Hiss And Tell

9

As soon as the Old One returned home and opened the door after Sunny left, Shadow had darted between his legs to run outside. He’d crisscrossed the lawn and the driveway, frantically casting about for a scent and fighting back the mournful howl that threatened to erupt and tear out his insides.

Sunny was gone, gone, gone. She’d thrown him away and left, maybe forever. Shadow’s nose couldn’t even find a trace of her. This was very bad indeed. He wanted to cut loose with his loudest battle-yowl and claw everything to ribbons–houses, grass, people, he didn’t care. At the same time, he wanted to lay down and be sick. He didn’t seem to have any strength at all.

Shadow leaned against a tire, panting after his race around the front of the house. At least here he was in the shade, out of the sunshine. The heat would have been stifling–

Wait a minute, Shadow thought.

He took a couple of steps along the big pile of metal that blocked out the sun. Then he reared up, stretching his forepaws against the door, bringing his nose to the seam in the metal, breathing in deeply. Yes, that was a trace of Sunny’s scent. This was her go-fast thing.

Shadow felt a little quiver of hope. The two-legs loved their go-fast things. At least, all the humans he’d seen seemed to. When they went away, they usually hollered, climbed into these big, wheeled things, and roared off. Shadow had never seen a human just leave a go-fast thing behind.

He dropped back onto four feet, thinking hard. Maybe Sunny wasn’t gone forever—at least, not yet, he thought. What should I do?

It was difficult to decide, because he was being distracted. The Old One had appeared in the doorway of the house, clunking a spoon against a can of food. Shadow sniffed the air. The good kind of fish.

He abandoned the go-fast thing, heading quickly across the grass and up the steps. He had a plan now.

First, he would eat the good fish.

Then he would keep an eye out for Sunny. She wasn’t going to leave him behind that easily.

*

Sunny finished her first day on Neal’s Neck with mixed feelings. She felt that at least she was fitting in, or at least moving to the background where she could observe people without having them stare at her. On the other hand, doing that meant keeping quiet, so she hadn’t really gotten her investigation off the ground.

She sent Ken her first blog post (she’d written about the sunset boat ride, which made for some good copy . . . better than how charitable foundations could be used for tax avoidance, the subject she’d initially been tempted to write about), and she figured that should help nail down her cover as a frothy celebrity reporter. She worried about the image she’d used—leaving the land and all its troubles behind—might seem a little callous, considering that one of those troubles was a dead girl. But the feeling of freedom, having the wind at your back, that was pretty good. So were the details about the amount of effort a sailboat required. Tommy Neal’s work and sweat was properly recorded.

The folks in the guesthouses kept pretty early hours. Maybe that was because the only TV was an ancient portable—no flat screen taking up half a wall. The couples started disappearing first, and no one stayed up to watch the news, either by habit or because they were sick of the media by now. Sunny was alone by the weather report and turned off the tube. She went up to her room to call her dad and wish him good night. She’d just hung up with him when her cell phone rang again.

“Just thought you should know the website has lit up like a Christmas tree in the hours since you posted,” Ken Howell reported happily. “People from everywhere are reading and leaving comments. Boston, New York, even some guy in Hawaii. Hawaii. I’m happy if we get someone from Portsmouth or Augusta!”

“Well, it should certainly get the Courier’s name around,” Sunny said.

“Yup,” Ken hesitated. “I guess I should thank you and the interns again for setting up the online site.”

“Nancy suggested it after working on the MAX site for a while,” Sunny told him. “You should thank her. I just gave advice.” She hoped Nancy wouldn’t regret her bright idea. Ollie had insisted on them putting a link from the Courier site to MAX. Nancy might now find herself dealing with a deluge of accommodation requests from would-be celebrity gawkers.

Maybe I should temper people’s expectations, Sunny thought. That would make a good topic for tomorrow’s blog, how totally secure and inaccessible Neal’s Neck really is.

She suggested as much to Ken, who immediately gave his assent. “Let ’em follow all the excitement on our site via your blog.”

Laughing, Sunny glanced at the time and said, “Okay, Ken. We’ll see how tomorrow goes.” She clicked her phone shut and sat on the bed to put her shoes back on. It was shift change on the roadblock—time to talk with Will.

