Honestly Dearest, You're Dead

Thirty

The answering machine light was blinking when I walked into my office late the next morning. For a second, I let myself hope it was Amanda, but then realized she would have dialed my cell phone. Aggert, I guessed then, calling to chastise me for not reporting in. I was wrong again. It had been Lieutenant Dillard, calling from Michigan. I called him back.

“There was a fire at the house of that woman you were looking for,” he said. “The fire department in Bangor forwarded me a report.”

“Days ago,” I said. “You people move fast.”

“Faster now, Elstrom. How soon can you get up here?”

“You have new information?”

“We found a body underneath the car in the garage.”

It took a few seconds to get the word out: “Female?”

“We don’t know yet.”

“Don’t play with me.”

“Come on up and find out, Elstrom.”

The county sheriff’s department was just north of West Haven, in a tan brick building with windows that needed paint. It looked like a place where people went to hear bad news.

Dillard was a big cop, my age, but a couple of inches taller and packing fifty more pounds. With his brush-cut hair and clear eyes, he could have been a drill sergeant in a recruiting poster, except for what he was holding in his big, meaty hand. It was a porcelain teacup, dainty and painted with little dark grapes, and it was steaming up something fruity. He led me down a cinder-block hall to a windowless office in back. More of the sickly sweet smell wafted from an electric teapot set on the low filing cabinet behind the metal desk. We sat, and when I said no to coffee, he asked if I’d like a soft drink. I said no to that, too.

“Well, then, how about some blueberry tea?” he asked, raising his cup. I’d been wrong; the dark circles painted on the cup weren’t grapes, they were blueberries.

Sweet Jesus O’Keefe.

“Was it a woman’s body?” I asked.

He sipped from the dainty cup. “Still don’t know.”

“How much damned time do you need?” I asked, this time loud enough to be heard in the hall.

“The coroner is backed up; two kids in a motorcycle crash. Tell me everything you know about that woman on 12.”

I hurried through the Louise and Carolina version of the story, beginning with Aggert, ending with my trip to Windward Island.

“You’re thinking Carolina Dare might not be her real name, either?” he asked when I was done.

“I don’t know. The body was under the car?” I still couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it.

He studied me for a long, maddening minute, then nodded. “Jammed right under.”

I wanted to grab his teacup, smash it on the tile floor. “When will you know if it was a woman’s?”

“Got some photos from a Sergeant Patterson in Cedar Ridge, Iowa. A couple of brothers named Kovacs.”

“I already e-mailed Patterson that neither was passing himself off as the John Reynolds I met up here.”

“We’ll tack them up on the board anyway. Maybe somebody will remember seeing them.”

“How about calling the coroner, find out if it was a woman under that house?”

He paused at the door before going out. “You should try the blueberry tea. It soothes the nerves.”

Measured by the number of times the ants crawling in my gut multiplied, Dillard was gone a long time. According to my watch, though, he was gone only twenty minutes before he came back, carrying a green file folder and a cup of coffee, black, for me.

“The coroner said it was a man’s body.”

Some of the air came back into the room. It was too warm and stale with my sweat, and it disappeared too quickly into the sticky smell of the tea, but it was easier breathing. I drank the coffee while he opened the folder. He took out computer-printed photographs of two men and slid them across the table.

“The Kovacs brothers,” I said. “I told you, neither was the one posing as John Reynolds.”

“Your Cedar Ridge friend, Sergeant Patterson, said these ne’er-do-wells, Eddie and Lance, never went beyond petty crime. The only thing that ties them to the bank is timing; they disappeared at the same time an Officer Severs-your suspect for killing his daughter-was found dead in his police unit.”

“Severs is not just a guess. The letters to Carolina Dare point to him.”

“Patterson faxed me the letters, too,” Dillard said, nodding agreement. “We best be sure before we start pointing fingers at a cop.”

“A dead cop,” I said, “and likely a dead, dirty cop.” I pushed the photos on the table back toward him. “You could show these to the Woodton postmaster. Perhaps it was one of the Kovacs brothers who tried to get at Carolina’s mail.”

“And who was then found as toast underneath a car on County Road 12?”

“It could have been a Kovacs,” I agreed.

“So who killed him?”

“Same person who then torched the place: John Reynolds.”

“Close.” Dillard smiled. “My first guess is that Reynolds is a private investigator who got wind of the money trail. That doesn’t make him a killer. My second guess is he was one of the bank robbers. That does. Either way, I don’t see Reynolds as the primary suspect for the corpse under the car.”

I sipped coffee.

“Patterson is transmitting the Kovacs dental records right now. We’ll know soon enough.” He set down his dainty cup. “What aren’t you saying?”

Even with the door open, the air in Dillard’s office was still too tight. I shrugged.

“You aren’t saying, Elstrom, who is the likeliest suspect for the murder of the man under the car.”

I supposed he was looking for a couple of names. Maris’s, for sure. Probably my own. I stood up.

“I’ll be across the street from the Wal-Mart,” I said.