Page 70 of Suzanna's Surrender
“Good.”
They found Trent in the office he’d thrown together on the first floor, a stack of files at his fingertips, a phone at his ear. He took one look at the two men. “I’ll get back to you,” he said into the phone and hung up. “Who is it?”
“He’s using the name Robert Marshall.” Holt pulled out a cigarette. “Foreman let him go early. I want an address.”
Saying nothing, Trent crossed to a file cabinet to pull out a folder. “Max is upstairs. He has a stake in this, too.”
Holt skimmed the information in Marshall’s file. “Then get him. We’ll do this together.”
The apartment Marshall had listed was on the edge of the village. The woman who opened the door after Holt’s third booming knock was bent and withered and out of sorts.
“What? What?” she demanded. “I’m not buying any encyclopedias or vacuum cleaners.”
“We’re looking for Robert Marshall,” Holt told her.
“Who? Who?” She peered through the thick lenses of her glasses.
“Robert Marshall,” he repeated.
“I don’t know any Marshalls,” she grumbled. “There’s a McNeilly next door and a Mitchell down below, but no Marshalls. I don’t want to buy any insurance, either.”
“We’re not selling anything,” Trent said in his most patient voice. “We’re looking for a man named Robert Marshall who lives at this address.”
“I told you there’s no Marshalls here. I live here. Lived here for fifteen years, since that worthless clot I married passed on and left me with nothing but bills. I know you,” she said abruptly, pointing a gnarled finger at Sloan. “Saw your picture in the paper.” Reaching to the table beside the door, she hefted an iron bookend. “You robbed a bank.”
“No, ma’am.” Later, Sloan thought, much later, he might find the whole business amusing. “I married Amanda Calhoun.”
The woman held on to the bookend while she considered. “One of the Calhoun girls. That’s right. The youngest one—no, not the youngest one, the next one.” Satisfied, she set the bookend down again. “Well, what do you want?”
“Robert Marshall,” Holt said again. “He gave this building and this apartment as his address.”
“Then he’s a liar or a fool, because I’ve lived here for fifteen years ever since that no-account husband of mine caught pneumonia and died. Here one day, gone the next.” She snapped her bent fingers. “And good riddance.”
Thinking it was a dead end, Holt glanced at Sloan. “Give her a description.”
“He’s about thirty, six feet tall, trim, black hair, shoulder length, big droopy moustache.”
“Don’t know him. The boy downstairs, the Pierson boy’s got hair past his shoulders. A disgrace if you ask me. Bleaches it, too, just like a girl. He’s no more’n sixteen. You’d think his mother would make him cut that hair, but no. Plays the music so loud I have to bang on the floor.”
“Excuse me,” Max put in and described the man he had known as Ellis Caufield.
“Sounds like my nephew. Lives in Rochester with his second wife. Sells used cars.”
“Thanks.” Holt wasn’t surprised the thief had given a phony address, but he was annoyed. As they came out of the building, he dug a quarter from his pocket.
“I guess we wait until morning,” Max was saying. “He doesn’t know we’re on to him, so he’ll show up for work.”
“I’m finished waiting.” Holt headed for a phone booth. After dropping in the coin, he punched in numbers. “This is Detective Sergeant Bradford, Portland P.D., badge number 7375. I need a cross-check.” He reeled off the phone number from Marshall’s file. Then he held on with a cop’s patience while the operator set her computer to work. “Thanks.” He hung up and turned to the three men. “Bar Island,” he said. “We’ll take my boat.”
While their men prepared to sail across the bay, the Calhoun women met in Bianca’s tower. “So,” Amanda began, pad and pencil at the ready. “What do we know?”
“Trent’s been cross-checking the personnel files,” C.C. supplied. “He claimed there was some hitch in withholding taxes, but that’s bull.”
“Interesting,” Lilah mused. “Max stopped me from going over to the west wing this morning. I’d wanted to see how things were going, and he made all kinds of lame excuses why I shouldn’t distract the men while they were working.”
“And Sloan shoved a couple of files into a drawer and locked it when I came into the room last night.” Amanda tapped her pencil on the pad. “Why wouldn’t they want us to know if they’re checking up on the crews?”
“I think I have an idea,” Suzanna said slowly. She’d been chewing it over most of the day. “Last night I found out that Holt’s cottage had been broken into and searched.”
