LCole 07 - Deadly Cove (29 page)

I was pleased to see the surprised look on his face as I closed the door behind me.

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Outside in the cool air of South Boston, I knew I was about two blocks away from the
Shoreline
magazine offices. It would take about five minutes to go in there and pay a surprise visit to my new boss, maybe impress her with my thoughtfulness and thoroughness, and maybe build a few bridges between us, so she wouldn't be so snappy with me and I wouldn't feel like I was working for the female version of a crazed Colonel McCormick of the old
Chicago Tribune
days. Sure. I could do that.

I got into my Ford, started her up, and headed north.

*   *   *

About a half hour into my trip, on a long stretch of Interstate 95 near Beverly, my cell phone rang, and I flipped it open and said, “Hello, this is Lewis.”

“I know,” came the voice of my editor, Denise. “I wasn't calling the damn White House, now, was I?”

The proverbial They say you should pull over while making a cell phone call, to avoid distractions, which is what I did. I pulled over to the side of the four-lane highway and thought about distractions, like tossing the cell phone out the window and running it over. I also thought it was ironic that I had been in her neighborhood less than a half hour ago. Maybe she had sensed me nearby and decided to check in.

I said, “Not sure if the White House would take your call. What's up, Denise?”

“You didn't file yesterday,” she said.

“I was kind of busy.”

“Well, I was kind of being an editor who needs copy submitted, to send out. So hear me well. I need some more copy today—and make sure you add something about that college kid getting shot. Readers love that stuff.”

“They do, do they?”

“Christ, yes. Haven't you ever heard that expression, if it bleeds, it leads?”

“I thought that was just for newspapers or television.”

“What's the difference now, hunh? Get that copy to me, Lewis.”

Then she hung up.

I remained in park, on the side of a busy highway, still a bit distracted, and then I got going and resumed my trek north.

*   *   *

About an hour later I was in Durham, the home of the University of New Hampshire, several thousand students, a couple hundred professors and administrators, and one Haleigh Miller. Without knowing where she lived—whether on campus or off, or in which dormitory or housing development—but with the keen insight that comes from years of poking around and paying attention, I went to the Memorial Union Building, a squat, somewhat modern-looking place on the top of a hill, which housed most of the college's student organizations, including UNH Students for Safe Energy. The office was on the bottom floor of the building, down a long, narrow corridor that held the offices for the radio station, the group responsible for bringing speakers and musicians to campus, the yearbook, the student-run video organization, and the student newspaper, which seemed to attract a number of eager types that Paula Quinn could probably out-report and out-write before having her first cup of coffee in the morning.

The Safe Energy office was in a room about the size of my home office, and it was crowded with students, denim, wool sweaters, bumper stickers, pamphlets, and about a ton of attitude. There were about a half dozen young men and women in there, and I could see their mental antennas quiver as I passed through the door, and almost as one, they gave me a suspicious look as I stepped in. Could hardly blame them, for I was of a certain age and was dressed in a certain way.

I gave the closest bearded male my best nonthreatening smile and said, “I'm looking for Haleigh Miller. Do you expect her around?”

“Depends,” he said, rocking back and forth slowly in a swivel chair that looked like it was kept together by chants and duct tape. “Who's asking?”

“I'm from Greenpeace,” I said, hating to lie but knowing this was all for some greater good. Or something like that. I went on. “I want to talk to her about a possible internship at our D.C. office.”

Saying I was from Greenpeace was like going into a high school choir group and announcing I was from a Broadway talent agency. Immediately they all wanted to be my new best friend, and I smiled again and held up my hand and said, “Guys, I'm sorry, I really need to speak to Haleigh. Time is of the essence—and if I can't talk to her soon, the internship will go to somebody else.”

My new best friends came up with suggestions, possibilities, and after a few more minutes of corrupting our youth, I went back out to the campus.

*   *   *

According to the members of UNH Students for Safe Energy—who should have known better than to give me the information they did, for I could have been involved in about a half dozen separate criminal enterprises—Haleigh lived in a dormitory called Congreve Hall, set in the middle of the campus. I walked in without much difficulty; the signs at the entryway informed me the admissions desk was manned only during the early evening hours. There were a number of posters and stickers on her dormitory door, all involving either the antinuclear cause or some other movement, but no answer from behind it.

So I went outside and sat on a stone wall and waited. Around me students went back and forth, laughing, talking, most of them carrying book bags or knapsacks, and I'm sure they thought they were the best, brightest, and most committed of any college generation, and in a way, they would be right. Except, of course, the fact that my college generation, and the one before that, and the one before that, all thought the same thing—probably all the way back to medieval times.

So I waited, and I thought about my visit to Boston, and how the good attorney down there thought he hadn't told me a thing, when, in fact, he had by his constant refusal to tell me anything. If Attorney Foster had told me he had no idea what I was talking about concerning him and the Stone Chapel, then so be it. Instead, even though his appointment calendar was supposedly full, he had seen me instantly when I mentioned the name of the Stone Chapel, and any additional question was met by “privileged information.” Over and over again.

Which meant there was some serious connection between him and Laura Glynn Toles and the Stone Chapel.

There. Walking down a cement sidewalk, wearing jeans and a navy blue sweatshirt, looking down at her feet, a light red knapsack on her back. I got up and met her on the sidewalk, and she looked up, startled.

“Oh, Lewis,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

“Hoping I could ask you a few questions.”

She looked over at her dorm. “I … I'm really behind in my classwork, since the demonstrations. I really don't have that much time.”

I gently grasped her upper arm. “Just a few, and then I'll be on my way. Promise.”

I knew I was treading in some potentially dangerous territory, and I was wary. If she pulled away or made a scene, I'd leave: Campus cops can be very unforgiving of males of any age harassing a student.

