Foursome (16 page)

“Same.”

All of a sudden Vandemeer had gone concise on me. It could have been masked emotion over his brother’s death, but it didn’t feel right.

I said, “The three of you knew each other a long time?”

“Since we were children.”

“So, you knew Vivian pretty well, then.”

An impatient “Yes.”

I said, “Maybe if you explained your relationship with your brother, it would help me on what else to ask you.”

Vandemeer seemed to stall a little, maybe thinking we’d already covered that subject. “Like I said, growing up we were best friends, even joked about my name.”

“Joked?”

“You know. He was a couple of years older than me, so we joked that instead of ‘Hale’ and ‘Hubbell,’ our parents could have named us ‘Hale’ and ‘Hearty.’ ”

“I see what you mean.”

“At least now, I just get people thinking of me when they hear about that telescope that doesn’t work right.”

I looked down at the brass plate. “I think that’s spelled differently.”

“Whatever.”

“How did you come to be in this line?”

“Cars, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“Our parents had some money, they died on the
Andrea Doria
back in the fifties. Remember that?”

“Just the newspapers.”

“Yeah, well, it was pretty scary stuff, being eight years old and thinking your folks were in a big tin can at the bottom of the ocean.” Vandemeer shivered. “Anyway, we each came into half their money when we hit twenty-one. Hale used his to go to med school, but he was the only scholar in the family. Me, I was a car man, just crazy about them, had this great Ford convertible in high school, aquamarine with power everything, when you used to see just Caddys and Lincolns like that. So when I was a senior, I came to the guy owned this lot then, and he hired me as basically an office boy. Well, I worked my way up, learned everything about how a dealership runs. When he decided to move to Arizona, I took my share of the estate and bought him out. Been here ever since.”

I wanted to keep Vandemeer in a talkative move. “How’s it been as a life?”

“Aw, I can’t complain. Not really. I got into it back in the early seventies, just before the Arab oil thing. It was tough, but the manufacturers adapted and everything was fine. Even did okay during the early eighties. That recession pretty much missed us in New England, at least as far as cars went. Hell, that Prelude of yours—what, an eighty-one?”

“Eighty-two.”

“Eighty-two, new it probably went for list, am I right?”

“I don’t know. I got it used.”

“Yeah, well, nothing goes for list anymore. Oh, maybe that convertible I drove in here, they don’t make enough of them with this nice June weather we’re having now. But most of the serious shoppers, they come in here with computer printouts yet, showing them how much I paid for the car and then expecting me to do no better than five hundred over invoice.”

“Which still gives you some profit, right?”

“Five hundred? How am I supposed to—”

“No, I mean the invoice itself. Isn’t there part of that you get back from the manufacturer?”

Vandemeer showed me a smile different from the yearbook one. “You know something about the trade, huh?”

“Just a little.”

“Yeah, well, let me tell you a little more, so you understand my position. I work six days a week now, just Sundays off. On my American cars, I get the dealer ‘hold-back’ from the invoice, but only at the end of the quarter, after my money’s been laid out for eight, maybe twelve weeks. And I’ve got to finance my inventory on the lot here, point and a half over prime, carry that as part of my nut every month. And it’s getting so I can’t move my inventory because if I don’t have in stock what—and I mean
exactly
what—the customer wants, the customer knows the dealer down the street will order it—
order
it, customized just the way the customer wants it—for maybe three hundred over invoice. You see what I’m saying here?”

“They can get the car they want for less if they’re willing to wait for it.”

“Exactly. That’s exactly right. Then on top of that I got tariffs on my imports that don’t hurt the Korean war orphan that makes the cars, they hurt us U.S. dealers. And I got rebates and APR financing offers from my American manufacturer that I have to juggle around what people read last year and expect me to still make good on out of my ‘profit margin.’ ”

“Which margin is tough to have without sales.”

“And nearly impossible to have without salesmen. I guess I should say ‘salespersons’ because Emily out there was the best of the four people I had on the floor, and she’s the only one I can still justify—”

Vandemeer stopped cold, as though someone had slapped him.

I said, “What’s the matter?”

He gave me a canny smile. “You ever been in sales, Cuddy?”

