Chapter Fifty-Nine
FIFTY-NINE
Mac
The portable crime scene lights, phosphorescent-bright in the eerie, greenish-black cast of the arena, had given Mac a headache. It made the building look like it was filled with glowing vats of chemical waste.
Molly Kranz had been found in the ice rink, lying among yellow tendrils of moss.
The jean jacket she’d taken from one of the houses was soaked through with claret-red blood.
She had suffered a stab wound to the ribs, the weapon—your run-of-the-mill paring knife—wedged so tightly that her attacker had left it behind.
Molly thought she knew who killed Angelica.
Mac was willing to bet she was right.
As much as it pained her to do it, she forced herself to think about how yet another violent crime would affect her sheriff candidacy.
If she knew Bruce Milton, he’d parlay this into a broader smear campaign.
The man would have no qualms about stepping on Molly Kranz’s back to elevate his status in the eyes of voters, the prick.
Mac made a mental note to take the Miltons off her Christmas card list. After the election, she had no intention of speaking to Bruce or his wife again.
Back outside, she shook the dirt and dust from her feathered blonde bangs and went to find Tim and Shana.
Looking as grimy as she felt—fifteen minutes in the place, and Mac was going to need a decontamination shower—they stood by the back of the second ambulance.
Even sitting down, the man inside towered over the emergency technicians, his legs sticking out in front of him like stilts.
His long, oval face made his pained expression read like haughty discontent.
Mac knew that face. This was the guy Bruce had been talking to after the debate. When Shana had called Mac, she’d said he was Mikko’s contractor, and that he was suspected of stabbing Molly.
Apparently, Terry Martino had taken a tumble inside the ruins in his failed attempt to flee.
A small part of Mac relished the sight of the rusty hunk of metal jutting out of his calf, along with his whiny pleas to remove it.
Protocol required the EMTs to leave that task to the doctors, but since bleeding was minimal, they’d agreed to give Shana and Tim a few minutes with the suspect before transporting him to the hospital.
If there’s a god, Mac thought, removing that thing will hurt like a mother and this asshole will get tetanus.
“Is this even legal?” Terry stared wide-eyed at his leg. His eye sockets were pronounced: two deep, black gullies. At their center, a spark of arrogance glowed like a smoldering coal. “I need medical attention, and these people are just standing around!”
“The faster you talk,” said Shana, “the sooner we can get that taken care of.”
“I already told you, I didn’t kill that woman.”
Tim said, “Did you have a plan to meet her here?” Molly’s car had been discovered behind the building, in the overflow parking lot.
“No,” Terry snapped. “I don’t even know her.”
“You sure that’s the story you want to go with?
You were found with her body,” Tim pointed out.
“We’ll seize the knife as evidence, and I notice you’re not wearing gloves.
A partial print is all we need to charge you, Mr. Martino, but I’m guessing we’ll find DNA too.
Failing to cooperate is only going to make things worse. ”
“She was dead when I got here,” he said. “I swear it.”
“Then why did you run?”
Throwing his hands in the air, Terry said, “You scared the shit out of me! I didn’t think anyone else was here.”
Tim’s gaze flicked to Mac. He was losing patience.
“Then why did you come here today, Mr. Martino?”
The question knocked him down a peg. Terry looked like he’d swallowed a bug.
“We know about your partnership with Mikko Helle,” said Shana. “You guys dream big, huh? A renovation, an expansion. Helle bought this place last September. What’s the holdup on the work?”
Terry mouth glided into a frown. “Just standard delays,” he said coolly.
“Funding issues?” Tim suggested. “Did you find out Helle’s pockets weren’t as deep as you thought?”
Terry tilted his head, and Mac could swear Tim’s question had surprised him. “Something like that,” the man said.
“You still haven’t explained why you’re here.”
“I came out here to think. About the renovation, like you said,” Terry told them. “She was like that when I found her—almost gave me a fucking heart attack. All that blood … Jesus, it was awful. I’d been in there for maybe three minutes when you guys showed up.”
Did Mac believe him? The man’s snow-white golf shirt had dust on the shoulders, but from where she was standing, she couldn’t see so much as a droplet of blood.
