The Snow White Christmas Cookie

CHAPTER 9

The roads were all slushy and soupy now that so much wind-driven rain was coming down on top of all of that snow. Absolutely no one else was out as Des splish-splashed her way up Route 156, the narrow country road that twisted its way north of the village alongside of the Connecticut River into Dorset’s rural farm country.

Her destination was Kinney Road, a remote little lane that ran straight down to the river. Two immense riverfront mansions had been built there a hundred or so years ago. Both places were dark and neither driveway had been plowed. Evidently their owners were spending the holiday season somewhere warm. The road itself had been plowed very recently. She knew this because the town’s big orange plow truck was idling there in the rain when she pulled into the small parking lot at the foot of Kinney, which was a real happening place during the summer. Folks put their kayaks and canoes into the water there. This time of year no one came around.

Hank Merrill’s black VW Passat was parked facing the river. A garden hose was attached to the Passat’s tailpipe with silver duct tape. The other end of the hose was poking through the top of the driver’s side window, which had been rolled up tight enough to hold it in place. The driver’s door was open, the car’s interior lights on. Madge Jewett was crouched there in the rain having a look at Hank while Mary talked to the town plowman, Paul Fiore, who’d phoned it in. The girls’ EMT van idled next to his plow truck.

Des buttoned her rain slicker and got out, tugging her big hat tight to her head. She started with Paul, a heavyset fellow who worked for the town full-time.

“I made one pass through here this afternoon,” he informed her, running a hand over his face. The man was very upset. “It must have been about three o’clock. Nobody was here. When I came through again just now I noticed the Passat parked over there with its engine running. Didn’t pay it much mind. Figured it was a couple of kids playing grab-ass. They like these out-of-the-way places, you know?”

“Sure, I know,” Des said to him gently.

“I’ve been plowing nonstop since five o’clock this morning, so maybe I’m not as alert as I should be. I’d practically…” Paul broke off, gulping. “I did almost the whole parking lot before I noticed that hose sticking out of the tailpipe. When I realized what I was looking at I jumped right out and shut off his engine. But I knew I was too late soon as I got a good look at him. His eyes were … staring at me. And I’ve never seen anyone that color before.”

“Paul, did you touch him or move him? It’s okay if you did. I just need to know.”

“No, ma’am. Just reached in and shut off the engine.”

“Okay, thanks. We’ll need a statement from you later, but you can take off now. I know you’ve still got work to do.”

“Paul’s going to hang out with me for a few more minutes,” cautioned Mary. “He’s had a bit of a shock.”

Now Des splashed her way over to the Passat.

“Hello yet again,” groused Marge. “Is it just me or is this turning into our worst day ever?”

“We’ve had better, that’s for damned sure.”

Hank was seated behind the wheel, eyes wide open, his face a bright cherry red-carbon monoxide poisoning turns the hemoglobin bright. He wore an L.L. Bean ski jacket, jeans and snow boots. His cell phone was on the passenger seat next to him, along with a roll of silver duct tape, a box cutter and a business card.

“That’s your card,” Marge mentioned to her.

It was the one she’d given Hank that morning at the Post Office. He’d wanted to talk to her in private. Had something he wanted to tell her. Now he was dead.

“Any sign of a suicide note?”

“Didn’t see one. Maybe he left it at home before he drove out here.”

Des moved in for a closer look-and smell. Hank reeked of whiskey. The whole interior of the car did. “Is that Scotch I’m smelling?”

“Smells like bourbon to me.”

“It’s really strong. Why is it so strong?” She sniffed here, there, everywhere. And discovered that Hank had spilled it here, there, everywhere. On his chest. On his pants. On the upholstery of his seat. “So, let’s see, he drove up here and drank a whole lot. Rigged up the hose with the tape, got back in, closed the door and…” She was reaching for Hank’s cell phone-maybe he’d called someone-when she suddenly noticed something and stopped herself, her heart beating faster now.

She fetched the big Maglite and a pair of latex gloves from her cruiser and came back, aiming the flashlight’s beam at Hank’s forehead. On his right temple, there was a highly distinctive purple bruise showing through the cherry red, a perfectly cylindrical ring that was about the diameter of a nickel. She’d seen a bruise just like it once before-when a very messed up Colchester man had pressed the muzzle of a Smith and Wesson.38 Special against his distraught wife’s head and held it there for several minutes before he finally made the decision to use the gun on himself.

