“Not too many colleges you can very easily commute to around New Hampshire,” I mused. “You can’t have had many choices. Could you have found one that offered the major you wanted?”
Janet looked down at the table, her hands clasped hard around her coffee mug. She spoke, so softly I had trouble hearing her. I leaned forward as she said, “Alex, I’m not from New Hampshire, and my folks aren’t comfortably retired and living happily down in Florida. I’m from Connecticut, and my folks live right where they always have—in a shabby old two-family house in a blue-collar section of Norwalk. I—I lied. I was ashamed of my background. I wanted you to think I came from a regular middle class family, not a bunch of lowbrows who think Emily Dickinson is Angie’s sister.”
I laughed, but then sobered when I realized how much all this obviously meant to her. I asked, “Surely you don’t think I’m an heiress in disguise? Or that I give a damn about your family? It’s you I care about,” I said, and suddenly realized that I did indeed care.
“No, I don’t think you are an heiress.” She managed a weak smile. “But I don’t think your family is like mine, either. Not by a long shot. And maybe you don’t care about my family, but I do. They’re pretty awful. Their idea of a gala evening is to spend every Saturday night at the VFW club, where they drink too much and come home either antagonistic or amorous. I don’t know which is worse.”
My father would have fit right in, I mused. His drinking got to a point where Mom would rarely even go out socially with him. And when she did, she usually came home silent and tight-lipped. And we all tiptoed around his next day’s hangover. I knew right where Janet was. I knew how that problem could affect a family.
She ran her hand nervously through her short curls. “I’m the youngest of five—an older sister and three older brothers. I watched them grow up and only one of them finished high school. Except for my brother Eddie, they’re all like junior editions of my mother and father. They have dead-end jobs and sit on the front porch and drink beer and sweat and burp. The men talk about the Yankees or the Jets, and the women argue over whether Pathmark or Grand Union has cheaper canned goods. From the time I was little, I swore that no matter what I had to do, wherever I had to go . . . I would be different!”
“And you are,” I smiled reassuringly. “You’re intelligent and ambitious and well-mannered. Hell,” I teased gently, “In a weak moment one might well refer to you as a fine lady. Come on, Janet, you are yourself, not your family. You have nothing to be ashamed of.”
She gave me a startled, almost haunted look, and laughed strangely. I began to be sorry we’d gotten into this. If her family bothered her that much, I’d just as soon have left them in their fairy tale—cozy and happy and sober and financially comfortable in Florida via New Hampshire. Who gave a damn? But Janet took a breath and began to speak again, rather hurriedly, as if now that she’d started this dreary saga she must complete it.
“Back in the Middle ages when they switched babies, what did they call it?”
“You mean a changeling?”
“Yes, that’s it,” she agreed. “When I was a kid I swore I was a changeling, and to this day I’m still not sure the hospital didn’t screw up the ID tags. My family was chunky and square—I was slender. My brothers—well, two of them—were lazy and crude. My sister would rather have four cheap, fancy sweaters than one good plain one. If you said the word ‘opera’ to any of them, they would immediately mentally preface it with ‘Grand Old.’” She smiled ruefully. “Anyway, I got my student loan and enrolled in the local community college. I figured that would give me two years to try to work something out with Cornell while I took some basic courses.”
Something in her distracted gaze told me that kite hadn’t flown, either. “So what went wrong?”
“I was optimistic and excited, when I told Mama about it. We were both so happy . . . until Pop got home that night. He said in no uncertain terms I wouldn’t be living free at home, ‘sponging’ off them and getting some silly degree I didn’t need anyway. Once I got out of high school, I’d get a job and pay room and board just like the other kids had. He said he had lots of ‘expenses to consider’, like God forbid he’d have to give up a few beers at the VFW! My mother didn’t say one word to try to change his mind! I was frantic.”
“I don’t doubt it.” This poor kid got shot down at every turn. “What did you do?”
