The body of Zachary Eugene Willet was found by a sixteen-year-old drummer, Tony “Rap” Corrigan, at 6 A.M., as he was preparing to leave on his bicycle to do his morning paper route.
“I thought old Zach had tied one on,” he explained excitedly to Jeff MacKingsley and Angelo Ortiz, who had rushed to the scene after the Chester police notified them of the 911 call. “But then, I could see all that dried blood. Yuck. I thought I’d throw up.”
No one in the Corrigan family remembered seeing Zach park the car. “It had to be after dark,” said Sandy Corrigan, Rap’s mother, a trim woman of about forty. “I know because there was an SUV parked there when I got home from work last evening at about quarter past seven. I’m a nurse at Morristown Hospital. The girls were with me when I came in. They go to my mother’s after school, and I pick them up on the way home.”
The three girls, ten, eleven, and twelve, were sitting next to their mother. In response to Jeff’s questions, it was clear that none of them had noticed anything unusual when they returned home. They had dashed past the SUV and spent the rest of the evening watching television.
“We do our homework with Nana,” the twelve-year-old explained.
Sandy’s husband, Steve, a fireman, had come home from work at ten o’clock. “I drove right into the garage without a glance at the street,” he explained. “We had a real busy shift, a fire in a house that was about to be pulled down. We think some kids did it. Thank God I’ve got four good kids. We encourage them to have their friends here. Rap is a great drummer. He practices all the time.”
“Zach was planning to move over the weekend,” Sandy Corrigan volunteered. “He was always complaining about Rap’s drums, and anyhow I told him that when his lease was up, we wouldn’t renew it. We need the room. This was my mother-in-law’s house. We moved in after she died. I felt kind of sorry for Zach. He was such a loner. But I have to tell you, I was delighted when he said he was leaving.”
“Then he didn’t have much company?” Jeff asked.
“Never,” Sandy Corrigan said emphatically. “He’d get here around six or seven at night, and almost never went out. Weekends he’d stay upstairs if he wasn’t going back to the riding club, but as often as not, he was there. That was more his home than this place.”
“Did he tell you where he was moving?”
“Yes. He was taking the model unit at Cartwright Town Houses in Madison.”
“Cartwright?” Jeff exclaimed.
“Yes, Ted Cartwright, the developer, is building them.”
“What isn’t he building?” her husband asked sourly.
“I would think that one of those town houses would be quite expensive,” Jeff said casually, trying not to let his excitement show. Cartwright, again, he was thinking.
“Especially if it comes furnished,” Sandy Corrigan agreed. “Zach claimed Mr. Cartwright was going to give it to him because he saved his life once.”
“Two moving men came by to pack for Zach yesterday, Mr. MacKingsley,” Rap volunteered. “I let them in at about three o’clock. I told them one of them could probably have done the whole job in an hour. Zach didn’t have much stuff up there. They didn’t stay long, and only took out a couple of boxes that didn’t weigh much.”
“Did they give you their cards?” Jeff asked.
“Well, no. I mean they had uniforms on and a truck. Anyway, why would anyone come to pack for Zach who wasn’t on the level?”
Jeff and Angelo looked at each other. “Can you describe these men?” Jeff asked.
“One of them was a big guy. He had dark glasses on, and had kind of funny looking blond hair. I think it was dyed. He was kind of old—I mean, more than fifty. The other guy was short, and maybe about thirty or so. To be honest, I didn’t pay too much attention to them.”
“I see. Well if anything comes back to you about them, I’m leaving my card with your mother.” Jeff turned to Sandy Corrigan. “Have you got a key to Zach’s apartment, Mrs. Corrigan?” he asked.
“Of course.”
“May I have it please? Thank you all very much for your cooperation.”
The forensic unit was dusting the handle of the door to Zach’s apartment and the doorbell. “Oh, we’ve got a nice clean one here,” Dennis from the lab commented. “We got a partial off the door of the car, too. That one someone tried to wipe off.”
“I haven’t had a chance to tell you,” Jeff told Angelo as he turned the key in the door from the porch to the apartment and pushed it open. “I spoke to Zach Willet by phone at five o’clock last night.”
They started up the stairs, which creaked under the weight of their feet. “What kind of guy did he seem to be?” Ortiz asked.
“Cocky. Very sure of himself. When I asked if I could come over and have a talk with him, he told me that, as a matter of fact, he was thinking of arranging a meeting with me. He said he might have some interesting things to tell me, but there’d be a few details we’d have to work out. He said that between the three of us, he was sure we could come to an understanding.”
“The three of us?” Angelo asked.
“Yes, the three of us—Celia Nolan, Zach, and me.”
There was a narrow hallway at the top of the stairs. “The old railroad flat layout,” Jeff commented. “All the rooms off the hall.” They walked a few steps and looked into what was meant to be a living room.
“What a mess,” Angelo said.
The couch and chairs had been slit in every direction. Stuffing oozed out from the faded upholstery. The rug had been rolled up and flipped over. Shelves of knickknacks had been dumped onto a blanket.
Silently, the men walked into the kitchen and the bedroom. Everywhere it was the same—contents of drawers and dressers had been tossed onto towels or blankets; the mattress on the bed had been sliced open. In the bathroom, the medicine chest had been emptied into the tub. Loose tiles were stacked on the floor.
“The self-proclaimed moving men,” Jeff said quietly. “Looks more like a wrecking crew.”
They went back into the bedroom. Ten or twelve photo albums were thrown together in a corner. It was obvious that pages had been yanked from them. “I think the first album was sold the day the camera was invented,” Ortiz observed. “I never could understand the fixation with old photos. When old people die, the next generation keeps the photos for sentimental reasons. The third generation keeps a few pictures of the great-grandparents to prove that they had ancestors, and deep-sixes the rest.”
“Along with the medals and prizes the grandparents treasured,” Jeff said in agreement. “I wonder if those guys who were here found what they were looking for?”
“Time to talk to Mrs. Nolan?” Angelo asked.
“She’s hiding behind her lawyer, but maybe she’ll agree to answer some questions with him present.”
They stopped again in the living room. “The kid downstairs said the moving men took out some boxes. What do you think was in them?”
“What could possibly be missing around here?” Jeff asked.
“Who knows?”
“Papers,” Jeff said briefly. “Do you see a single bill or letter or any scrap of paper in this place? I say that whoever was here didn’t find what he wanted. Maybe he’s looking for safe-deposit-box or storage-room receipts.”
“How’s this for artwork?” Ortiz asked dryly, lifting a broken picture frame. “Looks as though this was the mirror over the couch, and Zach took the mirror out and made this monstrosity.” In the center of the frame there was a large caricature of Zach Willet, which was surrounded by dozens of pictures with inscriptions that had been taped around it. Ortiz read the inscription under the caricature. “ ‘To Zach, on the occasion of your twenty-fifth anniversary at Washington Valley.’ I guess everybody was asked to give their pictures that night with a sentiment written on it. I’d also bet they sang ‘For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow’ to the poor guy.”
“Let’s take that with us,” Jeff said. “We might find something interesting in it. And now, it’s past eight o’clock, not too early to pay a little visit to Mrs. Nolan.”
Or a little visit to Liza Barton, he corrected himself silently.