EQMM, March-April 2009

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "So the Sisters got a chair from the dump?"

  "For sure,” Sheriff said. He had seen the dump guy, who said he was missing a discarded recliner that he sometimes used for napping.

  Sheriff, as I expected, wasn't going to be active on the Bleeding Chair mystery. Tom had already been reported as missing. The Sisters would know enough to sink his boat, quietly, at night. It's a big ocean out there.

  Coming home, I vaguely reported non-ascertainable assumptions to my live-in reporter. Elizabeth was working her computer. I glanced at the screen and she was scrutinizing Doc Shanigan's Web site. Her pencil pointed at a paragraph that mentioned abortions.

  "Pregnant?” I asked casually.

  "Not today,” she said casually. She kissed me. “I thought you had yourself fixed."

  I had, long ago, after returning from Vietnam, not wanting to cause more babies to become maimed soldiers in the next war.

  "Dr. Fastbuck Freddie Shanigan, MD,” Elizabeth said, sitting on the bed after dinner, her long bare legs twisted in the lotus position. “Your beloved doc. He makes good money, does he? His Web site looks appetizing. He performs abortions?"

  I thought he did. Summertime sex carelessly enjoyed by the rich folks will lead to creative mishaps. Then the piper is called in and has to be paid.

  "You sure?"

  Me? I'm never sure of nothing.

  Elizabeth kept asking and I kept answering somehow, avoiding specifics. Sure. Doctors can be big earners, big spenders. Shanigan made nothing on us, his mates, and little money on the other locals, but he reputedly made, or used to make, a fortune on the summer crowd in their vacation mansions on the ridge overlooking Bunkport Bay. The rich can afford to believe in, and pay for, hoohaha medicine. Doc learned how to do acupuncture, magic massages, studied homeopathic medications, used his “healing hands” and his “hypnotic” sea-blue eyes to heal hypochondria and psychosomatic symptoms. He also performed shamanism and sold instructions he lifted from the Internet and printed up nicely. Self-published gems, copied by the great Shaman himself. He also became a Rinko master. Rinko? I think that's the term. I don't know what Rinko masters do. Probably another variant on bring me your sick and give me your money. That's all cash on the barrel-head trade, insurance doesn't pay for any hullabaloo and way-out scary whatdoyoucallit.

  Elizabeth was smiling. “I take it you don't believe in alternative medicine."

  I said I wasn't quite ready yet. Maybe I was waiting for the light.

  "Is Doc in the cosmetic-surgery business, too?” Elizabeth asked. “Tucks and nips?"

  Oh, sure.

  "Working on the summer residents? But didn't you say used to?"

  Well ... I did hear, from the help working for the folks on the hill, and visiting the Dolphin on their evening off, that Doc wasn't so popular on the Ridge no more. He had been successfully sued for malpractice. Other doctors proved he installed wrong-size bosoms. Some of his treatments caused bad allergies with potentially lethal sideeffects.

  The rich folks’ help is local. They have good ears and eyes. They like to gossip about their masters. Doc was out on his ear, the help told us, and there was another healer working the Ridge now: big man with a perfumed beard, a booming New Orleans jazz voice, a Vishnu and Kali MD, graduated out of a Greenland-based correspondence university. The celebrity Ridge dwellers started writing him fat checks, then the ordinary millionaires followed.

  "So Shanigan isn't doing so well now?"

  Coming to think of Doc's show of increasing wealth, I told her, it seemed he was doing even better. Who knows what his inventive genius was whispering in his ear? Was he playing the market? The new airplane (a super-fast Mooney, replacing the still-good Cessna), the new cabin cruiser (same thing there, the high-class boat he traded was only three years old), the refurbishing of his island buildings and gardens, wouldn't that add up to a million here and there? As the Wall Street Journal says, if you go that way you're soon talking real money.

  Which he may have been borrowing. The banks were easy those days. And then maybe he paid them off, Elizabeth suggested.

  "The man interests me,” Elizabeth insisted. “I could write an article if I can get some facts documented. Make some good money. Living at your expense is pleasant but I would like to help out."

  I shrugged. She had been leaving big cash on the table that I put back in her purse when she wasn't looking.

