Shotgun Lullaby (A Conway Sax Mystery) (18 page)

“Just for kicks, let's work that angle,” I said. “Who'd want to set you up? You had twenty-two hours to think on it.”

“Who had a beef with Gus Biletnikov?”

“Andrade,” I said.

Donald's face told me he'd forgotten about him, or his name anyway.

“The guy who sold Gus the shitbox?” I said.

“You're cold.”

“He's alibied up anyway. Cops were at his house twice that night.”

“
Ice
cold, then. Who else?”

“The Pundos, Charlie and Teddy both. I bumped up against them while you were inside. I'll have to tell you about it.”

“Some other time. For now, you're still cold. Who else?”

I finger-drummed the table.

“Give you a hint,” Donald said, tossing another rib in his bone bucket. “I am an, uh, altitudinally challenged American.”

“It's possible I noticed that.”

“With hands and feet sized proportionally.”

“Where the hell are you going with this?”

“Who had a beef with poor old Gus and could walk around in my boots?”

“Nobody,”
I said. “Hell, a
girl
maybe.”

“Ding ding ding,” he said, popping a square of corn bread in his mouth.

Then it was quiet a long time.

“Come on,” I finally said.

“Tear me off another yard of paper towel,” Donald Crump said, “and listen up while I tell you about Rinn and Peter Biletnikov. And it ain't no accident I said her name first.”

*   *   *

We left a half hour later. Donald cradled his belly like a newborn child, yammering about how rotten the food had been.

I wasn't really listening. Was putting pieces together instead. Or trying to.

It had been quite a download.

I didn't hear the voice at first. Then Donald tapped my arm and pointed.

“Conway?”

Huge guy, three hundred pounds easy. Blond mullet. His T-shirt said
JEFF GORDON
, with a faded cartoon of Gordon's race car stretched across the belly. Over the T-shirt, despite the day's warmth, he wore a faded blue flannel shirt, unbuttoned. In each hand he held a brown shopping bag full of takeout.

“Conway Sax,” the big man said. “Now don't you dare say you don't remember me.”

“Mensa Mulligan. You crewed for Ricky Craven when he was running Busch North.” I introduced Donald, but he and Mensa ignored each other.

“Knew it was you,” Mensa said. “Been ten years, easy. Where you been at?”

“Around. Got my own shop now. Mostly Japanese stuff. How about you?”

“Workin' on them ricer cars, huh? I get it. Pays the bills. I'm a tech up at Florio Jeep-Chrysler. When Craven got his Cup ride, the weasel dropped me like a bad habit.” He squinted. “Tryin' to remember when's the last time I seen you race. Didn't you have a Busch ride?”

“I had a cup of coffee, yeah.” I shifted on my feet. I looked at my watch.

Mensa snapped his fingers. “Hell yes! You had a primo ride. Won some races, am I right? Yeah you fuckin'-A did, pardon my French. Your ass had Cup wrote all over it. Then you disappeared.”

“Your takeout's getting cold, Mensa, and I need to split. You see any of the old boys, you say hi for me, okay?”

He looked half-pissed, half-puzzled as he made for a Jeep Commander with a
COURTESY VEHICLE
sticker on its rear window.

“Hot diggity damn,” Donald said. “You used to drive race cars, you cracker? You got to translate that conversation for me. What's bush? What's cup?”

“You kidding me? Where you're from, it's hard to
not
know at least a little about racing.”

“I take all necessary steps to avoid that cracker shit.”

“‘Cup' used to be Winston Cup. Now it's Sprint Cup, the NASCAR you see on TV. Busch Grand National,
B-U-S-C-H,
like the beer, has a new name too. It's one rung down the ladder. Think of triple-A baseball.”

“Were you on TV?”

“Sure.”

“How fast did you go?”

“We ran one-eighty-five at Daytona.”

“Were you scared?”

“Not in the car.”

“Crash much?”

“I crashed about the right amount.”

I saw the question in his eyes.

“You can drive around in circles and cash paychecks,” I said. “Or you can push hard and wreck once in a while.”

“And you weren't about drivin' in circles.”

