Murder and Mayhem

by Hamilton, B L

  “Hear it?” Linda squawked. “Hear it!” she spluttered. There was a sharp intake of breath from the other woman who sensed something momentous was taking place, and hiked her chair closer.

  “Since my sister started killing people, her imagination knows no bounds.”

  Both women’s mouths fell open. They looked like a couple of guppies gulping for air; their eyes saucers-like, shocked expression in tandem with each other.

  “The way she describes the sex makes you want to join in. You should ask her about it sometime,” Rosie added, shaking her head.

  “You mean l… l... like in a… a... th… three… some,” Linda spluttered, drool seeping out the corner of her mouth. She wiped it away with the back of her had.

  “Or possibly a foursome.” Rosie looked pointedly at the woman on the other side of Linda. The skin on the pale-faced woman turned a bright red and she ducked behind the dog-eared pages of an old National Geographic Magazine with Richard Nixon on the cover.

  When Rosie saw me coming towards her she nudged Linda and said, “Go on, Linda, ask her.”

  “Ask who what?” I said as I lifted my bag off the chair and settled my backside down on the hard plastic.

  “I was just telling Linda about the sex.”

  “I’m surprised you said anything about it at all, you’re usually such a prude.”

  “I am not!”

  “Are too,” I said with the petulant ring of old childhood grievances.

  Suddenly everyone was quiet as a familiar voice echoed around the room. “Mrs. Albertson!”

  When the doors to the treatment room closed with a resounding thump, I looked over at Linda and shook my head.

  “I swear I don’t know what’s gotten into her lately. She’s usually such a prude.” I gathered Rosie’s things up… and swapped seats. “Lucky for you I’ve got my laptop with me. Would you like me to read what I have written so far?” When I picked up my laptop I noticed the gray-haired woman on the other side of Linda shuffle her chair closer.

  “Y... you w... wrote it all d... down?” Linda stammered.

  “Of course I’ve written it down. How else am I going to remember? These old brain cells aren’t what they used to be.” While I waited for the computer to power up I leaned in and whispered loud enough for the woman on the other side of Linda to hear what I said. “If you like I can tell you what I did with the body, but you’ve got to promise you won’t tell Rosie. I want to surprise her.”

  Linda’s eyes had the startled expression of someone who’d had one facelift too many. “Y... you’ve w... written it d... down?” Linda spluttered.

  “Well of course I wrote it down. As I said before, the old gray matter is not what it used to be. If I don’t write it down I’ll forget where I put it.”

  “P... p... put it?”

  “When you kill so many people you have to write it all down otherwise you’ll forget what you did with who… or is it whom? I can never remember the correct syntax,” I said and focused on the screen while I waited for my laptop to boot up.

  I heard the feet of the chair beside me scrape on the linoleum floor. When I looked up Linda was nowhere in sight.

  *****

  The sign on the side of the road welcomed them to the town of Saugerties.

  “Isn’t this where Bob Dylan used to live?”

  Danny nodded. “I think Saugerties was also the place where the members of The Band lived at one time. I’m sure I read somewhere that they recorded a couple of albums in a house somewhere around here called the Big Pink.”

  “What Band?” Nicola asked distractedly as she watched a couple of aging hippies stroll down the sidewalk stuck in a time warp of flowing skirts, silver bangles and long flowing hair, with flowers in it. If you’re going to San Francisco …

  “You know–The Band.”

  Nicola looked at Danny thinking she must have missed something. “What band is that?”

  “The Band.”

  “Yes, but which band? What was it called?”

  Danny laughed. “Oh-oh, this sounds like a rerun of the ‘Who’s on First’, routine”

  “What?”

  “No. What’s on second....” Danny knew all the dialogue–the old movie was a favorite.

  Rosie laughed. “I remember that–Abbott and Costello, right?”

  “Yes, that’s right. I’m surprised you know it. You weren’t even born when the movie was made.”