Des went looking farther now. Carefully, she turned down the collar of Hank’s jacket. Found more purple bruising around the left side of his neck. Finger bruising, as if someone had gripped him and held him. There was also bruising beneath his lower lip just above his chin.

She stepped back out into the rain, her eyes flicking over Hank from head to toe. “He’s not wearing a hat.”

“A guy who’s getting ready to do himself in doesn’t usually worry about a wet head,” Marge pointed out.

“But that’s just it, Marge. His hair’s dry. So are his hands and his sleeves. Look at his boots. They’re dry. So is his floor mat. He’s dry all over-except for the rain that’s blown onto his leg because we have his door open.”

“So?…”

“So the duct tape and box cutter on the passenger seat over there still have beads of water on them.” She reached across Hank’s body with her left hand. “The back of the passenger seat is damp. And, hello, the floor mat in front of the passenger seat is missing.” She waved the Maglite behind the front seat, searching the floor in back. “I don’t see a bottle. Do you see a bottle?”

“He must have tossed it.”

Des went back to her ride for her Nikon D80 and photographed the wet items on the seat, along with Hank’s dry hair and boots, the flooring, all of it. She also photographed the pavement around the car, snapping pic after pic of the puddles in the pavement. Not that the pics would reveal a damned thing. Between Paul’s plowing and all of this damned rain coming down, any shoe prints or tire tracks that might have been left behind were history now-drowned, washed away, gone. But she took the photos anyway. Because there was no doubt in her mind that this was a crime scene. Hank Merrill hadn’t been alone out here in this remote spot. Someone else had been riding in the passenger seat of the Passat. Someone who’d held that gun to his head. And gripped him by the throat. And rigged up that hose to the Passat’s tailpipe to make it look as if Hank had committed suicide.

She phoned it in before she returned to Mary Jewett and Paul Fiore. “Paul, you don’t remember seeing a whiskey bottle on the ground, do you? Or broken glass?”

“I’m afraid not,” he replied.

She gazed over at the six-foot-high snowbanks that edged the parking lot. The plow truck could have shoved the shards of a broken bourbon bottle into any one of those banks. It would take an exhaustive daylight search to find them-assuming they were even there. “How about another car? When you turned onto Kinney Road did you notice someone else leaving this parking lot?”

“Trooper Des, I didn’t see anyone else here. Just him.”

Mary cleared Paul to take off now. Two troopers in cruisers arrived from Westbrook soon after that to secure the perimeter. Next came the crime-scene techies in their blue-and-white cube vans, grumbling about the rain. Then a death investigator from the medical examiner’s office.

Lastly, a dark blue slick-top arrived from Meriden and out climbed Lt. Yolie Snipes of the Major Crime Squad, Central District, and Sgt. Toni Tedone. Yolie, who was half black, half Cuban and all pit bull, had escaped the Frog Hollow Projects to start at point guard for Coach Vivian Stringer at Rutgers before she joined the Connecticut State Police. She was street tough, street-smart and fierce. Back in Des’s glory days, when it was she who was a hotshot lieutenant working homicides out of the Headmaster’s House, Des’s sergeant had been a Mr. Potato Head named Rico Tedone. The Tedones were big-time players in the Waterbury Mafia, the clan of Brass City Italian-American men that pretty much ran the state police. When they made Rico a lieutenant, the immensely capable Yolie had been chosen as his sergeant. And when Yolie moved up-a promotion that Des felt was long overdue-Rico’s younger cousin, Toni, became her sergeant. Toni looked about thirteen but, unlike Rico, she was sharp. She was also the very first Brass City boy who happened to be a girl. Toni was a feisty, lippy little thing-seventy percent big hair, thirty percent hooters. The older detectives called her Toni the Tiger. The younger ones called her Snooki, though never, ever to her face.

Yolie smiled hugely when she saw Des standing there in the rain. “It’s been too long, Miss Thing. Good to see you again.”

“Same here, Yolie.”

“What have you got for us?”

“Please say hello to Hank Merrill,” Des said, leading them through the rain-soaked techies who surrounded the Passat. “Hank’s my second suicide of the day. Except this one stinks out loud, as my grandma used to say. See these premortem bruises here, here and here? Somebody held a gun to this man’s head and restrained him and, judging by that bruise under his lip, made him drink down a whole lot of bourbon. He reeks of it. The whole car does. But there’s no bottle. He may have tossed it out the window-in which case the village plowman may have buried it under one of those man-sized snowbanks over there. A little something for us to deal with in daylight. Right now, let’s talk about what we’re supposed to be thinking.”

