High Season

by Jon Loomis

  “I wonder what Duarte was doing for money,” Lola said. “Big house, drug habit—he must’ve needed a lot of cash.”

  “Shouldn’t be too hard to find out. We can check his bank records. Wouldn’t hurt to talk to his dad, either.”

  “Who’s his dad?”

  “Sonny Duarte—son of Rocky. He lives in my neighborhood. I think you should go talk to him.”

  “Me? He knows you.”

  “That’s the problem. He and my father hated each other.” Coffin paused. “But he’ll like you just fine.”

  Lola raised a finger. “Almost forgot,” she said. “Cal from Al Dante’s called. They found the receipt, they’re pretty sure.”

  “And the name?”

  “Serena Hench.”

  Coffin scribbled the name on a legal pad and underlined it twice. “That’s interesting,” he said. “She’s the woman who was trying to buy Kotowski’s house.”

  Lola stood. “And she was with Merkin shortly before he died. When do we go see her?”

  Coffin shook his head. “You drop in on Mr. Duarte. I’ll call Fishermen’s Bank. Then I’ll have a talk with Ms. Hench.”

  It was just after 10:00 A.M. and already hot. Three enormous sunflowers leaned beside Sonny Duarte’s house like bright prehistoric showerheads. A scruffy militia of starlings picked their way across the lawn. Lola was sweating in her slacks and silk blouse. She knocked on the screen door a second time. Inside, a television blared and a dog started a deep, phlegmy barking. A man’s voice said, “Go away, dammit.”

  “Mr. Duarte?” Lola called. The screen door opened directly into the kitchen. The linoleum was worn, a green and yellow checkerboard. The walls were painted robin’s egg blue. There was a stained Formica table and chrome and vinyl dinette chairs. The barking stopped. A bulldog waddled up to the screen door, toenails clicking on the linoleum, and stood looking up at her, breathing in labored snorts through its mashed-in snout.

  “Go away!” the man’s voice said. “Goddamn Jehovah’s Witnesses—I told you I don’t want no Jesus bullshit.”

  “Mr. Duarte? I’m Officer Winters of the Provincetown Police Department. Can I talk to you for a second?” Lola could hear sweaty bare feet approaching on the linoleum floor—squish squish squish.

  The voice said, “Police? I’ll be goddamned. Who called the police?” Then a small, wiry man appeared in boxer shorts and a stained white T-shirt. “You ain’t no police,” the little man said, looking Lola up and down. “But you don’t look like no goddamn Jehovah’s Witnesses, either.”

  “Police, honest injun,” Lola held up her shield. “What do Jehovah’s Witnesses look like?”

  Duarte grinned. He was missing one of his front teeth. “They was just here, this morning. Big fat people. I thought you was them, but you ain’t.”

  “Can I ask you a few questions about your son?”

  “You can ask me anything, hot stuff,” Duarte said. He opened the screen door. “Take a load off while I put some goddamn pants on.” He padded off into the dim recesses of his little house.

  The bulldog sniffed Lola’s calf, then sat down on its haunches. Its left eye was clouded and white. The refrigerator hummed loudly. It was ancient and rusted in spots. Dishes were piled in a sinkful of greasy water. A dirty saucepan sat on the stove. In the next room, the TV was tuned to The Price Is Right.

  Sonny Duarte emerged from the bedroom, zipping a worn pair of chinos. “Jason was a good boy. He worked hard. He got some problems, but who ain’t got problems?” Duarte opened the fridge and took out a beer. “You want a beer? I got Busch Light.”

  “No, thanks, Mr. Duarte. You said Jason worked hard. What was he working on when he died?”

  “What-you-call-it. Goddamn big condos down on the west end. Building foreman. Real big shot, but does he give me any work? No, he don’t.” Duarte’s face crumpled then, and fat tears rolled down his cheeks.

  “Mr. Duarte—are you okay? Do you want me to come back later?”

  “No, it’s all right.” He wiped the tears away with the back of his wrist, then took a long swallow of beer. “Go on. Ask your goddamn questions.”

  “You said Jason had problems. What kind of problems?”

  “Okay,” Duarte said, leaning close to Lola. “What can it hurt if I tell you?” He lowered his voice. “He likes the needle. Too much. So he got problems.”

