Turning the Tables: An Alex Peres Mystery

by Jessica Thomas

  Of course he might have encountered Lewis upon arriving home, but I doubted he could have had a casual, coherent conversation with a houseguest if he had just minutes earlier bashed Lewis’s head in and stashed him behind a bush for later transport to the beach. Mitch said Lewis had possibly been killed as late as two a.m., but more likely earlier, so it looked as if Peter and Wolf were at least marginally in the clear.

  “I say again, Wolf, I don’t think you two have anything to worry about. Since Lewis worked and lived here, you come into the spotlight. The fight and burning the table are negatives, but the watch is easily explained and the table is so dumb it almost has to be innocent. Give me your guest’s name and phone number . . . and Marc’s. Also, I’ll see what I can find out about table legs and the righteous Reverend Bartles. We’ll talk during the weekend.”

  “Ah, would you like a small . . . ah, is retainer the word?” Peter asked delicately, as Wolf scribbled on a card. “Absolutely,” I said. “A copy of the Judy, Judy, Judy tape for my very own.”

  “You shall have it, my dear, the only duplicate copy.”

  I left my car parked at Green Mansions, and Fargo and I walked the few hundred feet to the Wharf Rat Bar for the lunch I felt we so richly deserved. I took a seat at the bar and noted that the usual suspects had gathered around the front table. Fish had taken second place and the topic du jour was, of course, murder. The consensus held that Peter and/or the Wolf had done it. The more Harmon drank, the more certain he was that it had been Wolf he saw in the Explorer, that Wolf was the go-between in a drug ring and Lewis was blackmailing him. Others were betting on Peter, that he was jealous of Wolf making a play for Lewis. One or two still voted for the transient robber, but they were few.

  I decided to have a little fun. After Joe had taken my luncheon order and brought me a Bud, he asked, as usual, what was new with Ptown’s favorite sleuth. I gave him a big wink and answered in a whisper that could have been heard in Wellfleet, “Harmon’s footprints were found on the beach this morning. You know what that means. Not only what you’re thinking, but also possibly firewood.”

  “My God!” Joe played along, and the silence at the front table became palpable. “Are they sure, Alex, really sure?”

  “Yep. The worn spot on the heel was a dead giveaway.” Out of the corner of my eye I could see Harmon lifting one battered boot and then the other while he and his cronies leaned as if in prayer, to examine the soles.

  Harmon addressed his companions indignantly, “Well, even if I was there and who says I was, it don’t mean nothing. Just walking on a beach don’t mean nothing! And Mitch ought to know that. No more does picking up a little wood. That ain’t illegal. I’m going down there right now and tell him he ain’t got one thing on me. Not one.” He nearly ran from the bar. I smiled at the thought of the lengthy and many-faceted conversation he and Mitch would enjoy. Then the smile faded, as I realized that once in a while my humor took a dark, twisted turn that reminded me of my father. I had to watch that.

  My reflections were short-lived. Just as I had taken Fargo’s hamburger and water out to him and returned to my fried clams, Ben Fratos came through the door with his usual swagger. He took a barstool a couple down from me, and we nodded to each other with mutual lack of enthusiasm. Why did Fratos always arrive in time to ruin my lunch?

  I turned away from him slightly, but it didn’t work. He took a noisy swig of his beer and said, “Well, I understand you got yourself a case. Trying to clear Peter and the Wolf, are you?”

  “Not me. I didn’t even know they were cloudy.”

  “They’re under a cloud. Blood all over their SUV, Wolf with no alibi, a table leg—probably the murder weapon—missing from their place, and even poor little faggy Peter having a fight with the vic. I’d say that’s cloudy.”

  I knew that, as an ex-cop, Fratos was still friendly with one or two men on the force and that they would have passed along information on the case. But it made me mad he would be so irresponsible as to blab it all over the Rat—the equivalent of CNN, or better.

  “Gee, Ben.” I smiled. “You seem to know an awful lot about the case. You get your info direct from the perp? ”

  His reaction totally unnerved me. He slammed the beer bottle down on the bar and stood up, red in the face, muscles popping along his neck. “You fucking nosy dyke! You been following me? I’ll teach you to trail me around!”

