The Man Who Couldn't Miss

by David Handler

  “Not even a little.”

  “We’re reeling him in. I intend to question him about Farber’s murder, then hand him over to my cousin Frank for the B & B Building Supply robbery.”

  “You can’t do that, Lieutenant.”

  He raised an eyebrow at me. “And why not?”

  “Because if you take him in for questioning he’ll lawyer up and claim that Merilee was driving the car that night. He’ll destroy her career. Your brother Pete did explain all of this, didn’t he?”

  “Relax. You got nothing to worry about.”

  “I have everything to worry about. The media will absolutely feast on this story.”

  “And I said relax. Romero won’t be talking to anybody.”

  “Not acceptable. I told Pete I won’t stand for anything ‘unfortunate’ happening to him while he’s in police custody.”

  “And nothing will. The man’s a junkie. That means we can tuck him away in isolation for at least twenty-four hours. Maybe even forty-eight. He won’t be talking to a lawyer. He won’t be talking to anyone. He’ll just disappear while we try to sort this mess out. Can you deal with that?”

  I considered it for a moment. “Yes, I can deal with that.”

  “Good.” Tedone gulped down some more of his coffee. “There’s still one more suspect who we haven’t talked about.”

  “And who would that be?”

  He looked at me with those dark, hooded eyes of his. “You.”

  “Why on earth would I want to kill Greg?”

  “Maybe he’d taken up on the sly with your wife.”

  “Ex-wife. And he hadn’t.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because Merilee and I don’t keep things like that from one another. It’s the secret to a happy former marriage. Besides, Greg would never do something like that to Dini. Or me, for that matter. We were friends. If he’d fallen madly in love with Merilee he would have told me.”

  “You make him sound like a stand-up guy.”

  “Only because he was one.”

  “How about the guy he was sharing the dressing room with?”

  “Marty? What about him?”

  “How’d the two of them get along?”

  “They were never tight. Greg was the steady, buttoned-down type. Marty’s a total wild man. But they were cordial, and respected each other’s work. If you’re asking me why Marty would want him dead I haven’t got a reason for you. Besides, Marty was in the john when it happened, remember?”

  “How could I forget? I’m still smelling it.”

  “May I ask you a procedural question, Lieutenant?”

  “What is it?”

  “When the M.E. performs the autopsy on Greg, will he do a workup of his blood?”

  “Sure. Standard procedure.”

  “What will he test him for?”

  “Alcohol and drugs, typically. Also any prescription meds that might point to an ongoing medical condition of some kind. Why are you asking?”

  “Can you request that he run a specific test that may not be part of his standard autopsy procedure?”

  “And why would I want to do that?”

  “Because it might be the key to this entire case.”

  Lieutenant Carmine Tedone glared at me impatiently. “Are you going to tell me what it is or do I have to beg you?”

  He didn’t have to beg me.

  IT WAS AFTER midnight by the time I followed Merilee’s Jag home to the farm, both of us taking Joshua Town Road slowly and carefully so as to steer around the small branches and other bits of windblown debris that had come down during the storm. When we arrived I went directly to the chapel, opened the windows and got out of my sodden shoes, socks and tuxedo pants. Stripped off my tuxedo shirt, put on a T-shirt and jeans, then went inside the house and opened every window and screen door. We did not appear to have suffered a power outage. The VCR under the TV in the parlor wasn’t blinking 12:00 12:00 12:00, and the electric clocks were keeping the same time as Grandfather’s Benrus.

  I grabbed a flashlight, went back outside and took a quick tour of the property. The chickens had tucked themselves safely inside the barn during the storm and were just now starting to venture back out into their wire coop. I saw no major tree limbs down anywhere. No damage to any of the structures. I went back into the house and found Merilee seated at the kitchen table in an old flannel shirt, staring off into space, blown away. Lulu was seated in front of the refrigerator staring at it intently. I gave her an anchovy, then got the Macallan out of the cupboard and poured two generous jolts into a couple of vintage bar glasses, placing one in front of Merilee. It took her a moment to notice it there. When she did she reached for it and took a sip. My glass was already empty by then. I was refilling it when the business line rang. I’d made sure I gave the number to Lieutenant Tedone before we left.