  “I watch all that good stuff on cable. ‘Who’s on first, What’s on second, I don’t know’s on third…’ Right!”

  I grinned. “Sometimes you amaze me, my little turtle dove. Now shall we get on with the story?”

  “Far be it for me to interfere with artistic genius. Read on, McDuff,” she said with a theatrical sweep of the hand.

  Nicola was confused. “… What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t tell me you’ve never heard that great monologue between Bud Abbott and Lou Costello?”

  Nicola shook her head. “Who are they?”

  Danny laughed. “Forget it otherwise we could go on like this all day!”

  Nicola shrugged in a ‘whatever’ gesture. “You still haven’t told me what the name of the band was.”

  “They were called, The Band.”

  “That’s a strange name for a band.”

  “Apparently they were originally called The Hawks, then Levon and the Hawks, and various other names. But Bob Dylan and other lead singers always referred to them as, “The Band”, so in the end the name stuck.”

  “Who were they?”

  Danny looked at Nicola and shook his head in disbelief. “Only one of the greatest bands of the sixties and seventies! They were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame in 1994 and Rolling Stone ranked them No 50 on their list of 100 Greatest Artists of all time.”

  “Sounds like you know a bit about them.”

  “I grew up with them. Mum played their music all the time. She had their posters plastered all over the walls.”

  Nicola shrugged. “I’ve never heard of them.”

  Danny let out a long exaggerated sigh and shook his head. “I don’t know…, kids these days. I don’t suppose there’s any point in telling you the town of Woodstock is only about seven miles south of here?”

  “Woodstock? That was something to do with Bob Dylan and a rock concert full of hippies and flower children smoking pot and taking LSD back in the dark ages before crystal meth and ecstasy became the drugs of choice, wasn’t it?”

  “‘Turn on, tune in, drop out!’”

  * * *

  They pulled into the parking lot of a restaurant on the outskirts of Albany where large trees lined the sidewalks and large homes with manicured lawns and park-like gardens graced wide avenues.

  The hostess, a smart-looking middle-aged matron, made sure they were comfortably seated before handing them menus with a promise of efficient service and cold water.

  Nicola’s eyes scanned the room and came to rest on a large man standing just inside the entrance. He was wearing a black T-shirt and red braces that held up his supersize jeans, and had an enormous belly that hung pendulously below his thighs. With his hair pulled back in a ponytail, Nicola immediately thought of the man she had seen in the park in Philadelphia– and her heart stopped. Suddenly, the man’s eyes found hers–and moved on, but in that brief, fleeting moment she knew it was not the same man.

  She sipped water from her glass; through the window she watched a woman unload two small children from a blue pickup.

  In a café nearby a man was drinking coffee, his attention focused on the newspaper spread out in front of him. When he came to the end of the report he’d been reading, his eyes flicked back the top of the page. He started reading again–this time more carefully, wanting to absorb every word. He heard the door open and looked up as a tall, attractive woman walked in. Her long auburn hair was tied back with a red scarf that floated about her shoulders like gossamer.

  “Have you been waiti
ng long?” she asked…

  *****

  I was waiting for the barrage of questions that were sure to follow–but didn’t–so I clicked the start button and shut down. The mid-morning sun was streaming through the redwoods at the bottom of the garden, dripping liquid gold over everything it touched.

  “Are you warm enough?”

  “Mmmm.”

  “Can I get you anything?”

  Rosie gave me a weary smile her face looked drawn and pale. “No, I’m fine, Bubbie.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to go inside? You look a little tired.”

  “No. I’m okay. I am a little tired but I’d rather be outside on a beautiful day like this. I was just thinking that’s all.”

  “What about?”

  “You and Ross have been there haven’t you?”

  “Where, Albany?”

  Rosie nodded. “I seem to remember you telling me something about Albany a couple of years ago.”

  “Yes, we’ve been to Albany several times, once when we were traveling north through the Hudson Valley, and a couple of times when we were traveling west along Interstate Twenty.”

  “What’s it like?”

