The Coal Black Asphalt Tomb

by David Handler

  “Right in front of the Congo church.”

  “Well, that figures,” Helen murmured.

  “It does? Why’s that?”

  “Mitch, I came here because Bitsy thought it would be a good idea.” Helen’s eyes were fastened on her plate. “But I’ve said too much already.”

  Sheila let out another laugh. “You are one heck of a tactful person, Helen. I’m not, so I guess that leaves it up to me. Mitch, I can guarantee you that your lady friend will be hearing all about what a war hero Lance was. Which I’m not knocking. If a man serves his country he has a right to be saluted. But there was more to Lance Paffin than that. Much more.”

  Mitch speared a pickle slice from the bowl. “Such as?…”

  “Such as that he was the meanest, most vile user of women that it has ever been my misfortune to encounter,” Sheila replied. “He wanted them all. And he had them all. Lance Paffin was a predator who had no conscience when it came to women. None. The man was detested in Dorset. Believe me, there were dozens of husbands, boyfriends, fathers and sons who would have gladly done him in.”

  “Helen, how did you know he was down there?” Mitch asked.

  “I’ve … heard things over the years,” she answered reluctantly. “There’s the Missy Lay legend, for one. Not that anyone ever believed a word Missy said. She was an old, old spinster who lived right across Dorset Street from the church. My mother was town nurse back then and got to know her pretty well.”

  “Goodness, I haven’t thought about Missy Lay in years,” Sheila said with a twinkle in her eye. “The high school kids used to call her Miss Laid. She was a complete loon.”

  “Missy was different,” Helen allowed. “My mother told me she used to consume eight fluid ounces of her own urine every single day. Missy believed that it promoted good health.”

  “And did it?” Mitch asked.

  “Well, she lived to be a hundred and three.” Helen leaned forward over the table, blushing slightly. “There was also some talk about those fudge brownies that Missy put out for the kids on Halloween.”

  Bitsy stared at her. “Wait, you don’t mean…”

  “I do,” Helen said. “I most certainly do.”

  Sheila got up and made her way over to the stove with her walker to put the kettle on. “Which explains why no one ever believed anything Missy said.”

  “What did she say about the night that Lance Paffin disappeared?” Mitch asked.

  Helen patted her mouth with her ironed linen napkin before she replied, “Dorset Street had been all dug up. It was a dirt road, and closed to through traffic. No one drove in or out unless they lived in the historic district. So it was very, very quiet outside of Missy’s house that night. And Missy, who had terrible insomnia, swore to my mother that she heard men with shovels digging out in the road in the middle of the night. Also that she saw Lance’s white Mustang parked there in the moonlight. She told my mother all about it the next morning. Told anyone who’d listen to her after Lance was reported missing. But everyone ignored her because they thought she was potty.”

  “You believe she really witnessed something, don’t you?”

  Helen nodded her head. “Because of something I heard for myself at the office one day. Or I should say overheard.”

  “When was this?”

  “About twenty years ago. The last time that Dorset Street was being worked on.”

  “And what did you…”

  “My employer, Mr. Fairchild, was speaking to First Selectman Paffin on the telephone. And I heard him say, ‘Not to worry, Bob, all they’re doing is resurfacing. They won’t go down far enough to find anything.’” Helen paused, shaking her head. “I tell you, it made my blood turn cold.”

  “So you think Chase Fairchild and Bob Paffin knew that Lance was down there?”

  “I don’t think it. I know it.”

  Mitch sat there taking this in while Sheila filled a tea ball with multiple spoonfuls of Earl Gray and poured boiling water into her battered silver teapot. Bitsy got up and cleared their empty plates from the table.

  “There’s fresh-baked cookies in the bread box,” Sheila said.

  “What a good idea.” Mitch fetched them, studying Helen curiously. “Did you tell anyone about this at the time?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Why not?”

  “Why not?” Helen gazed out the kitchen window at the waterfall. “Because Mr. Fairchild would have fired me, that’s why not. The day he took me on he told me, ‘Helen, from now on you are my confidential secretary. That means anything you see or hear in this office is confidential. If you ever break this confidence I will see to it that you never work in a law office again. Do you understand?’ Believe me, I understood. And I kept my mouth shut. Had to. It was a high-paying job and my situation was bad enough already. I was not exactly the daintiest, loveliest young thing in Dorset. I was a horse-faced goony bird who hadn’t been on a date with a man in ten years.”