She went down the stairs and out the door, spotting Will’s friend Hank Riker taking over one of the positions at the roadblock. He gave her the barest of nods as he adjusted his Mountie hat. Sunny’s response was equally guarded. They’d both silently decided it was better not to let on about their connection.

Out in the street past the sawhorse, Ben Semple sat in a Kittery Harbor patrol car. He also pretended not to know Sunny as she passed and took a left at the next intersection. A block later, she spotted another patrol car, this time with Will behind the wheel.

Sunny opened the passenger side door and slid in. A moment later, Will started the engine, and they moved quietly through the shaded, shadowy streets.

“So how’s it going?” he greeted her. “Did any of the folks in the fortress up there let slip a crucial clue?”

“Not hardly,” Sunny admitted. “Has any of your professional police work uncovered anything?”

“It’s mainly state police work,” Will admitted with a sigh, “passed along by Hank.”

“Did you get anything from MOM?”

Will shrugged. “My mom usually told me to shut up and do my homework.”

Sunny rolled her eyes at Will’s sense of humor. “I meant Motive, Opportunity, and Means.”

“Yeah, yeah. Motive still looks pretty short. Eliza Stoughton came to Neal’s Neck because she was dating Beau but didn’t have much to do with the Kingsburys. She was also friends with Priscilla and her matron of honor, Yardley, but it doesn’t seem like she knew the husband, Tommy, that well.”

“Well enough to get into an argument with him,” Sunny pointed out, “as well as with Carson de Kruk.”

“True, at least according to the rumors. And if we accept manual strangulation as the means of death, it would indicate that a male did the deed,” Will said. “Which leads to opportunity. Priscilla gives Carson an alibi.” “Apparently, they were together, but not exactly sleeping.” Will waggled his eyebrows, though his voice grew more serious as he went on. “Lieutenant Wainwright estimates the time of death as between shortly before midnight, when Eliza was last seen alive, and one-thirty, when her body was discovered. The Neals also have a joint alibi, having tucked themselves in together.”

“How about the guy who brought her here—Beau Bellingham?”

“He says he was asleep, alone,” Will replied.

“That doesn’t look good for Beau,” Sunny said. “He’s a big guy. He wouldn’t have had a problem strangling Eliza, or lugging her body around to dispose of it.”

“Yeah, he’d be suspect number one, except the security footage doesn’t show anyone leaving the guesthouses.”

That got Sunny sitting up straight. “You mean they’ve got surveillance cameras set up inside the compound?”

“Not as fancy as that ring of steel thingy you had in New York City,” Will said. “What is it, more than four thousand cameras, I read somewhere.”

“That wasn’t my ring of steel,” Sunny told him. “That was in lower Manhattan, and I lived in Queens.”

“Well, this is Wilawiport, and it comes down to the same old question—security versus privacy.” Will shrugged. “This is supposed to be the family hideaway, and they don’t want to be on candid camera all the time. So the surveillance is set to protect the perimeter, not monitor the occupants.”

“Which means the private road, the checkpoint, and what else–the guesthouses?”

Will nodded. “The front and back yards. Anybody sneaking around there should have been recorded, but when Wainwright and Trehearne checked the hard drives, they only saw Eliza leave a dark house, and then—nothing. Nobody in or out, not even a squirrel.”

Sunny frowned in thought. “But as you say, the security is facing outward, to keep intruders away. If you were inside the perimeter . . . The cameras around the guesthouses cover the front and back.”

“As I said,” Will frowned, too, trying to follow her logic.

“And I suppose there must have been coverage along the side of each house where they faced the neighbors,” Sunny went on.

“There’s a tall board fence, no greenery to hide in, and cameras along the whole thing,” Will assured her.

“How about the opposite side of the house, behind all these lines of defense?” Sunny asked.

Will opened his mouth to answer and then stopped. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “There’s no side door.”

“But there are windows,” Sunny pointed out.

“And it wouldn’t hurt to ask if they were covered.” Will considered the situation for a minute. “I’ll bring it up with Wainwright. At this point, Bellingham has to be the prime suspect, with Peter Van Twissel as the dark horse. He’s the only member of the wedding party Eliza didn’t tangle with. If she wasn’t with Bellingham, maybe she made a rendezvous with Van Twissel, who also has no alibi.”

