If someone had fallen overboard or been injured on a fishing boat or pleasure craft from Provincetown, I would have heard right away—along with all the rest of the town. If the boat were from another Cape town, it would have been on the news, both electronic and word of mouth, long before now. I found it hard to believe it was some illegally dumped hospital garbage gone hideously astray. Didn’t they cremate amputated body parts, anyway? And the accident—surgery?—attack?—had to have happened nearby. It hadn’t been in the water that long.
I don’t like mysteries. They bother me. That’s why I try to solve them, although I had never before encountered one that involved a disembodied foot. But for some reason I wanted no part of this one. I had a great desire to collect my dog, go home, pour a stiff drink and watch cartoons, or a preseason baseball game, which was about the same thing.
But there were two reasons I couldn’t do that. One, it really was a police matter. Two, I saw the two kids from the van now playing on the beach. Frankly, I am not a great admirer of children as a species—the younger ones smell funny and the older ones look as if they know something you don’t—but even I didn’t want two young kids stumbling onto this piece of flotsam or jetsam or whatever you called a lost/discarded body part. I spotted a broken lobster pot on the beach and fetched it back, and placed it over the foot, trying not to look too closely at what I was doing. Then I gave Fargo an apologetic pat, told him to come along and headed for my car and cell phone.
As I climbed the hill and made a detour toward the van, the tourist-parents watched me warily from the van’s front seat. I didn’t really blame them. I was windblown, panting from the climb and probably a little wild-eyed as I walked over to the vehicle. The husband rolled his window down a scant two inches. “Yeah?” he greeted me cordially.
“Sorry to bother you,” I said, “But there’s something on the beach you’d probably rather your kids didn’t see. You might want to call them.” The father gave me a sharp look, opened the door and edged out around me, walking off the tarmac down onto the sand, where he began yelling and waving at his offspring.
The mother seemed to thaw a bit with this domestic conversation and leaned across the driver’s seat toward me. “What is it you saw down there?” she asked. “Some poor dead dog or cat, I suppose?”
“No. It’s a man’s foot.”
She shot out the passenger door and ran to her husband, speaking wildly, yanking his arm and pointing first toward me, then the beach, then back to me. The man ran down the beach and shooed his kids up the dune and into the van. They drove off in a roar, the man having trouble with the clutch. I looked after their departure enviously and walked to my car.
I sat behind the wheel and took a pack of cigarettes off the dashboard and lit one of the five I allow myself each day. I allow myself five. The other eight or ten I smoke are not allowed. Look, I try to watch my weight, I try to watch the booze, I try to remember my vitamins, I love my mother. Get off my case. I got the cell phone out of the compartment and phoned 911.
“Provincetown Police Department, Officer Mitchell speaking.”
“Hi, Mitch, It’s Alex.” My name is Alexandra, but don’t call me that unless you are my mother or my Aunt Mae. “Is Sonny there?”
In a moment I heard, “Sergeant Peres, may I help you?”
“Hi, Sonny. It’s Alex.” I told him my sad tale.
His reaction was much like mine. “Shit.” He sighed heavily. “I suppose you’re absolutely sure. I mean, it couldn’t be some kind of toy or one of those things from a joke shop or something?”
“Sonny, I know a foot when I see one, even one that’s disconnected.”
“Yeah, sorry. It’s just that I hate these things. We’ll have a hundred pounds of paperwork and never find the . . . owner. Well, stay put. We’ll be right out.”
Provincetown Detective Sgt. Edward J. Peres—Sonny—is my older and only brother. I guess you’d say we are pretty close. My brother, my mother and I had always been close. Life with father rather guaranteed it.
Musing on my father’s legacy was perhaps more pleasant than musing on an amputated foot, however marginally. But once begun, of course, my stroll down memory lane would not be denied.
Daddy Dearest had been an assistant manager at the A&P. He worked hard, put in long and weird hours and got paid never quite enough. In his few off hours he drank. When he was home, he was either insincerely jolly, or sorry for himself or cuttingly sarcastic or asleep. Mother at least was consistent. She tried to please everyone and so, of course, pleased no one—least of all herself, I imagine. But she never quite lost her sense of humor, and she loved us and we loved her back.