  She unfolded her shapely legs, walked about the room naked. She wasn't shy about the lack of a breast anymore. She was talking again, tapping her notebook with a pencil. “I was listening to an intellectual carpenter,” (we have some living here, fugitives from the cities) “who said he did repairs on the Shanigan property, and who called him ‘Shenanigan.'” Elizabeth looked at me, but I don't care about her private goings-on. Some interesting carpenter? Me jealous? Ha ha.

  She continued. “My very old impotent carpenter informer says Shanigan gave him the creeps, but raved about the exotic art your drinking buddy is collecting.” She specified, saying that this happily married carpenter listed some of Shanigan's valuables: fine Persian rugs, antique Papua New Guinea spirit shields and masks, a sketch of an elephant by Rembrandt.

  I was dozing and thinking, vaguely felt her hands unclipping my fake leg and putting it gently into its night holder.

  I think Elizabeth had expectations, but my thinking kept me distracted. What old carpenter? I didn't know no old carpenter. I do know some young ones. Single guys.

  The next day brought disturbing news.

  It turned out that Sheriff's and my and the Sisters’ theory was hogwash.

  Tom Tipper's body was found by Sheriff. Tom's leaky boat, the Mary-Ann, had gotten herself stuck on a ledge behind Evergreen Island. Tom's headless corpse was found sitting on his bunk in the cabin. A thick red V showed on the cabin's wall behind him, his hands were holding his shotgun, aimed at where his face had been, his big toe was still stuck in the weapon's trigger hold. Empty bottles, cigar stubs, a plate with a rotten slice of pizza, drug paraphernalia, a girlie centerfold pinned to the cabin door, contradicted a shelf filled with books on Taoism, Buddhist beat poetry, a leather-bound copy of Christ's Sermon on the Mount, and high-quality sound equipment complete with its CD collection. Monk, Eliane Elias, Miles, Mehldau, Bobo Stenson.

  A note pinned to Tom's sweatshirt said Thank you for putting up with me.

  Sheriff, to show activity, called in Higher Power, that drove in from Bangor, dressed in woolies and furs and a rabbit-skin hat with flaps, boated out with Sheriff and Deputy Dog, looked, threw up, and was ready to leave.

  "Suicide, right?” Sheriff asked the detective sergeant when he helped her ashore. He was holding up the thank-you note. “That's Tom's handwriting, all right. You want to have it verified? I got his diary, surely you have an expert up there in Portland?"

  She had messed up her fur coat.

  "Suicide?” Sheriff asked again.

  "Just barely,” she said, leaning on Dog's arm while she staggered to her gleaming police cruiser, driven by a female uniform. Looked like she wouldn't be back.

  "Better have Tom's leftovers picked up by the discount cremation service,” Deputy Dog said.

  "And the bleeding chair?” Elizabeth asked me over dinner that day. “Who really got shot up on the chair, you think?” She tried to stare the truth out of me. “Not Tom, am I right?"

  Right, not Tom.

  So who else was missing in the fair town and district of Bunkport?

  Sheriff told me he had made the rounds and visited any fisherman active at this time of the year. They were all present. Their stern men, too. He also checked the Rich Ridge, the trailer camp, the nearby islands. The Sisters came over to tell us they were sorry for our loss. We played music during the wake, King Carlos replacing Tom on keyboards. He played, and sang, a Mexican version of"You Can't Step into the Same River Twice."

  Tom would have liked that.

  That night Elizabeth woke me to suggest that maybe there was no
fish-person involved.

  So who?

  Priscilla said she had missed Dr. Shanigan lately. Had he maybe gone to the Bahamas again? According to Nurse, Elizabeth said—she and Nurse had become friendly—Freddie sometimes flew to the Caribbean in the super-fast Mooney, prostitute-resorts hopping, having a great time.

  The next morning I visited Shanigan's clinic. Nurse said she hadn't seen her employer for over two weeks. He had left without notice and she hadn't heard from him since. She expected him any day. She told me not to get the virus pneumonia that was knocking old folks down all over the place. “You take care now."

  I had heard that before.

  There was no one else missing except Dr. Shanigan.

  Elizabeth said she would talk to Nurse. Woman to woman. As a reporter she sometimes wore a wire. She showed me the gadget. It looked professional, very small. She must have been recording me too. Good thing I am an ignorant know-nothing.

