With a trembling hand Eva picked up the Budweiser, took a sip, and eased it back on the table. “You sometimes work out at Hannaford bagging groceries and the like.”
I drank and said, “Yes, I work there part time.”
“You also found Liz Walenton’s corgi for her last March and got three hundred for doing it.”
“Yes I did.”
“And when I was well and could get to where I wanted to go, I used to see you in town, pedaling that bike and trailer around. Seems a lot of work to me, pulling that trailer just so you can tote around that mangy looking gimped up ball of fur.” She took another sip of beer and fished a cigarette and a kitchen match out of her shirt pocket. She handed the match to Ona, who helped herself to a cigarette, scraped the match across the table, lit her cigarette, then held the match to the tip of Eva’s. Eva inhaled, coughed and said, “And now you’re a detective, been doing that long?”
“First day.”
“But for five thousand dollars you’re willing to do a little OJT.”
I smiled and nodded. She started to say something else, but then her eyes flicked past my head and a second later movement caught my eye.
A woman drifted silently across the kitchen to the refrigerator. She was small and lean as a cheetah. A child woman, dressed in purple sweatpants hacked off at the knee and a purple sweatshirt with no sleeves. Her pale skin glistened with sweat and her dark blond hair was cut in a ragged flattop that should have been trimmed two months ago. She poured a mug of wine and seltzer and sat on the other side of Eva. Her forearms were bands of striated muscle wrapped in a loose net of big wormy veins.
Ona gestured at me and said, “This here’s Harry Neal. He’s here because he read Eva’s ad and wants to ask questions.” She downed the rest of the Coor’s, turned the can upside down and slapped it on the table, creating a fine beery mist and gouging out a small sliver of wood. She tossed the crushed can across the kitchen into a yellow wastebasket and said, “Harry, this here is Priscilla Matson, Eva’s granddaughter and my grandniece, she’s been living with us for the last few months.”
We smiled at each other and shook hands. Her smile was thin and meaningless and there was steel in her small hand. She nodded at my bike and said, “So you pedal your ass around too.”
“Yes, I don’t own a car.”
“Well listen, it keeps you young and leaned out. You’re what? Fifty three, fifty four?”
I looked modest and said, “I’m sixty three.”
Eva snorted and blew smoke at the ceiling. “You look pretty damn good for sixty three, Harry. Every man I know that’s anywhere near that is fat, has an odor, and has to spend ten bucks a pop for that Viagra stuff if he wants to get stiff.”
Ona stood up and grabbed my mug. “Just a little,” I said, “I have miles to pedal.” With the cigarette hanging in her mouth raining ashes into my mug, she poured a bit of wine and a lot of seltzer, handed me the mug and sat back down.
Priscilla looked at me, did two slow blinks and smiled her smile. She reached out and put a forefinger between Cat’s eyes and gently pushed. Cat sat down and swatted at the finger with her good paw and almost fell over. Priscilla looked at me. The look wasn’t flattering. “You got that rig hooked to your bike just so you can carry this beat up hairball around with you?”
I held out the blue sling hanging on my chest and said, “And when I’m not pedaling I tote her around in this.”
“And you think you’re going to find out what happened to Frank?”
“I don’t know. What’s the story?”
Eva blew smoke and said, “He didn’t die of any goddamn heart attack, I can tell you that.”
“Is that what they said?”
“Police found him face down in the dirt about six miles out of town up on Branch Hill Road. That’s an old road Frank liked to run because it had a long hill. Police said he’d been dead an hour or so when he was found. They said heart attack. I say bullshit.”
“Frank jogged?”
“Jogged? No sir, what Frank did was run. Running was his life and his passion. He’d been doing it thirty some odd years. He started after he read a book about some tribe down in Mexico that ran up and down mountains for the sheer joy of it. It was their religion or something. It touched him down deep and he started and never quit. He never quit until he died.”
“Did he smoke or drink?”