  “Don’t talk nonsense,” Sheila barked at her. “You were a beautiful girl. You had a lovely smile and you were always impeccably groomed. So many of the other girls weren’t. And these girls who I see around the village now, my goodness, they’re just plain greasy.” She turned a frosty gaze on Mitch. “I blame those Hollywood actresses of yours.”

  “Sheila, are you going to start in on Mila Kunis again?”

  “Tell me, does that young woman ever wash her hair?”

  “I really have no idea. But I’ll try to find out if you’d like.”

  Sheila glared at him. “Are you humoring me?”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

  “The truth is…” Helen shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “I didn’t want to go through the rest of my life being mentioned in the same breath as Missy Lay. Everyone calling me a loon behind my back. Besides, no one would have believed me anyway.”

  “Yet you’ve decided to speak up now. How come?”

  “Because I don’t care what people think of me anymore,” she answered defiantly.

  “That’s the single best thing about getting on in years,” Sheila said, nodding her head sagely.

  “Helen, what about Buzzy Shaver? Did he know, too?”

  She frowned at him. “What makes you ask that?”

  “He bitterly opposed this regrading project in the pages of The Gazette.”

  “That’s because Bob did,” Bitsy sniffed. “Buzzy is Bob’s toady.”

  “He also tried to gum up the works this morning.”

  Bitsy’s eyes gleamed at him. “Really? Do tell.”

  “He defied the parking ban and left his Volvo parked overnight in front of the library. Des had to call him at 6 AM to get him move it. She said he was really rude to her.”

  “He’s a nasty old man,” Bitsy said. “But there is another explanation. For why Buzzy left his car there overnight, I mean. Hard as I find that to believe.”

  “I’ll say,” Helen agreed.

  “Okay, I’m not following you.”

  “Buzzy lives on Appleby Lane,” Bitsy explained. “It’s a dead-end road. The neighbors are right on top of each other and extremely nosy. Buzzy’s a bachelor who visits a lady friend on a regular basis and doesn’t wish to advertise it to his neighbors. If he came driving home in the wee hours every night one of them would hear him pulling into his garage. Word would get out that he’s seeing someone. So he leaves his car parked on Dorset Street and retrieves it early in the morning. Probably parks down the block from his lady friend’s house as well.”

  “Common practice, Mitch,” Sheila said. “Everyone knows that.”

  “Really? I didn’t.”

  “That’s because you live on an island,” Helen said. “And you’re not a cheat.”

  “If you were we wouldn’t be talking to you,” Bitsy said.

  “Because Des would have shot you by now,” Sheila added.

  All three ladies broke out into gales of laughter.

  Mitch helped himself to one of Sheila
’s chocolate chip cookies, glad he could bring so much mirth into their lives. “Any idea who Buzzy’s getting busy with?”

  “At his age I wouldn’t exactly call it getting busy,” Bitsy responded. “It’s more along the lines of heavy leaning.”

  “So whom is he leaning into heavily?”

  “Beryl Fairchild.”

  “Our first selectwoman’s mother?”

  Bitsy nodded. “He visits her regularly at her little place on Bone Mill Road. Or so I’ve heard.”

  “As have I,” Helen said.

  Sheila made a face. “Why would Beryl keep company with Buzzy?”

  “Chase has been gone a long time,” Helen said. “She’s lonely.”

  “I could never be that lonely,” Sheila assured them. “The man is a creep. Always sucking away on that horrible pipe. And that lower lip of his looks like a hunk of raw liver. Can you imagine kissing Buzzy?”

  Bitsy shuddered. “I’d rather not.”

  “He doesn’t smoke his pipe anymore,” Helen informed them. “Had to give it up. He has emphysema. I hear the prognosis is not good.”

  “Well, I’m sorry to hear that,” Sheila said. “But he’s still a creep.”