She extended her hands, as if in supplication. “What could I do? I was out of ideas. I felt paralyzed. My only hope was that Pop would give in. About that time my brother Eddie came home on leave. Sergeant Edward Meacham, with his stripes and ribbons and badges . . . oh, I was so proud of him! And I understood before long why he never came home.”
She paused while she took one of my cigarettes and lit it. I was surprised and must have looked it. “I don’t do this often,” she qualified and then continued. “My whole family, including the in-laws and excepting Mama, teased him unmercifully. Did he have to take orders from female officers? Were they dykes or nymphos? What about blacks—only that’s not the word they used. Did he have to shower with them? Eat with them? Did he sleep in a barracks with women? On and on.”
“What a savory group,” I smiled sourly.
“Weren’t they?” She grimaced back. “One night Eddie took me to dinner. He handed me two-hundred dollars for my graduation and told me to use it to get far, far away from Connecticut and the family before they did me in. ‘You’re not like them. You’re like me,’ he said. I liked that. Here was I, borrowing money for school, with Pop telling me I owed him money for board. And here was Eddie, with a great future, happy, with money to spare and a nice girl he planned to marry. That was a surprise.”
I was relieved to learn at least one member of her family had some feeling for Janet. Apparently Eddie had given some serious thought to his younger sister’s future. Janet filled in more details. “He urged me to join the army, to take advantage of all the opportunities they offered. He gave me his address and said I should keep in touch. He would not be back. He had even told his girl he was an orphan except for me. Oh, I wanted to be like Eddie all right.”
“Wow!” I breathed, somewhat taken aback. “That’s a pretty definitive farewell to the old plantation, isn’t it? So now you joined the Coasties?”
She took a bite from her scone and swallowed. “Yup. I didn’t quite see myself firing a cannon or driving a tank.” She gave a sort of surprised chuckle. “But you know what? I did get to where I could conn a forty-foot boat in a forty-mile wind and find it exhilarating! It was like a game. At what angle do you approach the next wave to make it easiest on the boat?”
I had a sudden vision of Janet on the wind-blown bridge of a boat, balanced lightly on the balls of her feet, cheeks streaked with water, the wheel grasped firmly in her rather square, capable hands. Oh, to take that photo!
“However,” she interrupted my daydream. “My family couldn’t even let my enlistment play out pleasantly.”
“Let me guess what happened.” It wasn’t hard. “Your father was against that, too.”
“Bingo! My father started stomping around and storming that I wasn’t going cavorting around in the service like some cheap hussy, that I would damn well stay home, get a job and help out with things like a normal daughter until I got married.”
“But he couldn’t stop you—certainly not at that point. When he figured that out, it’s probably what made him crazy.”
“Well, I’d had enough of him and that time I stormed back, ‘Then I’ll certainly be a comfort in your old age! I’ll never get married—I’m a lesbian!’”
“Brava! Brava!” I cried. “I’ll bet that shut them up.”
“Far from it,” Janet finally laughed and sounded more or less like herself. “Mama started wailing how could I do this to her and Pop was almost frothing at the mouth and came out with one of his typically brilliant remarks. ‘Well, if you want to be a queer, don’t do it in here!’” She giggled. “He sounded like I
was a puppy who was going to pee on the floor or something. So I got my little bag, spent the night with an old school friend and left the next morning.”
I washed down the last crumb with a sip of coffee. “That kind of man seems to make people unable to stand up for themselves. My father was a bit like that, although I must admit, not to that degree,” I recalled. “Mom always seemed to give into him. I guess it was just easier in the long run than listening to his bluster and criticism and his sort of brooding disapproval.”
Janet nodded agreement. “I think you’re right. If you’re going to live your life with that sort, you pretty much have to do it their way.”
“Well,” I said, reaching for a cigarette. Number three, only number three! “Mom’s very different now, very much her own person. I remember, Sonny always seemed sullen to me as a boy, although he’s not at all that way now. And I lived in a kind of pretend world with books and movies where the families were always sweet and happy and baking cookies or making fudge. I hate to say it, but I think all three of us have come off better without Daddy Dearest. Maybe someday your mom will get out from under your father’s thumb.”
