The Skeleton's knee

Part Three
29

Gail stood alone inside the Keene, New Hampshire airport terminal, looking at me with wide, sad eyes as I limped through the double set of glass doors from the apron.

She reached up and hugged me tightly, without saying a word. I rubbed her thin muscular back with my free hand, enjoying the clean odor of her hair. When she finally stood back, she smiled unconvincingly and touched my cheek with her fingers. “What have you done to yourself?”

I raised my eyebrows, painfully aware of how I looked-bandaged, burned, nicked by dozens of glass cuts. “I think we better find somewhere else to vacation.”

She laughed, if only for a moment. “Are you all right?”

For an instant, I thought back again to Shattuck’s revolver hammer slamming home on an empty shell casing. “Sure. I might end up with a small scar from this one.” I tapped the bandage on my forehead.

Gail took my arm and walked with me toward the exit. “I had such a bad feeling when you left here-almost a premonition. When Tony told me you were in the hospital, it was like hearing the other shoe drop.”

I squeezed her hand and kissed her. “It’s good to be back.”

We left the terminal and stepped into the small parking lot.

“Tony came with me,” she said, pointing.

Brandt came out of her car and greeted me, shaking my hand and staring into my eyes as if checking to make sure everyone was at home. “You look awful.”

“Thanks.”

“Did Shattuck do all that, or did the Chicago PD chip in?”

“That pissed, are they?”

He took my bag, put it into the trunk, and opened the front passenger door for me. “I don’t think I’ll be sending another of our finest over there any time soon.”

We got into the car, with Tony in back. I fished Pendergast’s photo out of my coat pocket and handed it to him, along with the snapshot of him and Fuller at the Marquette fair. “That’s David Pendergast on the left; Fuller on the right.”

He looked at them carefully. “That anthropologist of yours was right on the money-Pendergast’s quite the beautiful boy.”

“Only skin-deep; I hear he was a nasty son of a bitch.”

Gail had pulled into traffic and was headed west toward Vermont and Brattleboro, twenty minutes away. “We got the longitude and latitude on that chart.”

“You’re kidding.” My incredulity was instinctive and immediately regretted. Gail turned and gave me a steely look. “I told you it would work-you never believed in it from the start.”

Brandt, ever the politician, steered for a middle course. “So tell him the bad news.” Her expression turned rueful. “It’s near New York City.”

“Somewhere around White Plains/Mount Vernon,” Tony added.

“Not exactly the boonies,” I muttered doubtfully. I was having difficulty believing a fanciful, color-coded, hand-drawn chart of someone’s stars could accurately yield up something as concrete as birthplace coordinates.

Brandt was much more accepting-or diplomatic. “No, it’s not, but it is worth a look. By the way, I told your people to be at the station for an informational meeting as soon as we get there.”

“There is something I ought to warn you about, Tony. I have a feeling Robert Shattuck will be showing up here, sooner than later.”

I heard the stillness in the car.

“What does that mean?” Gail finally asked. “Who’s he after? You?”

“Not specifically, although I think he sees me as the someone who can lead him to the person he’s after. The three people who came here in ’69 or ’70 with those famous hundred-dollar bills did Shattuck some damage he never recovered from. Stole the money he was pinning his future on and ruined his dreams. He’s been nursing that ever since-I think it’s fair to say he’s after blood.”

“Where did the money come from?” Brandt asked.

“I still don’t know.”

“He knows who this third person is?”

“I’m sure he does. His problem isn’t who; it’s where. I think that’s where he hopes I’ll come in-by leading the way-and his ego has it that he’ll succeed even if I don’t want him to.”

“Maybe,” Tony said thoughtfully, “or Shattuck could try forcing you to cooperate.”

I saw him looking at Gail, who immediately grasped his point. After a few seconds’ silence, she pulled off to the side of the road and put the brake on. She sat staring at the instrument panel before her. Her voice was neutral, almost cold, in an obvious effort to keep her emotions at bay. “Do you agree with Tony?”

“He does have a point,” I admitted. “If Shattuck does come to Vermont, he’ll be a complete outsider. He knows we’ll be watching for him, and he doesn’t have the connections or the hiding places he has in Chicago. He’ll have to work hard just to keep out of sight-and try to make every shot count. If he finds out about the two of us…”

She nodded silently.

“I’d feel a whole lot more comfortable giving you around-the-clock protection,” Brandt said to Gail, “or suggesting you take a small vacation.”

She stunned me with her own alternative. “If I stayed in town, and the police protection was discreet, I could be useful getting this guy out into the open.”