  "I worked in mental health before,” I heard Nurse say when Elizabeth played the tape for me. “Freddie Shanigan has a borderline personality disorder,” Nurse was saying, “There is some sadism in there, too. And lots of greed. Maybe we should tar and feather him, put him on a pole, and carry him out of town. We would all feel better.” Nurse gave us no specifics, but we knew a few already. The dead woman and her dead baby. An out-of-cash outsider lobsterman's broken arm that Priscilla, a former army medic, had to splint, because Nurse had strict instructions to ignore the uninsured and Doc was away again. Other seriously ill or damaged poor folks who were referred to nowhere. Coming to think of what Doc was like, it was a wonder we hadn't taken some action. Ah, right. It was because he treated us, his Thirsty Dolphin buddies, for free.

  Some time passed. Elizabeth flew away to visit her sick aunt in Washington but she left some of her gear. Accidentally going through her duffel bag, I located a handgun and marveled at modern technology. This wasn't army issue from the Vietnam era, we never had those computerized electronic gadgets. Another weapon, a lightweight Smith & Wesson mini revolver, looked more familiar. What with the holsters, body armor, the ample supply of ammo, the binoculars, even the special-model flashlight, I might assume that she had only taken her badge with her.

  I missed my secret agent. Tillie slept in my arm again, not in the sheepskin-lined basket Elizabeth bought her.

  Acute and severe depression struck, and was medicated away, somewhat, by my military shrink, who suggested I should advertise again. I didn't, because I didn't think the script had played itself out yet. For once I was right. A week later Elizabeth called, asking to be picked up at Bangor Airport the next morning. “I need your help.” She used her Marlene Dietrich voice.

  She sat close to me in the truck, leaning her head on my shoulder. It was like college days all over, except that I never went to college. Kissing foreplay, but there was no time to finish what we were starting.

  "We'll need a pickaxe,” she said after sitting up straight. “And I hope the You Too is in good shape."

  Boating? Was she crazy? In a ten-to-fifteen-knot wind with occasional gusts up to thirty? It was an exceptionally cold day, too, although by then it was, calendar-wise, spring. The winter birds weren't considering leaving yet and most of the summer birds were still enjoying southern heat.

  We stopped at the cabin to pick up digging tools. The You Too was pushed by wind and current so it didn't take too long to reach Doc Shanigan's private harbor. Elizabeth jumped on the dock. I stumbled along bravely, being backup. Tillie rushed ahead.

  Doc's seaplane was out of the water and safely secured in its hangar but the cabin cruiser had got herself stuck under the floating dock and, with only her sleek nose sticking up, looked like a total loss to me. The koi fish were in their pond, moving sluggishly through slowly melting water. The house was dusty, with plenty of cobwebs and an odor breathing out of the refrigerator. Propane fed from a huge tank, powering radiators, had kept the plumbing from freezing, but the tank was running on empty.

  No Dr. Fastbuck Freddie Shanigan, MD, anywhere.

  Amazing. The plane was there, the boat was there. Had he kayaked ashore? No, the kayak was present too, hooked up to the side of a Japanese-style garden shed.

  "My guess is Doc got picked up here, and after some doings, found himself dying on that shot-up recliner,” Elizabeth said, after coming back from a search that took awhile, with me patiently sitting on a rock, Uncle's rifle across my knees, watching Tillie sniffing around the Zen garden and whining. A pole wall shielded me from the wind, the sun was warm. Elizabeth nudged me awake. “I'm going to dig up that exotic bit of landscaping that's upsetting your hound. I'll swing the pickaxe. Maybe you can scrape away some dirt. Your leg is okay?"

  Sure my leg was okay, it was made of A-1 aluminum and plastics. My regular leg was okay, too, although I had some arthritis under the kneecap. Not yet advanced enough to bother.

  The snow had melted off just a few days before, but the ground was still frozen and we had to hack our way through a few inches of neatly raked pebbles. When, after several hours of guessing and digging we found a little girl's naked frozen body, we staggered back. “Bingo,” Elizabeth said weakly.

  We took a break, then started afresh and found a second corpse, of a little boy this time.

  Elizabeth used her cell phone to call “Division.” On the way back to Bunkport she showed me her FBI badge. “You knew, didn't you?"

  As I, modest fellow that I am, had begun to suspect, it wasn't the romance oozing from my ad that brought beautiful Elizabeth to Bunkport.

  Betrayed once again.

  It wasn't so bad this time. At least she didn't steal my watch. She brushed my beard with her lips, told me she had been lucky, that she liked me, had enjoyed her stay at the cabin, looked forward to more staying at the cabin, that she hadn't really joined me on false pretenses, the photos on the Web site turned her on, and that my actual presence, the sincerity and wisdom of which showed in the wording of the ad, and later in reality, turned her on even more.