Yolie frowned at her. “Which is?…”

“That Hank got himself drunk, rigged that hose to the tailpipe-in the pouring rain-got back inside his car and waited to die. Except when I got here his hair and shoes were bone-dry. So was his floor mat. The duct tape and box cutters on that seat were wet. Still are, as you can see. The passenger seat’s damp. And the floor mat over there is missing. In my opinion, somebody frog-marched him into this car while it was parked in a nice, dry garage somewhere. Drove him up here, got him drunk at gunpoint and rigged up that hose to the tailpipe. Make that two somebodys.”

“Wait, why two?” Toni asked.

“There would have to be two,” Yolie answered. “One to ride along with the victim. The other to follow in a second car.”

“There had to be a second car,” Des said, nodding her head. “That’s how they fled the scene after they staged this. They picked themselves a perfect spot. No one around to see them drive away. I’d classify them as clever but not smart. They think they know what they’re doing but they don’t.”

“A pair of real amateurs.” Yolie glanced around at the wet pavement surrounding the Passat. “Were there any shoe prints or tire tracks when you got here?”

Des shook her head. “The rain washed them all away.”

“Let’s get us the hell out of it,” Yolie said, starting back toward the shelter of their slick-top. She and Toni climbed into the front seat. Des got in back. “So talk to me, girl. Was Hank Merrill into anything stanky?”

Des was about to answer her when she felt a major sneezing fit coming on, the kind for which there was only one possible explanation. “I’m sorry, but is one of you wearing patchouli?”

“That would be me,” Toni said. “Why?”

Yolie let out a laugh. “Girl, I have tried to set her straight but she won’t listen to me. You tell her.”

“I like patchouli,” Toni said defensively. “It smells sexy.”

“Actually, it smells like the lobby of a massage parlor,” Des sniffled. “And I don’t mean the day-spa kind. Will someone please crack a window so I can breathe?”

Yolie lowered the windows enough to let some fresh, cold air in.

“Hank Merrill was a postal carrier here in town,” Des informed them as the rain beat down on the car’s roof. “He was also assistant fire chief, coached the high school girls’ basketball team and played tuba in the town band. He was divorced, no kids. Lived with the village postmaster, Paulette Zander.”

“Have you notified her yet?” Yolie asked.

“Was just about to when you showed up.”

“Why would anyone want to kill him?”

“Hank may have been mixed up in something. Stuff has been going missing on his route for the past couple of weeks. At first glance, it looked small-time. Someone swiping his Christmas cookies, tips and-”

“Wait, people in Dorset bake cookies for the mailman?” Toni shook her big hair in amazement. “Who lives here-the Keebler Elves?”

“But the deeper I got into it the more it started to smell like something for the postal inspectors. Items of real street value have been disappearing. We’re talking about retail gift cards, DVDs, iPods and-brace yourself because this is going to hurt-shipments of prescription meds.”

“Oh no, you didn’t,” Yolie groaned.

“Oh, yes, I did. Hank’s route was the Historic District. That’s the highest concentration of people in Dorset. A lot of them are older people who get all kinds of meds and those meds are being stolen.”

Yolie took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “The Narcotics Task Force broke up a black-market meds ring in Bridgeport a few months back. It’s big money stuff. You think he was into it?”

“Either that or he stumbled onto someone who is. I spoke to him at the Post Office this morning. He was very forthcoming and cooperative, but he also asked if we could speak later in private. I gave him my card. It’s sitting right there on his passenger seat. He had something more he wanted to tell me, Yolie. And now he’s dead.”

“And we’re going to be in a world-class pissing contest,” Yolie fumed. “You do not bump off a mailman. By tomorrow morning the postal inspectors will be all up in my grille. So will the FBI. And you just know they have to be in charge because they are the FBI. Our Narcotics Task Force will want in, too. Plus it’s the week before Christmas.” She glowered across the seat at Des. “Thank you large for this.”

Des smiled at her sweetly. “Yolie, I do what I can.”

“Did the victim have any money troubles?” Toni asked.

“I hear he was into his ex-wife big-time. Mitch is the one who got wind of it-by way of a friend who didn’t have much use for Hank.”

“Any chance this friend might have killed him?”

