“I’m liking your cousin more and more.”
“I hope not too much,” he says with a chuckle.
“You don’t have to worry about that,” I say. “Did the Beaumonts ever come back?”
“Nah, they knew better. Besides, the guy who owns Baxter’s doesn’t seem to mind what goes on in his parking lot. I hear the brothers do a good home business, too.”
I glance at Ma.
“You sure you wanna come?”
She smiles.
“Now more than ever.”
The three of us finish eating. Ma went all out and even made dessert, pumpkin pie. What did I say about her being a big fan of Jack?
I start collecting dirty dishes.
“We have a rule in our home,” I say to Jack. “Whoever cooks doesn’t have to do the dishes. It looks like it’s my turn tonight.”
My mother’s mouth drops open.
“What do you mean it’s your turn?” she says. “You do the dishes every night.”
I tip my head toward Jack.
“Shh, I was trying to trick him into helping me.”
Now Jack’s laughing.
“I’d be glad to help you, Isabel.” He stands. “Just hand me an apron, and we’ll get to it.”
We excuse Ma and indeed get to it. I find a country station on the radio while we clear the table. I load the washer and put the food away. Jack scrubs the pots. Nah, he was only kidding about the apron.
I give him a playful hip check.
“You’re doing a real good job there.”
“Yup, I’ve scrubbed a few pots in my life.”
It’s all teasing and playful talk between us. Lots of giggling on my part. As I wipe the pots dry, I can’t stop my silly smile. Boy, I sure missed this.
“Isabel, I was wonderin’ if you’d like to come back to work one night. Fridays. The crowds are too big for me to handle alone. Carole’s got enough to do in the kitchen.”
I dry my hands and toss Jack the towel. I don’t have to think this over.
“I’ll come back but only under one condition,” I say.
“Condition? What is it?”
“Don’t look so nervous. I’m not asking for a raise. I want you to promise we’ll dance one song that night.”
Jack makes a fun-loving guffaw as he slaps my behind with the towel.
“It’s a deal.”
Baxter’s Again
It’s five o’clock at Baxter’s. While I look for Mike Waters, my mother checks out the place. This is the second genuine bar she’s been inside ever, and the first was the Rooster. The place has that yeasty smell of beer and a whiff of smoke, tobacco and pot, when the door onto the deck opens. Drinkers, all male, sit on the stools at the bar. They’re a matched set with wallets bulging the back pockets of their jeans, plus the usual flannel, canvas, and denim ensemble. They give us a backward glance, but they are definitely not interested. We’re too damn old for them.
Ma clutches her purse.
“This is another interesting place you’ve brought me to, Isabel.”
“And just for Valentine’s Day.”
“Valentine’s Day. I forgot about that.”
“Me, too. I just saw the sign behind the bar.” I lower my voice. “See that guy in the corner table, the one wearing the blue shirt. I think that’s him.”
“Oh, my, he looks mad at the world.”
“Good description. I see the family resemblance.”
Mike Waters sets down his beer when we reach his table. I hold out my hand. He gives it an uneasy grab.
“Mike? I’m Isabel Long. This is my mother, Maria Ferreira.”
He snorts.
“You need a bodyguard or something’?”
“Ha. My mother is my partner on these cases.” I pull out a chair for Ma to sit, and then take one beside Mike. “Thanks for meeting with us today. Let me get us a round.” I turn toward my mother. “The usual?”
The waitress hustles right over to take our order: another Bud for Mike, a Bud Light for me since I’m driving, and a Diet Coke for Ma.
Chet Waters may have been a son of a bitch, but this guy’s a son of a son of a bitch. That’s my first impression of the man. I bet the same goes for Ma. He’s got a scowl permanently plastered to his face. His hair has thinned to a few strands on top but hangs thick and long around the bottom. From the photos I’ve seen, he unfortunately got his father’s looks.
“What the hell did you wanna ask me you couldn’t say over the phone?” Mike growls.
