Micah Farr was good to his word and rang up the mayor on our behalf. The mayor was thrilled at the prospect of speaking to someone like Wit. Any good press for Steven Brightman was good press for him and his town. Three months ago, when Brightman’s name was still tainted by Moira Heaton’s disappearance, the mayor would probably have hung up on Farr. How quickly things change. Farr did warn the mayor that we might ask about the Stipe murder, but downplayed our interest. He told us to come ahead just the same.
The municipal building was a converted school building around the corner from the Herald. The mayor’s office was up on the second floor. Like the rest of Hallworth, the mayor’s office was clean, well appointed, but unpretentious. Flags, portraits of past mayors, and all manner of certificates and medals were on display. After the introductions, I found my eyes searching out Mayor Stipe’s portrait. He was a handsome man with distant eyes. My guess was he’d sat for the painting while the pain of his boy’s death was still quite fresh. I thought of his wife, retrieving the mail. I felt much more sorry for her. I joined Wit across from the mayor’s desk.
Phil Malloy was a loquacious fellow in his late forties who sported a thick gray mustache and a spare tire at what had once been his waistline. He was glad we were in town, glad to be mayor, glad to help. Phil was glad about most things. Unfortunately, gladness wasn’t much of a replacement for substance. He had very little to tell us about Steven Brightman, but he would be glad to dig up his junior high school yearbook, glad to put us in touch with his old teachers, glad to give us another tour of the town.
He was slightly more informative about the Stipe murder, but not much. Within hours of finding the boy’s body, the local cops had handed off to the state police. Unlike Farr, the mayor thought Martz had done it. What else would he think? This was his town now. If he had doubts about Martz’s guilt, he wasn’t saying. He didn’t know if the state police ever considered other suspects or if they had alternate theories, but, he assured us, he would have been glad to share them if he’d known of any.
As the mayor rambled, Wit trying to seem interested, I found myself losing hope. We couldn’t afford to walk out of Hallworth empty-handed. In a town this size, word of Wit’s visit would spread fast. Even if we could count on Micah Farr not to mention it in the Herald, Malloy struck me as the kind of guy to spend the rest of the afternoon on the phone telling everyone he knew. And once word spread through town, it would spread out of town. Then we were finished. We had a one-day head start and we were on the verge of blowing it. The time for caution, I decided without consulting Wit, had passed. There was one fact about the Stipe murder that no one had mentioned: the two boys who’d seen the man ride out of the woods on a bicycle. I had a hunch and took my shot.
“Excuse me, Mr. Mayor,” I interrupted, pulling out the detective’s shield which would never actually be mine, “I’m Detective Prager from the NYPD and I need your help.”
I’m not sure who looked more surprised, Wit or Malloy. Wit kept quiet and let me play my hand. He, too, recognized that we needed to come away from today’s visit with something tangible beyond scenarios and suspicions.
“I’m a little confused,” Malloy confessed, “but I’ll be glad to help any way I can.”
Gee, what a surprise.
“I’m afraid I’ve enlisted Mr. Fenn in a bit of deception, and I hope you won’t hold that against him,” I continued. “I work cold cases, Mr. Mayor. And we’ve just had a very cold case heat up-two, actually. About the time of the Stipe homicide here, we had two similar cases in the Bronx. They’ve gone unsolved all these years, but recently, we received an anonymous tip that led us to a likely suspect. The thing of it is, we don’t have anyone who can eyeball this guy. So what I was hoping was I could tie our cases to your case and clear them all up.”
“Anything I can do, I will.” Malloy was so pumped up at that moment, I think he could have chewed through steel plate.
“You had two witnesses see a man leave the wooded area around the reservoir on bicycle, right?”
The mayor was impressed. “You did your homework, I see.”
“So, if they can ID our suspect as the man they saw that day …”
Malloy fairly jumped out of his seat. “Holy cow!” Then, almost immediately, he deflated. “I really can’t tell you who they-”
“I understand,” I said, empathetic as hell. “The kids were minors, and to protect them, their identities were kept secret. I admire you, Mr. Mayor, for keeping your oath as a cop, but we’re talking three dead little boys here. Now, I don’t need you to go all the way. I know that one of the boys who saw the man that day was Steven Brightman. I’ve already talked to him about it and he’s agreed to view a lineup.”
“How’d you find out?” The mayor was flabbergasted.
I made it up, putz! “We have our ways,” I answered. “But what I need from you is the other kid’s name. If we can get him to positively ID our suspect, we’re-”
“I’m sorry, Detective Prager, but-”
“Listen, Phil, I understand about giving your word.”
“It’s not that. Kyle Lawrence was the other kid’s name,” Malloy said without hesitation. “It’s just that he’s dead.”
“When?”
“About two years ago. Some weird disease. He was a heroin junkie.”
“Two years ago, you say,” I repeated almost unconsciously. There was another one of those coincidences.
“Yup, Detective Prager, two years. Micah’ll have the exact date. I’m sorry if I ruined your case for you.”
“That’s okay,” I assured him, shaking his hand. “Brightman might be enough. But now I need something else from you, Mr. Mayor.”
“Name it.”
“You’ve kept those names secret all these years and now I need you to keep the subject of our little conversation a secret. Now that we’re down to one witness, we can’t afford to have Steven Brightman compromised in any way. I’m sure you understand. So, if anyone should ask, please say Mr. Fenn was here asking only about the wholesomeness of Hallworth and how it might have helped shape Steven Brightman’s life. Please don’t even mention the Stipe case.”
“You have my word.”
“Again, Mr. Mayor, thanks for the help.”
“Glad to do it.”
Wit didn’t say a word until we had exited the converted schoolhouse. He realized the risk I had taken. The stakes of the game had just been raised. It wasn’t until we got back to my car that he spoke up.
“That was quite an improvisation. My compliments. But that little act in there, it could blow up in your face. You understand that?”
“Next to murder, what does it matter?”
“Murder! Moe, yes we will leave town with a little bit more information than we arrived with, but we’re a million miles away from murder.”
“We’ll see. Do you have that list Farr gave us with the names of the families who moved out of town after Carl Stipe’s death? Read off the names.”
Wit complied: “Kenworth, Hitner, Lawrence-”
“Curiouser and curiouser,” I said.
“It proves nothing.”
“I’m sure Kyle Lawrence’s death started the chain of events that led me here. It’s a place to start.”
“Start what, Moe? That was twenty-seven years ago. Lawrence is dead. The case is closed to almost everyone’s satisfaction.”
“Is it? Let’s go ask Carl Stipe’s mother.”
“Point well taken. However, I would be remiss not to alert you to the fact that in spite of your rousing speech in the mayor’s office, word is going to leak back to Brightman.”
“I’m not an idiot, Wit. I know that. When it leaks back to him, we’ll just have to figure out how to use it.”