FOUR

 

His fingers were stiff and stubborn, but one by one Colby Jarvis punched the six oblong wooden knobs through the loops down the front of his coat. Then he wrenched up the collar and thrust his hands in his pockets, the satin lining as cold and unyielding as his fingers. He strode out the end of the Alton Bay Condominiums complex and onto Route 28. He headed downhill—south—for no reason other than it was easier than walking uphill on the slick roadway.

Snowplows had passed; still an inch of snow clung to the pavement, hard as cement in some places, coarse as oatmeal in others. With each step he dug in his heels to keep from falling on his nose. The way things were going today the blade of the next plow that rumbled by would scoop him up and heave him into the woods. His body wouldn’t be found till spring thaw.

A few cars had slogged by since the plow; their tracks were etched parallel to each other like lines of cocaine. Why think about coke at a time like this? Oh yes, yesterday’s training film. Yesterday. A lifetime ago. He jammed his hands deeper and ducked his head against the breeze off the bay. What the hell was he doing still in New Hampshire? Hadn’t he vowed at Liz’s funeral that he’d ditch it all and head south?

Jarvis climbed over the mountain of snow along the shoulder of the road. He forged a trail, estimating the location of the narrow walkway that meandered here for the tourists. He passed the pavilion and cleared one of the benches positioned to afford the best view up the bay. How often he and Liz had huddled here, on this very bench, holding hands, reveling in each other’s company. Liz. The single constant in his life.

He reached out his right hand, imagined her warm one gripping his fingers. “Damn it, Liz, I killed a man.”

Okay, he’d said the words that had been circling in his brain since it all happened. Killed somebody. Another human being. All his years behind a badge and this had never happened. How did a person go on after such a thing? Every time he picked up his gun, he’d see John’s surprised expression as he realized what happened. Jarvis wondered if placed in a situation where he had to draw his gun, would he hesitate to fire?

“I killed a man.”

What would Liz say? That it’s a terrible thing. Nobody deserves to die that way. So young. But she would also say, “It’s not your fault.

Why hadn’t he noticed the substituted gun? Because they were exactly the same, except one lacked a firing pin. Damn. He should’ve noticed anyway! Jarvis dropped forward cupping his frigid face in his hands. And for the first time since Liz’s funeral ten years ago, he cried.

Then he felt like an idiot. Jarvis jumped up and kicked at the pile of snow he created when he brushed off the bench. He kicked and kicked until the entire area lay bare to the grass.

What about his good-for-nothing father? What the hell was he doing in town? Looking for a handout probably. Jarvis kicked at another snowbank and flopped on the bench. What kind of man discards his wife and three young sons like week-old fish? Worse than that, why come back? What the hell did the fucking deserter want?

Did the army still shoot deserters?

Across the bay, daylight urged pale shades of gray between the spires of dark emerald pines, their spiny branches bent under the weight of the new-fallen snow. Great wads of the stuff tumbled loose, bounced off lower branches and ruptured back into its original form. Gusting flake-clouds decorated the landscape like fog. Out on the road, the swoosh of cars slogging through the road crud brought a reminder that another day had arrived. He forced himself off the bench. Rear end wet and numb, he retraced his steps. Right then Jarvis realized why he hadn’t escaped this place. Simple. Liz would’ve called him a quitter.

He never quit at anything.

He scaled the bank and trod up the road, feeling the splash of shit on his backside each time a car passed. Every barb of ice striking him was penance; he’d cheated on Angelina in his mind. Liz was dead. He had to accept it.

The lights were on in her condo. But he couldn’t face her right now.

Four minutes later, he eased the Jeep down his unplowed street. His ranch house, the second place on the left, looked forlorn and violated. The driveway was a mishmash of tire and footprints. Out front, one of the major crimes vehicles swathed in an inch of snow had parked half on a snowbank.

They’d entered through the back porch, an inch of snow covered it too. That meant the investigators were done in the house and had set to work rousting his neighbors from their nice warm beds. Lights were on up and down the short street. “See anything out of the ordinary in the neighborhood yesterday afternoon?” “Anyone at Jarvis’ house?” “Does he get along with everybody?” Yada, yada.