“As I explained, I’m investigating your father’s death. I live in Conwell and didn’t know him. Anything you could tell me about him would help.”
“My sister put you up to this?”
“Annette? She gave me a list of possible sources,” I lie. “Your name was on it.”
“Did she tell you I wanted nothin’ to do with that asshole?” he says without an ounce of regret that he uses the word in front of my mother.
The waitress sets down our drinks. I glance toward Ma. We rehearsed this line of questioning on the ride over from Conwell.
“Annette said you had a difficult childhood.”
“Difficult childhood?” He slams the empty to the tabletop, and then reaches for the fresh can of beer. “Those her words or yours?”
“Mine. She said your father was real hard on you and your brother.”
“Yeah, he was real hard on us all right. He liked to beat the shit outta me. I could never do nothin’ right for that bastard. Same goes for my brother.” He glances toward my mother. “When I was old enough to make it on my own, I split. Ma was okay to me, but she couldn’t do much to stop him.”
“Was it the same for your sister?”
He makes a loud snort of a laugh.
“She was his little princess.” He shakes a finger. “I’ll give him this though. A year before Pop died, he met up with me. He said he was real sorry for the way he treated me. I almost crapped my pants. He said that’s the way his Pop raised him. It was the only way he knew how to raise a boy. He saw it was wrong.”
“You believe him?”
I swear the man is tearing up.
“Yeah, I did. It doesn’t take away what he did to me and Chester. But I understood him a little better. I remember his father. We kids were scared shitless of him.”
“Did he talk with your brother?”
“Yeah, I heard he did. Dunno what got him goin’ on that.”
“Did you and your father get together after that?”
“Sometimes. Nothing like Christmas or his birthday. We’d meet up at Baxter’s for a couple of drinks, or I’d go over to the yard just to shoot the shit.” He lowers his voice. “I am sorry he went that way in a fire.”
As I listen to Mike, I wonder why the other brother, Chester Junior, isn’t on her list. I decide he’s at least worth a phone call, and if he’s working at a school nearby, maybe a visit.
“Annette thinks someone could’ve killed your father.”
“I heard that.”
“You don’t believe it?”
He shrugs.
“Anything’s possible.”
“When we talked over the phone, you thought it was a bullshit story. What changed your mind?”
Mike sucks snot up his nose.
“My old man sure pissed off enough people in his lifetime. Maybe he crossed the wrong person. But it wasn’t me.”
“Where were you that night?”
“Stuck in a fuckin’ huge snowstorm in a Pennsylvania truck stop. I was workin’ for a moving company then. They closed down the interstate. If you don’t believe me, you can call my old boss, Luke, at Big Movers in Mayfield. We parted on good terms.”
I nod. I can call Big Movers and check online to see if there was indeed a fuckin’ huge snowstorm in Pennsylvania then.
“You’re the only one other than your sister so far to say it might be possible somebody killed your father. Do you have any suspects?”
“Probably the same as her.
The Beaumonts. You meet ’em yet?”
“Yes, I have. I’m going to their house tomorrow.”
“You’ve got brass balls, lady.”
“I’ve heard that before,” I say. “Besides, my mother is coming as my bodyguard.”
Mike downs the rest of his beer and belches.
“Thanks for the beer,” he says, and then he’s gone.
Ma and I watch him stroll to the bar.
“What’s your opinion?”
“That was an awfully sad story Mike told about his father. He seems to have an alibi you can check, so it wasn’t a total waste. It’s down to a process of elimination.” My mother reaches for the menu. “Besides, I’m hungry. Could you get the waitress?”
“Sure, but I’m paying this time.”
“You pay all the time.”
“You can do the next one.”
“That’s what you always say.”
The waitress recommends the lasagna, which we both order even though it’s loaded with meat. Everything else on the menu has meat. At least, the lasagna comes with a house salad.
“When are we going to meet those boys tomorrow?”
