The Lavender Lane Lothario, page 10
“No, I wouldn’t think so.”
“Then by all means. Town Hall is at your service.” Glynis gazed at Hubie’s closed door. “He won’t be an easy man to replace.”
“What will you do for now?”
“Old Joe Hart called me at seven o’clock this morning to say he’d be happy to come back for a few weeks. It was Joe who hired Hubie way back when. He’s seventy-eight years old now but still plenty sharp, and he’s got nothing to do all day except drink coffee at Dagmar’s bakery with his pals. Joe will hold down the fort until we can find someone. I’d been urging Hubie to break in an assistant, but he preferred to work alone. Hubie was a private man. I’m ashamed to say I didn’t know him very well.”
“Glynis, I don’t think anyone did.”
* * *
The morning air down at the beach was crisp and fresh—except for that lingering scent of charred wood where The Pit had once stood. The perimeter of the crime scene remained sealed, and the site was still crawling with techie teams. Waldo Pepper, a big German shepherd, was sniffing his way through the wreckage alongside of his two-legged partner, who had the arson dog on a leash.
Latham and Zimmer were sucking down tall cups of coffee from the Citgo mini-mart. Zimmer’s see-through scalp was an even whiter shade of pale in the bright morning daylight. Latham looked bleary eyed and in need of a nap.
“Waldo has spoken,” he informed Des. “The scent of accelerant is strongest right where the body was. Which confirms what we figured last night—the victim was our point of origin. But Waldo hasn’t found an accelerant trail leading from the building out to the parking lot or anywhere else. The scent’s confined to the wreckage. Our perp was plenty careful, I’m sorry to say.”
“Any luck finding traces of an ignition device?”
Latham shook his head. “None.”
“The auxiliary conference room at Town Hall is all yours. Make yourselves at home. If you need anything, just let me know.”
“We appreciate the hospitality, Master Sergeant.”
“Hey, you’re in small-town New England. Hospitality is what we do.”
Yolie was standing over by Hubie Swope’s Explorer talking on her cell and looking plenty bleary eyed herself. She rang off when she spotted Des. “You just missed Sherm Gant. He showed up here looking like he spent the night inside of a whiskey bottle. He and the insurance guy with the teeth went off to have breakfast together.”
“Did you get some sleep?”
“I intended to. Just never got around to it. I made Toni go home for a couple of hours. She’s parked outside of a judge’s office in New London now waiting for word from the ME.” Yolie took a gulp from her own tall container of coffee. “We found no clothing in the Dumpster at the Citgo. No squeeze bottle of lighter fluid. Nobody bought lighter fluid there yesterday. No kids showed up there looking to party. The owner said it was a real, real quiet day. He does remember selling a carton of milk to a guy shortly before six P.M. That’s the one who reported the fire. His name is…” She leafed through her notepad. “Hunt. Ronald Hunt. He handles summer rental properties. Was working late at his office on Old Shore Road. We can run a full background check on him if we decide we want to like him. Right now he’s way down on the list. The pizza place was deserted. No customers. Hardly a thing in their Dumpster. How do these places stay in business?”
“A lot of them don’t.”
“We found nothing of interest in the Dumpster outside of the Dorset Inn or in the trash cans on this street.” Yolie glanced over her shoulder at the beach. “The tide’s going out. We’ll comb the beach again to see if anything turns up. So far we haven’t found diddly squat.”
“Any luck finding those beer pitchers in the wreckage?”
“The techies turned up some shards of shattered glass not far from the body. They could be from one of those pitchers. If there are any traces of blood or prints on them they’ll be seriously degraded, but the lab people might find something. Then again, our killer could have brought the weapon—a pry bar, length of pipe, whatever—and left the scene with it. In which case we’re nowhere.” Yolie’s cell rang. She took the call and listened very intently for a long moment, her eyes narrowing, before she said, “Got it. Thanks.” Rang off, speed-dialed a number, and barked, “We’re good to go, Sergeant. The victim’s dental records are a match. We need warrants to search Hubie Swope’s house, car, and office. Also the contents of his laptop and cell. Get the same set of warrants for Sherm Gant. Leland Gant, too. Then hightail it back here and meet me at the victim’s residence at twenty-seven Lavender Lane, okay? I’ll be waiting there for you.” Yolie rang off and gulped down more coffee. “Hubie Swope was still alive when this place was torched. The ME found traces of soot particles in his trachea and lungs. It was the fire that killed him. He suffered multiple skull fractures and subdermal hematomas. The blows were made by something heavy and blunt. Considerable force was applied. Whoever hit him was either strong or really, really pissed. Since we have no way of knowing whether our victim was standing, sitting, or falling when the blows were struck the ME has no way of determining his assailant’s height. Wouldn’t even take a guess as to whether he was right- or left-handed.”