“I disagree,” I blurted out, horrified at the idea.

“Why not? It’s perfectly logical.”

“This guy’s not sane, Gail-”

Tony interrupted. “She does have a point, Joe. And we could control it so she wouldn’t really be exposed.”

“This is dumb, and it misses the point. What we need to focus on is the identity and location of the third man.”

“From what you’ve told me, Shattuck’ll do anything to gain an edge; it might pay to take advantage of that.” Brandt turned to Gail. “You have call forwarding on your office phone?”

“Office and home both.”

“So you could work out of your home?” She shrugged. “For a while, I suppose. I do need to get out-show properties, that sort of thing. Plus, there’s the board and my other activities.”

“But for a few days? We could set you up at home and have the place covered while you posed as bait. You could tell people you had the flu.”

I scowled at him. “Thanks a hell of a lot. One innocent person’s already been killed because of this.”

Gail said quietly, “By killing me, he’d be killing his leverage.”

“That’s rational-he’s not.” I turned from her to Brandt, who merely smiled and raised his eyebrows. The terror I had felt at Shattuck’s hands was mine alone. I could try to impress upon them just how cold-blooded he was, but I knew the end result would be the same, and that only I would feel reduced by the experience.

All that was left, therefore, was to concede to her logic-reluctantly. “I hate this.”

Gail smiled sympathetically, squeezed my hand, and put the car back into gear. “He probably won’t even show up.”

I didn’t bother answering.

“There is another problem,” she said after a while. “You better cook up something for the board explaining what Joe’s been up to this last week. If they find out I knew before them, we’re all going to feel the heat.” She glanced over her shoulder at Brandt. “I don’t know how specific you want to make it, but maybe you could have a little conversation with the town manager, and let him be your messenger.”

He nodded. “Good point. I also need to update the State’s Attorney. I won’t say anything to the selectmen about Shattuck or the stakeout-just that you were in Chicago, Joe, and stirred up a few wasps in the process.”

The meeting Brandt had arranged with the squad had the elements of an awkward homecoming, prefaced as it was by the ritual number of jokes about my battered appearance, and offset by several quizzical sideward glances I was not intended to see.

“I didn’t get all the answers in Chicago that I’d banked on,” I began. “But I did get a few. I’m hoping that with the information you’ve been gathering in my absence, we’ll be able to wrap this case up fast. And speed, unfortunately, is now of the essence. It turns out we are no longer the only ones interested in finding out who opened up on us with an M-16. For that reason, I want to stress that what is said in this room stays here. There will be no interoffice memos, no casual chats by the coffee machine, and no late-night pillow talk with wives or significant others. If anyone questions what we’re up to, your answer should be we’re trying to put a name to the skeleton and find the person who did the shooting. Don’t tell anyone how we’re progressing. Our advantages in this race are knowledge and speed. If we give those away, we lose. It’s that simple.”

“Who’s our competition?” Ron asked.

I held up a mug shot. “This man-Robert Shattuck.” I then passed it to Ron to make a tour of the table.

“That photograph was taken about twenty years ago, so age the face in your minds and add gray hair-last seen tied back in a ponytail. Shattuck is just over six feet, trim and fit-one seventy-five to one eighty-and fifty-five years old. He is armed and violent. These”-I tapped my bandages with my finger-”are the results of some of his handiwork. He’s a dangerous man.”

I held up the two shots of Pendergast. “And this is our skeleton-David Pendergast, born in Marquette, Michigan, aged twenty-nine when he died. From what I could find out, he was charismatic, reckless, manipulative-and also dangerous. Not unlike Shattuck. I’ll have copies made of all these.”

I leaned forward on the table, choosing my words carefully. “Mr. Shattuck knows who we’re after-as far as I can make out, it’s someone from his past-but he doesn’t know where he’s hiding. Which means Shattuck may end up, one way or another, depending on us to supply that information. If he does show up in Brattleboro, he should stick out like a sore thumb, so he’ll probably act quickly and ruthlessly.

“He might try to get to me through Gail Zigman, since our friendship is common knowledge. If that happens, we hope to use that opportunity to lure Shattuck out into the open. The chief will fill you in.”

Brandt didn’t bother standing. In his familiar unemotional style, he told them of the plan he and Gail had worked up in the car. Gail would be under discreet guard at home, and would make outings only if absolutely necessary, and then always with a man on the floor of her car and another team tailing. The stakeout would be coordinated by the department’s Special Response Team-our version of SWAT-of which both Ron and Sammie were members. Brandt told them there would be an SRT meeting following this one. Given my involvement with Gail, he added, it had been agreed that I would concentrate on the other aspects of the investigation.

