Don't Explain: An Artie Deemer Mystery (21 page)

I
 was hearing voices! I’d read a book about a guy adrift in a life raft in the middle of the ocean who after several weeks began to hear the sharks talking to him, trying to make a deal for his thigh. Maybe it was happening to me, only quicker, because I was unused to the ways of the sea. But it turned out only to be the radio. The radio was mounted on the dashboard beside the steering wheel. The mouthpiece part, suspended by a helix of black cord, was bouncing on the deck. I picked it up.

“Artie! Artie! Come back! This is Hawley! Over—”

I studied the thing for a moment. I depressed the lever and said, “I’m here.” And I released the lever. Nothing. Fuck, I didn’t say over. I knew you were supposed to say over. “Over!”

“Everything okay back there? How is he? Over.”

“The arm’s definitely broken. He’s cold.” I’d seen a documentary on hypothermia, and I was pretty sure Arno’s body core was going that way. I knelt down to look into his face. His eyes were distant. His head lolled, but every time he passed out, he’d drop his broken arm, and the pain would wake him with a moan. “I don’t know whether to get him below or not. Depends how far we are from wherever we’re going. Over.” I looked outboard into primordial, permanent night.

“A crossin’ to Micmac would be cruel on the old bastard. Over.”

“Where are we now?” I was sick of this “over.”

“About fifteen minutes from the Dogs.”

How’d he
know? know?
I looked out again to see if I’d missed something,some mark that might mean something to a local. But there was nothing. Absolute darkness. I could barely see Hawley’s light at the end of the towline. There was no other beacon of civilized humanity visible.

“Then let’s take him to the boathouse.” I looked down at Arno to see if he’d heard his son call him an old bastard. Hell, maybe he was an old bastard, but I felt a little protective of him sitting there against the roaring engine box. “Over.”

“Okay, thanks a lot.”

I went down below to find something warm, but it was pitch dark down there. I tried the usual places for a light switch, but I came up empty. The cabin was tiny, hot, and stuffy. I began to spin. I didn’t have long down here before I’d start retching like Jellyroll. I felt around on my knees. A bed. I could feel that it was neatly made. I tore the blanket off and took it up to Arno. But Arno was unconscious. I put it around him as best I could without touching that contorted arm.

And then it dawned on me—we weren’t slamming into the waves anymore. The water was relatively calm. Did that mean we were being sheltered by the Dogs or were we already in the cove? I looked outboard. Only darkness—

Hawley came on the radio to say that he was going to cast off the towline and come up on our port side.

“What do I have to do? Over.”

“Nothin’. Out.”

Good.

He tied the two boats side by side quickly and efficiently. We proceeded slowly. “Turn the wheel a little to the left,” he instructed. “There, hold that. Thanks, Artie.” He began his approach to the flat rock—

Suddenly I could see lights in the boathouse. Crystal. Lights. Jellyroll. Hearth and home. The sweets of civilization, doubly so
to us stalwart, square-jawed types just back from the savage sea, timbers shivered.

Crystal! I could see her now on the porch waving both hands over her head. Jellyroll was up there, too, swirling with excitement. She ran inside and immediately back out, now wearing a raincoat. Crystal and Jellyroll headed down the stairs and out of sight. After that dark, I took deep pleasure in mere illumination.

With the boats mated like a motorcycle and sidecar, Hawley placed his father’s boat gently against the flat rock, where Crystal waited. She bounced with excitement on the balls of her feet, a sweet, girlish trait of hers I find deeply touching. Jellyroll barked with high-pitched urgency. He wouldn’t stop until I’d greeted him. I climbed ashore and hugged Crystal. Then I petted Jellyroll.

Hawley and Crystal were leaning over Arno. I joined them after I’d finished tying the boat to the rings in the rock.

Arno looked up at us gratefully. “Don’t want to be no imposition. You folks is on vacation,” I actually heard him say.

Crystal rolled her eyes. “You can use the bathroom, but then you have to go.”

He stood up. Cradling his angled arm, he stepped over the side of his boat onto the rock, and under his own steam, with hardly a grimace walked toward the boathouse steps. Hawley and Crystal went with him, guarding him like basketball players, not daring to touch him.