I shrugged.

“Did you make it to the big leagues, the Whatchamacallit Cup?”

“I drank myself out of a ride.”

“This is
interesting,
Sax. Side of you I didn't see coming. But I do believe you'd rather be talking about anything else.”

“It was a long time ago. And I need to get to Sherborn.”

“Your redneck buddy there, Mensa, made it sound like you dropped out hard and fast.”

“I walked away from a good ride in the middle of the season.”

“Why was that?”

“Team owner heard I was drinking before I climbed in the car. I walked before he made me run.”

Long pause. “You were driving drunk. At a buck-eighty-five.”

“I need to
go,
Donald.”

“One last question. Your buddy didn't look like no Einstein. He called Mensa because he's some kinda weird genius, what they call a savant?”

“No. He was the stupidest guy anybody knew. Too stupid to know his nickname was an insult.”

“Who made up the nickname?”

“I did.”

“You proud of that?”

I climbed in my truck and drove east.

 

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Read a text from Randall while I traffic-thumped toward the Biletnikov house:

Holmes: Have arrived solo at scene of crime in selfless bid to comfort mourning stepmom. No sacrifice too great. Yr hmbl & obt & etc Watson

I shook my head. In spite of everything Donald had told me, which had my head spinning, I guess I smiled.

I parked behind Randall's Hyundai. The main door of the guesthouse was open, and I heard their voices. So I opened the screen door …

… and barged in on a three-alarm flirting session.

Giggles. Arm touching. Big-eye making.

Spare me.

“Fix yourself a drink,” Rinn said without looking my way.

I waved off the drink and sat across the room from the pair of them. She was sunk deep in an armchair. He was as close as he could get to her in a sofa that ninetied up to the chair. His left knee kept bumping her right.

I said, “When's the funeral?”

It hushed them up.

“Tomorrow at ten,” Rinn said, shooting eye lasers at me for killing the vibe. “Pilgrim Church, right up the road. Randall says your AA friends … Barnburners, was it?… will make their presence felt. They're welcome, of course.”

“Peter okay with that?”

“
I'm
okay with it,” she said. I'd gotten to her—her eyes flashed. But only for half a tenth of a second. She was good.

“Yeah,” I said, “and what's okay by you is okay by Peter. Or else. So I hear, anyway.”

“For crying out loud,” Randall said.

“What exactly do you hear?” Rinn said.

“I hear you lead him around like a baby goat on a very short strap,” I said.

And stared at her feet, picturing them in Donald Crump's boots.

“Conway, old chum,” Randall said. “A moment outside?”

I ignored him, locked eyes with Rinn. “I hear you won a bet. Tell me I'm wrong. Or tell Randall about the bet.”

She said nothing. But her eyes went angry again, and this time they stayed there.

Push. Don't let her off the hook.

“Show Randall the matching Harleys,” I said. “The matching BMWs.”

“What's he talking about?” Randall said.

Rinn said nothing for a long while.

Then she set elbows on knees, buried her face in her palms, and began to cry.

Soon enough, the tears turned real.

Rinn sobbed something into her hands.

“What?” Randall said, popping up and grabbing a Kleenex box from the kitchen table.

“Everybody hates the trophy wife,” Rinn said.

No mercy. Push push push.

“Tell him,” I said.

“‘I am your spaniel,'” she said, addressing Randall. “‘And the more you beat me, I will fawn on you. Use me but as your spaniel. Spurn me, strike me, neglect me, lose me.'”

I said,
“What?”

Randall said, “‘What worser place can I beg in your love, and yet a place of high respect with me, than to be used as you use your dog?'”

I said, “What the
hell
?”

“A Midsummer Night's Dream,”
Rinn said.

“Jesus Christ,” I said.

“No,” Randall said, “Helena. To Demetrius.”

They made big eyes at each other.

“I'm guessing you're not Helena,” Randall said to Rinn.

“Of course not. Peter was Helena. Is.” She put her chin on her fist and leaned toward Randall. I might as well have been in the neighbor's yard. “He was supposed to be a big visionary, but the first thing he ever did that I knew of was rip off a bullet list from my job application.” She explained what she'd told me already—that Thunder Junction's perfectly timed shift to green tech was her idea.