  “Wanted to let you know that we picked up that human scum Romero,” he informed me in a tired-sounding voice. “He was waiting there for you at eleven o’clock just like you said he’d be. For what it’s worth, he seemed genuinely shocked to hear that Greg Farber had been murdered. Unless, that is, he’s one hell of an actor.”

  “I understand he was once considered one.”

  “We’ve arrested him on the grand theft charge and stuck him in isolation. We’ll keep him tucked away there for as long as we can.”

  “And I have your word that no harm will come to him?”

  “You have my word. But whatever happens after he makes bail is on you, understand? You can pay him off and pray he’ll go away, but he won’t. Not with this Farber murder on every front page across America. As soon as he lawyers up he’ll start blabbing about Miss Nash and won’t stop for as long as he has an audience. It’s not too late to wise up and take my brother Pete’s advice. It’s what I’d do if I were in your shoes. I’m talking to you man to man.” He waited for me to respond. When I didn’t he said, “But you’re not going to, are you? Suit yourself. Good night.”

  I hung up the phone, got a slab of bacon out of the refrigerator and cut several thick slices. Placed them on the stove in the large Lodge cast iron skillet. Got some fresh eggs out. Dug a loaf of crusty French bread from the bread box. Also my manuscript, which I returned to its designated safe haven in the freezer chest in the mudroom with the venison leg.

  “What did you mean?” Merilee asked me quietly.

  “When?”

  “When you said, ‘And I have your word that no harm will come to him?’ Come to whom?”

  “They picked up R.J. tonight. He’s a lowlife addict on the run. He and Greg were classmates who never liked each other. You know how the police like to wrap everything into a nice, neat package. I was concerned they might try to beat a confession out of him.”

  Merilee let out a snort. “What a great, big bucket of applesauce.”

  “I’ve missed your quaint little expressions.”

  “You, sir, are not telling me the real story.”

  “You’re right, I’m not. But I will.”

  “When?”

  “When this is over.”

  “This will never be over,” she said miserably.

  “Yes, it will.”

  “Hoagy, Greg was murdered tonight.”

  “Trust me, I haven’t forgotten. But R.J. didn’t do it.”

  When the bacon slices were ready I laid them on paper towels and cracked the eggs into the pan. There was a full glass bottle of Salem Valley Farms whole milk in the refrigerator. I poured us each a glass. Tore off two hunks from the baguette. Slid the eggs onto two plates sunny-side up along with the bacon and the bread and set one plate in front of her. She immediately began to eat. That’s one thing I’ve always loved about my ex-wife. No matter how upset she is, she never loses her appetite. I ate mine standing at the sink. Certain meals taste better standing up. Bacon and eggs in the middle of the night happens to be one of them.

  “The media will show up here tomorrow by the carload,” I said as I munched on
a mouthful of bread. “We ought to call the resident trooper in the morning and ask him to station a man at the foot of the driveway.”

  “Agreed.”

  She also agreed that our dirty dishes could wait until morning. That’s another thing I’ve always loved about my ex-wife.

  “Lulu and I will be heading out to the chapel now,” I said. “Get yourself some sleep, okay?”

  “I don’t think I can.” She glanced at me uneasily. “Darling, would you consider . . . ?”

  “Would I consider what?”

  “Would you stretch out with me for a little while and hold me?”

  I didn’t go in her bedroom very often. Had no reason to. I’d never slept in there. Didn’t know if any other man had either. It was none of my business. Now that the tropical storm had passed the air had started to cool in the predawn hours. Her room had cross-ventilation. With the windows open wide there was a welcome, freshening breeze.

  Merilee slid under the sheet and cotton blanket, still wearing her flannel shirt, and stretched out on her back, exhausted. I stretched out on top of the covers next to her. She rolled onto her hip and rested her head on my chest as Lulu curled up at our feet, her tail thumping.

  “I keep thinking I should be crying for Greg and Dini and those sweet little girls who just lost their father,” she confessed. “But I can’t seem to muster any tears.”