She shook her head. “Didn’t smoke, had a beer now and then. He said only fools fill their lungs with crap.” She waved her cigarette around. “I quit thirty years ago but started up again after they cut me up and messed me up so I can now take delight in pissing in a bag strapped to my ankle. What the hell does it matter now?”
“What did the autopsy say?”
She shrugged and let out a sigh. “Everyone said heart. I didn’t believe it, but I didn’t know what to do. Don’t think there was any autopsy.”
“There had to be, it’s the law.”
Eva shrugged and drank her beer. A little dribbled down her chin and dripped on her shirtfront. “I can’t help you with any of that. I just remember thinking at the time it couldn’t be any goddamn heart attack. He was so fit. He ran at least ten, twelve miles a day every day except Sunday. But they said he was dead and that’s all I could think about for a while.”
“What did the police say?”
Eva shook her head. “The cop I talked to said that a patrolman by the name of Rundle found Frank in the road with his right hand digging in his chest, like he had a terrible pain there. Said that the patrolman didn’t do any CPR because it was obvious he was gonna stay dead.”
Priscilla sipped her wine and drew circles in the wet ring on the table. Every so often her eyes would drift over me. They had seen a lot, those eyes.
Eva tilted her ravaged face back and drained her beer. She belched and handed the can to Ona, who turned it upside down, slapped it on the table, and made another perfect toss into the yellow wastebasket. She belched again, coughed and said, “I didn’t see the doctor. Hell, I figured the man would charge me a high dollar. And I only was at the funeral home for a short while, just long enough to see that it was really Frank and to let them know I was poor and wasn’t gonna pay anymore than necessary. But they still gaffed me a bundle.”
“What did the body look like? Anything seem… uh, seem not right to you?”
“As I just said, I just took one quick glance. But it was Frank and he didn’t look any different then when he left to go running except his eyes were a little bigger, kinda bulging out a bit, but that’s cause he’d been laying out there a while. I can’t stand to look at dead folks, especially those that I loved to pieces. They offered a last look before the burying but I just couldn’t do it, told them people to keep the coffin closed.
“And that’s about it. I knew Frank didn’t die of a heart attack but I didn’t know what to do about it, so a while after he died I stuck that ad in the paper and kept it there. Only got crackpots and idiots till you showed up.”
“What makes you think I’m not a crackpot or an idiot?”
“Because you look me in the eye when you talk to me and you obviously take good care of that piece of twice baked meat you call a cat. You make it plain you don’t think I’m just some beer swilling old lady pissing in the wind.” She smiled grimly. “Or in my case, pissing into a plastic bag strapped to my damn ankle.”
I muttered, “Thank you.” Priscilla looked at me and smiled her smile.
I didn’t ask if she thought I was a crackpot or an idiot.
… . .
WHILE ONA WATCHED FROM THE DOORWAY, I struggled into my rainsuit and got Cat bundled up in the trailer. I pushed the bike and trailer off the porch and looked up at Ona, who was observing me closely, and said, “I’m not sure what I’m going to do or how much I’m going to accomplish, but I’ll call you if I find out anything.”
She stared at me a moment, snorted softly, and said, “Maybe. Anyways, you don’t want to be lingering over your wi
ne and seltzer for too many days, Harry Neal. Eva’s gonna be dead in a few weeks and it’d be kinda nice if she died knowing what happened to her Frank. The things been eating at her for ten years now and it seems to me she has a right to know what the hell happened before we plant her.”
I didn’t have anything to say to that, so I just nodded, swung a leg over the bike and pedaled into the cold rain. Sliding and skating on the mud slicked road, I made it back to town and did a lap around the small park in the center of the common and this time headed home. The wind, rain, and cold sang their harsh songs, chilling my face and sending rivulets of ice water down my neck. I had to continuously make faces to keep the flesh from numbing up. I could have stopped and put on my neoprene mask, but didn’t. I just lowered my head, made faces, and pedaled and seethed.
Productive as hell, getting irritated with Nature.
I finally turned onto the farm’s road and bounced along the driveway past the dark hulk of the barn. Light showed through the windows and I considered stopping and having a little supper and maybe chat with Annie, owner of the farm and my landlord, but decided against it and headed for the pasture.