Haleigh just shook her head and came back with me to the stone wall that I had been occupying for a while.

“Before I start, I just want to know how you're doing,” I said.

She pulled back at her hair. “It's … it's strange. That's all I can really say. When I was in Falconer, I was part of a community, you know? People who shared food with you, blankets, water … helped you if you got knocked down by the cops or got pepper-sprayed. There was just … a sense of unity, of being part of something bigger … and then it collapsed … and now I'm back here in Durham … and my classmates and people in my dorm, they don't care. They don't care at all. It's all about who's hooking up, who's getting ready for midterms, who's got a lead on a great internship this summer.” Her face looked pale as she glanced over at me. “So you feel like … is that it? Is that all there is? When we were leaving Falconer, some of the organizers tried to say it had been a success, that we had been building spirit, showing defiance … and I cried. Because we failed. Look at it realistically. We failed.”

“What about the other group, the Nuclear Freedom Front? They're trying again.”

She shivered. “You saw what the cops did to peaceful protesters. Imagine what they'll do to protesters who don't rule out using violence.”

“I see.”

“Lewis … please, what are your damn questions. I don't have that much time.”

“It's about the Stone Chapel, and Bronson Toles.”

“Cripes,” she said. “Can't you journalists stop playing with his corpse?”

“Never said I was a journalist,” I said, “and I'm not playing with his corpse. I need to follow up on some information that somebody told me about Bronson.”

She sighed. “Go on.”

“Did Bronson … did he ever have … well, did he ever have an unhealthy interest in his employees?”

Haleigh's gaze sharpened. “Don't dance around it. You're asking me if he fooled around with the help.”

“In so many words, yes.”

“No.”

“That was a pretty quick answer.”

“Because it's a pretty accurate answer,” she shot back. “I worked there weekends, nights and into the early morning. I never saw anything or heard anything about him fooling around. It never happened.”

“So if somebody told me that the reason he only hired females is because he wanted to be around them, and have the occasional relationship, then that somebody would be wrong?”

“No,” she said calmly. “That someone would be lying. You want to know why he only hired women?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Because he believed the deck was stacked against women, right from the beginning, that men had an advantage when it came to jobs and to learning, and he was going to do what he could to level the playing field. That's all. He did something gracious and noble, and now you tell me somebody's using that against him. Disgusting.”

“So no chance of an upset father or boyfriend picking up a rifle to take his revenge on Bronson.”

“Oh, Christ, no, Lewis. That sounds like a bad movie.”

“All right, enough of that,” I said. “About the Stone Chapel. The musical groups that Bronson hired to bring in—any disputes from anyone? Did they feel they got treated unfairly? Paid too little? Not promoted enough?”

She shook her head and stood up. “You really don't know Bronson, and you really don't know the Stone Chapel. Bronson always treated them fairly, like members of the family, and he gave a lot of musical groups their first break, and some of them became famous because of it—and there are groups and performers who practically fight for the chance to come to the Stone Chapel. So if you think some disgruntled musician killed Bronson over some contract dispute, you're wrong.”

“So who do you think killed him, then?”

Haleigh had tears in her eyes when she said, “Enough, okay, enough.”

Then she ran into her dorm.

I sat for a few minutes longer and then, feeling older than when I began my questioning, I got up and left.

*   *   *

I drove the half hour or so from Durham to Tyler Beach, thinking I would go home, regroup, get something to eat, and then write something to satisfy my editor's unceasing demands, but as I entered the outskirts of Tyler, just before passing over I-95—the interstate that divides the state's seacoast into two unequal lumps—my cell phone rang again. It was Diane Woods, and her message was short and to the point, and I quickly sped up my drive, exceeding the speed limit by at least twenty miles an hour.

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

I pulled up to the condo complex on High Street where Paula Quinn lived, about a five-minute drive from Tyler Beach. Three green and white Tyler police cruisers were parked haphazardly in the adjacent lot, lights flashing, and yellow crime scene tape was already unfurled. A cluster of neighbors watched as one Tyler cop entered the woods to the rear of the white two-story building, a barking German shepherd leading him on. There was also an unmarked dark blue Ford LTD with lights flashing in its radiator grille, and I slammed my Ford to a halt behind it and got out.

I walked quickly over to the crime scene tape where a young Tyler officer, serious-looking in his dark green uniform, was keeping tabs on the spectators. I know most of the Tyler cops, but I didn't know this one. He must have been a recent hire. His name tag read
LAMONTAGNE
, and I said, “Officer, I'm here to see Detective Sergeant Woods.”

He shook his head. “Sorry. She's busy.”

“She'll see me,” I said. “She just called.”

Officer Lamontagne stared at me with his light brown eyes and said, “Name?”

“Lewis Cole.”

With that, he toggled a radio microphone dangling from his shoulder and said, “Tyler Twenty-two to Tyler D-One.”

From his radio I heard the slightly distorted voice of Diane. “Tyler D-One, go.”

“Detective, I have a Mr. Cole here to see you.”

A faint crackle of static. “He's clear. Send him in.”

Officer Lamontagne looked slightly impressed. “All right, sir,” he said, lifting the crime scene tape. “If you go in and—”

“That's fine,” I said, impatient, “I know the way.”

I brushed past him and trotted across the parking lot, to the open door of the condo complex, and up a set of stairs. The door to Paula Quinn's unit was open, and a young female officer was there, clipboard in hand, writing down everyone who entered and left Paula's residence, and as I passed this second checkpoint, I got a sharp jolt as I saw Diane and other police officers in Paula's living room. I had been here on several occasions—none lately, but not much had changed in the intervening time—but there was something so wrong about seeing law enforcement officers among her furniture, her books, the piles of Tyler
Chronicle
newspapers on the carpeted floor.