The Coal Black Asphalt Tomb

by David Handler

  The Paffins both fell into horrified silence.

  “I-I just don’t understand how this is possible,” Bob said.

  “That’s what we’re going to find out. I’ve been asked to get some background about the night your brother disappeared. Can you tell me about it?”

  “It was the night of the spring dance at the club. A Saturday night. The twentieth of May, as I said. The spring dance was a serious event back in those days. It marked the official launch of the social calendar. That meant brand new gowns for the ladies. White dinner jackets for the gents. A full orchestra, dancing, prime rib, champagne.”

  “Sounds like fun.”

  “It was fun,” Delia acknowledged, thawing one, possibly two degrees. “I may be a bit biased but I believe we had a lot more fun in those days than the young people do now. Boys were boys. Girls were girls. And all of us were young and foolish.”

  Out on the river a snowy egret swooped low over the water as it flew upriver, flapping its wings effortlessly.

  “Lance attended the dance?”

  “Yes, he did,” Bob replied.

  “In his dress blues?”

  Bob nodded. “He was home on leave for a couple of weeks from Vietnam. Scheduled to go back the very next morning, in fact. I attended the dance with this lovely young lady right here. I’d recently asked Delia to be my wife and she had accepted. I graduated from Brown the year prior to that. Got my real estate license and went to work in the family business.”

  “You didn’t serve during the Vietnam War?”

  Bob colored slightly. “Couldn’t. I have a slight heart murmur. I’ve had it my whole life. It doesn’t really give me any trouble.”

  “It most certainly does,” Delia clucked at him.

  “But nothing could hold Lance back. My big brother had as sharp a mind as you’ll ever come across. He got accepted to Yale and Harvard. Instead, he chose Annapolis. He wanted to serve. Lance was…” Bob broke off, gazing down at his hands. “I was always in awe of him. He was a strapping, handsome fellow who was so full of life that he lit up the room. Men were drawn to him. He was a natural leader. And the girls were helpless around him. One spin around the dance floor was all it took. My brother had star quality. I’m positive that he would have achieved great success in politics, business—any career that he chose. When he died the best of us died. Would you care to see his picture?”

  “Yes, I would.”

  He got up from the table and led Des into his study, a wood-paneled lair lined with bookcases. Delia followed the two of them in there. She was not about to leave Bob alone with the resident trooper. Nor was Skippy. It was carpeted in there, which meant it smelled even stronger of dog pee and Glade. There was an executive-sized walnut desk. Comfortable leather armchairs. And many, many framed photos on the wall of Bob and his big brother Lance. Bob had been a scrawny youth with a big Adam’s apple and a frightened look on his face. Lance had been muscular and quite handsome, if your taste ran to rugged Adonis types with strong jaws and confident grins. He wore his uniform so well that he looked like a damned recruiting poster. One of the pictures was of him hard at work sanding a single mast wood-hulled catboat.

  “That’s the Monster,” Bob said, his gaze following hers. “She was a little honey. Lance named her after the golden retriever we had when we were kids. He loved that boat. She was a twelve-and-half-foot Herreshoff that was built back in ’39. He bought her for a song while he was in high school and restored her all by himself. Are you familiar with the Herreshoff, Des?”

  “Afraid not,” she said.

  “It was designed by Nathanael G. Herreshoff way back in 1914 as a training boat for young sailors in Buzzards Bay. It has a heavy keel and is stable in gusty conditions. Lance loved to sail her. That’s when he was at his happiest.” Bob’s face fell. “He took her out that night after the dance. I never saw him again.”

  “Did Lance come to the dance with a date?”

  “By himself. He wasn’t seeing anyone special. He joined us at our table for a while. Lance was always welcome to join us if he cared to, although he wasn’t really part of our group. We were a younger bunch. A nice little group of friends who’d all grown up together. There was Delia and me. There was my oldest and best school chum, Chase Fairchild, our first selectwoman’s father. My God, it’s been seven years now since Chase passed away. I still can’t believe he’s gone. He was fit as a fiddle. Played tennis three times a week. Then one day the doctor told him he had pancreatic cancer and in a couple of months he-he was gone. Just like that.” Bob broke off, his eyes moistening. “Chase was in a particularly giddy mood the night of the spring dance. He’d worked up the nerve to propose to Beryl Beckwith, the girl who would become Glynis’s mother. That took nerve, believe me. Beryl was the prettiest girl in town.”

