Love You to Death

by Grant Michaels

  Liz and I were led to our places in the front pew. The sickly drone of a funereal pipe organ accompanied our walk down the main aisle of the church. Except for the backs of their heads. I couldn’t identify who else was there, not without turning around and staring directly back into the congregation. From all the unfashionable clothing though, I guessed that the Gladys Gardner assembly line had been shut down for the afternoon so that the workers could pay homage to their leader.

  Once we were seated, I noticed John Lough and Mary Phinney in the pew opposite the aisle from us. They looked our way and clearly recognized us, but instead of polite acknowledgment, Liz and I received blank stares. Again I wondered, Why are those two always together?

  As for the service, there was none of that stand-and-deliver testimonial stuff, where members of the congregation proudly share their personal impressions of the dead person. No sharing here, not for a blood-line Kingsley. The only worthy testimonial could come from the mouth of God’s own deputy, the rector of a high Episcopal church. He gave an embarrassing homily about Prentiss Kingsley’s heroic life, then ended with some blather about the glories of death. At one point, my attention was absorbed by the meanderings of a small black fly along the intricate hand-carved details on the front rail of our pew. What did she care about any of this nonsense, except to find her way out of the mahogany maze and the lingering clouds of incense?

  Throughout the service, Liz Carlini maintained her composure and displayed her grief with the same refinement that a beautiful and sophisticated First Lady might show after her husband’s assassination. After the church service, we all went to the memorial reception, which was being held in the same Copley Plaza ballroom where Le Jardin’s gala celebration—and first killing—had taken place a little more than a week ago. During the brief limousine ride to the hall, Liz told me she was planning to stay at the house in Abigail until the estate was settled.

  I commented, “Wouldn’t somewhere else be better, considering all that’s happened out there recently?”

  “The place belongs to me now, and I have my bodyguard,” she replied, with a somewhat resentful glance at Moose. “The Abigail police have offered their assistance to protect me, and I’ve put a restraining order on John Lough. He can’t enter the town without my consent. Since the Boston police would do nothing to protect me, I accepted the best offer, which was in Abigail.”

  The Boston police probably had a lot more serious problems than looking after a rich widow who claimed her brother-in-law wanted to kill her. Besides, they thought they had their killer in Rafik.

  When we arrived at the reception hall, Moose, Liz, and I waited inside the limousine and watched the others going in. When John Lough and Mary Phinney walked by, the sight of them caused Liz to grip my arm with fearful tension.

  “She hated Danny so much.” Liz said. “I heard her say once that gay people are all sinners and should be punished or be put away.” Liz gasped suddenly and paused to catch her breath. “Sorry,” she said after a few moments. “I’ve never said anything like that to a gay person.”

  I thought, The truth is often breathtaking.

  We also saw Laurett Cole and her son, Tobias, going by in the crowd. Once everyone had gone inside, Liz and I joined them.

  There was plenty of food and liquor, and most of the crowd was eating hungrily. Their jobs at the factory probably didn’t provide much in the way of personal satisfaction or fringe benefits, so this event was their chance to gorge and guzzle at company expense. So what if the boss was dead? For her part, Liz wanted nothing but a glass of water, no ice.

  Various people lined up to offer Liz their condolences. Among those in line was Laurett Cole, with Tobias along beside her. I hadn’t seen or spoken to Laurett since her release, and I was looking forward to a friendly hello. But before the line got up to Liz and me, I saw Mary Phinney nab Laurett and begin talking sharply and insistently. Laurett looked down at the older woman defiantly, but remained silent. Mary Phinney persisted in her attack until John Lough finally arrived to halt the barrage of insults and lead her away from the line. He made no apology to Laurett, who’d remained stoic through it all. When it was Laurett’s turn to speak to Liz, she was surprisingly cool to me, treating me almost like a stranger who’d been hired as Liz’s escort. I suppose in a way I was. Laurett addressed Liz plainly, without emotion and without the usual and intentional misnomer.

