Nervous Water (7 page)

“You didn't go into the kitchen with him, use the bathroom, poke your head in the bedrooms?”

“No. The only thing I did was go over to the TV and look at the photos.”

“Which are now gone,” she said. She went over to the TV and shone her flashlight around behind it. “No, they're not. Come over here. Take a look.”

I moved beside her, and I saw a jumble of bent frames and torn photographs and broken glass strewn on the floor in the corner behind the television set.

“Look at this.” She pointed with her latex-covered forefinger. There were dents and scratches and gouges in the wallpaper behind the TV.

“Somebody threw these photos against the wall,” I said. “Threw 'em hard, too, judging by the size of some of those gouges.”

Charlene looked at me. “Threw 'em with great anger, wouldn't you say?”

“Great emotion, anyway,” I said. “You're thinking about Cassie, aren't you?”

“She's so angry at him she hasn't talked to him in a year and a half, you said.”

“That's a different kind of anger from smashing her father's photographs and punching him in the chest hard enough to give him a heart attack.”

She shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not.”

“I'm just having trouble,” I said, “thinking his own daughter could do this to him.”

“I've seen way worse.” She touched my elbow. “Come on.” She steered me outside. “Why don't you wait out here.”

“Wait for what?”

“I've got some work to do.” She went over to her cruiser, opened the trunk, and came back with a camera. “I'll only be a few minutes.” She went inside.

I sat on the front steps and looked at my watch. It was a little after five o'clock. I fished my cell phone out of my pocket and called Evie's office. After a few rings, the voicemail came on and Gina's recorded voice invited me to leave a message. I declined.

I tried our home number and got voice mail there, too. I told Evie I was still up in Maine, that Uncle Moze had had a heart attack and was in the ICU, that he was holding his own, that I wasn't sure when I'd be home, that I loved her.

I put my phone back into my pocket, and when I looked up, I saw an elderly woman shambling up the driveway toward me.

I stood up, and when she came near, she said, “Who are you?”

I smiled at her. “I'm Brady Coyne.”

She nodded as if she already knew that. “I'm Helen Meadows. We spoke this morning. Do you have any news about Moze? I called the hospital but they wouldn't tell me a thing.”

“I saw him a little while ago,” I said. “He had a heart attack, but he's doing okay.”

“Oh, dear,” she said. “A heart attack.” She was wearing overalls over a man's blue shirt, with red sneakers. She had white hair, cut short, and sharp blue eyes behind her thick glasses. “I was afraid it was something like that.”

I pointed at the front steps. “Do you want to sit down?”

“Certainly not,” she said.

I smiled. “The doctor says you saved his life,” I said. “If you hadn't gone over when you did, called 911 right away…”

“That was our deal,” she said. “We watch out for each other, Moze and me. I don't guess we ever really expected something like this would happen. Me, I just like the old cuss, enjoy havin' him as a regular part of my life, even if it don't amount to more than talkin' with him on the phone most of the time.” She cleared her throat. “He don't have much to say, you know. Taciturn old coot. So he's going to be all right?”

“He'll be in the hospital for a while. But they expect him to recover just fine.”

“You ain't patronizing an old lady, are you?”

“No, ma'am,” I said. “I know better than that. I'll let you know if anything changes, okay?”

“That would be lovely,” she said. She turned to leave.

“Mrs. Meadows?” I said.

She stopped. “It's Miss Meadows, young man. But you should call me Helen.”

“Helen,” I said, “I'd like to tell the rest of Moze's family about what happened.”

“Jake and Faith,” she said. “His brother and sister. That's about it, except for Cassie.”

“Do you know how I could reach them?”

“Well, Jacob, he lives right in town here. He's got that real estate business, you know. Hangs out in the office most of the time, now that Millie—that was his wife—since she's been gone.” She shrugged. “I suppose he'd want to know.”

“You suppose?”

“Moze and Jake, they didn't have much to do with each other. Actually,” said Helen, “the two of them weren't speaking to each other. Haven't been for years. There was some old grudge between 'em. Both of 'em, stubborn as mules.”

I thought about Cassie and Moze, holding out, neither willing to give in to the other for all that time. “Any idea what the grudge was about?” I said.