When Sonny was fourteen and I was twelve, the tip of the Cape caught the tip of a Class 4 hurricane. There was a savage and unrelenting wind, sheeting rain and no electric power by late afternoon. They barricaded and closed the store early. Dad fought his way home through crowded, flooded streets to a cold house and cold sandwiches in the dark, with no TV, only a candle to see by and the wind howling voraciously through cracks we hadn’t known the house had. The only sensible thing to him seemed to be drinking himself to sleep.
The next morning we woke from what little sleep we had managed to a strong wind and merely heavy rain but still no power. Dad began his day with no hot water for a shower, no hot coffee and no hot breakfast to soothe what must have been the mother of all hangovers. To complete his already miserable day, two power lines threaded their way across our driveway, blocking his exit.
He called the power company and got little joy there. A recorded message told him the power company was doing its best and to be patient, and then compounded his irritation by adding a stern warning not to go near any downed wires even if they looked safe. He muttered and paced for about a half hour, then threw on his raincoat and said, “The hell with it, I’ve watched those wires for twenty solid minutes and they haven’t sparked once. They can’t be live. And I’ve got to get to work. God knows what shape things are in down there.”
He walked down the drive and, standing in a puddle, with rain running down his face, he picked up one of the lines. The doctor estimated that he had only one or two seconds to realize his error. His wife and two children had a number of years to think upon his stupidity.
The money from a company insurance policy (Dad’s only provision in that line) seemed to diminish daily. Mom brushed up on some old secretarial skills and found a job at the Catholic church-office, which also provided some very welcome benefits. Sonny and I did what we could after school and during the summers. And somehow we made it.
Of course, many things changed. I did not become a lawyer. I did manage to put in two years at the community college in Hyannis, pass my exam for private investigator’s license and start to build a business. It wasn’t easy. I was young and female and the town was small. Many people knew me and were uneasy about trusting their confidential business to someone they saw regularly in the market or with whom they’d gone to high school. But I stuck it out and slowly it pulled together.
In some ways I knew it would be a lot simpler to practice my trade in a large city, but I didn’t want a large city. I wanted Provincetown, with its rickety old buildings along Commercial Street and its side streets of crowded dwellings. I wanted the smell of the sea and the expanse of the dunes and the stunted little scrub trees in the pine woods. I wanted the carnival hysteria of the summer and the clear cold solitary beauty of the winter. I wanted the continuum of the old people I had known all my life and the kids who would know me all of theirs. And so, I stayed. And I am not sorry.
Sonny did not become an airline pilot. But he came back, too, after a couple of years in the army. He sort of drifted into the police department, but he found a home. Sonny became a good cop. He didn’t take any nonsense off of anybody, but he wasn’t a bully, either. He took a bunch of correspondence courses in criminal law and police procedure and went over to Boston a couple of times a year for seminars in various subjects. He wou
ld be chief of police one day, and the town would be the better for it.
I had to admit he would make a good looking one. He was fairly tall, with a good build and cute buns. Unlike me (who looked much like our mother) he took after our Portuguese father in coloring, with dark wavy hair and skin that always looked tanned. A badly set nose, broken by an outraged young lady when he was fifteen, just kept him from being pretty.
Nowadays it was about fifty-fifty whether the girls or the boys found him more attractive. But there was no doubt in Sonny’s mind: he liked the girls. So well that he had two ex-wives and three kids scattered along Route 6. Right now, he lived at Mom’s. It was about the best place he could afford under the circumstances, especially since it included home-cooked meals at all hours and a crisp uniform always hanging in the closet.
But I shouldn’t be snide about Sonny’s less than perfect love life. I had a few exes of my own strewn about, although at least I wasn’t into child support. I did not live with Mom, had gotten my own place years ago and finally bought it. Living with her would not have worked for me. While she completely and warmly supported my being gay, I had the feeling she preferred not being reminded of its more intimate details on a daily basis. And while neither my brother nor I would dream of sneaking a girlfriend into a bedroom at Mom’s house, if Sonny stayed out all night it was simply ignored. If I did, it would result in a lecture. Men had needs. Women had reputations.
