Outwitting Trolls Read online

  “I can understand that,” I said.

  “I’m not worried,” she said. “That’s just how Wayne is. In his own world. I love my brother, but he’s awfully inconsiderate.”

  “How did Wayne and your dad get along?” I asked.

  “Last I knew, not so good,” she said. “He blamed our dad for wrecking our family.”

  “So he’s estranged from all three of you.”

  She frowned. “Our family’s kind of a mess, Mr. Coyne. Even so, Wayne still deserves to know what happened.”

  “Did you and your father have a good relationship?” I asked.

  “It was hard for all of us,” she said. “I’m older than Wayne. I saw it differently. When my parents split, I was sad about it, but I didn’t blame anybody. My dad and I kept in touch, and we got together now and then.”

  “In Baltimore?”

  She nodded. “I went down and visited him a couple of times. Sometimes he’d come to Boston on business, and we’d make it a point to get together, have dinner or something.”

  “What about this past weekend?” I asked. “He was at a conference up here. Were you going to get together with him?”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t even know about it. He didn’t tell me. When my mother told me about it, it kind of hurt my feelings, that he’d tell her, make a plan to see her, but not me.” She gave me a quick smile. “She said they were thinking about getting back together.”

  “How would you feel about that?”

  “If it was true, you mean?”

  “Why wouldn’t it be true?”

  Ellen rolled her eyes. “I always thought they hated each other. It’s how I understood their divorce. So it didn’t make any sense.”

  “People change,” I said.

  “I guess so,” she said. “I mean, if it was true, if they both felt that way, well, it would’ve been awesome.” She shook her head and blinked, and I saw that tears had welled up in her eyes. “Well, anyway,” she said, “that’s never going to happen now.”

  She took off her glasses and wiped her eyes on the back of her wrist. I handed her the box of tissues I keep handy for such occasions, and she took one and dabbed at her eyes with it. Then she blew her nose. She smiled at me. “Thank you. I’m okay. Sorry.” She fitted her glasses back onto her face.

  “I wanted to ask you,” I said, “if you knew of anybody who had a problem with your dad.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did he ever mention owing money to somebody,” I said, “or someone owing him, or his being threatened, or having any kind of conflict or disagreement with somebody?”

  “You mean, like who’d want to kill him?”

  I nodded.

  “I haven’t a clue,” Ellen said. “He had a whole life down in Baltimore that I didn’t know anything about. I mean, like I said, I did visit him down there a few times over the years, but I never had any sense of what his life was like. I never met any of his friends or business acquaintances, and he never talked about things like that with me. I don’t know if he had girlfriends, of if there was somebody special in his life, or anything along those lines.”

  “He was killed up here,” I said, “not in Baltimore.”

  “Well,” she said, “I just don’t have any idea. I’m sure it wasn’t my mother. That’s all I know.”

  “Do you know anybody named Clem?”

  She frowned. “Clem?”

  “Middle-aged man, friend of your father.”

  Ellen shrugged. “No. Sorry. Clem doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “Did your father ever talk to you about business problems,” I said, “or schemes he might’ve had for earning money, or investments he made?”

  Ellen smiled. “My dad was a vet, Mr. Coyne. He liked animals. That’s what he was good at. I don’t think he was very good at business, or had much interest in it. He was just a nice, uncomplicated man.”

  “I expect the police will want to talk to you,” I said.

  She nodded. “Sure. Okay.”

  “They’ll probably ask a lot of questions about your mother, and about your parents’ relationship.”

  “My mom being a prime suspect.”

  “Right now she is, yes,” I said. “So I’d like to know of anything at all that you might say to them that could incriminate her.”

  Ellen shook her head. “My mother couldn’t hurt anybody, regardless of how justified she might be.”

  “Do you mean you think she’d be justified to, um, to murder your father?”

  “No, I didn’t mean that.”

  “Well—”

  “I only meant,” she said, “that my mother suffered a lot when they split. She was angry and hurt. In her mind, it was all his fault.”

