Three Can Keep a Secret Read online

  He wasn’t about to turn her down. “Absolutely, Doctor. Proceed.”

  “The female—Barbara Barber—clearly died of smoke inhalation, and her body was then consumed by the fire. From the report and photographs I received, I have no problem with the police suggestion that she died sitting in her wheelchair. William Friel, however, is a little more problematic, in that I found no signs of the same COD. His throat and lungs were clear of the soot I found in his mother, and his carbon dioxide level was within normal limits. His body did suffer extensively from the fire, making some of this hypothesis only approximately accurate, but right now, I’m thinking that in his particular microenvironment during the conflagration, Mr. Friel died of inhaling super-heated air—a flash fire—rather than of any products of combustion, such as smoke. In some cases, I can find perhaps a cardiac event to explain findings like these, but Mr. Friel appears to have had a perfectly normal middle-aged anatomy. He didn’t even have much alcohol in his system, which is something else I look for, especially in house fires.”

  “And naturally, you didn’t find a bullet,” Joe said.

  “Nor a bashed-in skull, nor a ligature around his neck,” she agreed. “As always, the toxicology screen will be coming back in a few weeks and may have something not readily apparent today, but right now, I’m afraid I’m going to have to label this one the same way I did Mr. Marshall.”

  “Undetermined,” Joe concluded.

  “Sadly, yes,” she concurred. “There is a lingering question deserving of further analysis, however,” she added hopefully.

  “Oh?”

  “It’s not much. But, again, it’s among the details I search for in cases like this. I always ask myself, ‘Why didn’t they get out?’ That’s usually answered by circumstances, as with Ms. Barber, who couldn’t move from her wheelchair, or by things like alcohol, drugs, or pre-conflagration death or disability. But as far as we know, Mr. Friel suffered from none of those. So, why did he stay in the building? It had to have been reeking of gas, given the way it went up.”

  Joe was nodding at the phone in agreement, enjoying in part how the back-and-forth between them—always a natural part of their friendship—felt only enhanced by their personal relationship having reached a new level. It served him as a tiny confirmation of the good feeling he’d been carrying around all day.

  “Have you considered suicide?” Hillstrom asked suddenly.

  “What?”

  “It’s not unheard of. You feel your world is at a dead end, you’re caring for someone whose suffering is only going to worsen…” She left the rest of her sentence unfinished.

  Instinctively, he rejected the idea, but he recognized her scientific process. And he’d been to the house. It wasn’t a stretch to superimpose her scenario onto the life of William Friel.

  Still, considering their other death of interest—and Beverly’s similarly unsatisfactory finding—it was unlikely that Friel, with his roundabout connection to Gorden Marshall, should all of a sudden choose this moment to park himself and his mother with Marshall at the morgue.

  Somebody lethal was controlling events here, from deep within the shadows, and as far as Joe knew, the only likely victim left—with direct ties to all three deaths—was Barb’s demented sister, wandering around on the loose. They’d circulated the “Be on the Lookout” press release, and it had been getting coverage in the media, but the state remained semi-crippled and distracted by the storm’s aftereffects, and Joe was suspicious of the publicity’s true impact.

  “Thanks, Beverly,” he told Hillstrom. “You’ve left me thinking, as usual.”

  “Coming back north soon?” she inquired seductively.

  “Count on it,” he replied.

  * * *

  Joe had been crossing the manicured lawn of The Woods during his call to Beverly, and now entered the main building to locate Sam—whom he’d asked to join him here, prepared for a long stay—and Lester, recently discharged from the hospital and cleared for light duty.

  He found them setting up in a small conference room in the office suite where they’d first met Hannah Eastridge.

  “Hillstrom have anything?” Sam asked as he entered, knowing that Joe had been calling the medical examiner—although ignorant of their enhanced relationship.

  “Another undetermined,” he said. “Whoever’s doing this is either very careful or really lucky. There was no smoke in Friel’s lungs, though, which certainly implies he was dead before the fire reached him.”