“All I know is, it goes back a long ways. Moze never wanted to talk about Jake. Moze only talks about what he wants to talk about, if you follow me.”

I nodded. “So what do you know about my aunt Faith?”

“Faith Thurlow's her name now,” she said. She looked up at the sky. “Faith's gettin' on. She's a few years older than us. Me and Moze, I mean. Married a Greek fellow from Kittery right after high school. Name you couldn't pronounce, ended in ‘opoulos' I seem to recall. He was a salesman of some kind. Harry. I think his name was Harry. They lived right here in town until Harry retired. Lord, that was twelve or fifteen years ago, I guess. Harry and Faith moved down to Florida, and before too long, Harry died. Next thing you know, Faith has found herself another man, this time a fellow named Thurlow who was somewhat younger than her. Faith always did have a way with men. So she married this Thurlow fellow and they settled in Rhode Island, of all places.”

“Was Moze in touch with Faith?”

Helen Meadows shrugged. “He didn't say nothing about her one way or the other that I can recall. I didn't have the impression that they were on the outs the way it was with him and Jake, but I don't think they were especially close, either.”

“So it's Faith Thurlow,” I said, “and she lives in Rhode Island.”

“Last I heard,” she said. She held out her hand. “I've got to get back to my cats.”

I stood up and took her hand. “I'll let you know what I hear about Moze,” I said.

“I appreciate that.” Helen Meadows nodded once, then turned and walked down the driveway. I watched her go. I was prepared to wave to her, but she never turned back.

A couple of minutes later Charlene Staples came out of the house with her camera hanging from her neck. She peeled off her latex gloves, stuffed them in her hip pocket, and sat on the steps beside me.

“What'd you learn?” I said.

“There's an old rolltop desk in his bedroom,” she said. “The top was up. A bunch of bills and junk mail all jumbled up in there. A couple drawers were hanging half open.”

“You think whoever hit Moze was looking for something?”

“Maybe,” she said. “Or maybe your uncle was just disorganized.”

“Judging by the living room,” I said, “I'd vote for that.”

“I found about two hundred dollars in fives and tens and twenties in the top drawer of his bureau,” she said. “There was a box of woman's jewelry, must've been his wife's, in another drawer. A lot of heavy old gold stuff. Some of it's pretty valuable, I'd say. His watch and his wallet and the keys to his truck were sitting right there in plain sight on the table beside his bed.”

“So this wasn't a burglary, you're saying.”

“Not a very competent one, anyway,” she said. “Of course, your burglar could've panicked when she—or he—hit your uncle, but it doesn't look like anything was stolen.”

“Just those smashed photos.”

She nodded.

“Helen Meadows just dropped by,” I said.

“Who?”

“Moze's friend. She's the one who called 911.”

Charlene nodded. “Oh, right. She's on my list. Did she have any idea who might've done this?”

“No. I didn't exactly interrogate her. She was pretty shaken up. I had the feeling that Moze is her only friend in the world.”

Charlene nodded. “I'll have to talk to her.” She jerked her head back at Moze's house. “The second bedroom in there,” she said. “You didn't see it?”

“No.”

“Pink bedspread. Ruffled curtains. Stuffed animals. Posters tacked all over the walls. Janis Joplin. Gracie Slick. Billie Jean King. The daughters from the Bill Cosby show. Sports trophies. Cassette tapes. Nancy Drew mysteries.”

“Cassie's room,” I said.

She nodded. “It looks like a shrine.”

“Poor old Moze,” I said. “She's always been the main thing in his life.”

We sat there for a couple of minutes. Then I turned to Charlene and said, “So what happens now?”

She shrugged. “Until I can talk with Mr. Crandall, we don't really know what we're dealing with. I'll ask around, keep my ear to the ground, see what I can learn. Assuming your uncle makes it, all we've got is an old-fashioned breaking and entering and a simple assault. But if…” She waved her hand in the air.

“If he dies,” I said, “we've got a homicide.”

She nodded.

“And you'd consider Cassie a suspect.”

“Cassie is a suspect,” she said. She looked at her watch, then pushed herself to her feet. “Well, I'm outta here. Long day.”

I stood up, and we walked over to our vehicles.

“Why don't you give me one of your cards,” she said.

I gave her one. “You'll keep me informed?”