  He swung at me. I ducked, and suddenly Joe was between us, arms around Fratos.

  “Ben, you crazy or something? Alex was just riding you a little, and I gotta say you started it. Looks to me like you already had too much beer somewhere. This one’s on the house, but you better get on home and sleep it off. Get on now!” Ben looked like he’d like nothing better than a fight, but finally turned and left.

  “Jesus, Alex, I’m sorry. You okay?” Joe patted my shoulder.

  “Oh, yeah, he missed. But what on earth did I say? He knows I know he has contacts who’d tell him stuff about a case, especially a murder. Why would he get so upset? He had to know it was just a needle.”

  “Well, for one thing he was half-drunk. For another, you’re not his favorite person.” Joe returned to his usual place behind the bar. “I don’t know why he blames you for that Keystone Kops act he pulled with that skylight, but he does. Has from the beginning. Anyway, you want me to reheat your lunch?”

  “Uh, no, thanks, Joe. I’ve kind of lost my appetite. Maybe Billie could wrap it up for me. I’ll have it later at home.”

  He was back moments later. “Billie gave you a fresh salad and added some pecan pie for a little comfort, she says. And it’s on us, Alex. Billie says you should have punched him while I held him.”

  “Thanks. Billie is a woman of great ideas.” I smiled as I took the package. “But I have a feeling it would take more punch than I’ve got to shut that mouth.”

  And it did.

  Chapter 14

  Fargo and I walked to the car. I sat a moment, feeling dizzy and shaken. I was more upset than I wanted to admit. Fratos could have broken my jaw if he had connected. What the hell had gotten into him? Okay, he’d had a few. Okay, he didn’t like me, but you don’t attack everyone you don’t care for. Or maybe you do if you’re Ben Fratos—he had the reputation of a short fuse.

  It went nicely, I suppose, with his long, prying nose. He liked to be in the know about everything and anything going on in town. Who was selling his house, whose car was being repo’d, who was fighting with her husband, who was behind in his mortgage payments, who was cheating, whatever. You were likely to spot Fratos any place at any hour—watching, smirking. I’ve no idea what purpose this gathering of information served. He had few investigatory cases, I knew that much.

  At home I put Billie’s package in the refrigerator for later reference. I automatically pulled out a Bud and then put it back. I was edgy. This damn murder was getting to me. Though I couldn’t put my finger on anything Mitch was doing wrong, he seemed as centered on blaming Peter and the Wolf as Captain Anders was on blaming some nameless thief. If Anders was right, there’d probably never be an arrest, much less a conviction, unless the killer was found by sheer luck. One transient in Provincetown on Halloween weekend would stand out about like a seagull at the town dump. Anyway, why would a transient killer who struck opportunistically, having seen Lewis flash big bills, carry him out to the amphitheater and pose him on stage? It almost had to be someone who knew Lewis and had reason to kill him. That left Wolf and Peter, and in my heart, I really didn’t want it to be them.

  I checked my watch and was surprised to find it only a little after one. “Saddle up, Fargo, let’s go see what Mr. Wood has to say about selling legless tables.”

  There are those who would say that Fargo did not understand my entire sentence. I happen to think Fargo understood every word I ever said. But I am positive he got “Saddle up” and “Let’s go.” Why else would he have beat me to the back door with a big grin and majestically sweeping tail?

 
; Heed this warning: watch what you say in front of your dog. He knows.

  Headed for Orleans, I drove past the dunes, nearly white and blindingly bright in the midday sun, with the intense autumn-blue sky opening as a deep pool behind them. On my right was the bay, lined with all the little cottages and their hopeful signs of We’re Open! and Free Heat! and Off-Season Rates. Anything for a few more profitable weekends. A great expanse of pure clean space on one side and crowded commercialism on the other—somehow, in Provincetown, it seemed fit. I loved it all.

  As we drove down Route 6, we passed Mr. Ellis, abroad on some errand, no doubt, and looking rather like a benign midget behind the wheel of his cream Lincoln Navigator. He gave a brief, choppy wave and quickly returned his hand to the wheel. I had the feeling Mr. E. was not an SUV man at heart and wondered why he had one—as I wondered why so many people do.

