Cutter's Run (14 page)

Keith sat behind his desk. I took the straight-back chair opposite him. He leaned forward on his forearms. “Ellen said you were looking for Charlotte Gillespie. She indicated that Ms. Gillespie could be in some sort of trouble.”

“Danger,” I said. “I used the word ‘danger.’”

“Perhaps you could elaborate.”

I shook my head. “I couldn’t, actually.”

“You’re a friend of hers, then?”

“This is not personal, Mr. Keith.” What the hell, I thought. I slid my deputy’s badge from my pocket, flipped open the leather holder, and showed it to him.

He squinted at it, then looked up at me. “How do I know that—”

“Mr. Keith,” I said quickly, “this is an urgent matter. I really don’t have time to argue with you. If you’d like to call my boss, feel free.” I took Sheriff Dickman’s card from my wallet and put it on the desk.

He picked it up, looked at it, and put it down. “What do you want to know?” he said.

“Did Charlotte quit, or was she fired?”

“We, um, we accepted her resignation.”

“You asked for it?”

He nodded.

“So she was fired,” I said. “Why?”

“Her clients complained about her work. They threatened to take their business elsewhere.”

“They?” I said. “Several clients?”

“One client, actually,” he said. “An important client.”

“She was incompetent?”

Keith gazed out his window for a minute. “She was a very good accountant, Mr. Coyne. We’d never had anything but praise for her work.” He shrugged. “But…”

“One client complains and you fire her?”

“They were quite upset. We’re in a very competitive business here in Portland, Mr. Coyne. This client is in a position to…” He waved his hand.

“I understand,” I said. “So this very competent accountant has a problem with one client and she’s fired. She must have done something terrible.”

“I can’t talk about that,” said Keith.

“Who is this client?”

He shook his head. “I certainly can’t tell you that, Mr. Coyne.”

“No, of course not. I’d need a subpoena for that information.” I let the implications of that bluff sink in for a minute, then said, “Actually, that wouldn’t be necessary if I could find her. You don’t have any idea how I might do that, do you?”

“She lives in Falmouth,” he said. “I assume—”

“She doesn’t live there anymore.”

He shrugged. “In that case, I can’t help you. I’m sorry.”

“Me, too.” I plucked a pen from the mug on his desk, slid a notepad toward me, and wrote my name with Alex’s phone number on it. I turned the pad around and pushed it to him. “If you think of something or have a change of heart, you can reach me here. Otherwise, you’ll probably be hearing from me again.” I stood up and held my hand across the desk to William Keith. “Thank you for your time. I can find my way out.”

He half stood and shook my hand, and I went to the door. I put my hand on the knob, then turned to him. “Oh, by the way,” I said. “You don’t hunt deer, do you?”

“Of course I do.” He smiled. “Everyone hunts deer.”

“Been doing it for a while, have you?”

“All my life,” he said. “My father started taking me when I was a kid. Shot my first whitetail when I was twelve. Little spikehorn, about a hundred pounds.” He smiled. “Dad smeared its blood on my face and made me take a sip of brandy.”

“Do you hunt alone or with friends?”

He cocked his head, and his smile faded. “With friends, usually. Why?”

“Ever hunt around Garrison?”

“Garrison?”

I nodded.

“I’ve hunted that area a little.”

“Do you rent a cabin in Garrison?”

He shook his head. “I don’t rent a cabin anywhere, Mr. Coyne.”

I nodded. “Thanks, Mr. Keith.”

I went out into the reception area and nodded at Mrs. Sanderson, who smiled and said, “Is everything all right?”

“You mean Charlotte?”

She nodded.

“I don’t think she’s all right,” I said. “I think something’s happened to her. That’s why I’m here.”

She frowned, then jerked her chin back in the direction of William Keith’s office. “Did you… um… was it helpful?”

I put my hands on her desk and leaned to her. “Mrs. Sanderson,” I said. “Were you a friend of hers?”

She nodded. “Yes,” she said softly. “I liked her very much. We used to have supper together on Fridays after work. We’re both divorced, and…” She shrugged, as if that explained it, which it pretty much did.

I took out one of my business cards, wrote Alex’s phone number on the back of it, underlined it twice, and put it on her desk.

She picked it up, glanced at both sides of it, then pushed it away from her. She rolled her eyes back in the direction of William Keith’s office. “I just can’t,” she said softly.