“Why not.” She handed me one of her cards. “You do the same, okay?”

“Okay.”

Charlene Staples got into her cruiser, wiggled her fingers at me, and drove out the driveway.

I slid into the front seat of my car and took out my cell phone. I figured I'd try one more time to reach Evie before I headed home.

She didn't answer at the house, and I didn't bother leaving another message. She didn't answer her cell, either.

I stuck the phone in my pocket and started up my car, and that's when the sleek red Buick sedan turned into Uncle Moze's driveway.

The red Buick pulled up behind my BMW and stopped right there, as if the purpose was to prevent my escape.

I stepped out of my car just as the guy got out of the Buick. He appeared to be in his late sixties, early seventies. He had a round, red face and a dramatic shock of thick snow-white hair. The stub of an unlit cigar was jammed into the side of his mouth. He reminded me of Santa Claus, minus the jolliness.

He strutted over, plucked the cigar from his mouth, and pushed his face close to mine. “Who the hell are you?” he said. He was quite a bit shorter than I, so he had to look up to glare into my eyes, which pretty much neutralized the aggressiveness he seemed to be going for.

“My name's Brady Coyne,” I said. “Who the hell are you?”

He blinked at me as if it was unthinkable that I didn't know who he was. “I don't know any Coyne.” He moved closer to me, so that his chest was nearly touching mine. “Whaddya want, anyway? What're you doin' here?”

I put my hand on his chest and took a step backward. His intrusion into my personal space felt like an attack. “This is my uncle's house,” I said. “You didn't answer my question. Who the hell are you?”

“Yeah, well, this is my brother's house, smart guy.” He paused, frowned, and looked me up and down. “Moses is your uncle? That what you said?”

I nodded. “Which means you are, too. Uncle Jake? Is that you?

“Coyne,” he muttered. “Coyne…” Then he suddenly grinned. “Hope's boy, right?”

“Right.” I held out my hand.

He looked at it, then grabbed it and gave it a quick, limp shake. “Last time I saw you, you were just a kid,” he said. “So what brings you back to this neck of the woods?”

“Uncle Moze is in the hospital.”

Jake nodded. “I heard something about an ambulance. Figured I'd drop by, see what was up.”

“He's in the hospital. Maine Medical in Portland. Had a heart attack.”

“He gonna be all right?”

“I don't know.”

“Heart attack,” he muttered. “That's what the old coot gets for haulin' pots at his age.”

“He'd probably appreciate it if you paid him a visit,” I said.

“Doubt it,” said Jake.

“Uncle Jake,” I said, “do you know anything about Cassie?”

“Cassandra? Mary's girl?”

I nodded.

“Ain't seen her for years,” he said. “Since she was in high school. Couldn't tell you what become of her.”

“I thought maybe Uncle Moze might've mentioned something about her to you.”

“To me?” He shook his head. “Not likely. Me and Moses, we don't mention much of anything to each other no more.”

“Why not? What happened?”

He looked at me. “That's none of your damn business.”

“Your brother came very close to dying this morning,” I said. “Maybe it's time to bury the hatchet, before it's too late.”

“You don't know nothing,” he said.

“You're right,” I said. “I don't. What about your sister? Aunt Faith? Are you talking to her?”

“Not much.”

“Do you know how to reach her?”

He nodded. “She's down there in Rhode Island with her new husband. Fellow named Thurlow.”

“Where in Rhode Island?”

“Tiverton, I believe. They got a place on the water.”

“Have you been there?”

“Ain't been invited.”

“But you've talked to her.”

“Couple times.”

“You should tell her about Uncle Moze.”

“I should, huh?”

“Somebody should. She'd want to know, don't you think?”

He shrugged. “I suppose.”

“Okay,” I said. “I'm trying to catch up with Cassie. If you hear anything or think of anything, let me know, will you?”

“What makes you think I'd know something about her?”

I flapped my hand. “I don't know. But if you do…”

“Sure. Why not?”

I gave him one of my cards. “My numbers are there.”

He looked at it, then looked at me. “Lawyer, huh?”

I nodded.

“Your old man was a lawyer. Hope thought she was hot shit, marrying a lawyer.”

“Did she?”

“Drivin' around in that big Caddy. Him, all full of himself.”

“They were my parents,” I said. “They're both dead now.”