“Could he have been a she?”
“The findings don’t rule out a woman.” Yolie frowned at her. “Was there a woman in Hubie Swope’s life?”
“Bitsy Peck.”
“Wait, Mitch’s neighbor? That round little lady who gardens?”
Des nodded. “She and Hubie spent every Saturday night together in a suite at the Mohegan Sun. And, hear this, Bitsy thought Hubie was dogging her with another woman.”
“Who?”
“No idea.”
Yolie mulled this over. “You’re not selling me a scorned girlfriend theory, are you? Because I’m liking Sherm Gant all of the way.”
“So am I.”
“Good, because we’re going to be working this together. And when I say ‘we’ I mean you and me. This investigation is already crowded enough. I don’t want to have to call in the Computer Crimes Unit, too. That’s too damned many cooks in the kitchen. I can’t function that way. Can’t breathe. Toni speaks fluent nerd. Knows how to use our program that deciphers passwords to banking and credit card records. She can access cell logs, e-mails, all of that. While she’s busy doing her thing I want you by my side. You know these people. I don’t. Do you mind being my partner for the day?”
“Not a bit. Let’s ride. While we’re on our way to Lavender Lane I’ll school you on the ins and outs of Casserole Courtships.”
“The ins and outs of what?”
* * *
Lavender Lane was a narrow village lane off of Dorset Street that twisted around behind Duck River Cemetery before it ended at a pond that people ice-skated on in the winter when it got cold enough. Many of the houses were smallish ones from the early 1900s that had belonged to the village’s shopkeepers and tradesmen. Even the newer houses were modest in size by current McMansion standards. It was a nice street where people who weren’t rich could afford to live. The houses were well cared for and the schools, library, and Town Hall were all within walking distance.
Hubie Swope’s place was a decidedly small natural-shingled cottage. As Des eased her cruiser to a stop out front she noticed that his lawn needed mowing and that the rhododendrons under his front windows were overgrown. The flower bed just inside of his white picket fence had more weeds in it than flowers.
Trooper Olsen from the Troop F barracks in Westbrook was parked in the driveway in his Crown Vic.
“Anyone stop by?” Yolie asked him after they’d gotten out.
“Just some lookie-loos,” he answered.
Shannon Burns, Hubie’s twenty-something next-door neighbor, came out onto her front porch with her baby cradled in her arms. Des moseyed over to say hello just as Toni pulled up in the turbo-charged Taurus, jumped out, and dashed toward Yolie, warrants in hand.
“Hi, Shannon,” Des said, tipping her hat.
“Hiya, Trooper Des.” Shannon wore an old flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a pair of jeans. Her blonde hair was in a ponytail. She was a big girl with wide hips and red, knuckly hands. Her baby seemed very contented there in her strong arms. “Is everything okay with Hubie? I’m getting kind of concerned.”
“I’m afraid not. Hubie’s been confirmed as the victim of last night’s fire.”
Shannon’s eyes widened. “No way! My Tommy was there last night. He said it was awful.” Her husband was the young firefighter who’d found the body. And lost his dinner. “Hubie was such a nice man. You’d never have guessed that his grandmother was a famous film star. He was just a regular guy, you know? And he did amazing things in that wood shop in his basement. When I was pregnant with T.J. here—Tommy Junior—Hubie made me a rocking chair from scratch out of maple. It was so sweet and thoughtful.”
“I’m told that you might have his spare key.”
“Sure do. I’ll fetch it for you.”
Shannon went inside as a Major Crime Squad cube van pulled up outside of Hubie’s place. A pair of techies got out.
