“What did he lie about?”
“He loved to talk about being in that war, how he killed people, how the bombs were going off right next to him, bullets flying around, tanks and missiles and airplanes, how he was a hero.” She blew out a quick little breath. “The truth is, he was nowhere near where the fighting was. He ran a computer, was his job. That’s what they taught him in the Marines. Computers. He copied press releases and sent ’em off on his computer. I guess those press releases were mostly lies. Maybe that’s where he learned it.” She smiled. “Running computers and telling lies. That’s what Larry learned from the Marines. That’s what he was good at.”
“What about Evie?” I said. “Did she like him?”
“Evie tried to be nice to him,” she said. “Because of me, I guess.” She gazed over at the photographs on the television. “Larry was a handsome boy. Pretty smart, too. He could be charming. I think she liked him at first. Before she got to know him. And Larry, he mistook that for something else. Hell, it was Evie who got him that janitor job when no one else in town would give him a chance. She was doing me a favor. I sure wish I hadn’t mentioned it to her. I should’ve just told her to steer clear of him. But I confess, I had it in the back of my mind that maybe they’d become friends. I thought she’d be good for him, calm him down, make him sweet like he used to be. I was a bad friend to Evie for not warning her about him.” She lifted her hand, then let it fall to her lap. “My son drove my only real friend out of town. It wasn’t her fault, what happened.”
“Attacking him with scissors, you mean,” I said.
She nodded. “They tried to make it like she wanted to kill him. All she was doing was trying to tell him he was driving her crazy and she couldn’t take much more of it.” She blinked several times. “They fired her because of it. What they should’ve done was lock up my son. If they had, maybe none of this would’ve happened, and he’d still be alive, and I’d still be having my morning coffee with my friend.”
“Larry lived here with you, is that right?”
She nodded. “He couldn’t afford to get a place of his own, that’s for sure.”
“I wonder if I could take a peek into his room.”
“Oh, Lord,” she said. “What in the world for?”
I waved my hand. “Just curious.”
“Those policemen said the same thing. Just curious, they said. No, ma’am, they wouldn’t touch anything. They just wanted to look around. Then they went trooping up there with their cameras.”
I nodded. Of course the police would check out the murder victim’s room. “I won’t touch anything, either,” I said.
“It’s just a boy’s room.” Mary Scott shook her head. “I don’t see what so interesting about it. But no harm, I guess. I keep the door shut, like he always did. He never wanted me in there, and since he died, I haven’t had any spirit for going in and cleaning it up. Suppose I ought to one of these days.” She pointed. “Up those stairs. Larry’s room is the first one on the right. Mel’s is down the end of the hall. You’d best not go into Mel’s room.”
“Thank you.” I stood up. “I’ll only be a minute.”
I climbed the narrow stairs to the second floor. A cardboard sign identical to those you see nailed to trees along just about every country road in New England nowadays was tacked to the first door on the right. It read: POSTED. NO HUNTING, FISHING, OR TRAPPING WITHOUT LANDOWNER’S PERMISSION. I guessed Larry had ripped it off a tree somewhere.
Under those machine-printed words someone had scrawled in red crayon: TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT ON SIGHT.
I pushed open the door and stood in the doorway. It was a small, dark, narrow room. There was an unmade single bed in the corner and a bureau under the only window. Dirty clothes and old magazines were scattered on the floor. A pump-action 12-gauge shotgun was propped up in one corner, and a bundle of spinning rods stood in another. A small bookcase held a twelve-inch television and a boom box and a few paperback books.
About two dozen snapshots were taped to the wall beside the bed.
I kneeled on the bed to look at them.
Evie. Every photograph showed Evie, and she was naked in most of them.
I blinked and looked up at the ceiling. Jesus.
I took a deep breath, turned back, and forced myself to look at them one at a time.
First a close-in headshot of Evie smiling her pretty, familiar smile.
Then Evie sticking out her tongue at the camera.
Evie with her hair falling over the side of her face like a curtain.
A head-and-shoulders shot of Evie with her eyes half-lidded and her tongue licking her lips.
Evie posing in a tank top and shorts with one hand on her hip and the other behind her head.
Evie kneeling on a bed peeling up the bottom of her tank top to show her flat belly and the undersides of her breasts.
Evie, topless, cupping her breasts in her hands.
Evie, bottomless as well as topless now, on her hands and knees on the bed—it was Larry Scott’s bed, I realized, this same bed I was kneeling on—looking back over her shoulder into the camera.
Evie, lying on her back right here on this narrow bed in Larry Scott’s room, completely naked, with her eyes closed and her fingers laced over her belly and her long, auburn hair fanned out over the pillow.
More photos of naked Evie. Evie lying on her belly with her chin propped up in her hands staring into the camera. Evie on hands and knees with her butt in the air. Evie sitting crosslegged yoga-style. Evie flat on her back gazing up at the ceiling smoking a cigarette.
There were twenty-four four-by-six color shots taped there on the wall beside Larry Scott’s bed in four rows of six. All of them had been taken in this room, one right after the other.