He shook his head. “It all probably boils down to who was sleeping with whom, and when. This case is turning into the kind of thing you might expect from a dive bar like O’Dowd’s, not in the run-up to a millionaire wedding. Arguments plus alcohol, things go too far, and a girl winds up dead.”

“What was the argument about?” Sunny asked.

“Not sure,” Will replied. “Apparently from the moment they arrived, Eliza kept sniping at Beau until he finally told her to shut up, and then the war began.”

Sunny shifted uneasily on her seat. “That’s not much of a motive.”

“As I said, it’s more like something out of O’Dowd’s.” Will shrugged. “Except there, it probably would’ve been settled with broken beer bottles. Not every murder involves a criminal genius. Sometimes it’s just an angry drunk.”

“Unless there is another motive.” Sunny bit her lip. “One that does involve a criminal genius . . .” She dove in. “Uh, I must have mentioned my old boss on the Standard.”

Will looked at her for a moment. “The one you were dating?”

She nodded. “He’s up here, supposedly covering the wedding prep, but he’s actually following another story.” Sunny briefly outlined what Randall had told her about the Taxman.

“And your ex . . . colleague really believes this stuff?” Will looked about as willing to accept the story as Sunny had been when Randall first told it to her.

“He does,” Sunny replied. “And he was asking for my help, as someone who knew the local scene.”

“Then I guess I’d better talk to this Randall guy,” Will said quietly. “Hear what he has to say firsthand.”

Sunny dug out her cell phone, scrolling through the “contacts” lists.

“You still have him on speed dial?” Will’s voice got a little sharper.

“It’s my old phone from New York,” she told him. “Lots of numbers from my past life are still on it.” She found Randall’s cell number and clicked on it. From the blurry “Hello?” she got, it sounded as if he must’ve zonked off right after the late newscasts. But Randall woke up pretty quickly when he realized who was calling. “Change your mind about working together, Sunny?”

“No,” she told him, “but I’ve got someone here who wants to talk to you.”

Randall agreed to meet them at a 24-hour diner outside of Wilawiport in twenty minutes.

He must’ve had a room nearby, because by the time Sunny and Will arrived at the diner, Randall was already at one of the Formica-topped tables, glancing around, almost bopping in place to the jukebox music. Sunny wasn’t sure whether his energy came from eagerness or from the cup of coffee already in his hand. But all trace of animation left Randall’s face when he spotted Will’s police uniform next to Sunny.

“We were just discussing a story—a theory. Why would you go and make it official? Guess you’ve forgotten what it’s like to be a real journalist,” he said sourly.

“Oh, this isn’t official,” Will said as he and Sunny took seats on the other side of the table. He stared at Randall, but it wasn’t his usual cop gaze. It was the look of a male checking out competition.

“Randall MacDermott, Will Price.” Sunny was determined to get the introductions done correctly and politely.

Unfortunately, Randall declined to play along. “Price,” he said, “the man who would be sheriff, right?” He met Will’s stare with the same kind of look, then glanced back at Sunny. “And your friend on the force. I’ve been using other sources for local background since you weren’t interested.”

Great, she thought. They’re both going caveman. What’s next? Is Will going to drag me out by my hair?

But Randall donned his bland reporter’s mask as he returned to Will. “I’m sure, given your political aspirations, that solving a case like this would be a big deal.”

“The only thing I’m interested in is finding out who killed a young woman,” Will told Randall in a flat voice. “As the case stands now, things don’t seem to hang together.”

Randall nodded. “Even in their scandals the Kingsburys are more staid than this.”

“I understand you think there might’ve been an element of blackmail in Eliza Stoughton’s life,” Will went on, ignoring Randall’s comment.

“Randall suggested the blackmailer might be out on Neal’s Neck,” Sunny added, then broke off the conversation as a waitress came over to get their orders. Will asked for coffee. Sunny, mindful of the late hour, ordered a lemonade. The last thing she wanted was to be kept up with coffee nerves. Their drinks quickly arrived, along with a refill for Randall, who’d taken the moment of silence to regroup. “As I said, it’s just a theory.” Now that his story had gotten out, he’d apparently decided to downplay everything.