“I don’t know. Whenever I’ve called home, all she does is say how sorry she is. Sometimes she even tries to tell me that deep-down my father loves me, too, in his way.”
“But at least you’re out. How did it go in the Coast Guard?”
“In the beginning I think it probably saved my life—or at least my sanity. Oh!” Janet jumped as Fargo barked and ran to the back door, tail wagging furiously.
This time it was Sonny. It seemed to me I’d been seeing an awful lot of him lately, which was pleasant enough, but unusual. Actually, his timing could have been a lot better, as I’d been thinking that it might be nice for Janet and me to put all this familial sturm und drang behind us with a little meaningful bedroom-time. Now, instead of two for romance, it became three for coffee as Sonny made himself comfortable at the table and reached for a goodie.
“Oh, this is good! This is what you call fresh, Alex. There are stores that actually bake them everyday.”
“Thank you for sharing that valuable information. Perhaps you could take over my shopping so there’d always be something handy to eat whenever you stop by. And stop giving bites to Fargo, it’s bad for his teeth. And thank Janet for the scones, not me.”
“Oh, testy, testy. Sorry, Fargo. Thank you, Janet. I’m glad someone around here is aware that, unlike good wine, pastry does not improve with age.”
“You’re very welcome, Sonny. Enjoy. But if I were you, I would-n’t get Alex started on the subject of wine.”
I made a face, but actually, I loved it when she teased me. It was always mild.
“Ah, how right you are.” He got up and took butter out of the fridge and smeared some on his scone. “Just thought I’d drop by with the facts, ladies, just the facts.” I wished I could tell him that I could do with fewer facts and more of Janet at the moment. She had looked particularly winsome when she had kidded me about the wine. But it was not to be. Sonny was here with the facts.
“The bad news first, Alex, that sweet innocent boy you and Sergeant York managed to subdue so brutally is definitely not our murderer’s accomplice, although he shows every promise of growing into one. Nasty little character. He was screaming lawsuit against you and Sergeant York for assaulting him without due cause. As opposed to assaulting him with due cause, I suppose. Someday if he lives long enough, he’ll make an absolutely great jailhouse lawyer.”
“Just what I need,” I groaned. “I can see the headlines in the Provincetown Journal now: Local Woman and Aging Lunatic Attack Youth In Bar.”
“No.” Sonny smiled smugly. “I counseled him wisely, and he saw the light.”
“Grand. I can see more headlines: Police Officer Accused in Cover-Up of Sister’s Attack on Innocent Boy.”
“Nothing so blatant. I just asked him if he wouldn’t be mortified going into court and admitting that such a macho guy as he had been overcome by a mere female and a geriatric barfly. I also mentioned that it was sure to come out that he’d probably spent the night being naughty.”
“Why does that not surprise me?”
“It developed that our pure young lad had spent yesterday evening and all night with Peter and The Wolf. He told me they had hired him to do some chores and let him spend the night on a cot in the laundry room, if you can believe that.”
“Oh.” Sonny and I gave each other knowing smirks. That explained a lot, including the cuff marks on the kid’s wrists. But Janet again looked totally lost and we began to fill in the background for her.
“Peter Mellon and Frank Wolfman are a gay couple who run a guest house for men,” I explained. “They were tagged as Peter and The Wolf by some long-forgotten wit. You’d love their house. It’s a rather grand Victorian type.”
“Yeah,” Sonny smirked, “But it’s gone a bit to seed. So have Peter and The Wolf.”
I was more generous. “Well, nobody likes the thought of getting old, but it seems really to bother gay men more than most. These two came from an era when ‘high camp’ was the in-thing, and they never changed. They throw fancy parties, with fancy costumes and—maybe—fancy sex. But they still have a certain panache.”
