The Cold Blue Blood

by David Handler

  He cocked his head at her in surprise. “You paint?”

  “I draw a little,” she said uneasily.

  “How interesting. I would never have guessed.” Jamie thumbed his chin judiciously. “It’s yours if you’ll give me exactly what I paid for it—eight hundred.”

  Des shook her dreadlocks at him. “That’s way out of my price range.”

  “All right, make it seven-fifty,” he said with nimble ease.

  “Not a chance.”

  He waved her off. “Nonsense. I believe that when someone loves a piece, they should have it. And I can tell from the glow in your eye that you love this one. I insist that you take it home. We’ll work something out.”

  Des glanced at him sharply. “That would not exactly be appropriate.”

  “No, of course not,” he agreed hastily. “What am I saying? Christ, now you must think I’m trying to bribe you. God, I am hopeless when Ev’s not around. I just blither on and on, slipping and sliding and …” He broke off, puffing out his cheeks. “Why don’t you just shoot me right now and put me out of my misery?”

  “Mr. Devers, please try to relax.”

  “You’re absolutely right,” he said, running a hand over his face. “Let’s relax. Let’s all relax.”

  There was an old library table just inside the front door that Jamie and Evan used as a desk. A crystal decanter filled with cognac served as a paperweight. He poured some into a snifter and drank it down in one gulp. He sat down in his chair and lit a cigarette, dragging on it nervously.

  There was an armchair across from him. Des sat in it, watching him closely. The man was obviously terrified of her. Was this just vintage sixties paranoia? Or was he actually guilty of something? She made a steeple of her fingers. She rested her chin upon it, gazing at him intently across the desk. “It rained that night,” she pointed out quietly.

  “What night, Lieutenant?”

  “The night Tuck Weems was murdered. There was a truly vicious storm.”

  “There absolutely was,” he acknowledged. “It blew in around three in the morning. Lightning, thunder, the works.”

  “And you two were camped out in that?”

  “Not after it started we weren’t. We went below deck, snug as bugs. Actually, too snug. It can get really stuffy down there. And the water was way choppy. But that’s the vaunted nautical life for you. If you want to be dry you have to be nauseated.”

  “Did anyone see you?”

  “See us?”

  “You recall anyone passing near enough to the island to observe that you were docked out there? A fisherman, maybe?”

  Jamie Devers considered this. “No one saw us. Not unless they saw our bonfire. We lit one when we first got out there. The rain eventually drowned it, of course. But the Coast Guard might have spotted that. They patrol pretty regularly.” He stubbed out his cigarette and immediately reached for another. “Once the storm hit, nobody was out on the water.”

  “What did you use for firewood?”

  He stared across the desk at her, perplexed. “We used firewood, what else?”

  “That island’s a barren rock pile. Not one stick of wood out there to burn.”

  “We brought it with us. Logs, kindling, the works.”

  “Sounds like an awful lot of trouble,” she said doubtfully.

  “It is,” he acknowledged. “But to us, it’s worth it.”

  “When did you return from Little Sister?”

  “In the morning, after the storm had passed over and the Sound had calmed. There was virtually no way we could have made it back during that storm in a J-24. It’s a racing boat. Built very low to the water. We’d have gone down for sure.” He smiled at her hopefully. “So, you see, we couldn’t have killed Tuck Weems. It’s not possible.”

  “You’re right, it’s not—assuming you were there.”

  “We were,” Jamie Devers insisted. “I swear it.”

  Des would have to check this out further with the Coast Guard. And have a trooper canvas the area boatyards to see if anyone could recall spotting their fire. But even if someone did remember it that did not necessarily clear them. The fire was not a guarantee they were on Little Sister when Tuck Weems was murdered. It was not a guarantee of anything. They could have built themselves a huge bonfire as a decoy and then headed right back to Big Sister before the storm ever started.

  Right now, the only alibi Jamie Devers and Evan Havenhurst had was each other.

  Right now, they had no alibi whatsoever.

