The Lavender Lane Lothario, page 15
“I know you did. It’s okay.”
* * *
“How many more women was he doing?”
“Yolie, I have no idea.”
They were parked outside of Hubie’s house in Des’s cruiser. The techies were poking around in the dead man’s garage.
“Just give me your best guess, okay? Toss out a nice round number we can start with and then we’ll work our way down.”
“Okay, sure. My best guess is that Hubie Swope was sleeping with every woman in Dorset with the exception of Sheila Enman and myself. And Sheila I’m not a hundred percent certain about. She’s mighty feisty.”
Yolie stared out the car window at his house. “I ain’t never encountered a case like this before. You?”
“Never.”
“It’s like the man fits the working profile of a serial killer, except he wasn’t a serial killer. He was a—a…”
“Serial lover.”
“This is just plain whack.”
Des nodded her head. “Whack.”
“Shannon told you he went midnight prowling two nights a week?”
“Maybe three. She wasn’t positive.”
“So that means he must have two more grieving girlfriends we don’t know about. Maybe three.”
“That was certainly Hubie’s pattern. He compartmentalized them very carefully.” Des paused before she added, “And then there’s also Shannon.”
Yolie looked at her in disbelief. “You think he was doing her, too?”
“I think there’s a decent possibility that a DNA test will reveal that Shannon’s husband, Tommy, isn’t her baby’s biological father.”
“This is just plan whack.”
Des nodded her head. “Whack.”
“Explain this to me, will you? Toni didn’t find any other women on his cell log. If he was doing two or three or four others, then how come he didn’t call them each and every morning just to tell them how much he adored them?”
“Maybe he didn’t have to.”
“Why not?”
“Because he saw them in person during the course of his day.”
“Maybe,” Yolie allowed. “If he visited them on foot, then that means we’re talking about women who lived within, say, a mile of here. Agreed?”
“Agreed. I can’t picture him hoofing it more than a mile to and fro in the middle of the night. But a mile will take you past a lot of houses in this village. We’re talking about the entire Dorset Street Historic District and all of the side streets off of it—this lane, Appleby, Beckwith, McCurdy Road. That must be a hundred or more houses.”
“These are women who live by themselves, most likely. Unless their husbands work nights.”
“Or are real sound sleepers.”
“So we’re looking for widows, divorcées, spinsters…”
“Most likely.”
“How are we going to find them?”
“We could wait for his funeral and see how many unaccompanied women show up with tears streaming down their faces. Short of that, we’re not going to.”
“So what are we going to do?”
“Yolie, it gives me no pleasure to say it, but this is a job for Mitch.”
“How will he find them?”
“Don’t ask me how. I don’t know how. I just know that he’s our man.”
“In that case you’d better set him loose.”
“Will do.”
They sat there in silence, watching the techies at work in Hubie’s garage.
“Girl, let’s say one of Hubie’s ladies found out he was dogging her. The truth had to catch up with him eventually, right?”
“Eventually,” Des agreed.
“Let’s say she told him to meet her at The Pit last night. It was dark and private there. Nobody around. For all we know The Pit could have been where they regularly got it on. Except not last night. Last night she went rage queen on him. Bashed in his head and set the fire to cover it up.”
“Where are you going with this?”
“What if Sherm Gant’s telling us the truth? What if he is a victim here?”
“And what if he’s not? Believe me, I’m aware that Hubie’s freaky love life raises a lot of questions. I’m right here with you asking them. But it’s still way, way possible that this whole thing is exactly what we figured from the get-go—our stickler of a building inspector got done in by Sherm, either acting alone, with Leland, or with Gaylord Holland. We’ve got to keep our eye on the ball here, because you know what? This whole Lavender Lane Lothario business may turn out to be nothing more than a good story for us to tell late at night when we kick off our shoes and sip wine.”
“Do you think that’s really the case?”
Des let out a sigh. “Yolie, I honestly don’t know what to think.”