Jarvis stood in the kitchen doorway, leaning on the raised panel, waiting for the usual hominess to set in; the sense of wellbeing at returning after a long day. When Liz was alive, the place always smelled like cooking and furniture polish. That scent had been replaced by his own smells—aftershave and gun oil. But they were his smells, things he’d become comfortable with. Till today.

A stranger had violated his space, framed him for murder. Why? Sure, cops ruffled feathers, made enemies. The past couple years, things around town had been fairly quiet. The most recent thing, nine months ago, netted a gunrunning operation. The ringleader escaped capture. Had he come back for revenge?

Jarvis didn’t bother removing his boots. The floor was already a mess. He hung his coat in the closet then trudged toward the bedroom. He stopped halfway down the hallway. Maybe the why of it had little to do with him. Maybe this someone simply wanted John dead and he was the vehicle by which the deed was accomplished. But why choose Angelina’s theater? Between renovating contractors, hiring production and theater staff, interviewing potential actors, perhaps hundreds of people had been through the building. Possible for any crackpot to devise and set up something like this. Most likely, though, it was someone closely related to the place. Someone who walked the cavernous building at will.

Jarvis thumped along the bare wood floor to the bedroom. Black fingerprint dust dotted most of the flat surfaces. The dresser top was strewn with his underwear, t-shirts and socks, all the stuff from the top left drawer where he kept his service revolver. He slid it open envisioning the drawer as it had been earlier in the day: balled pairs of socks lined up across the back, briefs in two piles on the right side, t-shirts taking up the rest of the space, the gun nestled between.

With the back of his hand he slammed the thing shut, then marched down the hallway, shrugged into his coat and stormed out the back door. The clock neared seven-thirty when he let himself into Angelina’s condo. Vanilla and coffee scents swirled in the air. He tried to take off the coat but his stiff fingers wouldn’t work the awkward buttons. He crouched to remove his boots.

Angelina stood in the kitchen. Her bare toes poked from under the long robe as she glided toward him. He folded his arms around her, burying his fingers in the fleece folds, so soft and warm…and unyielding. She was still angry. He didn’t blame her. The jealousy monster wouldn’t stay hidden. That single entity that stood between he and Liz had now erected a wall between he and Angelina. He hadn’t told her about the group counseling, even though they encouraged openness. He wanted her to think he was ousting the demons on his own. He sighed. Time to tell her, to let her know he was at least trying.

“I’m sorry. Very sorry,” he whispered and felt her spine thaw a little.

They might’ve held each other like that all day if Gloria’s voice hadn’t burst them apart. “What time did you lovebirds finally roll in?”

Jarvis laughed, seeing a blush burst up the back of Angelina’s neck. He slid onto the stool Angelina had vacated. She moved to pour two more cups of coffee and brought the cups to the center island counter. Jarvis took one with a nod of thanks. He closed his fingers around his cup, feeling the welcome warmth ease away the tingling sensations. He winked at Angelina. As she pushed the third cup across to her mother some of the hot liquid sloshed on the back of her hand. Jarvis plucked a napkin from the holder and dabbed it on her.

“Mom, what’s going on?” Angelina asked.

“I don’t know what you mean, dear.”

“You’re grinning like the Cheshire Cat,” Jarvis said.

“Well…” she drew out the word. “I met a man last night.” She plunged the spoon in the sugar bowl. “Jarvis, aren’t you going to take off your coat?” Then she frowned. “Why is Angie wearing a robe and you’re in a coat?”

He said, “I just got here” the same time Angelina accused, “You didn’t see the show last night.”

“I told you I’d be there, dear.”

Angelina flew up and faced her mother. “I can’t believe you could lie to me like that. You know how hard I’ve worked for this and you couldn’t even bother coming to the performance.”

Jarvis hopped up and took her arm. “Relax,” he whispered. “You’re overreacting.”

“I am not overreacting. My entire life everything I did took second to my brother. She went to Robin’s ball games, drove Robin to and from his friend’s houses, was even a den mother for his scout group. Did she ever do any of that for me? Well, did you?” She flung off Jarvis’ hands and whirled on Gloria. “And now you’ve ditched me for a perfect stranger.”