  CHAPTER 11

  A POKY LITTLE COMMUTER train called the Shoreliner shuttled its way back and forth through the villages and tidal marshes that stretched in between Old Saybrook and New Haven, where Mitch could pick up the Metro North line into Grand Central. It was Metro North that carried the Wall Street warriors in from Fairfield every morning, armed for combat with their matching Burberry’s, cell phones and game faces. For Mitch, the trip was about two and a half hours, door to door. The Shoreliner was not particularly crowded. He had a two-person seat to himself, which was fine by him. He did not enjoy bumping elbows and knees with someone he did not know. He had bought the morning papers to read. He spread them open and read.

  Lieutenant Mitry’s superior, Capt. Carl Polito of the Central District Major Crimes Squad, was expressing his support for her in the Hartford Courant. “The investigation is proceeding in a swift and thoroughly professional manner,” he said. “We have every reason to believe we will have a suspect in custody very soon.” To Mitch this sounded remarkably like one of those ringing votes of no-confidence Yankee owner George Steinbrenner gave to his soon-to-be outgoing manager. No wonder the woman seemed uptight—her head was on the chopping block. There was still no acknowledged link-up between the two Dorset slayings and the Torry Mordarski murder. They were, it seemed, choosing to keep that under wraps for now. There was a mention that Niles Seymour would be buried tomorrow in Dorset’s Duck River Cemetery. Burial arrangements for Tuck Weems were still being made.

  The New York tabloids, meanwhile, were pouncing on the Mandy Havenhurst angle with obvious relish. Her torrid love life, her run-ins with the law. “Beer Baroness Finds More Trouble Brewing,” screamed the headline in the Daily News. “Fanning the Flames of Mandy’s Passion,” shouted the Post. Both carried old photos of her. She was practically a teenager in them. Her hair was worn very differently—piled high atop her head. And she wore tremendous quantities of eye makeup. Mitch barely recognized her.

  As he was reading, a woman strode down the aisle, stopped and asked if she could join him in his two-person seat. It was Mandy, of course, flashing her dazzling smile at him.

  “I had a feeling I’d run into you,” she said happily, sliding in next to him and depositing a Ghurka shoulder bag at her feet.

  “That’s funny,” said Mitch. “So did I.”

  “I wouldn’t say the lieutenant sounded totally enthusiastic about me coming in, but she did say it was okay. She’s kind of a tight-ass, don’t you think?”

  Mandy smelled of a heavy, fruity perfume, the kind that Mitch had always associated with the old widows he used to ride up and down in the elevators with in Stuyvesant Town when he was a kid, the bubbies with their shopping carts and moustaches and Eastern European accents. Styles must have changed, he decided. Because Mandy Havenhurst was nobody’s idea of a bubbie.

  “The lieutenant came to see you this morning?” he asked her politely.

  “No, no. I just bumped into her, is all. She was on her way out to talk to Red.”

  “She was?”

  Mandy stared at him intently now, as if suspecting his words held some secret double meaning. “Yes, she was.”

  “Hey, did you know you made the papers today?”

  “No way, really … ?” Mandy drew her breath in sharply when he showed her the headlines. Then she heaved a long, pained sigh. “Lies,” she said between gritted teeth. “Nothing but lies. But what can I do—people have been telling them about me since I was thirteen
years old. That’s what happens to you in this world when you’re someone like me. I’m pretty. I’m blond. And my family has money. Therefore, I am automatically considered a bitch—by people who don’t even know me. I’m used to it. But it hurts.” She turned the tabloids over so she wouldn’t have to look at them. “God, I’m so glad I’m coming in to the city today. It’ll be impossible out there. Reporters will be calling nonstop. And poor Bud will be wigging out.”

  “Are you going to speak to them?”

  “No way,” she said with sudden savagery.

  “But if they have the story wrong don’t you want to tell your side?” he asked, wondering just exactly what her side might be. The facts in the stories seemed to jibe with what the lieutenant had told him about Mandy’s stormy past.

  Mandy’s response was, “Why bother? Once people make up their minds about you there’s not a goddamned thing you can do to change it. No one ever believes me when I tell them that the men I’ve loved were abusive toward me, both physically and mentally. That I’ve had to literally fight for my life in order to survive their cruelty. I don’t know why I provoke that in men, Mitch. I really don’t.” Her big blue eyes locked on to his now. “When I love someone, I’ll crawl across broken glass on my hands and knees for him. There’s nothing I won’t do. And I’m as kind a person as you’ll ever meet. I don’t have a nasty bone anywhere in my whole body.” She sighed. She ran the tip of her tongue over her lower lip. She said, “I sure wish we could get together tonight.”