Kunkle spoke up after Brandt had finished. “Why not just pull in our snitches and spread the word about this guy? It’s not like he has a million places to hide.”

I nodded in agreement. “We need to shake the bushes, but until we know Shattuck’s in the area, the main thrust of this investigation should be to find the shooter. Again”-I raised my hand for emphasis-“the stakeout has got to be kept under wraps. Should Shattuck turn up, he’ll expect a minor manhunt, but he may not think we’re bright enough to set a trap.”

I stepped away from the table and began to pace at the head of the room. “Mr. Dunn has kindly made available to us a list of former residents of so-called Hippie Hollow, dating back to the time of Fred Coyner’s wife’s death. The list is fairly extensive, and we don’t know how many-if any-of them are still living in the area. But we need to find the ones who are and question them about Fuller, Pendergast, and anyone else who might have been with them. That means telephone directories, phone calls, the computer, and so forth. If you get a hit, follow it up in person and let me know as soon as possible. Remember: We want to do it right, but it’s got to be fast, and it’s got to be discreet. We don’t want to tip our hand, so watch your backs, and take note of anything or anyone unusual.

“Our second job is to locate the subject of the astrology chart that was stolen from Fuller’s house. We now know from an evaluation we had made of a copy of that chart that the subject was born at 10:55 P.M., eastern standard time, on April 7, 1946, in the Mount Vernon/ White Plains area of New York, just north of Manhattan. I know a lot of you are probably as skeptical about this as I am, but it is a lead, and we need to see if we can match a name to those statistics.”

DeFlorio let out a whistle. “Christ. Does that mean we got to call every hospital?”

“No,” Kunkle growled scornfully. “County or town clerks have those records, assuming they’re cooperative.”

Brandt stirred in his seat. “Actually, there may be an easier way-bypassing the clerks and the fees and the paperwork. When I took the FBI Academy refresher course a few years ago, I got friendly with a state police investigator from that area who might be able to help us out. Let me give him a call. If I make it sound urgent enough, we might get something in a couple of hours instead of waiting days for the bureaucrats to get stimulated.”

I nodded my agreement. “Okay, that’ll allow us to concentrate on the ex-Hippie Hollow residents. Sammie, you were the one who interviewed the old mortician at the Retreat, right?”

She paused in gathering her papers together. “Yes, for what it was worth-he was pretty far gone.”

“He probably had an assistant back then. Maybe he or she might remember something.” Sammie reddened slightly, perhaps feeling I was finding fault with her. “I’ll call and find out.”

“Okay. If there is such a person, set up an interview ASAP. We can do it together.”

I turned my attention to the rest of them, who were beginning to head for the door. “We’ll reconvene here at 1630.”

Sammie stuck her head into Brandt’s office a half hour later and announced she’d located the mortician’s ex-assistant. I made my apologies to Billy Manierre and Brandt and joined her with a sigh of relief. The three of us had been discussing how to juggle the schedules of both the Special Response Team and Billy’s three patrol shifts, and I’d been finding the process difficult to deal with objectively.

Roland Bennet-the name Sammie had gotten from the mortician-was part owner of the Chameleon Café on Flat Street, Brattleboro’s one forthright gay bar. There was a large “Closed” sign in the window; Sammie pounded on the door as she’d been instructed on the phone, and in a few moments we heard rapid footsteps approaching from the inside.

Bennet greeted us like a long-lost aunt; he was expansive, gregarious, and utterly unfazed by our official status. “I apologize for the smell in here-too many cigarettes and too many bodies. You don’t mind if I leave the door open, do you? I have a fan going in the back, but it takes forever without a cross current.”

He ushered us though the small lobby to a twenty-foot oak and brass bar that lined one wall of the place and pulled out a couple of stools for us. He then circled behind the bar. “Can I get you anything to drink? Juice? Maybe a mid-morning snack?” At the back of the large room, beyond a cluster of small tables and a door leading to the kitchen, the dance floor was being vacuumed by a young man wearing bib-top overalls and no shirt.

We both shook our heads.

Bennet looked me over. “So, you’re Joe Gunther. I’ve seen you around-I just never put the name to the face. You wanted to talk to me about my days in the body business?”

I returned his smile, not knowing-or caring-if his slightly campy tone was natural or just for my benefit. “We understand you worked for Ed Guillaume in the late sixties, early seventies.”