“Charlotte Gillespie is renting a cabin in the woods,” I said. “She’s been missing for several days. Her dog was poisoned. Someone’s making swastikas on her property. I’m trying to find her. I believe something has happened to her. Or might happen to her.” I dropped my voice. “I’d like to talk to you.”

She looked up at me. “I—”

At that moment, William Keith opened the door. “Oh,” he said. “You’re still here, Mr. Coyne.” He grinned. “Flirting with the help, eh?”

I straightened up and shrugged. “I was just on my way.” I looked at Mrs. Sanderson. “It was nice talking to you.”

She nodded, and as I turned to go I saw her reach casually across her desk, cover my business card with her hand, and draw it back under some papers.

A
LEX WAS WAITING INSIDE
the café when I got there. She was sipping something tall and amber through a straw.

I slid into the chair across from her. It was one of those tippy wrought-iron things with a hard round metal seat. The table had matching wrought-iron legs and a glass top about as big around as a straw hat. The furniture matched the cute-old-fashioned-ice-cream-shoppe decor of the place—hammered aluminum ceiling, checkered black-and-white-tile floor, mirrors and framed
New Yorker
covers on the walls, with several signs in fancy calligraphy that read: “Thank You for Not Smoking.”

“What’re you drinking?” I said.

“Iced tea. I’m almost done. Let’s get out of here.”

“Where’s your new frock?”

She tipped up the glass and sucked the iced tea from the bottom, making gurgling noises through the straw. “No frock,” she mumbled. “I don’t want to talk about it.” She set the glass down, fumbled in her purse, then dropped a five-dollar bill on the table. “Let’s go.”

“You don’t want to wait for your change?”

“Change?” She blew out a quick laugh. “You know what a glass of iced tea costs in this place?”

“I don’t think I want to know. I guess you’ve got to pay for the ambiance. Those are very classy No Smoking signs.”

We walked out, and I took Alex’s hand. “What about dinner? I bet we can find a place somewhere in this city that has comfortable chairs and big tables.”

She squeezed my hand and gave me a halfhearted smile.” Can we just go home? I know I’m being a grouchy old poop, but really, all I want to do is change into shorts and a T-shirt and bare feet and grill some burgers and drink some beer. I think I’ll hang myself if Noah and Susannah interrupt us tonight.”

“Home it shall be,” I said. “And we will decline all social invitations.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Are you disappointed? Did you really want to go to a restaurant?”

“Hell, no. They’ve all got No Smoking signs.”

During the hour it took us to drive back to Garrison, I told her about my interview with William Keith.

“You actually flashed your badge at him?” she said.

“You betcha. Put the fear of the law in him, I did.”

“But he didn’t tell you anything.”

“Valid point. Still, I could tell he was impressed. I think the receptionist, Mrs. Sanderson, knows something. She was friends with Charlotte, and I think I convinced her that Charlotte is in trouble. I cleverly slipped her your phone number. She hasn’t even seen the badge yet. That’s my ace in the hole.”

“Move over, Wyatt Earp,” she said.

After we got home, I went onto the deck to get the charcoal started. When I went back into the kitchen, Alex was standing at the counter making the salad. A bottle of Sam Adams stood beside her. I fetched a hunk of ground sirloin from the refrigerator and took it to the table.

I glanced at her. She was slicing an onion. Her eyes were red. “What’s the matter?” I said. “Are you crying?”

“I’m peeling a Bermuda onion, for Christ’s sake.” She wiped her eyes with her forearm.

“Oh.”

“Okay, goddammit. I have been sort of crying.”

“Sort of?”

“Shit. Crying. Okay?”

I went to where she was standing at the counter and put my arm around her shoulder. “What’s the matter?” I said.

“Nothing. Nothing new. You know.”

I sighed. “I guess I do.”

She shrugged. “It is what it is. You drop in, you stay awhile, and you leave. We talk long-distance on the phone a couple times during the week. Then you drop in again.”

“Whose fault is that?”

Her head snapped up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

I took my arm off her shoulder. “It wasn’t me who moved to Maine.”

She cocked her head and peered at me through narrowed eyes. “I thought we had a commitment,” she said.

“We did. We do. We are keeping it. I think we’re doing okay under the circumstances.”

