63. Blood Relations
The door was imposing, oak studded with black iron bolts and a heavy brass knocker.
Sally hammered three times, and the door opened.
An irate-looking woman stood there, the lower half of her face heavily made up, the upper half strangely plain.
Her reddish hair was up in curlers and she wore a fluffy gray dressing gown.
"You can't park there," she snapped, pointing through the trees. "You're blocking our driveway."
"Officers Rogers and O'Connell," Sally said. "You're Stacey Meeks? We'd like to speak to Crawford Meeks."
"What shot?"
"None of your business, that's what! But, if you must know, it's an interview. About these killings."
Sally looked at Liam. He nodded.
"Mrs. Meeks," she went on, "we need to speak with your husband immediately. Preventing that could lead to charges of obstruction in a murder investigation."
Stacey Meeks' jaw dropped. "Obstruction? I only said move your car!"
"Then let us in."
Meeks' nostrils flared wide. "Fine, then, if you must! But hurry it up, and take your shoes off."
Sally pushed past her, not removing her shoes.
They passed through a boot room that smelled of wet dogs, an expansive open-plan kitchen with granite worktops then entered a large, light-filled conservatory at the rear.
Huge panes of glass hung in delicate wrought-iron enclosures, over chessboard floor tiles and a large U-shaped set of couches.
On the left, a short, beetle-faced man poked at an easel with a brush, wearing pink trousers and a red kaftan. He looked ridiculous, but Sally figured that was the point. Meeks looked up with a beatific smile as they approached.
"Clancy and Jane, I presume?" he asked.
"Officers O'Connell and Rogers," Sally countered. "We're not your press team, Mr. Meeks, so you can drop the act."
Meeks' face went through a range of fleeting emotions, settling on anger. "Act? This is my home. I don't care if you're police, that's no excuse for–"
"The Rooks and Arthur Bledd," Sally interrupted. "Start talking now, everything you know about Reg Rook, Arthur Bledd, Tom Richter and a mutilated seal on Dungeness beach."
Meeks twitched. For a long moment he just stared, then something seemed to animate him from within. He tossed his paintbrush onto the easel, flinched as if the movement pained him, then gestured to the couches with his other arm.
"Sit, then."
Sally took the right couch, Liam the left, which left Meeks in the bottom of the U, where he had to keep looking side to side to speak to them. He scowled.
"Where did you hear about a seal?"
"We were just with Gerald Spate. Old Reactor Logistics colleague of yours."
Meeks offered a wry smile. Back in control again. "I'm sure Gerald Spate says a lot." He affected a bored tone. "He always did. The man is verbally incontinent."
"He thinks Bledd killed Richter because he was carving up a beached seal. But you disagree?"
"I'm sure I have no opinions on the matter of a 30-year-old murder."
Sally studied him. Everything about this man was affected. The clothing, the easel, even his voice; it had coarsened the moment he realized they weren't from the press. "But that's not true, is it? I think you're lying to us."
"I can't help what you think, officer. Neither am I responsible for it. If you have charges to lay, do so. If not, I would ask you to kindly trot along back the way you came." He gestured to the kitchen.
Sally didn't budge. He'd twitched when she'd mentioned the seal.
There had to be something here, she just needed to find the way to get it out.
"According to Gerald Spate, Roarke Rook came into your home seeking full ownership of Reactor Logistics.
He tied your right arm to the wall of this conservatory and began pulling with a digger.
Was that just verbal incontinence, too?"
"Spate is a fantasist." Meeks' tone was chilly. "I have no comment on any of that."
Sally thought back to the wince as he tossed his paintbrush. "Now I know you're lying. He wrecked your right arm with that stunt, and it's still wrecked to this day. Looks painful. How can you ever feel safe in your home again?"
Meeks' gaze bored into her. "I have nothing further to say. Reactor Logistics is a thoroughly closed book."
"Not closed. Moved. A book you started writing with both Reginald Rook and Gerald Spate, both of them inveterate criminals.
" Meeks' cheek twitched. "And before you cry innocence, let me say we're gathering data on the large number of illicit shops you run, including vapes, barbers and coin laundries, all for the purpose of washing the Rooks' smuggling money. "
Meeks' expression did not shift again. "Is that it? You're 'gathering evidence' on me? So you don't actually have anything?" He leaned back in his chair, surveying them. "Maybe you need to rethink this approach, officers. In the industry, we call this going off half-cocked."
A reptilian smile inched across his face. Maybe the first sign of the true lizard underneath the kaftan.
"It won't take long," Sally countered. "Raid a few shops and we'll have everything we need."
"So come back when that fictional event transpires.
If you can, indeed, get warrants, you will find no wrongdoing, and no direct connection to myself.
I am little more than a shadow partner, a minority shareholder, in several small limited companies.
Least of these was Reactor Logistics, a business that rarely did anything more than breakeven; a business which I am now fully divested from, along with all other Rook affairs. "
"Craw-Craw!" came a high-pitched bellow from the kitchen. "Get rid of them, will you? They're blocking the drive."
"Now, if you would be so kind? I expect our business here is transacted. I'd hate to call the impound lot – I am shadow partner there, too, as it happens – and have them tow a police car for blocking a private roadway."
His smile lingered.
