Murder Takes to the Hills (10 page)

Shit. I put the old-fashioned phone back in its cradle on the bedside table and walked back through the kitchen, out onto the deck where Fargo lay contentedly, watching Wells serpentine through the reeds on a critter hunt. I wished my only problem were an empty water dish, with an alternate one at hand.

Damn Sonny! Why did he personally have to follow up the hit-and-run tip? He was the one who talked of how valuable Mitch had become, what a gifted detective he had become.

Surely Mitch could ask the necessary questions, look at the suspect’s vehicle and decide whether or not to impound it, whether to check any persons who might prove the suspect was or was not the errant driver, whether he or she had been drinking, whether…oh, hell,
I
wasn’t the one interviewing the suspect.

I dragged the gas grill out from under the shelter of the deck and into a level area of the yard and wiped it down.
 
I washed a couple of potatoes to
ready
them for the little microwave oven we had bought for the cottage a couple of weeks back. Small though it was, it still took up about a third of the kitchen counter space, making me quite careful as I cut up a salad.

I still loved the cottage, but I was beginning to take its shortcomings seriously. I looked upon them as ongoing irritants rather than laughing at them as part of getting away from the workaday world. And I think Cindy was doing the same thing. She seemed very temperamental these days, and I rather imagine she would have said the same about me.

I hoped we would get back into the real house soon and would find the new bedroom, etc.—I refused to call it the Master Suite—all we had looked forward to. And I hoped we would both survive—both emotionally and financially—the furnishing thereof. One part of me wanted to buy a bed and call it quits for a while on the house, and have Cassie fly us to Halifax, where we would rent a car and get lost for a couple of weeks. But I had the feeling Cindy would either collapse or strangle me if I even suggested that alternative.

And here was my opportunity to find out if I dared. I heard her car…no, I heard two cars. Now what? I hurried to the living room window; it was Sonny and the two of them were looking at something in Aunt Mae’s budding garden. Good, it gave me a chance to get another chicken breast into the micro a minute to thaw it and then into the marinade. I washed another potato and put it with the others. The salad would do for three.
 
Bingo!

I was innocently putting out the animals’ evening food when they came in.

“Hi, darling!” Cindy gave me a hug and a kiss. “Guess who I found loitering along the way?”

“He looks suspicious to me,” I replied.

“He is suspicious,” Sonny stated with a phony grin. “These days he seems to get more calls from his sister than he does from Harmon. That is enough to make anybody suspicious. What’s up?”

“Nothing that won’t wait until we sit down and enjoy what’s left of the sun. What are you drinking?”

Sonny opted for beer, Cindy for a scotch and soda, me for a bourbon highball. I played bartender while Cindy changed clothes and Sonny played with Fargo. We soon gathered on the deck, and I asked Sonny if his anonymous tip regarding the hit-and-run had proven fruitful. I wanted him relaxed before I brought up Cassie’s pirates. His opening crack about the phone calls hadn’t sounded entirely joking.

“Yes, I think it is the vehicle,” he said. “Just as our anonymous phone call told us, we found it on a side street in Orleans. It has front-end damage, with what looks like blood and some fibers caught in the headlight…could be from Mr.
Alves
’ clothing. We’ll know in a day or so.”

“Did you find the owner?” Cindy sipped her drink and pronounced it just right.

“Yes, and there’s no joy there. He lives in Eastham and swears the car was stolen. But he didn’t report it until yesterday, which is strange at best. We’re trying to verify his whereabouts at the time of the accident.”

“How’s Mr.
Alves
? Have you heard?” I rescued my cigarettes from Sonny’s side of the table and lit one.

“Yeah. I was just at the clinic. Dr.
Gloetzner
says the old fellow still thinks he’s Napoleon, but he did manage to ask where he was and why he was there. So I guess there’s hope.”

“I’m glad, he’s a nice old codger. His wife must be frantic.”

“You’re not far wrong,” he admitted. “But their daughter is here from Worcester, so at least she has someone with her. Look, Alex, I’ve got to get going. Want to tell me why Nacho said you sounded a little frantic yourself this afternoon?”

“Yes, but why don’t you stay for dinner? We have plenty.”

“That sounds like a winner. I guess I’d better start up the grill, then.” When there was a grill in sight, nobody cooked but Sonny.

We got ourselves rearranged and I showed Sonny and Cindy my new toy.
 
When I told Sonny I had a duplicate for him, he gave me that big brother look and simpered, “Oh, thank you ever so!”

I told the two of them of my experiment downtown with the young couple and my inadvertent recording at the Rat. I had set it to start with Fred and Pauline to make him laugh, and he did, along with Cindy.

Then the Blues Brother came on and again he was amused. “That’s Bert
McMichaels
,” he chortled. “I’ll have to tell him to watch what he says around Fargo.”

I explained the two men I had passed on leaving the Rat and what had been picked up while I had been inside. Then I hit
Play
again
.

The tape ended, and I turned it off triumphantly.

“There! Doesn’t that prove Harmon’s initial guess? Those men are no more staging a charitable clambake than I am.”

“It doesn’t prove a damn thing. I swear you get more
like
Harmon by the day.
 
Every person who stops someone to ask directions is setting up a million dollar dope trade.” He stood and walked out to put the chicken on the grill.

Cindy went inside to finish dinner. She was obviously staying out of this.

Sonny returned, freshened my drink, got himself another beer and came back out.

