Free Red Herring by Archer Mayor

sip. “But it looks like we got a rape that’s not a rape and a suicide that’s not a suicide. Both victims are older women; both have a drop of blood on ’em we can’t track to an obvious source; neither case showed forced entry or peripheral violence. They both look carefully planned and carried out, and they both turn into something else as soon as you barely scratch the surface.”
    “As if that was planned, too,” Sammie suggested.
    “Right,” he agreed. “So—no goof with the fake suicide.”
    “Like a calling card,” Sam barely murmured.
    “Along with the drop of blood,” he added.
    “But,” Joe challenged them both, “then what? Why go to all the trouble? Why the misdirection?”
    “Find the connection,” Sam said, “and you find the answer.”
    “Between Mary and Doreen?” Willy asked.
    “Yeah,” she continued. “Standard, old-fashioned link analysis. I don’t know why, but the blood we keep finding has to mean as much as the bogus setups. Sure as shit, the same guy must’ve done both women. It stands to reason both of them pissed him off somehow, and that maybe part of the explanation is in the theatrics.”
    Joe was nodding and writing on a legal pad. “I’ll get the lab to put a rush on the blood tests. Also, let’s see what overlaps might exist between McNaughton Trucking and Ethan Allen Academy. Both women were key to their organizations—invisible number two people. There could be a psycho-sexual angle tying them together—some guy who worked at both places and resented strong women pushing him around.”
    “The link could also be between the women,” Willy suggested. “Mary might’ve once been a teacher, Doreen her student—there’s about a twenty-year gap between ’em—so maybe the guy fits in there.”
    Joe sat back from his pad. “Okay. Well, Christ knows at this point. We need to do some serious digging—put a foundation under the theory. Connect the dots, like Sam said.” He pointed to her and suggested, “Call Lester and tell him what we’re after. He’s already at McNaughton; he can broaden his questions and see if Mary Fish pops up. As for the rest of us, it’s time to find out more about these two ladies than their mothers ever knew.”
    He paused a moment then, watching Sam reach for the phone and Willy head for his desk. For all the drudgery and headaches this job could involve—the lousy hours, minimal pay, exposure to bureaucrats above and dirtbags below, and politics from everywhere—there were just enough moments like this one, when the first faint glimmerings of an idea began forming, that made it all a pure joy.
    Until the phones began to ring, of course. Which his did at that precise moment.
    “Gunther—Vermont Bureau of Investigation.”
    “Joseph, my old pal. You’ve been trying to avoid me.”
    Joe felt a small shot of adrenaline. He not only recognized the local paper’s editor-in-chief, Stanley Katz—an old and respected sparring partner—but suddenly realized that only the four people in this room knew Doreen to be probably just the first half of any news story about homicide. Little did Katz know what he was actually poking into.
    “Stanley,” Joe responded in a jocular voice, loud enough for the rest of them to know who was on the line. “I’m surprised you took so long. You’re losing your touch. Nice article this morning, though.”
    Katz laughed. “Yeah, right. As if you’re going to tell me a ton morenow than you would’ve if I’d called you in the middle of the night, which is nothing.”
    “That wouldn’t have stopped you in the old days.”
    “In the old days, I didn’t need all the drugs I take now. I’m in a fucking coma every night with the shit they have me on.”
    Joe laughed outright. Trust Stan Katz to reduce the general state of geriatric suffering to a one-liner. “You shouldn’t have lived the way you did way back when. I told you that more than once.”
    “You fairy,” Katz retorted.