Idyll Threats

by Stephanie Gayle

  Donna Daniels was behind the bar, her pale arm reaching into the ice chest. She leaned so that I got a good look at why the regulars called her “DD.” It wasn’t because of her initials. She straightened. “Chief!” Too late. No choice but to approach and hope she wouldn’t fuss. Why hadn’t I asked Nate if she’d be working tonight? Because she might hear of it and interpret it as interest on my part. Donna interprets respiration as interest on my part.

  “How are you?” She tilted her head, ready to listen to my worries. “Tough day, huh?” Of course she knew about the murder. Bet the whole town knew.

  “I’m fine, thanks. Hungry.”

  “What can I do you for?” She sounded like a TV waitress.

  “Steak and cheese.”

  “Peppers, onions?” She knew my order. “Anything else?” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, pierced twice. I said no thanks and she twirled and wiggled to the kitchen, ignoring the waves of a thirsty patron. Two minutes later, she passed him again. He waved his empty glass at her. No joy. She came right for me, pink lipstick now on her lips.

  “I heard the news,” she said. “Murder on the golf course. That girl? Cecilia North? Real nice. A couple years younger than me.” That seemed generous. I’d lay a fiver that they weren’t born in the same decade.

  “You gonna catch who did it?” the man nearest me asked. He wore an ancient leather jacket and a Red Sox cap. He leaned in as if I was about to confide.

  Donna rolled her eyes. “Don’t hassle the man, Larry. He’s here to eat.”

  “I’ll take it to go,” I said.

  “Haven’t had a real murder since 1987,” Larry said. “Man got run down outside the train museum.”

  “That was a hit-and-run,” the man beside Larry said. He played with a matchbook.

  Larry turned to him. “Man died, didn’t he?”

  “Not the same as murder. It’s vehicular homicide or some such, right, Chief?”

  “Would you guys knock it off?” Donna said. “He didn’t come here to explain the law to you monkeys.” Both men scowled but quit yapping. Too wise to piss off their booze source.

  Donna fluffed her hair and said, “This fall will be your first Idyll Days.”

  “Yes, it will.” Why the sudden shift in topic?

  She rested her muscled forearms on the bar. Giving me an even clearer view of her assets. “I work the kissing booth. It’s for charity.”

  “That so?” I made a show of checking my watch.

  She patted my hand with her damp fingers. “Let me go check on your order.”

  Larry watched her walk, his eyes on her ass. He leaned on the bar and said, “I think she fancies you.” His breath was 90 percent vodka. I almost told him I didn’t fancy her. But he wouldn’t believe me. What straight man would?

  Someone tapped my shoulder. I turned. Male. Brown hair. Weak chin. “Hi, Chief. I’m Sam Franklin. I live over on Grove Street, near the Norths. You don’t think I need a new alarm system installed, do you? Because of the murder on the golf course? I’ve got two girls. Both in middle school.”

  “Do you have an alarm system now?”

  He nodded. “Motion-sensor lights too.”

  “Fancy,” Larry said.

  I shot him a “shut up” look and said, “Don’t upgrade your alarm.” I wondered if he would, anyway. People like to create and maintain the illusion of safety. I couldn’t blame him, not with two kids.

  Donna returned with my dinner in a large brown bag, stapled shut. “I put some extra pickles in.” She winked.

  I fought the urge to tell her that pickles were my favorite. Rick wasn’t beside me to appreciate it. He’d loved the jokes that sailed over people’s heads because they had no idea what or who I was. When we’d get out of hearing range, he’d elbow my ribs and say, “Oh, honey, you are too bad!” And his effete impression would send me into fits. The way he’d wave his hands and roll his eyes.

  “Thanks.” I set the money down before she could argue. I could eat my way through this town and never pay a bill. Seems like Chief Stoughton did. First few places I paid, the owners looked bewildered. Some cops dig that shit. Not me.

  It was a four-minute drive home. The realtor who’d sold it to me described it as a perfect “starter house.” It was a brick rectangle with a lawn and mailbox. I used the side door. The front was for people selling things and formal occasions. The side was for family and friends. Day by day, I was learning the rules of small-town life.