  She poured their tea now and put out milk and sugar. Mitch tasted his and discovered it was strong enough to dissolve the enamel on his teeth.

  He added some milk and said, “Was Buzzy ever married?”

  Sheila shook her head. “He stayed 100-percent loyal to mama his whole life. He was absolutely devoted to her. Gladys Shaver was an emotionally frail woman. Especially after Buzzy’s younger sister, Frances, passed away. That was a tragic thing. Buzzy stayed right there in the house with Gladys until she died, oh, four years ago. And he still lives there.”

  “You make him sound like Norman Bates. Say, he’s not into taxidermy, is he?”

  “Actually, I always wondered if…” Helen cleared her throat. “I thought that he might be more interested in men than women.”

  “He’s a mama’s boy,” Sheila sniffed. “I’ll bet you a shiny quarter that Buzzy’s never had sex with anyone in his life, man or woman.”

  “How did his sister die?” Mitch asked.

  Sheila let out a sigh. “Now we’re back to talking about Lance again.”

  “And about me,” Helen said, her lower lip trembling slightly.

  “Really?” Mitch peered at her. “How so?”

  “I had a—a personal experience of my own with Lance,” she confessed uncomfortably. “It’s not something that I like to talk about. In fact, I’ve never told anyone about this.…”

  Sheila reached over and put her knuckly hand over Helen’s. “You’re among friends, dear.”

  Helen took a swallow of her tea. “I was at the spring dance myself. The night that Lance disappeared, I mean.”

  “You attended the dance?”

  “Hardly, Mitch. I waited tables there to put myself through secretarial school. My sort doesn’t get invited to the club. I’m Swamp Yankee through and through. And not ashamed to say it.”

  “Nor should you be,” Sheila said.

  “Lance Paffin was the most gorgeous man I’d ever met,” Helen recalled in a small, quiet voice. “As handsome as a movie star. He and I … got involved the year before he disappeared. The gang was throwing a birthday party for Beryl Beckwith at the club one night. I was out behind the kitchen on my break, having a cigarette and resting my sore feet, when suddenly Lance was standing there in that beautiful uniform of his, talking to me. When Lance smiled at me I—I just got tingly all over. He made me feel like I was the girl who I’d always wanted to be. There’s this dream you’ve been holding inside since you were seven years old. The one where Prince Charming comes along and rescues you from your life of drudgery. Lance made that dream real. It sounds silly, I know. But I was so naïve. He asked me to go for a drive with him after I clocked out. He drove us down to the beach and before you can say boo he had me out of my knickers right there on a blanket. It was my first time. Lance was my first.” Helen trailed off, her chest rising and falling. “Afterward, he invited me to sail to Block Island with him in the morning. He wanted me to spend the whole weekend with him on board the Monster. It was all so magical that I floated home on a cloud. Packed my things in the morning and hurried on down to the yacht club. He had told me he wanted to cast off by nine. When I got there he—he had another girl on board. She was as shocked to see me as I was to see her. Lance was shocked, too. Or he pretended to be. Said he was sorry if I’d gotten the wrong impression but that he’d just been kidding around last night. Believe me, he wasn’t kidding around when he coaxed me out of my panties. I—I’d never been so humiliated in my life. Went slinking home and cried for two straight days.”

  Bitsy looked at her in horror. “Helen, I can’t believe he did that to you.”

  “I never got over it,” Helen confessed. “I should have, but I couldn’t. The next time a young man took an interest in me I was immediately on the defensive. I didn’t want to get hurt that way again. It became a—a pattern with me after that when it came to young men. Which isn’t to say there were very many. And it wasn’t long before they stopped showing any interest in me at all.” She swallowed, her eyes glistening behind her wire-framed glasses. “After that I took to watching him in morbid fascination when he showed up at the club dances. There was nothing subtle about Lance. He was relentless. And so persuasive. That man could talk proper married ladies into slipping out to the parking lot for a quickie between dinner and dessert. And their husbands never suspected a thing.”

  “He had his way with more than a few married women,” Sheila confirmed. “But his favorite prey was the girlfriends of his friends.”

  “Not to mention his own brother’s,” Helen added, nodding.

  “Wait, wait. Are you saying he had an affair with Delia?”

