Archer Mayor - Three Can Keep a Secret

The young man swallowed and nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Joe stayed where he was. “Did you kill Gorden Marshall?”

“No, sir.”

“Did you call Travis Reynolds from Dolores’s phone?”

Aaron paused just long enough for Sam to snarl, “Careful.”

“Yes,” he admitted.

“And on whose orders did you make that call?” Joe asked.

“Mr. Scott’s,” Aaron said softly.

Joe and Sam stepped back. She caught Whitledge by the elbow and brought him back to his chair. Only this time, they all joined him, suddenly looking like a group of friends-where everyone but Aaron was wearing a gun.

“Okay,” Joe said, his voice still supportive and coaxing. “Take us from the top. When did Scott first contact you about all this?”

“I don’t remember the day exactly,” Aaron readily replied, looking relieved. “But it was after Marshall died.” He sat forward abruptly to add, “And I didn’t know anything about any murder. I was told he’d died, of old age or something-I don’t know.”

“That’s fine. Keep going,” Joe urged him.

“Anyhow, Mr. Scott brought me into his room upstairs, where he has his private talks-that’s what we all call them. So I knew right off something was up.”

“You’d never been asked there before?” Lester asked.

Aaron looked embarrassed. “No. I let people think so because it makes me sound important. But this was the first time I’ve been asked to do anything like this.”

“Thanks for being straight with us, Aaron,” Joe complimented him, as if rewarding a pet. “What next?”

“It was pretty straightforward. He gave me Travis’s number and told me to tell him to go into Marshall’s apartment and remove that stuff.”

“What stuff, exactly?”

“A framed photograph, some files, and a pin from a jewelry box. He was really specific describing them and where they were. And he told me to make sure the phone’s message machine was erased.”

“Details, Aaron,” Joe said. “What photograph? Which files?”

“A framed black-and-white shot, about five by seven,” he said. “Showing a bunch of people holding glasses and toasting the photographer. And everything out of the C file-he didn’t tell me exactly what-said just to make sure everything was grabbed. And the pin was dark purple, with two gold C ’s engraved on it. He showed me one that looked just like it.”

“He explain its meaning?”

“No. I’m sorry, but maybe it tied into what was in the C files.”

“Let’s talk about Travis,” Joe said, recalling what Reynolds had told him earlier. “How was he supposed to get in?”

“There would be a box behind a Dumpster at the old folks’ home where Marshall lived,” Aaron explained. “A key would be inside, along with a maintenance man’s uniform and some money-or half the money, that’s right. I forgot. Travis was supposed to return the stolen things and the uniform to the same place, and the rest of the money would be there, waiting for him.”

“Meaning you had a confederate?”

“Yeah, but I don’t know anything about him. I asked Mr. Scott about that when he assigned this to me, and he said something like, ‘Not your concern.’ I got the message.”

“What if something went wrong?” Joe asked. “Like Travis grabbed the wrong picture or something? What were you supposed to do then?”

Aaron looked at him, mystified. “I don’t know. Did something go wrong?”

“I’m asking, ‘if,’ Aaron.”

“I don’t know,” he repeated. “That’s all he told me. I made the phone call like I was told. Mr. Scott had told me to use a cold phone-that was the phrase he used, which is what made me think of Dolores’s instead of my cell or something-and that’s what I did. That was the end of it.”

“But you reported back to Scott?” Joe wanted to know.

“Oh, yeah.”

“And he was satisfied?”

Aaron nodded. “As far as I know. He didn’t say otherwise. He did tell me that under no circumstances was I ever to mention this to anybody, including him-that he’d make it worth my while. So that was it, as far as I was concerned. Until today,” he added in a lowered voice.

“Did Scott say anything about the files?”

“No.”

“Did you ever call Travis back?”

He shook his head, leading Joe to suspect that Scott’s was the second phone call Travis had mentioned-the one he assumed Aaron had made after catching a cold.

“Had you ever worked with Travis before?” Lester asked, to confirm Aaron’s earlier statement.

“No.”

“Aaron,” Joe asked him, “did you ever wonder what it was Scott got you involved in? What this was all about?”

Whitledge shrugged. “Skeletons in the closet. That’s what I figured. It’s what all these politicians worry about. I figured it was to avoid bad publicity. I had no clue it had anything to do with murder.”

“You know where Scott lives?” Joe asked him.

“Sure,” he said, and quickly gave the address. “We’re invited there every December, for the Christmas party. It’s huge.”

Joe stood up, prompting the rest of them to do likewise. He walked up to Aaron and took his hand in his, as if to wish him farewell. But he didn’t let go as he emphasized, “Aaron, same rules apply with us as they did with Scott. Not a word about this conversation till I get back in touch. There’s one additional incentive to keep your mouth shut, though. You know what that is?”

Whitledge looked confused. “No.”

“If you do think you might win points by talking to your boss, keep in mind what he has to lose-and what he might be willing to do to anyone he sees as a snitch.”

The young man swallowed and remained silent. Joe let his hand drop. “We’ll be back in touch soon to wrap this up. Enjoy your evening.”

* * *

Outside on the sidewalk, Sam faced Joe to ask, “What was that? Don’t we want to buckle him up and start building a case against Scott?”

“One of the reasons I was heading in this direction when you two were parked across the street,” Joe explained, “is that I think Sheldon Scott has bigger worries than Aaron Whitledge right now.”

Sheldon Scott lived in a mansion, east of downtown Montpelier, with a sweeping view of the valley below-made all the more spectacular at this time of day by a crimson setting sun coloring the Winooski’s waters like a spilled ribbon of red paint.

The driveway was marked by pretentious twin granite pillars and-some twenty feet down the broad gravel path-by something that made Joe swear as he steered around it. It was an older model, dark green Buick Skylark.

“What?” Lester asked.

Sam answered, “That’s Barb Barber’s old car. The one Joe thinks was stolen by her sister.”

Joe picked up speed, skidding around the several curves leading up to the house, and spitting stones onto the neighboring grass. “I’m too late,” he said grimly.

“You think she went after Scott?” Sam asked.

“I do,” he said, fighting the steering wheel. “And Marshall and Friel and Barb. We’ve been seeing her as a victim through all this. I’m not saying she’s not that-” He paused to slam on the brakes before the huge building.

“But she could be our killer, too,” Sam finished for him as they piled out of the car.

They stared up at the building quickly, gauging their approach.

“Call for backup,” Joe ordered, circling to the car’s trunk and extracting three ballistic vests and the one shotgun he kept back there. “We can’t wait for them, but I want ’em on the way.”

Still attaching his Velcro straps, he ran up the broad stone steps to the carved double doors of the main entrance and laid his hand on the handle. It yielded, and the door opened a crack.