by David Waters
She said, “sometimes it’s best to let the past sleep. It’s true that a murderer had not been caught and punished. And we had suffered. Frank was dead. But the evil and the venom had stopped there.”
“As far as one could tell,” I remarked.
“Yes as far as we could tell,” she acknowledged.
A few hundred yards from us the tide slapped quietly at the large, seaweed covered rocks piled along the coast.
“There’s a myth in Irish folklore,” Mary said, “that Saint Patrick chased all the snakes out of Ireland. Have you ever been to Ireland?” She asked.
“No.”
“A part of Ireland is as lush and green as all the songs say it is. But there is another part that is almost uninhabitable, strewn with nothing but rocks, and stubble and peat.” Strange, but to my untrained ear, and in that half-light, her voice seemed to acquire a soft tribal lilt. “There’s another Irish myth,” she continued, “that says that the snakes did not leave Ireland at all, but were only banished to that part which, particularly at night, looks almost like a dead lunar landscape. So which myth is true? Who knows? Probably neither. But everyone agrees that it’s a foolish man who goes poking under all those rocks just to see if there are really snakes there just to satisfy an itch to uncover the truth.”
“And Gina was setting out to poke under rocks.”
“And now Naomi is dead, and an innocent friend of Gina’s has been shot. This morning Gina was having second thoughts. She had needed to get at the truth because of how she felt about her father.”
“And you didn’t?”
“Frank was dead. I had never doubted his innocence.”
“We’ve been making progress,” I said defensively, “we may yet see justice done.”
Mary nodded. “If justice is what you want. Gina only wanted to vindicate her father by unraveling the truth of what really happened. Justice always seems to cost a lot,” she said, “and not just money. We never seem to quite get the kind of justice we want, and it seems to soil us in the process.”
“It would be a mistake to stop now,” I suggested.
“Oh, I know,” she said wistfully, “besides, the police are involved again, and maybe they can use our help. We don’t need someone else falsely accused! We should probably all go back to Montreal soon. There’s not much which can be accomplish here.”
“We?” I asked.
“Yes. I’m concerned about Gina. I want to be beside her the rest of the way. We’ll both feel safer.” She added simply.
I took a last look at Portland harbor. I thought of sailors out on a dangerous ocean. They must have imagined such a harbor as a safe haven, as home. And yet, I thought, the ports, themselves, are places fraught with danger and violence. Winston University must have once seemed like a safe haven to Mary and Frank Montini. Perhaps even more so to Gina. Was any place really safe? Really a home? “There’s plenty of room at my place,” I said, “no need for either you or Gina to stay at a motel.”
“Good.” A decision had been reached. An ironic smile dimpled her cheeks. “Of course,” she added, “we’re assuming that Gina has not decided to abandon her quest and stay home!”
The thought made me smile. “I would doubt it.” The idea that Gina might quit now was alien to my understanding of the woman who had so insinuated herself into my life. We turned from the harbor and began the walk back. For a few minutes we were content to walk in silence. Then I remembered something I had meant to discuss.
“Last night,” I said, “I never got your assessment of Harold Hendricks.”
“I know. Poor dear Harold!”
I gave her a startled look. “Hardly the way I would describe him.”
She hesitated. When she spoke there was a slight edge of anger in her voice. “But then you never saw,” she said, “the way he would grovel at the feet of Naomi for whatever crumbs of affection she would occasionally toss his way.”
I remembered that Stella had mentioned his infatuation with Naomi. “God, when will life stop surprising me. I find it hard to see Hendricks as a grovelling romantic courtier!”
She smiled, “Oh, he tried to be! But I think he was sexually very insecure.”
I tried to remember what he looked like in the photo. About five foot six. With short legs, a large head, long arms and large hands. “Physically he was hardly a centerfold.” I admitted.
The look she threw me reminded me of Gina. It was tinged with exasperation, suggesting somehow that there are things that some men will never understand. “There are a lot of men, even less prepossessing than him, who have been very successful with women. Some of the most successful seducers, I’m told, have been small men with remarkably strong egos and faces that would make their mothers weep! But I don’t think Harold had ever come to terms with the physical attributes he had been born with. Odd in a way. Because he had intelligence and a sense of irony, qualities which could have been very attractive.”
“So how did Naomi treat him?”
“Badly. I’m afraid. She used him like a puppy dog. Fetch me this and fetch me that. And then she would turn away from him to talk to someone more interesting or more flamboyant. Harold, I’m afraid, was useless to her in terms of getting back at her husband.”
“The Monaghans must have been a strange couple.”
“Yes.”
“What did they have in common?”
“I don’t know. Both had smugly rejected their family backgrounds. Naomi came from a wealthy conservative family. She felt intellectually superior to them. I don’t know. She may even have married Monaghan to snub them because he came from a poor borough of New York city. He saw himself as an under-appreciated genius.”
“Was he?”
“Not really. At least I don’t think so. I think he had been a bit of a scientific prodigy as a student. But I think time had modified that.”