  “Ms. Carlini, I am sorry. Your husband and young Danny were both fine people.”

  Meanwhile, Tobias tugged at my trousers.

  “Uncle Stan, that lady said Ma was a poisoner.” He pointed to Mary Phinney, far away from the line now, but still standing with John Lough, always with John Lough.

  “You mean a prisoner, Tobias.”

  I looked askance at him. Had Mary Phinney really said “poisoner,” or had he imagined it? I wondered if all the horrible talk regarding Laurett’s murder charge had branded its impression on his young little brain. Or was it something simpler and more familiar, something that Tobias and I seemed to have in common?—the tendency to imagine things that happened that really hadn’t.

  Tobias turned to Laurett. “Ma? Ma, didn’t she say you killed him?”

  In one swift, smooth motion Laurett knelt down and grabbed Tobias’s little arm. She shook it firmly and said, “Don’t ever say those things, young man.”

  Liz looked down at them, then back at me. “Vannos, can you take me out, please?” she asked.

  “Now? You want to go already?”

  “Yes.”

  I took Liz’s arm and quickly led her back outside to the waiting limousine. Moose tagged right along with us. I let Liz into the car first, then held the door open for Moose. I was about to close the door on them when she asked with big, moist eyes, “Aren’t you coming too?”

  “Would you mind if I stayed? I want to talk to Laurett.”

  “That’s fine,” she said, but her face looked sad.

  “If you need anything, Liz, call me.”

  “Thank you for everything, Vannos.”

  I closed the heavy door, and the limo pulled away with a quiet whoosh. The loudest sound was its spongy rubber tires crunching through the crusty snow along the edge of the street.

  I ran back inside to find Laurett and Tobias. I wanted to know what was troubling her and why she was being so cool to me. But they’d both vanished from the place. I tore outside again, just in time to see them getting into a cab.

  “Laurett, wait!” I called out. But the cab took off and they were gone.

  Again I went back inside, this time in search of Mary Phinney and John Lough. In my meanderings through the guests, I overheard two people talking, apparently a married couple, who’d met at Gladys Gardner years ago. They’d remained faithful to the old guard and to each other ever since. To them, Prentiss Kingsley had represented the ideal corporate benefactor, doggedly following in the footsteps set by the Kingsley matriarchs, all women of godlike vision. So this was the kind of pure and holy sentiment felt by the workers of a candy company that nowadays used mostly cheap chemicals in their products.

  I finally found Mary Phinney standing with John Lough. Like Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the two seemed inseparable, like partners of a peculiar marriage. I approached them from the side, where they couldn’t see me. Mary was devouring a large piece of ham. John was holding onto a big glass full of amber liquid with ice. I noticed that Mary had put on special makeup for the occasion. She’d painted herself like a grotesque porcelain doll, with a near-white foundation accented by red rouge and lipstick. But she’d neglected her neck and under her chin, so her ghastly, wrinkled face seemed to hover, disconnected from the rest of her body.

  I addressed them both loudly. “They say a killer always returns to the scene of the crime.”

  Mary faced me with her powdery mask. “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  Instead of answering her, I asked John Lough, “Who took your gun?”

  “Who told you that?”
/>
  “I recall Mary looking for it in your desk when we were in your office. I figure you used it to kill Dan Doherty and then your brother. You sent it to me like a gift, but it wasn’t very convincing, Mr. Lough.”

  John Lough spluttered, “How dare you!”

  “It’s called freedom of speech.”

  “You can’t accuse someone just like that.”

  “The question is, are you planning to kill Liz too, so you won’t have to contest your brother’s will?”

  “Is that what she’s been telling you?” John Lough’s eyes brightened suddenly, and he chuckled, then broke into merry laughter. “My sister-in-law is a compulsive liar. She’ll say anything. And you believe her like a fool. Hah!”

  Mary added, “You don’t know what you’re getting into. Just mind your own damn business.”

