking to thought we were just going through the motions, the chances of one of them letting something slip increased.
It was a long, tedious two days before Sammie, Ron, and I reconvened at the same conference table. Instead of three copies of a single sheet of paper, we each now had folders bulging with information about John Rarig and his employees, most of which, I knew, would eventually prove useless. But our business was like the orchid breeder’s in one sense-founded on the knowledge that success only comes after endless disappointment.
Which certainly described my results. I’d uncovered no “hits” whatsoever, a fact I thought it politic to keep private until later. “Okay,” I said, “what’ve you got?”
They’d apparently exchanged notes earlier. Ron spoke up first, “One for me, two for Sam. I’ve got a woman with a small string of offenses-shoplifting, check bouncing, operating an illegal day care. Name’s Marianne Baker. She’s been clean for five years, employed by the inn for three of them as a housekeeper. Lives in Jamaica.” He placed the piece of paper he’d been reading from flat on the table. “Hardly on the Most Wanted list. Worst thing about her is the company she keeps. She’s living with a guy with a history of violence, including some he did down here. Ever hear of Marty Sopper?”
I had. “Petty theft, assault, disorderly conduct, disturbing the peace?”
“Yeah,” he answered, “among others. He did a couple of years for a drug deal-beat up the kid he was selling to. Like Marianne, not a headliner, but he likes to use force.”
I cocked an eyebrow at Sammie.
“Bob Manship and Doug DeFalque,” she said. “Bob was nailed for assault four years ago and given probation. Apparently nobody liked the guy he totaled, so the SA just went by the numbers, but the cop I talked to said Bob could’ve earned himself a murder rap if someone hadn’t stopped him. It was over a woman-the victim’s wife. He used a hammer.”
“Jesus,” I murmured.
“Been clean since,” Sammie resumed, “and was a good boy up till then. Might’ve been just a flash in the pan, but the weapon impressed me, too. He works as the inn’s dishwasher. The same cop admitted he was a nice guy-normally very quiet. I talked to his probation officer, too. Same basic report-steady, quiet, dependable, and remorseful about what he did. The woman in the case moved away, by the way. Manship lives alone.”
She picked up another document. “Douglas DeFalque. No criminal record, but multiple mentions as a fellow traveler. Born in Quebec, he’s lived on one side of the border or the other all his life, and from what I could find out, makes a tidy sum on the side as a smuggler. Both the Quebec Provincial Police and the U.S. Border Patrol have him on their hot sheets, but nobody’s ever caught him red-handed.”
“What does he smuggle?” I asked.
“Cigarettes and booze going north, aliens, drugs, and bear gallbladders going south-gallbladders are a hot item in Taiwan and China. They use the bile for medicine. It’s pricey and it’s regulated, so the black market demand is pretty high. I asked the Mounties to check him out, see who his associates are. They’re still looking into it, comparing notes with other agencies, but it looks like he’s a free agent, probably working with the biker gangs, and increasingly with the Russian mob.”
There was a brief silence in the room as Ron and I digested that. Sammie smiled. “I thought you might find the last bit interesting.”
“What does he do at the inn?” I asked.
“A waiter. The people I talked to say he’s very smooth-good-looking, nice French accent, well liked by the ladies. He’s seasonal, though. Only works during the crunches. That’s what gives him time with his other pursuits.”
“Is he working there now?”
“No, but he was two weeks ago. He left four days after we think Boris got whacked. He’s around, though. Lives in Jamaica. I got the address.”
I propped my chin in my hand, looking at them both. “Top of our list?” Ron shrugged. “Looks that way. He’s got everything except a known propensity for violence.”
“Unless he contracts it out,” Sammie suggested. “Didn’t J.P. say Boris was probably spying on the inn from under that tree, hiding in the shadows? If DeFalque knew about that, he might’ve set him up.”
I shook my head. “Whoa. That’s a long way from finding a seed in Boris’s hair. You may be right, Sam, but we need to sniff around more first. Do we have anything at all on the other names?”
They both shook their heads, Ron adding, “A few vehicular citations-DWI, speeding, a minor accident or two. Two of the women I checked live together and got cited for disturbing the peace after an all-girl party a few months back. Nothing stands out, though. What did you find?”