Nervous Water (6 page)

I sat down again, and he sat beside me.

“How is he?” I said.

“He's had a heart attack,” he said. “He should recover. He was lucky. With that aneurysm of his, it's a miracle it didn't rupture and kill him. He's a—”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “What's this about an aneurysm? Does he know about it? What kind of aneurysm?”

“It's an aortic aneurysm,” Dr. Drury said, “and of course he knows about it. It was only a few weeks ago when we diagnosed it. He said he'd been feeling tired, listless, short of breath lately, and a friend of his finally talked him into seeing me.”

“How bad is it?”

“He's had it for a while. It's getting bigger, the vessel walls are getting thinner.” He looked out the window for a minute. “It's bad. It'll kill him. Probably within a year.”

“Isn't there anything you can do?”

“Sure,” he said. “We can operate.”

“But?”

“You know your uncle,” he said.

I realized I didn't know my uncle very well, but I could guess what Dr. Drury meant. “He refused?”

The doctor smiled. “Said he had a string of lobster pots to tend, didn't have time for no damn operation.”

“I'll talk to him,” I said.

“Oh, I talked to him,” said the doctor. “I explained the situation as straightforwardly and graphically as I could. I told him how the walls of his aorta are being stretched with each beat of his heart. It's blowing up like a balloon. I told him how one of these days that thing'll just explode inside his chest, and then, just like that, he'll be dead.” A little smile twitched at the corner of Dr. Drury's mouth. “Know what he said?”

I nodded. “I can guess.”

“He said,” said the doctor, “ ‘Sounds good to me.' ”

“I was with him day before yesterday,” I said. “He didn't say anything about any aneurysm to me.”

“Of course he didn't.”

I smiled. “If you've got to die,” I said, “a ruptured aortic aneurysm sounds like a good way to do it.”

“Yes, I suppose that's what he was thinking.”

“Still,” I said, “you could operate. Maybe if Uncle Moze felt that he had something to live for.” I was thinking of Cassie.

“Well, actually,” said Dr. Drury, “this heart attack complicates matters.”

“It'd be risky?”

“Very risky. I wouldn't recommend it.”

“But if he doesn't have that thing operated on…”

He shrugged.

“So,” I said, “when you say he'll recover…”

Dr. Wilton Drury shrugged again. “I mean, he won't die of this heart attack. Mr. Crandall is in amazingly good physical condition given the fact that he smokes and drinks and pays no attention whatsoever to his diet. He's going to have to change his lifestyle.”

I smiled. I couldn't imagine Uncle Moze changing a single thing about his lifestyle. “How long do you think he'll be here?” I said. “In the hospital, I mean.”

“Hard to say. A few more days in ICU, at least. We've got to do some tests, keep a close eye on him, work out his medications. Then if all goes well, we'll move him over to the hospital floor for a few days, and if he's still doing okay, get him into rehab. Start his PT, build back his strength, see how it goes. That aneurysm complicates it.”

“My uncle's a lobsterman,” I said. “Every day he goes out on his boat, hauls his pots. He lugs heavy things. Hot sun beats down on him. He gets rained on.”

“He can't do that anymore,” said Dr. Drury flatly.

“Well, he probably will.”

“It'll kill him,” he said. “Guaranteed. If his heart doesn't get him first, the aneurysm will. If he'd been out on his boat when this happened…”

I nodded.

“His family's going to have to talk sense to him,” he said. “You're not his only family, are you?”

“No,” I said. It took me a minute to remember which of my mother's brothers and sisters were still living. “He's got a brother, Jake, and a sister. Faith's her name. Jake's still in Moulton as far as I know. I'm not sure where my aunt Faith is. And Moze has a daughter, if I can reach her. Cassandra. Cassie.”

“Good. The family needs to be involved in some of our decisions.” Dr. Drury cleared his throat. “Actually, I'm glad you're here, Mr. Coyne. There's something else you should know.”

“What's that?”

“The ER doctor noticed it when they brought him in,” he said. “Mr. Crandall had a fresh bruise on his chest.”