“That’s right-I made ’em look good one last time.”

“Do you remember making Hannah Coyner look good in 1970?”

He laughed. “Good God, no-none of them had names as far as I was concerned.”

“She died of cancer. Her husband was Fred Coyner. He might’ve visited the parlor with two hippies-bell-bottoms, long hair.” I laid the photos of Fuller and Pendergast on the bar.

Bennet took a long moment studying them, especially the one of David Pendergast. A slow smile spread across his face. “I remember this one. He took my breath away-God, that was so many years ago.”

I felt Sammie, as conventional as most cops, struggling to maintain her composure.

“Do you remember anything specific? Anything he said or did?”

“Don’t I wish. I never even spoke to him. I saw them through an open door. I worked mostly in the back; old Guillaume did the soft-shoe stuff. But I remember seeing this one and just staring-he was so beautiful.”

“You didn’t overhear anything?”

“No. It was always the usual claptrap, anyway.” He held the picture in his hand like a star-struck movie fan. “That’s amazing, seeing him so many years later.”

I removed the photo gently and replaced it with Fuller’s-the one that had been artificially “youthened.”

“How about him? Was he the other guy?”

Bennet made a face. “There was no other guy. It was a girl.”

I turned in surprise to Sammie. “Was Guillaume sure about it being two men?”

“I wouldn’t say he was sure about anything.”

I looked back at Bennet. “Are you sure it was a girl?”

He crinkled his nose at me, hamming it up now. “I may not have much use for them, but I know what they look like.”

“All right. Just at a glance, did they seem like a couple?”

He thought back and finally shook his head. “It’s hard-that long ago, but I don’t think so.” Then he smiled. “I was only really interested in him, you know?”

I gathered the pictures together and put them in my pocket.

Bennet watched the last one go with an expression of regret. “Thanks, Mr. Bennet; you’ve been a big help.”

He smiled again, back to hamming it up. “My pleasure. Come back when you’re off duty sometime-and bring your friend in the photo if you find him.”

I pushed Sammie out the door before she could explode.

Later that afternoon, Dennis DeFlorio called me on the phone, sounding slightly out of breath, as usual. “Joe, I’ve found somebody here who used to live on the buses, but he’s not being too friendly.”

“Where are you?”

“Putney-The Sourdough Bakery. This guy’s one of the bakers, named Gary Schenk.”

“I’ll be right up.”

Putney is about seven miles north of Brattleboro on the interstate, and is famous for its pride, its politics, and its dense population of artistic types.

The Sourdough Bakery bragged of twenty-year-old commune roots and was run by mostly underfed-looking, soft-spoken vegetarians. I found Dennis in the parking lot near the building’s rear entrance, his fat, sweaty, meat-fed body looking particularly out of place.

“He’s inside-refuses to talk to me.”

“Okay. Why don’t you wait in your car? I’ll let you know what I find out later.”

He didn’t look unhappy with the suggestion. While others might have taken offense, Dennis took almost everything as it came-which had both its up and down sides.

The temperature inside the bakery was blistering, and as soon as I’d introduced myself to Gary Schenk, I moved the interview back outside, near a small corral containing the garbage cans.

Schenk was in his mid-forties, with long hair held in place by a colorful bandanna, and sporting a thick and handsome waxed mustache, obviously a source of some vanity. He was not overly happy to see me. “What do you guys want, anyway?”

“Detective DeFlorio didn’t explain?”

“He said you were trying to find someone from the Hippie Hollow days. That was a long time ago.”

“He show you pictures?”

Schenk scowled at me. “Look, I’m busy. I don’t have time to play twenty questions. Why don’t you go bother somebody else?”

I showed him Pendergast’s smiling face. “Ring a bell?”

There was a long pause as Schenk looked at me, realizing I was not about to let him go until he cooperated. With an angry, exasperated sigh, he snatched the photo from my hand and glared at it. “Okay, I remember him. Satisfied?”

“What was his name?”

His mouth dropped open. “How the hell do I know? Dewdrop or Acidhead or Groovy or who the fuck cares. Nobody had real names back then. He was just a guy.”

“Traveling with this man.” I handed him Fuller’s picture.

This time, he looked more carefully, taken aback by the calculated sureness in my voice. “Yeah. I remember them.”

“And a girl.”

He looked peeved again. “Look, if you know all this, why waste my time?”

“They keep mostly to themselves?”

“The girl and this one did”-he tapped Fuller’s photo-”but the big guy got into everybody’s business. Real pain in the ass. I was happy to see them go.”

