Blood in the Water(63)

“And can I ask what this something is?” Horace Wingard said.

“No,” Gregor said. “Mr. Wingard, this is a police investigation into a double homicide. I do understand that you have a special relationship with the municipal authorities, but no such relationship gives you the right or the power to interfere in such an investigation. The Plattes are within their rights to refuse to talk to the police if that is what they want, and they are within their rights to hire an attorney to tell us that that is what they want to do. Neither they nor you, however, have the right to use Waldorf Pines’s status as a gated community to attempt to keep the police away. So I would appreciate it if you would stop pretending to be Truman Capote having a snit and behave like a grown-up.”

“You are not,” Horace Wingard said carefully, “a member of the Pineville Station Police Department.”

“I’m a consultant who has been hired by the Pineville Station Police Department, and my status as an active investigator will be held up in court if you insist on taking it there. I know, because other people have insisted on taking it there. Did the Plattes request you to run interference for them in this matter?”

Horace Wingard licked his lips. “No,” he said finally. “I have no idea how the Plattes feel about talking to the police. I know how I feel about having police on the premises of Waldorf Pines.”

“Fine,” Gregor said. “That’s the way everybody feels about having the police on the premises. I would like to ask you a few questions. Then I would like to go out to talk to Michael Platte’s parents.”

“He isn’t there,” Horace Wingard said. “He’s already left for work. She’s there all the time. I’m not going to let you go there without warning her.”

“That’s fine,” Gregor said. “Warn away. This isn’t a stealth mission. I said I wanted to ask you a few questions.”

“If you want to ask me about Michael Platte, I know less than you’d think,” Horace Wingard said. “He was a problem. It’s a terrible thing to say, I know, but there’s nothing to do but admit it. It’s everywhere these days, very nice families, good families, and one of the children just doesn’t turn out right.”

“I didn’t think Michael Platte was a child.”

“He was nineteen,” Horace Wingard said. “We gave him the job at the pool house because we didn’t want him doing something irrevocable. Breaking into people’s houses, for instance, in an attempt to get money for drugs. We thought if we just provided him with a way to spend his time—well.”

“And this job consisted of what?”

“He was supposed to stay at the pool house and make sure nobody went in or out except the repair people,” Horace Wingard said. “It wasn’t an entirely make-work job. For complicated reasons I do not completely understand, the repair company does not want us to empty the pool of water until their own people can come in and do it, and their own people cannot come in and do it for weeks. Still. We didn’t want children to come in and drown in the water, or anything like that.”

“Don’t you have a staff for the pool?”

“Yes, we do,” Horace Wingard looked uncomfortable. “And the pool is usually open all year round. It’s heated. However, when we were informed we would not be able to keep the pool open this fall while repairs were being done, well, I—”

“You fired your staff,” Gregor said.

“There was no reason—” Horace Wingard said.

“Who were probably all illegal immigrants anyway,” Gregor said.

“I’ve never knowingly hired a single undocumented worker at Waldorf Pines, or any other property I’ve managed,” Horace Wingard said. “You have no right at all to make such accusations.”

Gregor didn’t say that he couldn’t see how it would be possible to run a place like Waldorf Pines without “undocumented workers,” because he knew Horace Wingard couldn’t see it, either.

He looked around at the hunting prints and golf memorabilia on the walls and said, “Let me ask you for a bit about Martha Heydreich. You knew her better than anybody I’ve talked to so far. Do you believe the things people say about her having had an affair with Michael Platte? Was she the kind of woman who might have had an affair with a much younger man?”

Horace Wingard made a face. “Oh, it’s no use asking what kind of a woman Martha is,” he said. “It didn’t surprise me when I heard she was dead—thought to be dead, I suppose. It didn’t surprise me that somebody would want to kill her. If I was her husband, I would have killed her years ago.”