“No, he’s over eighty years old. Can barely get around.” Then again, Des reflected, if Rut Park wanted someone to take care of Hank he had dozens of loyal friends who owed him favors. Would they do him this kind of a favor?

“Something’s bothering me, Loo…,” Toni said slowly.

“Then spit it the hell out, Sergeant,” Yolie barked. She rode the kid hard. Was supposed to. Plus it amused her. “Don’t waste the resident trooper’s valuable time by telling me you’ve got something to tell me. Just say it.”

“Right, Loo. Sorry, Loo. If the victim brushed up against a black-market meds ring then we are talking about some real bad boys. The kind of boys who’d put a bullet in your head. They wouldn’t bother to stage a suicide. Someone went to a whole lot of extra trouble here. Why?”

“Good question, Sergeant,” Des said. “I wish I had an answer for you. All I know is that Hank was one of my people and I let him down.”

“You’re taking this kind of personally, aren’t you?” Toni said.

“Miss Desiree Mitry takes everything personally,” Yolie lectured her. “Miss Desiree Mitry cares. That’s why she’s good at her job. You feeling me, Sergeant?”

Toni nodded her head convulsively. “Absolutely, Loo.”

Yolie gazed at Des curiously. “Sorry, did you say this was your second suicide of the day?”

“First one was Bryce Peck, Mitch’s neighbor out on Big Sister.”

“Any chance that one wasn’t a suicide either?”

“To me it played suicide all of the way. But given what’s happened here we certainly ought to take a…” Des’s cell phone interrupted her. She glanced down at its screen. “Paulette Zander’s calling me. I’d better take this.”

“Go for it.”

“I’m so sorry to bother you, Des,” Paulette said when Des answered. “But I–I’m a bit … I’m worried about Hank.” Her voice was faint and halting. “He went out before dinner and he hasn’t come back and I–I don’t know where he is. This … isn’t like him.”

“What time did he leave, Paulette?”

“It was about 5:30, I think. But he doesn’t have band practice tonight. It was cancelled. Everything’s been cancelled. And he sent me the strangest text message. I was downstairs doing laundry and I didn’t notice it until just now.”

“What does his message say?”

“Here, I can read it to you … It says, ‘It’s all my fault. I messed up. Sorry for everything. Take care of yourself.’”

“And what time did he send this?”

“I got it at 7:13.”

About thirty minutes before Paul Fiore phoned 911 from Kinney Road.

“I’m probably overreacting,” Paulette went on. “But I just wondered if there’ve been any accidents on the road tonight or-or…” She trailed off into uneasy silence. “Have there?”

Des didn’t like to break this kind of bad news to a loved one over the phone. Doing it in person was much more humane. “Paulette, how about if I stop by and we talk about this, okay? I’ll be there in ten minutes.” Then she rang off and said, “That cell phone on the seat next to Hank just got a whole lot more interesting. He texted a suicide note to his girlfriend.”

Yolie frowned at her. “So maybe it is a suicide.”

“Or maybe he texted her at gunpoint. Then again, maybe he didn’t text her. Maybe one of his killers did.”

“We don’t usually have much luck getting developed prints off of those teeny-tiny buttons. But we might get one off of the phone itself.” Yolie sat there in brooding silence for a moment. “Damn, where were we?…”

“Today’s first suicide, Loo,” Toni reminded her.

“For breakfast in bed this morning Bryce Peck washed down a boatload of Vicodin, Xanax and Ambien with a fifth of Cuervo Gold. I saw no sign of a struggle. No bruises. No scratches. Nothing in the room was disturbed. Bryce had a long history of depression and substance abuse. He left a handwritten note. And he died out on Big Sister. It’s a private island. No one else was out there this morning besides Bryce, Mitch and Bryce’s live-in girlfriend, Josie Cantro. Josie and Mitch went out running together for about an hour. She found Bryce when she got home. Like I said, to me it played suicide. But I could have missed something. You may want to fast track his autopsy. The M.E. doesn’t usually get around to suicides for days.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Yolie said, shoving her lower lip in and out. “Bryce Peck OD’d on prescription meds. Any chance he was mixed up in stealing the meds from Hank Merrill’s route?”

“Anything’s possible, but I kind of doubt it. Bryce was a loner.”

“Well, is there any connection at all between the two men?”

“Josie Cantro. Both men were clients of hers. She’s a life coach.”

Yolie raised her eyebrows. “She’s a what?”