“So one day they woke up to realize that all they shared in common was a mutual arrogance that was going nowhere.”
“I think Naomi was aware of that. He may have been too self-centered to realize it.”
“Could Hendricks have killed Monaghan if Naomi had nudged him into doing it?”
“Why would she want to do that?”
“I don’t know. I could see her saying at some point, half-jokingly, will someone please rid me of this arrogant bastard. Enough perhaps to encourage someone like Hendricks to take it literally.”
Mary shook her head. We were now only a hundred yards from her house. The moon had risen. Not a full moon, but almost. We chose not to go in right away, but stood in the shadow of a willow tree. She tilted her head and gave me a wry look. “It sounds to me as silly as the kind of argument the prosecution planned to use against my husband. They believed my husband went to see Monaghan to ask him to step aside, and that Monaghan was murdered as a result of an argument that ensued. I knew otherwise, of course, but how could I prove it? Frank and I had discussed the affair before he went to see Monaghan in his office. He had already told Naomi that it was over.”
“So why did he go to see Monaghan?”
She looked surprised. “Because Monaghan had called him that morning and had asked him to come over that evening. We assumed Monaghan had been told about the affair. That was the reason my husband went to see him. To try to limit the potential fallout for all of us. It was a silly idea. Or was it? How different things would have been if he had stayed home instead. Of course he should have called security when he found that Monaghan was dead. But he knew that nothing could be done for Monaghan at that point, and so he got out of there as fast as he could. He was never very good at handling traumatic crisis situations. But my husband was not a violent man. And I can’t see Hendricks as one either.”
“Hendricks had his office right next to Monaghan’s. What if Monaghan told him about your husband’s purpose in coming to see him.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Because,” I speculated, “Monaghan was an arrogant, mean man. Naomi c
onfirmed that Monaghan knew about her affair all along. He would have known how hurt Hendricks would feel, not only from knowing that your husband had had an affair with Naomi, but from the fact that your husband had decided to dump her. If, in addition, Monaghan decided to taunt Hendricks about his lap-dog love for Naomi, Hendricks might simply have exploded. With one sudden stroke he eliminates both his rivals. Monaghan dead. Your husband in jail for life. He would have had the last laugh on both of them, and who knows maybe even got Naomi in the bargain.”
She shook her head. “And so why would he kill Naomi fifteen years later?”
“Maybe Hendricks had dropped a hint to her at the time about what he had done.” I was thinking about what Stella Symansky had said. “And maybe she had just laughed at him and ignored him. Maybe that was what she was intending to tell Gina. She might even have told Hendricks when he called her what she was planning to say to Gina.”
“It’s an awful lot of ifs and maybes,” she said sadly, “I may not know men all that well, but it doesn’t feel right to me.”
Back inside the house, we discussed returning to Montreal with Gina. She did not put up any objection, but the feistiness she had exhibited during her first visit to Montreal was now markedly absent.
I wanted to leave early the next morning. But Mary needed a day or two to arrange for a short leave. “It shouldn’t be difficult,” she noted, “last year two full-time employees were reduced to part-time employees because of budget cuts. I’m sure either of them would be happy to work full time even if it’s only for a brief period.” Mary suggested that Gina drive back with her. I was a little surprised by how readily Gina agreed. In effect, she was giving me free reign to investigate on my own for a few days.
Before turning in for the night I phoned Phil Ryan. I told him that I would be returning to Montreal tomorrow and that Gina and her mother would be arriving a day or two later. I explained that Joe Gibbs would probably produce recent photos of Gooden and Hendricks, that Hendricks had a cottage near the Symansky’s, and that Gooden had one in Georgeville just on the other side of Lake Memphamagog from where Naomi was killed. And I gave him a brief synopsis of my conversations with Gooden and Hendricks. Did you get through to the Symanskys?”
“Sure did.”
“And?”
“They spent a quiet Sunday together. Or so they claimed. Not much of an alibi. When he discovered that I was retired from the force, he balked at sending an up-to-date photo of himself and his wife. Said he would do so if asked by an official who was investigating Naomi Bronson’s death. Otherwise, he was reluctant to have anyone going around showing his photograph and asking questions which he considered pointless. He suggested it could only cast suspicion where none was warranted. He was a smoothie. Didn’t miss a beat, never got angry or uppity, polite all the way. I tell you he missed his vocation.”
“What one?”
“Politics.”
“He struck me as a little too fastidious for politics. An ambassador perhaps.”
“I’ve never met an ambassador.” Phil muttered.
“In either case,” I said, “they rarely do their own dirty work. They have others do it.”
“Yeah, I don’t doubt it. But if he once broke into Monaghan’s office in the days when he was a snitch, then he once did his own dirty work, and that, like riding a bicycle, is a skill you don’t lose.”
I didn’t disagree. “Still, I’m inclined to put him at the bottom of my list for the moment. Any progress with Leclair?”
