by Nero Blanc
Sonny perked up. “Yeah. That’d be cool. I’ll check with my mom and let you know.”
“Have you ever heard of a situation like that? Someone asking you to do that kinda work on the sly?”
Sonny gave Rosco another toothy laugh. “What? A guy bringing in a car with blood all over it? And he doesn’t know us from Adam?”
“I see your point…. He’d need to clean off the vehicle first, right?”
“Sure. Then he’d tell us he hit a deer or a tree or a road barrier or something. He’d even report it to his insurance company in order to collect the dough. And who’s gonna question an owner who describes what sounds like a legit accident? Not us. We’re not in that business; we leave it to the private detectives. As long as our customers pay their bills, we’re happy. And don’t think that every other body shop in the country doesn’t operate in the exact same way.”
Rosco nodded slowly and walked over to his car. “What are you asking for the red Explorer here?” he called back.
“Ninteen five.”
“Ouch.”
CHAPTER 22
“We’re not discussing the case with Sara,” Belle announced as she and her husband drove to that august lady’s noble home for dinner. “I just don’t think it’s professional. Al Lever wouldn’t, Abe wouldn’t.” Belle’s tone had taken on a finicky, some might even say “bossy,” ring. “What I mean is, we’ve been given information that’s highly sensitive, and we shouldn’t allow ourselves to indulge in idle conjecture or gossip…. ”
Rosco didn’t respond; from long experience he knew it best not to interrupt when his wife embarked upon one of her more serious monologues. Besides, nine times out of ten, she would amend her statement long before she finished it.
“… Not that Sara’s a gossip, mind you. In fact, she’s the farthest thing from such a person. But I don’t like the notion of talking out of school…. Of course, Sara would never stoop to prying, so we don’t have to worry about deflecting a lot of indelicate questions …”
It took all of Rosco’s concentration not to disagree with what Belle was saying. If there was someone on this earth with as much mule-headed curiosity as his wife, it was Sara Crane Briephs, Newcastle’s octogenarian dowager empress.
“… I don’t mean that she’s incurious, because someone as quick-witted and bright as Sara is naturally full of intellectual inquisitiveness …”
By now the car was climbing Patriot Hill, the habitat of the city’s old money and even older lineages. The driveway leading to White Caps, which was Sara’s ancestral home, would be on their left in less than two minutes.
“… Well, I guess what I’m saying, Rosco, is that we should try to keep the evening on a strictly social level—”
“What do you mean ‘try’?” Rosco finally asked as the drive appeared between two magnificent stands of rhododendron, whose blossoms lit the dusky twilight with a dazzling display of mauve and white.
“Attempt … strive … endeavor … undertake … essay—”
“I know what the word means, Belle.” Rosco laughed.
“Both of us should,” was her airy reply as White Caps’ former carriage house came into view. Parked in front, as if just returning from a spin, was Sara’s ancient black Cadillac, its surface shiny with polish, its chrome as glossy as silver. Standing a few feet from the spotless vehicle, her walking stick in hand, was the owner in person. Ramrod-straight, her white coiffure impeccable, and her lilac linen dinner suit a stirring reminder of a more genteel era, Sara appeared as out of sync with the hustle and bustle of the twenty-first century as did her 1956 Cadillac. Looking at the scene, Belle had the feeling of being transported back to a golden age of courteousness and ease when the universe was at peace with itself.
Then she opened her door, calling out a joyous “Sara!” which was immediately followed by “Guess what? You’re not going to believe this, but Dan Tacete was murdered! Al has officially classified the death as a homicide.”
“So much for ‘our’ professional discretion,” Rosco murmured as he gave his wife a sidelong smile.
“You know Sara would never forgive us if we kept her out of the loop.”
“She might ‘try’ though,” Rosco said, but the gibe was lost on his wife.
