Played to Death

by B. V. Lawson

  Maida had asked Drayco if he’d mind picking up some red wine for another of her famous after-dinner toddies. Drayco paid for his purchase and headed toward the door, when a familiar marmalade voice called his name. He circled to the back and found himself in the presence of none other than Paddy Bakely, looking forlorn in a tattered coat and grease-stained shirt. Halfway between sober and soused, Paddy observed Drayco with watery eyes moderately engaged in reality.

  “You’re the Opera House guy.” This was an about-face from Paddy’s actions at the courthouse. So far. Drayco waited for a new tirade, but Paddy took another sip of his beer. “Oakley broke in there once. Into the Opera House.”

  A revelation from a drunk was hardly a solid-gold tip you could take to the bank. And Paddy was probably a fair liar when he drank, but this was too intriguing to let go. “Why did he break-in?” Drayco asked.

  “It’s all about birthright,” Paddy said, in an unsteady voice. “Birthright and lust.” He grabbed Drayco’s collar, pulling Drayco closer to Paddy’s face where he was blasted with a strong odor of malt. Paddy added in a whisper, “Beware the sins of the father shall be visited upon the sons.” He laughed hoarsely. “Or is it the mothers?”

  He released Drayco’s coat and sat staring vacantly into his beer mug. Drayco looked over at the proprietor, who shrugged and said, “Paddy’s here a lot, but you can never be sure where he really is, if you know what I mean.”

  ~~~

  “Hello again, Mr. Drayco. Back to see if we have any new guns?” Like last time, Randy the gun shop manager was red-faced and out of breath.

  Joel, sweeping the floor, scowled in Drayco’s direction. “Doubt a guy like him is here to window shop.”

  Drayco picked up a pistol, weighed it in his hand and wrapped his fingers around the grip. Lightweight, but capable of pumping several rounds into the heart. The smoothness of the gun was similar to the satiny feel of the piano keys beneath his fingers. He remarked as such to his former fiancée, who was horrified the same fingers that created beautiful music were capable of squeezing the trigger on an instrument of death.

  Drayco said. “Following up on a few things. For instance, I’m guessing you don’t carry any Webleys?”

  Randy cocked his head. “Sheriff Sailor asked that. We have a few antiques, nothing like that. Mostly American, not British.”

  “Any other stores in the area that might?”

  Randy stroked his chin as he thought. “Can’t say for sure, but I don’t think so. There was one in Accomack County that sold antiques, same WWII vintage—Lugers, Glisentis, Enfields, Tokarevs, Nambus—but it went out of business. The closest ones now are up in Maryland or down in Norfolk.”

  He perked up. “You helping the sheriff find out who killed the Keys?”

  “I have an interest in the case, since they were clients of mine.”

  Joel narrowed his eyes. “Clients of yours? I thought your arrival in town was too coincidental. That’s when everything went tits-up. It’s got something to do with Earl, don’t it?”

  Randy didn’t look convinced. “It’s not Earl, Joel. Somebody new to town. Or two somebodies.” He leaned toward Drayco conspiratorially. “I heard from one of the ambulance drivers that Nanette wasn’t shot. Strangled. Now why in the world would the same guy kill two different people two different ways?”

  “Okay,” Joel said. “So there were two strangers involved. Working together.”

  Randy offered a derisive laugh. “I thought you were blaming Earl for the murders.”

  Joel propped himself against the case next to Drayco. “I did see him and Nanette Keys in a non-neighborly embrace once when I dropped off some parts at Earl’s house.”

  Randy picked up a gun from a case and pointed it at Earl and pulled the trigger. He said, “Bang bang,” and laid the unloaded gun back down. “Things aren’t always what they seem, Joel.”

  Joel’s wide eyes again shuttered into slits. “Day after Oakley’s murder, deputies were all over this gun shop, snooping around, digging in the trash. They carried off something, too. What do you think about that?”

  Randy coughed once, loudly. “I think if you want to be a manager some day, you’d better be more careful when talking about your boss.”

  “Guess I’m more interested in truth than you are.”

