| |
Tuesday, December 4
Adam made himself a breakfast of coffee and blueberry waffles from scratch. The berries made them a health food, right? Wonder what Jinks’s Felicia would say about that? Besides, you couldn’t be a true Vermont patriot sans something with maple in it or on it to start off your day.
Ordinarily, he’d make an asparagus frittata or some scallion goat cheese muffins. Zelda once loved his cooking, happy to try out his latest creations. But apparently, that love wasn’t enough to keep her from leaving him for the town’s mayor-turned-wannabe-governor. A man who could afford his own cook. And butler and gardener.
But today, Adam didn’t feel like cooking, not when he knew Harlan was getting some lukewarm java and stale toast. Harlan liked to have the same thing every morning—one egg over easy, one strip of maple bacon, one English muffin toasted soft but not crisp, with orange marmalade.
That image of a forlorn Harlan sitting on the hard cot in his cell was enough to make Adam lose his appetite altogether. He hurriedly got dressed and flew down to the station, where Jinks was waiting for him in his office. She dangled a key in her hand. “Ready to make good use of all those search warrants?”
Adam pointed at the key. “Whose is that?”
“The victim’s. He rented half of a duplex on Mayhew. Not too far from the train station. Used to be where the owner of Rory’s Five and Dime lived, but his heirs chopped the place into two units.”
When Adam and Jinks arrived in front of that duplex ten minutes later, Jinks added, “Looks like the heirs needed the money. Don’t think they’ve spent any time fixing up this dump.”
Adam got out of the car to peer into a window on the unit next to Ryall’s. “Empty.”
They used Jinks’s key to get in and soon realized it wouldn’t take long to investigate the place. He pulled out a pair of nitrile gloves and handed one to her. “Jim Riley said the tech guys would already be here, but I guess we can get started. Don’t think it’ll take the team over a half-hour to print the place.”
Jinks surveyed the room, which was basically a long rectangular box with a small kitchen at the end and a narrow staircase to the second floor. She nodded at the staircase. “Start at the top, work our way down?”
They did, and though they were accustomed to home conditions of all kinds, this one was pretty pathetic. Not due to the usual piles of junk or trash lying around—in fact, the room was surprisingly pristine. But all it contained was one twin metal-frame bed with a faded maroon paisley comforter, a micro-chest-of-drawers, and one chair.
The only decoration in the room was a photo on the chest that Adam picked up. The face of an attractive, smiling blonde woman peered back at him. He turned it around to show Jinks. “Girlfriend, perhaps?”
Jinks snorted. “With a room like this? Maybe he cut it out of a magazine and framed it. Virtual girlfriend.”
The downstairs didn’t prove much more interesting, although they did focus on the shed in the rear of the house where Wally made some of his custom skis. A pair of half-finished skis lay on a worktable waiting for their crafter—who was never coming back.
Adam picked up a ski and examined it. “Your source was right. Ryall really was a pretty talented wood craftsman, if this is any indication. Too bad he didn’t focus on these instead of lawsuits for a living.”
They made one last sweep through the downstairs and were heading out when Joe Brimm and the forensics guys arrived with their gear. Leaving them to their work, they headed over to Harlan’s home. This was much harder for Adam, and he had to take a deep breath before he headed inside.
Jinks shot him a sympathetic look. “I could do this one alone. Then Mayor Lehmann wouldn’t have more ‘conflict of interest’ bullshit to sling around.”
Adam shook his head and used his copy of Harlan’s house key to let them inside. Knowing this place as well as his own, Adam would be able to make quick work of it, too, but he made sure they were slow and thorough.
Jinks stopped at one point and huffed. “What did you expect, Adam? Swords? Weapons? Bloody clothing? Harlan’s face should be on a bottle of house cleaner, this place is so neat.”
“That’s Harlan for you.” To Adam’s immense relief, only did they not find dirt, they didn’t find anything that could tie Harlan to Ryall.
Jinks did find another interesting unframed photo, which she showed Adam. “Beverly Laborde.”
He studied it. “Wonder when this was taken? Somehow I don’t think a con woman would want her picture out there.”
“Don’t you mean former con woman?” Jinks grinned at him. “Because if she’s still in the biz, you might find yourself having to arrest her, too. Again.”
Adam didn’t grin back. He knew why Beverly had done what she’d done. Trying to help victims of the NAL misdeeds and right what she felt were wrongs. Even if it was technically illegal.
In reply to Jinks’s ribbing, he merely said, “She knows better now.”
Jinks said, “Um hmm,” and replaced the photo.