  “In her mind.”

  “That’s how she saw it. It’s still how she sees it. My mother has never faced up to her own responsibility for what happened. Oh, if you ask her, she’ll say it was nobody’s fault—but deep down, she’s always blamed him. That’s all I meant.”

  “She’s been angry with him.”

  “Oh, sure. Furious. Ever since it happened.”

  “And that’s what you’ll tell the police.”

  Ellen looked at me. “Oh. I see what you mean. Well, what should I do?”

  “It’s easy,” I said. “Just tell the truth.”

  “Well, sure. Except my mother…”

  “People who are divorced from each other do tend to be angry and blame each other. It’s normal.”

  “Except,” she said, “my father got murdered.”

  “He invited her to his hotel room,” I said. “That doesn’t sound like angry people to me.”

  She shrugged. “If it’s true.”

  “You think your mother’s been lying to us?”

  “Oh, no,” said Ellen. “That’s not what I meant. I’m sure she felt that way. I mean, I think she believed it. All I meant was I wonder if my father felt the same way.”

  “Do you have any reason to doubt it?”

  “Look, Mr. Coyne,” she said. “I don’t want to take sides here. I’ve never taken sides. I’ve always tried to show my parents that even if they didn’t love each other, I loved them both, and that they could be good parents even if they weren’t together. So please, don’t ask me to speculate about either of them. It’s hard to be objective about your parents, and particularly if one of them’s just been murdered and the police suspect the other one of doing it. I only came here to be sure that my mother was being taken care of. She has a lot of faith in you. You will take care of her, won’t you?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Of course.”

  “The legal stuff, I mean.”

  I nodded.

  “Thank you.” She stood up. “I won’t take up any more of your time, then.”

  “Why don’t you leave me your phone number, in case I need to talk to you again.”

  “Sure.” She told me, and I wrote it down. “Will you keep me posted?”

  “If your mother wants me to,” I said.

  “Oh, right. She’s the client, not me. Sure. That’s fine.”

  “If you think of anything that might have some bearing on this…this situation,” I said, “please give me a call.”

  “Like who’d’ve wanted to murder my father?”

  “Well, sure. Or just anybody you might remember your father mentioning, friend or foe, or any problem or worry or issue he might’ve alluded to. Anything at all, even if you think it might be irrelevant. Okay?”

  “Sure. Okay.”

  I scratched my home number on the back of one of my business cards and handed it to her. “Call anytime, day or night.”

  She took the card, glanced at it, and stuck it into her purse. Then she held out her hand. “Thanks for seeing me.”

  I took her hand. “Thank you for dropping in. I’m glad we talked. We’ll be in touch.”

  After Ellen left, the console on my desk buzzed. I picked up the phone, and Julie said, “You had a couple calls. Don�
��t know if you want to take them.”

  “Who?”

  “A reporter.”

  “Josh Neuman?” I asked. “The Herald?”

  “That’s the one,” she said. “What’s he want?”

  “It’s about the Nichols case. I’ve got nothing to say to him.”

  “He called twice,” Julie said. “He seems quite persistent. He made it pretty clear that he intends to keep calling until he’s satisfied. I suppose I can keep putting him off if you want, but…”

  “You think I should talk to him, huh?”

  “Get it out of the way,” she said. “He could become very annoying.”

  “You’re probably right,” I said. “Okay. If—when—he calls again, I guess you better put him through.”

  Half an hour later my phone rang. “It’s that reporter Josh Neuman again,” Julie said. “Line two.”

  “Got it.” I pressed the blinking button, heard the click, and said, “Mr. Neuman. How’re you doing?”

  “Not that good,” he said. “We got a brutal murder in an up-scale hotel full of veterinarians from all over the globe, should be a helluva story, and nobody’s saying anything.”

  “You’ve got to talk to the police,” I said. “That’s how it works.”