  Lola tilted her head. “The needle?”

  “He shoots that smack shit. Heroin. First a little bit, no big deal. Then more, more, more. He’s working hard; he can afford it, he says. Goddamn it, I say,” Duarte shook his skinny, gnarled fist. “But he don’t listen.”

  “Who was financing the Moors project, Mr. Duarte—do you know?”

  “Some company. Something-or-other Real Estate—I don’t know.”

  Lola flipped through her notebook. “Real Estate Investment Consortium?”

  Duarte took a long gulp of beer. “Yeah, maybe. Something-or-other.”

  “Who was his boss there?”

  “Beats me. Look, we don’t talk much, me and Jason. He got his big house in the Heights and he got his smack and his girls and I got this ugly dog and Bob Barker and Busch Light and a bad back. Different lives. We don’t talk so much.”

  “Did Jason go out with a lot of girls? Or was there one in particular?”

  “Ho!” Duarte waved a bony arm. “That goddamn kid, he always got lots of girls. Like you wouldn’t believe. Blond, brunette, whatever you got. Last time I seen him, he got some skinny artsy chick. Nice little ass on her.” Duarte grinned and held out his hands, squeezing invisible buttocks.

  “Mr. Duarte,” Lola said, leaning forward in her seat. A fly landed on the table in front of her, rubbed its forelegs together, took off. The bulldog snapped at it as it flew by. “Can you think of anyone who would want to kill Jason?”

  Duarte scratched his ear with a ragged fingernail. “Well, maybe he owed somebody some money. Maybe some drug dealer or something. I don’t know.”

  “Do you know for a fact that Jason owed money?”

  “No, but he was broke all the time—always got the bank after him. He asked me for money. Me—and I’m livin’ on disability.”

  Lola looked at the bulldog, which gazed back at her with popeyed, frowning adoration. “What’s your dog’s name? He’s kind of cute.”

  “His name? Sonny Duarte, just like me.”

  “You named your dog after yourself?”

  “Sure. Why not? I’m a hell of a guy.”

  Chapter 15

  Coffin hung up the phone and looked at his notes. According to Jeff Skillings’s boyfriend, who ran the loan department at Fishermen’s Bank, Jason Duarte had bounced checks all over town between December and the end of March. Starting in early April, he’d begun depositing checks from Real Estate Investment Consortium totaling almost fifty thousand dollars.

  Coffin thumbed through the phone book, picked up the phone again and dialed.

  “Serena Hench Investments,” a female voice said.

  “This is Detective Coffin, Provincetown Police Department,” Coffin said. “I need to speak to Ms. Hench.”

  “I’m sorry, she’s in a conference right now. May I take a message?”

  “No. It’s very important. Perhaps I’ll come by and see her in person. Do you think she’d mind if I brought a few officers along, with lots of sirens and flashing lights?”

  “Please hold for one second, Detective. Ms. Hench is just coming out of the conference room.”

  Hold music played briefly, muted guitar and flute, noodling through “Greensleeves.”

  “Detective?” A different woman’s voice. “This is Serena. How do you feel about drinking on duty?”

  “Ms. Hench—”

  “Meet me at Pepito’s for cocktails. Four thirty. I’ll be on the upper deck. Don’t be late.” She hung up.

  Coffin left his office, trotted upstairs, and poked his head into the property tax assessor’s office.

  “Hey, Marv
,” he said.

  Marvin Jones was a tall, heavy black man who shaved his head and favored sweater vests, even in the summertime. “Frank,” Jones said without looking up from his computer.

  “Sorry to bother you, Marv, but can you tell me who owns the Moors?”

  “It’s Marvin, and you can find that information on our Web site. Just download the Excel spreadsheet.”

  Coffin pursed his lips. “What’s an Excel spreadsheet?”

  Jones sighed and looked up at Coffin. His eyes were sapphire blue. “Would you like me to look it up for you?”

  “That would be great. Thanks.”

  “Address?”

  “I don’t know. It’s the big new condo farm out on the far west end. The Moors.”

  Jones sighed again. “That’s so extremely helpful,” he said, tapping away on his computer keyboard. “All right—I found it in spite of you. That’s how good I am.”

