The Girl Who Ran Off With Daddy (18 page)

“Is that why you want in?”

“I want in because it went down in my ’hood,” he replied gruffly. “Like I done told ya.”

“And because he dissed you.”

“I’m used to that,” he said mildly. “Comes with the pigment.” He sat there with his hands on the wheel, the engine idling. We still hadn’t moved. “What about you?”

“What about me?”

“What’s your interest here?”

“Thor was my friend, like I told you.”

“Uh-huh. What else?”

“I’m helping Clethra write her book.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all.”

“Then why do I keep getting the feeling you be looking to create your own shot for yourself?”

“You must be scared a lot of the time, Trooper,” I suggested, sidestepping him. “Working around this part of the state, I mean.”

He sat there in uncomfortable silence a moment, not touching it. I think he was sorry he’d shown himself to me. I wasn’t exactly sure why he had. “Not a whole lot to go on here, huh?” he ventured, nodding at the house.

“I wouldn’t say that, Trooper. I wouldn’t say that at all.”

“What, you got some ideas?”

“I have too many ideas. That’s one of my biggest problems.”

He heaved a sigh. “Man, I can’t tell when you’re goofin’ on me and when you ain’t.”

“You have my sympathy.”

“Miss Nash …”

“What about her?”

“She elevates any production with which she’s associated.”

“That she does.” I glanced at him. “So how come I don’t?”

“Don’t what?”

“Scare the shit out of you.”

“First time I laid eyes on you,” he reminded me, “you was facedown on the floor of Slim Jim’s.”

“Go ahead,” I sniffed, fingering my tender nose. “Rub it in.”

“I may do that. I just may indeed.” He rammed the cruiser into gear and hit the gas. “A man’s got to find his pleasure somehow.”

It took us twenty minutes to get back to the farm by way of the bridge at East Haddam. I timed it. There were even more press vans crowded along Joshua Town Road than before. The three networks, determined not to be outhustled on a story of such pure schlock value, were now camped out there shoulder to shoulder with the tabloiders, groveling for the same greasy crumbs. This was something new. When I first got started in my second career, the networks steered clear of sensation. Not anymore. They couldn’t afford to.

Shoreline Sanitation was almost done sucking the water from out of the pond into a tanker trunk. Two of the Major Crime Squad investigators were sifting through the bottom muck with their trousers rolled up, looking very much like they were panning for gold. Two more were taking careful stock of the cart trails and squishy footprints between the pond and the driveway.

One-of the goldminers let out a triumphant whoop as we pulled up. He’d recovered the Felco pruners.

“Where will I find you?” Slawski asked me from behind the wheel.

“I don’t know. Why?”

“I may wish to talk to you,” he said, turning authority on me.

I tugged at my ear. “You don’t think
I
killed Thor, do you?”

“I don’t know what to think,” he said grimly. “Nothing’s making too much sense to me right about now.”

“You’ll get used to that,” I advised him. “In fact, pretty soon you won’t even remember what it was like when you thought life made sense.”

“Do me a favor, will ya?”

“Of course, Trooper.”

“Get the hell out of my car!”

I did, wasting no time. Him, he wasted no time getting out of there.

Clethra was in the front parlor watching
I Dream of Jeannie
and eating a bag of Doritos. She grunted hello at me. She did not ask me how it went with Ruth.

Upstairs, Tracy was in her nursery, crying irritably, and Merilee was in our room, packing up for the city. No small operation this. Traveling with Tracy meant taking along extra diapers, something to put her wet diapers in, something to wipe her clean and dry with, something to wipe yourself clean and dry with after you’d wiped her clean and dry, her blanket, her change of clothes, her various and sundry recreational devices … It was a lot like traveling with Elizabeth Taylor, except Liz is less self-centered.

“I’m sorry, darling, I just can’t handle all of these people being here,” Merilee announced, her voice stretched tight, as she swiftly crammed things into her oversized Il Bisonte gym bag, her movements precise and practiced. She was replaying her getaway scene from the Alec Baldwin thriller—all that was missing was the loaded Glock and the briefcase full of cash. She always fell back into some role or another when she got rattled. Take it from me: Don’t ever get mixed up with an actress. Or if you do, make sure she chooses her parts awful damned carefully. “They’ve got Tracy riled. They’ve got me riled. The phone’s been ringing non-stop … I’m filling up the Woody and I’m fleeing back to the city.” She zipped the bag shut and hoisted it over her shoulder. She had changed into a cashmere turtleneck and flannel slacks. “You don’t blame me, do you?”