Stabbings were messy for everyone involved, even if a weapon didn’t produce cast-off patterns.
Was it possible this jerk was telling the truth?
“We have some questions about where you were last Labor Day weekend,” said Tim. “Mikko Helle held a party that Saturday night, and we have reason to believe that you were there.”
“I wasn’t.” He said it quickly. “I know the party you’re talking about. I wasn’t there.”
“Got any proof to that effect?”
“Actually,” said Terry smugly, “I do. Last Labor Day weekend, I was in Potsdam. I had a project out that way, and a late meeting with the owners. I stayed the night at a Hampton Inn.”
Mac was watching Tim and Shana closely. This was not the answer they’d been expecting.
“You and Mikko are friends, is that right?”
“We’re partners,” he said. “But sure, I guess we’re friendly.”
“So you’ve spent time at his house outside of overseeing the renovation?”
“Not much. I don’t live anywhere near there,” said Terry. “I’m up in Hammond, almost an hour away.”
Mac cast her memory back to the previous day, and the bloodbath of a debate.
Terry had been there, deep in conversation with Bruce.
But Hammond was in St. Lawrence County, not Jefferson.
If that was where Terry lived, he couldn’t vote in the sheriff election.
So what had he been doing at the debate?
“Excuse me for a minute,” Shana said. Reaching into her pocket for her phone, she walked toward the Rivermouth, her lips a thin line. If Mac had to guess, she was calling Solomon or Val to have them verify Terry Martino’s claim.
At the ambulance, Tim wasn’t giving up. “Are you in a relationship with Stacy Peel?” he asked.
“Yeah,” said Terry, his face contorted in pain as he glanced down at his leg once more. “We started dating last summer.”
“She’s one of Mikko’s partners on this project too, correct?”
“That’s right.”
“The thing is,” said Tim, “so is Woody Durham. But you already knew that, didn’t you?”
Terry Martino heaved a sigh. “I would hardly call him a partner, but yes. I think he put a little money in as well.”
“Why all the secrecy? There have been several news reports about the project, and the only person mentioned is Mikko Helle.”
“Mikko wants it that way,” Terry said. “He’s going to be the face of it all, for promotional reasons. He wants to rebrand it as Helle Ice House. Helle House for short.” Terry’s lip spasmed. The name pleased him, Mac could tell. She’d bet a month’s supply of wine that it had been Terry’s idea.
“Mr. Martino, where were you yesterday afternoon around one p.m.?”
The abrupt shift in questioning seemed to startle him. “I’d have to check my calendar. At a job site, probably. I was all over the place yesterday.”
“Including a home in Clayton?”
“No.” He shook his head. “No, I’ve got no business over there.”
“Woody’s wife, Nicole Durham, was attacked yesterday at a house in that area,” said Tim. “You sure you weren’t nearby? There aren’t a lot of people who have cause to follow and assault a local mother.”
“I’m sure that’s true,” he said. “I have no reason to assault her either. Why would I?”
Tim said, “I think the answer to that lies with Woody.”
“I really don’t understand,” said Terry.
Shana was back, and looking more encouraged than she’d been before making her phone call.
“I just checked in with the hospital,” she said. “Mr. Martino, you should know that Molly Kranz is alive.”
“What? But I saw her,” the man said. “The blood … she was definitely dead.”
“She was unconscious, and she did lose a lot of blood, but she’s going into surgery.
There’s a chance she’ll pull though—and if she does, she’s going to tell us everything.
Get him out of here,” she told the EMTs, looking disgusted.
“I’ll see you at the hospital, Mr. Martino.
Until then, you talk to no one but us—understood?
We’re a long way from being done with you. ”
As the ambulance drove off, Mac said, “The plot thickens.”
Tim said, “At this point it feels like we’re wading through overnight oats. Could this guy really have an alibi for the night of the party?”
Shana stretched out her hands and ran them over her head, her eyebrows yanked high in frustration.
“We’ll know soon enough. I asked Val to call the Hampton Inn in Potsdam, but I have a feeling he’s telling the truth.
