I caught his wrist in midair. “Remember.”
His face flushed. “Jesus Christ. You think that’ll have fingerprints on it? It’s just waiting for someone to walk off with it.”
I pointed to Pierre, standing six feet away, all by himself. “I don’t think so, Mr. Alonzo. If you don’t know what was in here specifically, maybe you can help us out in the office-find an inventory sheet or something. None of this will be going anywhere for a while. Have you called your insurance company? They’ll want to send somebody down here, too.”
Alonzo looked at me in disgust. “Of course I have… Jesus.” And he stormed off toward the back of the store.
Two hours later, we were still hard at it, all of J.P.’s efforts completed, trying to determine the extent of Alonzo’s loss. Richard Manners, it seemed, was as disorganized a manager as he was attentive to Miss Goodfriend, and helping him sort through his paperwork was proving quite a job.
In the midst of it all, Willy appeared at the cramped office’s door and tapped me on the shoulder. “Chief wants to see us.”
I raised my eyebrows. “He outside? At this time of night?”
“At the office. He sounded pissed off.”
It was an unusual request, and a poorly timed one. Nevertheless, I rose from my chair and pointed to Willy. “All right. You take over here, and I’ll see what’s up.”
Kunkle shook his head. “He said I had to come, too-to stick with you.”
I scowled at that, making no sense of any of it. Unless one of our selectmen had called Tony in a fit, demanding immediate satisfaction, I couldn’t imagine why I was being called on the carpet. I left the office and waved to J.P., who was packing up the last of his toys. “Take my place in there.”
Willy and I left the store and crossed the road to his car. The predawn air was refreshing after the stuffy back office, and I breathed deeply to cleanse my lungs. “Why’d he want you along?” I asked Willy. “You gotten your ass in a crack again?”
“Not that any of you would know,” he said tersely. “He made it sound like you were the one on the shit list.”
Located at the far end of Main Street, the Municipal Building was all of two minutes away. Like most of its neighbors, it dated back over a hundred years, but it was placed on a hill and equipped with a Transylvania-style spiky roofline that, in the faint blush of dawn, made it look like a medieval prison.
Tony Brandt, looking grim, met us just inside the locked door leading into the Officers’ Room. “Come with me, Joe,” he said as soon as we’d entered.
Shrugging to Willy, who for once made no sarcastic comment, I followed Brandt back to the adjacent room and into his office in the far corner. There, also standing and looking unhappy, was Gail’s boss-Jack Derby-Windham County’s State’s Attorney.
“What’s going on?” I asked them, by now fully aware this was no minor political flare-up.
“Someone called Jack at home with an anonymous tip, Joe-”
“Not that I believed him,” Derby interrupted nervously. “I just thought we should cover our butts.”
Annoyed, Tony resumed, “A bystander at that jewelry store scene said he saw you put something in the outer breast pocket of your jacket.”
My face flushed. “Bullshit.”
“That’s what I said,” Tony agreed.
I reached into my pocket, felt something hard, and pulled out a shiny, diamond-studded brooch, obviously worth a small fortune.
The only thing I was aware of for a moment was the rapid beating of my heart. “What the hell is this?” I asked softly. I could feel the sweat prickling my forehead.
Tony looked as stunned as I was and cast a glance at the State’s Attorney, no doubt wishing that Derby hadn’t fielded the call. In his absence, we might have had more room to sort this out. Now, all decisions were already out of our hands.
I placed the jewel on his desk and heard it click against the wood surface. I felt as though my skull had picked up a low internal hum, as from a motor that’s been dropped into low gear. “I don’t know how it got there.”
“And yet, there it is,” Derby said gently, sounding extremely uncomfortable. The newest arrival on our small but intense political scene, it was obvious he felt he’d had a smoking bomb dropped in his lap.
I raised my hand to my temple. “Look, I surveyed the contents of the display case as soon as I got to the store. I was careful. I watched where I stepped. I didn’t touch a goddamn thing.”
“Were your hands in your pockets?” Tony asked.
“No,” I answered angrily, “but they weren’t rummaging through the merchandise, either. I kept them by my sides… At least, I think I did. I may have moved them around-who the hell knows? But I didn’t tamper with the evidence.”
I picked up the brooch again and studied it. “It wasn’t there,” I finally said. “I would’ve remembered it. And it doesn’t belong to Gail. I sure as hell would’ve remembered that.”
They both looked at me wordlessly, and I realized the trouble I was in. Without cause or reflection, I knew in my heart why the SA had been called by that snitch, instead of Tony or the department switchboard, and I knew that the brooch would figure in the inventory being compiled back at the store-that Richard Manners would swear on a stack of Bibles it had been shimmering front and center when he’d locked his doors at closing time.
A flurry of possibilities suddenly filled my brain, all demanding priority. “Must be Manners,” I whispered.
Tony stared at me. “What?”
“Richard Manners, the store manager. He’s a real goof-off. His boss thinks so, anyhow. And his records are in chaos.” Another thought crowded that one out. “Or one of his clerks could’ve done a number on him. He never would’ve known.” Another pause. “Unless he’s cleverer than we think, and he’s leading us by the nose.”
I lapsed into silence.
The quiet in the room was eloquent. Still, Jack commented, not without kindness, “We’re still stuck with how it got into your pocket.”
I dropped my chin and looked at the floor for a moment, a confused torrent filling me from the feet up, threatening my breathing. I felt I could see into everyone’s head, as if I were reading lines from a play. I knew they were waiting for me to say something incriminating, that all I’d said so far had already been tucked away for future misinterpretation. Somebody outside this room had started a process in motion, involving just the right cast of characters, in order to build a case against me-and it was based on the assumption that all cops in a bind are deemed guilty until proved otherwise.
That’s how the system maintained its integrity.
“I’m leaving,” I said suddenly. “Any problem with that?”
“Where’re you going?” Tony asked, his face showing genuine concern. I moved to the door. “Home.”
He reached out and touched my shoulder. “This’ll go away, Joe. We just need to figure it out.”
“We could try to do that here and now,” Derby added, almost plaintively.
I pulled the door open and saw a small, silent cluster of people in the far room, looking at us. Anger half closed my throat, images of Snowden, Rarig, the mugger, and of Henri Alonzo’s peeved expression crowded my mind. “You know goddamn well it’s already beyond that. I’m gone.”
I walked home, alone in the dawn’s tepid light, my heart and mind in a turmoil, hoping the fresh air might help me to think, and yet paying it no attention. That I’d been carefully positioned into this corner went without saying, but the why and by whom of the equation had too many options, and therefore none at all. And the how had me baffled, too. The more I stalked into the coming day, hearing only the awakening birds over the sounds of my own footsteps, the more confused and enraged I became. Reaching the spot in the road of my other recent claim to fame-now marked by a few shards of plastic and two ugly strips of burned rubber-didn’t help any.
Gail met me in the driveway, wrapped in a thick robe, obviously forewarned by Tony Brandt. “You okay?” she asked as I drew near.