The Crossword Connection (17 page)

“I don't know,” Abe said as he pulled a plastic bag from his pocket, “but I don't like what I see.” He bent down, took samples of the dirt, and placed them into the bag. “I think you should have this vehicle impounded, Al. If Rosco's around, it's the fastest way to get his attention.… But I have a real bad feeling that Rosco's not around.”

“What makes you say that?”

“When have you ever known him to get a parking ticket?” Abe reached into the Jeep and flipped down the sun visor. Attached to it was the same Newcastle Police Department identification card Jones kept in his own car.

“How'd he get one of those?”

“Friends on the force?”

Lever only shook his head.

Jones didn't speak for a long minute. “I gotta tell you, Al, this mud is bothering me.”

Lever didn't respond; instead, he continued to stare at the Jeep.

“It looks like the same type of soil we found on the dead woman and in Adams Alley.”

“You sure about that?”

“I'll run tests, Al. But at this point, I'd stake my rep on it.”

Lever walked to Abe's car and radioed the station house. “Al Lever,” he said the moment the line was answered. “I've got an abandoned vehicle I want impounded. I want it done now.”

CHAPTER 21

Al Lever wiped his feet on the doormat lying on Belle's sunny front porch. Not once or twice, but three times. As he scraped his shoes, his hand reached first for the brass knocker, then the doorbell, and finally withdrew. After a minute, he stood still and composed himself. He knew he had to inform Belle; there was no escaping that fact. Better to be businesslike about the situation. Better to take the bull by the horns.

He raised his hand again, opting for the bell as being less harsh. He heard the sound echo through the house, then Belle's voice calling a relieved: “Rosco? Where have you been!? I'll be there in a sec!”

Lever's facial muscles tightened. Being a cop could be hard as hell at times like this.

Belle opened the door. “Al!” Her smiling face registered swift disappointment that it was not her fiancé on the porch, then transformed itself into a facsimile of polite welcome, and finally metamorphosed into outright dread. “Is Rosco …?” was all she said.

“Do you mind if I come in?”

Belle stood aside and held the door.

“We found his Jeep.…”

Belle studied Lever's expression. Visions of Western Union telegrams—the kind that informed a distraught wife she'd lost her husband in some far-off, war-torn land—flew through her head. She didn't speak for a long minute. When she did, her voice was hushed. “Are you telling me that Rosco's been hurt?”

Al put his hand on her shoulder. “No.… No. I'm telling you we found his car; that's all. No sign of blood, no sign of struggle. The vehicle has mud embedded in the tires … a lot of it.”

Belle wrapped her arms around herself but otherwise remained still and silent. Al had been through this gruesome routine many times before. Family, friends: everyone leapt to the worst-case scenario. Either that, or they went into full denial mode. Belle was obviously of the face-up-to-a-terrible-reality school.

“Meaning?” she finally asked.

“Meaning that he was on the trail of something that took him out of the city—”

Belle shook her head as she interrupted. “He didn't check in last night.”

“Does he usually?”

“Yes.… Actually, I'd assumed we'd have supper together, celebrate getting our marriage license …”

Lever accepted the information but didn't offer an explanation. “Why don't we sit down for a minute.”

She led the way into her office. “Can I get you something? Some tea or coffee?”

“Thanks, no.” Almost unconsciously, he patted his breast pocket and cigarette pack, then was glad Belle hadn't noticed the gesture.

“This is an official visit, isn't it, Al? Meeting with the fiancée to share distressing news …” Belle perched nervously on the edge of her desk while Al sank heavily into one of the black and white deck chairs.

“We don't have any corroborative evidence, Belle, just a car with mud-caked tires. I was hoping you could supply some missing pieces to the story.”

She thought. “That's the second time you've mentioned mud, Al. Is there something you're not telling me?”

Lever hesitated, then plunged ahead. “Abe Jones feels the soil samples might connect the Carson death to the woman behind the bus depot. It's his feeling that the traces he lifted from the dead woman's shoes and the tire tracks left at the Carson site are from the same locale. ‘Organically rich with a high clay content' is the term he used; in other words, country dirt.”

