Chapter 16 #2
Oh. “Yes, I did. No sign of red paint outside his door or on the stairs or in the dumpster. It doesn’t prove he didn’t do it—”
“I know,” Rachel said.
“But if he did, at least he didn’t leave any evidence behind.”
“Thank you,” Rachel said. “I appreciate you giving him the benefit of the doubt.”
Was that what I was doing?
“I’m going to pay another visit to Pegram now. Call or text when you have the information about Mrs. Miller.”
I put the Lexus in gear and headed west.
Twenty-some minutes later I was cruising down the road past Sal’s spread. I had not heard from either Zachary or Rachel again, so all must be status quo at the Body Shop, and Rachel must still be digging.
Pegram was quiet as the proverbial church on Monday in the middle of the day. I didn’t pass a single car all along the road to Sal’s house.
The gate was closed today, the two sides drawn across the driveway. The No Trespassing sign stared at me; shotgun silhouette a sober warning about what I could expect if I ventured beyond the fenceline.
I drove past the gate and pulled off onto the shoulder about fifty yards down, past the wooden fence enclosing Sal’s property, in a gravel patch outside someone’s paddock. A couple of horses were grazing beside a little brook. It looked as idyllic as it possibly could.
I left my purse and phone in the car when I set out.
I didn’t want an incoming call giving me away if someone else was in the house—Sal was at the Body Shop, but he might be living with someone—and I also didn’t want the bag getting caught on things or slowing me down as I was skulking.
I locked the car and stuck the key fob in my jeans pocket before I walked back along the side of the road, trying to look casual.
Just any middle-aged woman out for a healthy mid-day stroll. Nothing suspicious at all.
At the corner of the property, I stopped to look around.
There were no other houses in sight, so I was pretty sure no one was looking at me, and the log cabin itself appeared deserted.
All the garage doors were closed, and there were no cars parked in the driveway. Also, no smoke coming from the chimney.
“This is stupid,” I muttered. “This is really, really stupid.”
But I climbed over the fence anyway, and darted up along the side of it, until I was as close as I could get to the garage and could run across the grass until I was behind it. That way, no one would be able to see my skulking from the road.
The garage was as big as the house, and built from the same timber.
It looked more like a spread you’d expect in Montana or Wyoming than something you’d find in Middle Tennessee.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this was what Greg’s place in Jackson’s Hole looked like.
Maybe Sal had wanted the Wild West, but Nashville was as far as he had come.
There were no windows along the back of the garage, but there was a door in the middle of it, with a window in the upper half, and I stepped up and I cupped my hands around my eyes to peer in.
It was semi-dark inside, and it took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust to the low light.
Then I could see that the five bays on the outside led into one massive room on the inside.
The space directly in front of me was empty, I assumed it belonged to the pickup Sal drove to work.
In the space to the right was an SUV, and beyond that what looked like a classic muscle car.
Not a Porsche, more like a Mustang or Cobra.
On the other side was a small boat, and a few things grouped together that might have been a motorcycle or ATV or maybe one of those Seadoos.
But it was the shelving unit that caught my attention.
It was full of miscellanea. Flower pots rubbed elbows with bottles of weed killer and buckets of grass seed.
Bags of rock salt sat next to kitty litter and light bulbs.
And there were cans of paint. In the dim light filtering through the windows, it was hard to make out the colors, but the smears on a certain can on the second shelf looked like they might be red.
Or maybe it was orange. Or rust-colored primer.
Something in that color family, anyway.
I pressed my nose closer to the glass, trying to get a better angle, but it didn’t help, not even when I lined my toes up with the door and craned my neck. And the door was locked. I might as well admit that I tried the knob. It rattled under my hand, but didn’t open.
But even if it was red paint, I told myself, it didn’t prove anything. Anyone might own a gallon of red paint. And of everyone involved in this case, why would Sal, of all people, drive to Hillwood to vandalize my door? As far as I knew, Sal didn’t even know who I was.
I would have gone on—I had further thoughts on the subject—but before I could, something happened. I must have roused a sleeping beast when I tried the knob, because suddenly an angry bark from inside the house made me straighten up as if someone had snapped my spine straight.
It wasn’t a cute little yip like Edwina’s warnings. No, this was deep and aggressive, the kind of bark that came from a dog that meant business.
And then another one joined it.
I stepped back from the door, my heart hammering.
And none too soon: the barking got louder, accompanied by the scrabbling of paws and claws, and the next second, two massive German Shepherds came barreling around the bow of the little boat and threw themselves at the door.
Their teeth were bared, and their eyes were fixed on me with the kind of fury that made it very clear what they thought should happen to trespassers like me.
“Nice doggies,” I whispered, even though they couldn’t hear me through the door and their increasingly frantic vocalizing. “Good doggies. I’m leaving now.”
I moved out of sight, toward the back of the real house.
A pair of double glass doors beckoned, and I stopped to stare into a massive family room, with a vaulted ceiling covered with cedar.
A two-story stone fireplace took up the center of one wall with a seating area grouped around it.
The sectional was plaid, but tasteful plaid, and the rug looked like the kind you could sink your toes into.
The other half of the room was taken up by a huge dining room set. Chairs for twelve, and an antler chandelier that must have been the demise of at least half a dozen ten-point bucks. Sal either had a very large family, or big dreams.