Shannon returned and handed Des the key.
Des thanked her. “Did you see much of Hubie?”
Shannon lowered her eyes. “Not really. I took him some pot roast or whatever sometimes. He didn’t do much cooking for himself.”
“Did he go out much on weekends?”
Shannon’s eyes continued to avoid Des’s. “I don’t really know. Sometimes, I guess.”
Des smiled at her. “Okay, Shannon. Thanks again for the key.”
Des put on a pair of latex gloves as she strode next door to Hubie’s. She used the key to open his front door. The air inside smelled stale. She and Yolie stood in the living room gazing around while Toni went prowling in search of a home computer. It was a small, plainly furnished room. Tan sofa and armchair. Coffee table with nothing on it. There was a dining area on the way to the kitchen. On the dining table, in pieces, was a cuckoo clock that Hubie was either taking apart or putting back together. There were shutters over the windows. No paintings or photos on the walls. The walls were bare.
“I want this place scoured from top to bottom,” Yolie told the techies. “The garage, too. Bag and tag any personal paperwork you find—his mail, bills, address book, memo pads, note pads, old income tax returns, everything.”
Toni returned from her search of the house. “There’s no computer here.”
“He have a desktop in his office at Town Hall?” Yolie asked Des.
“I don’t recall seeing one.”
“Everything we want must be on his laptop. Okay, Sergeant, get to it.”
“Right, Loo. I’ll be at Town Hall if you need me.”
“Here, wait…” Des pulled a key from her key ring and handed it to Toni. “Use my office. It’ll be quieter in there.”
“Thanks,” she said as she scurried out the door.
The kitchen was spotless. The stove and sink were clean. The counters were clean. There wasn’t much food in the refrigerator. He had no alcohol other than a dusty bottle of Kahlúa in the cupboard.
In the bathroom medicine chest they found a prescription bottle of Viagra. Evidently Hubie had needed some help getting on up with Bitsy and whomever Girlfriend No. 2 was. He was also taking a statin drug for his cholesterol. Both meds had been prescribed by Dr. Harold Ostrom, who practiced in Cardiff. There were a number of OTC remedies in there which indicated that Hubie suffered from constipation, heartburn, jock itch, toenail fungus, hemorrhoids, and problematic earwax buildup.
Des sure did hate looking in other people’s medicine chests.
The house had two bedrooms. The bed in the master bedroom was made. There was a library book on the nightstand—one of those Aubrey-Maturin historical sea adventures by Patrick O’Brian. Hubie’s clothes were neatly put away. No dirty laundry was strewn about. No nothing. The walls in there were bare, too. The man seemed to have an aversion to wall hangings. There was no bed in the spare bedroom. Just an exercise bike and a set of barbells.
Down in the cellar they found a serious workshop for serious woodworking. Hubie had a professional-grade lathe, circular saw, jigsaw, and drill press. His workbench was crowded with hand tools, jars of screws, and dozens of tins of stain and solvent. But there were cobwebs down there, and everything seemed to have a coating of dust on it. Over in one corner a freezer chest was humming away. Des went over and opened it. Inside, she found at least twenty foil-wrapped packages that were labeled BLUEFISH and dated August of last year. Half of the men in Dorset had stockpiles of foil-wrapped bluefish in their freezers, the reason being that bluefish was all they ever seemed to catch when they went fishing out on Long Island Sound and they seldom got around to eating any of it—possibly because it tasted remarkably like 10W-30 motor oil.
“I’ve got a new theory,” Yolie informed Des as they started back up the narrow basement stairs. “I’m thinking the man squirted lighter fluid all over his own clothes and then set fire to himself. Because I sure would if I had to live in this place. I’ve been here five minutes and I’m already getting the jimjams.”
“It’s a little drab,” Des conceded.
“Drab? This ain’t no drab. This is the hellmouth.” Yolie barged out the front door onto the porch and took several deep, grateful breaths of fresh air.
Chuck Ranberg was leaning against Trooper Olsen’s cruiser wearing his nice Armani leather jacket and nice white smile. The man from Middlebury Mutual looked rested and refreshed. His red Chevy Impala was parked next to Des’s cruiser. Sherm Gant was seated in the passenger seat, stone faced.