Belle walked across her office. Outside, the sun was shining and the air warming in anticipation of summer. The world was green and gold, the sky a limitless blue. How could there be problems on such a fine May day? How could she contemplate Rosco being in danger, perhaps even—? She cut off the thought and turned back to face Al.

“I received a very disturbing crossword puzzle this morning … plus a couple of perplexing telephone calls. No, they were more than perplexing; they were downright unsettling.…”

Lever made a few notes on a small pad of paper, then interjected, “Someone phoned here. Would you categorize it as a threat?”

“That's just it. The call came to Cleo's house. I received the cryptic there, too. She'd gotten a message stating Rosco was ‘missing in action.' She contacted me immediately; I drove to her home.…” Belle described the full circle of events, including the cell phone call from Geoffrey Wright's truck.

Lever frowned. “If the contractor hadn't beamed in, you would have been able to trace the previous message. Damn!”

“That's what I thought, too.” Belle's expression remained grave.

“I don't like the fact that you were contacted at Cleo's home.”

“I didn't, either. Actually, it gave me the creeps … as if someone had followed me. I tried to reassure Cleo, but …”

Lever made another note. “Can you describe the caller?”

“Well … my first inclination was that I was speaking to a recording. There was something almost robotic in the delivery and pitch … but a machine can't carry on a conversation—”

“That's not entirely correct, Belle. There are recordings designed to simulate dialogue. Nine times out of ten there's extortion involved.”

Belle considered this. “When the person phoned again, we had a definite conversation. But, no, I couldn't tell you whether the speaker was male or female. The accent was equally impossible to trace. Extortion? I don't know.… Rosco and I are hardly zillionaires—”

“Rosco assumed that the crossword you received on Sunday in the empty rose box was a stalker/obsessive fan situation, didn't he?”

Belle nodded. “But the one placed in my car this morning was definitely targeting Rosco.”

Again, Al instinctively reached for his cigarettes, then pulled his hand away from his shirt pocket.

“You can smoke if you want, Al.”

“No way, José. I don't want to catch any grief from Polly—crates when he conies waltzing home.”

Both were silent. Finally, Belle resumed the discussion. “You asked Rosco to look into the vandalism at the homeless shelter.…”

Lever nodded.

“And you did so because our local real estate mavens have friends in very high places, City Council, as I recall. What I'm getting at is this: Do you think the Peterman brothers are behind the deaths of Carson and the woman at the bus depot? And if they are, is Rosco's disappearance part of the same situation?”

“Abe's condo complex is owned by the Petermans,” Al answered. “He insists they run a legitimate business … tough, but legitimate.”

“That's what they said about J. J. Hill, Al. And J. P. Morgan, and Frick. Upstanding citizens, all of them. But there were a lot of people who suffered when they got in the way of those gentlemen's business practices.”

“That doesn't mean murder, Belle. A lot of people believe the Petermans' interests have been very good for Newcastle.”

“If you settle a strike by equipping Pinkerton guards with rifles, what do you call the death of an unarmed man? All I'm saying is that the world hasn't changed with the advent of a new century. If anything, we're even less ethical than we were before.”

Lever stood and walked to her side. “I think you should stay with someone else for a couple of days, Belle. I'm not crazy about the idea of you here by yourself.”

“Rosco said the same thing.” Belle's tone had become dangerously wistful.

Al attempted a note of levity. “And you immediately agreed, right?”

“That's me. Little Miss Do-As-You're-Told.”

“Seriously … Would you consider staying with Cleo? Or maybe Mrs. B.?”

Belle's gray eyes grew wide. “You mean bunk in with Queen Sara?” She laughed briefly, but the sound had a hollow ring. “I'll consider it.” Then she turned serious again. “Rosco and I are getting married Saturday, Al.…”

Lever searched for words of comfort. “Your wedding will come off without a hitch, Belle. You have my word on it.” But he knew she was too smart to fool. Rosco was missing, and the evidence wasn't pointing to an easy or pleasant solution.

CHAPTER 22

“Madam is in the garden.”