  Inside, I wrestled my jacket off. Hung it on the wall rack, its crooked trio of pegs set into a splintered pine board. A shop-class project made by the former owner’s kid decades ago. I dropped my takeout on the scarred kitchen table and grabbed a beer from the avocado-colored fridge. Below, the diamond-patterned linoleum peeled. Could I glue it down? I recalled the Norths’ kitchen, with its bright-yellow walls and sugar and flour canisters. Even their unmatched mugs looked good. My place hadn’t been updated since the late seventies. Furnished with its dead owner’s belongings.

  I brought my dinner to the beige-and-brown living room. Maybe there was a game on. A gust swept through, rustling papers. I walked through the living room and down the hall, peering into the old “sewing room,” now a graveyard for my unpacked boxes. Past the bathroom with its black and pink tile. The spare bedroom had wallpaper patterned with sailing ships and a window painted shut. At the hall’s end was my bedroom. The window near my unmade bed was open, the gusting air fragrant. I slammed it shut. The only furniture was a full bed, a bureau missing two drawer pulls, and a lamp covered with brown-and-white shells on its base. The curves of the shells looked swollen, as if the lamp was infected, breaking out in bulbous hives.

  Cecilia North’s bedroom had more personality than my whole house. I’d had twenty-two more years to accumulate a life. So where was it? My mind ran backward. Her spray bottle, her teddy bear, her map of endangered species. She’d bought her father a clock, and he kept it though he hated it. She’d inspired love. The gunshot wounds had made a rectangle on her back. She’d inspired hatred.

  I returned to the living room and sat in my brown, corduroy recliner. Ugly as sin, my sister-in-law, Marie, said of it. She’d begged to buy me a new one. My brother, John, had laughed. “You’d sooner convince Father McMann to eat a burger on Friday,” he’d said.

  I grabbed a notebook from my side table, a glass circle above a curved piece of metal. The only piece of furniture in my house I liked. I made notes. The ones I couldn’t share. John Doe at the cabin. Shorter than me, with thinning, fair hair. Clothes? Khakis, maybe. A collared shirt. Shoes? Damn it. He hadn’t made an impression, had worked hard not to. And I’d been so worried about being caught, exposed, that I’d let him walk by with his hand raised to his face. On his hand, a ring. He’d worn a wedding ring.

  The phone rang. I walked to the kitchen and picked up the large-numbered push-button phone. An instrument for the vision-impaired. “Hello?”

  “Lynch. It’s Lee.” Lee was from my old precinct. We hadn’t spoken since my going-away party. What a sad affair. Even before the heavy drinking began. “How are ya?” Ah, that accent. If you could distill New York into a sound, it would be Lee’s nasal voice. It made me positively nostalgic.

  “Good. You?” I said.

  “Same old, same old. Oh, ’cept they finally got us a new sergeant. Flynn, from the 151st. He’s not fucking awful.” I’d had my eye on that job, once upon a time. “Anyways, I wanted to let you know we’re having a memorial for Rick on Tuesday, the nineteenth. St. Anthony’s. Can you make it?”

  My nostalgia dried up like the Gobi after a hard rain. “Aw hell. Sorry, Lee, but we caught a murder.” Thank you, Cecilia North. “I’m gonna have to make sure the locals don’t Barney Fife it.”

  “That’s too bad. Maybe you’re unlucky.” He swallowed. “I didn’t mean—”

  “Forget it.” I looked out the window above the sink. Saw in the twilight that the grass needed mowing. Christ. How did people do this stuff? �
��I’ll send flowers.”

  “Sure. Good luck with the murder, Lynch.”

  “Thanks. Take care, Lee.”

  On August 19th of last year, my partner had died, gunned down. Apollo St. James had fired twice at Rick and hit him once. Rick had fired between the first and second shots. And I had shot twice, when it was too late, when Rick was down. Five shots, and I was unhurt. That’s why Lee apologized about the unlucky comment. Because there’d been talk. Why hadn’t I gotten hit? Hadn’t I tried to save Rick? That talk had broken what remained of my heart. And the rest of it, what no one else knew, had driven me here.

  A bird called out. Not a robin. It didn’t sound like the Norths’ clock. I wondered if they’d toss it, or keep it, because of Cecilia. It was just a clock. But they’d never see it that way. I understood.

