Scent of Evil (11 page)

“So you hit it off, despite your differences?”

Again the humorless smile. “You make it sound like a blind date. No, it was a gradual process, stimulated by both Tucker’s prodding and my wife’s insistence that I start a garden.”

“But Charlie was a pretty genial guy?”

He tapped his chin with the tips of his fingers. “In an artificial sort of way. He reminded me of a good many of the young sharks I saw in the city. Let’s say that while the source of our mutual interest was shared, our motivations were quite different.”

It seemed the farther we got from the shock of Charlie’s death, the cooler Clyde’s demeanor became. I also was struck that he wasn’t bending over backwards to burnish Charlie’s memory, as one typically does with the dearly departed.

“Meaning you both liked investments, but while he was in it for the money, you just wanted to stay out of your wife’s garden?”

This time he actually chuckled. “That’s certainly accurate, although I like making money, too.”

“What were his qualifications?”

Clyde’s eyebrows shot up. “Ah, yes. Well, that was the rub, as I saw it, when Tucker first approached me. Charlie didn’t really have any experience. A local high school graduate, an undistinguished string of short-lived, low-paying jobs—not very promising. But that was on paper. In person, Charlie could be quite persuasive, and Tucker had taught him well.”

“Tucker knows a lot about stocks?”

Clyde gave me a quizzical look, one usually reserved for people fresh off the fruit truck. “You could say that.”

“I’m afraid someone in my position wouldn’t know much about that.”

“Of course. Well, Tucker Wentworth is extremely qualified. His background encompasses not only corporate law but investment banking as well, a career he pursued prior to moving here twenty years ago. Charlie couldn’t have found a better tutor in the entire southern half of the state.”

“So it was really Wentworth’s recommendation that won you over.”

Clyde became abruptly guarded. “Among other things.”

“Like what? Did he help fund ABC?”

“I’m not sure that we’re not going off on an irrelevant tangent here.” The ponderous double negative made me smile. “Meaning that’s none of my business.”

Clyde looked uncomfortable. “I don’t wish to be uncooperative, but I do have certain confidentialities I must maintain. I’m sure these matters have nothing to do with Charlie’s death.”

I couldn’t have disagreed more, but I wasn’t about to admit it. Until I had a subpoena in my hand allowing me to grab all of Jardine’s papers, I wasn’t going to display the slightest interest in them. “You’re probably right. Somebody did kill him, though. Was there anything about his personal life that might have led to that?”

Clyde shrugged and made a face. “Ours was a business relationship, based on mutual advantage. Tucker Wentworth may have known him well; I did not. I don’t even know where he lives… or lived.”

“You never saw one another outside the office?”

“Well, yes, I’d see him on occasion, maybe to meet a prospective client at a bar, or maybe even in the street on a Saturday or something. It’s a small town, after all, but we didn’t socialize.”

“You didn’t know any of his friends?”

“Only Tucker.”

“Did he talk about himself much? His family, background, likes, dislikes, ambitions, what have you?”

The other man sighed and glanced at his watch, a gesture carefully designed to catch my eye. “He may have tried at first, but I wasn’t interested. My vested interest was in his ability to bring in the accounts, not in his past history and pipe dreams.”

“And he was bringing in the accounts.”

“Yes. Considering that starting a business of this nature can be slow, he did remarkably well. He could win people’s confidence quickly, like any good salesman.”

Dismissive disclaimers like that one had littered this discussion like falling leaves. Arthur Clyde was an old-time aristocratic snob, and I began thinking Charlie had been well served by not sharing his thoughts with him. On the other hand, maybe there was more to it than just snobbism. “You didn’t like Charlie much, did you?”

Of the options available to him, Clyde chose the least appropriate. He gave a false smile and a good-old-boy wave of the hand. “Charlie was a charming person; people instinctively warmed to him.”

“But you didn’t,” I persisted.

The smile crystallized. “That wasn’t the basis of our arrangement. Our backgrounds were entirely different.”

I let it go; he apparently wasn’t going to break down and confess to anything. “I understand; we run into that in the police department, too, sometimes. So you just kept it professional, right?”

His face had regained its previous haughty rigidity. “It did seem the best way to go.”