And another of Sonny’s needs was to be a bit of a cowboy. Here he came now, leading a convoy of two police cars up the hill, lights flashing, sirens whooping. They skidded to a stop in front of me. Sonny came back to my car, walking daintily to keep the sand from scuffing his shiny low cut boots.
“Gee, Sonny, did you need to bring an army? You think we’re being invaded by the Feet People?”
“Never can tell, the rest of him might be lurking in the bushes.”
“If he is, I don’t think you have to worry too much about his catching you. He ain’t gonna run too fast.”
“No.” He reached across the steering wheel to pet the grinning Fargo. “Yeah, boy, you had to go and find it didn’t you, boy? Well, where is it?”
I pointed down the beach. “Under that lobster pot. I put the pot over it. There were little kids playing on the beach, and I was afraid they might spot it. They left with their parents. A blue Ford van with Jersey plates. I don’t think they had anything to do with it. They looked typical tourist to me, scared to death and took off like a flock of sparrows at a cat convention. But here’s their license number anyway.”
He stuck the scrap of paper in his shirt pocket and turned to his three minions, telling them to take various photographs, collect the foot, check the area for footprints and look around for any other body parts. (I was glad I hadn’t thought of that possibility.) In a short while the men returned, their search obviously fruitless except for the original item, now in a black garbage bag being swung casually by a gum-chewing young cop. It seemed sort of informal to me, but, I told myself, they could hardly be expected to parade around with it on their shoulders like a bunch of pallbearers either.
Sonny gave Fargo a final ear-scratch. “I’ll let you know if we find out anything. But I wouldn’t hold my breath.”
Fargo and I went home. I, at least, was ready to call it a day. I had a long soak in a hot tub and got out thinking of an evening in cozy flannel pajamas watching the Celtics. Then I remembered I had to play Snoopy for Ms. Miller. Damn. Tiredly, I pulled on lined jeans, heavy socks and boots, and a long-sleeved teeshirt. I’d add a sweatshirt and jacket to that when I went out. It would be cold sitting in the car while I waited for Raymond Miller to do whatever it was he did.
I fed Fargo and checked the freezer for some culinary delight for myself. I settled on a macaroni and cheese dinner plus one of those little containers of applesauce. Somehow meat didn’t appeal to me tonight.
A short while later, Fargo and I set out for the Miller residence, set neatly in a development off Shank Painter Road. I parked up the hill a bit, where I could watch his driveway, and, just as his wife had predicted, he drove out at seven-thirty. I followed him down near Town Hall to the building that held his office. Shortly after he disappeared inside, lights went on in a second-floor office. Maybe he really did work nights. But no, the lights were just a decoy. He left them on, came out again, and we followed him slowly, rolling quietly along with the car lights off, as he strolled over to the Fisherman’s Bar and Grill.
Fargo and I settled down, cuddled together, to see whom he would come out with. There were enough people and cars on the street that I wasn’t worried about being spotted by Miller or anyone else.
So I thought about the foot. Male, almost certainly. Large man, probably, but hard to tell without the rest of the body. Anyway, the sneaker had looked big to me. Fresh? I thought so. Medical waste, probably not. There hadn’t been any instances around here of illegal dumping for a long time. And I really was ninety percent sure a medically amputated foot would not have been wearing a shoe.
The shoe itself was just like a million other sneakers and had no special marks that I had noticed. No footprints in the area except mine, so it had doubtless washed ashore. No news about boating accidents. I had caught the news on TV and given the paper a swift perusal. If that held true, then all I could think of was some sort of drug scene.
God, could Harmon actually be on to something? Maybe some dealer had met a “mother ship” recently and perhaps tried to pull a fast one by holding back money or making a fuss over poor quality stuff. Maybe they threw him overboard and his foot caught in the propeller. Or maybe they chopped it off with an ax and sent the rest of him back somewhere (Alive? It might pay to check hospitals.) as some sort of lesson to him and his cohorts. Or maybe some neighbor had cut off his foot with the lawn mower and tried to give it a Viking funeral. Or maybe . . .
