In Harm's Way (16 page)

“Agreed. But I can see him clubbing him from behind. Wynn’s too smart to take on a guy like Gale face-to-face. You hit him when his back’s turned. You make sure he’s not getting backup.”

“He could have been jacked, Sheriff. We talked about this. Lured out of the vehicle maybe. Struck from behind. It’s more and more difficult to see it otherwise. We’ve got to find that SUV.”

Gale’s missing SUV, a rental from Avis, had been the topic of much discussion. City and sheriff patrols were searching parking lots, motels, and campgrounds. State police had been notified and a BOLO—a Be On Lookout—had been issued in the six-state region surrounding Idaho. Walt had hoped for results by now and, along with Boldt, secretly feared they’d lost the vehicle for good.

“You think it was staged to
look
like a carjacking,” Boldt said.

“I think guys like Wynn know what guys like us expect to see. An agent at his level, he’s all about selling an impression of something that maybe isn’t true, maybe isn’t all it’s made out to be.”

“So he gives us what we want. I’d buy that.”

“Plays into our comfort zone.”

“A carjacking gone wrong,” Boldt said, nodding.

“It’s all after the fact,” Walt said. “He’s all boozed up and he does the guy and then has to backfill. But a guy like that reads the paper up here. He knows what kind of crime we see and how often we see it. We had a carjacking not six months ago where a man was struck with a tire iron while changing a tire. Wasn’t exactly like Gale, but close enough. The doer finished changing the tire and drove off in the car, having no idea the driver had already alerted OnStar. We were given GPS coordinates and had the guy in custody within the hour.”

“And the body?”

“Stuffed into a culvert twenty feet from the car. Wynn could easily have read about it and pulled a copycat.”

Boldt said, “If he’s the killing type.”

The gate opened electronically and Walt drove through, parking by a basketball backboard.

“Which is what we’ve come here to find out.”

“Indeed it is.”

“If Caroline Vetta got him started, broke his cherry, then doing Gale wouldn’t have mattered much to him.”

A wry smile overcame Boldt. “You and Matthews would like each other,” he said. He took a long look at the house and Walt thought he was using it as his introduction to Wynn. “You’re welcome to join me if you’d like.”

“I’d just confuse things,” Walt said. “Only two can dance at a time. I’ll leave the advance work up to you. Maybe we’ll pull a Columbo on him and double-team him after you’re done, hit him with Gale five minutes after he’s done fending off Vetta.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Boldt climbed out. “You want to take off, I could call you. I hate to take up your time.”

“No worries. I’m going to put it to good use.”

The closest neighbors had a sport court behind the house that integrated tennis, basketball, volleyball, and a backboard onto a single slab of asphalt. Walt crossed it and an apron of green grass to reach a single-story adobe house with four wings running in an X from a central living area, the back of which was a twenty-foot-high wall of tinted glass that faced the ski mountain. He found the front door at the apex of a horseshoe driveway that housed what appeared to be a centuries-old pagoda through which the same stream that passed through Wynn’s estate gurgled in and among an Asian rock garden.

The woman who answered the door could have been going on sixty but looked more like forty, and showed no signs of work having been done. She was all yoga and juice drinks and acupuncture, wearing stonewashed blue jeans and a tight-fitting T-shirt. There was no hiding her surprise at discovering a uniformed sheriff at her front door.

“Hello?”

Walt introduced himself by rank.

“Gwen Walters. I know your face from the papers,” she said. “I voted for you!”

Walt thanked her. He got that a lot, but wondered how often it was true.

“I wanted to ask you a few questions, if you have a minute?”

“Of course.” She motioned him inside. “Tea? Juice?”

“I’m fine.”

Sunlight flooded the living room. The outside patio was about the size of Walt’s city lot. They took seats at a teak table in padded chairs covered in Sunbrella fabric.

“Vince Wynn,” Walt said.

“Yes,” she said. “I thought as much.” She squinted, and squirmed uncomfortably in the chair. “The shooting?”

“Yes. Among other things.”

“I’m not a gossip, Sheriff. And I respect my neighbors’ privacy. It’s important to all of us.”

