by Jon Loomis
“You think he was killed?”
“He sure as fuck didn’t commit suicide.”
Coffin took a deep breath. He felt a curious buzzing in the back of his head; the dark room seemed to swim for a moment, then lie flat again.
“We were dealing with some pretty rough people. The Colombians all went crazy when the coke thing took off.”
“So they killed him? Colombians?”
“Maybe. Probably. Hijacked his cargo and chucked him in the drink. They did a lot worse than that sometimes. There’d been a storm, but nothing your old man couldn’t handle.”
“Jesus,” Coffin said.
“This can’t be coming as a complete surprise.”
Coffin met Rudy’s eyes. “No. I guess not.”
“Look—your dad was a good man. A little rough on you, maybe, but a good man. He never would have gotten involved, but he had no choice. The fishing was bad. He owed a lot of money.”
“More scotch?” Coffin said.
Rudy held out his glass, and Coffin went to the kitchen and refilled it.
“So you retired from smuggling and stashed the money. Why wait so long to come get it?”
“The DEA was on me like a cheap suit for a while. I mean to tell you, they are persistent sons of bitches. And I figured it was safe enough buried out in the Beech Forest.”
“Why come get it now, then?”
“Jesus Christ,” Rudy said. “I wasn’t expecting the fucking Spanish Inquisition.”
Coffin looked at him in the dark.
“Okay—okay. Jesus,” Rudy said. “I was broke. I needed the cash, all right?”
“I can’t take the money, Rudy.”
“Well, you’re a damn fool. It’s yours—your inheritance, you could say. A reward for playing it straight all these years. It’s yours and it’s free and no one will ever know unless you’re stupid enough to tell them.”
“I can’t live the rest of my life with a sack full of illegal cash under my bed. I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night.”
“I admire your scruples,” Rudy said. “Where you got them from, I don’t know—must have been your mother’s side.”
“Must have been,” Coffin said.
Rudy pondered for a moment. “Look, you don’t have to decide right now. It’s yours. It was your old man’s and he’s gone so it’s yours. I’ll keep it for you. I’ll put it in a safe deposit box and send you the key—that way I won’t spend it all. It’ll be there if you change your mind.”
“I wouldn’t know what to do with it, Rudy. I mean, sure I could use it—who couldn’t? But I don’t think I could bring myself to actually spend any of it. Considering.”
Rudy squirmed a little in the red chair. He looked at Coffin, looked away. “What if I told you it was more like five hundred grand.”
“What?”
“Your cut. It’s more like half a million. Five hundred and thirty thousand, give or take. I lied, okay? Jesus.”
“Half a million,” Coffin said. His mouth felt dry. “Holy shit.”
“Maybe now your old man will leave me alone.”
“What do you mean, leave you alone?”
“I keep dreaming about him,” Rudy said, standing up, clutching the briefcase. “His hair’s all full of seaweed and shells, and man, is he pissed. It’s awful.”
“Good seeing you, Rudy,” Coffin said.
“Keep it real, Frankie,” Rudy said. He turned and walked out onto the porch. The screen door opened and closed softly. Coffin watched Rudy climb into the blue pickup and drive away, taillights dwindling then disappearing as he turned the corner onto Alden Street.
Chapter 9
Right on time,” Coffin said, opening the screen door. It was eight thirty on the dot. The morning was cool and clear.
“But of course.” Lola smiled. She wore a gray skirt, knee length, with black heels and a white sleeveless top made of silk.
Coffin had never seen her in a skirt before. The heels made her calves bunch a little. He tried not to stare at them.
“There’s coffee. Mop water, just the way you like it.”
“Ick,” Lola said, wrinkling her nose. “Just water’s fine.” She opened cupboards until she found a glass and filled it from the Brita pitcher on the counter. She leaned a hip against the door frame.
“How’s Mrs. Merkin?” Coffin said.
“She sounded pretty frantic on the phone. The state police consider her a suspect, the press is camped out on her front lawn, and the lawsuits have already started to roll in. Tough times back on the farm.”