I pushed on the arms of my chair and stood up. “Well, I’ll leave you be. If you think of anything that might help us out—some personal or business detail that might tie in to Charlie’s death, even vaguely—give me a call.”

Again, he didn’t get up, didn’t offer his hand. “I’ll help in any way I can.”

Especially after I get that subpoena, I thought, as I showed myself out.

I PAUSED AT THE BUILDING’S ENTRANCE
, blinking away the bright sunlight and trying to reacclimate to the heat. I was wondering how many such brutal contrasts would eventually lead to pneumonia when I recognized Ted McDonald’s official, antenna-festooned WBRT car parked diagonally across the street. McDonald was just pulling his bulk out from behind the wheel, his eyes fixed on the upper windows of the building I’d just left. I recalled then seeing a small “ABC Investments” sign perched on the sill behind Arthur Clyde’s desk. That meant the cat was out of the bag—that either Brandt had held a press conference revealing Jardine’s name, or McDonald’s old-boy network had yielded him another golden nugget.

I was still standing in the shade of the doorway, I hoped unobtrusively. I waited until McDonald ducked back into his car to retrieve his recording gear, and then I cut north, away from him and toward the Paramount Theater.

My next planned move had been to visit Rose Woll at her job in the Vermont National Bank Building, the front entrance of which was directly beyond McDonald’s car. Now, dreading any encounter with the press, I thought a flanking maneuver was in order.

I strolled to the pedestrian crossing where High Street dead ends into Main, and waited for the traffic to stop. Leaning against the far side of the lamppost, I peered back at McDonald jaywalking in a beeline to Jardine’s office. I let out a sigh of disappointment.

From my current vantage point, it was a straight shot to the Dunkin’ Donuts on the opposite corner, which, given my sudden change of mood and my gastronomic proclivity, was an extremely inviting harbor. It was also a necessary one, as I saw it. I hadn’t eaten since the night before and, like Pavlov’s dog, I reacted with a jolt as soon as I saw the pink and orange sign. Sacrificing all to camouflage police business from the media, I ordered a coffee, a Bavarian creme, a double honey-dipped chocolate, and an orange juice. By the time I finished, I figured I’d have a clear shot at the bank’s rear entrance via the Harmony parking lot.

Even if there hadn’t been a press conference, I wasn’t too surprised McDonald had put the name to Jardine’s body. I sometimes thought both he and Katz had more connections inside the police department than I did. Any fact that became part of almost any document usually found its way into their hands sooner or later, regardless of the restraints put upon it, which is why Brandt had stressed we keep the Wolls’ involvement in all this to ourselves.

The irony was that most cops pride themselves on keeping their mouths shut. Among themselves, however—and the greater fraternity of deputy sheriffs, state policemen, state’s-attorney investigators, and prosecutors—they often felt free to talk confidential shop. It was the same age-old human impulse that had given “I’ve Got a Secret” high ratings for years. And given the sheer number of people that were finally involved in this grapevine, I was more often surprised when McDonald and his colleagues actually missed a story now and then.

The Harmony parking lot occupies the entire center of Brattleboro’s primary business block and is entered through a low, narrow, vaulted tunnel reminiscent of the entrance to a medieval castle. Inside, the encircling buildings form a near-solid courtyard-like wall. There’s an abrupt lessening of the hustle-bustle here; the strong, weathered, ugly backs of the buildings, the recently planted trees among the parking meter islands, and the presence of a café poised on the roof of a single-story outcropping all lend to the area a feeling of cloistered serenity.

From the parking lot, I cut a diagonal path to the bank’s back door. Rose Woll worked in customer relations, a small cluster of desks in the corner of the bank’s recently revamped lobby. There were few people needing help this morning, and all of them were at tellers’ windows, so Rose was sitting at her desk alone, staring at a computer display. I noticed as I approached that her hands were in her lap, idle, and that her eyes were vacant and unmoving. The computer might as well have been off.

“Rose?”

She jumped in her seat and looked at me, her face pale. “Lieutenant.”

“Are you all right?”

“Of course.” But a sudden trickle of tears down her face made a lie of it.

“Can we go somewhere to talk?”

