Murder on the Brewster Flats

by Aaron Paul Lazar

  Finally, a door slammed and it grew quieter.

  I helped Marla to the couch and looked around to see which way the kitchen might be. “Kitchen?”

  She pointed with a limp hand toward a door on the far side of the room, and I hurried through to a gleaming white kitchen with a bay window facing the sea. On another day, I would have found time for some serious kitchen envy, but today I just found a glass, filled it with cool water from the tap, wet a wad of paper towels, and returned to her side.

  “I’m so sorry about your son,” I said. “But I think he’s okay. Nothing’s broken.”

  She took a sip of water and blotted her face with the paper towels. “I can’t believe it.”

  “I know,” I said, patting her hand. But I really didn’t know at all.

  “A baby?” She turned desperate eyes to me. “Are you sure?”

  “Pretty sure. I met Jane Cook and her son this morning on the beach when your boy went into the creek. She was frantic with worry for Beckett, calling out that she loved him.”

  Marla gasped. “Oh my God. No.”

  “Your son addressed her by name, kept staring at the child. The little boy is named Mason. Dark hair. Beautiful child. Looks about eighteen months or so.”

  “Eighteen months…” her voice trailed off. “He would have been born during Beckett’s senior year in school.” She talked as if to herself, trying to make sense of it. “Oh. This explains a lot.”

  I held back my burgeoning curiosity and waited for Winston to reappear, which he did a few minutes later.

  Harried and sweating, he came into the room, plopped onto a chair, and began to quietly weep, hands covering his eyes and shoulders shaking.

  This was getting weirder by the minute. I was used to some high drama in my life, and often spent time in a comforting role when things went bad in my own family, but now it was getting awkward.

  Marla approached him and he opened his arms to her. She sat on his lap and started to cry with him.

  “Um,” I said, getting up. “I guess I should be going.”

  Winston waved a hand at me. “No. Please. Give us a minute.”

  “Er. Okay.” I sat and waited.

  Chapter 9

  It took them a few minutes to pull themselves together, but eventually Winston and Marla rose and took seats on the couch next to each other, holding hands.

  “I’m so sorry you had to see that,” Winston began. “Sometimes I feel as if I can’t take one more day like this.”

  Marla rested her head on his shoulder. “Winn gets the worst of it. For some reason, Beckett lashes out at him more than at me.”

  I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, questions burning in my mind. “I’m so sorry.”

  “You’re probably wondering what’s going on.” Winston gave me a sad half-smile.

  Before I could protest that it was none of my business, Marla interrupted. “Just tell him, Winn.”

  Winston sat up straighter. “Right. Well, our boy is sick. He’s been unresponsive to every med they’ve tried. We’ve just this month brought him home from the hospital, because he was so unhappy there.” He turned away and mumbled, “Not that he’s happy here.”

  “I see. That’s awful.” It was all I could think of.

  Winston stood and began to pace. “It started in his sophomore year of high school. He began to act out, got into drugs, stole things, and even seriously attacked a teacher. He was suspended three times. Reprimanded more times than I can remember. In and out of the hospital…”

  Marla shook her head and fresh tears brimmed. “It’s been a long haul.”

  “He sees and hears things,” Winston said. “Imagines us as his jailors, I believe.” He glanced upstairs when a loud thud shook the ceiling. “They’ve told us schizophrenia, bipolar, borderline…they can’t seem to make up their minds. Every doctor we see has a new pet illness they assign to him. And they try new regimens every six months, so far with no luck.”

  Marla said, “The drugs either make him into a zombie, or set him off on rages. The rages—you’ve just seen the tip of the iceberg—are the hardest. He’s paranoid and violent. And he’s really mean.”

  “It’s his way to go for the jugular,” Winston added. “The things he says are so harsh, so hard to ignore…”

  I couldn’t imagine my own child treating me like that and felt a pang of empathy for the couple. “What about getting someone in to help you here? Like an aide?”