“I thought you told Sunny that you had proof that this Taxman existed,” Will challenged him, and Randall rose to the bait.

“I’ve got ten years’ of files from a damned good crime reporter and conversations with several probable victims, but nobody who’d speak for the record,” he responded.

Will gave that a dismissive nod. “You also suggested that Eliza Stoughton died because she recognized this so-called Taxman, who’s apparently been in business at least ten years. At this point, our main suspects seem to be the young people in the compound. For one of them to have been running this extortion racket, they’d have had to have started while still in college—or even high school.”

“Not impossible,” Randall argued. “Augustus de Kruk tightened the purse strings on Carson after a very free-spending freshman year. It’s possible that pushed his son to extortion.”

“What about Peter Van Twissel?” Sunny asked. “He’s in a much lower financial bracket than the others. A little blackmail would go a long way to fund his friendships.” She paused. “And if he’s really a computer genius, he’d have the programming smarts to bounce payments all over creation.” She looked over at Will. “You said that the surveillance cameras on Neal’s Neck are recorded on hard drives. If anyone knew how to spoof a computer, it would be Peter.”

She also remembered his hands, with all their tiny scars from years of circuit board accidents. Bony but strong.

Randall nodded, but admitted, “You’re right. Frankly, I’ve been looking more at the older generations too. To me, the most likely—” He broke off, waving his hands. “I’ll say it again, this is only my personal theory, there’s no hard proof behind it.”

“Okay, this won’t be for attribution. Did I get that right?” Will asked.

“Spoken just like a veteran newsperson,” Sunny assured him.

Randall nodded, leaning toward them over the table and lowering his voice. “I think it’s the old man. Thomas Neal Kingsbury.”

“The Senator?” Sunny frowned dubiously, remembering the patrician man at the dinner table, unconsciously posing for media cameras that were no longer there.

“Former senator,” Randall corrected. “And the way he lost his seat, with people deserting him for a younger, more approachable rival, it’s understandable that he might be a bit vengeful. He got treated shabbily by a lot of his supposedly loyal supporters.”

“I know,” Sunny said. “My dad mentioned that during his last campaign, Kingsbury was even reaching out to the Kittery Harbor dissidents. Not that it did him much good.”

“The Senator still has some friends in Augusta,” Will protested. “Enough to get a state police detachment on duty whenever he’s in residence on Neal’s Neck.”

“But that’s nothing compared to the weight he used to swing.” Randall rested his forearms on the table. “When I heard stories about the Taxman, one of the things that really fascinated me was how he dealt largely in favors, dictating corporate and political decisions. It almost seemed as if the money was of secondary interest.”

“Favors are the currency of politics,” Will admitted. “You can see it even in the sheriff’s department.”

“And here I thought it was campaign contributions,” Sunny said. “Or do you have to get higher up the food chain before that happens?”

Randall was still busy making his case. “To hijack both of your metaphors, I think favors would be important currency for someone who got thrown off the food chain. Someone who used to be powerful, but who got the old heave-ho.”

But Sunny could see other suspects. “Even so, what about people who are still involved in politics—like the governors? Favors could be just as crucial to them.”

“Those two are politicians who won’t go much farther than their respective state houses,” Randall replied confidently. “Lem took his shot at being the fresh new face in the presidential race and blew it. And unless something huge changes, Tom is a long shot for the next couple of election cycles. I think they’ll both end their careers as political has-beens.”

“Like the Senator, but not reaching as high.” Will scowled at the table. “Could the Taxman be one of them trying for some under-the-table influence?”

“And what about Caleb Kingsbury?” Sunny asked.

Randall shrugged. “A political never-was. He’d barely gotten elected to his first term as a congressman before that scandal broke over his head. After that, he was political poison. Some people even suggest that was the beginning of the end for the Senator. Certainly, it was a big blot on the Kingsbury name.”

“So, who’s left? We’ve pretty much covered all the Kingsbury males and most of the guys in the wedding party,” Will said.

“I’ve got a black horse,” Sunny piped up. “How about Lee Trehearne?”

Both Will and Randall turned to stare at her. “What?”

