by Angela Zeman
Aisa, the widowed and childless retired owner of North Shore Industries Corporation, was one of Mrs. Risk’s oldest and closest friends and knew more about her than anyone else in Wyndham, although he wasn’t telling.
Ernie, a large man with well-padded bones, was a local building contractor in his late fifties and a devoted admirer. His amiable personality concealed a shrewd intelligence under his Giants cap. Mrs. Risk and Aisa were teaching Ernie about wine, so they often invited him to share wine tasting opportunities.
“What mess?” she answered negligently.
“Oh, don’t sidestep me, there’s trouble all right. Rachel told me all about it. And if she hadn’t, I still would’ve known. Who could avoid the hysteria the mayor is dispensing as fast as he can round the village? So don’t give her any grief for snitching,” Aisa said firmly, forestalling her rising protests. “Blood-sucking. Vampirism. Theatrical idiocy.” He snorted in disgust.
“This isn’t my doing. All I did was—”
Aisa finished smoothly, “All you’ve done is exist, which has always irritated Harry. In the first place, without lifting a finger you’ve power and authority he must win in elections. In the second place, that authority has made you perversely vital to re-election. Murky situation.”
“Murky’s a good word for it,” put in Ernie suddenly, his nose wrinkling in disgust.
She mused, “I keep wondering who those two poor souls were. It’s odd the police haven’t been able to discover anything about them.”
“Now there you’ve put your nose on it,” said Ernie. “If you’d figure out the story behind those two bodies…”
“He’s right,” said Aisa. “You’d not only earn the poor ah—gentlemen—a decent resting place, you’d expose the Mayor’s foolishness.”
“The foolishness of the whole village,” corrected Ernie. He poured himself more coffee.
“I challenge you my dear. Expose this inflammatory, self-serving hogwash for what it is,” finished Aisa. “I believe I’ll have a drop of this cognac after all. Ernie?” Aisa held up the bottle. Ernie shook his head no, so Aisa served himself.
Mrs. Risk said, “This is too ridiculous. The police are more than competent to trace identities, with their databases and…” she waved a hand in the air, signifying vast resources. “They’ll figure out how those two men died, and why, and how they ended up here. So let them do their jobs. The mayor is NOT going to manipulate me into lifting a finger that I personally don’t wish to lift.”
Aisa swirled his cognac in the big-bellied snifter and scowled. “Pride, eh? Can’t stoop to fight back?”
“Tchah!” spat Mrs. Risk. “Give me a decent foe! He’s the worst sort of cheap clown.”
“Decent foe?” Ernie looked puzzled. “I think Harper’s about as mean a foe as you could get. He doesn’t care whose life he ruins, long’s he gets his way. And he just might ruin yours if you don’t stand up for yourself.”
“If you won’t do battle for yourself, then think of Rachel and Daniel,” added Aisa quietly.
“They don’t need me. They’ve got Bob Blume,” she said.
“And who’ve those two poor dead guys got?” asked Ernie, but Mrs. Risk refused to answer.
“So, as this is a battle not of your own picking, you’ll go down in flames, but noble flames. Is that it?” asked Aisa.
“You make me sound silly,” she said sullenly.
Ernie added, leaning towards her, “If we could take care of it for you, we would. But Aisa and me, we got no clue what to do. It’s like fighting a marshmallow man, when you fight people’s opinions. Hate to tell you, but you’re the only one equipped for a thing like this.”
“You’re making too much of this,” said Mrs. Risk, rising. “I don’t wish to discuss it any further.” And with Aisa’s and Ernie’s anxiety-filled gazes on her, she began clearing away the glasses.
Halloween dawned grey and chill. Rachel called, declaring herself unable to come for the morning tea and newspapers, making an excuse so transparently false that it left Mrs. Risk feeling unanchored. She fretted and paced, fiddled with her bird feeders and tramped among her trees, inspecting their health and well-being for the coming winter with a total inability to remember from one second to the next what she’d just observed. “Soon I’ll be squatting in some corner, picking my toenails and screaming,” she growled at a bluejay. The jay gave a bone shivering shriek and fled.
