Клэр Донелли - Catch As Cat Can

“Is it ancient history you’re interested in?” Sweeney asked. “That happened years ago, and it was never followed up.”

Will nodded. “Yes, the complainant left town in something of a hurry.”

“I certainly can’t speak to that,” Sweeney said primly. “But if that old complaint is the only thing you can find on me, then I think my reputation speaks for itself. Besides, waving guns is a young man’s game.” He gestured to himself. “I’m not a young man anymore.”

“No, nowadays I suppose you’d have to delegate that to, as you say, a younger fellow,” Will said. “Still, I have to ask, where were you a week ago Wednesday?”

“You’re trying to connect me to what happened next door?” Sweeney’s smile was back. “I have to admit, it was a bit of a shock when I passed the place. I’d never been to Kittery Harbor Fish before. Fact is, I’ve never even set eyes on Neil Garret.”

“You know,” Sunny broke in, “a suspicious mind might pick up on that statement as actual truth. That someone who’d never seen Garret mistakenly killed Phil Treibholz in Garret’s store.”

“Well, I’ve never seen either of them, and I was more than a hundred miles from here the night of that murder,” Sweeney replied. “I was over in Hanover, at a Dartmouth hockey game. My son’s on the team, and I try to root for him.”

“Were you alone?” Will asked.

“I was with a couple of thousand other fans.” Sweeney’s smile rose a bit more. “But I went by myself. My wife is afraid of all this propaganda about concussions and such. She can’t stand to watch. But this is the sport my boy likes, and Lord knows, I did stupider things when I was his age. Still, the game ran a hair short of two-and-a-half hours, which is about what it would take to drive from Hanover here to Kittery Harbor. I was in the team locker room after the game to see my son, and from what I’ve heard, my schedule doesn’t exactly jibe with yours.”

Will nodded. “Could you tell me your whereabouts last night?”

Sweeney’s emotionless eyes gave Will a long look. “Why I was iced in at home, like most of the people in this area,” he said. “My wife and I were lucky enough not to lose our electricity, so we watched some television. Why do you ask?”

“I guess your friends haven’t mentioned that Charlie Vane was found dead last night.” Will paused for a second. “He was shot three times.”

For the first time, a genuine expression surfaced on Sweeney’s face—surprise. “Who would bother with a small fish like Vane?”

“Excuse me?” Sunny asked.

“Oh, to hear Vane talk about it, there was a great feud between him and me.” A look of distaste crept onto Sweeney’s face. “But to me he was more of a hangnail than the thorn in my side he made himself out to be.”

“You blackballed him from the fish market,” Sunny pointed out.

“More as a warning to others who might get ideas than anything else,” Sweeney replied.

“So it wasn’t an attempt to drive him out of business?” Will asked.

“You needn’t go blaming me for that. The way Charlie Vane conducted his business, something would catch up with him and sink him. Same as with Garret.” He jerked a thumb in the direction of the store next door. “Too clever for their own good. Those are the sort who, sooner or later, find themselves in bankruptcy court.” He shook his head. “But I never expected it might end up in murder.”

13

Sunny and Willspent some more time fencing with Deke Sweeney, but in the end they had to admit defeat. This obviously wasn’t Sweeney’s first rodeo when it came to interrogations. He just kept that masklike smile and stuck to his alibi while they tried their best to trip him up—and failed.

“Well, I don’t know how much help I was, but I was glad to give it,” the shark of the Portsmouth Fish Market said blandly as he headed to the door. “Good luck on your case.”

Will glared at Sweeney’s retreating back. “We’ll damn well need it, if he’s the guy we’re after.”

“Doesn’t look like it, though.” Sunny sighed. “He seemed like such a good suspect from a distance, somebody who leans on people for a living. But that’s the problem—distance. I used to go up to Dartmouth for games and stuff during my school days. It’s at least a two-hour ride.”

Will gave her a moody nod. “Not to mention that our estimated time of death would fall just about in the middle of that hockey game. That cuts the margin even thinner. No way could Sweeney get from here to Hanover in time to see his son in the locker room.” He considered that for a moment, then smiled. “Of course, maybe this is a carefully constructed alibi, placing Sweeney a hundred and twenty miles away while somebody else did the deed.”

“That sounds like the theory I suggested about Charlie Vane,” Sunny said.

“Of course, that theory has a little drawback now that Vane is dead.” Will grimaced. “Two murders a week apart. We have to figure they’re connected.”

Sunny nodded. “But the only connection seems to be Deke Sweeney and the fish market.”

Will rose from his chair to work off a little frustration by walking around the office. “This stupid storm delay with the crime-scene people is driving me crazy. If we got a ballistics match, at least we’d have something solid tying in the two killings.”

“But are you sure the bullets came from the same gun?” Sunny asked. “You told me Charlie Vane had a house full of them.”

Will halted in his tracks and gave her a look. “Thanks for cheering me up.”

“Just pointing out that Vane’s murder could be a crime of opportunity,” Sunny said. “With all those weapons around, someone with a totally unrelated grudge against Vane could have killed him.” She paused for a second. “He doesn’t strike me as the kind of guy who left business partners with warm fuzzy feelings toward him.”

“Are you seriously suggesting that?”

Sunny shrugged. “Well, of our three strongest suspects in the Treibholz killing, two of them are excluded from this one by the ice storm—and the third is the victim.”

“We really don’t have a time of death for Vane,” Will argued, but Sunny suspected he was clutching at straws. “The murder could have happened before the weather got too bad.”

“I guess that will depend on when those trees fell on the road to Sturgeon Springs . . . and when the bridges from Portsmouth got too icy for traffic—that usually happens a lot more quickly than on the roads.” She glanced at Will. “Figuring that he would hire a killer from his side of the river.”

From the look on Will’s face, he wasn’t sure whether to laugh or start hollering. “So you think we’re back to square one?”

“I think that at least for this murder, we need some new suspects who are closer to the scene of the crime.”

Will frowned. “You’re saying someone in town.”

Like Val Overton, in her motel on the main road, Sunny thought. Aloud she said, “I don’t think we can go farther out than my neighborhood.” Which would let in Abby Martinson, depending on how early she and her mom hit the hay.

Will looked as if he’d just bitten into a big, fat bug burger.

Well, it can’t get much worse, Sunny decided. “How well do you know Val?” she asked.

“What?” Will seemed thrown by the shift in the conversation. “Why do you ask?”

“She came on pretty strong with Ollie,” Sunny pointed out. “I’m still wondering if she has a thing for older guys. Because Neil Garret is an older guy, and he’s a lot better-looking than Ollie the Barnacle.”

“Garret is her witness, and it’s her responsibility to keep him from getting killed,” Will immediately objected. “She would never—”