“They’re a bit on the tatty side,” Sonny concluded to Janet, “But they’re not dangerous. It’s just that some of their houseboys are said to do a lot more than make beds. Of course that’s true of most of the B-and-Bs in town, anyway. I stopped by this morning to ask them about this new kid. The stories were much the same. The Wolf openly admitted the boy had been there, helping with some cleaning and such.”
“The Wolf looks more like Ashley Wilkes on a bad day than any wolf you ever saw,” I interjected.
Sonny grinned and concluded. “Wolf said they fed him and let him bunk overnight. I asked him about the restraint marks, and he suggested the kid must have gotten some caustic cleaning solution on his shirt cuffs. Nothing I can do, because the kid won’t budge in his story, either. Probably afraid he’d lose his two hundred bucks.”
“What will happen to him?” Janet’s forehead had creased with concern.
“He did have some ID. He’s one William Xavier Ambrosio from Marietta, Ohio, aged seventeen. We called his folks out there and they’ll have a ticket home for him at Hyannis Airport tomorrow. We’ll put him on the plane. He’ll doubtless get lost somewhere or other, long before Marietta, for which the Marietta Police should send us a box of candy.”
He shrugged. “William Xavier will probably have a successful career as a male prostitute until he meets someone who likes really rough sex. Then the River Police in New York or New Orleans or Memphis will have to deal with him. Which brings me to my second bit of news.”
“That’s sad,” Janet said. “Even if he does think he’s so tough. His family must have done something really horrible to make him run away and live like that.”
Sonny sighed and grimaced. I turned my hands up in a “what can you do?” gesture. But I had dialed in on the last comment. “Second bit of news?”
“Uh huh. Guess who’s in town?”
“No idea.”
“The Footless Wonder. He hitched a ride.”
“What! He hitched a ride? Sonny, that’s not even a good joke. You mean he’s alive?” I couldn’t believe it.
“Far from it,” Sonny answered. “Last night late the Ocean Pearl reeled in her last catch. Footless came in with it, caught in the net. Must have been one charming surprise to dump that out onto the deck after his being in the water for a good four days. Since Ocean Pearl was already on the way in, they didn’t bother radioing the Coast Guard to come out and meet them. They just came on in to the dock early this morning and phoned us with the happy news of their unscheduled passenger.”
Janet clapped a hand to her mouth and ran for the bathroom. Sonny and I looked at each other and sighed. I didn’t go after her. There are times it’s better to be alone.
Sonny looked thought
ful. “She really does react to anything at all about this missing foot business, doesn’t she?”
“Well,” I defended her. “Remember that drowned girl that floated in last year? You said half the EMTs and police force, including you, were barfing all over the beach. Maybe she saw a bad one when she was in the CG.”
“Yeah. That could easily be true. You see one, you don’t really feel the need to see another body that’s been in the water. But I deliberately didn’t get graphic.” He frowned.
“Maybe she’s a lady. Ladies get the vapors, asshole.” I heard the toilet flush and water running into the bathroom basin. At least she was conscious! I had the fleeting and half-humorous thought that this delicate stomach of Janet’s could be a real drawback in the P.I. business. Maybe she’d better stick to cooking. And I’d stick to investigating, since several people had told me my cooking was criminal.
“Quick, tell me the rest before she gets back.” I spoke in a fast, low voice. “Where is he now, the morgue in Hyannis?”
“Yes. Collins Funeral Home took him down. Forensics will take a good look tomorrow,” Sonny whispered back.
“Naturally, but I guess the report will be that he drowned.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Why not? You figure he bled to death?”
“Nope.” Sonny simpered and looked very knowing, and I could have slapped him when he did that.
“You want me to get on my knees and beg? Hurry up! Don’t just sit there,” I hissed, feeling like I was in some bad summer stock play. “How do you think he died? Or are you just being a wise-ass? After four days out there in the water what could you possibly tell?”
“We-ell-ll, you know I kinda depend on old Doc Marsten.” He kept his voice low.
“Oh, God, the senile examining the decomposed for the stubborn!”
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