A mist was gathering over the Sound, blanketing the grey still water. She clutched her thick shawl tighter and let the air cool her strangely hot cheeks. A moment later, she sighed and returned to her cottage. She picked up her basket, called to Jezebel, who daintily sprang into its wool-lined depths, and together they set off for the village.
She entered St. Boniface Hospital and descended to the morgue by way of the fire stairs. With the pathologist’s permission, she asked the attendant to show her the two unidentified bodies. In seconds, she was gazing at two waxen faces. Both were male, one heartbreakingly young, the other of advanced middle age. After a brief inspection, she stared off into space, her expression thoughtful.
Using the wall phone, she dialed the hospital operator and asked for Dr. Villas to be paged to come to the morgue. After some time, he arrived, as always looking harried and annoyed. She uncovered the two bodies.
“Yes, yes, I’ve seen them,” he said testily.
“Look again, Dr. Villas.”
To please her, he looked, but only an impatient glance. “I must get back—”
“Doesn’t something about them seem familiar?”
“If I knew them I would have said so when they were found,” he said, seething. “Of what are you accusing me? Maybe Harper’s right. Our village doesn’t need a busybody like you.” He stomped away, smacking the open door with his fist.
When the pathologist ventured in to see what had upset Dr. Villas, Mrs. Risk, ignoring his nervous inquiry, asked, gesturing towards the two bodies, “Tell me, doctor, don’t these two seem oddly familiar to you?”
He stared at her with widening eyes, then turned and fled.
Mrs. Risk gazed after him in perplexity. After some moments, she realized the attendant was hovering outside, unwilling to enter while she was still there, so she left him to his peaceful charges.
A few blocks away, she visited another morgue, this time the village newspaper’s. She muttered as she searched, complaining to Jezebel (for lack of human listeners—the newspaper staff of three had taken an early lunch break upon her arrival) about the lack of space in her cottage, otherwise she’d keep her own files of news cuttings, for she did find them immensely useful.
After finding what she wanted, she began walking home. Now people openly fled the boardwalk at her approach. One teenaged boy shouted at her retreating back in mock bravery, “Get outa Wyndham! Leave us alone!”
Her steps faltered for only a second. She pressed her lips firmly together and, looking inadvertently even more formidable, walked faster. “This Halloween is proving evil, indeed, my Jezebel,” she murmured. Jezebel kept her head inside the basket and made no sound.
Once home, she found that intruders had visited in her absence. Her beloved ancient oaks, the ones sheltering the path to her cottage, had been hacked and gouged. She groaned involuntarily as she touched gaping wounds with trembling fingers. Jezebel, feeling the anguish of her mistress, leaped from the basket and padded towards the house.
In a second, Mrs. Risk heard yowling, followed by a hiss. She rushed up the path, only to stop in front of a white cardboard box placed on the ground about five yards from her house. In addition, she saw that her doorstep was coated in a glutinous mass of smashed rotted pumpkin. Its stink filled the glade. Jezebel, however, faced a large shrub. She hissed and spat, her back arched.
Mrs. Risk crouched in a martial arts fighting stance and commanded, “Come out!” Jezebel yowled again.
Ernie’s bulky form rose sheepishly, a spade in hand. She relaxed her posture with a sigh.
&nb
sp; “Do you really know how to do that stuff?” he asked as he crawled out from the prickly branches, his fascination at this new aspect of her distracting him in spite of himself.
“You’d better hope you never find out.”
She inspected the cardboard box as if expecting cobras to slither out. Instead, she found a pot of chili, some bread, and a pie. A note pleaded with Mrs. Risk to regard the Frazier family kindly, promising similar offerings weekly from now on in return for not cursing them. She dropped the note as if scalded. With ashen complexion, she backed away.
Ernie was horrified to see tears well in her eyes as she looked up at him. “They think I might hurt them.”
