A pile of dust and mouse droppings filled a corner under the eaves. An ancient-looking broom lay beside it. The house wasn't insulated, so the dampness and smell of mold in exposed wooden beams was intense. Mike cast his eye quickly over the haphazardly placed contents. Closest to the stairs were ten oversize shopping bags filled with bulky tissue- and newspaper-wrapped objects. Beyond that, folded plastic deck chairs, a beach umbrella, two old suitcases, a hot-water heater, a clambake pot, a Weber barbecue, a trap machine and canvas bag filled with clay discs, and an old camp trunk with a broken lock.
Mike moved quickly, checking the shopping bags and suitcases first. While he worked, he could hear the murmur of voices downstairs. April's and the girl's. The sheriff must still be outside with the weirdo. Unwrapping the contents of the shopping bags as fast as he could, he found new candlesticks, crystal objects, glasses, linens, silver, small appliances in the bags. In the suitcases, quilts and pillows and summer clothes. The attic became a flea market, the evidence Wendy was a thief. But this was not what he was looking for.
When he heard the sound of rain falling on the roof above him, he checked his watch. One o'clock already. Over an hour had passed and he didn't hear voices downstairs anymore. Maybe April was outside with the sheriff searching the shed, the space under the deck. Finally he opened the trunk lid and exhaled. The gun cache was in the camp trunk: two revolvers, three shotguns recently cleaned and broken down, smelling of oil, variously emptied boxes of .22-, .38-, and ,45-caliber ammunition, both regular and hollow-point. As well as ammunition for the shotguns and several homemade silencers. If Wendy had been shooting recently, the silencers would be the reason there hadn't been any complaints from the neighbors. He got to his feet, threaded through the mess he'd made, and climbed down the ladder.
While Lori sat sniveling in the cruiser with her duffel bag on her lap, April and Mike brought the trunk downstairs and cataloged its contents. Then they took two umbrellas from the stand by the front door and paced out the grounds in a steady downpour. They found a pile of discharged shell casings, bullet-pocked trees, and clay shards. They gathered some shell casings to see if there was a match with the one they had from the Tovah shooting.
Then paperwork, paperwork. Dealing with the law-enforcement issues surrounding the seizure and shipping of possible evidence of a crime committed in New York from a private residence in Massachusetts took a long time as the DAs and officials in BAFT were consulted. They missed their three P.M. flight.
Most disturbing to Sheriff Whitmore were the silencers, one of the most illegal things in the gun world—unless you had a permit. You could buy a machine gun or an assault weapon, but not even members of organized crime had silencers on their handguns. He'd never seen one for sale, and couldn't believe they might have been constructed in the cottage.
Most disturbing to April and Mike were three things: First, they did not find Wendy's takedown .22-caliber survival rifle or the .38 revolver that went with the ammunition boxes. Second, the next flight to New York was canceled. They finally got out at nine P.M. on a Cape Air flight to Boston in what looked like the smallest plane ever made. They caught the last shuttle back to New York and got into the city at midnight. Third, Lori Wilson was with them all the way so they had no time alone.
Forty-nine
D
own at One PP in the Hate Unit when Lori Wilson finally understood she wasn't going home anytime soon, she broke down and admitted that she'd known about the guns.
"But I never shot one. They scare me shitless; I'm not kidding," Lori insisted.
Lori was bleary-eyed weary, but so was April, and she wasn't letting the girl loose until she gave up everything she had. April and Mike had split up. April was doing the questioning with the tape recorder on, for the record this time. Mike and Inspector Bellaqua were having a preliminary conversation with the Manhattan DA about the recovery of the guns and options vis-a-vis Wendy Lotte. Everything was heating up.
"When were the guns transported to New York?" April asked for the thirtieth time.
"I don't know. I told you. I didn't like them. I stayed away from the whole thing." Lori glanced at the tape recorder. Since the morning, she'd cleaned up. She was wearing jeans and a jacket now. April could see that she was a pretty girl with that WASP look so many Americans aspired to. Straight blond hair, blue eyes, pug nose, high cheekbones. She didn't know which end was up, though. The girl had no street smarts.
"How could you stay away from the guns if they were around all the time?" April tried not to tap her foot.
"I told you. They weren't around all the time. I never saw one in New York. Only on the Vineyard that one time." Lori yawned, then belatedly remembered to put her hand over her mouth.
"When was that?"
"Back in April."
"What were you doing on the Vineyard in April?"
"I told you that, too. We did a wedding there. At the Charlotte Inn."
"Who was
we,
Lori?"
"Wendy, of course. Louis, Tito, that creepy guy, Ubu. They decorated the whole first floor with lilies and roses and hydrangeas. White, red, and purple were the colors. They did the garden, too, and it was freezing even with the heaters on."
"So how many vehicles were involved?"
"I don't know. They had to bring everything in from the city. The Vineyard has nothing."
"How many vehicles traveled up?"
Lori threw her hands up. "I don't know. Ask Louis. I only saw his van. That's it. Maybe they shipped the rest."
"Okay, who else was with you?"
Lori rubbed her nose. "Only Kim."
"Kim?" April said.
"Kim Simone. He makes the dresses."
The new piece punched April in the gut. This late at night it was dead in the squad room, pretty dead in the whole building, in fact. She and Lori were sitting all the way in the back at a detective's desk by a window that overlooked some of the Wall Street area, and, beyond it, the Statue of Liberty.
"The wedding dress?" she said, taking it real slow.
"Uh-huh. It was a Tang Ling dress, but Kim copied it for her. Sometimes he did special orders for us as a favor. He wasn't supposed to knock off the dresses. I told you this already."
April didn't tell Lori that no, she hadn't mentioned this at all. Sometimes they had no idea what was important. Tang Ling. She shook her head. So Wendy stole some of the wedding gifts just to keep her hand in, Louis had the flower concession, and Kim knocked off the dresses for those clients who didn't go directly to Tang. A racket all the way around.
"Okay, but why did Kim go to Martha's Vineyard with you?" she asked.
"Umm." Lori stuck her finger in her mouth and sighed. "Am I supposed to tell you all this? I don't want to get anybody in trouble."
"We're way past that, Lori. What about the dress?"
"Ahh, well, Kim was supposed to make the dress and send it, like, on the Tuesday. The wedding was Friday. He sent it to Boston FedEx, but when the dress got there, it was too small. Kristen couldn't zip it up. By Thursday, of course, it was too late to send it back."
"The bride lives in Boston?"
"No, Kristen lives in New York, but she was in Boston at the time. And two of the bridesmaids' dresses needed work, too; so Kim just called in sick and came with us on Thursday."
"Did Kim make the bridesmaids' dresses, too?"
"No, but he said he'd do the alterations for Wendy."
"Sounds like Kim does a lot of things for Wendy," April remarked.
"Pretty much anything she asks."