“Around one. I think that’s when they get up.” I giggle. “Just kidding. The older one, Gary, said over the phone they’ll be waiting for us. I took down the directions. It’ll be easy to find them.”
“Did you tell them I’m coming?”
“Nah, we’ll just throw them off guard.”
“Who’s that guy over there that keeps giving you the eye?” Ma asks.
“Me?”
“Yeah, you.”
I casually turn in that direction. Dancin’ Dave is indeed giving me the eye, and now that I’ve made an ever-so-slight contact, he’s up and heading our way.
“That’s the guy who asked me to dance here the other night.”
Ma smirks.
“Another gentleman caller, I see.”
“Shh, here he comes.” I glance up. “Hey, Dave, I didn’t expect to see you here today.”
“I’d say the same. Who’s your dining companion?”
I make the intros, and then Dave sits. He tells my mother what a great dancer I am.
“So I’ve heard,” Ma says.
“You coming this Saturday?” he asks me.
“I wasn’t planning on it,” I answer.
Ma nods.
“She’s back working at the Rooster on Fridays.”
If my mother weren’t ninety-two, I would’ve kicked her leg.
“The Rooster? I haven’t been in there in a long time. Now I have a reason to go.”
Dave gets to his feet when our food arrives. He’s got good country manners, I’ll give him that. And then when he’s on the other side of the room, I ask my mother, “Why’d you tell him that?”
She chuckles as she cuts her lasagna.
“It wouldn’t hurt none for Jack to have a little competition.”
“Ma!”
A Check from Lin
The next day, Friday, I find a check and a note from Lin Pierce in the mailbox when I take the dog, Maggie, for a walk.
Here’s what he wrote.
Isabel, enclosed is a check for your “dirty work” the other day. You helped nail that guy. I’ve included your regular pay. Give me a call soon about your case in Caulfield. I’d like to hear about your progress. Lin
Lin dutifully pays me a buck a day. He even includes the weekend, which is generous. He pays me a hundred bucks for that surveillance job.
I cluck to Maggie.
“Maybe it’s time I bought me some new dancing shoes,” I tell her.
The Beaumont Boys
The Beaumont brothers live in one shit box of a house. It probably was a decent ranch maybe in the fifties or sixties, but it has to have been years since it had a new coat of paint, if ever. The roof is shot. I bet the snow covers a pile of junk in the front yard. I can only imagine what it looks like inside. Well, I’m about to find out all by myself. Ma backed out last minute. She woke up with a cold, and frankly, I’m relieved. She is my secret weapon, but one I want to use judicially. Exposing her to two redneck brothers who are up to no good most of the time might just be too much to expect of an elderly mother, even one as spunky as mine.
Instead, I promised her a full report.
As to be expected, Gary and Larry have brand new, juiced-up pickup trucks in the drive. I pull my Subaru behind one, and then navigate the narrow space between a pickup and a blackened bank of snow. I’m grateful no dogs race out to meet me although I hear a couple barking in the backyard. They’re likely chained or penned although I do have some security dog bones in my pocket in case they aren’t.
I ring the doorbell on what appears to be the kitchen side of the ranch. Minutes later, Gary answers. He makes a goofball laugh when he recognizes me. He’s stoned already, but then it is afternoon.
“Just in time,” he jokes. “Come in. Larry’s in the toilet. He’ll be right out.”
The kitchen is a pigsty. I’m not surprised. Dirty dishes are stacked in the sink and counter. The Linoleum floor doesn’t look like it’s ever been washed. The same goes for the appliances. Funky wallpaper, likely from when this ranch was built, is peeling from the wall. The air smells like bacon grease and pot smoke.
I follow Gary’s lead and sit at the Formica table, which holds an ashtray the size of a hubcap that’s filled with butts and roaches.
“Thanks for seeing me,” I say.
I already decided I would not record this conversation. I’m not going to take notes either. I figure it would spook these two guys. I plan instead to record everything I remember as I’m driving home.