He followed her and Jezebel into the cottage. She dropped limply into a chair. He built a sturdy fire, then pulled curtains across each window. After washing the foul pumpkin mess from the doorstep and disposing of the food offerings, he dug around noisily in the kitchen, and returned with a pot of hot tea and cups. He poured, but although she quietly thanked him, she didn’t move to take it. Jezebel huddled close to the fire and shivered.
They sat for an hour before she spoke, and then she spoke, startling him. The tea lay cold and untouched on the stone hearth.
“I’ll leave Wyndham,” she said in a lifeless voice.
“You can’t leave.” He tried to sound firm, only managing to sound desperate. “I’ll stay by you. Nobody’ll bother you with me around.”
She looked at him. “And how did these—these—things get to my cottage, then?”
“I came after. I saw some strange cars coming out of your lane, got worried. When I saw what they’d done, I got a spade from my truck—”
“Where is your truck? I didn’t see it.”
“Hid it across the road in the other lane. Nobody home to care, gone for the winter already.”
She nodded, having already lost interest. She looked down at her lap broodily and patted her skirt. Jezebel twitched to attention, then leaped up. Mrs. Risk stroked Jezebel’s fur.
She leaned back in her chair and left her hand motionless on Jezebel’s tiny powerful shoulders. “Maybe I’ve been here too long.”
Ernie picked up the pot and untouched cups, took it all back to the kitchen, and returned with a bottle of cabernet sauvignon and two wineglasses.
“Don’t often drink in the middle of the afternoon, but maybe this’s better’n tea right now.” He uncorked it inexpertly, then sloshed it into the glasses. “The trouble with you is, you’re too smart,” he said.
Mrs. Risk flicked him a glance from beneath her lowered lids. She smiled faintly as she took her glass. She breathed in the aroma, then took a sip.
“You watch out for others so daggoned much, maybe you don’t see yourself enough. If you had, you’da noticed that you’re not near so independent as you pretend to be.”
Mrs. Risk looked startled, but she listened as she drank more wine. Some color seeped back into her cheeks.
“Ma’am, you’re sort of a phony, lookin’ at it this way. I mean—” He stopped in frustration. “Hang in there, give me a minute.”
She smiled at him affectionately and began stroking Jezebel again. Jezebel purred, her eyes closed.
“Well, it’s that…you don’t know it, but you love us.”
Mrs. Risk blinked at him in astonishment.
He continued doggedly. “You got a thing for people, that’s why you butt into our affairs, help anybody who asks for it, and do the wackiest things I ever seen. But smart. Really smart. I’d never think of half the stuff you do. And the world needs people like you. Wyndham needs you. And you belong here, to us.”
“They don’t want me,” she said bitterly. “Whether or not I stay, this lesson will not pass unlearned. I will never again interfere, or try to change events for the better. That’s been a joke. On me. A sick, sad, sour joke.”
Ernie frowned. “I guess I’m lousy at explaining things. You’re not getting it.”
They sat in a tense, unhappy silence. After a long while, Ernie sighed, said, “Well, you gonna let Harper get away with this one last thing before you quit?”
“What difference would it make?”
He shrugged, but glanced at her with narrowed eyes. “I could mention that Wyndham sure could use a new mayor. But…it also might keep your trees alive.”
Tears sprang into her eyes. “Human beings are capable of the most incredible stupidities.”
“God’s truth, ma’am.”
The fire, untended, began to go out. After watching it for some minutes, Mrs. Risk sighed. “I feel so tired, Ernie. May I ask you a favor?”
“Anything.”
“Would you drive me somewhere?”
“When?”
“After I make some phone calls.”
Ernie stood up. “I’ll get us a snack.”
She turned and picked up the phone. In about forty minutes, between bites of sandwich, she elicited the information she wanted. She hung up.
“Now,” she said.
At the Berg University School of Medicine in Queens, Mrs. Risk and Ernie found the maintenance garage. Here was stored the vans, lawn equipment, and other practical detritus of the school. Ernie, who’d been primed by Mrs. Risk, called out to the only person they found in residence, “Insurance adjuster. Got some questions.” He held up a clipboard and clicked his ballpoint pen. “’Bout the missing truck.”
