Blackwork (14 page)

“Well, thanks, Leona. I’d better be on my way.”

“No problem.”

As she went back into the pub, Billie called, “You get what you needed?”

“Yes, thanks!” She was nearly to the door when she turned and saw Joey Mitchell in the rearmost booth, his one good hand around a mug of beer. A plate of fries was on the table in front of him.

Betsy made a U-turn and went back to see him. Seated across from him was a man Betsy recognized as Excelsior’s fire chief. He looked up as Betsy approached, and nodded and smiled.

Joey looked up and recognized Betsy.

“May I have just a few minutes of your time, Joey?” asked Betsy.

“Take all you want,” said the chief. “I’ve got to get home.” He rose, pulled his raincoat off the hook beside the booth, and hurried away.

“Sit down, why don’t you?” said Joey, gesturing at the now-empty seat. “Can I get you a beer?”

“All right,” said Betsy. “What’s the least bitter kind they make here?”

“Well, earlier in the summer there was a cherry beer that was very sweet. There may be some left.”

“Really? There’s a beer made from cherries?”

“It’s called a lambic, and it’s sweet with no hops in it—hops are what give a beer what beer drinkers think is a refreshing bite. There’s a monastery in Belgium that still makes lambics flavored with all kinds of fruit.”

“I’ll try it,” said Betsy, and Joey raised his hand, summoning Billie’s son, now acting as server. “Do you have any of that cherry lambic?” he asked.

“No, but there’s a peach variety,” Roger said.

“Bring Ms. Devonshire a mug of it,” he said. “And another lager for me.”

The lambic came in an orange pottery mug, smooth and almost glittery in its shininess.

Betsy was amazed at the taste. “Why this almost isn’t beer!” was her first comment. “It’s not bitter at all!”

“That’s right. No hops, no bite.”

“But it’s not at all like a soft drink. Or hard cider.”

“No, it’s its own thing.” The two drank for a thoughtful minute or two, then Joey asked, “What did you want to talk to me about?”

“Ryan McMurphy.”

Joey’s expression soured and then turned sad. “I’m sorry he’s dead.”

“Really? From what I’ve heard about you, that surprises me.”

“Still, it’s true.”

“Did you murder him?”

He looked mordantly amused. “No.”

“Do you have any idea who might have done it?”

“I don’t think he was murdered at all. I mean, wasn’t he in a locked room with other people in the house and one window to the outside that doesn’t open?”

“Yes. And we’re working on how it might have been done. If I asked you to tell me where you were very early on the Monday morning his body was found, could you tell me?”

“I could, but why should I?”

“Because you were very, very angry with Ryan—”

“You were here the night I came in and saw us sit and drink together.”

“You could have gotten him drunk on purpose.”

“Now why would I do that?”

“Someone suggested that you were hoping he’d drive drunk, as he’s done before, and get into an accident that would cripple him like his drunk driving crippled you.”

A slow smile formed. “That sounds like something your buddy Godwin would say.”

He couldn’t possibly know that—anyone might say that. “I believe you know Goddy said it.”

He nodded, sipped his beer. “All right, I might’ve heard something to that effect.”

“Is it true?”

He stared at her, but she was better at the waiting game and only looked calmly back at him. At last he sighed and said, “It might’ve crossed my mind.”

“Or perhaps you had in mind something about a fire.”

The silence this time was longer. Much longer. Joey worked for an insurance company. His job was investigating fraud, particularly arson.

He swallowed, but said boldly, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. There wasn’t a fire at Shelly Donohue’s house.”

“But something like smoke was put into that room. Something that didn’t leave a mark on his body or a trace behind. Have you any idea what that might be?”

“No. But smoke does leave traces, all kinds of traces.”

“Yes, you know about things like that, don’t you? Where were you that Sunday night, say from midnight forward?”

The reality of his smile showed how false the previous ones had been. “You are not going to believe this—but you can check. I was playing chess with an old friend, Paul Marlin, who lives in that senior co-op in Saint Louis Park. It must’ve lasted until nearly four in the morning.”

“What time did it start?”

“I’m not sure—late, though, probably after eleven. He and I went out to dinner at this Asian place he likes, then back to his place to talk. I had Monday off, so I didn’t mind that it went late or that the games went long. We played in Paul’s apartment. I can give you his phone number so you can check it out. I can’t believe you think it might’ve been me.”

“Why couldn’t it be you? This kind of murder might be just your style. You know how investigations work, and you know how fraud works. And you hated Ryan.”

Joey hesitated, then sighed. “Lord, yes, I hated him. I’m glad he’s dead—because now maybe I can stop hating him. If he hadn’t died in that basement, I might’ve killed him. I thought long and hard about doing it. That’s why I started making friends with him again, so I could get close to him, maybe find a way to do it.” He took a deep drink of his lager. “You would not believe how many ways there are to set fire to a car and make it look like an accident.”

He took another, shorter drink. When he set the mug down, he said, “But now I don’t have to think about it anymore. I’ll just tell myself that I would’ve backed out. I like my job with Boyson Insurance. Do you believe in karma? If I could have stayed on the job as a fireman, I probably would’ve had some kind of accident and ruined my arm anyhow.”

He turned his mug around on the table, looking at the wet mark it was making.

“So if not you, then who?”

He looked at her for a long few seconds before speaking. “Billie Leslie might’ve. She hated him.”

“
Billie?
Why?”

“Because he spread some wicked gossip about her daughter Cara.” He shrugged. “Or at least that’s what Ryan told me that last night he was alive. But Ryan isn’t very reliable when he’s drunk.”

