Foursome (15 page)

As we started eating, O’Boy said, “You know we got a new chief?”

“No.” I pictured the old chief, a thin, crew-cut man who favored unfiltered cigarettes. “Wooten retired?”

“Early.”

“Because of our little go-round?”

“Partly. Point is, it’s too soon to crystal-ball how the new commander’s gonna run the ship, get me?”

“So we go slow and easy, like meeting for breakfast out here.”

“Like. And like nothing I tell you getting back to the cops in Maine as coming from me.”

We ate for a time before I said, “You going to be able to show me anything in the bag?”

O’Boy used a toast quarter to sop up some egg yolk. “Probably not. Just brought it along to look at, you had a question I couldn’t handle off the top of my head.”

“Fair enough. Let’s start with my client, Steven Shea.”

“The accused? He’s off limits.”

“You can’t tell me anything?”

“Get it from the cops in Maine. One thing, though.”

“Yes?”

“You want to talk with the people out at DRM, where he worked there.”

“I’m planning to. How about his wife, Sandra Newberg?”

“Professional, managed a department for some insurance outfit till they decided to close down their operation up here.” O’Boy looked me in the eye, then went back to the eggs. “You used to work for one of those, right?”

“Right.”

“Empire?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Same as her, then. Maybe you can use your pull there.”

“Okay. Anything you heard about her out of the ordinary?”

O’Boy chewed about half of what was in his mouth. “How come I get the feeling you want me to tell you something without you telling me something?”

I had some bacon.

O’Boy said, “We didn’t get anything on her from the insurance connection, but afterwards, after she got laid off … You’re gonna want to talk with the neighbor there, Epps, I think her name is.”

“Thanks, I will. I also have a key to Shea’s house. All right by you if I use it?”

“Fine by me. Better let Mrs. Epps know you’re doing it, though, you don’t want a uniform sticking a muzzle in your ear as you come out.”

“Okay.”

Dolly came back over to see how everything was. O’Boy asked if there was any way he could get a side order of more sausages. She said she’d fix it and spun a little smarter on her heel.

I said, “How about the Vandemeers?”

Reluctantly, O’Boy looked from the departing Dolly back to me. “The doctor and his wife were solid people. Her name was Vivian?”

“Right.”

“She was your basic housewife. Lots of shopping, lots of trips with the other couple. The doc seemed to be one of those guys long on technical ability but short on bedside manner with the patients. Nothing about him around his medical group, though.”

“Anything from anywhere?”

O’Boy swallowed. “Mrs. Epps.”

“Maybe I should be buying her breakfast.”

“I met her. She looks like weak tea and a prune Danish, you could stand to watch her eat it.”

“Anybody else?”

“The doctor’s brother, he runs a car dealership.”

“You know exactly where?”

O’Boy described a commercial intersection a couple of towns away.

I said, “What about the brother?”

Dolly appeared with the sausages, setting the little dish down with a flourish before asking if there was anything else. O’Boy said no, thanks.

After she left this time, he said, “You could find her ten years ago, you’d be nuts not to marry her.”

I said, “The brother?”

“Oh, yeah. Seems his balls got caught in the vise, recession and all. Seems brother doc was pouring in money, keep him afloat.”

“Sounds like a reason to keep the golden goose alive.”

“My guess, but it’s your case.”

“You hear anything about the Vandemeers’ son?”

“Nicky, right?”

“So I’m told.”

“Not much. Lost his license for an OUI. Blew the kind of score on the Breathalyzer you’d expect from a can of paint thinner. Runs with a girlfriend from the city.”

“Boston?”

“Yeah. Little Hispanic broad, she comes out here for school, you can picture that.”

“METCO?”

“Naw, Calem never joined that METCO there. Some kind of ‘policy disagreements’ over eligibility and funding, I remember hearing. So we bus our own inner-city kids out in the morning and bus them back at night. Stupid.”

“How so?”

O’Boy fired up. “Aw, all we’re doing is showing the poor kids what they can’t have, why they can’t compete. The system had any brains, we’d make the rich kids bus into the city, see the poor, learn something about life.” O’Boy caught himself, sopped up some more yolk. “But, fuck, I’m just a cop. What do I know about education, huh?”

“This girlfriend have a name?”