  Cream colored. I wondered if Ellis had been careening down the beach road in the small hours of Halloween night, tossing Lewis’s wallet and watch out the window, nearly sideswiping poor Harmon. While I found it difficult to picture the dapper Mr. Ellis playing Casey at the Bat with Lewis’s head, I thought sustained contact with Lewis might bring out the worst in most of us. But why, for example, would Ellis want to kill him? My whimsical side took over.

  Lewis owed money to the bank, so Ellis beaned him, took his cash and laid him out on stage because he knew it was the only funeral Lewis would have. Lewis tried to steal Ellis’s pretty Lincoln, and Ellis grabbed a handy chair leg and killed him, not wishing to bother the police with a personal problem. They had a lover’s quarrel, and Lewis threatened to blackmail Ellis. Ellis killed him and—in a fit of remorse—laid him on the stage so he would be more comfortable.

  Now that scenario appealed to me. Not that I had much serious thought of Ellis being involved in any way with Lewis or his demise, but the words blackmail and Lewis seemed a likely combination. Whom would Lewis blackmail? Anyone he could, was my first answer.

  And that would be? Someone with at least some amount of money. Someone who was doing something naughty or illegal. Someone whose reputation or career would suffer if the knowledge became public. Someone like Ellis, actually, although I couldn’t imagine his embezzling funds or climbing into the wrong boudoir window. But of course, that would be the whole idea. You are doing something wrong—pay me or I will reveal your criminal or embarrassing secret. So many people could be vulnerable: a banker, a lawyer, a teacher, a cop, a minister . . . a minister. Reverend Bartles?

  He did keep popping up, didn’t he? Perhaps an unseemly liking for young girls or boys? Perhaps Harmon’s favorite evil, some connection to drugs? Possibly money laundering? Probably not stealing from the collection plate; I doubted there was enough in it to steal. There was at least some link between him and Lewis, though. I wondered how far it went and how I could find out what it was. I was still puzzling over that one when I arrived at Wood’s Woods. The business was housed in a small building with a sort of attached lean-to, where I heard an electric saw buzzing. Perhaps Mr. Wood did custom work or repairs. I walked into the “showroom”—an overcrowded room with various pieces of unfinished furniture assembled and displayed in no order I could discern. In one corner I spotted what I thought was the twin of Peter and Wolf’s table, albeit with four sound legs.

  The noise of the saw stopped and Mr. Wood came into the room. He was a small, skinny man in dusty khakis. He had an advanced case of male pattern baldness, with nearly colorless hair receding almost as I looked. A beaky nose held a pair of sawdust-specked glasses—sawdust! From no clues I was now gathering more clues than I knew what to do with. I must have been staring at him, for he looked at me uneasily, and when he spoke, his voice matched the rest of him, high pitched and unhappy. “Yes, can I help you?”

  Some of my best performances are off the cuff. I looked sternly at him. “Mr. Wood?” He nodded. I flashed my private investigator’s license, casually placing my thumb over the word private, letting the word investigator show and allowing the Great Seal of Massachusetts to work its magic. “There’s been a problem, sir, with your selling tables much like that one there, with missing legs. Are you aware of that? How many complaints are unanswered? Where were the sales made to? What solutions have you offered?”

  He looked stricken. Maybe this was all a surprise to him. Maybe all his tables had four good legs. Maybe it was because most everybody has a slight fear of authority, and I was being very authoritative. Maybe Wolf and Peter had lied like troupers.

  “Look, Miss . . . Ms . . . ma’am, none of it was my fault and I am making every one of them good. Every single one. My wife is out now delivering legs.” She sounded like a mad midwife. “You see, I got a chance to buy these tables at a closeout, real cheap, you know? I put that sample one together and it seemed okay, maybe a little flimsy and rough cut, but not bad for the price. So I ordered a bunch and sent out fliers advertising them. I sold thirty-four—all but that one there and one still in the carton. How did I know some only had three legs?” His voice rose to a self-justifying whine. I scribbled some meaningless words on a notepad holding an old grocery list. He looked even more alarmed and continued his screed. “The minute I started getting complaints, I called the company and they promised to send replacement legs, but they took their sweet time . . . only got here yesterday. Right now, my wife is out with them, as I said. She’s up in Hyannis and Sandwich and I forget where. Tomorrow she’ll go out toward Wellfleet and Truro and all. I’m doing the best I can,” he almost whimpered, a slight sheen now coating his extremely high forehead.