  “She’s still a lovely woman,” Delia pointed out. “And I swear she hasn’t gained a single ounce since college.”

  “Every guy in Dorset wanted to marry Beryl,” Bob recalled. “Except for me, of course. I’d already met my dream girl.”

  “Now don’t be silly,” Delia chided him. “I was never in Beryl’s league.”

  “Who else belonged to this little group of yours?”

  Bob lifted his weak chin slightly. “Luke Cahoon, naturally. Luke and I have been pals since we were in kindergarten.”

  Okay, now it made sense. Now Des knew why she’d heard fear in Captain Rundle’s voice on the phone. Pennington Lucas Cahoon had been Southeastern Connecticut’s representative to the US Congress for the past forty years. Luke Cahoon was a fixture on the nation’s political stage—an outspoken, independent-minded blue blood whose family had called Dorset home for more than three hundred years. The Cahoons were one of the first families that had settled in Dorset. The congressman still maintained the historic white colonial that he grew up in at the top of Johnny Cake Hill Road. A caretaker looked after the place. A caretaker and Des. When she first became resident trooper it was made crystal clear to her that she was to drive by the congressman’s house every single day and check its doors and windows. Mostly, Luke Cahoon was a creature of Capitol Hill, where he claimed that he voted his conscience, not his party affiliation. Which happened to be Republican. This made him something of a relic. He was one of the only moderate social progressives who still sat on the GOP side of the aisle. Possibly the only one. But Luke Cahoon was so popular with voters of both parties that no one ever bothered to mount a serious campaign against him.

  “Mind you, he was still just plain old Luke back in those days,” Bob pointed out. “Still had two more years of law school to go at Yale because he’d taken time out to serve as a US Marine in Vietnam. Luke’s a decorated war hero, as you may know. But by the time he got home from there he was so fervently against the war that he became the leader of Yale’s antiwar movement. That’s how he ended up in politics.” Bob’s face tightened. “He and Lance didn’t agree about the war at all. They argued about it constantly.”

  “Did they argue about it the night of the spring dance?”

  Bob nodded. “Every time they saw each other. Political passions ran high in those days, Des. People were involved. They cared. These days they don’t care as much about anything, except possibly the outcome of American Idol. It’s kind of a shame, if you ask me.”

  “That was the night Luke met Noelle, wasn’t it, Bob?” Delia said.

  “Yes, I believe it was. Chase and Beryl arranged it. Beryl knew Noelle from Miss Porter’s and invited her to join us. Luke had been … on his own for a while,” he explained. Or, make that, didn’t explain. “Noelle Crawford. She was a tall, slim girl with black hair and pale skin. A striking girl. The two of them ended up getting married. They had a daughter together, Katie. But the marriage didn’t take. They split up after three years. Luke never did remarry.”

  “Noelle ended up with an orthopedic surgeon from Marblehead,” Delia said. “They were happy together. She’s gone now, too. A lot of old friends are.”


  “And how about Mr. Shaver? Was he part of your group that night?”

  “Buzzy and I have been pals our whole lives,” Bob replied, smiling faintly. “We were a couple of little stinkers together. Got into all kinds of trouble. But he didn’t mix with our group socially. Couldn’t. He had to look after his mom. She was very fragile emotionally.”

  “So your group that evening consisted of three couples plus Lance?”

  “That’s right.”

  “It was a lovely evening,” Delia recalled in a lilting voice. “Naturally, because of what happened, it’s not an evening that any of us can look back on fondly. But we had a lot of fun. We laughed. We drank. We danced out on the terrace. A warm breeze was blowing. The Flower Moon was nearly full.”