  “You’re the best. I’ve always said so.”

  “You are such a charmer. Not. It’s an et al.”

  “A what?”

  “An et al. Means it’s owned by more than one person. Only one name’s listed.”

  “And that name is . . . ?”

  “Serena Hench. How’d you like to walk around with that for a handle?”

  “Let’s not go there.”

  “Sorry.”

  “No you’re not.” Coffin turned to leave.

  “What,” said Marvin, “no thank you?”

  By late afternoon it was hot and surprisingly humid; the sky was pale, the western horizon blurred by a blank white haze. Always, on days like these, a storm was in the making—rolling up the eastern seaboard, pushing the mainland smog and funk ahead of it like a railyard switcher muscling a boxcar. By nightfall, the rain would have come and gone.

  Coffin walked slowly down the Town Hall steps, a chilly drip of sweat oozing from his left armpit. Unfazed by the heat, the verdigrised soldier on top of the World War I monument brandished his rifle and gazed out to sea. Tourists jammed the street and filled the stone benches in front of Town Hall. A man in a clown suit did tricks with balloons while a woman played a blue guitar. Coffin counted a half-dozen TV news remote vans, throbbing in their illegal parking spaces along Commercial Street.

  In the parking lot, little heat waves shimmered off the Dodge’s peeling vinyl roof. The starter made a loud grinding sound when he turned the key; the engine cranked and sputtered, then roared to life, a greasy cloud of blue-black smoke billowing from the exhaust.

  Coffin’s head ached. The car’s interior was sweltering; he turned on the air conditioning, but only a rancid blast of hot air came out. It took a long time for a break to appear in the stream of traffic going both ways on Bradford Street; when it finally did, the Dodge stalled as he began to back out. He turned the key and pumped the gas—the Dodge sputtered and died. The cloying smell of gas hung in the car’s interior. He turned the key again, and a single dry click emanated from somewhere among the dark tangle of belts and hoses under the hood, but nothing else happened. Click . . . Click . . . It was lucky, Coffin thought, that in eight years on the PPD he had never felt the need to carry a gun; otherwise he might have done something stupid. Like what? Get out and shoot the car? Why stop there?

  “Fuck it,” he said and climbed out. He stalked off, not bothering to shut the door. He hadn’t had a day off in two weeks. Here we go, he thought. The cracks are starting to show.

  Coffin walked up Commercial Street from Town Hall. He passed the town library, with its cupola and gingerbread trim, and turned right when he reached Spank Yo Mama, a head shop that was famous in equal measures for the florid nude murals that adorned its exterior, the twin nine-foot albino pythons sleeping companionably inside its glass-fronted counter, and the quantity and variety of dildos for sale in its back room, the largest of which hung from the low ceiling like a forest of lewd stalactites.

  He turned down a narrow alley on the harbor side of Commercial Street. Pepito’s was a “casual expensive” restaurant of a type peculiar to seaside resorts: The customers wore shorts and sandals; the cheapest dinner entrée cost twenty-three dollars. Appetizers were less expensive, but not much. Coffin checked his wallet, in case Serena decided to change her mind about picking up the tab. Pepito’s only accepted cash.

  The upper deck was crowded—early cocktail drinkers lined the bar and packed the café tables, shielded from the late afternoon sun by big blue and red umbrellas emblazoned with the Cinzano logo.

  A thin blond woman was sitting alone at a table overlooking the harbor. She wore a black tailored suit and Gucci sunglasses. When she saw Coffin, she waved.

  “It’s very interesting to meet you, Detective,” she said, offering Coffin a thin pale hand. Her handshake was limp and dry as tissue paper. “I’ve never met one before. A detective, I mean.”

  “No one from the state police has spoken to you?” Coffin said, wedging himself into a metal café chair.

  “Whatever for?” Serena said. “Have I done something wrong?” A waiter arrived. He was a very handsome young man with olive skin and shoulder length black hair.

  “Care for a drink?” Serena said. “I know it’s early, but I’m just dying for a martini.”

  Coffin ordered a beer for seven dollars and an appetizer plate of fried calamari for nine.

  “Grey Goose martini,” Serena said. “Very dry, up with a twist. And the tuna sashimi appetizer.”