CHAPTER 12
SOMEHOW, DORSET’S PUBLIC LIBRARY had bypassed the twentieth century entirely. Its main building, a red-brick Victorian with dormer windows and a slate roof, dated back to the 1880s and oozed with cozy charm. It had paneled walls, a wood-burning fireplace, and an ample supply of overstuffed armchairs. The brass lamps on the oak library tables had green-glass shades. The books even smelled the way library books used to smell when Mitch was a kid. The charm-free new wing, which had been added on in 2004, was all-out twenty-first century, complete with Wi-Fi, a dozen computer workstations, a curved, low-slung check-out desk, recessed lighting, and purified air. The old and new buildings flowed into each other but didn’t seem to interact. In that sense, they were very much like Dorset itself.
Mitch parallel-parked his truck out front on Dorset Street—hearing a new and really unwelcome groan when he turned its steering wheel to the left—and gathered up the offerings he’d brought. He often received review copies of Hollywood memoirs and biographies from their publishers. Also newly minted DVDs of recent hit movies. Whatever he didn’t need he donated to the library, which also gave him an excuse to stop by and chat with Nancy Franklin, the head librarian. Since Nancy happened to make the best soup in town, Mitch tried to stop by around lunchtime. Nancy always had an extra Tupperware container in the fridge for him just in case he hadn’t eaten lunch. Today, it so happened he’d already had clam chowder at the Mucky Duck with the Deacon. But Des, much to his surprise, had called and asked him to do some discreet poking around.
“You told me to stay out of the fray this time,” he’d pointed out to her. “In fact, you were quite insistent.”
“Are you going to make me beg?”
“Okay, I’ll do it. But this is going to cost you.”
“Oh, God, do I have to watch all eight of those Dracula movies with Christopher Lee?”
“Seven. And no. I was thinking more along the lines of you, me, and a vast quantity of whipped cream. Deal?”
“You drive a hard bargain, wow man. Deal.”
And so here he was paying a call on Nancy, who was helping out at the front desk when he arrived with his arms full of books and DVDs.
Nancy had just turned sixty a few weeks back. She was a slender, petite woman with inquisitive dark eyes, a long, narrow blade of a nose, and silver hair that she wore cropped very short like Jean Seberg in Breathless. She wore a pale blue silk blouse, dark blue slacks, and a burgundy silk scarf knotted artfully at her throat. Because she was on the small side, soft-spoken, and a librarian by trade, people who didn’t know Nancy leapt to the conclusion that she was a timid little mouse. Library board members who tried to push her around quickly discovered that she possessed a spine of steel.
She treated him to a smile. “So many goodies, Mitch! Are you sure you won’t be needing them?”
“Positive. Besides, I’m a man with a library card. If I need them I can check them out just like everybody else.”
“You’re very generous. We appreciate it.” Nancy glanced at her watch. “Gosh, it’s almost one thirty. Have you had lunch yet?”
“Why, no.”
“Neither have I. Let’s see what we can find in the refrigerator, shall we?”
He followed her into the employee lounge, where what they found were two containers of her split pea soup.
Nancy popped them into the microwave. “Such awful news about Hubie,” she said quietly. “So upsetting. I imagine Des is up to her ears in it.”
“I won’t see much of her until they figure out what happened.”
“Do you think they will?”
“I know they will.”
When the microwave beeped, Nancy removed the containers and handed him one. Then she found spoons and napkins and they started out of the lounge toward the older part of the library, where Sunny Breen, the ancient children’s librarian, was subbing at the reference desk for Nadine Ambinder, Nancy’s newest librarian. Nadine, who was young, bashful, and a bit plump, spent her lunch break every day on a treadmill at the Dorset Fitness Center.
Mitch followed Nancy into the reading room, where two snowy-haired geezers were parked in easy chairs before the fire. One was pretending he was reading The Wall Street Journal. The other wasn’t pretending he was doing anything at all. Both men were snoring softly.