“She’s not exactly your favorite vegetable, I gather.”
“I’m sorry she lost her husband,” Lola said. “Nobody deserves that. But I don’t feel bad about the rest of it—the lawsuits and reporters. They had it coming.”
“The Merkins cast a lot of first stones,” Coffin said.
Lola shook her head. “It’s not even the hypocrisy. They were just so—” She searched for the right word. “So hateful. Hateful bigots who got rich playing on people’s fears. Some way to make a living.”
“Mean, dumb, and energetic is a dangerous combination.”
Lola sat down, opened her briefcase, took out three loose sheets of paper, and slid them across the table to Coffin. “I asked her to write out a log of their activities while they were here and e-mail it over to me. Everything they did, everyone they talked to. She said the state police asked for pretty much the same thing, except they weren’t so nice about it.”
Coffin picked up the papers. “Arrived Wednesday night around six thirty, went straight to their rental condo on the east end. Let’s have a look at that today.”
Lola nodded and made a note. “They rented a deluxe two-bedroom on the top floor of the Ice House. Booked it through a Realtor here in town.”
“We’ll give them a call.” Coffin looked down at the paper. “Dinner out at the Fish Palace. She had the grilled sea bass with mango salsa; he had a steamed lobster and two dozen oysters on the half-shell.”
“More like four dozen, according to Edward.”
“Afterward, she goes back to the condo, and he stays out by himself for several hours.” Coffin turned the page. “Next day, breakfast in, walk on the beach, home to read and watch TV. Lunch at Bixby’s. Home for a nap. Out for dinner at the Cellars.”
“She had poached salmon with dill sauce and asparagus,” Lola said. “He had oyster stew and grilled swordfish.”
“The man liked oysters. After dinner, she goes home, he stays out.” He looked at the last page. “Day three, same routine.”
“Except when he stays out, he really stays out.”
“No mention of any conversations with anybody, except maître d’s, shop clerks, and a few business calls back home.”
“Nope. Nothing to be triumphant about.”
“And she has no idea who he saw or what he did when he was out at night?”
“She said he told her he walked around. He liked being seen in his outfits and not being recognized. That’s part of the deal with some cross-dressers, apparently.”
“Think she’s telling the truth?”
Lola thought for a few seconds. “You mean is she lying about what they did together? Or what he did when he was out on the town?”
“Both. Either.”
“Maybe. I kind of get this feeling when I know people are hiding something—it’s like a dog when somebody blows one of those whistles. Your ears kind of perk up, know what I mean?”
Coffin nodded. “What is she hiding, though? That’s the question.”
“She’s either protecting him or protecting herself,” Lola said.
“It’s a little late for him.”
Lola finished her water and refilled her glass. “True,” she said.
“Hang on,” Coffin said, padding into his study. “I’ve been working, too.” He came back with a green folder.
“You got the autopsy report?” Lola said. “That was quick.”
“Ask and you shall receive,
” Coffin said. He opened the folder and spread the report and photos on the table.
“The woman at the ME’s office—what’s her name? She must like you.”
“Shelley Block. We go back a few years. We went out for a while, but every time I thought about what she did all day, I got the heebiejeebies. Still friends, though.”
“Yack,” Lola said, sorting through the photos. “I see what you mean.”
“Here’s the summary,” Coffin said, scanning the report. “Time of death uncertain; but probably between late the night of the eleventh and early the morning of the twelfth, given the degree of rigor and the extent to which insects and crabs and whatnot had been working on the body when it was found. Definite strangulation; deep ligature wounds, burst capillaries, blah blah blah. Marks on the legs and left foot indicate dragging, probably postmortem. Lots of sand on the body—big surprise. Alcohol zero, but the blood work shows significant amounts of ketamine.”
“Special K,” Lola said. “That’s weird.”
“There’s nothing about this guy that isn’t weird,” Coffin said.
Lola drummed her fingers on the table. “Special K used to be a big club drug.”
“In Baltimore the frat boys used it as a date rape drug—wipes out your inhibitions and short-term memory.”