Just past the barn is a high gate. I wrestled it open and pushed the bike through, closed the thing and finally got the latch back in place. In a plastic bag inside an ammo can bolted to the gate was my mail, which I stuffed under my rainsuit and headed across the pasture.
At the far end of the pasture is a grove of second growth hardwood, mainly oak and maple with a few birch scattered about for contrast. In the middle of the grove, secured in a wood and fiberglass cradle, is a thirty six foot mahogany sailboat lacking mast, rudder, and keel. She’s a once beautiful wanderer that’s now aground in the North Pasture and doomed to a slow death of dry rot and neglect.
I parked the bike in the leanto I’d put up between two maples, put Cat in the sling and climbed crude wood steps to the cockpit. The bimini top was long gone but I’d tented in the cockpit with tarps last winter and with the aid of about a mile of Duc Tape, its holding. I unlocked the hatch and climbed down into the main cabin. After lighting several candles I proceeded with The Ritual of the Stove. I threw a few handfuls of twigs and sticks onto the grate followed by several chunks of hardwood followed by a forty second blast with a propane torch. In less than five minutes I had a sweet smelling, bark popping fire going.
As soon as I closed the stove door Cat began her own ritual, the one that informs me it’s time for supper. She did this by batting her dish across the floor, then waving her bad paw at me while meowing dramatically. If, for whatever reason I choose to ignore this subtle hint, she goes to the cabinet under the sink and hooks her good paw under the door, pulls it open, then lets it go. After the sixth or seventh time the door bangs shut I rearrange my priorities and fill her bowl with the little brown pellets that promise eternal health and smell like a puddle full of dead smelt.
For me, supper consisted of two granola Bars, a pile of steamed asparagus, and a mug of Zinfandel. After her supper Cat spent the better part of twenty minutes limping around the boat making sure everything was as it should be, then settled down in front of the stove and spent another ten minutes cleaning herself. Chores done, she curled up for a well deserved nap.
I topped off the wine and sat in the flickering gloom listening to the rain. It came down hard and steady, turning the grove into a swamp and the boat into a drum. Later, I put more wood in the stove and left the door open so I could watch the fire as I flipped through the mail. I put several magazines to one side and threw the junk into the stove where it bubbled and hissed and spewed forth with bright chemical flames. On the bottom of the pile was a government envelope. I tore it open and gazed at my first Social Security check, making official what to me was already painfully obvious.
I was getting old.
I’d avoided applying for Social Security for over a year, thinking my economic situation would lift itself off the floor or I would make things good again. It didn’t, I didn’t, and after six hours of bagging groceries at Hannaford, I went to the Post Office and requested the forms, filled them out, and sent them in.
I shuffled into my tiny bathroom, looked in the mirror at the glum man staring back at me and whispered to him, “Harry, in seven years you’re going to be seventy and that’s teetering on the edge.”
Around eleven I sat by the stove with a final glass of wine wrapped in my hand and Cat dozing on my lap. I had a pleasant inner glow working and to get my mind off being officially old I thought about Frank Jankey and how to approach the problem. I didn’t think going to the police and telling them I was looking into the thing would be productive. It’d probably just get me a patronizing lecture and a condescending giggle or two. Since I left the regular world and started hanging out in the park, I suspect the authorities view me in a different light then when I wore a suit and did real stuff for real money in the real world. But I was good friends with Betty Worthen, the only woman member of the police force, and perhaps I could obtain some worthwhile information from her.
I jotted down a more few ideas in my notebook, blew out the candles, and shuffled to the front cabin and crawled into bed. I listened to the rain and dwelled on aging and death until I drifted off to sleep. As usual Cat prowled around the boat looking for prey and playing with her toys until one or so. Then, ready to turn in, she mewed and pulled on the bedding with her good paw until I woke up and put her at the foot of the bed. As always, she limped to the pillow and spent several minutes cleaning herself again. Then she arranged herself just so on the pillow, laid her battered head down, and purred in my ear until she drifted off to sleep.