  I found the mayor waiting in my office. Behind my desk, in my chair. “Chief Lynch!” He smiled. Many of his teeth were fake. He’d once enjoyed success in hockey.

  “Mayor. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  His face crumpled. “I heard the sad news. That poor young woman. And her family.” He rose and gestured to my seat.

  I remained standing. “The Norths.”

  “We must do everything we can.” He walked to the window. “Perhaps set up a scholarship in her honor. We could host a pancake breakfast.” He rubbed his gut.

  “We ought to find and arrest her killer, first.”

  He nodded. “Yes.”

  “You’ll want this resolved as quickly as possible.”

  “Absolutely.” He crossed his meaty arms over his chest.

  “I’m going to need more manpower.”

  “Mmmm hmmmm.”

  “Money.”

  He harrumphed. Had I been impolite? Perhaps. But I didn’t want any nonsense when it came time to sign checks. “Finnegan needs to come on full-time. Overtime for patrol. Plus, we’ll need people on the tip line. Which you can mention at the press conference, if you like.”

  He grinned. He’d had eggs for breakfast. “When?”

  “Your office can set it up. We have to wait for the autopsy results.”

  “Good thing we hired you. All that detective experience. I told the selectmen.” He came closer. We were matched for height, but the mayor liked food more than I did and it showed. People called him handsome. I suppose he was, if you liked the chinos-and-boat-shoes look with Kennedy hair. Too L. L. Bean for my taste.

  “Solve it quick. Don’t want any shadows on our upcoming festivities,” he said.

  Ah, Idyll Days, the brainchild of a prior mayor who guessed that people would pay to visit a tiny New England town and pretend that things were quaint. It worked. Idyll Days brought four thousand tourists to eat, drink, and buy local goods.

  “The Eastern District crime squad is lending us a detective,” I said.

  “Wonderful.” He cracked his knuckles. “But if we have him, why does Finnegan need to be full-time?” Ah, so he had been paying attention.

  “A case like this needs police with more experience than writing parking tickets and shooting rabid animals.” Or chasing wife beaters.

  He tutted me and walked toward the door. “Now, now, they’re good men, up to the task. I’ll get my office working on that press conference.” He paused on the threshold. “But you’ll be careful about the money, won’t you? I’d hate to go back on my word.” He let me puzzle over that. “About your car.” Before I could respond, he said good-bye and walked away.

  When I’d arrived in January, the selectman had fussed over my exclusive-use patrol car. In New York, I’d never owned a car. Never needed one. But here? Without a car, I’d starve. I’d protested. The mayor had gone to bat for me. He’d said it wasn’t very neighborly to lure me from the city and then strand me without transport. His backing came at a price. Damn politicians.

  In the detectives’ pen, I asked if they’d seen our statie visitor. “Detective Revere?” Finnegan’s tone, all innocence, made me suspect its opposite. “He called earlier, for directions. Should be here any minute.”

  “When did he call?”

  Chins propped on fists. They thought, hard. “Twenty minutes ago?” Wright said. “Dunno. We’ve been busy.” He waved his arm over piles of paper like a game-show hostess.

  “Don’t tell me.” They’d fucked with him.

  “Maybe he stopped off on the road,” Finnegan said.

  I raised my brow.

  “For a date.”

  Wright laughed. “I hear the rest area by Exit 14 serves all kinds.”

  Finnegan nodded, face solemn. “I too have heard such rumors.”

  They didn’t have to say more. I got it.

  Gay jokes were a staple of police stations. At my old precinct, they were tossed about, fast and furious. But so too were racial epithets and ethnic slurs. Everything and everyone was fair game. And in the melting pot of New York, there was plenty of diversity. Here, diversity was Wright, our only black cop, and Yankowitz, an overweight Pole whose people had probably arrived three boats after the Mayflower. Here, gay jokes weren’t casual. They were knives flung with malicious intent.

  “You two go there a lot?” I asked, my voice cool.

  Wright pointed at Finnegan. “I think he’s earned some kind of frequent-visitor stamp. Right, Finny?” Finnegan tossed a pencil, missing Wright’s eye by inches. Close, but no cigar. Too bad. I left them to their fun.