This guy wouldn’t be dumb enough to use a hotel two hours from the crime scene as an alibi unless he knows it’ll check out.
As for yesterday afternoon,” she said, “we’ll have to talk to the secretary and piece together Martino’s day. ”
“I don’t get it,” said Tim. “Martino’s the missing link, he has to be.” He raised his gaze to the sky, squinting into the bright sun. “We know he and Stacy are partners. Could she have colluded with him on the murder? He might not have been at the party that night, but Stacy sure was.”
“But doesn’t it stand to reason that whoever killed Angelica also attacked Nicole and Molly Kranz?” asked Mac. “It was Martino we found out here, not Stacy.”
“I was interviewing Stacy in A-Bay at the time of the attack,” said Tim. “There’s no way it was her.”
It wasn’t making sense. Mac said, “Molly told Blair she saw a man talking to Angelica the night she was killed. He was wearing a shirt with the name of a construction business. That sure sounds like Martino to me. How soon can we get a photo in front of her?” Mac turned to Shana.
“I’m guessing not for a day or two at least. It’s possible that’s not going to be an avenue for us at all. The doctors won’t know more until after the surgery, but she’s in pretty bad shape.”
“Molly Kranz is the key to the whole thing,” said Tim. “Without her, we may never know what happened to Angelica.”
“But Molly talked to Blair.” Blood whooshed in Mac’s ears as she said it, the realization of how critical her niece had become striking fast. “Blair has detailed information about what happened in that house.”
“Where is Blair now?” asked Shana.
“I told her to go home. She should be there.”
“I’ll head to the hospital and deal with Martino,” Shana said. “Tim, can you pick up Blair and get that statement? We need to record everything she knows while it’s still fresh in her mind.”
“Absolutely.”
Stepping away, Mac placed a call to Blair. It went straight to voicemail. Immediately, she tried again. That call went ignored too.
House rules. Blair would text or call her back. Mac passed the time brushing black dust from her slacks. Two minutes, then three. Nothing. She tried Blair’s number for a third time. Again, straight to voicemail.
Her next call was to Nicole.
“I’m home, but Blair’s not here,” Nic told her. “Is she supposed to be?”
“She sure as hell is,” said Mac. “I saw her a couple of hours ago. She had a run-in with the phrogger.”
“What?” Nicole’s tone was a needle stabbing at Mac’s ear.
“I told her to go home and lock the doors. You haven’t heard from her?”
“I haven’t seen Blair all morning.” The panic in Nicole’s tone was rising. “How the hell did she cross paths with Molly Kranz?”
Mac recounted what Blair had told her, including her claim that Woody couldn’t have slept with Angelica. That elicited a gut-wrenching sob, but Nicole recovered quickly.
“That woman. Molly,” she said wetly. “Is she dangerous?”
Mac had no choice but to tell her about the stabbing, and that Terry Martino was found at the scene and was now in custody. Something else registered then. Construction work was commonplace in the region, and Mikko had been planning a big renovation.
“It’s possible the man Molly’s been looking for works with Terry,” Mac said. “Molly saw him wearing a shirt with a construction company logo the night Angelica was killed.”
“So whoever did this is still out there? Woody!” Nicole’s voice was high and wobbly. “We need to find Blair!”
“No! No, you stay where you are—all of you. I mean it, Nic. I’m here with Tim. We’ll find her.”
As she ended the call, Mac thought once more of Molly Kranz.
Molly had told Blair about the final hours she’d been with Angelica.
Not long afterward, she’d been attacked.
Why had Molly come to the Rivermouth after sharing what she knew with Blair?
Hadn’t Blair said that Molly had been searching for the man she’d seen at the party?
She might have spotted him in the area and followed him here.
Except the only man they’d found at the Rivermouth was Terry. Could someone else have come and gone?
And if they had, where were they now?
“Tim,” Mac called as she jogged back to where he stood in the parking lot, her dread a meaty plug in her throat. “Blair’s missing. If Terry didn’t do this, and Angelica’s killer’s still at large …”
“We’ll find her,” said Tim. “I’ll drive.”