  “What, Albany?”

  Rosie nodded.

  “It’s the same as any big city. Some parts are really nice and some parts, not.” I shrugged. “We only ever passed through Albany on the way to someplace else. It was never our destination. However, they do have a wonderful museum and a couple of buildings that would rival New York City skyscrapers, but aside from that I don’t think there’s anything particularly remarkable about Albany. It held no appeal for me.”

  “You mentioned Highway Twenty. I’m sure I’ve heard Drew mention that road. Where does it go?”

  “Highway Twenty is bi-coastal. It starts on the east coast, in Boston, and ends in the little town of Newport, Oregon, on the west coast. As it wanders from state to state it hooks up with other roads along the way, but usually it just travels along on its own, through sleepy little towns and villages, and out of the way places that most people have never heard of.”

  “Go on,” Rosie prompted.

  “Hon, you look tired, why don’t you rest?”

  “I’m all right. I like listening to stories about your travels. I promise I’ll tell you if I get too tired.”

  “Okay. Now let me see… There are a couple of well-known highways that travel coast to coast, but Highway Twenty would have to be the most intriguing–and the most scenic. As it travels across New York State, it passes through places with strange sounding names such as Cazenovia, Onondaga and Oneida. Some of the most beautiful country we’ve traveled can be found along Highway Twenty.”

  Rosie sighed. “Tell me about it,” she said as she adjusted the pillows behind her head.

  “You sure you’re all right?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “All right. Let me see, now.” I drummed my fingers on my bottom lip and thought for a moment.

  “I’ll start with Cooperstown on Lake Otsego. It’s about seventy miles west of Albany, and is one of the prettiest places you would ever see. It’s home to the National Baseball Hall of Fame and has a fabulous resort called The Otesaga Resort Hotel, a magnificent Georgian structure built on the shores of the lake that adjoins a championship golf course in what would have to be one of the most spectacular settings in the world–for a golf course,” I said.

  “One of the fairways goes out into the lake. It’s mind-blowing to see. When the golfers tee off it looks like they’re standing on top of the water. The first time I saw it, it gave me quite a turn.”

  Rosie grinned. “That old walking on water gig, I’m sure I read about it before.”

  I laughed, and continued, “Cooperstown is a lovely town, not at all what you’d expect. It’s full of picturesque cottages with white picket fences and dainty gardens. The town has even got a couple of museums.

  “It sounds wonderful.”

  “It is. Then there’s the Finger Lakes District further west: Otisco, Skaneateles, Owasco, Cayuga, Seneca and Canandaigua. Lake Skaneateles would have to be my favorite. It has a delightful township in a picture-book setting.

  While we were there, Ross and I took a boat trip around the lake. It has some spectacular homes built along the bank, including one that used to belong to the Roosevelt family that’s now a monastic retreat.”

  A slight breeze riffled through the garden. “Are you warm enough, Hon? Do you want to go inside?”

  “No. Just throw that rug over my legs.”

  I slipped the rug out from under her feet, spread it over her legs and tucked it in. “How’s that?”

  Rosie gave me one of her beautiful smiles, scrunched down on the chaise and pulled the rug up around her.

  “Bubbie, why don’t you work on your story while I have a quick snooze, and when I wake up you can read me what you’ve written. But don’t go away,” she added.

  “Don’t worry, Hon, I’m not going anywhere,” I said as I tucked the rug around her and kissed the top of her head.

  *****

  Cotton-wool clouds drifted on a warm breeze in a Wedgewood-blue sky. It was hard to imagine the summer months had passed and the cold days of winter not far away.

  Nicola watched unruly blond curls dance around Danny’s head from the breeze that came in through the small opening at the top of the driver’s-side window.

  “Have you ever bought a Harley here?” she asked. “I mean a fully assembled bike–not just parts.”

  “Oh, sure. A couple of years ago I was visiting an old friend in Albuquerque. Nice old guy. Bit of a character. He’d been around Harleys most of his life. Went by the name of Buzz.”