  “Same for the mom?” Lester asked.

  “No. With her, it looks like straight cause-and-effect. Makes sense—he was the one who needed to be taken out before the house could be rigged.”

  “Which, of course,” Sam added, still arranging pads and recording equipment on the table, “is another unproven theory.”

  “You not liking the arson/homicide premise?” Joe asked, his tone suggesting that he was open to suggestion.

  She looked up startled, ever the loyalist. “No, no. I was just saying.”

  “Point taken,” he told them. “But it can’t hurt to proceed on that theory until a better one comes up.”

  “Works for me,” she stressed again.

  “How do you want to do this, boss?” Lester asked, waving his hand across the table.

  Joe sat on a chair against the wall, to keep out of the way. “We have a vague sense of who some of Marshall’s friends were in this place. So we should start by interviewing them, one by one, while at the same time drilling down for more names. The man was a community leader, so he was on committees, advisory groups, and what have you. He was also a covert Woods founder, according to his daughter, and tied in to a bunch who’re probably less easy to identify, for obvious reasons. But they’re no doubt old Vermont politicos and/or financial types.” He mused, “If we actually do get the goods on some of them, we might be able to use that as leverage. If nothing else, it would be fun to blow the whistle on ’em to the IRS.”

  Spinney laughed at the notion.

  “The other thing to chase down,” Joe resumed, “would be Marshall’s phone records. Plus, the usual canvass details like neighbors, friends, et cetera. His daughter might be helpful with some of that, but not much. She kept her distance. Oh, and interview the waiters from the dining room—they see stuff nobody ever thinks to ask them about. Could be that one of them saw the old boy schmoozing with someone we’re not supposed to know.”

  Joe rose and moved to the door. “This is gonna take some time.” He cast a look at Sammie. “How’s Willy doing with Rozanski? He interruptable? There’s no question now that this case is the bigger deal—and you could stand the help.”

  Sam gave him a smile. “But you wanted to test the water with me first before you called him up?”

  “Something like that. Also, if he’s about to close it, he might as well be given a little rope.”

  “I don’t know, boss,” she said honestly. “This one’s become personal, somehow. You know how he gets with those.”

  They all knew that. “Where is he?” Joe asked, also aware that Willy wouldn’t have logged his whereabouts with Dispatch or anywhere else, as each of them was supposed to.

  “Northeast Kingdom,” she said. “That’s all I know. Something about having found a family member who lives in the boonies.”

  Joe considered that, during which Spinney spoke up, “I don’t mind cutting him a little slack. God knows, we’ll be here for a few days.”

  Joe stepped into the doorway and nodded. “Okay—a couple of days. Then I’ll yank his leash.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Willy killed his engine within sight of the cabin. It was in a clearing, deep in the woods, at the end of a rarely traveled, weed-choked track. There was no vehicle to be seen, but the garden was well tended, the woodpile large and ready for the coming fall and winter. A few articles of clothing hung listlessly on a rope between two trees off to the side, in the afternoon sun. To Willy, it was symbolic of a life stripped down, its
momentum as arrested and preserved as if held in solitary confinement.

  Defying unwritten protocol, Willy didn’t wait for a reaction from inside the cabin, but immediately exited the car, stood before it to be clearly visible, and held his badge up high.

  In response, the rough wooden door opened to reveal a thin, balding man with a long gray beard, dressed in a flannel shirt and a pair of bibbed overalls. He reminded Willy more of some touristy calendar art than a sample of the local culture.

  “Nate Rozanski?” he called out.

  The man didn’t move at first, as if frozen by the greeting, before his shoulders slumped and he answered quietly, “I figured you’d show up sooner or later.”

  Willy approached. “For twenty-seven years?” he asked.

  Rozanski watched him, his face somber and defeated.

  Willy stuck his hand out in greeting, a gesture he generally avoided. Rozanski’s grip was soft and powerless—offered halfheartedly.