I frowned. “A bruise?”

Dr. Drury patted the area over his left breast.

“He fell,” I said, “hit something when he had his heart attack. Is that what you mean?”

He shook his head. “It looks like a fist hit him.”

I stared at Dr. Wilton Drury. “A fist,” I said. “You saying somebody punched him?”

“That's certainly how it appears.”

“A fist as opposed to some blunt object?”

He nodded. “Did you play baseball when you were younger, Mr. Coyne?”

“Sure. Third base, mostly.”

“Ever get hit by a pitch?”

“Of course.”

“The bruise a baseball makes on your ribs or shoulder or your leg? You can see the stitches.”

“You can see the knuckles when someone punches you?” I said. “That what you're saying?”

“That's what your uncle's bruise looks like to me. Knuckles. He was lying on his back when they found him.”

“As if he was punched and it knocked him backward,” I said.

“Typically,” he said, “when someone has a heart attack, if they're standing up, the pain causes them to bend over, and they fall forward.”

“That is impressive forensic deduction, Doctor.”

He smiled quickly. “It's speculative at this point, of course, but thank you. Unfortunately, your uncle's in no condition to tell us what actually happened. I reported it to the Moulton police, as I'm required to do. I'm expecting an officer to show up any minute now, as a matter of fact. If you want to join us…”

“I do. Definitely. What does ‘any minute now' mean?”

He smiled. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

 

Dr. Drury wandered away and I was left with that old
Sports Illustrated
. I flipped through it, looking at the pictures but not really noticing them. A jumble of thoughts was clanking around in my mind.

One thought was: No wonder Moze was suddenly so eager to track down Cassie. He'd just been given a death sentence.

Another—more disturbing—thought was: The words that Moze had struggled to whisper to me from his intensive care bed, if I'd heard them accurately, were “It was Cassie.”

Did he mean that it was Cassie who had punched him in the chest?

What else could it mean?

It was nearly an hour later when the doctor came back. A woman was with him. She was medium-tall, slim, midthirties, I guessed, brownish blond hair in a ponytail, big silver hoop earrings, good tan, no makeup, and none needed. She wore a pale blue jersey and tight-fitting white jeans and dirty sneakers.

A badge was clipped to her belt. An automatic handgun sat in a holster on her hip.

Dr. Drury said, “Sergeant Staples, this is Mr. Coyne, Mr. Crandall's nephew.”

She smiled and held out her hand. “Charlene Staples,” she said. “Moulton PD.”

I took her hand. “Brady Coyne.”

She cocked her head at me. “You're a Crandall, huh?”

“That's right. My mother's side.”

“You used to visit Mrs. Crandall on Harrington Street in the summer sometimes? Came in that big black Cadillac with Massachusetts plates?”

“Gram Crandall,” I said. “My grandmother. Yes, I confess, that was our Cadillac. My father was a big-shot Boston attorney.”

“I suppose that explains it,” she said. “I grew up down the street from the Crandalls. My mother used to suck her false teeth whenever she saw your car go gliding past our house. She'd say, ‘Just who do those people think they're trying to impress?' ”

“We pretty much got the same reaction in our neighborhood in Massachusetts,” I said.

She smiled. “About your uncle. It appears that somebody punched him. Any idea who'd do such a thing?”

“I should tell you,” I said, “that until last Saturday, I hadn't seen Uncle Moze for about thirty years. I doubt if I'm going to be much help.”

“Last Saturday, you say?”

“Yes. Went out on his lobster boat with him, helped him haul his pots, did a little trolling in the river. Then we went back to his house, had a beer.”

“Why?” she said.

“Why…?”

“Why after thirty years did you visit with him last Saturday?”

“It's kind of a long story, Sergeant.”

“Why don't you call me Charlene.” She smiled and sat down. “I'll call you Brady, okay?”

“Good,” I said.

“So tell me your long story. I've got time.”

“I haven't,” said Dr. Drury. He looked at Charlene Staples. “Anything else I can do for you, Sergeant?”