“Alex,” he spoke carefully and softly. “I know you have been under stress lately, but you really are getting a little far out. You can’t reasonably expect me to arrest two men just because I don’t quite understand a conversation you shouldn’t have taped in the first place. Think about that young couple you taped at first. You said they wanted to get home and get Madison out of some lock-up. We assume Madison is a dog or cat, but what if he is their three-year-old son, locked in a cage under the care of a twelve-year-old, while they have a getaway weekend? Believe me, it has happened.”

“Everybody was sitting on some sort of public bench,” I argued. “None of them had a reasonable expectation of privacy. And the pirates didn’t mention seafood or their club or vets or anything bearing on what they told Cassie. I tell you, Sonny, they are dangerous phonies.”

“I gotta turn the chicken. Right back.” He loped across the lawn, flipped the meat and came back.
 
“Okay. Look at what they probably meant. They want to make sure the suppliers will have enough clams and lobsters and whatever to fill their order, even though demand is getting heavy here in town. Do they have trucks available to go to the airport? Do they have enough employees to catch, process, pack and deliver it to Cassie at a given hour? Surely Cassie will need to know the approximate weight in order to figure her fuel situation, and size so she will know how to balance them in the plane. So Frank is a nitpicker, which may account for their mutual success on various jobs. What job? Installing vinyl siding? Painting a house? Fixing a car? Installing a furnace? Come on, Sis, the list is endless.”

“Well, I suppose it could go either way,” I admitted. “But think of Cassie. If it
is
dope, they’ve got to kill her somewhere along the way even if they just push her out over Lake Erie.”

“And we can’t let that happen,” he placated. “If she gets a definite time and date from these guys, I will personally inspect every cooler to make sure it holds nothing more than tomorrow’s dinner. Okay?”

“I guess.” I sighed. “But for Cassie’s safety can’t you have someone keep an eye on them?”

“My dear sister, I do not have the entire NYPD at my command. First I would have to assign people to find them, if they could, then use at least five people to tail them, et cetera. In the meantime restaurants could be robbed and old ladies mugged…all because of Harmon’s imagination and your Star Wars gizmo. C’mon, let’s eat.”

“Sonny.” Cindy had dealt herself back into the game. “Am I taking up too much of your time—and budget—with this stalker of mine? Apparently he is proving to be harmless.” Her voice quivered a bit. “If he even exists. Maybe you should just send Edgar on home.”

Sonny—always gentle with Cindy—reached across the table to pat her hand. “You let me worry about when to send Edgar home. Right now he’s doing what should be done.”

We all agreed that dinner was very good, but somehow none of us seemed terribly hungry.

Sonny didn’t linger after dinner. I don’t know if it was business or pleasure…or just a desire to get away from his bothersome sister and her bothersome friend. Cindy and I cleared up the deck and moved inside, leaving the aloof half-moon to make its chill, still progression across the pond.
 
Cindy must have started the wood stove earlier, for the small living room felt warm and friendly. She came in bearing a tray with coffee and two small glasses of brandy—the snifters were at the house.

“I figured we might enjoy this with a little light conversation.” She smiled. “We have a choice of something over one hundred TV stations—and nothing to watch.
 
I’m sick of
meerkats
—their problems are all too human. I am not smarter than a fifth grader—we didn’t have all that science stuff in fifth grade, did we? The only thing worse than
American Idol
is
Don’t Forget the Lyrics
. In the cops ’n robber shows they’re either busy screwing each other—one way or another—or lying on the floor bleeding. The sitcoms make the
I Love Lucy
reruns seem deeply intellectual. And the nature shows are all too depressing…the more so because I know it’s all true. So talk to me, baby.”

“Gladly. I only wish I had taped your little speech and sent it to every TV network. It’s a scathing commentary, and like your nature programs, all too true. First, my love, a question.”

I sipped my brandy and mentally snuggled in its warmth. Then I asked, “Has everybody you know been recommending that we should take a nice, long vacation…and soon?”

“Just about.” She laughed slightly. “Are we in that bad a shape? Do we need one of those old rest cures my grandma used to talk about? I think rest cure was a nice way of spending a couple of weeks in a
pseudomental
hospital. You figure that would help? Brisk walks before breakfast, calisthenics before luncheon, inspirational reading and a glass of warm milk and one small cookie at bedtime?”

“We’re probably not there yet, but it’s close. Seriously, I do think we need a break.” I
steepled
my fingers in front of my mouth for a second. “Nova Scotia sounds fabulous. But we’d really have to watch our pennies.”

“New York?”

“Hell, we could
buy
Nova Scotia for a week in New York.”

“Well,” she continued. “Personally I feel a little
Vermonted
-out for a while.”

I nodded agreement. “Same with Maine. It’s kind of like camping out in the backyard.”

“Yes.” She sounded discouraged and then brightened.
 
“Then let me float this past you. Close your eyes and listen.”

I did as I was told.

“Visualize tall mountains, but not the harsh Rocky-mountain type. Softer, gentler ones with moss to lie on beside a small stream, with tall pines and oaks standing guard. In the distance the mountains seem to blur a little, as if a light, fragrant smoke drifts between them. Then you realize the fragrance is closer, and the whole mountainside has a pink cast from blossoming mountain laurel and rhododendron. Far up the stream you may luck out and see a mama bear teaching her cubs to fish.
 
And lower down is a beaver dam. When you get anywhere near
they
slap their tails like a rifle shot and all disappear. Below the dam in the white water, otters play—that seems to be all they do, all day long. And in a nearby meadow polka dotted with yellow blooms, fox kits play-fight with mama serving as referee.”