Conspiracy

83

Most times, dealing with small-town police departments was very easy. The Secret Service had a long-standing aura because of its role protecting the President; unlike the FBI or DEA, its image had not been tarnished by scandal. The locals also tended to be less suspicious that the Ser vice might be crowding in on their territory, and as a general rule the police chiefs and lieutenants Amanda Rauci met with on various cases went out of their way to be cooperative and helpful.

The Pine Plains chief was a notable exception. She’d tried making an appointment to see him first thing in the morning, but he’d been “unavailable” until three in the afternoon. Then he’d kept her waiting nearly forty-five minutes while he was “tied up on patrol”—she suspected this meant shooting the breeze at the local coffee shop. When he finally came into the backroom suite of the village hall, which served as the local police station, he put on a sour puss as soon as he saw her. He answered her questions in a barely audible monotone.

“Never showed.”

“Did you speak to Agent Forester on the phone?” Amanda asked.

“Nope.”

“Did anyone in your department talk to him?”

“Maybe Dispatch.” Chief Ball bellowed for his dispatcher,

“Steph! Get in here!”

The white-haired woman who’d been manning the phone and radio in the front room appeared at the door. She glanced at Amanda and gave her a reassuring look, as if to say, His bark is worse than his bite.

Amanda didn’t believe it.

“That federal guy — Secret Service,” said Chief Ball. “He ever show up that day?”

“You mean the one checking on the man who passed away?”

“No. The one that killed himself.”

“He died before he came, didn’t he?”

“Did you talk to him?”

“Just to make the appointment.”

Ball looked back at Amanda, a satisfied expression on his face.

“Did he say what it was about?” Amanda asked.

“Wanted to talk to the chief.”

“Agent Forester sometimes had a habit of looking over a place before he interviewed someone,” said Amanda. “He might have done that the night before he died.”

“Couldn’t prove it by me,” snapped the chief. He looked over at his dispatcher.

“I never met him.”

“Other questions?” Chief Ball’s voice strongly implied the answer was, No.

“I have a lot of questions,” answered Amanda. She turned to the dispatcher. “But not for you, ma’am.” The dispatcher gave Amanda the same barkis-worse smile, then left.

“You have no idea what he might have been working on?” asked Amanda.

“Well, sure, I know now. It had to do with threats against Gideon McSweeney. I didn’t know then. And I doubt anybody in my town made those threats.” Amanda opened her purse and took out Forester’s notebook. “He had spoken to a man named Gordon who lives in Georgia,” she told the chief. “There was another man, I believe named Dinn, whom he was interested in.”

“Dim?”

“Dinn. I don’t know how it’s spelled.”

“Never heard of it.”

“There don’t seem to be any in the phone book.”

“See?”

Amanda glanced down at the page in Forester’s notebook, where he had circled the name and question marks in the middle of the page:

Gordon?

Chief?

“Is it possible he wanted to talk to you about Gordon?”

“Last name or first name?”

“Last name.”

“Don’t know any Gordons. None in the phone book, right?”

“I thought maybe it might be unlisted.”

“Nah. Now we got two Gordons as first name, that I can think of. There’s Gordon Hirt, the high school principal?”

“I don’t know. Was he a Marine?”

“Might have been. I’m not sure. Don’t know much about him. Respected. Beard. Lives down in Stanford. Here three and a half years.” The chief leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on his desk. “And then there’s a Gordon Clegg. I doubt it was him. He’s like ninety-three and lives in Annabel Shepherd’s old-age home. She takes old people in. Has a license from the state. Gordon used to be sharp as a tack, but he had a stroke a few months ago. Not so good now.”

“What if Gordon was a last name?” Amanda asked. “Or if it were something near that?”

“Well. That’s a little different. Like Gordon. Hmmm. This isn’t that big a town. I think I know just about everybody, but sometimes you can be surprised.” Chief Ball stared at the ceiling, clicking through a mental Rolodex. “Goddard — we have a Pete Goddard. Retired newspaper guy, tried to make a killing off his uncle’s horse farm. Bit of a jerk. Caught him speeding once and he managed to talk himself into a ticket.

Usually, if you’re a local, I’ll let ya go. Unless you’re a jerk.” “Do you have an address?”

“Stephanie?”

Police chief chris Ball fixed his hat on his head as he strode toward his car.

Thank God for dumb blondes — or brunettes as the case might be. She had the whole damn thing in her hands and she still couldn’t figure it out.

One of the other 10 million federales working on the case would, though. Eventually. They had enough stinking people poking their noses in the woodpile.

“Hello, Chief. Nice day, isn’t it?” The chief glanced over and saw the town librarian, Joyce Dalton, walking her dog. Good-looking woman, that.

Too young for him, and married, and reading constantly, being a librarian, he would bet, but good-looking anyway.

“Mrs. Dalton. Beautiful day. Taking time off?”

“My day off. I thought I would work in my garden.”

“Nice day for it. You take care now.”

“I will, Chief.”

Ball got into his car, trying to decide whether the dumb brunette would go to the high school first or out toward Pete Goddard’s run-down horse farm.