Crystal, deciding he didn’t need help, turned back to me. Rain ran off the brims of our hats. The wind still howled through the trees. Their tops whipped, but that was barely a hint of what I’d seen—or not seen—out there. Feeling very salty, I removed my safety harness and life jacket, and I liked that Crystal stood watching me do it. We kissed, while Jellyroll danced around on his hind legs to get into the act. We knelt down to his level so he could.

“Was it scary?”

“Naa. Walk in the park.”

“Well, I was scared. I thought you’d never come back.”

“Did you pace?” I tried to picture it.

She pulled my hat off because it was in the way and kissed me wetly. This was romance. Without the stalker business, we would have been free of cares and woe. For a while, anyway.

I whispered in Crystal’s ear, “The old man said he killed Kempshall,” as we went up the steps.

“He
did?
”

“Yep, strangled him. With something.”

I put the water on to boil and assembled the coffee gear, while Crystal examined Arno like she knew what she was doing. She sat him on the wicker couch and knelt to look clinically into his eyes. She cocked her head like Jellyroll, scrutinizing. “My name is Crystal, Mr. Self.”

“You’re the pool player.”

“Right.”

“Ditn’t know they had lady pool players.”

“We’d better get that raincoat off, Mr. Self. You’re too cold.”

“I once saw Ralph Greenleaf play down in New Hampshire when I was a boy. Now could you give him a game?”

“Nope, not him, not even with the added advantage of being alive.”

Crystal went to work removing his foul weather gear. It must have been excruciating. After the first two layers, Arno was panting, and they gave up. Crystal cut off Arno’s sweater and his flannel shirt with a pair of shears. As they did that dreadful tugging and coaxing, Arno didn’t make a sound, but from time to time his eyes rolled back in his head. As the layers fell away and the end neared, we gathered around to see. Even Jellyroll gathered with us. He sat down and waited.

All four of us gave little simultaneous groans, different in pitch and tone according to our wont. It made me think of a twisted doo-wop group. The skin around the break was purple and pulpy. It bulged in unnatural places. You could see sharp points pressing
on the skin. If you touched it, even gently, it seemed to me, you would leave fingerprints in the flesh, a little more firmly and you would puncture it like something swollen by the gasses of putrescence.

Crystal said, “There’s a lot of subcutaneous bleeding, but the skin’s not broken, and you don’t seem to be in shock, Mr. Self.”

“Well, then I guess I better be runnin’ along.”

“Right…This is a complicated break. I’m going to immobilize it, and we’ll get you to the hospital as soon as the storm ends.”

Maybe the ministration by a beautiful woman had softened the craggy edges of his features somewhat.

“I wish we had some real painkillers,” said Crystal to no one in particular.

“Oh, the old man don’t take pain pills. He’s too tough,” Hawley said. I glanced at him. It wasn’t a joke, he wasn’t smiling.

“Hell I don’t, boy.” Neither was Arno. “You get them, I’ll do the rest.”

“Mare-o-wanna, Dad. That’s all I got.”

“Does it work?”

“Hell yes, it does.”

“Go get it.”

He rummaged through his layers to get to his shirt pocket, from which he withdrew a fat spliff and held it up beside his face. “I already got it.”

“My son, the drug czar, the great shame and sadness of my life.” Was this a routine? “Have you met Dickie yet? Dickie is his partner in crime. Dickie.”

Delighted, Hawley was lighting up under clouds of cloying smoke. “First one’s free, Dad. Then when you’re hooked, you’ll have to sell your soul to Dickie.” He handed it to the old man.

Arno puffed away, then stared out, apparently waiting for some effect to hit.

I looked at Crystal. Did she think it was a routine or was it real? I guess you can’t tell if you’re from away.

Crystal went into the bedroom and came back with a pillowcase. She began to make a sling out of it. She
did
know what she was doing.

“Psst,” said Hawley, flicking his head in an unsubtle high sign toward the door. He wanted to talk to me. I asked Crystal if she needed anything. She said she didn’t.

Hawley Self and I stood under the eave of the roof; the rain that drummed on the porch touched only our boot toes.

“Wind’s layin’ down some now,” he said. “But that was a mean little front. I appreciate you goin’…What’d the old man have to say? Did he talk on the way back?”

“What?”