  If the sheriff hadn’t told Drayco that Joel had an airtight alibi for the night of Oakley’s murder, he’d have entertained the notion Joel killed Oakley to frame his boss. Everywhere he went in Cape Unity, Drayco encountered divisions with tension spreading out like aftershocks of an earthquake. Perhaps the negative energy was simmering for a long time and the murders brought it to the fore. Maybe it was time the town changed its name, because unified it most certainly was not.

  There was a heavy silence until Randy broke the impasse. “We should all go to that town meeting tonight. They’re going to discuss the new development. Joel and I need to put our two cents in before more new stores come in and run us out of business.”

  This must be the same meeting the sheriff mentioned. Might be a good chance to take the town’s temperature. Drayco said, “I’ll see you there. Is Earl here somewhere?”

  Joel surprised Drayco when he pointed out the door to the adjacent shooting range. Drayco could catch Earl in his natural business habitat for a change. Maybe Joel was the original source of gossip about Earl and Nanette’s affair, maybe not, but the news had spread far and wide now. Reason enough for Earl to hide away inside his house. But here Earl was, wearing ear protectors, and pointing a Smith and Wesson at a human-silhouette target. He looked over at Drayco, then back at the target, and shot a neat hole right in the center of the target’s forehead.

  The local newspaper article on Oakley’s murder said he was shot—but not where in the body he was hit. “You always aim for the head?” Drayco asked.

  Yaegle took off the protectors. “An easy kill, if done right. A nice shot to have in your repertory.” He handed the gun over to Drayco. “Three rounds left. You game?”

  Drayco grabbed a set of ear protectors and took the gun from Yaegle. He peeled off all three rounds in rapid succession, crack, crack, crack. Yaegle stared at the target where the holes from all three rounds were clustered over the X in the center, a new respect in his eyes. “Left over from your G-man days?

  “I try to stay in shape.” Drayco handed the gear back to Yaegle. “But targets aren’t the same as real life.”

  “Look, you’re welcome to practice all you want, but I told you I’m not answering any questions without a lawyer.”

  Drayco squinted at the target. He’d done better. “I’ve decided I might like to join that hunting club of yours. Squier belongs to it, doesn’t he?”

  Yaegle nodded. “And other faithful members, none you’d know. Major Jepson, from time to time.”

  “I had dinner with Squier the other day. Amazing gun collection. Obsessive-compulsive in scope.”

  “Obsessive?” Yaegle placed his hands on his hips. “As a boy, he watched his father get beaten during a robbery at his family’s drugstore. The punks weren’t caught, people didn’t shop there anymore, and it went bankrupt. If Randolph’s father had a gun, things might have turned out different.”

  Bankrupt? That was a long climb back uphill to Cypress Manor. And how much of that climb was legal? “Looks like Squier has made up for it. Money, success, property. Does he own a lot of real estate?”

  “After he rebuilt his father’s old business years later, he was able to sell it for a huge profit. He’s a wiser investor than I am. Said something not long ago about a big property purchase. Joked it was for another house to hold all of Darcie’s clothes.”

  “When you sell your land, the condo project might raise property values all around. His, too.”

  Yaegle still had the gun in hand, and his index finger slid up and down the barrel. It paused on the trigger, making Drayco glad Yaegle had emptied the thing. “I don’t like where this is headed. You enjoy going after an
innocent man, do you? No wonder Squier told me to stay away from you.”

  “Are you that certain Squier isn’t guilty?”

  Earl didn’t answer, but he didn’t repeat his Squier-is-innocent claim, either.

  “Truthfully, Earl, I’d rather not catch the bad guy at all than put someone innocent behind bars.”

  Yaegle’s index finger stilled. “Can’t think of any more ways to say I’m innocent. I should hire you to prove it.”

  By the bear-trap clamp of Earl’s jaw, Drayco could tell he was serious. “I’m already representing two innocent people who happen to be dead. Not sure you’d like those odds. Besides, hiring me wouldn’t change the way I investigate the truth.”

  Yaegle regarded him for a moment. “Guess I’ll have to hope you’re good at what you do.”

  Randy poked his head inside the range and shouted, “Hey, Earl, hate to bother you but our supplier for the Winchester 12-gauges still can’t find out where our shipment went. Squier is getting antsier by the hour.”

