“Oh, I think it was just some kids from up around Orleans took a boat for an impromptu joyride or something,” I lied. “I don’t think Cuba has invaded yet.”
“By this time of year, I almost wish they would invade—if they’ve got some American dollars, that is.”
“I was just on the beach with some similar thoughts,” I pouted at him. “You needn’t remind me it’s that lean time of year. Anything new and juicy?”
“You know that better’n anybody,” he replied. “You’re the one who found the foot.”
“Yeah, lucky me.”
“Well,” he nodded toward the front of the building. “You’ve sure given that bunch of losers a whole new reason to call Ptown the drug capital of the world. Which nobody needed. Every fishing boat already thinks every other one is running drugs. The gang at the front table got all excited yesterday when two guys in business suits came in, ab-so-lute-ly sure they were DEA or FBI.” He grinned bitterly. “Know who they were?”
“No.”
“Mortician equipment salesmen. They’d made a sales call at Collins Funeral Home and it got to be lunch time. Charlie Collins told them we made good stuffed clams, so they came over here to give us a try. DEA! FBI! Hah.” He nodded toward a group of grizzled fishermen nursing beers and shots. “Little formaldehyde is about what they need.”
I laughed. Joe gave the table another little rub and went back to the bar. I sipped my beer and slowly the conversation from the other table began to penetrate my consciousness. I heard one of the men say, “But, Harmon, they told Joe they was funeral home salesmen.”
“That were just a clever cover-up.” Harmon answered. “They was dressed too sharp to be funeral home salesmen. Funeral people, they always wear them black or dark grey suits and ties. These men was way too spiffy. And young. Funeral people ain’t never young.”
“Sure they are, Harmon. Hell, Charlie Collins was young hisself when he started working for his daddy.”
“Wel-l-ll, he didn’t never look young. Anyways, I left not long after those men did, and when I got up to the street they was standin’ outside their car lookin’ at a map. Now that oughta tell you something in itself! So, I just walked right up to them and gave my name and informed them that I knew for certain that the Ocean Pearl and the Katie Ann was a-meetin’ with a mothership out in the Atlantic and bringing in drugs. And while I hoped they wouldn’t spread it around who told ’em, I thought they ought to take some fast action to put a stop to it. Yes, I did! And you know what they said to me?”
The men at the table—and I—leanly expectantly toward Harmon’s answer.
“Well, sir, the kinda fat one, he looks at me for a long minute, like he’s deciding if he c’n trust me. Then he says, real solemn-like, ‘Sir, we appreciate your civic spirit. We won’t tell nobody what you told us, and we will certainly take it under ad-ad-advisement.’ Them was his very words.” Harmon nodded sharply as if he had proven his point beyond further debate, and I began to get that need of fresh air feeling. I drained my beer and was about to stand.
And she walked through the door.
Chapter 4
I watched her as she paused in the doorway to let her eyes adjust to the watery light admitted by the Wharf Rat’s salt-sprayed windows. With hands in pockets and collar turned up against the outdoor chill, she had a young and somewhat vulnerable look. I pegged her at twenty-five, no more. Her hair was dark and curly, cut short against a well-formed head. A straight, rather narrow nose topped a mouth that looked as if it could smile easily. Her eyes were a warm brown, her skin fair. She wasn’t terribly tall, maybe five-five or so. But the straight-cut jeans held long dancer’s legs. I knew underneath the soft denim would be muscular calves and smooth elongated thighs ending in small solid buttocks that would be the perfect handhold. As she removed her jacket, the high, round little breasts nudged her sweater as if reminding it to touch them gently.
She took a seat about a third of the way down the bar, and Joe was there with a smiling swiftness he rarely showed to his regular customers, polishing the portion of the bar in front of her with a surprisingly clean bar cloth and unusual promptitude. They spoke briefly and Joe actually provided her not only with a coaster but a cocktail napkin and dish of peanuts before leaving to fill her order.