  “They’ll come.”

  “When?”

  “When we figure out why it happened.”

  “How are you holding up?”

  “This won’t come as news to you but I don’t like very many people. I liked Greg. He was one of the good guys.”

  “I’m sorry that you lost him, darling. The older we get the harder it is to find real friends. People whom we can really open up to, be ourselves . . .” She lay there quietly for a moment. “Poor Dini.”

  “What’ll happen to her Julia Roberts project in Savannah?”

  “They’ll either wait a few weeks for her or they’ll recast the part first thing tomorrow morning. It’ll depend.”

  “On what?”

  “On whether someone else is available first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “Yours is a cold business, Merilee.”

  “Yours isn’t much warmer.”

  “No, it’s not,” I acknowledged, stroking her long, golden hair. Remembering the feel and the scent of her. Beginning to ache inside. This was where I belonged every night, not out in the chapel. We belonged together. But it wasn’t to be. Or at least it wasn’t until she decided it was.

  And so I lay there, listening to the wheels spin inside of my head. How had Greg’s killer managed to pull it off in the crowded confines of those basement dressing rooms without being seen? I lay there, wondering, as a gentle breeze rustled the leaves of the apple trees. I was still wondering when I heard the first of the predawn birds start to warble and chirp. And then . . . then I heard a rooster crow. Quasimodo. God bless Mr. MacGowan. Good friends are hard to find. So are good neighbors.

  Merilee cocked her head slightly on my chest, the better to hear him. “Is it my imagination or does Old Saxophone Joe sound different this morning?”

  “Different as in . . . ?”

  “Hoarse. Do roosters get laryngitis?”

  Quasimodo crowed again. No getting around it. He definitely had a hoarse crow.

  “He does sound a bit like Tom Waits today, now that you mention it. Maybe it was the storm last night.”

  “What would the storm have to do with it?”

  “Merilee, I’m a city slicker, remember? I don’t know from roosters.”

  She let out a yawn. “I think I might sleep now,” she said before she proceeded to fall into a deep, peaceful slumber.

  Me, I didn’t sleep.

  Chapter Seven

  Merilee was up early, her face creased with fatigue as she stood there in a tank top and cutoffs sipping her coffee and watching Quasimodo strut around with the hens inside of the coop as if he owned the place. Her head, I observed, tilted ever so slightly every time she heard him crow. She had to know he wasn’t Old Saxophone Joe, what with his pronounced hunchback—hence the name—plus he was bigger than Joe and his coloring was considerably redder. Clearly, he wasn’t Joe. But, just as clearly, she’d decided she didn’t want to deal with it right now. So the presence of this new rooster in our midst went entirely unspoken as we stood there together, drinking our coffee.

  The morning air was deliciously fresh and clean after last night’s storm, and scented with the lavender that was growing in profusion in the herb garden. The dew on the meadow grass glistened in the sunlight. The ducks were quacking in the pond. It was so goddamned beautiful it seemed impossible to believe that less than twelve hours earlier I’d been sloshing around in that flooded dressing room in the basement of the Sherbourne Playhouse. That Greg Farber, one of America’s most beloved movie stars, was dead. That any of it had happened.

  Yet it had.

  When I went back inside the house to refill my cup I flicked on the television in the parlor. Good Morning America had given over its entire show to memorializing Greg and his storybook Hollywood marriage to Dini. There were snippets of a GMA interview he’d given just last year about how much she and their twins meant to him. There were highlights from his films. Heartfelt video testimonials that were pouring in from Harrison Ford, Annette Bening, Jack Nicholson, Danny DeVito and many other actors with whom he’d worked.

  Which isn’t to say that the program was all hugs and kisses. Greg’s “savage” murder was already being hyped as one of the most “explosive” crimes in showbiz history, which afforded them the opportunity to fling open the vault and pull out such grisly chestnuts as the fatal 1958 stabbing of Lana Turner’s mobster boyfriend, Johnny Stompanato, by her fourteen-year-old daughter, Cheryl. Face it, Greg’s slaying was prime crime. It had occurred in a dressing room of the historic Sherbourne Playhouse during a gala charity performance, while Jackie O and every heavy hitter in the New York theatrical world, up to and including Kate the Great, had been right there in the building.