“Yeah, but I don’t remember it.” A shrug that conveyed the soul of innocence.

I watched him. “Would it be in the file?”

“Should be. Hold on a second.”

O’Boy delved into the briefcase under the tabletop, rummaging around. A little theatrically, I thought.

“Yeah, yeah.” He pulled a typed report from the file, zigzagging a finger down it until he said, “Last name Quintana, first name Blanca.”

“Address?”

“Just Boston.”

I sat back in the bench seat, pushing my plate to the side and resting my hands where it had been. “O’Boy.”

He looked up, confused innocence this time. “Yeah?”

“How come I get the feeling you’re telling me something without telling me something else?”

“What do you mean?”

“I think you’re telling me the truth but using it to mislead me somehow.”

O’Boy winced with his whole body. “Hey, Cuddy. C’mon, huh? I’m easily hurt here.”

F
ROM THE
H
OWARD
J
OHNSON’S
it was easier to drive to the car dealership than The Foursome’s former neighborhood. Following Paul O’Boy’s directions, I found the place on the southwest corner of the intersection. There were fifty or sixty shiny cars on the lot, all parked nose out except for a utility vehicle parked sideways that had a marquee on its roof reading MODEL OF THE MONTH. Above the front doors of the showroom was a painted image somewhere between a cartoon and a portrait showing a rosy-cheeked man with a store-bought smile bearing some resemblance to the crime scene photo of Hale Vandemeer’s bleached-out face. The caption was HUB VANDEMEER—FINE CARS, FAIR PRICES.

I drove past the premises without seeing any activity in the lot or showroom. Making a three-point turn, I came back, this time driving onto the lot and leaving the Prelude in a slot with RESERVED FOR CUSTOMER hand-lettered on a small picket sign. I climbed the two steps to the showroom, an all-glass affair on one level with six vehicles of differing functional appeal gleaming on the all-weather carpeting.

When I opened the door, a soft “bong-bong” sounded deeper in the showroom, and a pert, quick-stepping woman appeared from one of the Dutch window cubbyholes along the back wall. Maneuvering deftly around a sensible four-door sedan, she was about five-three, with two-inch heels, well-defined calves, and the expression of a weasel that hadn’t eaten in a week.

“Welcome to Hub Vandemeer’s,” she said eagerly. “I’m Emily Tollison. How can I help you?”

I didn’t introduce myself. “I’d like to see Mr. Vandemeer, if I can.”

“Sure, sure.” Drawing even with me, her eyes flickered over to where I’d parked my car. Not a bad idea, having the customer spaces where the sales crew could do a windshield appraisal of the old vehicle. “Only, he’s not in just yet. Is there something I can help you with?”

“Thanks, but I need to see him personally.”

“Sure, I understand. Can I get you some coffee while you wait?”

I don’t drink the stuff, but I said, “Yes, thank you. Regular, please.” I looked to some squash-colored easy chairs with little poofs of cottony stuffing edging out the seams. “I’ll just sit, if that’s all right?”

“Sure, sure. You make yourself comfortable, and I’ll get your coffee. Hub’ll be here shortly.”

I took a seat as Tollison went past her cubbyhole and out of sight. Behind her, I could hear the mechanical sounds of a service shop, which must have had a separate entrance off another street. Full-color brochures on the low table in front of me displayed cover photos of the two makes of machines I’d seen on the lot, one American, the other I thought Korean, though it had been a while since I’d been in the new car market.

Tollison came back with the coffee in a Styrofoam cup.

Thanking her, I added in a sincere voice, “How’s Hub doing with the loss of his brother?”

A shake of the head, Tollison crossing her arms under her breasts. “It’s been such a strain on him. I don’t think I even met Hale my first year here, but lately he was coming by, oh, once or twice a week, and he seemed such a nice man.”

“I don’t know the son, but it must be tough on him as well.”

She suddenly hardened, the arms closing on each other. “Yes, well, he has a number of strains on him, Nicky does. I’ll just leave you with your coffee, Mr. … ?”

“Cuddy, John Cuddy.”

“Mr. Cuddy. Let me know if you need anything else.”

“Thanks.”

I watched her walk away and wondered why my neutral comment about Nicky Vandemeer had set her off.