  Yaegle fiddled with the empty gun. “I’ll deal with it.”

  “Thank you, oh fearless leader.” Randy stopped to glance at the target, his eyes wide, before heading back to the shop.

  Yaegle stowed the gun in a drawer and fixed Drayco with a stare. “Next time, we’ll see how you do on the expert course.”

  Drayco watched him follow Randy, then stood there, musing. Oakley’s shooter was expert enough to take out Oakley with a shot to the head at the same distance Earl stood from the target. But why a Webley, when Earl had access to newer guns? Squier, too, for that matter. Was the gun choice a calculated redirection or symbolic? One of the many conundrum entrees piling up on Drayco’s plate. He looked at the target again, with the bullet hole in its head, and had the oddest feeling it was laughing at him.

  Chapter 23

  As darkness fell, so did the rain, with the deluge transforming Cape Unity’s streets into rivers and its parking lots into lakes. Drayco picked his way from one parking-lot-island to another, but his foot slipped, and he stepped in water up to his ankles. He paused to let the wave of pain from his injured leg pass. At least the pain was more mezzo-forte than fortissimo now.

  He was glad to reach the shelter of the courthouse, which looked less drab at night. The interior’s fluorescent tube lighting turned the gray into sapphire, although it made the clothing on hundreds of people packed into the courtroom for the town meeting look like a sea of blueberries.

  A woman he didn’t know, but who recognized him, marched up and pumped his hand. “I want to tell you how thrilled we are about the Opera House. I have six kids and it’s all Nintendo and Spiderman. We need culture. And jobs. My oldest is sixteen and where’s he going to work, the Seafood Hut? That’s why I came. To make sure it’s not the anti-everything mob.”

  Drayco thanked her and extricated himself as politely as he could. He arrived late, hoping to sneak in and keep a low profile. Waiting a few more minutes wouldn’t hurt, so he ducked into a dark, empty alcove near a Staff Only door, which gave him a hidden vantage point to watch the people as they poured in. It was also, as it turned out, the door where Randolph Squier made his entrance, his voice dialed down to a low rumble.

  Squier turned to a companion Drayco recognized as another town councilman, Calvin Grully, and said, “This will be such a horrid, pointless affair. Townsfolk venting their same petty little grievances like they always do and expecting us to care. It makes one so ... what’s the word? So vacuous. Yes, I’m sure that’s it, vacuous.”

  The other councilman paused a beat or two, then replied, “I, uh, yes. I imagine you’re right.”

  From his shadowed alcove, Drayco saw the two men in profile—Squier with his monolithic jutting chin, the other councilman with his head down, fiddling with his coat buttons. Squier was a lot more “vacuous” than he thought. And what happened to all those “good citizens” Squier had bragged about? Now they were just vassals with “petty little grievances”?

  The second councilman said, “You don’t think they’ll drag that murder business in?”

  “They will drag it in with flags and a marching band.” Squier huffed. “Those murders are a warning, Cal, signs of a community plague out of control. The transients, the day laborers, those Mexicans multiplying like rabbits. A filthy plague, that’s what it is.”

  “What about Yaegle? A lot of people are blaming Yaegle.”

  “The murderer is most certainly not Earl Yaegle, as that unimaginative sheriff thinks. Sailor will be up for reelection in two years. I think we should consider running our own candidate against him.”

  Cal Grulley tugged one of his coat buttons too hard and it popped off. “That investigator fellow from D.C.’s been asking a lot of questions. Making people nervous.”

  “You leave him to me, Cal. I’ll make quite sure he doesn’t interfere with our plans.”

  Squier’s voice trailed off as they walked away, and Drayco waited until the pair entered the courtroom before he peeked inside. It wasn’t a huge room and barely big enough to hold the SRO crowd. The object of Squier’s scorn, the tired-looking sheriff, stood in one corner with his arms folded over his chest. In the opposite corner, he spied Nelia Tyler, who waved at him.

  As he made his way inside, he passed a few other familiar faces including Joel from the gun shop, with bloodshot eyes and smelling of turpentine. He’d either been painting or drinking some bathtub gin.