Nancy unlocked a door that said STAFF ONLY and led Mitch up a steep, narrow staircase to the quirky old attic space that had been the staff lounge before the new wing was built. The old lounge was squeezed under the peaked slate roof, with dormer windows that looked out over Dorset Street. It had lots of bookcases and a fireplace that no longer worked. Hardly anyone went up there anymore unless they were looking for a place to store back issues of magazines. But Nancy liked the old lounge, as did Mitch, so they always ate their soup up there at a nicked-up library table, comfortable with each other’s company. Mitch felt tremendously relaxed around Nancy. This had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that his mom was a small, slender librarian of about her age. There was no need to page Dr. Freud, Dr. Sigmund Freud.
He opened his container and sampled his second lunch of the day. It was a tough, dirty job but Des needed him and he wasn’t about to let her down. “This is the most awesome split pea soup, Nancy. You have to tell me your secret.”
“Well, the ham hock’s from Cliff’s butcher shop up in Centerbrook. He smokes everything himself, which I think makes a difference. I sauté pancetta and onion in the pot before I add my liquid. And I use chicken stock instead of water. My own chicken stock, not store bought.”
“Yum. I’ll have to try making it sometime.”
“It’s really not that hard.”
“Sure, that’s what all of the great ones say.” Mitch had another spoonful, gazing out the dormer window. He could see Nancy’s immense gingerbread Victorian two blocks away on the corner of Dorset Street and Beckwith Lane. Nancy had grown up in that house and had lived in it her entire life, except for the brief time that she’d been married when she was just out of college. Mitch knew very little about Nancy’s marriage beyond the fact that it hadn’t worked out. Nancy didn’t talk about her personal life. If indeed she had a personal life. But she seemed to be a contented woman, at peace strolling back and forth every day between the library where she’d worked for the past thirty years and the mansion that her family had owned for several generations. She rented out her guest cottage, which had its own garden-gate entrance. When Des first moved to Dorset she’d almost rented it until she got lucky and found her house overlooking Uncas Lake. Nadine Ambinder was currently living there, which was a nice deal for Nadine. It wasn’t easy to find affordable living in Dorset on an entry-level librarian’s salary. “Tell me, what’s it like, Nancy? Living in the same house that you grew up in. Knowing every single person who you pass on the street. Hardly anyone lives that way anymore.”
“I suppose they don’t,” she acknowledged, sipping a spoonful of soup. “I enjoy it. I wake up every morning feeling as if I belong somewhere. Dorset is home.” Her eyes gleamed wistfully. “But I’m going to miss Hubie. This feels like a different place whenever one of the old gang dies.”
“So you knew him a long time?”
“Forever. Back when we were kids, he and my younger brother, Milton, were best friends. Hubie practically lived at our house. He was a quiet boy, and even worse at sports than Milton. Since Milton and I were both bookworms we tried to get Hubie interested in reading, but it turned out that he was a born tinkerer. He loved to fiddle with things. By the time he was twelve he could take a broken toaster apart and get it to work again. Hubie had wonderfully adept hands. Patient hands. A lot of people in town thought of him as an uptight little pain in the you-know-what. But he wasn’t. He had a sense of humor, and a kind heart. I know he missed Joanie a lot.”
“They were a happy couple?”
Nancy pursed her lips primly. “It was a mature relationship.”
“Okay, I don’t know what means.”
“It means they weren’t a pair of lust-crazed kids when they took up together. But they cared deeply for one another. Joanie was a gentle person. So was Hubie. I don’t believe I ever heard him raise his voice in anger. Hubie was … He was a good friend.”
“Did you two ever become more than friends? After Joanie died, I mean.”
“Hubie and me?” Nancy let out a soft laugh. “No, I never thought of him that way. He was always my kid brother’s best buddy. Besides, I have my guy. We’ve been together for, gosh, going on fourteen years now. Don’t look so surprised, Mitch. There are men out there who find me not unattractive.”
“That’s not what I’m surprised about, believe me. I just had no idea, that’s all. You keep it under wraps awfully well.”
“I learned a long, long time ago that if you want to protect your privacy in Dorset you have to pursue your private life out of town. Besides, we were obliged to keep it a secret at first.”
