Chapter Thirty-Six
THIRTY-SIX
Tim
Woody and Nicole. Nicole and Woody. They were part of this, stuck deep. Shana’s revelation had left Tim feeling unsteady, as if whatever hold he’d had on the case was slipping from his grasp.
Shana had called Mac, who was on her way from Watertown.
Shana hoped to get more information about the alleged infidelity before interviewing Woody.
For his part, Tim was still piecing together the events that had brought Angelica Patten to the house near Tibbetts Point, and that meant re---interviewing Mikko Helle.
When the man arrived at the barracks, strutting into the interview room clad in athleisure wear and a stretchy headband that pushed back his platinum bangs, Tim was surprised to find he was alone.
With no probable cause for an arrest yet, Mikko had no reason to bring an attorney, but he’d struck Tim as the type to lawyer up.
He hoped that, for the moment, Mikko still felt he could speak freely.
“They look familiar,” Mikko said when Tim showed him the faded, curling photographs of Angelica and Molly that Claudia Patten had allowed him to take from her daughter’s bedroom wall. “I couldn’t say why. I meet a lot of people.”
“Even up here?”
“Sure. If I am to live here every summer,” he said, showing Tim his palms, “I want to know my neighbors.”
As the hockey star spoke, Tim’s eyes went to his left ring finger. He hadn’t noticed it before, but there was a tattoo there. A U.S. dollar sign, shaped to look like a ring.
“These women,” Mikko said. “They were in my house?”
“They were. The question is when.” Tim had pondered that for days. Molly seemed to know Mikko Helle, but did Mikko know Molly? And when, exactly, had the women and Mikko crossed paths? “What were you doing last Labor Day weekend, Mr. Helle?”
A moment passed before the man said, “Ah. You’re talking about my party.”
The problem with questioning suspects was that you had to know which questions to ask.
It hadn’t occurred to Tim that a man who was brand new to the area would throw a party at a house he hadn’t moved into yet.
It seemed that was exactly what Mikko had done, and on the same weekend Angelica and Molly were in town.
“How many people were at this party?” Tim asked.
“Oh, very many. It was right after I took possession of the home. The old owner died—I told you that. She left pretty much everything behind. Really ugly shit.” He said it with a chuckle.
“I was going to have the workers throw it away, but I thought, why not have some people over first? I didn’t care if the place got messed up.
It was going to be gutted anyway. The house was mine.
It felt like the time for a celebration. ”
“Can you make a list of who was in attendance?”
He laughed again. “It would be a short list. It’s like I said, most of the people I invited were from around town. It was … spontaneous, you know what I mean? Some, I didn’t even know their names.”
“Molly Kranz knew yours,” said Tim.
Mikko shrugged. “Many people know who I am.”
Tim could feel the tips of his ears going red, his frustration mounting. “What about Woody Durham?” he asked, thinking again of what Shana had told him. Angelica’s body was left in the house, and Woody supposedly knew her on an intimate level. “Was he at the party?”
“Oh, yes. Woody’s a friend.”
“A friend.” Tim tried to imagine why a rich and famous athlete might want to party with the much older owner of a mini putt course, but he came up empty. “OK,” he said, “then does Woody know Angelica Patten and Molly Kranz?”
“You will have to ask him that,” Mikko said with a toothy, unflappable smile.
“I will. I also plan to ask him why his wife was working for you.” That was odd, wasn’t it? Nicole cleaned summer houses. It was her job. Now that Tim knew Mikko and Woody were friends, though, it seemed like a strange arrangement.
It took Tim a second to register Mikko’s confusion. “His wife?” the man repeated.
“Nicole Durham.”
“I have a cleaner named Nicole. Nicole McIntyre.”
“Right,” Tim said. “Woody is Nicole’s husband.”
It didn’t bother Tim that Nicole had given Mikko her maiden name. Shana had kept the name Merchant even after they got married. Nothing unusual about that. Except now, it was dawning on him that Nicole’s legal name wasn’t all she’d kept from Mikko.
Tim could swear that, up until he spoke the words, Mikko Helle had no idea that he’d been employing Woody Durham’s wife.