“Just tell the nurses I'm going to want to try to talk to Mr. Crandall,” she said. “Thanks for alerting us to this situation.”

He gave her a little two-fingered salute and turned to leave.

“Doctor,” I said. “Would you do me a favor?”

He stopped and looked at me with his eyebrows arched.

“Could you ask the nurses to talk to me if I call on the phone about my uncle?” I said. “They were fairly uninformative when I tried this morning.”

“As they're supposed to be,” he said. “Sure. I'll tell them. Give me your number, why don't you. If anything changes, I'll call you myself.”

“Great,” I said. “Thank you.” I handed him one of my business cards. “You can call me anytime.”

Dr. Drury left, and Charlene turned to me. “Okay. Let's have your long story.”

I tried to condense it, but it amounted to my family history, what I knew of it anyway, and it took a while. I ended by telling her what Moze had whispered to me. “It was Cassie.”

“And you think he meant that it was Cassie who punched him?” she said.

“I don't know,” I said. “Yeah, I guess so. That's probably what he meant.”

“Would that make any sense to you?”

“What would make more sense,” I said, “is that he's just had a heart attack, he's heavily medicated, he's in a hospital for the first time in his life, he's disoriented, probably hallucinating, he's been thinking about nothing but Cassie for months…”

“On the other hand,” she said, “as far as we know, Mr. Crandall's the only witness we have.”

“If you ask me,” I said, “he's the least reliable witness imaginable.”

“A lawyer's opinion, huh?”

“Anybody would see it that way.”

She shrugged as if she didn't necessarily see it that way. “Cassie Crandall was four years behind me in school. She had a reputation.”

“That was a long time ago.”

“She was gorgeous and sexy and smart,” she said. “Terrific athlete. She ran track, played basketball and Softball. Great singing voice. The boys drooled over her. She was always quite, um, mature for her age. The girls hated her. I never thought she deserved her reputation. It was all lies and envy. High-school stuff. Cassie was better than everybody else at just about everything.”

“I didn't know her at all then,” I said.

“So she and her father are estranged, huh?”

“I guess you could say that. She's the one who broke off communications.”

“And you're trying to, um, reconcile them?”

I waved a hand. “I'm just trying to find Cassie, see if I can convince her to mend fences with Moze. Now, with him in the hospital, it feels way more important.”

She cocked her head at me. “With him saying that she did it, it feels very important indeed.”

“You can't take that seriously,” I said.

“It's what we call a clue,” she said. “When a victim IDs the person who assaulted him, we take it seriously, yes.”

“Well,” I said, “that's just nuts.”

“Maybe.” She looked at her watch. “You in a hurry to get back to Boston?”

“Nope.”

“You feel like giving a police officer a hand?”

“Sure. What can I do?”

“You were inside your uncle's house last Saturday, you said, right?”

I nodded.

“I've got to check the crime scene, on the assumption that there was a crime, which the doctor believes there was. Come with me, tell me what you see. Will you do that?”

“I'm glad to help if I can.”

She flashed me a terrific smile. Charlene Staples had green eyes, I noticed, and the corners crinkled when she smiled, as if she spent a lot of time squinting into the sun. “I'll be back in a minute,” she said.

It was actually closer to fifteen minutes. I was getting pretty sick of that little hospital waiting room.

“Come on,” she said. “Let's get out of here.”

As we walked out of the hospital, she said, “I just talked to your uncle. He told me it was Cassie.”

“You asked him who hit him?”

She nodded. “I said to him, I said, ‘Mr. Crandall, I'm a police officer and I need to know who did this to you.' He was pretty out of it. I had to put my ear close to his mouth to hear him. But it was quite clear, what he said. He said, ‘It was Cassie.' Like that.”

I shrugged.

“That's what he said to you, too, right?”

“Yes,” I said. “But—”

“So we've got an assault,” she said, “and Cassie's our suspect. You tell me they're estranged. That probably means she's angry with him about something. That suggests a motive, doesn't it?”

“I suppose so.”

“So what's her motive?” she said.

“I don't know.”

We were in the parking lot. “Where are you parked?” she said.