“I agree.”

“Vince is something of a celebrity in his own right.”

“Yes, he is.”

“Though my husband calls all agents bloodsuckers. He’s in the film business, my husband. Not that you’d know him. An effects director.”

“Mr. Wynn claimed he had a trespasser. The other night? The shooting?”

“I wouldn’t know about that,” she said.

“The shooting or the trespasser.”

“I didn’t see anyone.” She looked off into the sky, then back at Walt, still squinting, now choosing her words carefully. “Vince is very . . . social. I suppose in his business one needs to entertain a great deal.”

“It’s busy up there,” Walt said.

“It is.”

“At all hours.”

“Yes. All hours. A lot of . . . partying.”

“Men guests? Women guests?”

“Guests. Many guests.”

“The gun incident. Was that a first?”

“Vince . . . How do I put this? The entertaining can go quite late. Can get . . . I think he enjoys a party as much as the next person. Sometimes it gets a little rowdy, a little late and a lot loud. And if I had to guess, I’d say Vince doesn’t have the best control of his temper.”

“Hot-headed.”

“I’m painting the wrong picture.”

“Fights?”

“Shouting. Arguments. But they could be phone calls for all I know. He seems to be on the phone more than he’s off, and he likes to take calls outside, I’ve noticed. And his work is confrontational by nature, isn’t it? All that dealing. And the sums! Mark, my husband, keeps up on all of it. A sports fan. Loves living next to Vince. But my God, some of the numbers.”

“Arguments,” Walt said.

“He can be loud,” she said.

“Drugs?”

She squinted, looked pained to speak.

“Have you seen drug use in the home?”

She hesitated and finally nodded. Walt felt a jolt of adrenaline—if he could get her to say it, he had probable cause to search Wynn’s home.

“Is that a yes?”

She nodded again.

“I need a verbal answer.”

“He’s my neighbor.”

“He lives a matter of yards from your kids,” he said, keeping in mind the sports court.

She tilted her head and looked at him curiously.

“The basketball court. I’m assuming—”

“Teenagers. Two boys and a girl.”

“A neighbor like that doesn’t make for the best role model,” Walt said.

“Don’t patronize me, Sheriff.”

He was losing her. He’d been so close.

“Does he . . . interact with them at all?”

“He’s great with the boys. Gets them autographed balls and things. But Vince is . . . proud of his working out. Likes to go around barechested. Personally, it kind of grosses me out, and I don’t love for my daughter to see that.”

“The night of the gunshots?”

“I called nine-one-one, if that’s what you’re after, yes. Or maybe you already know that.” She studied him thoughtfully and won nothing back. “It scared the devil out of me and Mark. The drinking. Gunshots. I mean, we’re not very far away.”

“The drug use.” Walt made it a statement.

Gwen Walters seemed ready to say something, but didn’t.

Walt fumbled with his shirt pocket and produced a photo of Gale and laid it on the table.

“Have you seen him before?”

She shook her head. “I have to say he looks vaguely familiar, but no, I can’t say I know him.”

“A guest of Mr. Wynn’s? Familiar from that?”

Another shake of the head. “I couldn’t say for sure. There are so many.”

“But recently?”

“No, not recently.”

“How about her?” Walt said, following this with a copy of a newspaper photograph of Caroline Vetta.

The woman had been mid-sip of some iced tea when she froze in that position, her eyes trained onto the photo. She placed the glass down, looked at Walt, and then back to the photograph. “I couldn’t say,” she repeated far less confidently.

“She visited Mr. Wynn?”

“I couldn’t say,” she said yet again. “There are . . . Vince has a lot of friends. Many of them are women.”

“But she looks familiar to you,” Walt said.

“Is it Caroline?” the woman asked.

“It is.” Walt worked to keep any reaction off his face, while inside he’d gone electric.
First-name basis
.

“Different hair when we knew her. It changes her face dramatically.”

“You knew her as an acquaintance of Mr. Wynn’s?”

“She came here often for a while. Last year, this was. Ended around Christmas, I think. We heard about what happened to her. Poor thing. She was a sweet girl. Pretty as a picture.”