Gloria’s mouth literally hung open. She dropped back onto a stool as if she’d been pushed. Angelina threw him a see, I was right look. He wanted to kiss her pain away. He knew what unwanted felt like. Why else would a father take off the way his had? Jarvis urged her to sit, placed a mug in her hands, which he instantly thought might be a mistake. Was she the type to throw things?

He tried again to unbutton his coat, but still his damned fingers wouldn’t work. Angelina stood again and helped. Her manner had thawed a bit. He liked that in her—she didn’t stay angry for long. Right now, she had every right to be mad. How inconsiderate of her mother not to acknowledge all the hard work. The coat came off. Angelina disappeared to the living room with it. He took the opportunity to scowl at Gloria in hopes she’d mend the situation before it grew into a rift too big to heal.

But she didn’t.

“We had some trouble at the theater last night,” Jarvis said. “John Bloom…he died.”

“How terrible! Now I see why you’re so upset,” she said when Angelina returned.

“Yes, and I’m doubly upset that you think so little of me.”

Though he had no desire to expand on it, to diffuse a potentially dangerous situation he related the events of last night. He didn’t mention being removed from the case, couldn’t make the words come out of his mouth.

Gloria voiced the appropriate words about John’s death, but ignored all her daughter’s accusations, and left to shower and dress. She had a date for breakfast with her newfound friend whom she described as gallant and distinguished, and well off. Jarvis raised his eyebrows as Gloria kissed his cheek. “Take care,” she said and left the room.

“So…” Angelina said, bending toward him. “Can we continue the talk about your father?” Then she leaned back and waited for him to fill in the blanks.

The image brought a smile. Liz was always the opposite. If she knew something bothered him, she pestered and nagged till he let it out. He took a breath. “Is there any more coffee?”

Angelina slanted her mouth at him, but got up and poured the last of the pot into his mug. She sat and busied herself pouring milk in her cup. He listened for the sound of the upstairs shower before speaking again. “I told you a lot about my childhood.”

“You told me you and your brother grew up in a logging camp in Canada someplace north of Minnesota. You said your mother cooked for a hundred men in the camp. You said she was your teacher and mentor and she died ten years ago. I thought you said your father died when you were three.”

He suddenly couldn’t meet her eyes. “I got in the habit of saying that because the truth was too embarrassing. He ran off. Just up and left us one night when I was almost four.”

“Why is that embarrassing?”

“I guess in the eyes of a kid, dying is better than being deserted. For a long time I believed he left because of me. That day I broke a window in the store. Which, to most people is no big deal. But glass was hard to come by at the camp.”

“So now he’s back.”

Jarvis peered into the depths of the cup rather than at her. Not that she was passing judgment. She wasn’t like that. “Yes, he’s back.” She waited, but he knew the question on her lips was what are you going to do? “I guess I’ll meet with him; find out why he’s chosen this time to come back.” He drained the rest of the coffee and got up to put the cup in the dishwasher. Then he sat back down. “What’s he like?”

“Good looking, polite. Canadian accent. Carries himself well—like an actor. I thought he’d come to try out for a part.”

“Figures you’d be thinking of that.”

“What can I say? Otherwise, he seemed nice. What about his name? Dodge.”

He shrugged. “Not sure.”

“Maybe Jarvis was your mothers’ maiden name.”

“It’s possible.” He stood up. “Guess he’ll know more about that.”

“Any idea where he’s staying?”

“No, but I can find him.” Jarvis strode to the hallway, picked his coat from the arm of the sofa and slipped into it.

Angelina moved close and began buttoning his coat for him. Her sleep smells melded with the slight aromas of fabric softener and coffee. Very erotic.

“Where are you going now?”

He backed a step away. “To the office. I want to see what they’ve turned up.”

“I thought you’d been, um…”

“Relieved of duties,” he finished, though the words literally hurt moving up his throat.

“Will they tell you anything about the case?”