  “Like I said, I’m going to be tied up all—”

  “The God’s honest truth,” she broke in, “is that there’s something I have to talk to you about. It’s really personal, Mitch. And it’s really, really important. Could we meet somewhere after your dinner date? Just for a little while?”

  Mitch wavered. She was married. She was crazy. She was trouble. But he was also intensely curious. What did she want to talk about? Was it the murders? Was it Bud? He had to find out. He couldn’t not find out. So he agreed to swing by her apartment at about ten and buzz her. She lived at 20 E. Sixty-fifth Street, a very posh address. They would go out for a nightcap together—someplace quiet where they could talk.

  Their train pulled into Grand Central right on time. They separated in the Grand Concourse, near the clock, in a shaft of the bright morning sunlight that streamed in the newly scrubbed windows. As Mitch started to say good-bye Mandy surprised him by throwing her arms around him and giving him a big juicy kiss on the mouth, her pelvis pressing tightly against his own. Heads turned. Wolf whistles sounded. All of the blood in Mitch’s body seemed to rush right to his head. “Later,” she purred. And then she was off, the heels of her backless sandals clacketing sharply on the marble floor.

  Mitch stayed right where he was for a long moment, waiting for some of the feeling to return to the lower half of his body. No, I really do not want to get mixed up with this woman.

  He found he was way out of sync as he made his way across the floor of the giant terminal. The commuters criss-crossing in front of him were moving with much greater urgency than he was. Sauntering along at his Dorset pace, he kept bouncing off of them, like a human bumper car. But Mitch found this to be a short-lived phenomenon. It took less than thirty seconds for his metabolism to rev back up from small-town slo-mo to Big Apple overdrive. The city’s pace simply demanded it. Soon Mitch was darting this way and that, back in the flow, just another one of the hyper multitude.

  He made his way down the long tunnel to the subway and caught the shuttle across town to Times Square. There was no faster way to get across town, day or night. When the one-stop shuttle pulled in at Times Square he maneuvered his way across the crowded underground station and down the steep stairs for the number One train, heading downtown. It had been a while since a train had come through. Folks were stacked up ten-deep at the edge of the platform, fanning themselves impatiently. The warm air was heavy and reeked of overflowing garbage cans and unwashed people. Burrowing his way in among them, Mitch found himself missing the crisp, clean, sea air of Big Sister. Also the sheer luxury of having so much space to himself. Here in the city, there was no such privilege. Everyone shared the same island.

  When he finally heard the train pulling in Mitch began working his way closer to the edge of the platform so he’d have a shot at getting on. Boxing out was a standard aspect of belowground life in New York. Nothing unusual about this. Until, without warning, Mitch suddenly felt it—the ultimate New York nightmare.

  He felt someone trying to shove him onto the tracks right in front of the onrushing train.

  It all happened so fast that Mitch had no chance to react. No chance to resist. No chance whatsoever. One second he was fine. The next second he was teetering helplessly there on the edge of the raised platform, fighting desperately to hold on to his balance, to his life—as the tracks yawned before him and the four-hundred-ton train bore down on him, someone’s full weight pressing violently, murderously against him. Brakes screeched. A lady screamed.

  Two things saved Mitch’s life. One was his unadulterated love of high-caloric sweets, which made him just an exceptionally hard man to knock off of his feet. The other was the immense construction worker standing next to him, who grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and yanked him back at the last possible second as the train shot past him.

  “Damn, you got to be more careful, man,” he scolded Mitch. He was Jamaican by the lilt of his accent. “Take your time. That’s how accidents be happening.”

  “That was no accident—somebody pushed me!” Mitch cried out, his eyes flicking wildly around at the passengers surrounding him. “Who? Did you see who?”

  “Didn’t see nobody, man,” Mitch’s savior replied gruffly. The other passengers offered him nothing more than blank stares. They were like zombies. The un-dead. “You lost your balance. Too big a hurry.”