“So you knew he was a poser from the get-go,” he said. “That's a bad place to start as far as respect is concerned.”

Rinn nodded. “When we became a couple, I turned cruel.”

“I find that difficult to believe,” Randall said.

I found it difficult not to barf. But kept my mouth shut.

“I began putting Peter through torture tests,” she said. “Spurnings and strikings.”

“Like what?”

“Okay, here's one. I'd drag him to these dive bars, then flirt like mad with the biggest jock I could find. If Peter ignored the flirting, I'd berate him for letting his girlfriend get hit on in the Chicken Bone Saloon. But if he stood up for me, I'd call him a jealous prick and sic the jock on him.”

“Oh.”

The story had cooled Randall some, I saw.

Rinn saw it, too. “That wasn't
me,
I swear to you.” She took his hand in both of hers. “It was a strange, confusing time. I was seeing a man twice my age. Things were getting serious. And there were … other factors.”

I put a thumb to the side of my nose and made a huge, exaggerated sniff.

“You're such a jerk,” Rinn said.

“I see,” Randall said.

“And Peter was buying,” I said. “For the three of them. Open bar, an all-you-can-snort buffet.”

“You're
such
a jerk,” Rinn said.

“The bet,” I said.

“I
would
like to hear about that,” Randall said.

It was quiet maybe twenty seconds.

“Around this time,” Rinn finally said, “I was getting to know Gus.”

“And Donald Crump,” I said. Saw Randall's puzzled look. “He came on the scene around the time Peter and Rinn started dating. Made himself very chummy. Always looking for an angle, like any self-respecting con man.” I glanced at Rinn. “I got that right?”

She waved an impatient hand. “That little … yes, you've got it right, but Donald's not important to the story. To
this
story. Which you've succeeded in prizing from me, so I'd appreciate it if you'd shut up while I tell it.”

Fair enough.

“Peter introduced me to Gus, of course. He was a sweetheart, and so was his best friend, Brad. We became quite a trio. I spent nearly every weekend at UMass. Sometimes with Peter, but usually without.”

“Did those trips have anything to do with this?” Randall said, and touched his nostril the way I had mine.

“Of course,” she said. “It was a wild year, a whirlwind. But it wasn't all about the drugs. We had a Three Musketeers scene going. It was genuinely fun. It was sweet.”

Then she stared past him long enough so that Randall said, “But.”

“Yes, but. Or
until,
actually. Gus didn't have a lot of affection or respect for his father. The three of us used to amuse ourselves, in callow fashion, I concede, by talking about what a fool Peter was. We had a ball congratulating ourselves on how we were using the squaresville sugar daddy. It sounds awful when I say it out loud, I know. Anyway, we used to dream up spurnings and strikings. The idea was to see how far I could push Peter before he pushed back.”

“What was the bet?”

“For a hoot, Brad, Gus, and I went on an honest-to-God hayride one weekend. I think a sorority put it together. The hayride ended up at a square dance in a barn, and all the local couples were dressed in matching clothes. It was the funniest damn thing we ever saw.”

Rinn forced a laugh, looked around to see if it caught.

It didn't.

“You know, the way those chubby Midwestern cruise-ship couples wear identical Hawaiian shirts. It was so … Walmart!” She tried again with the laugh.

“I know what you're talking about,” I said. “Not my style, but I think it's kind of nice.”

“Of course you do.”

“It's almost like the couples care more about each other than about what some douche-bag college kid thinks.”

She skated past that, but her face went red. “Gus and Brad made me a bet right there. My assignment was to go all-in on the matching shtick with Peter. We knew it would horrify him and his BSO/MFA crowd. But would he put up with it? For li'l ole me?”

Randall read the question in my eyes. “Boston Symphony Orchestra. Museum of Fine Arts.”

“The finish line,” Rinn said, “or the money shot, as charming Brad called it, was a square dance in the same barn two months later. To win the bet, I had to bring Peter and do-si-do all night in matching duds.”