Swamp Monster

by C. A. Newsome

  “Sargent hated painting portraits and look what they did for him.”

  “She can adopt a cat. I’ll paint a cat.”

  “Persian hair on her Persian rug? That won’t happen.”

  “Bye, David.”

  She ended the call a few yards from the gang congregating at their usual table. Steve extended his hands with a gimme gesture. Lia set her mug down and extricated Gypsy, who snuggled in Steve’s arms without a backward glance.

  Bailey pouted. “Why does Steve always get her first?”

  “You have a problem with sloppy puppy seconds?”

  “I expect preference as your best friend and sometimes partner.”

  Terry reached over to tickle Gypsy’s chin. “Where were you and Peter yesterday?”

  Gypsy chewed on Terry’s finger.

  Steve set Gypsy on the portion of table not occupied by Bailey’s hound, Kita. “Translation: Terry wants the dirt on Marvelous Malachi.”

  Gypsy wandered across the table to chew on Kita’s tail. The tail thumped, creating a moving target. Gypsy pounced.

  “I only know what I saw on TV. You spent Saturday with Jay Overstreet. Didn’t you get it from him?”

  Terry scowled. “I didn’t know why he was there until Aubrey Morse did her interview. After that, Dick button-holed him and they went drinking.”

  Bailey rescued Gypsy from Kita’s tail, cradling the pup in her arms, cooing and stroking. “What does Peter think about Malachi, the mobster magician?”

  Steve snorted. “It’s a hoax. Overstreet knows enough to fake the story, and there’s no way to call him on it because those old guys from Newport died years ago. You watch. Overstreet has a book in the works. He’s after a payday.”

  Jim had been silent until now. “Malachi is real.”

  Lia asked, “What makes you say that?”

  Jim tapped Gypsy’s nose. Gypsy swatted his finger. “Because someone murdered Andrew Heenan. Until Steve found the bones, everyone thought he died overseas. Now you think the killer faked Heenan’s departure to cover up the murder. That’s not the reason.”

  Bailey relinquished Gypsy to José. “It’s not?”

  Jim said, “He was buying time.”

  José tickled Gypsy’s belly. “You think this old guy who made balloon animals was a retired mobster?”

  “I think someone believed he was.”

  Steve said, “How do you figure?”

  Jim scowled, a sign they’d missed the obvious. “Thirty years ago, Mr. X decides Andrew Heenan is the missing Malachi. Mr. X wants the treasure. He thinks Heenan is an old guy and easy pickings. Mr. X forgets Malachi fought the mob and won.”

  Lia picked up the narrative. “If Andrew Heenan is Malachi, he had the guts to cut off his foot and escape the mob with his loot. He wouldn’t just hand it over. He says ‘You idiot, I spent it before World War II,’ or ‘I was in Peoria in 1940—’”

  “Or ‘piss up a rope, asshole,’” Terry said.

  Jim nodded. “It goes wrong. Andrew Heenan dies without talking. What does he do?” Jim sat back, palms up and eyebrows raised.

  Bailey made an “O” with her mouth. “He pretends to be Andrew and gets on the plane. Then he doubles back and spends weeks searching.”

  Jim tapped Bailey’s forehead. “You get a gold star.”

  Bailey posed, head turned, hand to her cheek. “How does it look? Is it pretty?”

  The missing housekeeper had been in the best position to pull this off, if she had a partner. But Jenny wasn’t public knowledge and Lia couldn’t talk about her.

  José stroked his biker mustache. “Why would a guy with millions in stolen loot hang around here? Why wasn’t he living it up in Cancun or Bimini?”

  Terry jabbed a finger in the air. “Ninety percent humidity, cicada swarms, and crumbling roads. Why would anyone leave?”

  Steve shook his head. “He stayed because he wasn’t Malachi.”

  Exhausted by all the attention, Gypsy curled up next to Kita. The hound sighed.

  Lia’s brain felt the same way. “Interesting question, but it doesn’t matter why Andrew Heenan chose to live in Cincinnati. If Jim’s theory is correct, Mr. X found the money and he’s long gone. Or he didn’t find the money. What does he do now?”