“Meaning I ain't supposed to say the truth about them?”

“What's the truth, Uncle Jake? That you were jealous of them, of their success?”

“Nothin' to be jealous of,” he said. “Me, I own my own company. I'm doin' good. I got plenty of money. Did it all on my own, too. I ain't jealous of nobody.”

“Okay,” I said. “Whatever.” I looked at my watch, then held out my hand. “I've got to head home. It was good to see you again, Uncle Jake.”

He shook my hand quickly. “Sure. You, too.”

“You'll talk to Aunt Faith?”

“Don't worry about her,” he said.

“Go visit Moses,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said, “we'll see about that.” He turned and started back to his car.

“Hey, Uncle,” I said.

He stopped and looked at me.

“I just figured out who you remind me of.”

“Yeah? Who's that?”

“Gram.”

“Huh?”

“My grandmother. Your mother. You look like the way I remember her.”

He frowned and shook his head.

“Except,” I said, “she was a lot more pleasant.”

Uncle Jake Crandall rolled his eyes, then got into his red Buick and backed out of Moze's driveway.

As I drove home, I kept thinking about Cassie. Two days ago Uncle Moze had asked me to see if I could put him back in touch with her. I didn't know it at the time, but his sudden urgency was the result of learning that he had an aortic aneurysm, that he could die any minute. That was a good reason to want desperately to reconcile with his daughter.

Now he'd been punched in the chest and had a heart attack, and finding Cassie struck me as urgent, too.

Sergeant Charlene Staples thought Cassie was the one who'd punched him. Broke into his house at night and punched him and smashed all the pictures of her he kept on top of his television console.

Cassie, full of rage? Cassie, bubbling with hatred for the man whom she knew as her father, who brought her up, who fed her and clothed her, who taught her about the sea?

Maybe. Moze, in his druggy stupor, said she was the one who punched him.

But I wasn't prepared to believe it.

 

The next morning, Tuesday, a little after nine, I called Maine Medical in Portland, got connected to the ICU, told the nurse I was Moses Crandall's nephew, the one who'd visited him yesterday, and I wanted to know how he was doing.

“Stable,” she said.

“Can you tell me any more than that?” I said.

“Not really. He's unchanged.”

“Still basically unconscious, all drugged up?”

“Basically.”

“You are not exactly brimming with information,” I said.

“I'm telling you everything I know, sir,” she said. “Mr. Crandall is resting comfortably. He is taking some nourishment intravenously. His vital signs are, um, stable. Like I said.”

“Can you tell me if he's had any visitors?”

“I could tell you, yes.”

I sighed. “Okay. Will you tell me, please?”

“Since you were here, Mr. Coyne, his only visitor was Sergeant Charlene Staples of the Moulton police.”

“No others.”

“No.”

After I hung up from that informative call, I called Julie at the office.

“How's your uncle?” was the first thing she said.

“Stable, quote unquote. Look, I've got to do a few things this morning. What've we got?”

“The Sanborn mediation's at two,” she said. “Want me to reschedule.”

“No, no. I'll be there.”

“Do what you have to do,” she said. “I hope your uncle's going to be okay.”

I told Henry to guard the house, then walked down to the parking garage on Charles Street and fetched my car. I drove out to Madison, and it was a little after ten when I turned onto Church Street. It was a drizzly summer morning, and the trees that lined the narrow street arched overhead. They hung heavy with moisture and formed a dripping green tunnel. I drove slowly past the school on the right and then Howard Litchfield's house on the left, and when Hurley's house came into sight, I saw, as I'd expected, that the Lexus SUV was gone. So were the Dodge pickup and the Chevy with the carseat.

Cassie's red Saab was still there, exactly where it had been two days earlier.

Hurley, I assumed, had driven to his dental office to inflict pain and poverty upon his patients. His son and daughter and grandchild had apparently returned to wherever they lived.

If Cassie had been away for the weekend, she'd be back now. I had no particular expectation that Hurley would give her my message, but even if he had, it wasn't a sure bet that she'd bother returning my call.

I didn't want to leave a telephone message with Hurley about Uncle Moze being in the hospital. I wanted to tell Cassie about it face-to-face, just the two of us.

If she was home now, she was home alone.