“It just strikes me that an operation like the Taxman’s would necessarily require a lot of information. That’s what a security guy deals in, too.” Sunny recalled Trehearne’s furious face when she and Ken Howell had penetrated his defenses. “We know he’s got surveillance stuff set up around the compound. And he’d be in a position to find out a lot of stuff, going back to when the Senator was more connected. Maybe he’d relish being the power behind the scenes.”

“I hadn’t thought of him,” Randall admitted. “Or it could be someone on his staff. . . .”

“Or crooked NSA wonks getting transcripts of phone calls and satellite photos of people up to dirty deeds.” Will was tired, and he’d obviously had enough of Randall for one night. “You’ve got a dandy theory, MacDermott, but nothing to back it up. I’m on shaky ground with the state police investigator as it is. If I accuse Trehearne of blackmail, or anybody else for that matter, I’ll get laughed off the case. I need more than your say-so, especially when you’re saying it could be any of half a dozen different people.”

“I’d need access to those people to narrow it down,” Randall told him. “And they’re all in a private compound behind a state police barricade.” He turned to Sunny. “But you, you’re inside there. Don’t you want to do something more substantial than the puff piece about going out on the bounding main that you wrote tonight?”

“I’m still trying to find my feet in there,” she told him. “And it’s not exactly easy to toss a casual, ‘Hey, have you blackmailed any interesting people lately?’ into the conversation.”

Randall looked into his coffee cup. “I’d hoped to keep all of this on the down low until I could prove the Taxman existed.” He shot a look at Sunny. “Thanks a lot for bringing the cops into it.”

“If you’re worried about your story leaking, I can assure you that Sunny and I will keep it confidential.” Will’s tone suggested that it wasn’t worth spreading around.

“No, it was interesting to discuss the Taxman with a law-enforcement type—even if you dismissed my ideas,” Randall said. “Maybe what I really need to do is find a professional who’ll accept them.”

Good luck with that. Sunny could just imagine how the no-nonsense Lieutenant Wainwright would react to Randall’s theorizing. Aloud, she said, “I guess you’ll have to do what you think is best. Nobody’s going to hear about the Taxman from Will or me.”

That pretty much ended the meeting. Will picked up the tab, and in moments he and Sunny were back in his car. “This is just what we need,” Will muttered, “some amateur messing around in the case.”

“Right,” Sunny agreed. “That’s my job.”

Will glanced over at her. “It doesn’t help that he’s an ex-boyfriend.” He took a deep breath. “It also shouldn’t matter.”

Sunny took the cue. Keep it work related. “So, tomorrow, you figure I should try and tackle Beau Bellingham?”

“He’s a person of interest as of now,” Will said. “At least you can see if what he tells you jibes with what he’s telling Wainwright.”

“Was he the last to see Eliza?” Sunny asked.

Will shook his head. “She was last seen on a security monitor, passing the main house around midnight.”

“Did the surveillance catch her leaving the guesthouse?”

Will nodded.

“And she was heading someplace where there’d be no cameras to record whatever happened.” Sunny frowned. “Beau is Carson’s friend, and Carson said this was Beau’s first visit to Neal’s Neck. So how would he know which areas were private—and which weren’t?”

“Maybe Eliza set the meeting place,” Will suggested. “She was also Priscilla’s friend; maybe she’d been there before. We’ve got a guy meeting a girl. That’s pretty simple,” he argued.

“Not so simple,” Sunny countered. “It’s a guy who’s been going out with a girl—and just had a big fight with her.”

“I’ve got three words for you,” Will said. “Make-up sex. Or is that only two?”

“Then Beau Bellingham just happened to strangle Eliza after?” Sunny shook her head.

“The word you’re looking for is unpremeditated,” Will responded. “And after the way they made a spectacle of themselves that afternoon, it might explain a certain amount of sneaking around when they decided to bury the hatchet—or whatever. Bellingham creeps off for a booty call, things go badly, and he’s left with a dead girlfriend and no alibi.”

He grinned at Sunny. “I’m sure you’ll figure out a way to toss that question into casual conversation.”

“Sure.” Sunny sighed. “And speaking of sneaking, now I’ve got to get back into the house without waking anybody—or disturbing whatever else they may be up to.”