Sally glared. She'd barely started down the corruption track, and he'd called their bluff. But then he'd given something away, too.
"Reactor Logistics barely broke even. Is that what you're saying?"
"Raid them too." He waved his left hand. "Check the financial records. I'm sure you'll find–"
"We did. We already know." She leaned forward. "So why did Roarke Rook want it so badly?"
Meeks' eyes narrowed. "I'm afraid I have no idea. It wasn't exactly a two-way conversation. And what he did say to me made no sense at all."
Sally leaned in. Maybe he was giving them something. "What did he say?"
"Some rabid nonsense about his uncle. Needing it for his uncle. But of course, Reg Rook had no brothers. There was no uncle." He chuckled. "I think Roarke was high on his own supply, to be frank."
Sally chewed on that. "That's it? What about Richter and the seal?"
"I don't know anything about a–"
Sally tuned him out. If he did know something, he wasn't going to just blurt it out. His clean record meant he kept secrets well. Her thoughts dipped and rose, searching for a way in. A weakness. A place to–
Something struck her. Maybe he'd already told her more than he'd meant to? She flashed back to Umberside Lodge, her first day on Dungeness. The Rook brothers had been in the middle of something, all carrying boxes full of brightly colored…
"Vapes," she said abruptly.
Meeks was unmoved. "What about them?"
"In your current portfolio, you've got vape shops." She paused. "Does Roarke know about that?"
The twitch returned. Liam leaned closer.
"I don't see why Roarke Rook would want to–"
"I see it," Sally interrupted. "When he stretched out your arm with a digger, he thought he was getting everything. You stepped away from all his 'affairs'; you just said that yourself. Including vapes."
Meeks' lips thinned out. "I'm now asking you to leave my home."
"We're just getting started. If vapes are a Rook racket, imagine how he'll feel when he hears you've wormed your way back into his market?"
"As I said, I'm just a shadow partner in multiple small businesses, not the–"
"And where there's one transgression, there's bound to be others. Barbers? Nail salons? The tow company, that's waste adjacent, isn't it? I've seen Umberside Lodge. Roarke loves collecting old cars." She paused a moment, finally standing. "You're a sneaky little rat, aren't you, Crawford Meeks?"
His cheeks colored. "Even if Roarke Rook did somehow 'hear' about this, he is in custody now, likely to serve a decade or more in prison for human trafficking. He can't touch me."
"Sure about that, are you? Our theory is that there's a fifth Rook. Killing police officers in their name. You think a killer like that won't come down here to reclaim what's theirs? Maybe strap you up one more time, pull until something pops?"
She snapped her fingers. Meeks flinched.
"Arthur Bledd, Crawford," Sally said. "Reginald Rook. Tom Richter. Tell us what you know, now, and we're gone. I don't care about your sticky little fingers in all Roarke's pies. I just want to stop a killer, and you probably want that too now, don't you?"
For the first time, a look of fear stole over Meeks' face. He turned to the kitchen, where Stacey Meeks stood at the kitchen counter, pretending to pour a coffee.
"Upstairs, Stace," he said calmly. "For your own sake."
Stacey Meeks stared defiantly back. "Why?"
"Please."
She cocked her hip, seemed to think about arguing, then stalked away. Meeks waited as the sound of her footfalls on the stairs faded away.
"You are wrong about me, officers," Meeks said gravely.
"I was never Reg's secret-keeper. That was my rule from the outset, when I financed Reactor Logistics.
I did not want to know. Which means I never wanted to hear what I'm about to tell you.
" He paused, licked his lips, then went on.
"It was right before Richter died. I never socialized with Rook, but Gerald and I would play golf from time to time.
We had a rule to never talk shop. But this day, there was a storm.
Like today. We shouldn't even have been playing, but Spate leaned on the club and they bent the rules.
He was drunk on whisky and I was halfway there myself, and he said something about Arthur Bledd. "
Sally's blood ran cold. "What did he say?"
"It was the seal story you mentioned. Something about Bledd catching a local boy torturing a seal. Carving it up. Taking its eyes."
Sally tried to parse that. "You said this was before the murder happened? How long?"
"At least a day. Maybe two."
Sally's mouth went dry. She looked at Liam but he was fixated on Meeks.
"Two days before the murder?" Liam asked. "You're sure about that?"
Meeks nodded. "One hundred percent. I remember Spate thought it was hilarious. He kept laughing, talking about all the things Bledd was going to do to this lad. Put cockle shells in his eyes."
Sally felt the case start spinning like a top.
"But Bledd wasn't friends with Spate," Liam said. "With Rook. With any of them."
"No."
"So why would he… why would he tell them anything about his plans? What he was going to do?"
"I don't believe he would, officer," Meeks said. "I didn't believe it then and I don't now."
Sally's thoughts raced and crashed into the only possible conclusion. "But then, that would mean the whole thing was a setup. Bledd didn't come near–"
"Now we are done," Meeks said, finality echoing in his tone. "Get out. And know that I will never attest to any of this. Attempt to drag me into this filthy affair any further, and I will sue you and your entire force for harassment with every last penny I've got. Is that clear?"
Sally stood. Liam joined her.
"Out," Meeks spat, pointing.
She started back through the kitchen, feeling the world shift on all sides.