  Winston held up a hand. “The last four quit within a few weeks.”

  Marla sighed. “He punched one of them in the nose. Tried to strangle the next one.”

  “Whoa.”

  “We really should take him back to the hospital,” Marla said. “But we feel like we’re abandoning him, you know?

  I walked to her side and took one hand. “Of course. You’re both doing the best you can.”

  Winston stared out at the sea, hands in his pockets. “And here you are on vacation, trying to have a nice time, and you get dumped right into the middle of it.” He shook his head, looking at the floor. “My deepest apologies, Gus.” He came over and shook my hand, a sincere expression in his eyes. “But thank you for all you’ve done.”

  “Not a problem,” I said, almost rolling my eyes. If only he knew that my life had been full of crazy drama and villains and unbelievable events since I could remember. This almost seemed mild. “I really should be going.” I started for the door. “Best of luck with him. Let me know if you need help this month. I’m here until the thirtieth.”

  “Thank you, Gus,” Marla cried out, almost in relief. “And please, take a few cookies for your wife.” She hurried out with me to the porch and wrapped several cookies in paper napkins. “There you go.”

  I couldn’t help but imagine what her life would have been like without the storms of the past few years. She seemed like a woman who should be making jelly in the kitchen or serving lasagna to happy children. It was so sad.

  “Thanks, Marla. You hang in there, now.”

  “Bye, Gus.” I couldn’t help but think of the evening they probably had in front of them. The days. The weeks. I wondered how long it would last and when they’d give up trying to treat him at home.

  “Take care now.” I waved and got into my car, turning back toward Paines Creek Road.

  Chapter 10

  In ten minutes, I returned home, changed to swim trunks, and drove back to the beach. Camille texted that she needed another hour or two for research, so I sent her a cloud of hearts on my phone (I still don’t know how I did that), and she’d responded with a somewhat sweet but distracted reply.

  K. See you soon. Don’t forget the sunscreen.

  With an intense desire to rid my mind of all the day’s events, to simply dive into the blue-green water and swim far away, I kicked off my sandals and reluctantly started to apply sunscreen with the car door open.

  A shadow fell over me when I was nearly done, and I glanced up.

  “Hi, Gus.” Albert stood blocking the sun and gave me a tentative smile. “Back for a swim?”

  “Hey, Albert.” I slid out of the car and shook his hand with greasy fingers. “Yeah. High tide and all, you know?”

  He shuffled his feet and cleared his throat. “Good idea. Nice day for it.”

  “Want to join me?” I wasn’t sure what else to say. I honestly wasn’t in the mood for more drama or even for some kind-hearted chitchat.

  “Um, no. Thanks. But I wanted to invite you up to the house. Jane wants to see you, and…” Again, the nervous throat clearing. “Um. I do, too.”

  Two invitations in the same day? It was crazy. I was just a tourist. I had no stake in this town or its people. But before I could talk myself out of it, I heard myself saying, “Okay, sure. When?”

  He glanced over at the cluster of nearby houses. “How about tomorrow morning, after your walk? Jane doesn’t go to work until ten.”

  “Okay. Mind if I bring my wife, if she’s up?”

  He stutte
red as if his social skills were rusty. “No, um, I meant to ask you to bring her. She’s a nice lady.”

  “That she is.” I pointed to the saltbox house with the cranberry red trim. “That’s your place?” I only knew because Camille had already looked it up and showed me the satellite photo on her phone.

  “Yep. That’s the one.” He hooked a finger in a belt loop and slumped sideways, looking at the ground.

  “Okay,” I shook his hand again, hoping to end the conversation. I just wanted to get into the cool water, and now I was sweating like mad. “See you tomorrow morning.”

  Albert raised a hand to bid me goodbye and then wandered away muttering. I almost sprinted across the hot sand to find a place to spread out my towel. After five minutes of trudging along the beach—surprisingly only dotted with the occasional family—I found a cove where there was sand instead of seaweed and no people for a hundred yards in either direction. Astounded at my find, I laid out my towel, hid my keys beneath it under a paperback copy of Dance of the Dead by Sonya Bateman, my new favorite author, and stripped off my tee shirt, which I threw on top of the book.