Dinner over, the hostess and her guests sat in White Caps’ Victorian-era conservatory, where Emma, Sara’s equally elderly maid, had laid out the silver coffee service and the gilt-edged porcelain cups. Over the many years of their joint occupation of the house, the two women had developed a symbiotic relationship that permitted Sara to maintain an appearance of authority while Emma’s role remained one of helpmeet and confidant. In culinary matters, however, the tables were turned; the maid became the de facto ruler of the roost, and Sara’s position fell to that of an apprentice admiring the expert’s considerable skills.
“Thank you, Emma,” the ostensible mistress of White Caps now said.
“Will you be needing anything else, madam?” was the habitual reply.
“If we do, we’ll rustle it up ourselves. You’ve had a long day.”
“Very good, madam.”
“Lovely dinner, too, Emma. I don’t know how you do it.”
“I’m glad you were pleased, madam.”
“I always am. You’re a positive wizard. All our guests say so.”
At this point in the familiar exchange, Belle expected Emma to forsake her formal demeanor, plop herself down in a chair, take out a bag of knitting, and join the general chat. Instead, her old knees bent in a kind of bob that in earlier years would have been a curtsy. Then she turned and began to trundle off toward her kitchen castle.
“Thanks again, Emma!” Belle called to her retreating figure.
“It cheers up the house when you and Mr. Rosco visit. And we like a cheerful home, don’t we madam? And I certainly enjoy cooking for more than two people.”
Then Emma was gone, and the tall glass room with its potted palms and flowing plants settled into stillness. Sipping her coffee in silence, Belle smelled the earthy scent of growing things, of humus and orchid bark and damp clay pots. It was a place of such tranquility that it was difficult to remember that criminals roved the same terrain.
“I worry about my Emma,” Sara mused aloud. “She’s getting old.”
Belle and Rosco held their tongues. Mistress and maid had been born within a few months of one another.
“We all grow feeble eventually, I suppose,” Sara continued. “Still, one doesn’t appreciate witnessing the effects of time on a person one is fond of. I was fortunate in not having to watch my dear husband cope with the depredations of the passing years—or my son.”
Again, Rosco and Belle kept silent. It was the murder of Sara’s middle-aged son, Thompson, that had initially established their friendship.
“Ah, well,” Sara mused. “Les temps perdus, as the poets say…. Although time is never quite ‘lost’ is it? Just as the dead are never fully gone if they live in memory.” The indomitable old lady replaced her cup on the silver tray and raised her patrician chin. The past is the past, her expression seemed to say. We must forgive even if we cannot forget—especially if we cannot forget.
At length, she released a small and melancholy sigh and returned her concentration to her guests. Her astonishingly blue eyes were now focused on the present. “So … Albert has classified Dan Tacete’s death as a homicide.” It was a statement rather than a question, since the threesome—or rather, Belle and Sara—had discussed the case in detail over dinner. Rosco, alone, had tried to maintain a “professional” stance. “It’s too bad the FBI won’t be brought in, because something seems highly irregular in everything you’ve described. Not that I don’t believe darling Albert is more than capable of divining the perpetrator—or perpetrators.”
“There’s no evidence that anyone crossed state lines,” was Belle’s response.
“A shame. One would imagine that with Dan Tacete’s two automobiles zipping here and there, some border would hav
e been crossed.”
“A ‘border,’ as in the line dividing Massachusetts and New Hampshire?” It was Rosco who asked this question. He was smiling as he did so. “I gather you’d feel better if there were checkpoints?”
“Don’t you get flippant with me, young man,” Sara chuckled in return. “If the people of Keane and Concord wish to espouse ‘Live free or die’ as their motto, they obviously don’t care a whit about their neighbors’ well-being—”
“I don’t believe the expression was intended as an insult to their fellow colonists,” Rosco rejoined.
“Humph,” Sara answered with a quick and mischievous grin. Then she turned back to Belle. “And those nursery-rhyme-themed crosswords you received … there’s no possibility of tracking their authorship?”
Belle shrugged. “Post office boxes can be registered under false names, and the email address on the one puzzle was through one of those huge Web servers, which anyone can sign up for by presenting fraudulent information…. So, no, Sara, in answer to your question: The author—or authors—is anonymous.”