  I’m sure it was front-page news, but I didn’t go out to the general store for a newspaper. When I strolled down to the foot of the drive with Lulu I discovered two Connecticut State Police Crown Vics stationed outside of the paddock gate, which the troopers had closed and latched shut. At least thirty reporters, paparazzi and TV news cameramen were crowded out there, their cars and vans lining the narrow country road. As soon as they caught sight of me they made with the shouting:

  “Who killed him, Hoagy?”

  “Was it Dini?”

  “Had to be Dini, right?”

  “Why’d she do it?”

  “Was he cheating on her?”

  “Who’s the other woman?”

  I ignored them. It’s not easy but it can be done if you’ve had enough practice. Somebody ought to write a book about it someday. Not me, but somebody.

  Merilee was in the shower when I got back to the house. I was putting down Lulu’s 9Lives mackerel when the business line rang. Lieutenant Tedone again. He wanted me to meet him at the playhouse “at or around ten o’clock.” There were “certain things” he wished to discuss with me. The noticeable chill in his voice indicated that he didn’t wish to discuss these “certain things” on the phone, so I didn’t press him. Just told him I’d be there.

  By the time I rang off, Merilee had emerged, freshly scented with the fragrance of Crabtree & Evelyn avocado oil soap. She was wearing one of my old white sea island cotton dress shirts, striped linen shorts and sandals.

  “Lieutenant Tedone wants to see me at the playhouse this morning,” I said as Lulu, the noted Nose Bowl champ, worked away steadily on her breakfast.

  “I’m going to spend some time with Dini at Point O’Woods,” Merilee said. “She’s going to need her friends right now. I’m sure she’d appreciate a visit from you, too. She knows how fond Greg was of you. Maybe you could join me there after you see the lieute
nant?”

  “Happy to. Unless he’s decided to throw me in jail.”

  Merilee’s green eyes widened. “Why on earth would he do that?”

  “Justice moves in mysterious ways, Merilee. Do you want to come to the theater with me? Then we can go on to Dini’s together.”

  “Hoagy, I don’t ever want to go back there,” she said in a somber voice.

  “I don’t blame you.”

  “How are things down at the foot of the driveway?”

  “Crowded.”

  “In that case I’d like to take the Woody. I hate driving the Jag through the press hordes. I feel so exposed. Do you mind?”

  “Not a bit. Keys are hanging in the mudroom.”

  “As are the keys to the Jag.”

  She’d already left by the time I’d showered, stropped grandfather’s razor, shaved and doused myself in Floris. I dressed casually in a persimmon linen blazer, vanilla pleated cotton slacks, a pink shirt, blue-and-yellow-striped bow tie, white bucks and my handmade Panama fedora.

  There was no way I was driving the Jag with the top up on such a bright, beautiful summer day. After I’d put it down I rolled down the windows and got in. Lulu hopped in eagerly. She loves to ride in the Jag.

  I eased it slowly down the drive, its engine burbling. The troopers opened the gate and cleared a path for me. Once again I ignored the crush of media people who called out my name and shouted questions at me. Simply floored it the hell out of there, the Jag hugging the curves on Joshua Town Road. Lulu sat up with her large black nose stuck out the open window, enchanted by the breeze.

  There was no shortage of activity on Sherbourne’s town green that morning. And I don’t just mean the media mob and celebrity gawkers who were crowded behind the barricade that the police had set up to keep the playhouse’s stage entrance clear. Or the collection of Major Crime Squad cube vans that were on the scene as technicians continued to process the dressing room and corridor for evidence. A crew from Sherbourne Roofing was removing the blue tarps that they’d stretched across the roof yesterday. Or at least some of the tarps. Several of them had blown halfway across the green into the decorative yews that surrounded the gazebo. The crew that had installed the big wedding tent was packing it up and stowing it away in a pair of trucks. The caterer was taking away the folding tables and chairs.