  Now Mitch saw it—a blur of green streaking up the stairs back up to the station. Someone wearing an olive-colored trenchcoat with an upturned collar and a baseball cap with its visor pulled low. Someone he was not able to recognize. He could not even tell if it was a man or a woman.

  “Hey!” Mitch shouted at his would-be killer. “Hey, stop!”

  The figure sped up. Mitch went after it. Fighting his way through the crowd. Dashing up the stairs in breathless pursuit. He caught sight of his attacker sprinting down a narrow, dimly lit corridor. He broke into a mad sprint of his own across the underground station, running into people and over people, leaving grumbles and curses and spilled purses in his wake. Trying to keep up with that distant figure in green, gasping for breath, his loaded day pack growing heavier and heavier on his shoulders. And he was keeping up. Until, that is, he ran smack into a phalanx of slow-moving Japanese tourists in shorts and sandals who were walking, what, twelve abreast? There were small children and elderly grandmothers among them. And, for a brief moment, he could not get around them. That brief moment was all it took for the figure in green to shoot through the turnstiles and up the steps and out into Times Square. Gone.

  Mitch did go tearing up the steps onto Forty-second Street, his chest heaving, but it was no use. Whoever it was, they had disappeared.

  But who was it? And why had they tried to kill him?

  He didn’t know. He didn’t know anything. Except that he was lucky to be alive.

  Shaken, he opted for a cab ride home.

  Mitch hadn’t been to his apartment in over two weeks. It was stuffy and smelled musty. He turned on the air conditioners in the living room and bedroom. Checked his phone messages. Sorted through his mail. Thought long and hard about calling the police to tell them what had happened. Decided not to. Thought about calling Lieutenant Mitry to tell her what had happened. Decided not to do that either. He opened the fridge and threw out whatever had gone to blue in his absence, which was most everything. Made himself some scrambled eggs and stale toast. Sat at the dining table and ate, realizing to his surprise that this apartment didn’t feel li
ke home anymore. His little cottage out on Big Sister felt more like home. Mitch had not expected this to happen. Most of his world was here, after all. His books, his tapes, his memories. Then again, he reflected, this had been their home. The carriage house was his. Maybe that explained it. Still, for Mitch this was a disconcerting feeling. He had never known a time in his entire life when he didn’t consider the city to be home.

  Sitting there, he wondered how Clemmie was doing.

  His afternoon screening was in the 666 Fifth Avenue building, near Rockefeller Center and St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Mitch forced himself to take the subway there, even though he didn’t much feel like it. He stood well away from the tracks while he was waiting for the train to come. And he kept glancing around the platform to see if anyone was showing too much interest in him. Or furtively looking away. No one was. No one did. He was not being followed. Or at least he didn’t think he was.

  But he still felt exceedingly jumpy.

  He also felt as if he were the only person on Fifth Avenue who had any actual business to conduct there. This was a phenomenon Mitch was still having trouble accepting. Fifth Avenue had undergone a remarkable transformation in the past few years. He almost never came upon businessmen with briefcases anymore. He came upon very few New Yorkers, period. Just tourists, the majority of them foreign, wearing cameras and sensible shoes. The shops along the avenue reflected this. The fine B.Dalton’s bookstore in the ground floor at 666 was now a store devoted to the sale of NBA merchandise. And the fabled Scribner’s bookstore across the street was now a Benetton.

  The screening room was up on the ninth floor. It was small—two dozen plush seats for two dozen plush critics. Mitch knew all of the people who were slouched there, pale and round-shouldered. They were his compadres from New York’s other daily papers, from the local TV stations, from Time and Newsweek, from the network news and entertainment outlets. They were his fellow fungi, that rare breed of folks whose passion for the movies actually equaled his own. All of them had an opinion about Mitch. Some of them looked up to him. Some of them envied him. A few of the older, second-tier reviewers downright hated him for having attained so lofty a berth at such a tender age. It had taken Mitch a while to get used to this, but he had. He exchanged cordial greetings with one and all. Caught up on the latest news—what was hot, what was not. And then the lights dimmed and Mitch took a seat by himself with his press kit, feeling that same stirring of excited anticipation he always felt when he was about to see a brand-new film for the very first time.