  “All I know is that if anything happens to Liz Carlini, both your asses are automatically fried. Mr. Lough, you really ought to take your share of the estate and shut up.”

  “Young man, you need psychiatric help.”

  “Hey, I was a certified counselor.”

  John Lough said to Mary Phinney, “Let’s go.” And they left me standing in the big hall of happy, hungry mourners. Before leaving, I ate something too. Why not? Liz Carlini had spared no expense to supply grand cuisine to the minions, in memory of her rich, dead husband.

  I left the Copley Plaza and headed home, but I was distracted and bothered by a recurrent vision in my mind of John Lough and Mary Phinney and their chronic togetherness. It was the quality of that togetherness that nagged at me, the “marriedness” of it, as though they were two parts of a synergistic whole. Yet they weren’t married, at least as far as I knew. Then I thought about Prentiss Kingsley’s will. How could I find out about that? Where could I go for more information? When a fool flounders, the solution appears—and I found myself facing the old facade of the venerable Boston Public Library. I was in luck too, since they were still open.

  I bounded up the the Dartmouth Street stairs past two majestic granite lions and went into the building. I always use that entrance because it takes you into the old library, the real one, with its dark halls and misty gray light and the lingering odor of ancient, deteriorating paper. Once inside the building, I was happily overcome by the sight of one of the grandest marble staircases ever designed and built by mortal man. Exquisite proportions, graceful lines and curves, varied textures of wood and marble, vast colored murals, and lively window light that changed dramatically in angle and hue according to the season and time of day—all these were facets of a singular gem of architectural detail in the old library. Whenever I’m in there, no matter where else I’m headed, I always make one trip up and down that staircase. It’s a brief and pleasant detour into another place and time.

  I’d heard that the library had access to one of those general data bases of periodical information where anything that has ever appeared in a magazine or newspaper was catalogued and available through a computer. Perhaps a computer would help me where human efforts had failed. I found my way to the office where the computer searches were requested. I pushed open the door to the small room, and was greeted by the smell of stale cigarette smoke inside. Seated at a computer terminal behind the counter was the librarian, a burly, blond lumberjack of a man in his early forties. Numerous half-filled paper coffee cups littered his desk, along with a large earthenware bowl mounded high with cigarette butts and ash. He looked up from his computer screen with a disappointed frown. “I’m about to go on break,” he said.

  “It’s important,” I replied.

  Annoyed huff. “Fill in the form,” he said, and pointed to a stack of preprinted computer requests on the countertop.

  I examined the form, which resembled a complex twelve-step program in computer queries. I said, “Can’t you just ask it to look up something for me?”

  He answered, “You have to formulate your search strategy.”

  I paused and studied the form again. Too many words. I gave him my helpless-but-eager look and said, “I’m sure you re better at it than I am.” But the ploy to soften him up didn’t work.

  “You fill in the form,” he said, “and I’ll run your search after my break.” He pushed himself away from his computer and stood up.

  “Wait,” I said. “I need this information in a hurry. If you can help me, I’ll return the favor.”

  He eyed me suspiciously with his big Nordic blues. “How?

  “I’m a hair stylist at Snips Salon near the Ritz. I’ll give you a free cut and style.”

  He approached me where I was standing at the counter. The name on his employee tag said Thor. “If you’re willing to barter,” he said, “you must really need the data.”

  “I do.” Did I dare tell him it might be a matter of life and death?

  He took a blank form from the pile. “What do you need?”

  “I need to find out what’s in Prentiss Kingsley’s will.”

  He rolled his blue eyes up at me. “We’re not a legal data base, and that would be confidential information anyway.”

  “I thought they printed that stuff in the newspaper after someone dies.”

  “Only after a will goes through probate.”

  I thought a moment. “Then what about finding anything else published about the Kingsley family?”

  He nodded, then printed the word “Kingsley” in compulsively neat letters on the search form, a sharp contrast to the pigpen he’d created on his computer desk.