“Life coach. One of those gung-ho types who help you to lose weight or whatever.”

“Oh, is that what those bitches are calling themselves now?”

“Before Josie moved in with Bryce she was helping him get off of the Vicodin and Xanax. She helped Hank quit smoking. It so happens she’s also treating Paulette’s twenty-eight-year-old son, Casey.”

“Wheels within wheels,” Yolie said with a shake of her head. “Next I suppose you’re going to tell us Casey’s a mail carrier, too.”

Des nodded. “Part-time.”

“Shut up!” Toni exclaimed.

“And I haven’t even brought out the real funk. I walked in on Casey and Josie getting busy on her office sofa this morning. They like it rough.”

“Shut up!”

“Would you stop that?” Yolie roared at Toni. “This is a murder investigation, not a slumber party!”

“Mind you, Josie assured me that it absolutely, positively wasn’t what it looked like. That she was simply helping Casey with his self-esteem issues. All I know is I found them buck naked together not two hours after her boyfriend did himself in.”

“She sounds like a real slice,” Yolie said.

“She’s a real something.”

Yolie peered at her curiously. “Have you got more on her?”

“Nothing solid, but something about her feels wrong.”

“I hear you. She one of those perky girl types?”

“Real perky.”

“I hate perky. Always want to punch perky. Why else don’t you like her? Aside from the fact that she’s a blonde, I mean.”

“I don’t recall saying she was a blonde.”

“You didn’t have to. Your neck muscles gave you away.”

“Okay, that’s it. I have to start working on my body language.”

“Is Josie hot?” Toni asked.

“Plenty hot. Although her butt’s kind of big.”

“I thought black people liked big butts.”

“She ain’t black,” Yolie pointed out gruffly.

Des heard a truck pulling up behind them. She turned and looked out of the car’s rear window. “Well, lookie-lookie. This same bad penny just keeps turning up. Excuse me for a sec, will you?”

She got out and strode across the parking lot in the rain. A red Champlain Landscaping plow pickup was idling just beyond the perimeter of the crime scene with its window rolled down so that the driver could get a better look at what was going on.

“Evening, Pat,” she said, tipping her big hat at him. “Anything I can do for you?”

“No, ma’am,” Pat Faulstich said, then gulped nervously. “Just came out this way to plow the Beckman and Sherman places. Saw all of these lights and everything. What’s going on?”

“Someone did himself in, it appears.”

Pat’s eyes widened. “Another suicide? Who is it?”

“Can’t share that information with you, Pat. I haven’t informed the next of kin yet. Did you see that black Passat parked here when you came through earlier?”

“This is my first pass. I don’t usually do Kinney Road at all. Lem does. He asked me to on account of he’s still at the hospital with Kylie.”

“How is Kylie doing?”

“She’s out of surgery but she’ll have to stay there for a couple of days.”

“Take her some flowers. She’ll really appreciate it.”

He considered this, his brow furrowing. “You think?”

“I know. I’m a woman, remember? Are the Beckmans in town?”

“No, they winter over in Bermuda. When I cleared their leaves last month they were getting ready to take off.”

“Do they have a housekeeper or caretaker? Anyone staying there?”

“No, ma’am. They shut off the water, bleed their pipes, all of that. So do the Shermans, who’ve got like five, six other houses around the world. But these rich types still want their driveways plowed regular even when they aren’t around. Well, I’d better get to it,” he said wearily. “Still got seventeen more driveways to do before I can hit the Rustic. I need a beerski so bad I can practically taste it.”

Des watched Pat back up his truck and angle it around so that he was facing the Beckmans’ driveway. Then she started her way back to Yolie and Toni, who were over by the Passat now, getting wet and cold with the techies.

“Who was that?” Yolie asked her.

“Plow boy named Pat Faulstich. I spotted him rummaging through Hank’s mailboxes this afternoon. Thought maybe I had me something until I checked with his boss, Lem Champlain, who confirmed that he’d asked Pat to check the mailboxes.”

“Check them for what?” asked Toni.

“People leave Lem’s money out in their boxes for him. It’s been disappearing along with everything else.”

“They leave money in their mailboxes? Seriously, do they know what century this is?”

Yolie watched the lights of Pat’s truck as he plowed his way up the driveway, powering back and forth, back and forth. “I’m thinking it’s funny him turning up here right now.”

Des nodded her head. “Downright hilarious.”