“What do you suppose he wants?” Yolie wondered.
“We’re about to find out,” Des said as he strolled toward them.
“It’s a lovely day, isn’t it, ladies?” he said brightly. “I don’t know about you but this is my absolute favorite time of year, especially along the shoreline.”
“What can we do for you, Mr. Ranberg?” Yolie asked, her jaw clenching.
“My policyholder, Mr. Gant, has volunteered some personal information to me. I’ve encouraged him to share it with you rather than wait until you find it out for yourselves, which you no doubt will.”
“Uh-huh. What is it?”
“It seems that Mr. Gant made a three-thousand-dollar cash withdrawal from the bank yesterday morning, and he’s worried about how it might look.”
“You mean like, say, a down payment to whoever torched his place?”
“Well, yes.”
“He’s right to be worried,” Des said. “Did he say why he withdrew it?”
“Well, no. As a matter of fact, he’s gotten rather surly with me.”
“Don’t take that personally. Sherm’s surly with everyone.”
“What’s your interest in this?” Yolie asked Ranberg.
“Jack Latham’s the best partner I ever had. We’re like brothers. I have a new employer now, but I haven’t changed my stripes.”
“And you want to get out of paying your policyholder, right?”
“I’m here doing my job,” he responded calmly. “I found out something that I thought could prove helpful and I’m sharing it, okay?”
Yolie studied him in chilly silence before she said, “Okay, Mr. Ranberg.”
He smiled at her. “Make it Chuck.”
“Thanks for the share, Chuck. We’ll have a conversation with Mr. Gant about it. Why don’t you call your brother, Jack Latham, and ask him to join us at Town Hall?”
“When?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Chuck. How about right goddamned now?”
* * *
“Do I need a lawyer?”
“I can’t answer that for you, Mr. Gant. Do you think you need a lawyer?”
“Am I under arrest?”
“You’re free to leave anytime you want,” said Yolie, who was seated across the table from him in the new-and-improved auxiliary conference room. Morning sunlight streamed through the windows, which no longer had heavy drapes over them. The polished wood floor gleamed. “We’d just like to ask you some questions.”
“Sure, whatever,” sighed Sherm, who looked as if he’d aged five years since last night. The mayor of Pitcairn Avenue was an ashen, devastated shell of his flabby self. His jowls were unshaven, his eyes bloodshot—the left one bruised purple and swollen mostly shut from that fight he’d had at The Pit with Hubie. Sherm wore a plaid flannel shirt that was fraying at the collar and a pair of khaki work pants. His big hands, which were folded on the table before him, trembled slightly. He’d asked for coffee. Des had brought him some in a Styrofoam cup. He took a sip, fumbling in his shirt pocket for a pack of Marlboros.
“There’s no smoking in here,” she told him.
“Why not? It’s a public building.”
“Which is why there’s no smoking, Mr. Gant,” Jack Latham said. “See that sign over the door?”
Sherm pocketed his smokes, grumbling to himself.
Des heard footsteps out in the hallway and Leland came rushing into the room, his brow furrowed with concern. “Dad, is everything okay? Mary Ellen called me. She said that they were … that you were…”
“He’s fine, Leland,” Des said. “We’re just having a conversation.”
“And don’t you have somewhere else to be?” Sherm growled at him.
Leland’s face fell. “Yeah, I guess maybe I’d better get back to work.”
“You’re welcome to stay,” Des said.
“Join us,” Yolie urged him. “Please.”
Leland sat, glancing around uncertainly. Unlike his father, he was clean-shaven and neatly dressed. His right hand, the one he’d been flexing after the fight, didn’t look to be swollen or discolored.
“Where you been?” Sherm asked him.
“I was looking at the ice cream parlor with Ned Rigby. He’s going to call me with an estimate this afternoon.”
“What for? We can’t afford to paint that place.”
“You promised the Tomassos we would when they signed the lease, remember?”
“I told them I’d pay for paint. I never said I’d pay for a painter—especially that bandit Ned Rigby. Show some damned sense for a change, will you? I’m getting awful tired of having to tell you everything.”