“Did he tell you things?”

“Like what?”

“Like did he tell you he killed Kempshall?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“By what means?”

“Yeah.”

“He said he strangled him.”

“Bullshit.”

“With pot warp.”

“Pot warp, my ass. He didn’t strangle nobody.”

“What’s pot warp?”

“That’s the line you tie on to the lobster trap to pull it up with. Pot warp was not the murder weapon. Right here,
this
was the murder weapon—” Hawley had in his hand a beat-up canvas gym bag with broken handles. I had wondered why. He zipped it open with a flourish and pulled out a hatchet. “Here, this is what killed Kempshall, this right here.” Hawley hefted the thing to show me. “He was scum. He stole people’s lives. That’s why I killed him with a blow from this. You saw the bones, right? You tell me. Does this fit what you saw?”

“…Yes.”

“Well then, there you have it.”

“Okay.” What did he want from me? We looked at each other for a while, the raindrops splashing off our toes. “Why are you telling me this, Hawley?”

“Well, let’s just say something happens. You know, a thing we couldn’t even imagine at this point in time. The unexpected.”

“Like what?”

“Like maybe the bones turn up again. God knows where, but let’s say they do. Let’s say the cops or somebody comes up to you and wants to talk about the Kempshall killing.”

“Why would they do that? I’m from away.”

“I
know
you are, but we’re just saying here, okay? The cops ask you about the killing, like what you’ve heard about it. You might say, ‘Hawley Self told me he did it.’ ”

“No, I wouldn’t.”

“You wouldn’t?”

“No, I promise.”

Hawley looked disappointed. “What if I wanted you to?”

“Oh. You want me to? Okay, then I will.”

Hawley looked at me. “Anything, right, as long as it doesn’t fuck you up?”

“Right. See, I think you have a beautiful place to live here, and I’d like to get to know it a little. I got a psycho on my dog’s ass. I don’t want stress, and I don’t want to cause stress. It’s stressful uncovering dark secrets of the past. I only did so by accident. As far as Kempshall’s murder is concerned, you can have it any way you want it. Let me ask you this, Hawley, out of curiosity. Did you dispose of the bones?”

“…Yeah.”

“After Crystal and I saw them, after the dogs got to them?”

“Sure.”

“What did you do with them?”

“In the drink. Deep fucking six.”

“So they’ll never be seen again, right?”

“I shouldn’t think so.”

“Then what difference does it make? The law isn’t going to do anything without a body. Sheriff Kelso said so. None of you need to confess yet.”

“Kelso said that?”

“Yep.”

He blinked twice in a comic sort of way and said, “Then what the fuck is the problem?”

“No problem,” I said.

He produced and lit another spliff, as if in celebration. Under a cloud of smoke too thick to blow away in the diminished wind, he said, “We solved that matter. The bone matter. Then let’s turn to another matter. Let’s turn to the matter of this stalker. You think it’s those assholes in the black sportfisherman, don’t you?”

“Yeah, it’s possible. There’s circumstantial evidence.” I didn’t want to get into
Ten Pins
and the threatening bowling sheets. “They’re the only strangers around right now.”

“So why don’t we have a word with them?”

“Say what?”

“Say like, ‘Get the fuck out of Cabot County with the next tide, or I hack your nuts offinto the bait sock.’ Something along them lines.”

Frankly, that sounded good to me.

“Hawley Self!” It was a woman’s voice.

Hawley jumped at the sound of it—

“Will you quit smoking that devil weed!”

Hawley was pushing forty, but he jerked that spliff out of his mouth and hid it behind his back. “Mom!”

She was standing on the rocky shore squinting up at us. Raindrops struck her face.

“What are you doin’ here? You heard about the old man?”

“Of course I did. I was up the east side with Edith. Don’t call him that.”

“You mean you walked all the way over here?”

“No, I got high on your weed and floated. Are you Mr. Deemer?”

“Artie.”

“How do you do, Artie? I’m Roxanne Self. Thank you for what you did out there,” she said in a clear, accentless voice.

“You’re welcome. His arm is broken.”

“Hey, what about me?” said Hawley. “I did it, too.”

“Yes, Hawley, you did,” said Roxanne gently, sincerely. “And you did it good.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

TWENTY