  I trotted toward the high tide mark, edged by dried seaweed and stones.

  The water was cold, probably in the mid-sixties by the way my feet turned blue, and I began to shiver. But I stood for a minute, braced myself, and plunged in.

  The cold shocked me, but I swam underwater with my eyes open for several minutes until I couldn’t hold my breath any longer. The water glimmered iridescent green and the sand sparkled gold beneath me. A few clusters of weeds swayed below, but as I moved into deeper water, they disappeared.

  I burst up and out of the ocean, feeling invigorated. I slowly grew accustomed to the cold temperature. Floating on my back for a few minutes, I indulged in the feeling of freedom and motion and the swaying surf.

  I sighed long and loud, expelling all thoughts of danger and sick boys and unhappy families. I pictured nothing but the sky and clouds that sailed overhead. I became the water. I became the wind.

  Laughing at myself, I rolled onto my side. I was losing it. But who cared? Slowly, I shook myself out of the moment, stroking parallel to the shore.

  I must have been swimming for a full fifteen minutes when I heard something that made me stop and tread water.

  Violin music.

  I scanned the coastline, knowing I must be mad. How could I hear violin music—and a gorgeous, haunting melody, at that—while swimming in the ocean?

  Squinting against the strong reflections of sun on the waves, I turned in a circle, studying the sea around me.

  No boats.

  No people lying on the shore with radios blasting.

  Then I saw him. Up on a grassy bluff stood a figure. And yes, he was playing the violin as if the Devil himself was chasing his fingers.

  I drifted closer, mesmerized by the beautiful melody and the sound of the instrument. It was the finest violin I’d ever heard: resonant and complex and sweet all at the same time.

  When I’d almost reached the beach, I rammed my knee into a barnacle-covered rock and felt the tear of flesh. Instantly, the water swirled with red.

  “No way,” I cried. “Come on!”

  The cloud continued to bloom, and I felt my heart sink. It wasn’t stopping. And I was a few miles away from the parking area.

  I glanced right and left; there was no one on the beach. Had I swum past the public area and into a private beach?

  My feet touched down on the sand and a searing pain hit me. The wound continued to bleed.

  What could I do? If I let the thing continue to leak my life-blood, I might pass out and drown. Or something equally bad, like attracting some giant shark to my side.

  Nervously, I glanced out on the horizon. So far, no shark fins split the water.

  Slowly, I slogged out of the water and stood.

  There was no doubt about it, the gash was deep and continued to bleed, now dripping down my leg in thick, red liquid.

  My head began to swim. “Hello!” I called to the violinist.

  He lowered his instrument to its case on the grass and cocked his head. “You in trouble?” He frowned, and then walked toward me. When he saw my leg, he began to sprint.

  “Um. I guess.” I felt myself drop to the sand. “I hit a rock,” I said with a lame shrug.

  “Oh my God.” He shrugged out of his shirt and quickly wrapped it around my leg. “We have to stop the bleeding.”

  I think I thanked him, and out of the corner of my eye I noticed he grabbed my keys, book, and towel. The trip up to his cottage by the sea was a blur.

  My head finally cleared after I’d been set up on his couch and had downed a bottle of water, with my leg propped up on his coffee table, still wrapped in his shirt.

  “There you go,” he said. “I think you’re getting color back in your cheeks. And your bleeding’s stopped.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “I should have been paying attention. But that piece you were playing was, um, spellbinding.”

  “Yeah?” he said. “I wrote it. It’s for my wife, Scout.”

  I smiled. “Scout, like in To Kill a Mockingbird?”

  “That’s right. She’s working at her hair salon right now, or I’d introduce you.” He lifted his violin case and set it on top of an upright piano in the corner. “Do you play?”