  “Yeah, I never would’ve thought of that all by myself,” he said. “Look, they held their bullshit press conference. Said exactly nothing beyond the obvious. I want to talk to your client.”

  “You can’t,” I said. “No way.”

  “You, then,” he said. “You’ll do.”

  “Ha.”

  “Just answer a couple questions for me. Then I’ll leave you alone. How’d that be?”

  “Can’t do it,” I said. “You know that.”

  “You don’t want this great opportunity to get your slant on it out there, massage public opinion, counteract the stories the police will produce, create sympathy for your pretty client?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Come on,” he said. “Give me your side of it. I’ll print it just the way you say it.”

  “No comment,” I said.

  He laughed. “Listen. Here’s what I want to know. You can tell me in your own careful lawyer’s way, or even better, Mrs. Nichols can tell me. I want to know why she was there on Saturday night, how it happened that the pretty ex-wife was the one who found her ex-husband’s body in his hotel room. There’s a story there. You know there is. Plus, I want to know about their kids, where they are, what they’re doing, how they got along with the dead guy and with each other. Of course, I want to know who they think did it.” He hesitated. “Unless one of them wants to confess to me.”

  “None of that’s any of your business,” I said. “That’s private, personal stuff.”

  “It’s gonna come out one way or the other,” Josh Neuman said. “You know that. I either talk directly to them, get it straight from their mouths, or else I talk to neighbors and business acquaintances, cousins, uncles, fathers-in-law, and get fragments of the story and put it together as well as I can, and what I can’t write straight, I can write innuendo, which I am very good at. This is a juicy story, Mr. Coyne. Sexy woman, secret rendezvous in ex-husband’s hotel room, dead guy in a bathrobe, stabbed to death with a steak knife. Who’s gonna be your prime suspect every time, huh?”

  “You go making up irresponsible stories,” I said, “and there will be a giant lawsuit, I promise you.”

  He laughed. “Can I quote you on that?”

  “Good-bye, Mr. Neuman,” I said, and I hung up.

  A few minutes later there came a scratch on my office door.

  “Come in,” I said.

  Julie poked her head in. “What’s this I hear in your voice?”

  “It’s that damn reporter,” I said.

  “Looking for a story,” she said. “Acting like a reporter. What do you expect?”

  “I know,” I said. “He almost made me lose my cool.”

  “The sign of a good reporter, I’d say.” Julie sat in one of the client chairs by my desk, opened her stenography notebook on her knee, and said, “Now, you better bring me up to date on this new client of ours.”

  Eleven

  I’d been home from the office for about an hour. I’d hung up my necktie and lawyer pinstripe and pulled on my jeans and a T-shirt, and I’d fetched myself a bottle of Samuel Adams lager, and now I was sitting out in my backyard sipping my Sam and watching the finches and nuthatches and chickadees peck sunflower seeds at my feeders.

  Then my cell phone, which I’d left on the picnic table, began buzzing and jumping around.

  I picked it up and looked at the screen. It was Horowitz. I flipped open the phone and said, “Roger. Hey.”

  “I’m parked in front of your house,” he said. “Where are you?”

  “I’m here. Out back. You want a beer?”

  “That’s exactly what I want. I just went off duty. Let me in.”

  “Okay.” I snapped the phone shut, put it back on the table, and went through the house to the front door. When I opened it, Horowitz was standing on the stoop. He was wearing his rumpled brown suit, and his red necktie was pulled loose at his throat. His Columbo outfit.

  I held the door for him, and he pushed past me into the house.

  We went out to the kitchen, where I grabbed a beer for Horowitz and a fresh one for me, and then on out into the backyard.

  We each sat in an Adirondack chair.

  Henry came over and sniffed Horowitz’s cuffs. When Horowitz ignored him, he sauntered over to where I was sitting and sprawled on the bricks beside my chair.

  I reached down and scratched the scruff of his neck, which was all he wanted.