“Were you there when Fred Coyner blew out the bus windows with a shotgun?”

Schenk paused. “Man, that is ancient history.”

“How did the big guy react to it?”

He scratched his head, for once giving the issue some thought. “He was really into it, wondering why the old dude did it. They all split pretty soon after that.”

“Did they ever talk about where they came from?”

“Nope-they mostly hung together.”

“They ever flash any big bills?”

Schenk laughed. “Oh, right-we all had loads of that. Look, I gotta get back to work.”

He moved toward the back door.

“One last thing.” I stopped him.

“What?”

“There were only three of them, right? Nobody else?”

“Not that I ever saw.”

“Was the girl particularly fond of one or the other of the two men?”

“Jesus-you guys. She was hitched to the quiet one. The big guy was too wrapped up in himself.”

On the drive back into town, I took advantage of the peace and quiet to mull over how the pieces were beginning to slip together. What Gary Schenk had told me amounted to the last sighting of a ship before it drifted off into the fog forever-bearing a mismatched trio with blood in their past and death in their future. My concern now was how to intervene before the fate of two of them extended to the third.

I closed the door to my office when I got back and dialed Gail’s number. “How’re you holding up?”

She let out a small laugh. “Fine, I guess. I keep thinking about this story I read as a girl, where some hunters staked a fawn in a clearing and then waited in the underbrush for the tiger to appear.”

“How did it end?”

“You don’t want to know. You having any luck?”

“It’s early yet-we’re making progress. You comfortable with the setup there?”

Her voice was cheerful, artificially so, I thought. “Oh yes-Marshall Smith is keeping me company in the house, looking like a one-man army; the others are somewhere outside. I can’t see any of them, which I suppose is good.”

“We can pull the plug on this, Gail.”

Harriet Fritter poked her head into my office and whispered, “Line two. Norm Runnion.”

I nodded silently. Gail’s voice on the other end had resumed its firm footing. “I’m fine, Joe. You do your end; I’ll do mine.”

I let out a small sigh. “See you tonight?”

“There may not be room.” She chuckled. “Give me a call.”

I said good-bye and punched the blinking button at the base of the phone.

“You get your ass in a crack back home?” Norm’s voice was comforting at the other end.

“I told you what Vermonters think of the big city. They welcomed me back with open arms. You been fired yet?”

“Not hardly. They didn’t pin a medal on me, though. I dug around a little on the University of Illinois angle for you. Pendergast shows up, all right, but the one you call Fuller doesn’t show up anywhere. I looked at the yearbooks, then I went to the admissions records to check on students who dropped or flunked out. There was nothing that fits, Joe.”

I pondered that for a few seconds.

“Maybe the old lady in Marquette got it wrong,” he suggested.

“Could be.”

“Want me to chase down anything else?”

“No, Norm-you’ve stuck your neck out enough. Thanks.”

“No sweat. Tell me how it turns out.”

I put the phone down and looked up, to see Willy Kunkle, wearing a satisfied expression as he leaned against my doorjamb, his withered arm stuffed in his pocket like some odd piece of cloth the tailor had forgotten to remove from his jacket. “You look pleased with yourself.”

“Shattuck’s in town.”

My heart skipped a beat, and I sat back in my chair, feigning casualness. “Do tell.”

“One of my snitches was approached at the Sky View trailer park by some guy wanting information on you. Apparently, he’s been making the rounds with a lot of questions and a lot of money. It’s a definite match with Shattuck’s picture, all the way down to the ponytail. From what I was told, he’s not being real friendly.”

“Is it worth it to check out the Sky View?”

Kunkle shook his head. “He’s long gone.” He hesitated, a rare flicker of compassion crossing his face. “The guy’ll screw up sooner or later. Someone’ll tell us where he’s hanging out.”

I glanced at the wall clock, frustration and urgency mingling deep inside me. I thought back to Gail’s cheerful farewell on the phone and realized only then how much I’d been hoping that for some reason Shattuck wouldn’t appear. “Thanks, Willy. Keep me updated.”

Fifteen minutes before our scheduled afternoon meeting, Tony Brandt walked into my office and placed a single fax sheet on my desk. “As promised. I asked my contact to get me every birth within twelve hours on either side of the time on the chart, just to be on the safe side. I’m afraid there’re quite a few.”

I glanced quickly at the list, running my finger along it to see if any of the entries jumped out at me. Halfway down, I stopped at the one name that instantly made complete sense of much that had been baffling us-including why no one had been able to connect Abraham Fuller to David Pendergast. “Did you look these over?”