Betsy nodded, adding that tidbit to her store of information.

Joey said, “Now Ryan’s gone, who’s gonna drive that fire truck he fixed up in the parade?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t heard.”

“Can I do it?” He looked up at her. “Please?”

“Can you handle it? Maybe I can arrange for you to ride on it.”

“No, I want to drive it. I can rig the steering wheel, put a suicide knob on it. Come on, I’m the one who got the coats for the riders, you guys owe me something.”

“Why is this so important to you?”

“Call it a last hurrah for a dead dream. Okay?”

“I’ll talk to Billie for you. But you have to go see Ryan’s wife—the truck is hers now. Meanwhile, let me ask you this: Did you come into The Barleywine looking for Ryan the night of the meeting?”

“No, I came in for something to eat and he was there. Already drinking, too.”

“No, he wasn’t. All he had was a Coke. I saw him drinking a Coke. He came over to the table where we were sitting to make his report, and I didn’t smell anything on his breath, nor did he act drunk. And anyway, The Barleywine wouldn’t serve him alcohol.”

“He wasn’t drunk, but he’d been drinking,” insisted Joey. “I could smell it on him—hard liquor, not beer, so he must’ve started before he came in, because they don’t serve hard liquor in here. When we’d been sitting there for a little while, he asked me to buy him a beer.”

“Just out of the blue sky?” said Betsy.

Joey looked defiant. “All right, I was leaning on him over those damn Cokes. And once he started, I encouraged it.”

“Chug-a-lug,” said Betsy, remembering now where she’d heard it.

“Yeah, yeah. I thought about offering to drive him home once he had a load on, but he got out ahead of me. I’m glad now. I wasn’t then, but now I am.”

“All right. Well, I’ve got to get home. Thank you for talking with me.”

He offered the traditional Minnesotan reply, “You bet.”

Betsy went out into the storm, thoughtful. She didn’t think Joey was lying about the chess game, but he’d started out by lying to her, so who knew? And if Mr. Marlin was really a good friend, he might lie for Joey. She’d pass this along to Mike Malloy to check out.

Between the lambic and the walking, she was tired when she got home. She went right to bed, but her sleep was troubled with dreams. The oddest one had her surrounded by running oranges. She picked one up and found it had horses’ legs, complete with tiny metal shoes. She was about to pry a horseshoe off with a screwdriver when she woke up to find her cat Sophie touching her worriedly on the shoulder. Had she been giggling in her sleep? Certainly the idea of cantering oranges was silly enough.

In a much better mood, she got up and dressed for work.

G
ODWIN was at Rafael’s place on Saturday afternoon, a spacious apartment carved from an old mansion in the Loring Park neighborhood. There were six units in this building and eight in the one next door, which formed a condominium. Rafael had what were once the front and rear parlors and half the old library. They were now a bedroom and bath, a living room, and a kitchen that was open to the living room. There were lots of windows, high ceilings, and a set of French doors leading out to a small backyard shared by all the tenants. There were pale hardwood floors, beautiful Persian carpets, white plush and white leather furniture trimmed in chrome and ornamented with bright-colored pillows. An electric fireplace was built into a corner. The art on the walls was Mexican impressionist. One of the windows was stained glass, featuring a knight in full armor climbing a rocky height, his eyes fastened on the heavens. It was Victorian—the knight had an anachronistic handlebar mustache.

Godwin loved it; he loved the whole place. He was—rarely for him—speechless with admiration.

Rafael, amused and pleased at his friend’s reaction, said, “So you will help me at the party tonight?”

“Oh, yes, of course. What do you want me to do?”

“Well, Paul is making hors d’oeuvres, and Doug is mixing drinks. Could I ask you to carry them around to my guests? Oh, and when we start the poetry, I want a spooky effect, so I have bought a washtub at a secondhand store and some dry ice. I want you to make sure there is water and dry ice in the tub, so we will have that, what is it, ‘ground fog’ effect?”

“Ooooooooh, I think that will be great! Where’s the tub? Where do you want to place it?”

They looked around and decided the little coat closet right inside the door was the best place. “We’ll have people put their coats on the bed,” decided Rafael.

The theme of the party was The Poe Tree, and each guest had to bring a Halloween-themed poem to read while wearing a costume suitable to the poem.

Godwin adored costume parties, but was less sure about poetry. Still, he remembered one verse of a poem the father of a childhood chum used to recite when the subject of ghost stories would come up. He looked the rest up on the Internet and hoped it would do.

His costume was that of a child from the early twentieth century: a Buster Brown suit. It consisted of a red, Russian-style tunic with a stand-up collar and a three-button fastening on his right shoulder, matching shorts, white ankle socks, and black Mary Jane shoes. The costume was topped with a broad-brimmed yellow sailor hat trimmed with a broad red ribbon. A shop appropriately named Licks on Water Street in Excelsior had provided the crowning touch, an enormous striped lollipop. He felt both exhilarated and ridiculous driving over to Rafael’s condo in his little sports car, like a child in a toy car. He both hoped no one noticed him, and hoped everyone did and thought his outfit too sweet to be endured.

Rafael wore a black velvet suit with a broad-collared white shirt and enormous floppy tie—he was Edgar Allen Poe—and he kicked off the party by reciting “The Raven” from memory. Most people are familiar with the opening verse,
Once upon a midnight dreary
. . . But few get as far as the final verse:

Rafael’s voice was low and thrilling. Godwin sat transfixed through the recital. Then he felt ashamed of his silly poem and went off to the kitchen to refill the tray with drinks while the others commented on the performance.