As she ushered Belle into the foyer of White Caps, Sara Crane Briephs' ancestral home, Emma's smile was ebullient.

“Mrs. Briephs will be delighted to see you, Miss Belle. Your visits always do her a world of good.”

It was useless asking Emma to drop the title
miss;
requesting less formal treatment would be tantamount to suggesting Sara's long-time maid don a sweat suit in place of her black taffeta uniform with its starched white apron and lacy collar. She and her mistress were too old school, and probably too hidebound, to change.

“Thanks, Emma. Don't trouble yourself. I can find the way myself.”

“Oh, it's no trouble at all, miss.”

Emma led Belle through a house remarkable in its loving devotion to the past. Damask draperies, Persian carpets, silver and crystal vases, richly waxed wood floors, polished mahogany occasional tables, and the hush that pervades a building with sturdy walls and a sturdier pedigree: Belle might have been treading through a Victorian-era home updated to the 1920s. The fact that Sara Briephs deemed the place cozy revealed a great deal about how she and her brother had been raised.

“Madam has been fretting about the weather for your wedding festivities, Miss Belle, but I believe the last day and a half have taken a considerable turn for the better. May can be an uncertain month.”

Belle bit her lip. She began to appreciate how difficult it had been for Al to break the news about finding Rosco's abandoned Jeep. “Yes, it can,” she said at last.

“I hope you and Mr. Rosco will be very happy,” Emma added. “I know you will be.”

Belle pasted on what she hoped was a joyous smile. “Thank you, Emma.”

The maid opened the door leading to the veranda, stepped aside to withdraw, and Belle spotted Sara's erect form stationed in front of an ancient rose bush as if she were in the process of issuing a stern denunciation to an invading force of aphids, which she probably was. As disquieting as the conversation with Emma had been, Belle realized it had been nothing compared to discussing Rosco's disappearance with White Caps' redoubtable owner.

“Belle, dear! I didn't hear your car in the drive!” Sara marched toward her, a “stick” in hand (she refused to call it a cane) to aid in negotiating the lumpy, springtime ground. Half of the time, the “stick” was wielded as if an extension of its owner's indomitable arm.

Belle tried for another smile, then realized she could no longer fake it. “Rosco's missing,” she blurted out instead.

“What do you mean, ‘missing'? It's not like the boy to get cold feet, Belle. You know he's as anxious to marry you as you are to wed him.”

“I mean that Al Lever and Abe Jones found Rosco's Jeep, mud-spattered and ticketed … but no Rosco. In fact, from the illegal parking fine, the car had been sitting there for some time.”

Sara looked aghast. “What is Albert's assessment of the situation?” She wavered once, her body swaying slightly, then forced herself to stand even straighter. At length she said, “I'll sit, if you don't mind.” She turned toward a carved stone bench. “Be a good girl, and come and sit down beside me.”

Belle did as requested, then began describing Abe Jones's suspicion that the soil samples taken from the two crime sites might well match the mud in Rosco's tires. She also included the attack on the homeless shelter, Rosco's outrage at the vandalism, and his decision to help find the miscreants.

Sara's face grew more and more pensive. “Unsavory characters,” she said after a moment. “The Petermans
and
all the johnny-come-latelies who are trying to buy up this town.”

“Abe Jones stated his belief that the Petermans' business dealings are on the up and up.”

“Similar remarks were made about J. J. Hill and Mr. Morgan!”

Belle smiled, and Sara regarded her with a proud and critical eye. “I realize your generation may view my references as antediluvian, young lady, but history should teach us
not
to repeat past mistakes.”

“I'm smiling because I used the exact same example when I spoke with Al.”

The older lady's fine silvery eyebrows arched in bemused pleasure. “Good girl! We'll turn you into an autocratic
grande dame
yet.… Of course, you have several decades in which to practice.”

Belle took Sara's hand, and for several moments the two sat silently side by side: Belle, blond-haired, lithe; Sara, once taller, now whittled by age, white-coiffed and still determinedly slim. Belle represented Sara in youth; Sara was an image of Belle grown old.