Tony shook his head. “You find something?”

I twisted the list around so he could read it from where he stood by the side of my desk. I pointed out the name with my fingertip. “I’d been focusing almost exclusively on David. He’d been the natural leader of the three-the one best remembered, the only one with a record, the only link to Bob Shattuck. It was even his metal knee that got the ball rolling for us. I should’ve known to look more carefully into his background.”

Tony read the name aloud. “Susan Pendergast?”

I was moving toward the door, seized by the importance of this discovery-and by the urgency to act on it quickly. “His sister, who ran away from home and was never heard from again. She was the only family he had left after his parents died. I should’ve wondered about that.”

I pulled open the door and shouted into the squad room. “Sammie?”

She popped up from behind one of the soundproof room dividers. I gestured for her to join us, then closed the door behind her.

“You checked out Abraham Fuller earlier, right?”

She nodded, looking uneasy.

I showed her Brandt’s list of names. “Susan Pendergast is David Pendergast’s sister. She’s got to be the connection between Fuller and her brother. She must have linked up with Fuller in Alaska, which would explain why he never cropped up when we were checking into David’s activities in Chicago.”

“What about the picture of them together in Marquette?” Brandt asked.

“My guess is Susan brought Fuller with her to Chicago shortly before 1969, where they hooked up with David. And David must’ve brought Fuller up to Marquette for a visit, maybe treating him kind of like a brother-in-law.” I turned to Sammie. “Did you find anything at all relating to Fuller in your digging-documents, bank records, credit companies, anything at all?”

Sammie shook her head. “I checked everything six ways toward the middle. The only Abraham Fuller I came up that fitted the approximate date of birth was a kid I found in the town clerk’s records.”

I stared at her for a moment. “What kid?”

Sammie tugged at a strand of her hair. “I was looking through the birth certificates. For a second, I thought I’d hit the jackpot, but it turned out that Abraham Fuller had only lived a few days.”

“You think that’s our boy?” Brandt asked softly.

I began pacing the small room excitedly, using the two of them as a sounding board to the revelation that was burning brighter and brighter in my mind. “It’s one of the ways you can establish a new identity, especially in rural areas, where few people bother checking into details.

“You find the grave or death certificate of an infant, assume his name, and put in a request at the town clerk’s or wherever for a new birth certificate, claiming you lost yours. The clerk looks up the birth certificate on her rolls, which are kept separate from death records, issues a duplicate, and bingo-you’re on your way to establishing a new identity.”

“But I checked everywhere else,” Sammie protested, “Abraham Fuller never did establish an identity. Besides, what’s all that got to do with Susan Pendergast?”

I bolted for the door, Sammie’s exasperated question ringing like a confirmation in my ears. “Because,” I said on the threshold, “if Fuller took on a false identity using that method, then Susan Pendergast probably did, too.”

I strode out into the squad room and toward the exit, Brandt and Sammie hard on my heels, both of them now sharing my impatience to explore this new avenue.

As we moved rapidly down the hall toward the town clerk’s office, I addressed the other part of Sammie’s question. “I don’t know why Fuller never went beyond just taking on a false name, but assuming he was wounded just after coming to this area, I’d guess he became so traumatized, he completely withdrew from life, which made a new identity irrelevant.”

The young woman behind the town clerk’s counter stared open-mouthed as we marched by her to where the record books were kept in a back room. I handed out several of the large, heavy volumes to both of them.

Sammie was still perplexed. “What do we look for?”

“Those are death records from the 1940s. Eventually, we should compare them to something like the Department of Motor Vehicle records, see if we can locate a living, licensed driver who should have died fifty years ago. But right now, let’s just look for anything that might ring a bell.”

We moved quickly, spurred on by our hopes that we’d finally cracked the enigma-and that a single name might provide us with the answers we’d been seeking.

It finally did, but with none of the joy I’d been anticipating. For the second time in fifteen minutes, a name leapt out at me with the power of pure revelation. But this time, instead of the excitement of having my efforts rewarded, I felt only the frustration and anger at having been duped, almost from the start of this investigation. The name neatly penned on the page before me resounded with its owner’s self-confidence and daring. Susan Pendergast had used Gail as a way to meet me, then had used my own prejudices to buy herself time.

I slammed the book down on the table in disgust, causing Tony Brandt to come over and glance down at the page. “I’ll be damned.” Sammie looked up from her own scrutiny. “What did you find?”

“Wilhelmina Lucas-Billie for short.”