“No.”

“Cop?”

“Just military.”

“Well, I’ve done it to enough people, I should be able to spot it being done to me.”

“What?”

“Warming me up, drawing me out. You came in here, wanting to talk about that horror movie up at the lake, and I wasn’t feeling too cooperative, so you got me onto something I did want to talk about, and now you know I’m not in such great financial shape.”

“Wouldn’t take a genius to figure that out.”

“Yeah, well, I said I’d be honest with you, and I will be. Hale was helping me out here. With capital, I mean.”

“Bailing you out with cash?”

“He was a doctor, they make a fortune. He needed investments all the time; this was a good one because he knew me and knew the business. Better than throwing three large a month into some mutual fund run by an MBA brat who doesn’t return phone calls.”

“So your brother was happy to park three thousand a month in your lot.”

“Yes,” with the impatient edge to it.

“Investment or loan?”

Vandemeer waited, then said, “His lawyer drew up papers. I gave Hale stock, but it was all just on paper. For tax reasons, I think.”

Tax reasons. “Did his wife, Vivian, know about that?”

The car man balked. “Vivian? What’s she got to do with it?”

“She was killed, too.”

Vandemeer studied me, trying to see if there was anything more than the obvious behind my remark. “Vivian, she did fine with the charge card, but I don’t think she was much into numbers beyond that.”

“How well did you know Shea and his wife?”

“The wife, not much. Met her at a couple of cocktail parties at the house—my brother’s house, I mean. She seemed like a nice woman, kind of … aloof, maybe.”

“And Shea?”

“Steve? I sold him his last two cars, the one his wife drives—sorry, drove. And that new four-wheeler he had up there when … it all happened.”

“Any problems with him?”

“Utility vehicle was a gem. Same with hers, no complaints.”

“Any problems other than with the cars you sold them?”

His hands fidgeted on his desk near one of the perfect stacks. “Steve … I got the impression from Hale that Steve was under some kind of pressure.”

“What from?”

“Don’t know. I think it had to do with his job, though.”

“Just general stress, or something more?”

“Like I said, I don’t know. Hale just mentioned it to me, I never knew Shea well enough to talk with him about it.”

“When was this?”

“When?”

“When your brother mentioned Shea to you.”

“Oh, Jesus, I don’t know. Maybe two—no, I guess it must have been more like four weeks ago.”

“Do you remember your brother’s exact words?”

“I asked him how he was doing, and he said fine, and I asked about Shea’s car—you do that, you know?—and Hale said something like, The car’s fine, but Steve’s tighter than a drum.’ ”

“His exact words?”

“I’m not sure, except for the ‘tighter than a drum,’ part. That was one of Hale’s favorite expressions.”

“And you didn’t follow up?”

“Aw, maybe I said, ‘How come?’ and Hale said, ‘About work’ or ‘Over work,’ something like that. It was just an offhand comment, you know?”

“Was your brother under any stress?”

“Hale? He was the original duck.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Duck. Like water off a duck’s back. Nothing bothered him.”

I thought about Emily Tollison’s reaction to my mentioning Nicky Vandemeer. “How about his son?”

“What about him?”

“I understand the boy is something of a handful.”

“Yeah, well, we’re going to work that out, him and me.”

“Nicky and you.”

“Right.”

“Why is that?”

Vandemeer flared. “Why? Because I’m his uncle and only other kin, that’s why. The lawyer Hale used, he did wills for him and Vivian with me as guardian for Nicky.”

“How old is he?”

“Nicky? Seventeen.”

“So you’re guardian only until he hits his next birthday?”

“Well, technically, maybe. But somebody’s got to look after things for him. He’s a little … wild right now, you know?”

“I understood he’s been a little wild for a while.”

Vandemeer looked at me. “You mean the driving-under thing.”

“Good place to start.”

“What can I say? Nicky’s a kid. He gets his license and a few beers in him, he does something stupid.”

“Anybody hurt?”

“Just the car.”

“Which you sold him?”

“Which I gave him. Practically, I mean. Hale covered just my real cost on it.”

“But Hale’s in no position to cover things anymore.”