  “Lance was as high-spirited as I’d ever seen him,” Bob added wistfully. “He didn’t want his last night of freedom to end. Kept insisting we drink one more bottle of champagne, then another. It was way past midnight by the time we cleared out. Everyone else had gone home by then, including the club’s staff. And Lance still wasn’t ready to call it a night. Decided he just had to take the Monster out for a moonlight sail. One last sail before he returned to active duty. He was … what was that word he used, Delia? Stoked. He was stoked to take her out. He asked us to join him. She held four people comfortably. But no one else was in the mood.”

  “Not even you?”

  “If you knew me better, Des, you’d know that I get seasick in a bathtub. I never go sailing or fishing with anyone.”

  “The rest of us simply wanted to go home to bed,” Delia said.

  “So he took her out by himself. And we never saw him again.”

  “Were you the last people to see him alive?”

  “Yes, we believe so. There was no one at the yacht club at that hour.”

  “And was it you who reported him missing?”

  Bob nodded. “He didn’t come back. Didn’t report for duty in the morning when he was supposed to. I was shocked. But I figured, okay, maybe he fell asleep out there. He did have a lot to drink. Once he’s slept it off he’ll be back. This is Lance we’re talking about. Lance knows what he’s doing. I kept checking at the yacht club all day long to see if the Monster was back in her slip. His Mustang was in the parking lot. Unlocked, keys in the ignition. It was a white GT. Had the biggest engine they made in those days. Lance loved that car. Loved speed. When he…” Bob trailed off, swallowing. “When he didn’t come back by late afternoon I called the Coast Guard. They found the Monster smashed up on the rocks by the Saybrook Point lighthouse. No sign of Lance.”

  “Did she have running lights?”

  “No, she didn’t. But that never stopped Lance. Not when the moon was bright. This was a man who could land a fighter jet on the deck of an aircraft carrier.” He gazed out the window at the river for a moment, lost in his memories. “We never knew what happened—whether he lost his balance and fell overboard or what. The only thing I can tell you for certain is that I’ve never, ever forgiven myself. If I’d gone with him he’d still be alive today.”

  “You don’t know that, dear,” Delia said soothingly.

  “The Connecticut River was still swollen from the spring rains,” he went on. “The Coast Guard figured its current must have washed him out to sea. They combed the North Shore of Long Island and Fishers Island for days, but there was no sign of Lance. And that was that, aside from the nasty whispering, of course.”

  “What kind of nasty whispering, Bob?”

  “Awful stuff. Reprehensible, really. Some folks around Dorset actually believed he’d staged his own disappearance so he could get out of fulfilling his military service. That he was, in fact, sipping tall drinks on an island in the Bahamas with some gorgeous, leggy babe. Garbage. It was slanderous garbage. I said so at the time to anyone who mentioned it. Offered to punch a few noses, too. My brother considered it an honor to serve his country. Besides, he loved that damned boat. He could never, ever have wrecked her on purpose.” Bob let out a slow sigh. “Seven years later he was declared legally dead, and a tombstone bearing his name was placed in our family plot in Duck River Cemetery. That’s the whole sad story. Or at least I thought it was until you rang our doorbell. Now I don’t know a damned thing. Des, what in the name of hell would my brother’s body be doing underneath Dorset Street?”

  Des paused to put on her kid gloves. “With all due respect,” she said carefully, “I get the impression that there’s some sort of a legend surrounding Lance’s death. And not the one you just mentioned.”

  ‘They’re called legends for a reason,” Delia informed her icily. “Because they’re baloney.”

  “Baloney,” Bob echoed angrily.

  “Again, with all due respect, if you folks can shed any new light on this situation it would be greatly appreciated. If, say, something happened that you failed to mention to the authorities at the time—for whatever reason. We sure could use the help now.”

  Bob and Delia Paffin both stared at her in stunned disbelief. Outside, a squadron of geese flew low over the house, honking loudly. After that it fell silent in the study.

  “Let’s speak plainly here, Des,” Bob said, struggling to maintain his composure. “I know that you and I haven’t always seen eye to eye on certain matters. And maybe some of that has been my fault. I’m kind of set in my ways. The voters in town might even go so far as to say I’m an old fool. Fifty-one percent of them would anyhow. But I want you to promise me something. Will you do that for me?”

  “If I can, Bob.”

  “I want you to find out what in the hell really happened to my brother.”