“Don’t know why they shouldn’t,” he said with more conviction than he felt. He pulled her into a hug, kissed the top of her head and then moved out into the chilly morning air.

* * * *

 

8:04 am. Outside, a blue-serge gray sky doused rain relentlessly off car roofs. Water ran underneath snowbanks, thawing them from the inside out. Jarvis rubbed his eyes with his knuckles and waited for the printer to spit out the information on John Bloom and Pedar Sondergaard. He turned from the window, grabbed the pages and dropped in his chair to read. Bloom’s info began with the most recent and worked backwards:

January ’03—granted the right to erect a 100’ X 30’ greenhouse.

February of ’02—granted permit to erect a 75’ x 20’ greenhouse.

March ’01—granted permit to operate Northeast Nurseries selling trees, perennials, vegetable and flowering plants at the Alton Village location.

November 2000—purchased 34 acres, ranch house and one-car garage in Alton Village with cash in the amount of $122,000.

No certificate of marriage ever issued.

NCIC—the National Crime Information Center—had no listing for John Bloom. That meant he had no arrest record, had never been fingerprinted, never been declared missing.

Income tax records wouldn’t arrive till Monday.

Bloom’s packrat habits had Sergeant Wilson all bleary-eyed, but turned up one lead—phone statements that went back practically to the day he’d moved in. All that interested Jarvis were the past three, three and a half, years; calls out of state or out of the country.

There they were, four international calls, all to the same number. He dialed information and could barely hear the operator’s words over his pounding heart. “The number, sir, belongs to a Pedar Niels Sondergaard of…” He didn’t hear the rest.

Jarvis set the Bloom folder aside and picked up Sondergaard’s page of information. Pedar Niels Sondergaard, born in Arhus, Denmark in 1954. Parents Enok and Lisbet Sondergaard. Graduated University of Nottingham, England, ’76, certificate in European Studies (Biosciences). In 1979, granted membership in EMBO (European Molecular Biology Organization). In 1982, opened Nielsen Nurseries, 1417 Kierkergaard, Amsterdam, Holland.

Jarvis pushed away from his desk, made a quarter turn to the left and tapped Nielsen Nursery Amsterdam Holland in the Google search square. The first hit: Nielsen Nurseries, owned by Pedar Niels Sondergaard. Page after page looked legitimate, a nursery specializing in irises. No mention of reds or research or anything like that, just irises available anywhere in the world. Six more pages of hits ultimately came back to the nursery or articles Sondergaard had written on iris genetics. Jarvis printed the Nielsen Nursery information then swung back to his desk.

Sondergaard had no arrest record. One marriage to a Clady Laila Madsen in 1985. No record of divorce.

Jarvis stood up and stretched out the kinks. He put on his jacket and left the office, stopping at the dispatcher’s station on the way out of the building. “Can you get me a phone number for the Danish police? I’ll be at Bloom’s. You can reach me on my cell.” The dispatcher shot him a dubious look.

Well, until someone picked him up and bodily heaved him off the case, he would forge ahead. Jarvis looked at his watch but the time didn’t register in his brain. “Wilson should be about finished by now.” Jarvis pulled open the glass door and was assaulted immediately by driving rain.

He stopped at McDonalds for two large coffees, had the lid off one and half the contents drunk before getting out of the parking lot.

Wilson should be ready to wrap up the evidence gathering. As far as Jarvis had seen, the crook, or crooks, hadn’t left much to examine but seventy-five feet of dirt and chopped up plants.

Three minutes later, wipers at full throttle, he slid into Bloom’s driveway behind the sergeant’s police car. He jammed the deerstalker on his head, grabbed the coffees, and trekked to the greenhouse.

He thought about Angelina warm and cozy in her bed. Sleep would be an illusive entity for a few days at least. Still he imagined himself curled up beside her. It would be hard keeping her out of this case. The guy, after all, died in her theater. Angelina would take this personally.

Jarvis stumbled in a snow-pit, said a thank-you for not dropping the coffees and kept walking. He had to admit it. Angelina Deacon was good…in more ways than one…not only beautiful and sexy, she had a logical mind that could sift through information in an unemotional manner.