“They’ve confiscated Naomi Bronson’s filing cabinets and moved them to headquarters until they get a chance to go through them. Today they were hoping to get at the contents of her safety deposit box. I suggested it might be helpful if we had a chance to go through the photo files. For the moment it’s a no. But if his people get nowhere, he might let us have a look before returning them to her house mate who, by the way, is now also a suspect because she inherits quite a bit! They had to practically tie her down to remove Naomi’s files to headquarters.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. Did you know Naomi Bronson was wealthy?”
“She came from a wealthy family.” I said.
“Well you wouldn’t know it from where she lived.”
“Maybe she had her own kind of pride, and wanted to live on what she earned.”
“Jesus! I don’t believe what I’ve just heard.” He chortled.
“There could be another reason why her friend did not want the police to take away any of the files.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m sure their relationship was a lesbian one.”
“So what’s that got to do with anything? I mean where have you been in the last ten years? No one tries to hide that kind of thing anymore.”
“I know. But gays still don’t consider the police very friendly. Naomi may have had personal photos and correspondence that her friend didn’t want any macho cops pawing through.”
“Possibly. Maybe I should go see her tomorrow.”
“Why?”
“I’d like to size her up myself.”
“Maybe you’ll just rub her the wrong way.”
“Maybe. But that will only make Gina look good by comparison. If she turns me down, then Gina could have a go when she gets back. Meanwhile, I can try the friendly ex-cop approach. You know, tell her that, unlike all the other cops, I’m convinced she had nothing to do with Naomi’s death because I believe Naomi’s murder is tied in to Professor Monaghan’s murder. An investigation I had botched. Who knows, she may feel she can use a friend with some former police credentials.”
“Well, it’s worth a try,” I said more to keep him pumped up than anything else. “Certainly, she wouldn’t give me the time of day.”
“But then you’re just a macho, ex-journalist!” He laughed.
“Anything new on the motel shooting front?” I asked.
“Nah. They’re dragging their heels. A stripper gets a flesh wound. Not something high on their priority list.”
So much, I thought, for equality before the law.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Somewhere after leaving Portland, and before arriving at South Paris where I stopped for coffee and studied a road map, I had decided on a drive which would take me to Burlington, then to Essex Junction, then to Naomi’s cottage, and then around the lake to Georgeville, and finally back to Montreal. I bought two throw-away cameras at a shopping mall to take pictures of the Symansky residence and the cottages.
At Bethel, I switched highways heading west through St. Johnsbury to Montpelier where I picked up I-89. Once in Burlington, I took a photo of the Symansky residence without getting out of my car, and thought about heading into the local newspaper office for an up-to-date photo of Steve and Stella Symansky. Given their status, I was sure the local newspaper would have one. But I was not sure about what kind of reception I would receive, and decided that a request through my former paper would be more productive in the long run. Before I left I drove to the house next door to the Symanskys and without getting out my car again, managed to get from a different angle, a close-up photo of the car that was parked in the Symansky driveway. It was a dark green Lexus.
Essex Junction was only ten miles East of Burlington. I stopped at a pay phone to check the telephone book for an address under Hendricks. At a gas station I filled up and asked the attendant for directions. I also bought two submarine sandwiches and purchased a thermos full of coffee.
Five minutes later I was parked a hundred yards from a Pan-Abode cottage. I smiled to myself. In my thirties I had once thought of buying one myself, and wondered how many engineers had done so. It was a special kind of pre-fab, made up of pre-cut inter-locking, tongue and groove logs made of light weight western cedar. Its attraction was two-fold. It was a marvel of precision engineering, because each log had to be milled to precise specifications; and the four inch thickness of the logs guaranteed natural insulation against both the coldest winters as well as the warme
st summers. If my memory was correct, it had originally been designed to meet the needs of administrators working on the Alaskan pipeline. Hendricks, I noticed, had bought one of the larger models and had added a wing and a solarium. It was an impressive set-up for someone I thought of as living in an alcoholic haze half of his life. Maybe I would have to revise my assessment of his drinking habits.
It was my fascination with the cottage that led me to do more than take a photo. I went up close to inspect it, and on impulse knocked on the front door. It moved under the pressure of my knuckles. It had not been locked, nor properly shut. When I received no answer, I took a hesitant step inside. In front of me was a spacious, macho living room. A deer head adorned one of the walls, and a number of animal skin rugs were on the floor. Against the wall, under the deer head, was a locked, antique cupboard with glass doors. It had been redesigned to hold a number of hunting rifles.
“Anybody home?” I asked in a raised voice. There was no immediate answer. I wandered over to look at the gun collection. There were two shotguns, two .303 caliber rifles, and one empty slot. I heard someone approaching from the rear of the cottage and went back quickly to stand near the entrance.
A young man appeared through the back door of the cottage. He was thin and slight with long hair tied at the back of his neck. He stopped and eyed me warily. “What are you doing here?”
I smiled and held my hands out in front of me in a way designed to show that I meant no offense. “The last time I spoke with professor Hendricks,” I said, “he mentioned the cottage. Since I was driving through town I thought I would stop and have a look at it. Who are you?”