  Bailey stroked the sleeping puppy. “What do you mean?”

  Lia ordered her thoughts. “You kill a guy, you get away with it, you get on with your life. Thirty years later the bones pop up—”

  “Literally,” Terry said.

  “—If you found the money, nobody can prove where it came from. You’re safe as long as you keep your head down. Say you live in Cleveland. Who’s going to knock on your door? Nobody. Scenario number one is you laugh at the Enquirer with all your friends and life is good.”

  “What’s the alternative?” Steve asked.

  “You never found the money. It’s been eating at you for thirty years. You see Andrew Heenan’s skull at every checkout lane when you shop for groceries—”

  “If he’s married, his wife does the shopping,” Jim said.

  “Picky, picky. Okay, it stares him in the face at the convenience store where he gets his morning coffee. Even if he lives in New Zealand, Elvis' water-logged grave memes are cluttering his Twitter feed. Mr. X knows. It might eat at him, but the smart money stays home. Then Jay Overstreet goes on Channel 7 and says, ‘Hey, world! Mob treasure here!’”

  “So?” Bailey asked. “If he didn’t find the money then, he won’t now.”

  Steve turned a shrewd eye on Terry. “But now, every moron in a hundred miles is dusting off their metal detector.”

  Terry sent Steve a mutinous glare. Steve ignored him and continued, “Commodore’s awareness campaign could backfire. If the idiots get it in their pointy heads Heenan’s killer buried loot with those bones, Mill Creek will wind up looking like the aftermath of Woodstock.”

  “A ghastly thought, and illogical,” Terry said.

  “No accounting for stupid,” José said.

  Chewy returned from his daily expedition, butting Lia’s hand. She fed him a treat from her pocket and scratched behind his ears.

  “The police went over the entire area with a metal detector two weeks ago, looking for evidence. Can Commodore get the message out?”

  Terry sighed. “Maybe Aubrey will run a follow-up.”

  José frowned, exaggerating the lines of his biker mustache. “Why do treasure hunters matter?”

  Jim’s voice turned gruff. “Mr. X killed someone to get that money in 1987. He won’t let some yahoo walk off with it now.”

  Four phones sounded simultaneous alerts.

  “Oooh,” Bailey said. “Terry’s girlfriend posted a video.”

  Terry perked up. “That’s the interview we did by the tree. Let’s see it.”

  Lia navigated to the video. The screen showed Susan standing on Clifton Hills Avenue. She snuck a peek at Terry as she laid her phone in the center of the table.

  ___________

  Susan’s Snippets with Lena Ware

  5.3K Views

  Thumbs up: 743

  Thumbs down: 109

  Delicate, brightly intelligent, and wreathed with flyaway hair, the wrinkled face on the tiny screen brought to mind Geraldine McEwan as Miss Marple in the BBC series.

  “Andrew was a charming man, and he took such lovely care of his house and garden. He could be mysterious. You always had the sense that he knew a secret and life amused him.”

  “Were you …” Susan paused, a nod to sensitivity. “Intimate?”

  Lena laughed. “Oh my, no. But he could make a woman wish she was single.”

  “How did you meet him?”

  “My husband and I were in a dinner club. That month’s host would pick a menu. Everyone cooked a dish and we’d spend the evening together. When it was Andrew’s turn, he chose Lebanese food. We barely knew what that was back then. Our group was mostly couples, but Andrew always came alone. We’d have a few glasses of wine and he’d perfo
rm card tricks. He was always inventing new tricks. Or maybe he was recycling old ones. I’m sure we wouldn’t have known the difference.”

  “What did you think when he disappeared?”

  “It wasn’t unusual for Andrew to be gone for weeks at a time. We thought he’d been delayed in one of those little countries where the phone service wasn’t so good. This was before the internet. We didn’t have Skype or Zoom or FaceTime. Months passed and he never came back. I thought, ‘Well, they finally got him.’”

  Susan’s face took on an intense expression, reminding Lia of Barbara Walters as the reporter went for the big revelation.

  “Tell us, Mrs. Ware, who got him?”