Vandemeer flared again. “The hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t see a probate court judge approving any transfers from the estate to you to cover operating costs anymore.”

“Yeah, well, let me tell you something. Hale was a good brother and a generous man, Cuddy. Nicky’s just about rich, the way the lawyer explains it to me. But Hale took care of me, too, in that will somewhere, so in a couple of months, I don’t need any judge to get my money.”

“How much?”

“What?”

“How much is your share?”

Vandemeer didn’t reply.

“I can go to the registry and just look it up.”

He rubbed his chin some more. “Not to put you to the trouble. It’s two hundred thousand.”

“Does that about cover what your brother already kicked in here?”

No reply again.

“Even if it does, though, that doesn’t mean that you’re even with the board, Hub. If the stock you gave your brother doesn’t revert to you somehow, then you might get the two hundred thousand clear from the estate, but you also have your nephew as a partner in the business.”

“I can handle it.”

“You said before that you work every day but Sunday?”

“That’s right.”

“Including the weekend your brother was killed?”

“I already told this to the police here.”

“I could always ‘telephone’ them.”

Vandemeer started to flare again, then eased off. I thought about Hale’s phrase “tighter than a drum” fitting his brother pretty well. The car man said, “I decided to take a couple days for myself.”

“Doing what?”

“Just driving around in the convertible, kicking the leaves, you know?”

“Lots of leaves up in Maine, Hub.”

Vandemeer said, “Why don’t you go find your junkheap and drive it the hell off my lot, huh?”

C
ALEM WAS SOMEWHAT FAMILIAR
ground from the case Paul O’Boy and I had worked on together. Using the town center for orientation, I didn’t take too long to find the road I wanted, the cul-de-sac lying just beyond a cross street perpendicular to it.

I went around the circular dead end, parking at the same point I’d entered it. Steven Shea had said that the middle house was his. The house on the left had withered flowers in beds around the foundation and grass a foot high. The house on the right had blooming flowers and a groomed lawn that suggested Mrs. Epps lived there.

I crossed the asphalt toward the house on the right.

Shea also said the builder had used different plans on each. He was right. My client’s place had the same awful, tumble-down-blocks look as his lake home. The Vandemeer house was a towering garrison with attached three-car garage.

Mrs. Epps had a symmetrical ranch, blue and white brick but with nice touches like geraniums in large ceramic pots and a woven welcome mat. As I got to the mat, the solid door inside the screened one opened, enough darkness behind it that I couldn’t see into the foyer.

A measured, cultured voice said, “Can I help you?”

“Mrs. Epps?”

“Yes.”

“My name’s John Cuddy. I’m a private investigator.” I held my identification open to the screen.

The middle finger of an arthritic hand that must once have been delicate pressed the mesh against the plastic face of my ID holder, almost tracing it before falling back into the darkness. The voice said, “So you are.”

I felt a little disconcerted, as though I were being interrogated from shadows by someone shining a spotlight on me. “I’d appreciate a few minutes of your time to talk about your neighbors.”

“I wondered whether someone would bother to see me.”

The hand didn’t reappear; the screened door didn’t open.

I said, “May I come in?”

“That probably would be best.”

I heard her move away, so I tried the outer door. Unlocked.

Inside the foyer, my eyes got used to the light. Or lack of it. Her voice from off to the right said, “Please, follow me.”

We moved through a darkened living room with blackout drapes, bulky Queen Anne furniture arrayed around the perimeter. Then we came to a wide shaft of light let in by French doors to what became a greenhoused Florida room with a view of trees and brook and Japanese garden for a backyard.

Mrs. Epps stood as the centerpiece of a set of atrium furniture in white iron, silk pillows imprinted with blue flowers. The floor was ceramic tile, mostly blue, laid out in a three-square pattern like a tic-tac-toe board, the center square a white tile with a carefully glazed flower design that to my eye copied the pillows perfectly. Placed aesthetically around the room were white ceramic vases with jug handles on each side of their mouths and swirl patterns in a blue that in turn copied the tiles perfectly. A cat stood and ran out of the room. It looked to be a white Persian with blue eyes. I got the feeling it might have been chosen less for its companionship and more for its color coordination.