  “Piano. I teach at Conaroga University in western New York.”

  “Really? My cousin went there. She said it’s beautiful out there.”

  “It is. My wife and I are here for our vacation until the end of the month.” I leaned back. “I hope to God I didn’t bleed on your furniture.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “By the way. My name’s Jack Remington.”

  “Gus LeGarde.” I shook his hand. “Pleased to meet you.”

  He rose and wandered over to the piano, picking up a packet of sheet music. “Have you ever played this one?”

  I glanced at the very familiar music for a violin and piano duet I’d learned in college. It was the Danse Macabre by Camille Saint-Saëns. “It’s a favorite,” I said. “I played it for my senior recital at the Conservatory.”

  “You studied in Boston?”

  “I did,” I said. “Love that town.”

  “Me, too.” He set the music on the coffee table and glanced quizzically at me. “Could you pick up this music again if you had to? I mean, by the end of the month?”

  “Probably, if I had a piano handy.” I arched an eyebrow. “Why?”

  “My pianist broke her hand last week on a skate board, of all things. We have a concert scheduled the last Saturday of the month, as an introduction of my studio to the community.” He pointed to the freshly painted building outside the window. “Out there is my workroom, and I’ve just added a storefront to it. To sell my violins.”

  “Wait.” I leaned toward him, ignoring the searing pain on my leg. “You make violins?”

  He smiled. “I do.”

  “Was that one of yours?” I pointed to the instrument he’d been playing on the beach.

  “Yes. Just finished it, matter of fact.”

  “Incredible sound, Jack. Just outstanding.”

  “Thanks. I studied in Maine, under an Italian master who emigrated after World War II. Mr. Fabiano was world-renowned. You heard of him?”

  The name sounded familiar. “I think so. Really impressive.”

  “But I didn’t go to a conservatory to learn music. I actually learned in Africa.”

  “Africa? No kidding?”

  “Really. I was in the Peace Corps for four years. And one of my colleagues was a concert violinist who’d gotten fed up with the life. He couldn’t take all the traveling anymore. He hated the accolades. It bothered him to have such privileged people fawning over him all the time. So, he gave it all up and joined the Corps at age sixty.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes. The only thing he brought with him from his home in Vienna was his instrument.”

 
“And that’s how you learned to play?”

  “Well, before that I played in the high school orchestra, where I learned the basics. But I never went to college. Then my folks died, there was no money, and I couldn’t afford to live very well on my McDonald’s part time salary. So, I signed up for the Corps, where I met Anton. He taught me the finer points of playing in the warm evenings after we’d worked hard on drilling a well or teaching folks to grow vegetables or running power lines to a remote village. Just about every night that man played for us, and gave me a lesson, too.”

  “Amazing,” I said, meaning it. Jack had real talent, played like a pro, and on top of that, he created the actual instruments with his own hands. “You do it all.”

  He shrugged. “Not really. I like to putter and write a song here or there. And I love playing. But creating the violins is my passion.”

  “It shows,” I said.

  “We ought to get your leg dressed. And you might need stitches, Gus.”

  “Oh, God. No, please. Let’s see if we can patch it up. I don’t think I could stand an emergency room visit today.”

  He emerged from a bathroom with a first aid kit. “Okay. Let’s see if I can work some magic here.”

  While he cleaned and wrapped the wound, I agreed to do the concert. We exchanged phone numbers and email addresses and talked for a long time about music.

  When it was time to go, I glanced down at the injury, thanking God that it was my left leg. At least I’d be able to drive home if I could cadge a ride off of Jack back to the parking lot.

  Chapter 11

  When I pulled up to the library entrance, Camille came out looking puzzled. She slid into the car—her arms loaded with books—and turned to me. “Why didn’t you want to come inside, Gus? I had some amazing old books to show you. They aren’t allowed outside the building, so—”

  “Sorry, hon. I messed up my knee.” I pointed to it. Blood still stained the gauze a bit, and it ached like hell.