“It’s what I found,” she told him.
“I guess I haven’t read your monograph on the subject, Sherlock.” He gave her a skeptical look as he finally tucked into his meal.
“I didn’t need to fool with cigarette ashes, there was a name on the side—in foreign letters,” she told him. “But I recognized the type. It’s called a
Will choked so badly, maple syrup practically came out his nose. Sunny gave him her napkin to help clean up. “You’re saying Martin Rigsdale was involved with Russian gangsters?”
She shook her head, remembering her promise to Jane about soft-pedaling the Ukrainian connection. “I’m saying that I found a store in Portsmouth that sells the same brand, and I found a guy who buys them by the carton.” The next part was going to be the tricky one. “I overheard the guy talking on his cell phone. It seems his name is Olek, and he was talking to someone called Dani.”
“You just happened to be eavesdropping on a guy in the Russian mob?” Will sighed and then gave her a stern look. “I don’t suppose you thought for a moment that might possibly be dangerous?”
“Not while I was on the force there, no,” Will replied. “When I was way up north with the troopers, though, we dealt with some biker gangs with organized crime connections.”
“Can you ask any of your friends about those guys?”
He frowned. “It’s not going to be easy. They were willing to pass on a little information to help out when the crime was on this side of the river. But this is a murder in their melon patch. People have to know that Trumbull is questioning me. It’s like I’m radioactive—contact with me may be fatal to their careers.”
Will sat silent for a moment, thinking. “But if they’re in Portsmouth, these guys may be active on this side of the river, too. Maybe if I put it that way . . .” He looked down at his rapidly cooling stack of waffles. “Boy, Sunny, you really know how to ruin a guy’s breakfast.”
12
“Hey, I’m sorry,” Sunny said to Will. “Does this mean you’re going to talk to Trumbull?”
“How can I?” Will stabbed his fork into the pile of waffles on his plate. “It’s a pretty thin connection to begin with, and you’ve fooled around with the evidence. Trumbull might even think you planted that cigarette to distract attention from Jane.”
“I wouldn’t do that!” Sunny protested.
“I’m trying to see this from Trumbull’s viewpoint,” Will replied. “He’s already asked me if, based on my experience, you were likely to interfere in his investigation.”
“My dad asked me the same question,” Sunny admitted.
“I wonder why.” Will took a sip of coffee.
“I’ll tell you what I told him,” Sunny growled. “The Portsmouth cops have their best detective on the job. Why should I get involved?”
“Why do I think I hear a ‘but’ coming up here?” Will said wearily.
Sunny nodded. “It seems to me that Trumbull is concentrating all his attention on Jane. You’ve talked with the guy. Can you tell me that I’m wrong?”
Will frowned, toying with his fork. “When a detective questions anyone—a witness, a source, a suspect—he purposely doesn’t give them the full picture.”
“Yeah, but as a cop yourself, you can sort of fill in the blanks between the questions and catch the drift of the investigation. Is Trumbull going anywhere other than after Jane?”
He hesitated for a long moment. “No. I don’t think so. That’s why I thought Jane should see a lawyer.”
“Well, she did,” Sunny told him. “And it was a pretty funny meeting. Turns out that Tobe Phillips is a grammar school classmate of ours under a different name—Toby Philpotts.” She decided not to mention the young Toby’s bladder problem—or how nice-looking he’d grown up to become.
“That’s one piece of good news.” Will sighed, not buying Sunny’s attempt to change the subject. “I wish you hadn’t messed with that evidence.”
“It’s not as if I meant to.” Sunny tried to defend herself. “I stumbled onto the observation post, trying to get out of the snow. So my footprints were there before I even knew there was something to find.”
Will shook his head. “But when you did find something, you took it away with you. That’s tampering at best. At worst, it means the cops can’t use it in their case.” He pushed his plate away. “It also means they can’t use it as leverage to get any information. We don’t know when that smoker—Olek or whatever—was standing there. But if he saw anything going on at that office near the time that Rigsdale died, we won’t be finding out about it.”
Sunny wanted to reassure him that Olek hadn’t seen anything, but of course she couldn’t. Mentioning that fact would open the door to a lot of questions she just couldn’t answer.