  “Really? Then why didn’t you cannibalize the two you have left? You could have taken care of eight disgruntled customers right there.”

  He looked at me with the pitying condescension of the expert to the ignorant. “Now, ma’am, I could hardly do that! I might have a chance to sell one—or both—of them, you see?”

  “Right, I see.” What I saw was why the store was where it was and the size it was and why it always would be. “I have other questions. Did you ever employ, or sell to or know anyone named Lewis Schley?”

  He pondered, or at least pretended to, and answered, “No. Don’t know him. He might have bought something for cash, but I wouldn’t know that.”

  I doubted Lewis would have bought anything here. If he had done any work for Wood or—unlikely, I thought—had a more personal relationship, Wood wasn’t about to say. I would tell Mitch that Wood had a lot of sawdust around and he could do what he liked about it. “All right.” I made it sound as if I were doing him a big favor. “We’ll let that go for now. Do you have a list of people who complained about missing legs who live in . . . oh, Wellfleet, Truro and Provincetown?” I figured that covered enough area to include anyone Lewis might have known.

  “Yes, but I’m not handing out my customers’ names and addresses just because you’re some consumer protection dogooder on a spree or something. Why do you care if somebody got a damaged table as long as I’m making it good, anyway?”

  He was a fool, but unfortunately he was not a complete fool. Sometimes the only choice is the truth.

  “Lewis Schley was killed in Provincetown Saturday night. It is probable that the weapon was a table leg, pine, possibly from one of your tables. If so, the murderer could hardly have used it to beat Schley to death and then simply screwed it back on his table and sat down to breakfast. He may have complained that a leg was missing and asked for a replacement. The fact that legs now seem to be missing all over the Cape is just good luck for him. He may not have known others were missing, probably didn’t. But I want to talk to anyone in those three towns who complained to you. Are you with me?”

  “Oh, yes, ma’am! The list, I’ll get you the list right now.” He started exploring his pockets. “It’s all written out with addresses. Always like to cooperate with the police, I do.” I favored him with a nod and the wintry smile I assumed a police officer might give. “Murdered, you say, maybe with one of my table legs. You don’t
think my wife is in danger, do you?”

  I liked him a little better. “Not at that end of the Cape. We think the killer was local. In fact . . .” I had a sudden bright idea that would give me a good excuse to call on the list of presumably disgruntled customers. “In fact, if you have replacements available, I’ll be glad to deliver them for you. That way, your wife won’t have to go to the Outer Cape at all. Much safer all around.”

  “Why, yes. They’re right there in the back. Thank you, I really appreciate that.”

  I took the list from his limp hand, placed my car keys in it and said, “Great. Just put them in my trunk and forget all about this.” I knew he wouldn’t—he’d dine out for a year on this story. As he loaded the legs in my car, I glanced at the list. Two lived in Truro, two in Wellfleet, three in Provincetown. One of the Provincetowners was old Mr. Leander, so crippled by arthritis he could barely get around. One was the ubiquitous Rev. Bartles—I really had to meet that man. The third was—damnation!—my Aunt Mae. Yes, Aunt Mae.

  As Fargo and I tooled along toward our Wellfleet deliveries, I tried to visualize Aunt Mae as the Table Leg Killer and failed. She was a vivacious lady with a pouter pigeon build who had no children and was mother to the world. When my Uncle Frank had died, she started fooling around growing herbs, more as a pastime than anything else. But she developed a deep interest and learned much about them and their place in history, as well as the kitchen. She now had a shop in what used to be her garage, where she sold dried herbs and small pots of herb plants which she raised in a little attached greenhouse. She had even published two thin books on the subject. She had quite a following and I loved her to pieces.

  Of course, there had been the time when two young boys tried to swipe a bunch of her little clay pots, and she had chased them halfway down Bradford Street, belaboring them with a string mop. But I didn’t think that really counted.

  I turned down a rutted dirt road to my first delivery and figured I was in luck. There was a car in the yard. As Fargo headed for the nearest tree, a young woman came around the corner of the house.