This is what the police saw. Naked Evie, plastered all over Larry Scott’s bedroom. I imagined Detective Vanderweigh and maybe Sergeant Dwyer up here, photographing Scott’s display for evidence in Evie’s trial, ogling her nakedness, creating X-rated scenarios to account for her killing him.
No wonder they thought she was a terrific suspect.
Oh, Evie.
I stood up, turned my back on the photos, and stared out the window at the big old barn out back and the thick summer woods beyond.
“I went out with him a few times,” Evie had told me by way of explaining Larry when he followed us to the restaurant.
Posing for nude photographs?
“Went out with him”?
That, of course, was Evie’s way of snubbing out a discussion before it got started. She hated to talk about her past. She always said that our lives before we met each other were irrelevant. She thought a little mystery was good for a relationship. It was better to preserve some secrets, she said.
I tended to agree with her. I’d made plenty of mistakes and done things I wasn’t proud of in my life, and I didn’t want anyone to judge me by them. We learn, and we change, and we are all continuously redefining ourselves.
Well, okay. So Evie had posed naked for Larry Scott. She’d probably had sex with him, too. It was none of my business. It had happened before I met her. She was a different person now.
I wished I hadn’t come into this room.
I felt like ripping those photos off the wall and burning them.
I walked out of the room, closed the door behind me, and stood there in the hallway for a moment, taking deep breaths, trying to clear the buzzing out of my brain.
Just as I turned for the stairs, the sound of ragged breathing close behind me caused me to instinctively stop and jerk sideways, and that’s when a big fist crashed against my shoulder.
I staggered, caught my balance, and pivoted around.
Mel. His face was red and his little eyes were blazing and his fist was coming at me again.
I ducked away from him as well as I could in the narrow hallway. But I had nowhere to go except down the stairs. Mel filled the space, and he was flailing away at me, grunting and throwing wild roundhouse r
ights and lefts.
With my arms up in front of my face I was able to block most of his blows. But he was inexorably backing me toward the steep stairway. It would take only one fist to the head or face to send me toppling backwards.
Low animal sounds came from Mel’s throat, but he didn’t say anything. His face was twisted in some insane combination of anger and hatred and fear, and his mouth was working, uttering silent words as if he was cursing to himself. His eyes were narrow glittering slits.
He was a strong, big-shouldered guy, but already he was panting and wheezing, and I figured if I could hold him off for another minute or two he’d exhaust himself and be too tired to lift his arms.
Then a heavy fist smashed against my ear. Lights exploded in my head, and I stumbled.
He came at me like a bull, with his head down and his forearms aimed at me, and it was obvious he intended to ram his head into my chest and drive me backwards down the stairs.
Just as his elbow was about to pound into my face, I dropped to my knees and threw my shoulder against his thighs. I tried to drive him onto his back, the way I’d been taught to tackle in high school.
The momentum of his upper body coming at me might have sent him sailing over my shoulder, and it would’ve been Mel, not I, who tumbled head over heels down the stairway. But I wrapped my arms around his legs and held on, and he collapsed on top of me.
I scrambled out from under him. He was sprawled on his belly, gasping and muttering and pounding his fists on the floor.
I climbed onto his back and grabbed a handful of his hair. He tried to buck me off. I slammed his face onto the floor. “Mel, goddamn it,” I said, “cut it out. What the hell’s the matter with you?”
“You leave my brother alone,” he wheezed.
“Your brother’s dead.”
“Shut up. That’s Larry’s room. He don’t want nobody there. He told me. ‘Don’t let nobody in there ever,’ he said.”
Mel had stopped bucking and heaving. Experimentally, I let go of his hair. He didn’t move.
“Don’t hit me anymore, okay?” I said.
“Oh, Jesus, I fucked up,” he said. “Larry’s gonna be pissed. He’s gonna beat the shit out of me when he finds out. I’m s’pose to keep everybody outta his room. That’s my job. He told me, when he ain’t here, it’s my responsibility to keep people out of his room. Even my mother.”
I slid off him and leaned my back against the wall. “It doesn’t matter anymore,” I said. “Larry’s dead. He’s not coming back. He can’t hurt you.”
Mel rolled onto his back and pushed himself into a sitting position against the wall across from me. He slumped there, his chest heaving. Tears streamed down his cheeks, and a dribble of blood trickled from one nostril. “Don’t say that,” he mumbled. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then looked at the blood on it.
“What about you?” I said. “Are you allowed in Larry’s room?”
Mel shook his head. “Not me. Not my mother. Nobody. You hurt my nose.”
“What about Evie?”
He looked up at me. “What about her?”
“Does Larry allow her in his room?”
He shrugged. “She’s the only one.”
“How do you like her pictures?”
He started to grin, then quickly shook his head. “I never looked at them pictures. I never even been in there. Larry don’t allow it.”
At that moment I heard the screen door slam. A moment later there were quick footsteps on the stairs, and then Valerie Kershaw appeared. She had her hand on her holstered revolver. “What’s going on up there?” she said.
“Nothing,” I said. “Mel and I are just having a chat.”
“Mrs. Scott came running out for me,” she said. “She thought Mel was killing you.”
“Mel wouldn’t want to hurt me. Right, Mel?”
Mel frowned for an instant, then shook his head. “Not me.”