And on the far wall, between two doors that looked like they led to a kitchen and a foyer, respectively, sat a gun cabinet.
The dogs had made it into the family room from the garage now—up close and in the light, they were even scarier than I had thought; two slavering beasts that might as well have been werewolves for all the fuzzy feelings they gave me—and I didn’t want to linger any longer than necessary.
The neighbors could probably hear the ruckus, and I was honestly afraid that with the way the dogs were hurling themselves at it, the glass in the door would break.
So I hoofed it out of sight, back towards the garage, even as I congratulated myself on spotting what was clearly a gun cabinet—dark wood, glass front, holding at least a couple of rifles and what looked like a pistol or two.
Lieutenant Copeland must have noticed that when she was here on Saturday, surely? She’d gone here to notify Sal of Nick’s death, not to investigate him for murder—or so I assumed—but she must have noticed, right?
I’d just mention it, sort of casually, to Mendoza, I decided, as I gave the garage door a wide berth.
But before I could leg it down the driveway to safety, I was brought up short by the sight of the trash and recycling bins. They were in a little enclosure next to the garage, and I eyed them, and eyed the road, as well as the house, where the dogs were, as I weighed the risks.
Anyone driving by down on the road would be able to see me if I started digging around.
Not that there was much traffic, but that could change.
And opening the trash bags would also make it obvious that someone had been snooping the next time Sal came out to throw something in one of the cans.
Bagging is required in Nashville; the trash companies won’t pick up unbagged trash.
Not to mention that it’s, you know, illegal to snoop through other people’s discards. At least until the trash is off the property, on the public road, which this decidedly wasn’t.
The recycling, though... that was illegal too, of course. But it was just loose items in a bin. No one would know if I just took a quick look.
The dogs had gone quiet, and that helped with my decision. Had they kept barking, I think I would have just hightailed it out of there as quick as I could.
As it was, I lifted the lid of the recycling bin as quietly as I could and peered in. For just a second, I told myself.
The first thing I saw were the beer cans. So many beer cans. Bud Light mostly, with some Miller High Life mixed in. Sal apparently drank a lot of beer, or he’d had a party. Given that he lived alone—or seemed to—I was betting on the former.
Under and between the cans were newspapers, flattened cardboard boxes, and a stack of what looked like circulars and the like. I pulled out a handful, trying not to rustle anything.
It turned out to be junk mail, mostly. Fliers from Home Depot and Lowe’s. A credit card offer ripped in half. Solicitations from St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital and the Shriners. They were unopened, so either Sal wasn’t feeling generous, or he had other things to spend his money on.
There were a couple of envelopes with the celluloid windows that let you see the address through the plastic, the kind that bills come in. They were all slit open at the top and empty of their contents. Sal must have taken the bills out and paid them, and decided to recycle the envelopes.
I peered into the bin to see whether the bills themselves were there too, but no such luck.
The envelopes—and the logos in the corners—told their own story. Comcast—phone bill, or maybe internet, or both. Metro Water—self-explanatory. Nashville Electric Service—ditto. Regions Bank—probably a statement. Sal was old school, it seemed, and received his bills via snail mail.
One of the envelopes was from something called Titan Insurance Group. I turned it over to peer at it.
The envelope was empty, like all the others. Sal must have kept the bill, or thrown it away, or shredded it. But the envelope itself was marked with a red stamp: SECOND NOTICE.
I stared at it for a moment, then put it back where I’d found it and lowered the lid.
Insurance companies didn’t send second notices unless you’d missed the first payment. And they didn’t use red stamps unless they wanted to get your attention.
I wasn’t familiar with Titan. It was something I’d have to ask Rachel to look into, whether it was home or auto insurance, or perhaps life or health.
Could be business, even. But either way, Sal was slow to pay the bill.
Which probably meant that he was having money trouble.
And that wouldn’t be surprising, given that the mob had muscled in on his business.
Somehow I doubted the Cosa Nostra was known for their generous profit-sharing arrangements.
The dogs started barking again, set off by the lid closing, and I realized I’d been standing there too long. I hurried down along the edge of the driveway, trying not to look like I was fleeing.
The mailbox sat at the end of the driveway, just outside the gate. I scrambled over the fence and approached it. Messing with the federal mail is more illegal than anything else I’d just done, of course. Nonetheless, I opened it. Just for a quick look, I told myself, and then I’d leave.
More junk mail—pizza coupons, solicitations, a window replacement company. The log cabin hadn’t looked to me like it needed new windows, but what did I know? A utility bill. Piedmont Natural Gas this time. And another envelope from Titan Insurance Group.
This one was stamped FINAL NOTICE in angry red letters.
I pulled it out and looked at the address window. Salvatore Gomorra, this address. And in the corner, printed in small letters: Life Insurance.
So it wasn’t his car insurance or his homeowner’s policy that he wasn’t paying. It wasn’t even the Body Shop’s liability insurance that was in arrears, and I could have made a case for that. Why bother to try to keep a business afloat that the mob was busily driving into the ground?
But no, it was life insurance.
Was it his own life he had insured? Or someone else’s?
Was it Nick’s? Because that would explain a few things, if so.
I felt around for my phone (to take a picture of it) before I remembered that I had left it in the car. All I could do was memorize the logo before I stuffed everything back in the mailbox and headed down the road to my car.