“I don’t like it,” Sara said. “It makes me worry about the safety of the little Tacete girl … although you haven’t been able to connect anything to her father except the name Jack.”
“No,” Belle admitted.
“Not much of a lead, other than the obvious: the partner.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“I wish you’d brought those crosswords with you, dear child. We could have pored over them together.”
“Belle didn’t intend to discuss the case with you,” Rosco said with his own small chortle. “She told me so during the drive over. ‘Mum’s the word,’ she insisted.”
The old woman turned in her chair and leveled her penetrating gaze on her younger friend. “What led you to make that absurd decision?”
Belle fidgeted under Sara’s scrutiny, leaving Rosco to come to his wife’s rescue with a well-placed lie. “She didn’t want to worry you.”
“But I’ve been asked to reflect on nearly every crime she’s helped solve,” Sara asserted with some warmth. “They don’t worry me in the least—unless I think one of you two might be in danger.”
Belle glanced up and caught Rosco’s eye. “And she also wanted to keep this evening on a purely social level,” he added.
Belle turned beet-red while Sara tossed aside Rosco’s statement. “What better time to discuss the workings of the criminal mind than over supper with close friends?” Then the doyenne of White Caps suddenly sat even straighter in her chair. “Rosco, I assume the attorney for the Snyder case contacted you?” But no sooner had that query been posed than Sara leapt to another. “Have I told you that I’m establishing a scholarship fund in honor of that poor boy? I know what some would say … that it’s too late to help the child himself, but something must be done as a remembrance—and a reminder. Adults who kill children and then callously drive away must be revealed as the craven cowards they are.”
“No, you didn’t tell us,” was Belle’s reply. “But I think that’s perfectly wonderful.” She wanted to say more; in fact, she was on the verge of telling Sara just how fond of her she was and how very proud she felt to count her as a friend. But the old lady, as was her wont, intuited those words of praise, and so was able to forestall them with another change of subject.
“I’m wondering, Belle, dear … Is it possible those crosswords you received could be connected to the Snyder boy’s death rather than to the Tacete’s murder? Possibly the word games have nothing to do with your dentist. If indeed, these puzzling nursery rhymes are related to either crime.”
CHAPTER 23
At six the next morning, the sun’s rays were already streaking over the oceans’s horizon and gracing the peeling pink paint of the vacant Dew Drop Inn with a lively glow that temporarily banished the many unkindnesses of the decades. Except for night, when the inn was dark, it was the only time when the old structure looked halfway like it once had.
As the decrepit building reveled in its momentary return to youth, Newcastle’s early risers, both human and canine, were making their way onto the expanse of lawn that had become known simply as the “dog park.” The routines of the visitors were as predictable as the dawn. At a minute or two past six, Al Lever would arrive in his Plymouth sedan, open the back door, and his “big yellow mutt,” Skippy, would amble forth and sit patiently beside the rear tire.
Murmuring soto voce endearments, Lever would then light a cigarette while almost simultaneously bending to unhook Skippy’s leash. Watching the dog dart across the dewy grass at full speed was one of the highlights of the Al’s day.
Abe Jones would arrive shortly thereafter. Since it was May, the canvas top of his new jet-black Thunderbird would be down. Once he came to a stop, he would reach across to the passenger’s seat and unhook Buster’s leash. Buster was a Lab-mix who still had a good deal of puppy energy. He always jumped from the car without waiting for the door to be opened; then he invariably went tearing after Skippy. By six fifteen on most weekday mornings, there would be at least a half dozen dogs and their corresponding people enjoying the inn’s grounds. Almost all of the two-legged members of the group clutched take-out coffee containers as though the liquid were the last they’d be permitted in this life.
Belle and Rosco, with Kit and Gabby, were not part of the habitual six A.M. drill. If it weren’t one of Rosco’s regular jogging mornings, then sliding out of the double bed that strained to accommodate all four bodies wasn’t an exercise either humans or canines looked forward to. When Rosco wasn’t running, the routine worked this way: Belle would be the first up after the alarm went off. Then she’d trudge downstairs and get the coffee brewing. Kit would follow, feeling a certain amount of “watchdog” obligation, although the duties were performed with a marked lack of enthusiasm. The smell of the coffee would rouse Rosco, who would in turn inform Gabby that it was time to get her lazy bones up.