She looked from him to me, then shrugged. “You okay, then?”
“Sure,” I said. “We’re fine.”
She smiled, then turned and disappeared down the stairs.
“You better get out of here before Larry sees you,” said Mel. “He finds out you was in his room lookin’ at his pictures, he’ll kill you. He killed people in the war, you know. He don’t mind killing people. He wouldn’t mind killing me. He told me that.”
I nodded and pushed myself to my feet. “Larry won’t kill you,” I said. “I promise.” Then I started down the stairs.
Mary Scott was standing there looking up at me. “Are you all right?”
I smiled. “Sure. I’m fine.”
“I should’ve warned you about Mel.”
“Mel and I reached an understanding.”
“I’m sure you did,” she said. “He’s never been right, you know. And since Larry …”
I nodded.
“I worry about Mel,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” was all I could think of to say.
“So did you find anything in Larry’s room?”
“You haven’t been in there?” I said.
“No. Never. Larry wouldn’t allow it when—when he was here. Even when he was little. And now …”
“I understand,” I said. “It would be painful for you.” I shook my head. “It might be a good idea if you asked a friend, someone whose judgment you trust, to go in there, clean it up, pack away his belongings, throw out all the junk.”
She smiled. “That’s a good idea.”
“You better be sure Mel understands.”
She shook her head. “I apologize for Mel.”
TWELVE
When I walked out of the house, Officer Valerie Kershaw was leaning against the side of her cruiser with her arms crossed over her chest. Although she was wearing sunglasses, I was pretty sure her eyes were smiling.
I went over to her and said, “You could’ve told me about Mel.”
She pushed her sunglasses onto her head. “I didn’t know you planned to scuffle with him.”
I leaned beside her and lit a cigarette. “I didn’t plan it. It was spontaneous.”
She peered at my face, then touched her cheekbone. “You okay?”
I touched my own cheekbone where she’d touched hers. It was tender. “I don’t even remember getting hit there,” I said. “The heat of battle. I got him a couple good ones, too. He’s a troubled young man.”
“Harmless,” she said. “That’s the word the folks hereabouts use. Everybody likes Mary. They feel sorry for her, with those two boys of hers, so everyone’s pretty tolerant of them. Mel’s mainly not very bright, and he’s got a sudden temper, as I guess you noticed. Very handy with gasoline engines, though. Lawn mowers, chain saws, snow blowers, things like that. That’s what he does. People drop off something that’s busted, Mel fixes it. That barn is full of broken machines that he strips for parts.”
“Harmless, maybe,” I said. “But he tried to push me down the stairs. If he had, he might’ve done me some harm.”
“Looks like you handled it.”
“Good thing,” I said. “If I’d waited for you to rescue me, I’d be running around with a broken neck.”
“They told me to follow you,” she said, “not rescue you. So what’s your itinerary for the rest of the day?”
“So you can find me if I manage to elude you?”
“Exactly.”
I glanced at my watch. It was quarter of eleven. “I’ve got an appointment with Dr. St. Croix in fifteen minutes. After that I don’t know.”
“You know how to find the doctor’s place?”
“Yes. I better get going.” I stamped out my cigarette and went over to my car.
It took about ten minutes to drive from Mary Scott’s house to Dr. St. Croix’s place. The same new blue Camry and old Jeep Cherokee that had been there the previous day were in the parking area when I got there. I went to the front porch. The inside door was open, and through the screen I heard the mumble of television voic
es coming from somewhere inside. I rapped my knuckle on the frame of the screen door.
A minute later Claudia Wells appeared on the other side of the screen. She was wearing white pants that stopped halfway down her calves, a blue-and-white-striped jersey, and sandals. Her blond hair was tied back with a blue silk scarf that matched her eyes.
She smiled when she saw me. “Mr. Coyne,” she said. “You made it.”
“I hope it’s okay.”
“Oh, yes. The doctor’s looking forward to seeing you.” She pushed open the screen door, then lifted her chin and peered over my shoulder. “Oh, dear,” she muttered.
I looked back. Valerie Kershaw’s cruiser was parked in the street out front.
“Oh, don’t worry about that,” I said. “They’re keeping an eye on me.”
“Whatever for?”
“They think I might have murdered somebody.”
“Aha,” she said. “Dr. Romano.”
“You’ve heard about that, then,” I said.
“A state policeman was here earlier.” She held the door wide for me and stepped back. “Please. Come on in. The doctor’s out on the porch.”
I stepped into the house and found myself in the living room. Braided rug, early-American furniture, built-in bookshelves, fieldstone fireplace. A big oil painting of a clipper ship hung over the mantel. The furnishings were unpretentious. They looked expensive to me.
Claudia put her hand on my arm. “What happened to you?” She reached up and touched my cheekbone.
“I bumped into a door,” I said. “Has it ruined my flawless profile?”
She smiled. “It lends your appearance a rather endearing ruggedness. Does it hurt?”
“I’m bearing up quite stoically,” I said. “So how’s the doctor doing today?”
“He didn’t have a very good night,” she said softly, “and his session with the police tired him out, I’m afraid. If I have to cut it short, please understand.”
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