False Testimony by Rose Connors

Author:Rose Connors [Connors, Rose]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, General, Mystery & Detective, Women Sleuths
ISBN: 9780743274517
Google: AQmCzxawgqgC
Amazon: B000FCKB9I
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 2005-07-25T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

The T intersection outside our 1840 farmhouse–turned–law office is the gateway to Chatham. Back roads into town exist, of course, but anyone wanting to stay on main thoroughfares will pass through this juncture en route to our charming village center. The antique Cape next to our building houses the Chatham Chamber of Commerce, where volunteers and merchants welcome weekly renters and day-trippers throughout the summer, recommending breakfast joints, fish markets, and seal-watch cruises; handing out menus, maps, and brochures. More than once each season, some confused out-of-towner wanders into our front office looking for directions to the Friday-night band concert. Harry patiently points every one of them toward the gazebo in Kate Gould Park, always with a plug for the PTA’s cotton candy machine.

During the season, traffic is perpetually heavy here, both two-lane roads constantly clogged with carloads of tourists headed for beaches, shops, and restaurants. After Labor Day, the stream of visiting vehicles thins, the whole area growing markedly quieter overnight. By this time of year it’s normally downright desolate, the roads clogged only with snowbanks left behind by the town’s plows. Not today, though.

Today the waist-high white banks have company, and plenty of it. The Chamber of Commerce parking lot is full, though the building is closed until May. Cars and trucks that couldn’t find space in that lot are strewn along both sides of our road, though no parking is allowed on either. Chatham cops are all over the place, slipping orange cardboard citations under icy windshield wipers, barking orders at those vehicle owners they can locate, and directing traffic impatiently while a solitary tow truck tries to make its way through the quagmire.

Our narrow driveway is filled to capacity, the Kydd’s pickup and my Thunderbird hemmed in by two dark gray sedans I’ve never seen before. Harry pulls in behind them, then up onto the front lawn, and stops the Jeep next to Senator Kendrick’s Hummer. “Oh, good,” he says as he cuts the engine. “Company.”

We collect our belongings, climb out of the Jeep, and Harry takes a leisurely stroll around the two mystery cars. He kneads his chin, his expression puzzled. The sedans are identical and they’re impossibly clean, somehow immune to the slush, sand, and salt that coat every other vehicle in sight. “You have friends I don’t know about?” he asks. “People who wash their cars?”

I don’t answer.

Two men in dark overcoats pace in opposite directions on our small front porch, one with his hands jammed into his pockets, the other talking into his palm. I assume there’s a phone in it. They glance at Harry and me as we approach, but both quickly return their focus to the noisy crowd on the sidewalk. It’s multiplying by the minute, kept in check on the other side of our split-rail fence by a human barrier of Chatham police officers. I recognize a few faces in the assembly—members of the press for the most part—and they shout hurried questions at us as we cross the front lawn.

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