Waiting, I leafed through one of the brochures. It managed to gush for sixteen pages over features both standard and optional without once mentioning price tag. Returning the brochure to the table, I saw a candy-apple red convertible, white top down, white upholstery visible, pulling onto the lot. If the vehicles in the showroom gleamed, this one blinded. The fantasy car of every teenager turned young adult with a down payment burning a hole through the money market fund. The driver backed and filled until the car was at exactly the angle to catch both the sun from the sky and the eye from the street. I noticed a chrome trailer hitch at the back bumper, which detracted just a bit from the street-car image.

The man who got out from behind the wheel was an older version of the image over the door, the hair scarcer and the cheeks not so rosy and the mouth definitely not smiling. Tall and lanky, he had an effort donning the jacket of a suit whose glen-plaid pattern was just this side of garish. Vandemeer snatched a leather portfolio from the backseat, tilting his head at my car in the customer slot. I got the feeling he’d categorized me as “Honda Prelude, pretty good shape but the old model, probably time for a new car.” Before he could have seen me, Vandemeer put on a yearbook smile and bounded up the steps to the showroom as though this were going to be our mutually lucky day.

Inside the door, he spotted me before the “bong-bong” faded and before Tollison was out of her cubbyhole.

Vandemeer said, “Are you being helped, sir?”

“Actually, I was waiting for you, Mr. Vandemeer.”

“Terrific.” A smile came out that put the polish on the convertible to shame, while his free hand adjusted the knot on a red tie with a beach-girl-and-umbrella design. “And it’s ‘Hub,’ please.”

“John Cuddy, Hub.”

“Great to meet you, John. Come on back to my office.” Vandemeer waved at Tollison, who waved back in a pleasant but distinctly “nothing much” way that probably captured the dealership’s morning pretty well. Vandemeer never broke stride or smile, saying over his shoulder, “More coffee?”

“No, thanks.”

He nodded as we entered his office, which was more a giant cubbyhole. One wall gave a view of the showroom. Another had a very soundproofed window onto the service department, men in jumpsuits working with wrenches and other hand tools on vehicles in maybe half the bays. On my side of his desk was a brass plate on a triangular tube of mahogany that read HUBBELL “HUB” VANDEMEER. The rest of the desk was covered by carefully squared stacks of documents that had the look of not being disturbed recently. There were some Little League trophies on the shelf next to his desk. Most of them were from the mid-eighties, none after 1988. The desk chair looked broken down rather than broken in, but he plunked himself into it and said, “Now, what can we do for you?”

I showed him my Massachusetts identification. “I’m here about the killings up in Maine.”

The smile weighed down, taking all the energy from his face and voice. “What’s your stake in it?”

When you first spring your profession on someone, it’s interesting to hear their reaction. In Vandemeer’s case, his question about my “stake” led me to believe he must have one, too.

I said, “I’m working for the lawyer representing Steven Shea.”

His mouth gaped before he remembered that he should be playing poker. “I thought the police there had things pretty well wrapped up?”

“My job is to find out how tight the ribbon is.”

“This happened in Maine, I don’t see where I have to talk to you.”

“You don’t. You wouldn’t even if it happened in Massachusetts. But you don’t talk to me, I have to talk to other people. Get things indirectly. Usually that’s like a game of Telephone.”

“Telephone?”

“Yeah, like from when you were little. Everybody sits in a circle, the kid on your left whispers something to you, you whisper what you thought he said to the girl on your right, then she whispers what she thought—”

“Until it all gets fouled up by the time it gets back around.”

“Usually.”

Vandemeer brought up a hand, rubbing his chin so laboriously that I thought the car dealer’s next words would be “Tell you what I’m gonna do.” Instead, he said, “So, I talk to you, and you get my story straight.”

“That’s the idea.”

“Okay, fine. I built my reputation here on being honest with my customers, I’ll be honest with you. What do you want to know?”

“The authorities in Maine see the crime scene as Shea setting up a triple murder, then losing his cool. If he didn’t do it, then somebody else did, and he just reacted predictably when he found the bodies.”

Vandemeer nodded without expression.

I said, “Were you close to your brother?”

A pained sigh. “Like best friends.”

“You know any reason somebody would want him dead?”

“None.”

“How about his wife?”