I smiled to myself. Joe would give it his best try, and it wouldn’t be good enough. It often was. He wasn’t bad looking and he had a certain sardonic charm that worked quite well, not only with some of the local ladies, but tourists as well. Of course, most of Joe’s flirtatious efforts were carried on with the safety of a chest-high bar between him and his prey. There were lots of meaningful looks and double entendres, but Joe was ever mindful that if he developed a zipper problem, his wife Billie would throttle him.
But his magic wouldn’t work this time. She was gay. Sometimes you simply knew, and this was one of those times.
And, I reminded myself, faint heart ne’er won fair maiden. I ran my fingers through my own short hair, straightened my jacket and walked to the bar. “Hello.” I extended my hand. “I’m Alex Peres, mind if I sit down?”
She favored me with a small, tight smile and a brief, firm handshake. “I’m Janet Meacham. Do sit down.” She stared the length of the empty bar. “It’s so crowded in here. You’re very lucky this one stool was left vacant.”
Ouch. I quickly ran down my collection of swift and clever replies and didn’t seem to find one that fit that particular remark. I settled on being the harmless and sincere local yokel. “Well, I’ll agree with being lucky anyway. No intention of bothering you, it’s just that I’ve never seen you around before and thought I’d do my part as a Chamber of Commerce member in good standing and say welcome. If you’d rather be alone I’ll just quietly disappear and cry myself to sleep.”
Joe arrived with what looked like a vodka tonic, setting it down with a flourish for her and a nasty look for me. I ordered a bourbon and water before he could disappear, or she could dismiss me, and slid onto the stool. She took a sip of the drink and turned toward me. “I apologize. You’re being friendly and I’m being beastly. Let’s start all over again. Yes, I’m new in town, as of a couple of days ago. I take it you are not. New in town, I mean.”
“Native, in fact. I’ve been here most of my life.”
“What’s kept you in one place, aside from your Chamber of Commerce duties, of course?” This time her smile looked real.
I rarely tell people when I first meet them that I’m a private investigator. It seems either to intimidate or slyly amuse them, and both reactions irritate me. So I told her my almost-true version. “I’m a nature photographer, and I’ve yet to find a better spot to be one. Where’s your spot?”
“Oh,” she laughed, “I’m more like a Dalmatian. Maybe not a quite hundred-and-one spots, but close. Originally New Hampshire, bounced around all over the place in the Coast Guard for several years, then Boston.” Here her voice changed, and her eyes were both sad and wary. “I - I just got out of a bad relationship, and Boston suddenly seemed loaded with all those old familiar places and faces you really don’t want to see right now. It was change of scenery time. I’ve always thought I might want to give writing a try, and Provincetown off-season seemed a nice, quiet place to start. Or at least try to start.”
“You’re in pretty good company. Eugene O’Neill and Norman Mailer gave us an A-plus reference. Have you found your garret yet?”
“Garret?” Then she picked up on my erudite humor. “Oh, yes. I rented a small studio. Actually it’s half of a two-car garage made into an apartment over on Mather Street. The landlady is an absolute darling named Mrs. Madeiros. The place is clean and simple and cheap, which is about what I’m up to right now.”
“Understood. Well, just as part of my Chamber of Commerce responsibilities, you understand, how about having lunch with me tomorrow? I have to deliver some photos up to a fairly interesting art gallery in Wellfleet, and I know a pretty good restaurant there. You might enjoy both. Wha
t say you?”
“Oh, I’m sure it would be lovely, but I really think . . .” What sounded like an impending refusal was cut off by the noisy arrival of my dear brother.
Sonny opened the door, stood framed in it for a second, and closed it with definite firmness. I must admit as a detective sergeant he looked impressive. He was in uniform, which was unusual, and probably meant he was covering for another officer who was sick or on vacation. He stood there in full police regalia complete to peaked officer’s cap, hip holster, radio clipped to his belt, perfectly creased trousers and those very unofficial black shiny boots. Everyone in the place looked up, including Janet, whose face reflected curiosity and just a tinge of unease.
It’s funny how so many people see a cop and immediately get a guilty expression. I suppose it’s simply that we all are guilty of this or that—parking by the fireplug, swiping an apple off a fruit stand, dinging a car in a parking lot and not reporting it—and we automatically figure that somehow the cop knows! Whatever Janet’s and my particular sins may have been, Sonny’s interest was not in us at that moment. He walked right past us to the table of men at the front.