  The waiter smiled with very white teeth. “Excellent,” he said. “Be right back with your drinks.”

  Two tables away, a middle-aged lesbian couple were trying to shush a screaming baby. The baby was fat and waxy. It looked like Don Rickles.

  Serena slitted her eyes and said, “Send it back. It isn’t done.”

  “No one’s suggesting you committed a crime, if that’s what you mean,” Coffin said when the waiter was gone, “but I’m a little surprised that the Cape and Islands DA’s office hasn’t contacted you.”

  “Because I was out with poor Mr. Merkin the night he died—is that it? You found out about that.”

  “Yes.”

  “But the state police don’t know yet.” Serena smiled broadly. “You see? You’re very clever after all, Detective.”

  “What were you and Mr. Merkin discussing that night?” Coffin said. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

  Serena was looking over the railing at someone on the beach. “Good God,” she said, pointing. “Look at that horrible fat man wearing that tiny Speedo. How appalling.”

  Coffin squinted. “I think that’s Norman Mailer,” he said. “He has a house just down the beach from here.”

  “Well, whoever he is, he shouldn’t be allowed to go around like that,” Serena said. “It’s the kind of thing that’s ruining this town for normal people.”

  The waiter brought their drinks, smiled brilliantly, and went away again.

  “About Mr. Merkin,” Coffin began.

  “I do mind,” Serena said, looking at him over the rim of her glass, a faint half-smile on her lips.

  “Excuse me?” Coffin said.

  “I mind if you ask questions about my private conversations, Detective.”

  “Why’s that, Ms. Hench?”

  “Because they’re private, that’s why. And because I did a bit of checking, and you’ve got no authority to ask me anything. You’re supposed to refer all witnesses to Mr. Mancini. Isn’t that right?”

  Coffin poured his seven-dollar beer into a Pilsener glass. It was a little flat. “That’s technically correct, yes,” he said. “Would you rather talk to the State Police detectives? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “If I do, I’ll be sure to mention our little lunch date,” Serena said. “But you wouldn’t tell them anyway. You’ll let them figure it out for themselves. Am I wrong?”

  Coffin sipped his beer. “We’ll see,” he said.

  “I didn’t kill him, I can tell you that, and I have no idea who did.”

  “When did
you last see him?”

  “Around midnight. He said he was going for a walk, then heading back to his condo.”

  The smiling waiter arrived with their food. The calamari was lightly breaded and fried with a dash of red pepper, the way Coffin liked it. “One more question,” Coffin said, slowly chewing a rubbery band of squid. “Once the Moors is built, what’s next for REIC, exactly?”

  Serena’s smile tightened, then disappeared. “That’s out of bounds, Detective,” she said. The smile returned. “Now be a good boy and let Serena taste one of those lovely calamari.”

  Coffin walked back to Town Hall and climbed into the Dodge. It started on the third try. He drove to Sal’s Auto Repair, just off Shank Painter, across from the A&P.

  Sal was standing under one of the garage’s two lifts, draining the oil from an aging Volkswagen. A big-bellied man in his sixties, Sal wore Elvis-style sideburns and a tall gray pompadour. The garage smelled like grease and carbon and recapped tires.

  “Sure, I’ll take a look at it,” Sal said, wiping his hands on a greasy rag. “But why don’t you junk that piece of shit, Frankie? Buy yourself something nice. I got a real clean Subaru wagon at home, all-wheel drive. Make you a good deal on it.”

  “Can’t afford it, Sal.” Coffin held his hands out, palms up. “I’m broke.”

  “What’s the matter? I figured you’d be getting rich on overtime.”

  “No such luck.”

  Sal lowered his voice. “I got a theory about these two killings—Jason Duarte and the Merkin guy. Want to hear it?”

  “Sure,” Coffin said.

  “I figure it’s a conspiracy. Who gains, that’s my question.”

  “So?”

  “The merchants. The guest house owners, the restaurant people, the whale-watch industry. The chamber of freaking commerce. I mean, look around. I’ve never seen this town so busy. People are coming from all over to see the place where Reverend Ron was found dead in a dress.”

  “So you’re saying the chamber of commerce killed two people to stimulate tourism?”