She nodded. “Yeah, well, I guess the circumstances are getting to me. I mean, even when we have an afternoon together, we’re not together.”

“You mean the Charlotte thing.”

“Yes, the Charlotte thing, and the Susannah and Noah thing. Visiting Arnold Hood and driving to Portland. Those kinds of things. Tomorrow you’re going back to Boston, and…” She sat down at the table and hugged herself.

“No, I’m not,” I said.

“You’re not?”

“No. You think I’d let you stay here alone with somebody leaving you threats on the telephone?”

“I can take care of myself, Brady. I took care of myself just fine before I met you.”

“I know. I’m staying anyway. I’m going to stay until this is settled.”

She looked up at me and shook her head. “The big deputy.” She laughed quickly. “Jesus.”

“Look,” I said. “As soon as we get this business straightened out, let’s just take off for a weekend. We can drive up to Acadia. It’s great this time of year, after the tourists are gone. We can climb around the rocks at the top of Mount Desert, find us a funky lobster shack, eat a bushel of steamers and a couple of boiled lobsters with big gobs of potato salad and several ears of corn on the cob and a few bottles of cold beer, then crash in a bed-and-breakfast, and sleep till noon. We can leave our watches and compasses home, just follow our noses, do whatever we feel like doing whenever we feel like it, no schedule, no goals, and…”

I let my voice trail away. Alex had pulled her hand away from mine, folded her arms on the table, and lowered her head to them.

“Bad idea, I guess,” I said.

“No,” she mumbled into the tabletop. “It’s a lovely idea. Except I have to work every day.”

“You don’t have to. You’re the boss. Give yourself a day off. You’ve earned it.”

She lifted her head. Her eyes glistened. “You don’t understand, Brady. I’m a very cruel boss. I give absolutely no benefits to my employees. If they ever figured out what they make per hour, they’d quit. I hound them unmercifully. No praise. No rewards for a job well done. Just criticism. I’m always on the verge of firing them. I’m a master at making them feel guilty if they even think about goofing off. The only way they can keep me off their backs is by working hard every single goddam day. Anything else and I make their lives miserable. They know it’s not worth it. That’s why my employees are so damned compulsive and stressed-out.” She sighed heavily. “That’s why this book is actually gonna get done. Because I beat the shit out of myself every day. That’s why.”

“Is this by way of explaining why you didn’t buy yourself a new dress today?” I said.

She shrugged. “I guess so. I’m wandering around Portland while you’re off sleuthing, and all the time I’m thinking, Where the hell is Brady? Why isn’t he here with me? And I’m also thinking that if I were more responsible, I’d be back at my computer writing my goddam book. Shopping for a stupid dress seemed so—so frivolous. So, yes. It’s by way of explaining a lot of things, I guess. Why I’m such a bitch, mainly.” She held her hand across the table to me, and when I took it, she said, “I’m sorry. It’s just that sometimes—”

At that moment the phone began to ring.

We looked at each other. Alex arched her eyebrows.

“Let the machine get it,” I said.

She shrugged, pushed back her chair, reached to the counter behind her, and picked up the kitchen extension. She said, “Hello,” then paused, frowned for a minute, and handed it to me.

I mouthed the word “who.”

She shrugged, then stood up and walked out of the room.

I put the phone to my ear and said, “This is Brady Coyne.”

“It’s Ellen Sanderson.”

“Thanks for calling. Do you—?”

“Like I told you,” she said quickly, “Charlotte is my friend. I want to help.”

“Well, good.”

“Can you meet me?”

“Of course. When?”

“Tomorrow. After work. Say around six?”

“Okay. Name the place.”

“There’s a clam shack on the Scarborough River, right near where it empties into me bay. There’s a parking lot and a boat launch there. You take Route 1 south from Portland and follow the signs to Pine Point.”

“I’ll find it,” I said.

“Look,” she said. “I’ve gotta go.”

The phone clicked in my ear.

I hung up, then found a scrap of paper and scribbled “Pine Point” and “Scarborough River” and “Route 1” and “Tuesday, 6:00” on it before I forgot.

I
FOUND ALEX IN
her office peering at her computer through her big round glasses. I leaned over the top of the bookcase partition and said, “How about those burgers?”

“Let me know when they’re ready,” she said. She hit a couple of keys, then leaned forward as words scrolled down the screen.