Outside the window I could hear the cops and technicians hooting instructions at each other, hear the steady throb of the press corps down at the foot of the drive. It was like living under a state of siege.

“No, I don’t, Merilee. Do you blame me?”

“For what, darling?”

“Bringing all of this down on you.” I wrestled the bag from her and took her in my arms. “After all, this was our refuge from the world. Our safe haven.”

“No, it wasn’t, darling,” she said softly. “That was all just an illusion. A sweet, sweet illusion.”

“I didn’t realize I still had any of those left.”

“A few,” she observed. “We started out with so many, after all.”

“Tracy’s not going to be like us, is she?”

“I don’t see how she can be. It’s a completely different world than the one we grew up in.”

“Bother you much?”

“Only enough to make me cry if I think about it.” She kissed me tenderly, gazing at me with her brow creased. “Will you be okay without me tonight? I know Thor was someone you cared about. I’ll stay if you need me.”

“I’ll be fine. No big deal.”

“Gosh, you’re tough.”

“Yeah, I’m a hard guy of the old school, all right,” I said, wondering when we’d have our romantic evening together.
If
we’d have our romantic evening together.

“How’s Baby Ruth?”

“Angry.”

“Did she kill him?”

“I don’t know, Merilee.” One fine strand of her long golden hair had worked loose from her ponytail and tumbled across her forehead. I smoothed it back over her ear. “Clethra’s going with you?”

Merilee shook her head. “She wants to stay here.”

“She belongs with Ruth and Arvin.”

“You know that and I know that, darling,” Merilee agreed. “But Clethra has to reach that conclusion for herself, and …”

“And?”

“We have to let her.”

“Why, Merilee Gilbert Nash,” I exclaimed. “You’re going to make somebody a good little mother someday.”

She sighed. “So I keep telling myself.”

She and Tracy took off for the city at dusk. I figured the investigators would clear out about then themselves for the night. I figured wrong. They merely brought in floodlights so they could keep right on working. The press vans stuck around, too. As long as there was some activity, any kind of activity, they were going nowhere. The phone kept ringing—reporters trying to wheedle an exclusive out of me, tabloid television producers trying to buy one. I took it off the hook and left it that way. There was no one I wanted to talk to.

The cops found the severed penis of Thor Gibbs a little before 7
P.M.
I’m sure it was a great source of triumph for them. I’m sure it was also a great source of sick jokes, but they didn’t share those with me—partly out of respect for my feelings and partly because Munger and Slawski were both on hand, growling at each other. I sat at the kitchen table glumly drinking a Samuel Adams Cream Stout and watching them through the window. I didn’t go out there to talk to them. They didn’t come inside to talk to me. Munger was the one who went down to the foot of the drive to speak to the press under more bright lights. Their ranks did thin somewhat after that. And then the Major Crime Squad investigators and their vans cleared out, too, leaving the crime scene cordoned off and us in semi-peace.

By then Clethra had moved on to
Green Acres
and Oreos. She still wasn’t saying much. She tossed her cookies and her Doritos at eight, then curled back up on the sofa and stared at
The Partridge Family.
When I mentioned dinner she just curled her lip at me.

Lulu, on the other hand, was a woman of appetite. She inhaled the pickled herring treat I’d promised her, as well as a full ration of her 9-Lives canned mackerel for cats and very strange dogs. The thrill of the chase always enlivens her. So does being away from Tracy. She was so juiced she didn’t even mind contributing a half dozen of her precious anchovies to my own supper—provided I made a little extra for her, of course. I drank another Cream Stout while I put on water for linguine and chopped up enough garlic to ward off every evil spirit in southern New England. I sautéed it in extra-virgin olive oil, threw in some hot pepper flakes, Merilee’s Italian parsley and Lulu’s anchovies. When it was just about done I added a half cup of homemade fish broth to the skillet and let it simmer awhile—a trick I learned from my landlady in Montalcino a while back. Then I dumped the cooked pasta in the pan and tossed it and topped it with fresh grated pecorino romano. I made enough for all three of us but Clethra still wasn’t interested so Lulu and I ate the whole batch ourselves. I washed mine down with most of an ice-cold bottle of Sancerre. For dessert I had one of our ripe pears smeared with soft goat cheese. I ate at the kitchen table, feeling spent and empty and lousy.