“Explains how a guy that big could go out for a walk and end up getting himself strangled,” Lola said.
Coffin nodded, unbending a paper clip. “Someone spiked his Diet Coke.”
“Any sexual assault?”
Coffin scanned the report, flipped through the pages, flipped back. “No. Want to know what he had for dinner?”
“More than anything.”
“Lobster—confirms the wife’s account of the meals, anyway—baked potato, salad with blue cheese, chocolate cake. Reverend Ron wasn’t exactly counting calories, and here we go again—raw oysters. ‘Approximately a dozen.’ ”
“Did the wife say anything about him eating oysters Saturday night in her highly detailed gastronomic log?”
“Nope. And your friend at the ME’s office says they were higher up in the gut than the lobster. Meaning he ate them last.”
“Not bad, as last meals go. How many places in town serve oysters on the half-shell, do you think?” Coffin said.
“There’s the Fish Palace,” Lola said, counting on her fingers, “Al Dante’s, and the Harbor Café out in Wellfleet. You wouldn’t go to Wellfleet dressed like Aunt Edna, though, right?”
“Don’t forget Billy’s,” Coffin said.
Lola stretched out her legs, pointed her toes, then crossed her ankles. “Only an idiot would walk into Billy’s in a wig and a muumuu,” she said.
Coffin shrugged. “Merkin was no Stephen Hawking,” he said. “Let’s call the missus back and find out if he had his dozen raw with her or after she went home to watch Law and Order.”
“Special K,” Lola said. “Does that mean we’re back to thinking of this as a hookup that got ugly?”
Coffin fingered his mustache. It had begun to turn gray; the new silver hairs were coarse and prickly. “Secret lives,” Coffin said. “You never know what you’ll turn up when you’re dealing with secret lives.”
The Ice House, as its name implied, had originally been built to manufacture ice for the fishing industry. It had been converted to condos in the early eighties, just as the AIDS pandemic was gathering steam. At five stories, the Ice House was the tallest building in Provincetown, except for the Pilgrim Monument.
The Merkins’ rented condo occupied the entire top floor. The furniture was a mix of chrome-and-white-leather minimalist and art deco antique. A long balcony stretched across the harbor side, with an excellent view of town beach, the harbor with its scatter of small boats, North Truro, the long, hazed curve of the Cape, and even the ochre strip of smog over Boston.
“Yikes,” Lola said from the master bedroom. “Check this out.” A polar bear skin—complete with grimacing head—lay sprawled on the floor in front of the gas fireplace. Several paintings of sunsets over sand dunes hung on the walls, and a cabinet opened to reveal a large plasma TV. The bed was enormous. The entire ceiling was mirrored.
“Liberace has entered the building,” Coffin said.
“This is one of our premier properties,” said the young man from the real estate office. His name was Wendell. “We have quite a distinguished list of renters for this unit.”
“Like who?” Coffin said from the bathroom. It had a full-sized marble hot tub and, curiously, a bidet. All of the fixtures were gold plated. “Siegfried and Roy?”
Wendell lowered his voice to a stage whisper. “Miss Barbra Streisand, for one,” he said.
“How much does it rent for?” Lola asked.
“In high season?” Wendell said. “Ten thousand a week. More for Carnival.”
Coffin opened a closet door. A light came on inside. The closet was almost as big as his kitchen and lined entirely in cedar. “That’s a lot, isn’t it?” he said. “Even for Provincetown.”
“This is a very special property,” said Wendell, checking his tie in the big, gilt-framed mirror over the fireplace. It was a pink tie, worn with a shirt made of some shimmering blue-green material. “You can’t get this combination of amenities and view anyplace else in town.”
“Can’t argue with that,” Coffin said. He picked up an art deco statuette—a nude girl, standing with one knee raised, holding a bronze tray aloft. Wendell flinched a little, so Coffin put the statuette down.
“How did the Merkins pay?” he asked.
Wendell consulted his BlackBerry. “Bank transfer,” he said. “From Tulsa, Oklahoma, under the name Johnson. Same as before.”
