I slid open the back door and ushered her inside. It was the same van we’d used for our squad meeting a few nights before.
“Glad you could make it,” I said, following her in and slamming the door. The light inside was soft and calming, almost like a psychologist’s office.
She settled into one of the captain’s chairs, tore off her glasses, and glared at me. “I could make it? What choice did I have? I’m being blackmailed here.”
I handed her my identification, which she barely glanced at. “Mrs. Manning, you’re here of your own accord. The fact that you’re worried about your affair with Richie Lane has nothing to do with us.”
“As if you wouldn’t go straight to my husband with it.”
“We wouldn’t, in fact, although I do have to warn you, if any of this goes to trial and the prosecution deems it relevant to their case, you could be called to testify.”
She covered her forehead with one perfectly manicured hand. “Oh, my God.”
“I wouldn’t worry yet. It may not come to that.”
The hand dropped, she sighed theatrically, blinked several times as if to control tears I saw no sign of, and finally said, “It wasn’t an affair. We only met once.”
I suspected better, but I couldn’t resist. “A one-night stand?”
She stamped her foot. “Christ. It sounds so tacky. You have to understand, I was lonely, my husband and I have been having some problems. I felt my life was falling apart.”
I saw her give me the quickest of glances, as if to judge her performance by my reaction.
“Mrs. Manning, I don’t care. I just want to know what happened between you and Richie Lane.”
She looked faintly scandalized. “You know what happened. Isn’t that why we’re in this… thing.” She waved a hand around the van.
“I don’t mean the sex. I want to know what he said.”
She looked at me blankly. I began to think Richie had been underachieving when he put the moves on this one.
“What do you mean?”
I was tempted to tell her he’d not only used her to pay for his drinks and get a roll in the hay, but that he’d scoped out her house to be robbed a few days later, and that she’d been lucky he hadn’t threatened to tell her husband for a cash bonus. But I didn’t want her to have a fit and storm out the door, not yet.
“We want to get this man,” I said instead, “without involving you if possible. He’s dangerous, he has a record, and he’s involved in things that’ll put him in jail for a long time. You were very lucky-unless he chooses to come back, of course-but we don’t want some other woman to suffer at his hands.”
The veiled threat of his return-of which he’d shown no signs so far-did the trick. She sat forward in her chair, her elbows on her knees, and gave me the instantly sincere look. “What can I do to help?”
“He made small talk when he approached you at the nightclub. Did he tell you anything about himself that might tell us where to find him-some family names, where he was brought up, a favorite summer place, a restaurant he really likes-anything at all?”
She furrowed her brow, which by now only made me doubt her veracity. “It’s hard to remember. I wasn’t drinking much-I never do-but I was tired and hadn’t eaten all day, and I’d been ill the week before. My system hadn’t fully recovered, so I’m afraid I was caught unawares.”
“You were drunk, in other words.”
She frowned and stiffened slightly. I was happy I wasn’t Willy Kunkle right then. “No, I wasn’t drunk. I was overtired and my metabolism was off kilter. He took advantage of me.”
I tried again. “Do you remember anything he might have said?”
“He talked about Switzerland, how much more fun it was to ski there than here, how the Tyrol was like a magic kingdom. He did make it sound wonderful.”
I bit off telling her the Tyrol was not in Switzerland. “How ’bout something closer to home?”
“He told me about a few of the people who work here. That was quite funny. He described some real characters.” She hesitated and then shook her head. “He mostly asked me questions. It was very flattering, really. Women don’t usually have attractive men ask them about themselves. He couldn’t get enough of it. I have to admit, I’m still finding it hard to accept that he’s done what you’re accusing him of.”
“Trust me. Did he say anything about what he does during the off season? Someplace he goes to?”
Her eyes widened. “Oh, yes-that’s very good. He did. He said he teaches tennis at Mount Snow.”
I nodded. It was probably as accurate as his European geography, but he might have let something slip. I pulled out a card with my name and phone number on it. “Okay, Mrs. Manning. I guess that’s it for the moment. If you think of something else, I’d appreciate a phone call.”
She held the card between her fingers as if it were covered with glue, which, metaphorically, it might have been. “I don’t want my husband to find this.”
I took it back, figuring it had been wasted anyhow. “Vermont Bureau of Investigation. It’s in the book. Ask for Joe Gunther or anyone in the Brattleboro office.”
She pursed her lips like a child memorizing a poem. “Got it.”
I slid open the door. “You’re free to go. Thanks.”
She crabbed by me clumsily, bent over to spare bumping her head, and stepped onto the parking lot, slipping her dark glasses back on.
“Mrs. Manning?”
She looked over her shoulder at me.
“I’d be careful about being picked up like that. Even in Vermont, these situations can get dangerous.”
She scowled at me and opened her mouth to protest. I slammed the door in her face and watched her through the dark glass as she stalked off in rigid outrage.
I then turned to the mobile phone mounted on the van’s wall, got directory to locate the Mount Snow employment office, and was routed through to that number. I asked the voice that answered if Donna Repsher was there.
She came on in a couple of minutes. “This is Donna.”
“Donna, it’s Joe Gunther.”
“Joe. I don’t believe it. Such a long time. How’s the new job?”
“Interesting. Little tough getting other cops to play now and then, but we’re working on it.”
“And Gail?”
“She’s fine. Saw her yesterday. Busier than hell, but that’s the way she likes it.”
“You watch out. She’ll end up governor or a senator someday, and you’ll be driving her car. I know you didn’t call to chat, Joe, so what’s up?”
“Cruel, Donna.”
“You going to make a liar out of me?”
“No, you’re right. I need to know if you ever had an employee named Richie Lane-said he taught tennis there.”
She laughed and told me to hang on. An old friend from where I’d grown up in Thetford, Donna was part of a vast extended family I maintained throughout the state, in part out of friendship, but also because of where they worked or who they knew.
The phone clicked in my ear. “Joe? I’m at the computer and I don’t see anybody with that name.”
I closed my eyes and struggled to remember what Lester Spinney had told me earlier. “How ’bout Robert Lanier, Marc Roberts, or Lenny… no, Lanny Robertson.”
I heard her tapping on the computer for a while, before finally chuckling to herself. “Tennis teacher? Cute. Was that his pick-up line?”
“You got it. What was he really?”
“Marc Roberts is on the summer grounds crew payroll-grunt-labor level, basically restricted to picking up trash, cleaning gutters, and other intellectual pursuits. Good place to work on a tan, though.”
“You got a home address?”
She did, in West Dover, Vermont, which Mount Snow calls home.
“That current?”
“It’s where we sent his last check. I wouldn’t know beyond that.”
I thanked her, hung up, and called the Dover Police Department. The chief there, also a friend, said he’d make some discreet inquiries about the address’s validity and call me back.
Both Sammie and Lester were conducting interviews similar to the one I’d just had with Mrs. Manning-with married women who’d owned homes ripped off by Marty Gagnon. I wondered if either one of them had picked up anything linking Richie to Mount Snow. If they had, it could mean we were onto something solid. In any case, I could barely believe my luck so far.