  “I thought it was the Russians. Really, it could have been anyone.”

  Susan’s eyes widened and her Kentucky drawl deepened.

  “Why would the Russians murder your friend?”

  “Dear, you don’t think he did all that travel for pleasure, do you? He was an operative.”

  “An operative? You mean a spy? For whom?”

  “I never knew. Our side, I hope. Israel, maybe. He sure enjoyed Middle Eastern food.”

  ___________

  Lia scanned the park. In the distance, Napa and Jackson ran happy circles around Terry as he strode toward the gate, oblivious to the disappointment and humiliation driving him away from his friends.

  Bailey’s hand fluttered like an agitated bird. “What happened to Terry’s interview?”

  Steve stared after Terry, one hand absently stroking Gypsy’s belly. “Don’t know. He said she had trouble focusing. They had to redo parts of it. Maybe she couldn’t make it work.”

  Bailey snorted. “I bet she trashed it because Aubrey Morse scooped her.”

  Terry’s shoulders slumped as he made his way down the service road, making Lia’s heart hurt.

  Steve stood. “I’d better go. He’ll be waiting for me in the truck. This is the second time Susan interviewed him and didn’t show it. After everything he does to help her, she should have told him.”

  “From what Peter says, empathy isn’t her strong suit.”

  Peter dropped the stack of tips generated by Aubrey Morse’s story onto his desk. Elvis, facing the wall when Peter left the day before, grinned at him. A sticky note on the King’s forehead read:

  Kiss Me, You Fool

  Peter crumpled the note, tossed it in the can for a two pointer.

  Brent wheeled his chair around. “What did Cynth say about her date with the Neanderthal?”

  “They’re getting married Memorial Day weekend. He wants five kids, but she bargained him down to three, providing at least one is a boy.”

  “Bite me.”

  “You want to know, ask her yourself.”

  Brent nodded at the stack. “Anything good in there?”

  “A guy who says he’ll loan out his backhoe to dig up Heenan’s treasure if he gets half.”

  “Generous of him.”

  “Some names of guys from the old days I should hunt up, but no contact info, and no guarantee they’re still alive or that they know what happened in 1987.”

  “That’s helpful.”

  “Thankfully, this mess will belong to Wallace before the end of the day.”

  “Does he get Elvis, too?”

  “With a hunka burnin’ love on top.”

  Peter punched the blinking extension on his phone for the tenth call that morning. Damn Jay Overstreet and the Toyota he rode in on. “Detective Dourson speaking.”

  The man spoke quickly, with an accent from one of the boroughs of New York City. Peter couldn’t say which one. “My name is Billy Baker. I own a gallery in Tribeca. I’ve been following the Andrew Heenan story.”

  Of course you have.

  “I’d like to donate my services.”

  In a pig’s eye. “In what capacity, Mr. Baker?”

  “I understand artworks may come into play. You’ll need someone to authenticate them.”

  “That’s a kind offer, but we have art dealers here.”

  “If I may say, you have no one with my reputation.”

  “Mr. Baker, are you hoping to broker the art if we find it?”

  A hesitation.

  “I have excellent connections.”

  “Those connections include Jay Overstreet?”

  Another hesitation.

  “We’ve spoken. I specialize in early twentieth century art.”

  Baker wanted a piece of pie in the sky, like every other yahoo calling him. Peter’s normally polite manners frayed. He took a nanosecond to remember Chief Isaac’s latest mantra: Expect that you are always on camera. “Mr. Baker, if we uncover a priceless Easter egg, I’ll pass your name along.”

  Peter’s line beeped. “I have to take another call. But I’ll keep your information handy.” He switched lines before Baker could say he hadn’t given Peter his number.

  “Dourson.”

  Captain Parker did not bother to identify herself. “My office, five minutes. I need an update on Heenan.”

  Despite her inscrutability, Peter liked Captain Parker. She was smart, open-minded, and not inclined to the knee-jerk reactions of her predecessor. He respected her commitment to staying as fit as any of her men and didn’t care to think about his chances if he had to meet her in hand-to-hand. She was also middle management. Parker might not originate crap, but rank obligated her to roll it downhill no matter how she felt about it.