  In my office were several folders marked Urgent. Mrs. Dunsmore’s handiwork. I knew what they contained. Requests for vacation time, work roster sheets, equipment inventory forms, résumés for patrol supervisor, budgets. Mind-numbing paperwork. Sure was a good thing I had all that detecting experience.

  A knock at the door. “Who is it?”

  “Billy, sir.”

  “Come in.”

  The heat had curled the hair about his ears. “I’ve returned from talking to Cecilia’s friends. Should I share my notes with you or give them to Detective Wright?”

  “Sum it up for me first.”

  “I spoke to Susan Hill and Deidre Lipschitz. Can you imagine a more terrible name?” He pursed his lips. “Susan was Cecilia’s college roommate. Deidre was a friend. Neither girl could think of anyone who had a grudge against her. Last year, Cecilia signed a PETA petition protesting the fur industry, but so did a hundred other students. Not a likely lead, is it?” He looked up from his notes.

  “No. Anything else?”

  “I made a list of ex-boyfriends, and I looked ’em up.”

  I hadn’t told him to do the second part. “How far back did you go?” I asked.

  “Third grade, John Ward. Only two have records. Josh Kelly had a DUI two years back. Michael Schwartz was a surprise. Arrested for public indecency.”

  “When?”

  “Six months ago. But it seemed like he just got really drunk and started flashing people.” I didn’t see how Michael Schwartz’s willy-waving was related to our murder. “I have a copy of the report.” He handed it to me.

  “Did Susan or Deidre mention a man in Cecilia’s life? A new boyfriend?”

  “No.”

  Damn. Cecilia must have kept it mum. Billy was good-looking. Ladies responded. They’d have told him, if they’d known.

  “Let Wright know what you got. Tell him I told you to check the ex-boyfriends.” Wright wouldn’t like Billy checking records. “Next time, ask before you run reports.”

  “Yes, sir.” I returned his file to him. He paused at the door. “Chief? I appreciate you letting me help. I know you don’t have to.” He gripped the doorframe, as if for support. Had I ever been that young or vulnerable? “Thanks.” He closed the door.

  Before I got through the vacation requests, there came another knock. The person who entered had military-short hair and a well-tailored suit. FBI? No. Not wary enough. “Chief Lynch,” he said. He straightened a millimeter. And then I got it. Like someone out of the 1950s, Wright had said. “I’m Detective Revere. Eastern District Crime Squad.”
>
  “Welcome to Idyll.”

  “Thank you. I hoped we might meet for a few minutes to discuss the case. Then I can meet the team, get caught up.”

  “I’ll take you to them.” His posture was impeccable, but my genes triumphed. I was taller by three inches, and stood close so he knew it. He said nothing as I walked him through the station, even when confronted by the three-foot-tall softball-league trophy, crowned with a jockstrap no one would claim and thus no one would remove.

  Finnegan sat at his desk. He tugged the world’s ugliest brown tie and grunted into the phone. “Nah. Nah. Huh? Ugh. Okay.” He hung up.

  “Finnegan, meet Detective Revere. Where’s Wright?”

  “Talking to the golf-course owner. Something about a surveillance camera.”

  Detective Revere thrust his hand out. Finnegan stood and shook it. We all looked at the board. Crime-scene pics and a recent photo of the victim were attached to it. Revere picked up a paperclip. “Has anyone ruled out accident?” he asked.

  Finnegan said, “We don’t get a lot of drive-by shootings on the golf course.”

  Revere coughed and bent the paperclip’s end. “I’m not suggesting the shooting was accidental. Just that she wasn’t the target.”

  “What leads you to suspect mistaken identity?” I asked.

  He unbent the clip, straightening the metal into a line. “Just a hypothesis. She was out in the dark. The course isn’t lit at night. I checked. It’s possible she was at the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “I’d say she was definitely at the wrong place at the wrong time.” Finnegan said.

  “Time of death?” Revere asked.

  I said, “We’re waiting on the autopsy. Most likely near midnight.”

  He said, “Where do I sit?” I pointed to a desk we used as a dumping ground for catalogs, broken equipment, and half a dozen phones whose origins no one could explain. His face looked like he’d sucked a lemon.

  “Who’s handling where she worked?” I asked.

  “I’ve got an appointment tomorrow morning,” Finnegan said.