  Horowitz tilted up his beer, took a long swig, and then put his bottle on the arm of his chair. “Ahh,” he said. “That’s good. And this”—he waved his hand around my little walled-in patio garden—“this is nice. Flowers, birds, brick walls. Privacy. It’s so quiet you’d hardly know you were in the middle of the damn city. The air even smells clean up here.”

  “Yep.” I nodded. “I like it.”

  “Must get a little lonely, though, huh?”

  “I don’t mind,” I said.

  “Looks like you’ve been working on your flower gardens,” he said.

  “Just cleaning out last fall’s leaves.”

  “Evie used to take care of the gardens, didn’t she?”

  “She did,” I said.

  “So now what’re you gonna do?”

  I shook my head. “You enjoy this, don’t you?”

  He turned and looked at me. “What?”

  “Reminding me that Evie’s gone. Rubbing it in.”

  “Hey,” he said. “You’re the one who always screws up your relationships, not me. I feel sorry for you, that’s all.”

  “Just what I need,” I said. “Your pity. I bet that’s not why you’re here.”

  “Naw. That just occurred to me.” He took another swig of beer. “Benetti would kill me if she knew I was here.”

  “You didn’t tell your partner you were coming?”

  He shook his head. “Consorting with the enemy, she’d call it.”

  “I’m not your enemy.”

  “In this screwy adversarial system of ours, I guess you are.” He flicked that consideration away with a backhanded wave. “Fuck it. Benetti thinks your client there is good for the Nichols thing. She thinks her story about going to his hotel room to have sex with him is bullshit.” He arched his eyebrows at me.

  “What do you think, Roger?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “I got some doubts about it. Anybody would. Plus, we haven’t come up with any better suspects. So Mrs. Nichols there, she’s pretty much our default suspect.”

  “Default,” I said.

  “We can’t eliminate her,” he said. “Means, motive, opportunity. She’s got ’em all.”

  “You’re pretty shaky on all three,” I said. “Last I heard, you had no murder weapon. So much for means. Ken and Sharon
Nichols had been talking about resuming their relationship, which hardly amounts to a motive for murder. Opportunity I might stipulate. She was there, though the times aren’t right.”

  “No sense in arguing about those things now,” he said. “I wanted to ask you about when you were with our victim the night before.”

  “I told you everything,” I said. “About the bearded guy he called Clem who pointed his finger at him. The fact that Ken seemed kind of nervous. That his phone rang several times. I don’t know what else you want.”

  “He didn’t mention what he was nervous about?”

  “No. He kind of hinted he was having some problems, but no specifics.”

  “Money? Love? Health?”

  I shook my head. “No idea. You get a line on the guy with the beard?”

  “Nope.”

  “What about the kid in the hoodie?”

  “Not yet,” he said. “Not that I need to share with you.” He blinked at me. “Our victim had a cell phone with him, you said.”

  “Yes. You could probably get some useful numbers off of it.”

  “We can get his phone records,” Horowitz said, “but it takes a while. Big pain in the ass. Privacy, all that shit. Helluva lot easier if we had his phone. Which we don’t.”

  “You didn’t find his phone in his room?” I asked.

  “Nope.” He took a swig of beer. “Funny, don’t you think?”

  “The bad guy took the phone and left that satchel of ketamine there?”

  “No phone,” Horowitz said, “no murder weapon. No laptop, no briefcase, no personal papers, no BlackBerry. Nothing like that—but, yeah, a gym bag full of illegal drugs.”

  “The killer must’ve taken all that stuff,” I said. “I know Ken had a phone, at least. Makes you wonder if the drugs had anything to do with the murder.”

  He shrugged and lifted his beer bottle and took a long pull. His throat muscles clenched and flexed like a biceps. When he put the bottle down, it was empty. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and said, “Ahh.”

  “You want another one?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “State cops in Maryland have had their eye on him.”

  “What for? Ketamine?”

  He nodded. “Other stuff, too, that a vet would have access to.” He squeezed the bridge of his nose.