The Facepainter Murders Read online

  "Yes."

  "No, he never mentioned her, and I wouldn't have thought she was to his taste."

  "I wasn't thinking of her as his lover, but as a conspirator."

  She squeezed her eyebrows into a frown.

  "Conspirator. But I told you I didn't know about his criminal activities."

  "Yes, I know. Sometimes you know things but are unaware of the significance. What about a man called Bassett?"

  "Bassett. Once a man called us at home, on our private line, and John was very angry with him. I think his name was Bassett."

  "Do you know why your husband was so angry?"

  "He told me that he didn't want people who were business associates to call us at home."

  "He used that phrase, business associates?"

  "The French equivalent, yes."

  "What about Dan Abbott?"

  "No."

  "You thought your husband was having an affair. Did you have a name to go with that suspicion?"

  "Once, late at night, I heard him talking on his cell-phone. From his tone, I knew it was a woman. I think he called her Janice or Jane, some name like that."

  Her eyes filled with tears and she turned away from him.

  "Could you go now? I'm exhausted."

  "Sure. Thank you for your help," Adam said as he stood up.

  His thanks went unanswered. Not too bad, he thought. Some confirmation of a link between Bassett and Andrews, and possibly between Janice Maynard and Andrews.

  Adam left the hospital and made the short drive to the office of his academic adviser.

  The law faculty of the University of Vermont was brand-new, and Adam was one of the first students to enrol in the part-time law degree. That had worked well in the first year, but now, at the end of the second, he felt that he wasn't going to get all he could from the degree if he didn't attend full time.

  His advisor agreed and suggested that Adam consider a leave of absence from his job for the next year.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  The woman’s body rocked gently in the water, disturbed by a soft wind that had come up overnight. It drifted downstream towards the mill but paused in its journey at a curve, caught up on a submerged tree limb. The current tugged at it for an hour or more, and then sent it onwards towards the millpond. The wind pushed it onto a deadhead in the small bay where Anne had hidden, and there the body rested.

  A dog lifted her nose from the fascinating scents along the walking path. Something new in the air today. Something that made her anxious. Whining, she tugged on the leash, eager to search the thickets on the bank of the pond.

  “What’s up with this dog?”

  “Something’s wrong,” his wife said. “She sounds upset."

  "Follow her in.”

  The retractable leash had allowed the dog to wander far ahead of them and now she started to bark.

  “What now?” he said.

  “You look, if you want. I’m not going in there.”

  A moment later, his wife returned, dragging the reluctant dog.

  “There’s a body in there. Call the police.”

  Matilde had gone into the water alive but unconscious, the ME thought. The head injury had been pre-mortem and she had drowned. Her lungs were full of river water. A shocked and silent crew listened to the ME’s report.

  Pictures of the dead and dying stared down at them from a corkboard. Anne sat at the rear.

  When the medical examiner had left them, Captain Naismith summed up their case; two murders, two assaults and one dead in a car accident. The last would be investigated by the county, both because of the locale and because Adam had been involved.

  “Did we get anything from the corpse in the car?”

  “No,” Brad replied. “The dental records confirmed that it was Abbott.”

  “What physical evidence do we have?”

  “Fingerprints at scene one, plus two hairs. Nothing on Matilde. The river took care of that. Shell casings in the mill. Fingerprints at Trevelyan’s that matched those at scene one.”

  He pointed in turn to pictures of the dead art dealer, Matilde, the mill and Trevelyan.

  “What next?” Naismith asked Adam.

  “We have a crew at Matilde’s home. Pete’s going over there. Brad will get some help and canvass the river bank upstream from where we found her. The ME thought she had been in the water about eight hours. There was a bit of wind last night.We figure that she came three miles max, less if she got hung up on anything.

  I’m going over to her apartment with Pete. I think those paintings are the key to this, so we’re going to be looking for them, or anything that links her to them. I figure she may have had a storage locker, so we’ll be looking for a key.”

  “Keep me in the loop.”

  “Will do.”

  If Matilde had a criminal career, she hadn’t spent the gains on her home, a cramped bachelor apartment in the old house with enough of everything for one—a sofa-bed, reading light, tiny table, television and one over-stuffed chair. Same in the cupboards—the sort of dishes you could buy in packages at the grocery store, with four of everything. Nothing on the walls, no computer. No clues at all into the woman’s life or personality.

  There were lots of clues to an intruder, though. Drawers were opened and the contents dumped, and the sofa slashed. The refrigerator stood open and the nauseating stench of decaying food and spoiled milk filled the room.

  “We’re looking for something like a locker key, that might connect her to a storage area,” he told the crew.

  Would she keep it in her apartment? If it were at Evan’s, it would take days to find. If it existed. He went outside and started in again from the street, looking for a reasonable place to hide a small object where it wouldn’t be found accidentally.

  The house had been converted to apartments long ago. Three concrete steps, with an iron railing on one side, led up from the street to a flagstone walkway interrupted by weeds, grass and an occasional tiny remnant of ornamental planting between the stones. He tried the stones as he walked along, but none was loose.