  Well, that was nice. Wasn't it?

  The next day the entire Bunkport motel was booked by an FBI cloak-and-dagger squad, consisting of nice enough middle-aged men in suits and ties and a motherly woman wearing sensible clothes and no makeup. Like everybody, Elizabeth had a badge pinned to her jacket but she didn't show her gun. The motherly type didn't either. The nice enough middle-aged men did: big super-shooters stuck in shoulder holsters under unbuttoned jackets.

  A photographer/filmer and a pathologist arrived by helicopter bringing cyber-age tools and body bags for the kids. The squad started early, finished late, and were done. There were gory details. Shanigan had amused himself with the kids. A sadistic pedophile, and I had been drinking with the guy! “Hi Freddie, cold enough for you today? Bourbon on the rocks? There you go. Our health, Doc."

  Good actor, Dr. Shanigan.

  Dumb audience, me.

  That night Elizabeth was still at my place, explaining—while we sipped Cuban rum-laced coffee—the situation.

  She told me Shanigan might, however unlikely, be on the loose somewhere and would be on a top-priority list of suspects. His corpse had not been found.

  "The time has come,” the Walrus said,

  "To talk of many things...

  Many things indeed. More than shoesand ships and sealing wax, although, as it turned out, these items were part of the present situation.

  It took awhile, Elizabeth said, before the FBI squad that got assembled to take on a case of two kidnapped children, both of wealthy parents, both living in exclusive homes just outside Boston—it took awhile for the squad to get started.

  Lazy? Slow? Red tape?

  None of the above.

  All traces were cold, because the parents delayed their 911 calls for three days. Why? Because it took three days before the parents, knowing that they had bought a doll each, for their two-million-dollar payout each, were scared to show their faces to the authorities.

  "Dolls? What dolls?
” I asked.

  She waved to shut me up. The dolls came later.

  It took awhile, Elizabeth told me, to get some relevant info out of the fathers of the kids. They turned out to be con men, specializing in fleecing the rich, preferably doctors, dentists, and other top-income medical types who didn't know about small, exclusive hedge and mutual funds. The con men kept their schemes going for two years, then suddenly folded their corporations and kept the money stolen from their clients, in cash, at home.

  Shanigan was an investor in funds set up by the fathers of the kids.

  He lost serious money.

  Rather than go to the authorities, and facing the delays such actions produce, he became the winged avenger, or kidnapper, rather.

  The con men, when they were contacted by cell phone (a throw-away item that couldn't be traced), suspected that they were being blackmailed by one of their former investors but had no idea who. Having destroyed their records in a fire, they had no list of names for the FBI to check.

  Shanigan put the kids on the phone, too. Both were begging their fathers to please save them. The little girl shouted something about a boat, and said, “You too,” and the letters M and E, before being shut up by what sounded like a slap in the face.

  Shanigan, talking to the fathers—at an interval of some ten minutes between the two calls—gave them the coordinates of a parking lot belonging to an out-of-business shopping mall. The fathers were told to appear, at eight the next morning, with the money, at the mall's southwest corner. Shanigan would be there with the kids handcuffed to a metal fence, at the mall's northeast corner. The fathers were to put down the money, one suitcase each. Shanigan would walk toward them, holding the key for the handcuffs. He advised the fathers not to come armed, for his associate would be watching the scene, and shoot them, and the kids, with a sniper's rifle, if anything at all looked the slightest bit suspicious.

  "Yes?” Shanigan had asked. “Would you mind repeating my instructions?"

  Shanigan had used his own car, a golden Toyota with stolen North Carolina plates, to kidnap the kids, both at locations between the school bus stop and their homes’ driveways. Shanigan caught both on the same day. Using the old-fashioned method of pressing a cloth soaked in chloroform in their faces, he made them unconscious, then drove them to a deserted airstrip some thirty miles out of Boston where the fast Mooney airplane was waiting. He hid the car and flew the kids to Shanigan Island, Maine, a short distance, especially in time. On the island he woke them, had his way with them, made the phone calls to their fathers, recorded their voices saying, “Hi Daddy, Hi Daddy!” and killed them. He had manufactured two life-sized figures out of bamboo and glue and dressed the dolls in the children's clothes.