Afterward, I took a walk, Lulu ambling along next to me. The clouds were gone and there was a full moon out and stars and all of that. The air was bracingly cold and smelled of fallen, rotting apples. I walked down the driveway, thinking about how this place would never be the same. A place never is after there’s been a murder. I walked, thinking about Thor. Trying to remember what he looked like before I’d found him face down in the ooze with his head caved in and his dick snipped off. I walked, trying to forget.

There were still a dozen or so vans parked down at the road. Local crews from the New York and Connecticut stations mostly, hanging around until they could do their live, latest, up-to-the-minute
bupkes
for the eleven o’clock news. Our sentry, a thick-necked young bull of a trooper, was stationed in his cruiser reading what appeared to be a comic book.

The phone was ringing when I got back up to the house. Clethra had put it back on the hook while I was outside. She must have used it. But she wasn’t answering it. Just staring at the TV in the parlor. I took it in the kitchen, hoping it would be Merilee checking in from the city.

It wasn’t. It was Barry Feingold. “How’s that dear, sweet daughter of mine?” he inquired thickly. Man was somewhat in his cups.

“She’s resting uncomfortably. And you folks?”

“We’re just getting ready to leave for the city.” He lowered his voice. “I felt I should speak to you about a certain personal matter, Hoagy. By that I mean … I felt you were someone I
could
speak to.”

“Yes, of course.”

“The unwashed truth, you see, is that I simply can’t account for my whereabouts when old Thor was murdered. By that I mean … I can but I can’t.” I heard muffled voices at his end. “Coming!” he called out. Into the phone he said, “Are you following me?”

“Not even a little.”

He let out an exasperated sigh. “What I’m trying to say, dear boy, is that I was
not
at the Black Seal seeing a man about my car. It so happens the bartender there knows me quite well and if the police go there and question him he’ll
tell
them I wasn’t there. And so they’ll have no choice but to think I lied to them.”

“You did lie to them, Barry.”

“I had to,” he insisted. “At least in front of Marco I did. You see, I had a personal appointment this morning. One that I didn’t wish for him to know about. One that I
don’t
wish for him to know about. He just gets
so
jealous he’d … Believe me, Marco can get very rough when he’s angry. He mustn’t know. He can’t know.”

“Barry, are you seeing someone else?”

“God, no! Not anymore, at least.” He hesitated. “There
was
someone who I was close to, briefly, a few years ago. He’s been working abroad for a while, for a German bank. Just got back. And he didn’t know about … that I’ve come down with the virus, you see. I had to tell him, didn’t I? I owed it to him. So I met him this morning outside the Black Seal and we went for a drive together. That’s where I was.”

“I don’t see any problem here, Barry. If the police talk to him I’m sure he’ll back you up.”

“But I don’t
want
the police to talk to him! He’s married. Always has been. And his wife, she doesn’t know anything about us. When he and I were together, they were having their problems. But now they’ve worked them out, and they’ve got a good thing together. This would destroy it. Her finding out about us from some cop, I mean. She should hear about it from
him.
And he
will
tell her. He has to tell her. Only … Oh, God, what messy, messy lives we lead.”

“The only tidy people are dead people.”

“Do you understand now why I had to lie?”

“Yes, I suppose I do.”

“Can you protect him, Hoagy?” Barry pleaded. “Can you shield him from Slawski and the others?”

“I can try. But I have to know who he is.”

Barry drew his breath in. “Must you?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Can I trust you to—?”

“You can trust me to do what I can. That’s all I can promise.”

Reluctantly, Barry Feingold gave me his ex-lover’s name. Also how the man could be reached in New York and in Essex. Again, he begged me not to tell Marco.

I promised him I wouldn’t. “Provided you do me a favor in return.”

“Favor?” Barry was instantly on alert. “What favor?”