I pulled in beside the Saab. The soft rain dripping off the trees streaked the yellow pollen on the red car.

I sat there for a minute, looking for some sign of life from inside the house. When I saw none, I got out, walked up to the front door, and rang the bell.

I heard it chime hollowly inside. After a couple of minutes I tried again.

Nobody home.

I stood there at the front door and looked around. I could make out the roofline of Howard Litchfield's house next door through the screen of maple trees that separated the two properties. A thick stand of hardwoods and evergreens lined the other side of Hurley's property. Across the street, the soccer fields were mud-puddled and empty of players.

I felt sneaky and tricky and ready for action, the way I used to feel when I was a kid emerging from a darkened movie theater on a Saturday afternoon after a double bill of western gunslinging and World War II combat. Kid Coyne, fastest gun in Durango. Sergeant Coyne, sharpshooting jungle sniper.

I didn't know about the Madison cops. Maybe if they cruised down Church Street on this Monday morning and saw a strange BMW parked in Hurley's driveway, they'd stop and investigate. If so, I'd tell them the essential truth. I was Cassie's cousin, wondering if she was home. That was her car in the driveway, wasn't it?

I tried the front-door knob. It was locked, of course. I made a slow circuit of the house. There were two side doors, two sets of sliders off the back and side decks, a cellar door, and the garage doors. All were locked.

I shaded my eyes, peeked in several windows, and saw nothing but abstract paintings on the walls and modern furniture on the floors. It didn't look that comfortable.

I was prepared to slip inside and take my chances with an alarm system if one of the doors was unlocked. I didn't know what I was looking for, but I did want to look. I thought I'd know it when I saw it. Some clue to Cassie's whereabouts.

If the police came, I figured I could talk my way out of an entering charge.

But I wasn't about to break in. I was pretty sure I couldn't talk my way out of both breaking and entering.

I ended up back in the driveway. I walked slowly around the Saab. I saw no red blinking light under the dashboard or any decal on the window indicating that it was equipped with a car alarm, so I tried the door handle. It was unlocked. I guessed folks didn't bother locking their cars in Madison, where an out-of-towner going the wrong way on Church Street constituted a crime wave.

I pulled open the Saab's door and slipped into the passenger seat. There was no briefcase, no address book, no folder containing important documents, no homemade audiotapes. Nothing that might tell me about her, tell me where she was.

I did find some plastic CD cases in a pocket on the driver's side door. Fleetwood Mac, Neil Diamond, Dolly Parton, the Bee Gees. Music from her formative years.

The glove compartment held the registration—the Saab was registered to Cassandra Crandall, not Hurley—and a few road maps. I opened the maps on my lap but saw no circles or routes outlined on them that might've struck me as clues to her whereabouts.

In the center console under a purse-sized pack of paper tissues, I found a cell phone. I hoped—and assumed—it was Cassie's, the one with the full mailbox. I hesitated barely one second before I slipped it into my pocket.

I found nothing else in Cassie's car. But the cell phone was an excellent start, I thought.

I got out of the Saab and closed the door, and when I turned to get into my own car, I saw Howard Litchfield with his Mutt-and-Jeff dogs standing in the street at the end of the driveway. He was wearing a yellow slicker with the hood over his head. The dogs were sitting patiently on the wet pavement.

Litchfield was looking at me with no expression that I could read—not curiosity, not disapproval, not amusement, not even interest, really.

I lifted my hand to him. He waved at me.

I went out to the end of the driveway. “I'm glad I ran into you,” I said.

“Pretty hard not to,” he said. “Since I retired, this is where I am, what I do, most of the time, rain or shine. Walking my dogs up and down the street.”

I smiled.

“So you're back looking for Mrs. Hurley, huh?”

“That's right,” I said. “I hoped I might find her at home this morning.”

“I was thinking about what you said the other day,” he said. He gazed up at the sky for a minute. “My wife was pretty good friends with the, um, the previous Mrs. Hurley. The new one, though, we haven't really gotten to know her.”

“The previous Mrs. Hurley?”

He nodded. “Ellen was her name. God bless her. She died a few years ago. Lovely, quiet woman. She was sick much of the time. Asthma. That's what she ended up dying of, I understand. Poor woman had her hands full, raising those two children of his, never mind taking care of him.”