  Trash and a bicycle rack stood alongside unpainted steps up to a locked entrance. A rusting mailbox was tacked on the wall beside a doorbell that didn’t work. Where would she hide a house-key, he wondered, as he searched behind the stairs and under the little porch.

  The path continued as a dirt track beside the house and on past an old maple tree. A careless robin had built a nest on a low-hanging branch. Pale blue shells lay shattered on the ground.

  He could easily reach the nest, but Matilde was shorter.

  A step-stool leaned against the house. Possible. Deep in the feathers and fur lining the nest he found a small key, the kind that fits a padlock.

  Pete called him. “Adam, the crew’s done here. We didn’t find anything like a key.”

  “Okay.”

  As he came around the side of the porch, he told Pete to stay behind so they could have one final look at the apartment.

  “I got it. She hid it in a bird’s nest,” he told Pete when they were inside.

  “Looks like a padlock key.”

  “Yeah. What about self-storage units?”

  “The big outfits, like Hanes and Murphy’s, have good dead bolt locks, but that small one out by the motel where we found Andrews might use something like this. It’s for a cheap lock.”

  A row of bright-orange storage lockers—thin metal walls and a concrete pad, fronted with garage-style doors—stood behind a small equipment rental business. The owner identified the key as one of his. The number on the key corresponded to locker ten.

  He opened a grubby file folder. The unit had been rented by Cerise Lebray one year ago. No, they didn’t clock the renters in and out. The property was open 24/7.

  “Not much security,” Pete commented,

  “Most people store old junk. You want security, you go to Hane’s. Here’s ten. Don’t you guys have to have a search warrant or something?”

  “Lebra
y’s dead. We can take it from here,” he said as the now-curious owner started to tag along as they walked across the unpaved lot towards the rows of lockers. Adam waited until the owner got it.

  “Oh, yeah, okay. I’m outa here.”

  Number ten was the last in the first row. The door hadn’t been opened for a few days. Dirt and leaves from the recent storm came up with it. Two crates stood against the back wall of the locker, the sole occupants of the eight-foot square space. They hadn’t been there long. Very little dust had settled over the tops, although the floor had enough to show footprints.

  “Call the crew,” Adam instructed. “We’re not going in until we can get shots of those footprints, and anything on the door and crates.”

  As Pete started out the door, a shot hit his chest, spinning him around and throwing him to the ground. Adam dragged him inside the locker and got the door down, as he shouted for help into his shoulder radio.

  Adam yanked up Pete’s shirt, wadding it around the wound, calling his name. Pete’s skin was ashen, his breathing shallow and uneven. Where the hell was that ambulance?

  “Come on, Pete,” he urged. “Hang on, buddy.”

  A second shot hit the door. Another shot. What kind of madman thought killing cops would help in his situation? He could hear the sirens now. Moments later the door on the storage unit started up. Adam got to his feet, aiming his Glock at the door.

  ”Relax, Lieutenant, it’s us,” the paramedic voice assured him as his feet came into view.

  The manager of the rent-all place stood beyond the police lines. Shaking and stumbling over his words, he tried to convince Adam that he had nothing to do with the shooting.

  “A truck rolled up, Lieutenant. Next thing I knew, a guy in a black mask grabs a rifle and starts shooting. I went down behind the counter and stayed there until the ambulance came.

  “Did he see you?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “License plate.”

  “I got the first numbers. It was a Ford 150, black.”

  “What else did you see? What did he look like?”

  “Thin, not tall. He had on a hat, not a baseball cap, one of those floppy hats that old guys wear. Heavy blue jacket and jeans. That’s all I saw before I hit the floor.”

  “Okay. Anything else, you call.”

  "Okay.”

  Adam ran back to check Pete. The paramedics were finished hooking him up and inserting their lines. Moments later they were on their way. Adam walked to the back of the storage area and slit open the top of one of the crates. That one held the missing sampler. He left the other one for the crew to take in, and walked back to the office area. Brad met him at the door.

  Brad got a bulletin out on the truck and used his in-car computer to find a list of possibles in the area. The one that stood out belonged to Janice Maynard.

  What did a travel agent need with a truck? Anne noticed her near the mill after the shooting and worried that Maynard had overheard her conversation with Catherine.

  “We’ll check the Maynard woman first,” he told Brad.

  The shop was the only address that they had for her. An apartment above could be hers.

  The parking lot behind the shop exited into a back lane. Brad parked the cruiser across the narrow entrance. The Ford stood by the back door.

  “See if you can get anyone from the shooting to back us up here. She may be inside. Was there any other vehicle listed to her?”

  “No.”

  Brad called for backup, but a lone cruiser, with Dave Graham at the wheel, was all the back-up that could be spared. Together they made a careful entry into the building. Steep stairs ended in a closed door. Brad kicked the door with his heavy boot while Adam squeezed tight behind him.