She nodded without speaking or getting up. I gestured to a neighboring desk where one of her colleagues was watching us with keen interest, a sheaf of papers still clutched in her hands. “Can you cover for her for a while?”

“Of course. Is there anything I can do to help?”

“No. I think we’ll be okay. She just needs a couple of minutes.”

I circled the desk and took Rose by the elbow. She got up and led the way to the back of the lobby and a short hallway lined with doors. Behind one of them was a small, empty cubicle with a counter and two chairs, presumably designed for pawing through safe-deposit boxes in privacy.

“Tell me about Charlie Jardine, Rose.”

She was wiping her cheeks with the back of her hand, her body shuddering with her sobs. I didn’t know her well, she was one of many spouses I saw primarily at department picnics. But her emotional state encouraged an intimacy we’d never shared.

I reached over and took her hand away from her face. Her eyes focused on mine. “Did you love him?”

She left her hand in mine and gave an exaggerated shrug, her face contorted with sorrow. “I don’t know. I did, but he wasn’t… It never would have worked. We always knew that. But he…” She left the sentence unfinished.

“Did John tell you about his death?”

She nodded silently.

“Did he know about you two?”

She dropped my hand and wiped both her eyes then, shutting off the tears and struggling for composure. “He’s always known. We were all friends in high school.”

“John and he were close?” I was remembering Woll’s vague comments about Jardine the night before.

“I was the link. I dated them both.”

I was so used to these kinds of interviews evolving slowly that her immediate intimacy startled me. I changed gears to keep her going. “So they were really rivals.”

She shook her head emphatically. “They weren’t rivals. I just couldn’t decide. They were so different; I was the only thing they had in common.”

“Who pursued who in the long run? Did you really want Charlie and end up with John?” Even with my scant knowledge of the three, that would have seemed believable.

“That makes it sound so bad. I chose John. I love him very much. I knew he would be dependable, and that Charlie would always be chasing rainbows.”

A practical choice, I thought, and a surprising one, given Rose’s naïve appearance. Of course, sometimes appearances are cultivated to good purpose. “Sounds like he hit the pot of gold anyhow.”

“That was later. Back then, he was wild and funny and caring. A ‘reckless dreamer,’ I called him, but undependable.” She half smiled.

Her face had cleared somewhat, still stained with tears and flushed. She was no beauty, but she emanated a tangible sensuality with an open, innocent visage and a body given to suggestive fullness.

“You married John because he was safe.”

She took offense, but only slightly. “I married him because I loved him.”

I didn’t respond. Speaking to her was like watching for movement at the bottom of a stream, an effort thwarted by shadows, reflections, and self-doubt.

“And he was dependable,” she added.

“Why did John drop his scholarship and his chance to go to college?”

Her eyes welled up again and her lip quivered. She was emotional enough right now for any reminiscence to cause tears, no matter how trivial, so I had no idea what had set her off. I played it safe by silently taking her hand again and giving it an encouraging squeeze.

She returned the gesture and smiled sadly. “I was pregnant.” That was certainly not trivial, nor had it appeared in any paperwork I’d studied. “And you lost the baby later?”

Silently, wiping her cheeks again, she nodded.

“I’m sorry, Rose.” I let a moment pass for that to sink in, but I had to keep going. “So what happened between you and Charlie?”

“He understood. We kept in touch. We were always friends.”

All of which told me nothing. Her show of openness had been reduced to three telegraphic sentences, closed doors I had to get through by presuming I already knew what lay behind them. I felt now that my night’s reading was yielding benefits. “Until John began drinking.”

She became very still, looking at me in wonder, a prior acquaintance who now seemed to know a great deal about her. “He got so wrapped up in himself. I kept asking him what was bothering him, but he wouldn’t talk.”

“Did Charlie know about the drinking?”

“Not until I told him. After school, he and John never saw each other.”

“So when you said John knew about you and Charlie, you didn’t mean as lovers.”

“No… Well, yes, in high school… And just recently, but not in between.”

There was an awkward silence. I changed tack to safer water, keeping her reference to “recently” in the back of my mind. “What do you think made John hit the bottle? Work? Being a special officer instead of full-time?”