“How would you define their relationship? Warm? Hostile?”

“Same as any other, I suppose. On again, off again.” A light filled her eyes. “You don’t think . . . ?”

Walt kept any reaction off his face.

“Vince?” She bordered on outrage.

“What do you think? Is it possible?”

“We had them down to dinner. Barbecues. Vince was always so entertaining. The stories he has.”

“And Caroline?”

“Caroline was good with men. Flirtatious. Attractive.”

She appraised him and he thought he saw her nod faintly, though he may have imagined it. The veins in her neck rose.

“The question that needs to be asked,” Walt continued, “is whether Mr. Wynn ever displayed his temper in her company. Did the arguments you overheard ever involve Ms. Vetta?” The questioning was better left for Boldt but there was no turning back.

“Vince argues with
everybody
, Sheriff. He’s confrontational by nature.”

“Including Ms. Vetta.”

“Of course! Yes. Okay? They argued. Vince is never afraid to take a position. No shrinking violet, he.”

Walt heard the word wrong.
Shrinking violence
. He took a second to process it correctly. And another few to collect his thoughts. “Did he ever hit or threaten her in your presence? And I caution you to carefully consider your answer.”

“Vince threatens everyone,” she said matter-of-factly. “He swears, he boasts, and he takes on anyone he wants to take on. It’s who he is. He enters the room, you know it. Some people are just like that.”

“I need a straight answer,” Walt said. “Caroline Vetta was brutally beaten to death. I need you to keep that in mind.”

Gwen Walters, overcome, struggled to keep her lips from shaking. She hung her head, nodding. “I get it. Poor thing.” Then she shook her head. “But did I see Vince actually hit her? No. Nor did I see him hit anyone else. Not ever.”

“But you heard things,” Walt speculated.

“We’re neighbors. Neighbors know a lot more than they ought to.”

It struck Walt then, hit him in the chest. He’d played it wrong from the start. Wynn knew something about this family they didn’t want known. The kids? Bedroom secrets? Drug use on their part? Who knew? But she had something to hide, to keep hidden, the same as Lisa’s neighbor, the same as Wynn, and she wasn’t about to open that valve because the water could flow both directions.

She stood from her chair, suddenly a different woman. Extended her hand.

“Sheriff,” she said.

“She’s dead,” Walt said.

“I don’t envy you your job. If I think of something,” she said unconvincingly.

They shook hands; hers was bloodless and cold and she quickly withdrew it.

Not another word passed between them. As he reentered the cathedral of light and made his way to the front door, he marveled that people lived this way.

He stopped there at the threshold, turned, and met eyes with her. Said nothing, but also didn’t move. Time suspended.

“For what it’s worth, their relationship, Caroline and Vince, seemed more business than pleasure. My husband wondered aloud, more than once, if she wasn’t more mistress than girlfriend, if you know what I mean?”

“A call girl.”

“A paid companion. When they were together it felt different. That’s all. Like they shared a secret but not the kind of secret couples share. I can’t explain it.”

“I think you explained it very well,” he said. And he thanked her.

 

 

“
I
need you,” Boldt said, as he and Walt stood talking beneath Vince Wynn’s basketball hoop.

“It went that bad?” Walt asked. “You want to double-team him?”

“Dodge ball. There’s a lawyer named Evers. Real piece of work. Wynn wants to put the Vetta death on Gale. Keeps it neat and clean.”

“Does he know about Gale?”

“Not that I could tell, but he’s no one to play poker with.”

“Did he blame Gale outright?”

“His lawyer wouldn’t let him go that far, but he would have if he’d been left on his own. Gale’s identity as your John Doe is going to leak. If we’re going to go after Wynn before Evers circles the wagons, now’s the time.”

“How do you want to handle it?” Walt didn’t want to come off as naïve, but also wanted to show the man respect.

Boldt said, “They were very well rehearsed for Vetta. Not so sure that would prove to be the case with Gale. I’d hint at the evidence—ask to see his vehicles, a subscription to the local paper, hint at hairs and fibers evidence and work to confirm the last time the two met.”

“Get him back on his heels.”