Free The Company She Kept by Archer Mayor Page A

into gloves, Tyvek suits, and booties before spreading out and scrutinizing the worn rug of the landing, sometimes going down on all fours and using hand lights to see better. Compared to their prior visit here—to take a glance and grab the electronics—this stay promised to last a lot longer.
    Raffner’s rented suite came to a bathroom and three rooms, which she’d split up into a bedroom, an office, and something resembling a hodgepodge, office/living room. There was no kitchen—probably making the whole rental an illegal arrangement—but there was a hot plate in the bathroom and a microwave in the general room.
    These college-style touches didn’t stand out. As Willy and Lester had found earlier in Brattleboro, so Parker and Perry discovered that Susan Raffner, despite her prominence as a mover and shaker, had the interior decorative skills of a teenager.
    But, to echo the Montpelier cop’s parting observation, at least she’d known how to vacuum. For this, Perry was most grateful, especially as he stretched out prone to check under furniture.
    They took hours, during which they collected files, boxes, letters, notebooks, notes by the dozen, and a pile of mail. They also found an ample pound of marijuana—a huge lode compared to the baggie that Willy Kunkle had gingerly examined in Brattleboro.
    The prize, however, was something Parker found in a cardboard box labeled RECYCLE! It was a single page with a hand-printed note, folded and roughly stuffed back into the torn envelope in which it had been delivered.
    â€œThere are times I love this job,” he announced, sitting cross-legged on the floor before the box, next to Raffner’s desk, office paper all around him and this letter in his gloved hand.
    â€œGot something?” Perry asked, deep into the bottom drawer of a nearby filing cabinet.
    Parker pulled an evidence envelope from the pocket of his suit, but paused before filling it to show off his prize. “Read that,” he said.
    Perry oriented the letter right-side up. “Dykes shood die,” he read aloud.
    Your a disgrase to wimmen + mothers + GOD. Burn in HELL.
    He nodded thoughtfully. “Not sure his English teacher would approve, but he makes his point.” He flipped the page over before handing it back. “Too bad he didn’t sign it.”
    Parker waved the envelope. “Who says he didn’t? I bet he licked the flap. There’s no stamp, but his fingerprints have got to be all over this.”
    â€œNo stamp?”
    Parker handed over the envelope, saying, “Looks like the corner was torn off when she opened it. It’s pretty mangled.”
    Perry shook his head in wonderment as he studied it. “Unbelievable—a return address. Where do they find these geniuses?”
    â€œI know, right? It’s just a PO box, but better than nothing.” He secured his find into the evidence pouch after Perry returned it, scribbling the case number on the outside, along with his name and a note about where it had been located.
    â€œHow deep in the recycling did you find that?” Perry asked.
    â€œNear the top, which fits it having arrived a few days ago, maybe.”
    â€œYou look for the torn-off corner, too?”
    â€œYeah,” Parker said, his voice disappointed. “No luck. Probably fell on the floor and got thrown out.”
    â€œI can’t believe it’s Newport,” Perry mused.
    Parker grinned. “Yeah. You think they’d be happy to sleep with anything warm up there, lesbians included.”
    Parker scowled at him. “You know I come from near there.”
    Perry just chuckled.

 
    CHAPTER SEVEN
    Sammie Martens looked up from the paperwork spread across the dining table, her subconscious disturbed by one of those vague ripples in one’s universe. She glanced at her watch. It was late. Emma had been asleep for hours. It was Willy, she realized. He was in the house, where