Gary’s got a shit-eating grin on his face as he reaches for his pack of cigarettes. He doesn’t ask if I mind, so much for good country manners. I don’t like smoking, but this is his home, and I want him to relax. I believe I can stand it for a while.
“I’m kinda curious,” he says as he lights the butt. “You asked us about a Corolla at Chet’s junkyard. What’s that all about?”
“I’m gonna be upfront with you. Anything you tell me about your, er, business activity will not be shared with anyone, including the cops. My goal is to solve this case. Nothing more. I’m not a stool pigeon.”
His eyes close halfway as he exhales the first puff.
“Good to know. Appreciate it.”
“Likewise, I’m asking that you and your brother not repeat what we talk about to others. This conversation is between you two and me.”
“Gotcha.”
Larry Beaumont walks into the kitchen, stinking like he’s just had a smelly dump and didn’t wipe himself well. I won’t be shaking his hand. Mercifully, he sits next to his brother on the other side. Even Gary wrinkles his nose and mutters something beneath his breath.
Gary gives his brother a Reader’s Digest version of what we just went over.
“Okay,” he says.
I begin now that I have both brothers’ attention.
“You mentioned the Corolla. A few weeks before Chet was killed, he found some drugs and money stashed in the spare tire in the trunk. Annette says when she looked a month or so after the fire, the stuff was gone.”
Gary and Larry eye each other.
“You straight about not callin’ the cops?” Gary says.
“I give you my word.”
He taps his butt on the edge of the ashtray.
“Yeah, it was ours.”
Crap, I wasn’t expecting a confession like this.
“Go ahead. Please tell me more.”
Gary waves his lit cigarette.
“The stupid guy from Springville delivered the Corolla to the wrong junkyard. It was supposed to go to Sinclair’s. We had a sort of business arrangement there.”
“With Al?”
“Nah, his boys. Well, that business arrangement ended when old man Sinclair found out. Lucky he didn’t call the cops on us, but then again we’d have taken his boys down with us. He knew that.” He makes a
low chuckle. “Me and Larry went to Rough Waters to search for the Corolla. We told Chet we were lookin’ for a truck to fix up for pullin’. A winter project. He let us look around. While I talked with Chet, Larry here scoped the place out and found the car. Then we got into a fight with Chet about somethin’ stupid and he kicked us out.”
“Did you come back for the stuff?”
“Yeah, we went one night when we knew Chet’d be gone. It was card night at the VFW in Fulton. The old guy liked to screw those vets outta their money.” He smirks. “Larry climbed the fence, and I was the lookout.”
“What about his dog?”
Gary chuckles.
“It’s amazin’ how easy a piece of raw meat will buy off a dog, especially if it has a little somethin’ extra in it, if you know what I mean.” He stabs his butt into the ashtray. “Larry found our stuff, and we got the hell outta there. It was a couple of nights before the fire.”
“Here’s my next question. Where were you two the night Chet Waters died?” I ask.
Gary snorts.
“How in the hell should we know? For us, it was just a regular night. We were likely home watchin’ dirty movies and smokin’ weed. Or we could’ve been at Baxter’s. Or gettin’ laid with a couple of the skanks that hang out there.”
I roll my eyes.
Larry speaks for the first time.
“Would you remember what you were doin’ three years ago?”
“You’ve got a point. But it’s not every day someone dies in a fire up here. Something’s gotta jog your memory.”
“Nope,” Gary says.
Larry purses his lips as his head jerks side to side.
“If I’m hearing correctly, you two don’t have alibis for that night,” I say. “Right?”
I believe I just stepped into it big time because Gary and Larry’s foreheads clamp so hard their brows hang heavy over their bloodshot eyes. Their lips curl.
Larry slaps his brother’s arm.
“What’s she mean?” he asks.
“It means she’s callin’ us liars,” Gary answers.
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