  A hand gesturing in Drayco’s left field of view got his attention. Tracing the hand to Reece Wable, who was leaning against a back wall, he walked over to join him. “Hello, Reece. Here to document this bit of local history?”

  “Oh, there’ll be a write-up in the paper tomorrow, which I’ll add to the files. And I can get a transcript of the speakers from Inez over there. I’m here for the entertainment value. It’s better than smackdown wrestling. And free.”

  Drayco took in Reece’s dapper-as-usual getup, a neon green shirt and brown velveteen blazer. “I don’t see your flak jacket.”

  “An oversight. We’ll all need armor before the night’s over. Oh, and I heard about your fun little incident. Have you had your rabies shots yet? In case you bite.”

  “I promise I’ll bark out a warning beforehand.”

  Drayco trolled the sea of angry faces, many people already lining up in front of microphones. Sleepy beach town or crime-ridden city, it was the same—the desire to protect their culture, their way of life from change, from the unknown.

  Not too long ago, the audience would be all white-bread. More ethnic variety was sprinkled in now, more than Squier wanted to acknowledge—Indian naan, Arabic pita, and Mexican tortilla. Drayco recalled his “melting pot” thought about Darcie and Tangier. What was up with the food metaphors? He must be hungry.

  Up at the podium, Councilman Squier handled ringmaster duties that were ordinarily the realm of the mayor, recuperating from bypass surgery. Squier was a man accustomed to being in control of his little sphere. Despite his arrogant comments to the other councilman, his hands were sweating as he gripped the stand, his words a robotic monotone. He’d opted for a more casual getup, slacks minus the suit coat. If it was to show solidarity with the common folk, it was unfortunate his bow tie was crooked.

  Reece whispered to Drayco. “Oakley made a fool out of Squier in a meeting like this. Pointed out errors in an article Squier wrote for a state publication. Most people can’t tell it, but Squier has serious self-esteem issues. Especially when it comes to his intelligence. I don’t think he forgave Oakley.”

  Drayco wished he had a magazine to fan himself, the cumulative heat from all those ninety-eight-point-sixes and the dry, heated building air beginning to get to him. The attendees were split between anti and pro camps, and both bandied around the name Gallinger as a rallying cry. If this microcosm couldn’t agree, how could the entire town?

  It wasn’t long before any initial attempt at polite discourse degenerated into shouting, both factions blaming all the town’
s problems and the murders on each other. And a few blamed Drayco. If he’d hoped to hear anything helpful from the crowd about the Keys or the murders, he might as well have gone to the local kindergarten and asked the kids—he’d have learned more from them.

  The Jepsons wisely decided not to join Drayco tonight. Thoughts of a peaceful evening at the Lazy Crab sounded good right now, along with some dry socks. Since Sheriff Sailor and Nelia had this circus in hand and Drayco found himself again a potential distraction, he excused himself to Reece. Hurrying back to the car didn’t keep him from getting drenched in the nonstop rain.

  He climbed into the Starfire and pulled out his keys. The rain cascaded in sheets so dense, he couldn’t see out any of the windows, like being inside a tin drum. But the sound of loud tapping on the passenger window got his attention. It was like his most recent nightmare, only this was real. He reached over and thrust open the door, and a woman hopped in, slamming the door behind her. Darcie Squier combed her hair back with her fingers and kicked off her shoes. As if thumbing her nose at the chilly weather, her insubstantial sandals accompanied a miniskirt that set off her shapely legs.

  “I followed you,” she said. “Good idea to get out of there early. Who knows how long that hatefest will go on.”

  “You’ve been keeping track of the development issue?” It was hard to believe Darcie was civics-minded, more tabloid journalist than a Rachel Carson.

  “Oh I’m all for it. This place is too provincial. It may never be New York, but at least I won’t have to drive hours for a decent dress.” She grinned at him. “Or bra.”

  Not so much a social conscience, then, as a fashion ethic. Drayco wasn’t a fashion expert, but he could tell when clothes were expensive, and hers were. How many days must it have taken Squier to work off that diamond necklace Darcie wore? Maybe she cared for him deep down, or perhaps men were all a game to her. Or the money simply mattered more.