I pointed to my car in the visitors' lot.

She smiled. “From a long black Cadillac to a sleek green BMW, huh? So now you're the big-shot Boston attorney.” She pointed to an area beside the emergency room entrance where a cruiser with Moulton PD painted on the door was parked. “Follow me.”

“I'm not that big of a shot,” I said as she turned and headed for her cruiser.

She looked back over her shoulder and smiled.

 

Sergeant Charlene Staples exited the turnpike in Ogunquit and led me over some hilly two-lane back roads through Berwick, and we pulled into Moze's sandy driveway in Moulton a little less than an hour after we'd left the hospital in Portland.

She parked her cruiser in the shade of one of the big maple trees beside the house. I pulled up beside her.

As we walked up to the front door, she said, “Don't touch anything inside.” She had one of those foot-long cop flashlights in her hand.

I nodded. “I've done this before.”

She looked at me out of the sides of her eyes. “What kind of lawyer did you say you were?”

“Family law, mostly. Some litigation. I've been getting into divorce mediation lately. I sort of specialize in helping people.”

“But you've been at crime scenes.”

I smiled. “Oh, sure. Plenty of times.”

She rolled her eyes. “I won't ask.” She paused at the door and handed me a plastic envelope containing a pair of latex gloves. “You know what these are for, then.”

I blew into them and slipped them on, and she wiggled her fingers into a pair, too.

Moze's front door was unlocked. Charlene turned the knob and pushed it open. We stepped directly into the living room. She put her hand on my arm, and I stopped. “Just look around,” she said. “Tell me what you see.”

The thin cotton curtains were pulled shut over all the windows, and the room was shadowy and musty. It felt unlived in, even though Moze had been found there only that morning. “It looks about the way it looked when I was here the other day,” I said. “Kind of messy.”

“Anything missing, out of place?”

I shook my head. “I'm not noticing anything.”

“According to the EMTs, he was lying there.” She flicked on her flashlight and shone it on the floor in the middle of the room, where the carpet was bunched up.

“In his pajamas,” I said. “Could they give you any estimate of what time it happened?”

She turned off the flashlight. “They thought it would've been about an hour, maybe an hour and a half, before they treated him. They figured he would've died if they'd gotten here much later than that.”

“And that was…?”

“A little before seven this morning.”

“So this must've happened around five thirty or six,” I said. “Moze is sleeping in his bedroom. He hears something, gets up, it's just starting to get light outside so he doesn't bother turning on any lights. He comes here, into the living room, still half asleep, and somebody punches him. He falls backward. Has a heart attack. Maybe it was the punch. Maybe it was the surprise, the shock, the fright.”

She nodded. “That's about how I figure it.”

“It was probably still too dark for him to see anything more than shadows,” I said.

“She might've said something. They might've had a conversation.”

“She,” I said. “Meaning Cassie.”

Charlene shrugged. “She, he. If it was Cassie, and if she did speak, Mr. Crandall would've recognized her voice, whether or not he got a good look at her.”

“It could've just been some random burglar.”

“Sure,” she said. “We've been known to have random burglars here in Moulton. Kids, more often than not. Mr. Crandall says it was Cassie, but okay, sure. Unreliable witness. It could've been anybody. Maybe a female burgler that he mistook for Cassie. That's why I want you to look carefully, see if you notice anything missing. We'll start with this room. Then we'll move on to the others. Take your time.”

I looked around slowly, consulting my mental picture of the place, trying to be methodical, taking each section of the room separately. When I finished, my eyes went back to the big console television in the corner.

“Okay,” I said. “I got it.”

“Got what?”

“Something missing.” I pointed. “There were about a dozen framed photos on top of that TV. They were mostly of Cassie.”

Now the top of the television was bare.

“Okay,” she said. “Good. That's good. Anything else?”

“No. Nothing.”

“You sure?”

I nodded.

“Were you in any of the other rooms?”

“No,” I said. “We came in here, I sat over there, on the sofa. Moze went to the kitchen for beers a couple times. I stayed in here.”