“He’s a Milford police officer,” Wedmore said. Was she really standing up for him, or playing devil’s advocate?
“Please,” I said. “I’ve heard about the allegations against him. And you must know he and his wife, they were running this knockoff purse business on the side. You don’t buy that stuff wholesale from Walmart, and you don’t get your start-up money from Citibank. You have to deal with some very shady people. The Slocums had other people involved in selling knockoff stuff, and not just purses. Prescription drugs, for one thing. And stuff for construction.”
It occurred to me then, for the first time, that the Slocums could easily have been the suppliers of the breaker panel parts that burned down that house of mine. I vaguely recalled Sally saying Theo had done some work for the Slocums once. And if the parts had actually come through Doug, there was a connection there, too. Betsy had met Ann at the purse party she’d thrown at our house. And it was likely they’d known each other before that.
“The day Sheila died,” I said, “she was doing a favor for Belinda. She was delivering cash for her to a man named Sommer. The money was to pay for all these goods. But it never got delivered. Sheila had her accident. And this Sommer guy, he’s a menacing son of a bitch. He came to see me the other day, and Arthur Twain says he’s a suspect in a triple homicide in New York.”
“What?” Wedmore had taken her notepad out and was scribbling away, but had looked up when I got to Twain and the triple homicide. “Who the hell is Arthur Twain and what triple homicide?”
I told her about my visit from the detective and what he’d told me.
“And then Sommer came to see you? Did he threaten you?”
“He thought I might have the money. That maybe it didn’t burn up in the accident.”
“Did it burn up in the accident?”
“No. I found it. In the house. Sheila’d never taken it with her.”
“Christ,” she breathed. “How much money are we talking here?” I told her. Her eyes widened. “And you gave it to him?”
“Belinda had already called me, hinting around, asking if there was a package with some cash in it, because I think Sommer had been leaning on her pretty hard to make good on the payment. So when I found the money, I gave it to Belinda to pay the guy off. I didn’t want any part of that money.”
Wedmore put down her pen. “Maybe that’s what the call was about.”
“The one Kelly heard?”
“No, the one Darren admitted to. Just before Ms. Slocum went out, Belinda Morton called her. But she never said that was what it was about.”
“You’ve talked to her?”
Wedmore nodded. “I was out to her house.”
I debated with myself whether to tell her the messy truth about George Morton’s relationship with Ann Slocum, and how she’d been blackmailing him. At the moment, withholding that information was my leverage with Morton to get Belinda to back off her story about Sheila. I weighed being totally open with Wedmore against the financial future of my daughter and myself, and decided, at least for now, to look out for my own. But if and when I found out Morton’s handcuff games had anything to do with Sheila’s situation-I didn’t see how they could, unless Sheila really did know about them and that knowledge had gotten her into trouble-then I’d tell Wedmore everything I knew.
“Were you about to say something?” she prodded.
“No. That’s it for the moment.”
Wedmore made a couple more notes, then looked up.
“Mr. Garber,” she said, adopting the same tone my doctor used when telling me not to worry while I awaited test results, “I think the best thing for you to do is go home. Let me look into this. I’ll make some calls.”
“Find this Sommer guy,” I said. “Bring in Darren Slocum and ask him some tough questions.”
“I’m asking you to be patient and let me do my job,” she said.
“What are you going to do now? When you leave here?”
“I’m going to go home and make some dinner for myself and my husband,” Wedmore said. She glanced over at the McDonald’s counter. “Or maybe just take something with me. And then, tomorrow, I’m going to give your concerns all the attention they deserve.”
“You think I’m nuts,” I said.
“No,” she said, looking me right in the eye. “I do not.” Even though I believed she was taking me seriously, her comment that she’d wait until tomorrow to look into this wasn’t good enough. So I’d have to start doing something tonight.
She said she’d be in touch, got up, and joined the line to place an order. I watched her a moment, and then did something of a double take.
There were two teenage boys ahead of her, jostling each other playfully, both looking down at an iPhone or some other kind of device one of them was holding. One of the boys I recognized. He’d been with Bonnie Wilkinson when I bumped into her at the grocery store. He’d stood there when she told me that I was going to get what was coming to me. And not long after that came news of the lawsuit.
Corey Wilkinson. The boy whose brother and father were dead because Sheila’s car was blocking that off-ramp.
