On Tuesday the Boston papers were waiting in the lobby, and I scanned the front pages of both as I climbed the three flights to my office. Courtney was putting the finishing touches on an autumn display in the hallway across from the elevator. She had on a salmon silk blouse and a navy skirt, her honey brown hair done up in a French twist. It was an ability she had of looking either her actual twenty-one or like an older sophisticate—something of a young Grace Kelly or Phoebe Kelly for that matter. She’d fashioned a scarecrow for her display. “Like it?” she asked.
“If he’s looking for a brain, the hunt is over.”
“Oh, your.” I couldn’t tell whether the incandescent smile was something they learned at Mount Holyoke or if she’d brought it with her from Duluth. Either way it worked; there was more behind her expression than the headline of any newspaper.
“Is your boss in?” I asked.
Meecham, in a dark gray pinstripe with suspenders and a gold bow tie, waved me in. “I just got off the phone with the DA. He’s sounding more and more confident. He says he’s going to show a pattern of threat and intimidation going back over time. He’s got Pepper’s run-in with the law and that 209-A the victim filed when she got here.”
“But didn’t bother to refile when it lapsed,” I said.
“Deemys claims that’s because Pepper didn’t know her whereabouts and she felt safe. Evidently he’s spoken with the woman we talked with yesterday—Lucinda Colón—and I think she’s going to be a prosecution witness. The idea is Pepper planned the murder in advance, that he’d finally located where the victim was living, and when the carnival came to town, he got in touch, lulled her with a visit on Saturday, and then strangled her on Sunday afternoon. The unlicensed handgun figures in there as a backup plan.”
“So he kills her with a scarf he’s given her and puts her in the field, where he’d be the instant suspect. Where’s the premeditation in that?”
“Stupidity doesn’t rule out a plan, Alex.”
“Or prove one.”
“If I can anticipate the prosecution’s case, they’ll claim expediency. The field rather than just leaving her in his trailer. Later he was going to dump her somewhere. Put her in the river, maybe. Or drive her up to the New Hampshire woods.”
“How was he going to get her there? His camper is set up in an encampment.”
“Bury her there behind the site, then. I don’t know. I’m just trying to think like the DA.”
“That could be a strain.”
He grinned. I mentioned Pop Sonders’s claim that the carnival people wouldn’t enter a trailer uninvited. Meecham said he’d have to think more about that. Courtney came in with a legal pad and took a seat. We talked through what we knew about the case so far, and then went to what our strategy ought to be. Meecham said that he was going to concentrate on getting Troy Pepper to provide answers to key questions that remained. I suggested that we also look into Flora Nuñez’s life in the days and hours before her death, to see if any suggestion of a motive other than what the DA was promoting might exist. Meecham assigned me the task.
Courtney lowered her reading glasses. “Won’t the police do that anyway?”
“They’ll get around to it,” I said, “but at the moment, where’s their incentive? They’re too focused on slamming the cell door on Pepper.”
At Courtney’s look of dismay, Meecham said, “Alex’s years as a police detective in this fair city have given him a certain hardening of the attitude.”
“Or dose of reality,” I said. “Drive by a road repair project. The cop’s been there for hours, waving traffic past. He’s bored. He’s drinking a coffee, jawing with the job boss, yet he looks at your vehicle, then at you. Cops are alert, they see things. Sometimes they’re wrong, but once they’ve got the idea you did something, they don’t let it go easily. They’ve got Pepper in their sights.”
Meecham said, “I see our defense growing out of shaking the DA’s contention of premeditation. Absent Pepper giving us something clear, I’m looking at a crime of passion. Pepper in a sudden rage strangles her, panics, and dumps her in the field. That’s what you might find out, Alex. Was there something Flora Nuñez might have done to provoke him? Was she seeing somebody else? Let’s learn more.”
“I’d like to get a look at her apartment,” I said.
“I don’t think we’ll be able to. I broached it with Deemys. It’s not considered a crime scene. The police don’t have to let us in.”
“If you can get the charge dropped to second degree,” Courtney said, “and he’s convicted, he’d still get a long sentence, wouldn’t he?”
“Better than life without parole. First we’ve got to find the evidence to support it, or no one’s going to buy it. Even so, whatever we come up with will have to convince a jury, and you can never predict how a jury will react. But the fact that the victim lived here and he doesn’t—and there’s his occupation—” He let out a small breath of frustration. “Even the most fair-minded jurors have notions about things, biases that can run deep.”
“Like the old idea of carnies as suspect,” Courtney said, thin lines of worry marring her brow, like the tiniest cracks in a bone china plate.
“At best,” I agreed. “At worst, they’re viewed as a clear and present danger to decent folks everywhere. That’s sure to rear its head. I see it already starting.”
“So it’ll be best if we can come up with something strong,” Fred Meecham declared. “Very strong.”
From my office, I called some of the motels in the area, as I’d promised Pop last night I’d do, but if the places had any vacancies at all, the
rooms were scattered and few. There was some kind of trade show at the civic auditorium, I was told, and foliage was promising to be prime this year, so the leaf peeper bus tours were already starting. I called Pop back to tell him no luck so far, but his line was busy. Then, on my way to the car, I remembered a conversation I’d had with Moses Maxwell.