  “I didn’t come to cause you trouble, Nate,” Willy told him. “Not necessarily. But you know why I’m here. I need to hear what happened.”

  “I killed my brother,” Rozanski said without preamble.

  Willy nodded, having suspected that interpretation. “Can we sit?” he asked, gesturing toward the door.

  Nate led the way, taking Willy into a single room with a bed in one corner, a small table in the middle, and a large homebuilt bookcase lining one wall, filled with cans and boxes of food and two small piles of neatly folded clothes. In another corner was a woodstove with a cook top and a couple of pans. There were no decorations on the walls, and only the one window facing the front. There was no plumbing or electricity to be seen. Willy reassessed his image of a self-made prison cell and now saw the place more as a monastic retreat of penance.

  He crossed to the table, pulled out the one chair, and waited for Nate to find his own spot to settle, which became the edge of the bed. Given the size of the cabin, that still put him pretty nearby.

  “Tell me what happened,” Willy instructed him.

  “I told you,” was the murmured reply.

  “You’re going to have to do better than that, Nate. I drove a long way.”

  Nate’s voice was slow and awkward, as if lack of use had atrophied its muscles. “I put him into the saw.”

  “Accidentally or on purpose?”

  “On purpose.”

  Willy coaxed him along. “Did you plan it out, or was it a spur-of-the-moment thing?”

  “We fought.”

  “What about?”

  Nate silently stared at his gnarly, intermeshed hands, dangling between his knees.

  “A woman?” Willy prompted.

  Rozanski let out a short noise that Willy interpreted as a chopped-off laugh.

  “That funny?”

  Nate shook his head once, but then said, “Kinda.”

  Willy didn’t hesitate. “A man?”

  Nate looked up, his impassive face as close to startled as seemed possible, given his range of expressions.

  Willy pushed on. “Your brother was gay?”

  Rozanski scowled. “I hate that word.”

  “You hate them, too?” Willy shot back.

  Slowly, Nate covered his face with his hands. “I didn’t know,” he said, barely whispering.

  “Didn’t know what?”

  “I didn’t understand.”

  He seemed blocked, so Willy tried redirecting him. “Take me back, Nate, to before that happened. Tell me about your family.”

  “There’s nothing left,” he said.

  “Your sister, Eileen, would be sad to hear that.”

  That prompted another reaction as Nate dropped his hands—a slight smile. “I guess so.”

  “She still loves you,” Willy said. “That’s why she keeps in touch.”

  “She’s a good girl.”

  “What was it like—you, Eileen, Herb, and your parents?”

  Nate’s gaze drifted to the worn wooden floorboards between them when he spoke. “Nuthin’ special. Same as all families.”

  “Most family members don’t kill each other.”

  That didn’t jar him. “You asked about before.”

  “I did. Still, call me crazy, but it sure sounds like there were tensions.”

  Nate glanced up. “You’re a wiseass.”

  “Never heard that one before,” Willy deadpanned. “Talk to me about the family.”

  A flicker of irritation crossed Nate’s face. “We just lived in the same house.”

  That sounded familiar to Willy. He could have made the same claim. “Nobody got along?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “’Cept maybe with Eileen?”

  “Right.”

  Willy sighed. “You really want me to drag this out of you? I can do that. You already told me you killed Herb. What’s the big deal if you didn’t like Mommy and Daddy, for Christ’s sake? Spit it out, Nate. Get this shit out. How many years you been waiting for this?”

  “It’s hard.”

  Willy leaned close in. “Hard?” he almost yelled. “Herb had it hard, dipwad. You killed that sorry fucker, Nate. That’s hard. You’re just wallowing in it.”

  Nate’s face had reddened, his hands clenched, and his shoulders hunched tight.

  Willy poked him in the arm, and Rozanski recoiled. “Come on, Nate. Let’s hear what you got. You been practicing for decades, getting this confession down. Well, it’s showtime. The audience is getting restless. Tell me about the family Rozanski. What the hell happened that all that anger finally blew a gasket?”