“Harmon,” he said sadly, “You’ve left the lights on in that wreck you call a truck . . . again! You’ll be out there begging patrol cars for a jump start in an hour and, believe it or not, once in awhile they have other things to do. Now be a good guy and go turn’em off and run that so-called vee-hicle till it charges.”
Harmon jumped to his feet. “Oh, gosh. Thanks for telling me, Sonny. I’m sorry, I really am. I woulda swore I turned them lights off when I came in. I’ll go and take care of it right away. And I won’t bother none of the patrolmen.”
“Harmon,” Sonny asked patiently, “Why do you run with your lights on in the middle of the day?”
“I heard on the TV it’s safer, like people can see you coming better.”
“They can hear you coming a mile away in that damn thing!” The men at the table laughed and Harmon glared, as Sonny continued.
“Harmon, some new cars come with daytime running lights. I do not believe the word ‘new’ applies to your truck. Those of us who do not have vee-hicles equipped with running lights put on our lights in rain, fog, snow. We put ’em on at dusk and dawn and in mountains where there’s deep shadow all day. We do not put them on in downtown Provincetown in broad daylight and then forget to turn them off when we park! Do we?”
“Sure, I mean no. Thanks, Sonny. Say, c’n I buy you a drink?”
“Harmon,” Sonny answered wearily, “That’s extremely safe generosity. You know I can’t drink in uniform.”
“Well, I’ll owe you one,” he said quickly. He turned toward the door.
Sonny let him open the door and then called out, “Hey, Harmon, tell you what, I’ll tell Joe to charge one to your tab and I’ll come back and have it later. Okay?” Harmon looked stricken and scuttled out the door, borne on gales of laughter from his cronies. Sonny smiled sourly. “Reckon he’d about die if I did it.”
“I reckon so would Joe about die if you did it,” I smiled, as he walked toward Janet and me. “Harmon’s tab is probably about equal to the national debt as it is. But let me mind my manners. Janet Meacham, my brother, Sonny Peres.” I watched as Sonny took her hand and said hello. But his gaydar was better than Joe’s. Sonny was pleasant, but he didn’t bother to turn on the thousand-watt Peres charm. I was doing that.
Still, when Sonny turned back to me, he was obviously in high good humor. “Well, Alex, you lose the bet. You owe me a nice, rare steak.”
“I don’t remember betting you a steak. What are you talking about?”
“The boat. I was right, there was a twenty-eight foot Bertram cruiser stolen from the boatyard the night of the storm. The robbery.”
“Oh, boy,” I mused. “They could be just about anywhere by now, short of Europe—that’s a good, solid little boat. It would weather most any storm if they knew how to handle it.”
“Unfortunately for them, apparently they didn’t. The Coast Guard had choppers out looking for them early this morning, and one of them spotted some debris on the water. They sent a cutter out and she picked up some stuff still floating around. There were a couple of cushions with the boat’s name stenciled on them and a cooler that the owner identified as having been on the boat. It’s certainly probable that she sank, and I assume that’s how your foot got separated from its owner.”
“Dammit! It’s not my foot and I wish . . .” I began. Then I happened to glance at Janet. She was looking at us with that totally bemused expression of someone who has joined a conversation in medias res and has absolutely no inkling of what anyone is talking about.
“I’m sorry, Janet, we’re being rude. Let me fill you in. You see, Monday night there was a robbery and murder over in Plymouth, and the robbers apparently stole this boat in their escape . . . but it seems they had some bad luck with it. Anyway, on Tuesday I was running my dog on the beach, and he found this sneaker that still had a man’s foot inside it. We figure he fell overboard somehow and caught his foot in the propeller and . . .”
She never said a word. She didn’t try to hold on to anything. She just keeled over. Fortunately, Sonny was faster than I was. He pulled her back against his chest to support her, or she’d have fallen off the bar stool and been lying on the dubiously cleaned floorboards of the Wharf Rat Bar.