§ § §
So it wouldn’t be a total waste of a morning, they decided to head to the Tossed Treasures shop and chat with Prospero, who was holding down the fort, as Harlan had asked. This time, he wasn’t waving or smiling, although he seemed determined to be polite.
The young man’s mother had named him “Prospero” from a beat-up copy of Shakespeare’s The Tempest she had as a girl, reading it over and over. She emigrated to Vermont from Puerto Rico at age sixteen with baby Prospero in tow—after an uncle moved here to work in the mining industry, saying Vermont had low unemployment.
They quickly settled in the Rutland and Barre area, the centers of marble and granite quarrying and carving in the States. Young Prospero had hated mining and hated the snow, but he stayed, anyway. He’d once told Adam he thought Harlan was about as good an employer as you’re going to get.
Adam asked to see all the items Reuben Ryall bequeathed to Harlan in his will. Prospero dutifully showed them an array of swords, spears, blunt weapons, and some pieces of armor, as he said, “That policeman with the fingerprinting gear yesterday was quite thorough.”
“Good.” Adam looked around the shop. Couldn’t tell Joe Brimm had been there, which was his trademark. Thorough but discreet.
Prospero added, “Although I think he was a bit upset when Miss Laborde arrived. Was afraid she’d tainted evidence.”
Adam whipped his head around to stare at Prospero. “Beverly Laborde was here? Wasn’t the shop locked?”
“We thought it was. But she came in through the back door.”
Adam’s blood pressure rocketed up through his body and launched into the stratosphere. The nerve of that woman. Giving him a hard time about arresting Harlan when Adam was just doing his job, and here she was, waltzing in and potentially screwing up everything.
He could feel Jinks’s scrutiny as she butted in to ask, “So, Prospero. Adam said the murder weapon was a Tritonia sword? What’s that? A sword looks like a sword to me.”
“Oh my, no. There are hundreds, if not thousands of different kinds of swords. Asian, Egyptian, European. Your basic sword has a long, edged piece of forged metal, but it can have single or double-bladed edges. And the blade itself can be straight or curved.”
Prospero started warming up to the subject with a string of information that made Jinks, who was writing everything down, grit her teeth, but Adam welcomed the tedious details. It helped him focus.
Harlan’s assistant lectured on, “There’s the arming sword, sometimes called a knight’s sword, a single-handed cruciform weapon.” He picked up another piece, “And then you have your falchion, kinda like a scimitar, with a curved blade. Or this long sword over here, often used with both hands, which is great for hewing, stabbing and slicing.”
Jinks asked, “And the Tritonia?”
“Well, I can’t show you that one.” He chewed on his lip and hastened to add, “But I guess you’ve seen it, haven’t you? Evidence and all. The Tritonia weighs about three and a half pounds, but it handles easily. Intended to deliver large cleaving strikes from horseback.”
“Were there any other Tritonias in the Ryall lot?”
“No, only the one.”
Adam spoke up. “You’ve checked all the estate items against your original catalog, and nothing else was missing?”
Prospero nodded. “There’s something else, and I don’t know if this will help. But a friend of mine thinks the victim was a member of the Society for Creative Anachronism.”
Jinks said, “Those guys who dress up in armor and chain mail and pretend that indoor plumbing wasn’t a good idea?”
A slow smile spread across Prospero’s face. Adam almost had a smile to match at his partner’s snarky sense of humor, a Jinks secret weapon that came in handy in interviews.
He asked, “Prospero, can you tell us anything more about the Society and Wallace Ryall’s association with it?”
“No, ‘fraid not. Detective. The Society is part-owner of a lodge and conference center next to the Nature Preserve. They can practice all that Medieval swashbuckle stuff in winterized comfort. And plenty of indoor plumbing.”
At Adam’s request, Prospero led them to Harlan’s office, even though Adam could have simply barged in there. He wanted everything to appear by the book. After their search, which didn’t turn up anything incriminating to no one’s surprise, Adam and Jinks left.
Adam felt more like smiling when they were outside. “Well, now, our victim was a member of a sword-playing group and was murdered with a sword. Maybe things are looking up for Harlan.”
“I hope so.”
The unhappy look on her face made him ask, “Anything I should know about?”
“I didn’t want to tell you right off the bat, but Mayor Lehmann’s stirring the waters into a tempest over this. He called the chief this morning. Wants to make sure Chief Quinn keeps you in line. So far, Quinn is trying to play both sides.”
“Parrying, Jinks?”
“When in Rome. Or should I say, Hastings or Amesbury?”
They found the address for the lodge, and Adam called Chief Quinn to keep him up to date. Yep, by the book, i’s dotted and t’s crossed. Harlan’s future depended on it.