… . .
IT WAS A COLD GRAY MORNING and nothing much to get up for. Twice, I pulled myself out of bed and stumbled around for no good reason, then crawled back in for another twenty minutes. On the third try I stayed up, and boosted by two cups of coffee, managed to get the system functioning. Cat, as she usually does, burrowed under the warm covers for another few minutes of much needed sleep.
The grove was still and monochromatic. The trees were stark shadows shrouded in gray fog and the high dead grass was burdened with fat drops of crystal dew. When I felt up to it I breakfasted on oatmeal and coffee along with the usual handful of supplements. Then, to nip any door slamming in the bud, I fed Cat, who had limped out of the bedroom and was sitting in the middle of the cabin giving me meaningful looks.
After an hour or so of dithering about and accomplishing little, I headed for town. As I pedaled past the barn a squat old woman waved at me and yelled, “You keep riding that bike you’re gonna have a death. You’re getting too old for that, Harry.” I waved and gave her the finger. She laughed and returned the gesture with gusto.
… . .
ON THE COMMON IN THE CENTER of town, Main Street does a one way loop around a small elliptical park that boosts a large gazebo, a decades old statue of a boy scout, and several wood benches. I coasted into the park, lifted Cat out of the trailer, and settled against my favorite maple. It was a raw day with a harsh sun that refused to warm my upturned face and a breeze that scattered brittle leaves across the dead grass, making that pleasant rustling sound that brought back memories of youthful autumn follies.
I leaned against the tree and drank seltzer, munched trail mix, and watched the town push itself through another day. As usual I saw several people I knew from my other life and they saw me, but other than a quick nod from a couple of the more liberal ones I was ignored.
Later, as I eased out of a semi doze, I saw Betty Worthen working her way up the street. As I said, Betty’s the town’s only policewoman, and when she’s not hunting felons and other brigands she doubles as the town meter maid. She attacks the job with good natured gusto and the locals have learned to put their dime in the meter. She looks a bit absurd garbed in her blue uniform and black belt with all the tools of her trade hanging from it, but Betty is tough, resourceful, and like Gretchen, knows more about the town and its people than God. I sto
od up and beckoned. When she spotted me I eased back down against the tree.
She came over and with muted sighs and groans sank down beside me. She took the offered seltzer and drank, belched like aging Rottweiler, and picked up Cat. As she gently kneaded her fur she said without looking at me, “Isn’t getting a mite cold to be drinking in the park, Harry?”
“Why don’t you quit wandering around town angering the populace and we’ll go to Gretchen’s and have a glass of the grape.”
“Ah, wouldn’t I’d love to. My feet are aching, menopause is raising hell with my mental state, and my goddamn dentist wants to do a seven hundred and seventeen dollar root canal.” Her dimpled face broke out in a grin and she nailed me in the ribs with an elbow. “But I gotta walk the walk and talk the talk.”
I grinned back and asked my question. “How would you like to put some dollars in your pocket?”
She slowly put Cat down, gave me a cop look and said, “First, I’d ask what you wanted for your money.”
“I’d like copies of everything you people have on Frank Jankey.”
“Jankey… Jankey. That guy they found dead up on Branch Hill Road ten, eleven years ago?”
“The same.”
“What’s the deal? He was found dead in the road from a heart attack.”
I shrugged and said, “I’d just like to see the records.”
Betty nibbled on her lower lip for a moment then rubbed her nose and pulled on her second chin. Suddenly she grinned and jabbed me in the ribs again. “You’re doing that ad that’s been in the paper for a bunch of years. You’re playing detective.” She nodded happily to herself. “Well, what the hell, I guess five k for a dead human is better than a couple hundred for a stray dog or cat or bagging groceries out at Hannaford. Although I don’t think you’ll find anything significant, from what I remember the man did have a heart attack despite what Eva Jankey thinks. You gonna be around tomorrow?”
Bentley Dadmun - Harry Neal and Cat 09 - Dead Dead Dead, the Little Girl Said Page 2