. . . maybe I was falling asleep. I sat up with a start. God, it was cold! I gave Fargo a small drink poured into a little bowl from a bottle of water I keep in the car. I gave me a small black coffee from a thermos. Not very much in either case. I didn’t want either of us to be squatting behind a friendly bush when Ray Miller came out of the bar with Wonder Woman and disappeared into the night without us. That’s a very embarrassing way to lose someone you’re supposed to be following. Unfortunately, I know.
Ray Miller didn’t come out at all till damn near closing time, and when he did, it was with two other bean counter types (male), one of whom I recognized from the bank. How thrilling. They said goodnight to each other and parted on the sidewalk but just to be completely reliable, I snapped a couple of photos. I didn’t think any of them were gay, but who ever knows. I followed Ray, first back to his office to turn off the lights, then toward his home. When he turned into his street, I kept going.
I crawled wearily into bed, shivering. Fargo jumped up on the bed and I was glad of his solid warmth. The end of another exciting day of romance and adventure in the fascinating life of Peres, P.I. The TV networks would be contacting me any day now about a series. Perhaps, I thought, as I began to doze, they would call it Footloose and Fancy Free.
Chapter 3
I’d always liked to fool around with photography. No, not the kind I was doing for Diane Miller. That was probably the one part of my job I heartily disliked. What I liked was nature photos of stuff like I’d seen on the beach yesterday—before the foot—or just oddball things that caught my interest . . . like a bird sitting in the rain looking dour or an old shanty with a cat sunning in the window or a fishing boat with a dog asleep on the nets.
I worked mostly black and white, but some color. I had discovered that other people liked my photos, too. And I had learned that if I enlarged them, matted them and put a simple wood frame around them, people would pay what I considered ridiculous sums for them. I sold quite a few prints, numbered of course to make them look more valuable, through art galleries in the spring, summer and autumn.
This morning I was put
ting twelve prints into frames to take into Wellfleet tomorrow. One gallery there actually did enough business to stay open all winter. I would go down with a dozen photos. Jay would take nine or ten on consignment. I always took an extra two or three because he always needed a couple of throwaways.
It was like a carefully rehearsed act. He’d line them up, look at them carefully, hand me back two or three, purse his lips and say, “Alex, these are good but I just don’t quite think these are meant for us.” What constituted not meant for us I never had figured out. The ones he refused tomorrow, he might well accept in June. Whatever—he set gratifyingly high selling prices on them. He sold at least some year-round and a lot in season, and he was honest.
Through the window of my combination studio/office I saw Sonny pull into the driveway. I waved and motioned him in. In a few moments I heard him fall to the floor in the living room to begin his usual noisy wrestling match with Fargo. I finished the last photo frame to the accompaniment of howls, growls, barks, thumps and laughter. When I got to the kitchen, I poured two coffees for Sonny and me plus fresh water for the third party. When Sonny had seated himself at the kitchen table and had a sip of his coffee, I could contain my curiosity no longer. “Any news on the foot? Did you find out who it belongs to? And how it got to Race Point?”
“Yes. No. Maybe.”
“That certainly clarifies matters,” I replied sweetly. “Now I understand the whole thing perfectly. What is the confusion?”
“I’m not confused. But I think the State Police may be. They’re thinking it was some kind of complicated drug war on land, air and sea. Personally, I think it’s simpler than that.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. Here’s what we know so far. We sent your foot—”
“Don’t call it my foot!”
“Okay. Naturally, we sent the foot down to the pathology lab at Hyannis. No news from them yet. Hurry is not in their dictionary. But old Doc Marsten took a look at it here first. I asked him to, just to get some sort of feel for what happened. This is not cast in stone, but Marsten is a pretty good old-fashioned doctor. He says a white male, maybe late twenties or early thirties. Probably at least five-feet ten inches, good-sized guy. The foot was in the water less than forty-eight hours, maybe a lot less, and was probably lopped off by a boat propeller. So, yes, there is some news on yo—the foot.”
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