The man wore a khaki one piece uniform with the name of the school embroidered over one pocket. His workbench was littered with pieces of greasy metal. “The van? No insurance company’s involved, far’s I know,” he answered, gazing at them with suspicion.
Ernie looked nonplussed. Mrs. Risk said rapidly, “Administration changed their minds on that. Now we have claim forms to fill out.”
The man rolled his eyes as if disgusted with such vacillation. “I turned in my report to the Provost yesterday.”
“Yeah, but we have to ask other stuff,” insisted Ernie.
The man shrugged. “Ask.” He picked up a greasy chunk of metal and began wiping it with a rag.
“Theft occurred on October 29th, right? After dark?”
The man nodded.
“Where was the driver when the van was stolen?”
“At that diner in Suffolk County. Didn’t you read the report?”
“Yeah, but we couldn’t tell if he was at the diner when the van was stolen, or if that’s just where he used the phone to report it.”
“Both. They’d stopped to eat supper. There was two drivers,” the man said.
“What was the name of the diner again?”
The man looked annoyed, so Ernie pleaded, “I don’t have your report with me, for cryin’ out loud. I gotta fill this out now.”
“The Porthole Diner. In Elmdale. On Highway 14.”
“And they were coming back from where?”
The man exhaled in exasperation. “East End Hospital. Good thing you don’t work here. Efficiency is everything. Do it right the first time, or that’s it.”
“Tight ship, huh?” asked Ernie companionably.
“Fired both guys that same night. Expensive van, just like that one.” He gestured at a new van parked thirty feet away. It was a pale cream color, unmarked with any logo.
“And the two drivers’ names?”
“Frank Ivers and Julio Gravez.”
Ernie laboriously spelled out their names on his form. “Where they now?”
“Got me. Collecting unemployment somewhere.” The man grinned. “Left the keys in the ignition while they were in the diner. Tried to deny it, but no keys on ’em when they were picked up.”
“Picked up by the cops, you mean?”
“Cops? No, somebody from the school drove out to pick ’em up. Told you. No insurance claim, no cops, they wanted it kept—hey, let me see your credentials.”
Mrs. Risk said crisply, “Just direct us to the Provost’s office. He can furnish the rest of the information himself.”
He looked abashed, and led them
to the Administration Building.
With her hand on the Provost’s office doorknob, Mrs. Risk thanked the maintenance man for his help and said they would continue by themselves. He left. Seconds later, she and Ernie left, also.
At the nearest phone booth, she called her friend Homicide Detective Michael Hahn of Suffolk County’s Sixth Precinct. After conducting a computer search to answer her question, he connected her with NYC Police Detective Klinger, the officer from a Brooklyn precinct in charge of the case about which she desired information. After a three-way conversation, complete with reassurances from Detective Hahn to Detective Klinger about Mrs. Risk’s peculiar but reliable habits, they agreed to meet in the parking lot of the Porthole Diner as soon as possible. Detective Michael Hahn came out of curiosity.
When all had arrived, Michael hailed Ernie, whom he knew from evenings at Mrs. Risk’s. After the introductions were completed, Mrs. Risk directed Detective Klinger to go into the diner and to ask a certain question.
Minutes later, Klinger returned. “Just like she said,” he told Detective Hahn, wonder in his voice. “That blue Pontiac’s been here since the night the van disappeared.”
Michael grinned.
Klinger paused to radio someone in his office. When he was through, he commented, “Manhattan plate. Not reported stolen. Yet.”
“Oh, I doubt it’s stolen,” said Mrs. Risk.
Klinger continued, “Since it’s a fairly nice car, the diner management figured they’d give the owner a couple days. If he didn’t come for it by then, they’d have it towed. Happens occasionally, they said. Someone leaves a car overnight or whatever. They’re open 24 hours a day, seems safe, they guess.”
He turned to Mrs. Risk. “Okay. I’ve played along, now what’s the connection to my fur robbery?”
Mrs. Risk nodded. “The fur shipment in question was hi-jacked by two men in a van early this morning, correct?”