He burst into the greenhouse, startling Sergeant Wilson to his feet. Ambrose Wilson was tall and thin with gaunt cheeks and bony knuckles. His longish hair the captain constantly nagged him to cut, hung down his forehead. The usual ramrod straight back was somewhat bent, the shoulders stooped. Wilson’s requisite rubber gloves were coated in black potting soil. He spotted the coffee in Jarvis’s hands. He grinned, peeled off the gloves and heaved them atop the mound. “Didn’t think you could stay away.”

“How’s Bennie?”

He grinned. “She had a long labor. Handled it like a trooper.” Wilson laughed. “She’s already talking about having another. Wants to keep going till she gets a daughter.”

“What did you name the baby?”

“Richard Evan.”

“Nice.” Jarvis gestured toward the mess with the hand holding the nearly empty cup. “Find anything?”

“Not a thing. No stray fingerprint. No unrelated footprint.”

“No red flower?”

“Got white and yellow. Got orange and pink. Got plain brown. Got about a dozen shades of red. But no red red.” Wilson plucked off the lid and took a long drag. “I’ve sifted through a ton of this shit.”

“Where did the perps park?”

“We found a set of tracks and a million footprints behind the building. Looks like they came up a log road, cut themselves a back door in that thick greenhouse plastic and took the stuff out that way.”

“What’s the road like?”

“Narrow, bumpy.” Wilson drank again.

“Could a car drive on it without headlights?”

“Possible, but difficult. It leads to the paved road after a hundred feet.”

“Tire tracks?”

“SUV. A big one. Footprints indicate at least three people. They all wore sneakers.”

“You been in the house yet?”

“Not yet. Got a few minutes left here.”

“Gimme the key.”

Without hesitation Wilson handed the key across to him. “Sorry about the suspension. Damned low thing to do.”

Jarvis shrugged. “Procedure.” He launched himself out into the rain. Half way to the house, he stopped in his tracks. Water  ran off the brim of his hat so hard he couldn’t see. He started moving again, the key ridges digging into his palm.

Inside, the smell hit him almost immediately. The coppery aroma of fresh blood. The sick-sweet smell of death. His mouth went dry. His cheeks burned. Jarvis considered returning to the Jeep for his gun. To the greenhouse to get Wilson. To the phone—good idea. He used his cell to tell dispatch to send Wilson and backup to the house. He peered out the window in the door—to be sure his brain hadn’t played tricks on him. No, just his footprints in the snow. And some full of fresh snow—had to be what he and Angelina made earlier. That meant whoever was in the house came in a different way. Damn, he’d only been here a couple of hours ago.

The place was dark. The morning light seemed absorbed by all the cartons. Jarvis stole a knife from the dish drainer. Senses alert, hands ready to use as weapons, he sneaked through the kitchen. Jarvis squinted into the shadows behind and between piles of boxes and books in the dining room. He did likewise in the living room, adrenaline shooting through his veins like lava.

In the hallway four closed doors. The two on the left, cellar and bedroom/storeroom. The two on the right were the bathroom and master bedroom. He pushed open and checked each room in turn, knowing the futility of it because every cop’s instinct said the odor came from the master bedroom.

The door stood open about a foot. He could see the back half of the bed against the wall. Dark headboard. Bed neatly made. Bedside table with a lamp and miscellaneous stuff.

The whispered words, “What’s wrong?” in his ear nearly gave Jarvis a coronary. Wilson shoved his gun in his hand. He used the barrel to edge the door open, keeping the knife in his left hand, ready too.

Then he saw the feet. White socks. Legs clad in dark denim. A male.

Gripping the gun in both hands, arms rigid and straight, Jarvis inched into the room. In one flash of thought, he thought of John and felt no hesitation in holding this gun.

The body lay on its side. Black leather jacket, much like the one Jarvis had worn in the play. The dead man’s left arm lay wedged between two piles of books, right arm bent and partially under the bed. Caucasian, cocoa brown hair, wispy mustache. Brown eyes gaping wide. Whoever shot him had surprised the shit out of him.

“Who is it?” asked Wilson.

“Damned if I know.