  Helen arched an eyebrow at Mitch. “If you can call a few quickies in the backseat of his Mustang an affair. Delia was mad for Lance.”

  “Delia was mad for a lot of the boys,” Sheila pointed out. “She was a giggly little pushover in those days, especially if she had a couple of drinks in her. Easy Deezy, they used to call her. She must have had sex with half of the eligible young men in Dorset before she settled on dull-as-dishwater Bob.”

  Mitch drank his high-octane tea, trying to picture a hefty dowager such as Delia Paffin having furtive parking-lot sex with her future husband’s big brother. He couldn’t. Maybe because this was the real world, Dorset style. And the real world, he was discovering, was a whole lot sleazier and crazier than anything that Hollywood could dream up. “Did Bob know about Delia and Lance?”

  “I’d be willing to bet you that same shiny quarter the thought never so much as crossed Bob’s mind,” Sheila answered. “Unlike his pal Chase.”

  Mitch peered at her. “So our first selectwoman’s mother had a fling with Lance, too?”

  “That’s not all she had,” Helen said.

  Bitsy let out a gasp. “So it’s true? I’ve never known whether to believe that story about Beryl or not.”

  “Wait, what story?” Mitch wanted to know.

  “Lance got Beryl pregnant a year before she married Chase,” Sheila informed him. “Mind you, Beryl was a much, much steeper hill for Lance to climb. Mount Kilimanjaro compared to Delia. Beryl was a poised, elegant young lady. Well bred, well mannered and the prettiest girl in Dorset.”

  “All of us envied her,” Helen said. “Resented her, too. She was so perfect.”

  Sheila nodded. “A man like Lance Paffin couldn’t resist her. And she couldn’t resist him, apparently. Because it sure wasn’t Chase who knocked her up when she was a senior at Wellesley.”

  “How do you know that?” Mitch asked.

  “If it had been Chase’s baby they’d have moved up their wedding date,” the old schoolteacher explained. “But they didn’t. Instead, Beryl went to Barbados for spring break.”

  “None of that crowd went to Barbados,” Helen informe
d Mitch. “Hobe Sound was their place. The only reason to go to Barbados was because of a certain doctor who practiced a certain kind of medicine there.”

  Mitch helped himself to another cookie. “And Chase knew about this?”

  “Chase Fairchild was no fool,” Sheila said. “But he adored Beryl and he stuck by her.”

  “How about Glynis? Does she know?”

  Sheila considered this, her deeply lined brow furrowing. “I doubt it. That’s not the sort of a thing a mother tells her daughter.”

  “And yet you know.”

  “We do. But we keep our secrets to ourselves. The only reason we’re telling you this is because something quite extraordinary happened today. And because we trust you to share it with Des and Des only.”

  “Thank you for your confidence, Sheila.” Mitch nibbled on his cookie in thoughtful silence before he said, “Helen, who was the other girl?”

  Helen looked at him blankly. “What other girl?”

  “The girl Lance had on board the Monster with him that morning.”

  “Oh.…” She cleared her throat uncomfortably. “It was Frances Shaver, Buzzy’s kid sister. And I was shocked to see Frances there, believe me, because she was engaged to marry Luke Cahoon at the time.”

  “The Luke Cahoon?”

  Helen nodded. “She and Luke were childhood sweethearts. Frances was a lovely, sensitive girl. And the poor thing was easy prey for Lance. She fell hard for him. Hard enough to go sneaking off to Block Island with him behind Luke’s back. When they got home Lance tossed her aside—same as he did me.”

  “Frances was so ashamed,” Sheila recalled, her face darkening. “She couldn’t face Luke after that. She felt she’d destroyed any chance for happiness that they had together. Broke off their engagement and went into a complete emotional tailspin. Ended up taking her life a few weeks later. She slit her wrists. It was Buzzy who found her in the bathtub. She’d locked the door. He had to break it down. It was an awful, awful thing. Gladys Shaver was never the same after that. Nor was Luke. Frances was the love of his life. And Lance just used her and discarded her. Lance Paffin killed Frances Shaver. He didn’t care about her one bit. The only reason he went after her was to provoke Luke.”