  Des shoved her heavy horn-rimmed glasses up her nose and said, “Count on it.”

  CHAPTER 4

  “OKAY, I GIVE UP—HOW did you know that it was a who buried under Dorset Street?”

  “Simple,” Mitch said into his cell phone, gasping slightly. He was groping around up in his cramped attic crawl space above the kitchen for Maisie’s portfolio. Shortly before she died Mitch’s wife had designed an incredible bluestone patio for a garden on West Twelfth Street. “Because of the way Helen was behaving last night. If it had been a what—like, say, a chest full of gold doubloons—she’d have been excited. She wasn’t. She was frightened.”

  “Rundle’s asked me to take the lead on the investigation for now.”

  “Oh, yeah? Why’s that?”

  “Because all three of our Major Crime Squad units are tied up with priority cases.”

  “Do you think that’s the real reason?”

  “You know as much as I do. Will you do me a favor? Talk to Helen again. See if she’ll tell you why she was so frightened.”

  “Does this mean you’re deputizing me?”

  “Baby, you know that only happens in westerns and bad vigilante movies.”

  “You say that as if there’s such a thing as a good vigilante movie. I mean, let’s face it, you’ve got your Death Wish franchise, your Billy Jack…”

  “This is strictly unofficial, okay?”

  “Well, do we at least get to synchronize our watches?”

  “Mitch…”

  “Righto. Flextime it is. Not to worry, boss. I am on the case.”

  And now he was steering his high-riding Studey truck back up to Sheila Enman’s house, where he’d arranged to run into Bitsy and her friend Helen Weidler while Helen was on her lunch break from the law offices of Fairchild & Fairchild. Helen had been one of Sheila’s prize pupils back when Sheila taught English at the high school. The two had remained lifelong friends.

  Bitsy’s minivan was already parked there when Mitch pulled up at the red mill house that faced the roaring waterfall. He didn’t knock on Sheila’s door. No point in knocking. Sheila wouldn’t hear it over the roar of the waterfall. Since the mill house was built right out over the racing water its first floor tended to get a bit sloshy when the heavy rains came. This had happened twice so far since Mitch had known her. So Sheila had no rugs or upholstered furniture down
stairs. Just bare wood flooring and tables and chairs that were practically Shaker in their simplicity. In the kitchen, Helen’s stove, refrigerator and washer-dryer were parked on four-inch risers. So was the furnace in her mudroom.

  Mitch found the three ladies setting the pine kitchen table with good china, silver and linen napkins. Ironed linen napkins. Lunch was a stack of sandwiches made from Sheila’s awesome homemade deviled ham on slices of her equally awesome Pullman white bread. There was also potato salad and a bowl of her bread-and-butter pickles if anyone was interested. Mitch was very interested.

  “I see that Desiree has talked you out of that dumb toothpick,” the ancient schoolteacher said to him in lieu of hello.

  “Not at all, Sheila. I’ve simply changed my mind.”

  Sheila let out a bray of a laugh. “Of course you have.”

  Bitsy greeted him with a warm smile. Helen hung back, saying nothing, still extremely ill at ease.

  “Have a seat and dig in,” Sheila commanded them.

  They had a seat and dug in.

  As Mitch wolfed down what he hoped would be the first of many deviled ham sandwiches he reflected on the unexpected turn his life had taken since he’d moved to Dorset. Who would have thought that he’d be engineering a secret powwow with three older ladies like this? As he took a sip of milk Mitch realized something even more amazing. Seated here in Sheila Enman’s kitchen with the waterfall roaring outside he was somewhere he’d never been before—ground zero of a genuine Dorset gossip mill. He was at the table. He savored the significance of this moment before he reached for another half sandwich and said, “Helen, did you know that Lance Paffin was buried down there? Was that why you came to my house last night?”

  Helen chewed quietly on a bite of her sandwich, swallowing it. “So they’ve found him.”

  “They haven’t made a positive identification, but they believe it’s Lance. They’re keeping a tight lid on it, so please don’t mention this to anyone, okay?”

  “Whatever is said at my table stays at my table,” Sheila assured him.

  Bitsy nodded in agreement. “Where was he, Mitch?”