Page 115 of The First Gentleman

Twenty names. Twenty students who rotated through that ramshackle house during the years when Cole Wright, Maddy Parson, and Burton Pearce were there.

I spent last night cross-referencing the names on the list Laurie Keaton sent me with the online Dartmouth alumni directory. But a lot of people slip through the cracks in alumni records. Maybe they never graduated. Maybe they changed their names when they got married and never updated their profiles.

I’ve already made six calls this morning. I work my way down the list. There are three names left. I’m thrilled to get an answer when I dial Caleb Stringer. His wife, Helen, answers—but she quickly tells me that her husband is unavailable.

“I’m sure he’d be happy to talk to you,” she says. “He always has stories about his Dartmouth days. But that’s not going to happen today. He’s away on a six-month grant to study the grizzly bear population in Alaska’s Katmai National Park and Preserve. But I’ll pass your message along next time I talk to him.”

Just my luck: The one guy who might actually be able to help me turns out to be a wildlife biologist who’s somewhere on the tundra with apex predators.

I walk over to my minifridge and grab a bottle of water. I’ve got Court TV on in the background. As I pass by, I get a flash of a man’s face on the screen. I stop.

Jesus Christ!

It’s Leo Amalfi!

I grab the remote and turn up the sound just in time to catch the end of a reporter’s intro.

“And now his handiwork may have surfaced again. Providence police report finding two fifty-gallon metal drums partially submerged off Rock Island in the Providence River. Those drums reportedly contained human remains suspected to be those of Anthony Puglisio and Enzo Lucia, two low-level associates of the Providence crime family, missing since just before Amalfi’s death.”

The video cuts to side-by-side mug shots of two men, one much older than the other. Both with cold eyes.

I drop my water bottle and sit down on the edge of the bed to catch my breath.

Could these be the two men Amalfi told me he sent after Garrett? The ones who said someone above him cut the chain and turned a contract into a hit?

If they are, I’m not sorry they’re dead.

I’m only sorry they can’t talk.

CHAPTER

106

Rockingham County Courthouse, New Hampshire

I’m late to court, but thanks to last night’s Court TV preview, I recognize the witness for the prosecution on the stand: Detective Herman Fleming.

Since I missed Bastinelli’s questioning, I’m not entirely sure how he’s connected to the case. I’m about to find out.

Throughout the trial, I’ve been jotting down capsule descriptions of people I’ll need to describe in the book. For Fleming, I scrawl,Brown hair, thick as a teenager’s but gray at the temples. Brown suit.

I put down my pen and look up.

Herman Fleming is about to meet Tess Hardy.

“Good afternoon, Detective.”

“Good afternoon, Counselor.”

“So, to confirm what we heard in your testimony with Mr. Bastinelli, you were not part of the Suzanne Bonanno missing person investigation seventeen years ago, correct?”

“That’s right. I was a patrolman in Seabrook then.”

“And now you’re retired. No longer active in law enforcement.”

“Correct. I’m a contractor.”

“In your testimony with Mr. Bastinelli, you indicated that you did have knowledge of a jurisdictional dispute regarding the case at that time, true?”

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