  “What else?” he asked.

  “Just Kingsley. Isn’t that enough?”

  “You have to narrow it down, or you’ll get too much information.”

  I replied, “How can you have too much? I want it all.”

  “Then you’ll have to wait a couple of days. A set that large would have to be printed off-site and sent here.”

  “I can’t wait that long.”

  “Then you have to streamline your search. Give me more criteria.”

  “I thought streamline meant less, not more.”

  “Not with computers.”

  I thought another minute. I was already discovering that my internal Slavic data bank and the real-world electronic ones had little in common. “Can you add John Lough and Mary Phinney to the search?”

  “L-O-U-G-H?” he asked, spelling out the name. “Like rough?”

  I nodded. “Good guess.”

  “Not a guess. I’m a search librarian. We’re good with names.”

  He added the two names to the search form, which now said:

  KINGSLEY AND (LOUGH/jOHN OR PHINNEy/maRy)

  “Dates?” he asked.

  “Pardon me?” I replied. Were my personal needs so obvious?

  “You have to specify a range of dates. Otherwise you’ll get results from the beginning of time until today.”

  “That would be fine,” I said eagerly. “I need the historical stuff too.”

  He reluctantly x-ed out some boxes on the form, then turned it around toward me. “Sign here, please,” he said, and offered me the pen.

  “Why?”

  “It’s a rule. Can’t do a search without a signature.”

  “Do you need an ID, too?”

  “Only if you’re a student. Otherwise, just a signature.”

  So I signed the name Dan Doherty.

  Thor took the form and sat at the computer terminal. He typed in the request, scrutinized the line he’d typed, then gave a sadistic whack to the “Enter” key.

  “Give it a minute or so,” he said.

  “That’s all?”

  He nodded proudly. “They got five SuperBank X-3’s networked on this data base. Makes an IBM look like a vending machine.”

  “What else is on there?”

  Thor said, “You name it, I’ll find it. Ran a search on Yma Sumac this morning. The results put the guy in ecstasy.” Thor chuckled. “Amazing what can give someone a kick.”

  Just then his computer screen filled up with amber-colored
text.

  “Here we go,” he said. “Got a couple of good ones here, but mostly short stuff. It’s all pretty old. Don’t know how much it’ll help you.”

  “How old?”

  Thor studied the screen. “Thirty, forty years.”

  Shit, I thought. I wasn’t even an egg or a sperm then.

  “Still want it?” he asked.

  “Sure.”

  He punched another button on his keyboard, and a small printer sprang to noisy life, buzzing and zinging the lines of text onto paper. When it finished, Thor removed and folded the paper into a neat pile and brought it to the counter.

  “These are just abstracts of the original articles. The publications are quite old, so if you need the complete text, you’ll have to try the microfilm archives.”

  “This will be a good start for me,” I replied.

  “There’s usually a charge for nonstudents,” he said, as he handed me the little stack of computer printout. “But this one’s on the house.” A lonesome little smile appeared on Thor’s solemn face.

  “Thanks,” I said. I took out one of my business cards, scribbled the words “cut & style by Vannos” on the back, and handed it to him. “Best to make an appointment first,” I said.

  He took the card in his tobacco-stained fingers, read it, and said, “This isn’t necessary. I’m just doing my job. Besides, it was kind of fun.”

  “Suit yourself,” I said. “But I may need your help again sometime.”

  Thor pushed my business card into his shirt pocket amongst the collection of pens and pencils crammed in there. I gathered the printouts, said good-bye, and departed from the little office. No sooner was I out of there than I found a place to sit down and devour the new clues. I unfolded the sheets and placed the thin stack of paper in front of me. I could feel my heart pounding in anticipation, so I put both my hands on the papers, palms down, and said my mantra. When my heartbeat and breathing had returned to normal, I said quietly, “Please, please, please, give me an answer.” Then I turned over the first page.