But this particular Wednesday morning was different. The conversations with Sara the previous night, combined with Belle’s earlier visit to The Black Sheep Tavern, inspired her to set the alarm for five twenty so that she and Rosco—and Kit and Gabby, naturally—could join Abe and Al and their respective “canine others” for a pow-wow and update. Kit seemed game for the excursion, but Gabby needed to be carried from “her” bed all the way down to Rosco’s rented car. The four arrived at the Dew Drop Inn at eight minutes past six. While the “girls” scurried off to find their friends, Belle and Rosco joined Abe and Al, who were leaning against the detective’s car.
Al glanced at his watch in surprise. “What are you two lovebirds doing here at this hour?”
Rosco smiled in response, although his tone was serious. “With this Tacete mess, it doesn’t look like anybody’s getting too much sleep. Any developments on your end?”
“I had a man interviewing folks at Gilbert’s Groceries all day yesterday. And he’ll be back at it this morning. We have three people who say they saw Karen Tacete drop off the Corvette and wait for a taxi at the pick-up stand, but as of now, no one remembers seeing anyone drive out of the lot in the ’Vette. Which makes sense. Whoever retrieved it had to play things very cool…. Considering the vehicle’s smoked windows, it’s doubtful anyone would have been able to see who was driving anyway—unless they were looking directly through the windshield.”
Abe Jones pulled a small note pad from his rear pocket and jotted something into it, prompting Lever to add a vaguely peremptory “What?”
“Nothing really … just another question concerning the vehicle.”
“How’s it going?” Rosco asked.
“Well, I’ve only had at it for a day,” Abe said, “so I’m far from finished. I got lucky on the emergency brake handle. It was about the only place on the car that wasn’t charred black. I was able to pick up a few distinctly different fingerprints. One I’ve been able to identify as Tacete’s. I sent the others to the Feds.”
“They’re probably Kare
n’s,” Belle suggested.
“That was my first thought, but we’ve classified the prints as male by their size. For now, anyway. Interestingly, I didn’t find any prints on the car that I would suggest they were female. But the vehicle’s a total mess. Fiberglass melts and everything goes with it.” Abe paused. “Another curious thing is that the shift knob is missing.”
“Burnt up?” Rosco asked.
“No. Missing. It was never there. Obviously you can drive the car that way, but it’s fairly uncomfortable on the palm of your hand. I phoned Karen, and she said it was in place when she left the car at Gilbert’s. Apparently, it was a chrome Hurst short-shifter.”
“Is that valuable?” Belle asked.
“Not really. But they’re attractive.”
“Maybe a kid stole it while it was sitting in the lot,” Al suggested. “Karen said she left it unlocked.”
“It’s possible,” was Abe’s reply.
“Only possible?” Belle prodded.
“Probable … possible … All I know is that it’s missing.”
The four stood quietly. After a moment, Rosco addressed another question to Abe. “I don’t suppose you want to go up against the captain—and city hall—and take a look a Tacete’s body?”
Jones gave Rosco his signature broad and knowing smile. “You just can’t leave Carlyle alone, can you?”
Rosco returned the grin. “You need to learn how to take a compliment, my friend. Is there anything wrong with my wanting The Pro to weigh in with his expert opinion?”
“Well,” Abe responded, “The Pro, as you put it, has looked at Carlyle’s report, and it’s fine. Even Estelle, our ghouless-in-residence, signed off on it. Unless those two missed a bullet in Tacete’s heart, which they didn’t, there’s no reason for me to examine the body. If it makes you feel any better, though, Rosco, I think you might have put a bit of a scare into your friend, Carlyle. He want back and retested all the fluid and tissue samples. Like I said, I’ve read the report. Tacete died at the time of the accident. I have no doubt about that.”