  The place was empty. A featureless apartment, devoid of any personal items other than clothes and makeup, gave no leads to the woman who lived there. She took little with her as far as they could tell. An empty suitcase stood in a front closet; the dressers and closets were full of her flamboyant clothing. Adam left for the station, leaving Brad and Dave to finish.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Bassett couldn't stay long in his buddy's cabin. The cops would be all over that shore as soon as they found the boat. He spent summers here with his dad and knew every inch of the forest and the land to the north. He filled his pack with more supplies from the cabin, slung a rifle he found in the cache his friend kept hidden under the cabin and walked. Several miles further on was another lake and beyond that a third. All had cabins that wouldn't be used that time of year. He could break into one and lie low for a while or find a vehicle to steal.

  By evening he reached the second lake. Far behind him, he heard dogs for a while, but a detour through a beaver meadow and up a stream took care of them. He needed a place to sleep. He started around the shore, trying to remember where the camps were on this lake.

  He'd reached the remorseful stage, but his thoughts were still full of rage at his wife and the cops. His boys. Why did he take them? That was what he was sorry about. If he had left them at home, he could have gone back and taken them anytime. The social workers would get at them.

  He stopped at the edge of a clearing. Smoke spiraled into the darkening sky from the chimney of the tiny cabin. A battered truck sat out the back. He watched for a while. No dog outside. A man left, walked to the outhouse and after a time, back again. No one Bassett knew. The sun dropped behind the trees; the light failed. Still, he waited, for that final trip to the outhouse, for the inside lights to go off, for quiet. A tiny red truck, battered and scraped, stood a little distance from the cabin. The light from his flashlight reflected off keys in the steering column. He eased up the door handle and gave the door an experimental tug. The teeth-grating screech of metal on metal brought outraged barking from the cabin.

  The cabin light came on, and the door flew open.

  "Who's out there? Get away from my truck."

  Bassett turned, firing towards the voice.

  "What the fuck? Take the damn truck."

  The panicked voice was lost in the slam of the door, and the sudden darkness as the interior light went off again.

  Bassett opened the door, cranked the key in the ignition, and drove off down the dirt track that served as a lane to the cabin. What seemed like a mile later, he hit a gravel road.

  Now what? That guy had a phone or a radio. Cops would start looking for him up here. Now he'd have to change vehicles again.

  A few miles more, he stopped worrying about them linking him with the theft of the truck. Why would they, he thought? Just another kid stealing a truck, forgetting the shot he took at the owner. He needed a place to stay. He'd make sure there was no one home at the next cabin.

  He was a hundred miles from Culver's Mills when he took the Round Lake Rd. He knew that one well, too. No permanent homes at all, the last time he was up here. Three or four rough cabins, no water, no electricity. The shoreline was a swamp, with the ducks and the bugs the usual occupants. He knew that if he drove further, maybe ten miles, there was a crossroads, a gas station and a little general store. He could risk getting some supplies when he ran out. People up here were inclined to mind their own business.

  What was he going to do? What happened to the boys? He didn't want to go to Canada without them, but it would make it harder to cross the border if they traveled with him.

  He had reached that point in his thinking when he spotted a dirt track off to the left. Likely a trail into a camp. He made the turn and ended at a small clearing. No smoke from the chimney and no one came out to investigate the strange truck in the yard. He waited a little longer, and then, cradling the rifle in one arm, he walked up to the door. Unlocked. A sign inside read:

  Help yourself but leave it the way you found it.

  That wouldn't be a problem. It looked like his: a few basic pieces of furniture, mismatched plates and so on, mattresses on bunk beds in the next room, outhouse. Cans of food in the cupboard and an old wood stove
in the corner with a small stack of firewood beside it meant he wouldn't be cold or hungry for a while. He looked for a well and found a pump behind the house. Perfect. He threw himself on one of the sweat-soaked mattresses. After a time, he slept.

  Adam took a call from Prescott Jones, the sheriff in the county to the north.

  "Adam, we lost the bugger. He took to the swamps, and the creeks and the dogs lost the scent."

  "Yeah, my guys tell me he's quite a hunter and knows all that country up there."

  "He has to surface sometime. We'll keep looking."

  "Let me know."

  The old man behind the counter looked up as the screen door slammed. A burly, bearded man in a dirty plaid work- shirt and faded jeans walked up to the counter as he had every morning for several days now, bought one pack of cigarettes, a newspaper and a coffee, and went outside to sit on a bench in the sunshine. He hadn't answered the question about who he was, and no one knew where he lived. The store was the only one around for thirty miles, and the few customers were hunters and fishermen on their way in or out to their camps. This guy didn't seem to be on his way to anywhere.

  A sudden burst of profanity startled the shopkeeper. Bassett raged outside the door, tearing the newspaper into shreds and shaking his fist. The shopkeeper reached for the shotgun he kept under the counter, but Bassett ran across to his truck and roared off down the dirt road.

  "Wonder what set him off?" the old guy said as he looked through his copy of the paper. The front page held Ted Atkins' story about the missing boys and their father. The description fit that guy. The article said the county police were investigating. He picked up the phone and called his own sheriff.

  Counselling, Bassett stormed, post-traumatic stress, what the hell was that? His boys didn't need a shrink. A stable home, fuck. What was wrong with their mother, laying around in that hospital? He hadn't hit her that hard. Now, where would they send the kids? They'd turn the boys against him, those counsellors. They might not send them to foster care. One of those do-gooders would take them.