  Nate was beginning to fidget on the edge of the bed, as if he might leap to his feet and lash out.

  That’s when Willy abruptly shifted gears and laid a fraternal hand on his knee. “Nate,” he said softly. “Nate. Look at me.”

  The other man blinked a couple of times and stared at him.

  “It’s over, man,” Willy counseled him. “All the waiting, all the buildup, all the self-hate. Don’t think about it anymore. Just talk. Listen to the questions and tell me the answers. One at a time, one after another. Okay?”

  Nate bobbed his head silently.

  “What was your mom like? Dreama?”

  “Yeah.”

  “She wear the pants in the family? Roll over and play dead? Something in between?”

  “She rolled over.”

  “Outstanding. That’s good,” Willy praised him. “Was that with your father or all of you?”

  “Just Bud.”

  “You called your dad by his first name. That’s unusual. What was he like?”

  “A son of a bitch.”

  “Good. He beat you guys up?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He do anything to Eileen?”

  Nate’s eyes narrowed. “You mean kinky?”

  “Sure.”

  “No,” he said emphatically. “He just hit her, like the rest of us.”

  “What about Herb? More? Less? How did he treat Herb?”

  “It changed.”

  “From when he was little?”

  Rozanski nodded.

  “Started gentle and got rough?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “Herb was soft.”

  “And stayed soft?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you didn’t like that, either. Is that correct?”

  “He was like a girl.”

  “Like Eileen?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And so what worked for Bud worked for you. Is that the way it was, Nate? Did you let Bud set the example? Maybe to get on his good side? You and Bud against the world?”

  Nate murmured, “I guess.”

  “Did it work?”

  He shook his head.

  “’Cause you and Bud were different, weren’t you? He hit Herb for one reason and you hit him for another. Am I right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And then one day, there you are, in the sawmill. Was it the three o
f you, or just you and your brother?”

  “Dad came in right at the end.”

  “Dad?” Willy echoed. “He was Dad then, wasn’t he? Or that’s what you wanted him to be. Your dad; your friend; the source of love you thought every family had but yours. Did Herb get all of that, and you got nothing, even with all the beating?”

  Nate stayed silent.

  “Come on,” Willy urged him. “Tell me you didn’t feel Herb got what you didn’t. Eileen, too, except she was a girl, so that was all right. Weren’t you pissed at Herb, Nate? Till he pushed you over the edge?”

  Nate rubbed his forehead until it reddened. “I pushed him,” he mouthed.

  “Into the saw blade or over the edge?”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “How did you push him over the edge?” Willy pressed.

  “I accused him.”

  “Of being gay…” Willy quickly self-corrected, “Of being a faggot?” he suggested. “A queer? What did you do, Nate?”

  Nate surprised him then by looking up, befuddled. “I don’t remember.”

  Willy sharpened his voice. “Cut the crap. What does that mean?”

  “I mean what started it. We were working the job—what Bud had told us to do—and Herb said something. I don’t know what it was. All these years, I’ve tried to remember. I just blew up. Started yelling. I grabbed him.…” His voice trailed off.

  “You threw him into the saw,” Willy suggested.

  “Dad walked in right then,” Nate finished. “Herb was screaming. Blood was everywhere. Bud didn’t care about any of it. He just started beating on me.”

  Willy frowned. “What about Herb?”

  Nate shook his head. “He got himself off the saw, I guess. I didn’t see it. Maybe he didn’t. I was covering my head, trying to get away. Bud had a two-by-four. I finally blacked out.”

  Willy kept to what Nate believed to be true. “But Herb was dead?”

  Nate stared at him. “Of course he was dead. I killed him.”

  “But you didn’t see him.”

  “Bud put him in a coffin, for God’s sake.”

  “But you didn’t see him,” Willy repeated.

  Nate’s voice dropped as he said weakly, “The sheriff came.”