  “Is that Buzz as in Buzz-saw, or Buzz as in Buzzard?”

  Danny laughed. “Buzz as in Buzzard.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because he used to pick the eyes out of any parts on offer,” Danny said, grinning.

  Nicola smiled. “Tell me about it,” she said.

  “The last time I saw Buzz he was getting on in years and planning to move north to live with his daughter in Taos, New Mexico. Sadly she’d told Buzz he couldn’t take his ‘junk’ with him, because she didn’t have anywhere to store it.

  “I must say I could sympathize with his daughter. You have no idea how much stuff Buzz had. It took him the best part of sixty years to collect it. Broke his heart to have to give it all up,” Danny said.

  “Anyway, we were going through the hundreds of boxes and crates he had stored in the barn behind the rambling clapboard farmhouse where he’d lived most of his life, when I noticed two wheels peeking out from beneath a dusty old tarp covered in dirt and cobwebs, and odd bits of junk.

  “When I asked him what was under the tarp, he looked around to see what I was talking about. He scratched his head and rubbed the gray stubble on his face, and said, “I’d forgotten all about that old thing.”

  “So, we removed all the junk that was piled on top of it, and pulled off the tarp. When the dust had settled I found myself looking at a 1975 Shovelhead–in mint condition. Well, you should have seen Buzz’s face light up. “Well, lookee here,” he said. “That’s an ex-police bike I bought in Tucson about fifteen years ago. I’d completely forgotten I had it. At the time I was busy with so many things what with my wife dying and helping Sally and her family move to New Mexico, it got pushed to one side and somehow time seemed to get away from me.” Buzz just stood there looking at this magnificent piece of machinery, scratching his head.

  “Well, I got down on my knees and had a good look, and liked what I saw. “How much do you want for it?” I asked him, not even thinking about how I was going to get it back to Australia. But, we agreed on a price and I knew I had myself a rare find and a real bargain to boot, and Buzz was pleased it was going to someone he knew would appreciate it.

  “Then I started to think about the logistics of shipping the bike back to Australia and I knew it would be a nightmare. If I shipped it back as a
complete bike I’d have to pay a fortune in duty. So we decided to dismantle the bike and ship it back–as parts.

  “At Buzz’s insistence, I moved into the spare room and we worked on it together every day for several weeks until we had it completely dismantled. We labeled every nut and bolt and packed each part separately, and then we crated it up in a special crate I got from the local Harley Davidson dealer and organized with a shipping agent to have it picked up.

  “I really enjoyed my time with the old man. He had some great stories to tell. Every night after dinner we’d sit around the fire and exchange tales about places we’d been and people we’d met.

  “Sadly, Buzz’s daughter, Sally, contacted me about six months later to tell me her father had died. She said he spoke of me fondly, reminiscing about those weeks we spent together. She thanked me for making his last days memorable.” Danny nodded nostalgically as he thought about the old man.

  “I’ve still got that old bike–wouldn’t part with it for quids. Seven hundred and fifty pounds of raw power throbbing beneath you on the wide open road, there’s nothing in the world like it for sheer exhilaration. With the wind in your face, the thrill of the ride is a truly awesome thing.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  I was on my knees scrubbing the bathtub when I noticed Cody lurking in the doorway behind me. I turned my head and looked up at him. “Something you wanted?” I asked.

  “No,” he said and started to retreat.

  “Just a minute!” l reached behind the toilet and picked up a long-handled brush.

  “Here, use this,” I said as I handed him the brush, my eyes lingering on his mop of unruly hair

  “What am I supposed to do with this?” he asked holding the brush at arm’s length, lest it should contaminate.

  “Cody, for someone who’s supposed to be going to college next fall you’re not particularly bright. What do you think you do with it?” As I turned back to the bathtub and started scrubbing I heard the brush clatter to the floor and the sound of Cody’s sneakers racing across the hardwood floor. When the back door slammed it sent a resonating vibration through the old wooden house.