  Peter contemplated the landmine that was leadership as he walked the long, dreary hall to Parker’s office. She sat at her desk, framed by the open door, scanning a report. He rapped on the jamb.

  Her head lifted, face full of regret. “Have a seat, Dourson.”

  Peter settled into the visitor’s chair. “Sir?”

  “Tell me the Malachi story is a hoax.”

  “Eighteen years of research by Jay Overstreet weighs against it. There was a Malachi. Who knows about his cache, or whether he cut his leg off.”

  “I almost wish you hadn’t identified Heenan’s remains. Elvis conspiracy theories can be laughed off. Lost mob treasure is a disaster, unless it jogs someone’s memory. Any chance of that?”

  “Plenty of folks want to talk about the good old days when crime was king and life was a never-ending party. No one knows boo about who killed Heenan four decades later.”

  Parker sighed. “We planned for you to work Heenan until Wallace returned. That can’t happen now.”

  “Sir?”

  “His cruise ship was quarantined with an outbreak of some mystery virus.”

  Peter’s heart sank into his stomach. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “We had five calls from the Johnsons yesterday, idiot trespassers with metal detectors.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “No point calling you. Bobbi Johnson sicced her dogs on them and they disappeared into the woods behind the property. She has some blurry photos on her phone, nothing that will give us an ID. It’s a nuisance. Unlikely it has anything to do with Heenan’s murder.”

  She ran a hand through hair that had taken the brunt of her frustrations. “Bobbi Johnson wants to file a complaint against Susan Sweeney. I explained that there was no law against Ms. Sweeney conducting interviews on the sidewalk as long as she didn’t harass anyone or block access to the property. I did not tell her Susan was your ex-fiancée.”

  “Much appreciated, sir.”

  “Have you interviewed the Johnsons?”

  “Not yet. I didn’t consider them or the house relevant until Overstreet told the world about Malachi’s lost mob loot.”

  “Reputed lost mob loot, unless you have sound evidence it exists. I’ve already stepped up patrols and flagged the house. When you talk to the Johnsons, reinforce our commitment to protecting their safety and peace of mind.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And if you have any influence with your ex-fiancée, feel free to suggest she conduct her interviews elsewhere and stop putting videos of the house on the internet.�
�

  Peter felt tension building behind his eyes, a sure sign of a pending headache. “Honestly, sir, sometimes the only thing that will derail Susan is an oncoming train. I’ll try, but my expectations are low.”

  “Understood. What did you get from Overstreet?”

  “Nothing that points us in a productive direction. He may have the why of Heenan’s death, but according to him, plenty of people knew about Malachi. Our guy could be five or six degrees of separation from the source. We’d have to track the Schmidts, anyone who worked for them, anyone connected with the Cleveland Syndicate, and three generations of descendants. Then we have to figure out who they talked to.”

  “I see your point. What did you think of Overstreet?”

  “He’s hiding something. It’s a toss up whether he’s writing a book or hunting the treasure.”

  “Maybe both. You run him?”

  “He has a disorderly conduct from an animal rights protest at OSU from that summer. There’s nothing to say he didn’t sneak into town to kill Heenan, but there’s nothing to connect him. His involvement with the animal rights group suggests his mind was elsewhere at the time. I’m not ruling him out, but he doesn’t excite me.”

  “The burial site?”

  “Between construction workers and Bengals fans, we’re talking hundreds of unidentifiable men capable of hauling Heenan into that gully. The yacht club was a bust. The only possible is a friend of Lia’s, but he didn’t do it.”

  “Convince me.”

  “Nothing in Steve’s history says he ever had money. If he killed Heenan, he didn’t find the loot. He went through significant financial hardship a few years back. If he knew about Malachi, he would’ve been looking then.”

  “Who says he wasn’t?”

  “His roommate would have noticed and Lia would have heard about it. Respectfully, sir, Steve discovered the bones. Most guys would sweat bullets if they were standing between a cop and the unearthed bones of someone they killed. Something would have been off.”

  “Keep him on the list for now.”

  “Yes, sir.”