“Congratulations, Alex, you really know how to grab your audience.” Sonny raised his voice. “Joe! We need some brandy down here, right now!”
Brandy! I thought. The Wharf Rat probably hadn’t sold brandy since it sold bathtub gin. But I was wrong. Joe fished and rattled around among some bottles and came up with one that at least said Brandy on the label. In keeping with the Rat’s long tradition of first class service, he slopped a couple of ounces into a beer glass and gave it a shuffleboard spin down the bar, where I caught it before it slid past us onto the floor. Obviously Joe’s interest in Janet was waning fast.
She was conscious, but white and confused, still leaning heavily against Sonny. I put the glass to her lips and she took a swallow. At that point her eyes flew wide open and she straightened up as if galvanized. “My God!” She gasped. “What is that?”
Paint thinner would have been my immediate answer, but I simply murmured soothingly and Sonny released his grip and patted her on the shoulder. It occurred to me that Joe might have a great medical miracle here. He could probably use his brandy to pull people out of deep comas. Janet certainly seemed alert, if still shaky.
I began to apologize, but she put up her hand and shook her head. “It’s me,” she said. “I have the world’s weakest stomach. Please, I’m the one who’s sorry for causing all the ruckus. Please, go ahead with your story.”
Sonny took over, speaking slowly, choosing his words carefully. “There doesn’t seem to be much more to tell. The Plymouth police figure that the boat went down in the storm, the two robbers went down with it and drowned, and that’s the end of that.”
“And the Plymouth police don’t think the real owner of the boat was involved with the robbers?” I asked.
“No.” Sonny gave that funny little giggle that told me he was truly amused. “For one thing, the owners are a Plymouth couple who are filthy rich, and it’s old family money. The family has lived in Plymouth for literally centuries, and they didn’t suddenly get mysteriously rich in the last couple of years or something, like it might be drugs. They go all the way back to the Mayflower’s original passenger list and they both have an alibi that’s too crazy to be anything but true.”
I saw his eyes glinting and knew he was dying to recount it, so, being a good guy, I fed him his line. “What sort of alibi?”
“They were going out Monday night to some hundred-dollar-a drink-benefit. You will recall it was sleeting at the time. But off they started anyway, in their fancy tux and long dress. Mr. McKinney had on new shoes and slipped on his top step. Ended up in a heap at the bottom with a broken ankle. The wife and t
he next-door neighbor got him into the car and off to the hospital. He gets a cast and some crutches and they bring him home.”
Already smiling, Janet and I both chuckled aloud as Sonny went into the awkward antics of a man, unfamiliar with crutches, trying to climb stairs.
“He’s hobbling up the front stairs, when his darling wife runs up the steps in front of him to open the door. Somehow he puts a crutch down on her foot. She screams and yanks her foot out from under. He goes back down the steps and cracks a bone in his wrist. Mrs. McKinney has two broken toes. They are now both resting comfortably at home.”
By now Janet and I were laughing and wiping our eyes. “And when is the divorce?” Janet finally managed to ask.
“No divorce,” I answered. “The next-door neighbor shot them both and put them out of their misery.”
“Janet may just be right,” Sonny grinned widely. “The Plymouth detective who talked with them said the air had a definite chill to it. But through his gritted teeth the owner did remember one thing that makes me wonder why Plymouth is so ready to call it a done deal.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“The Bertram carried a Zodiac with a high-powered outboard.”
“A Zodiac?” Janet looked confused. “You mean like an astrology chart?”
“No,” Sonny explained. “It’s the Cadillac of inflatable boats. It’s virtually unsinkable, with several separate air chambers and a very tough hide. It can carry an extremely powerful motor and live through just about anything if it’s handled correctly.”
“Aye, there’s the rub, though,” I said. “Once again—was it handled right? It looks like the cruiser definitely went down. At least one of them was overboard and . . . er, badly hurt at some point . . . and, ah . . . indications are it was probably the bigger guy. Could the smaller man have managed to handle things alone after the big guy was . . . no longer available? He would have had to be really good at it.”
Caught in the Net Page 4