“Before?” Lola said.
“Yes—they rented this unit last summer, too. As a Mr. and Mrs. Hank Johnson. They liked it so much they tried to buy it, but it’s not for sale.”
Coffin said nothing. He opened the French door onto the balcony and looked out. It was low tide and the harbor looked drained, exposed sand flats undulating off to North Truro. Here and there a small boat was beached at the end of its anchor line, waiting silently for the bay to percolate back in. “Did they look at any other properties while they were here?”
Wendell leaned toward him conspiratorially. “They looked at several investment properties last year,” he said, “but they didn’t buy anything. Not from me, at least.”
Lola frowned. “But they might have bought from someone else?”
“It’s possible, I suppose,” Wendell said. He shrugged. “They were interested in new development—but there’s not much of that going on. Just those new condos out on the west end, and they’re not even officially on the market yet.”
“The Moors?” Coffin said.
Wendell nodded. “They’re going to be very, very exclusive,” he said. “Super high-end.”
“Who’s the developer?” Coffin asked.
“It’s all totally hush-hush,” Wendell said. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “I don’t know who’s running it—but word is they’re mega high rollers. Real Estate Investment Consultants, or something like that.”
Lola ran her fingers over the satin duvet cover. “Did it bother you when you found out you’d been renting to Reverend Ron?” she said.
Wendell tilted his head “Money’s money,” he said. “Baby needs a new pair of shoes.”
They ate a quick lunch at Mondo’s, an old Provincetown landmark at the foot of MacMillan Wharf. They both ordered baskets of fish and chips and iced tea, which they devoured at a picnic table in the sun, looking out at the water. The cod was perfect, lightly battered, not too much grease. The French fries were hopeless, a limp afterthought. Coffin threw a fry to a one-legged gull standing expectantly a few feet from their table. The gull gobbled it whole, then flew off, screaming.
“Why would the Merkins, of all people, be looking at investment property in Provincetown?” Coffin said, chewing meditatively.
“Where would Jesus buy?” Lola sa
id, licking a bit of tartar sauce from her fingertip. Her black sunglasses glinted in the sunlight reflecting off the harbor. “I guess a good investment is a good investment, even if it’s in Babylon.”
“I guess,” Coffin said. “I wonder if that’s what they were celebrating at the Fish Palace—a purchase.”
Lola wiped her hands on a napkin. “Could be,” she said. “But if that’s true, why would Mrs. Merkin want to conceal it?”
“Good question,” Coffin said. “Maybe she doesn’t want to jeopardize the deal. Bad publicity, and all that.”
Lola shook her head and took a bite of fish. “No sense throwing good money after a dead husband, I guess,” she said.
Coffin leaned an elbow on the picnic table, sipped his iced tea. “Sort of makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, doesn’t it?”
It was a warm evening, rich with the scent of lavender and low tide. The harbor glittered; small boats lay stranded on the flats. Jamie climbed the stairs to her apartment, carrying two plastic bags of groceries from the A&P. She fumbled in her purse for her keys, setting one of the grocery bags down on the wooden balcony. Someone had left an envelope on the mat. She unlocked the door, put the bags of groceries in the kitchen, came back, and retrieved the envelope. It was plain and white, with only her name written on the outside. The flap was loose. She looked inside and slid a piece of folded notepaper from the envelope. When she unfolded it, something shiny fell out and landed on the deck. She knelt down. Razor blades. Three of them—the old-fashioned kind, rectangular with two sharp edges. The first thing she thought was I didn’t know you could still buy them. She looked at the note, written in black Magic Marker. She felt breathless, suddenly. TWAYI SNIHYAAMI, it said in thick capital letters.
Coffin parked the shuddering Dodge in front of Kotowski’s house. The moon was rising nacreous and fat above the harbor; a bright path of reflected moonlight wrinkled from the beach to the bay’s black horizon. Coffin could hear the tide sucking through the stone breakwater as it straggled off to Long Point, a jagged barrier separating the tidal salt marsh from the harbor. It sounded like bathwater running down a huge drain.