“We would be…?”
“Rick Koster. Rick used to be our research librarian here. His wife left him for another man and he and I were coworkers and, well, we didn’t want people whispering about us. So he ended up taking a job in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I spend my vacation there with him every year. It’s lovely there. The light is absolutely amazing. And he comes here every month or so for long weekends and holidays. His daughter and her husband have a big house up in Avon. He visits with them and then the two of us take little trips to Maine, Vermont, the Cape. We go all over the place. We camp out. We ski. It depends on the time of year. We have a good time together. It’s not what other people would consider an ideal arrangement, but it suits us.” Nancy had some more of her soup before she added, “Hubie was a dear friend. And he became an avid reader after Joanie died. I got him interested in that Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O’Brian. He devoured all twenty volumes and then started right over again from the beginning. He’d stop by here every couple of days to check one out or to fuss over our elevator.”
“Your elevator?”
“The one that they installed in the new building. It’s never behaved properly. Hubie always made sure he was here when the repairman came because I’m hopeless with anything mechanical. Which can be a bit of a challenge when you live alone in a big, old house like I do, so Hubie would swing by the house after work and fix things for me. A stopped-up drain, leaky faucet, what have you. I’d feed him dinner, since he wasn’t much of a cook. I even managed to talk Nadine into joining us a few times. Nadine’s not exactly a sociable girl. Spends most of her time alone writing poetry. She’s shown me some of her work.”
“Any good?”
“I would say that as a form of therapy it’s highly serviceable.”
“Nancy, that’s the most tactful no I’ve ever heard in my life.”
She grinned ever so slyly. “Nadine’s the best young librarian I’ve had in years, but she’s painfully shy around men. The last time Hubie stayed for dinner, this was maybe two weeks ago, I swear she didn’t lift her eyes from her plate once during the entire meal. Didn’t say a word, either. Just sat there with her head down twirling a jade ring around and around her finger. The poor girl couldn’t bring herself to converse with him. And this is Hubie we’re talking about. He wasn’t exactly a dashing rogue.”
“Beg to differ. Did you know that he and Bitsy Peck were involved?”
Nancy looked at him in surprise. “Why, no. He never said a word. Are you sure?”
“Positive. Bitsy told me they spent every Saturday night together at the Mohegan Sun.”
“That’s not possible. Hubie abhorred gambling.”
“They didn’t go there to gamble, Nancy.”
“I had no idea they were even interested in each other. I guess I’m pretty clueless when it comes to such things. Poor Bitsy must be heartbroken. And that woman has already been through so much. She was the children’s librarian here before she and Redfield were married, you know. The two of us started here within weeks of each other. They called us ‘the new girls.’” Nancy shook her head. “How odd that Hubie didn’t tell me they were involved.”
“It gets odder. Please don’t repeat a single word of this, okay…?”
She studied Mitch with her inquisitive dark eyes. “Okay…”
“Bitsy was sure that Hubie was seeing another woman behind her back.”
“You mean he was cheating on her? I find that very hard to believe.”
“Why is that, Nancy?”
“Because love triangles are messy. Hubie hated disorder of any kind. He liked everything to be neat and exact. I loved to watch him eat. No matter what I served him—meat loaf, pork roast, you name it—he’d carefully cut his entire portion into identical bite-sized pieces before he’d taste a single bite. Little boys do that, not grown men. But that was Hubie. And we…” She trailed off, crestfallen. “We told each other everything. Or so I thought. He knew all about Rick. He was the only person who did. I can’t believe he never said a word to me about this.”
“What did he talk about?”
“Gaylord Holland. He thought Gaylord was a two-bit phony, not to mention terribly full of himself for a man whose chief accomplishment in life was prying that bitch Loretta away from John Friday.”
“You don’t care for Loretta?”
“I’ve known Loretta since she was a little girl in pigtails and she’s an even bigger phony than Gaylord. Always ‘generously’ serving on this board or that. It’s strictly for show. Deep down inside, she’s a selfish, nasty person. Plus she’s dumb as a post.”
