The Coal Black Asphalt Tomb

by David Handler

  Bitsy let out a laugh. “I’m looking fat. Just like my mom.”

  “Don’t speak ill of your mom,” Beryl chided her. “She was one of my favorite people.”

  “I take it you two have known each other a long time,” Mitch said.

  “Only fifty years or so,” Bitsy answered. “Beryl used to babysit me when we both lived on Turkey Neck Road.”

  Beryl smiled at her. “And you were so naughty. Always testing me. Tell me, how is Redfield doing?”

  Bitsy’s face fell. “The same.”

  “Do you have any idea when he’ll be released from prison?”

  “He will never be released from prison,” she stated flatly.

  The reason being that Bitsy’s husband, Redfield, had kind of conspired to kind of kill someone. His crime, and the ensuing cover-up, had served as Mitch’s introduction to life in bucolic Dorset. It was how he and Des met.

  Beryl studied Bitsy, tilting her head slightly. “Still, you’re doing well.”

  “Am not. I’m just good at keeping up appearances. I went to the same finishing schools you did, don’t forget. And you? How are you and Buzzy doing?”

  Beryl let out a gentle laugh. “Do the village hens think we’re a hot item? Allow me to assure you that we’ve never so much as held hands. We’re just old friends who happen to get lonesome. And I own a DVD player and Buzzy doesn’t. So I fix us dinner and we watch movies from Netflix. He likes old-fashioned British comedies, the broader the better, such as—”

  “Wait, wait, don’t tell me.…” Mitch’s wheels began spinning, spinning. “He’s a huge fan of the Carry On movies, am I right?”

  “Why, yes. We watched Carry on Nurse just the other night. Buzzy laughed so hard the tears were streaming down his face. That was quite some guess, Mitch.”

  “I never guess.”

  “Myself, I prefer something with a bit of romance in it such as—”

  “The films of Douglas Sirk?”

  Beryl blinked at him in astonishment. “You amaze me.”

  “And you amaze me.”

  “Do I? Why is that?”

  “Doesn’t it bother you that Mr. Shaver hates your daughter?”

  “He doesn’t ‘hate’ Glynis.”

  “He’s practically called her a terrorist in The Gazette. In fact, I think he has called her a terrorist.”

  “That’s just politics, Mitch. It’s not personal. Buzzy is a kind, gentle soul. And he gets terribly low now that his mother is gone. He devoted his life to Gladys. He never had a steady girl. Hardly dated at all, in fact. I don’t wish to sound cruel but he was never the most attractive thing around. And now he has such appalling teeth.”

  “He should have taken better care of his gums. Stim-U-Dents, I understand, can be very helpful.”

  Both ladies were staring at him.

  “Sorry, you were saying…”

  “For all I know he’s still a virgin,” Beryl confided. “Unless he associated with call girls. Or, you know, went the other way.”

  Mitch frowned at her. “You think he’s gay?”

  “If he is, he’s never revealed it to a living soul. But, honestly, it wouldn’t surprise me one bit.”

  Mitch took another sip of his Postum. “You were one of the last people to see Lance Paffin alive, weren’t you?”

  Beryl arched an eyebrow at him. “Why, yes. A group of us were here for the spring dance. They did it up formal in those days. It was always a special night.” She hesitated, glancing out the window at Old Henry’s garden. “This place has changed very little over the years. And yet it all seems so different.”

  “Different how?”

  “I suppose…” She gazed looked down at her long, slim hands. “What I mean is that back then our world seemed so perfect. But there is no such thing as a perfect world, is there? We were merely insulated from life’s harsher realities. So young. So privileged. So clueless. We girls were the last of the breed.”

  “Which breed is that?”

  “The ones who were taught to be seen but not heard. We were expected to be decorative, have our babies and keep our opinions to ourselves. We weren’t expected to do anything. We were the last ones. In fact, it was already changing while I was Wellesley. Several of my classmates were girls of no particular background at all. Sweaty, pimply girls from places like Camden, New Jersey, who studied like crazy and had every intention of attending law school. I was brought up to marry a lawyer, not become one. That’s why I’m so proud of Glynis. She’s used her mind. And spoken up. All I’ve ever done is keep quiet. I’m very, very good at keeping quiet.” Beryl’s blue eyes shimmered at them. “Lance Paffin saw right through me from the moment we met. Somehow, he knew how frustrated and unfulfilled I was. He knew the real me better than Chase ever did. Lance was a deeply flawed person. He had this overpowering need to go after other men’s women. He was always looking for someone, or something, that he couldn’t find. I sometimes wondered if deep down inside…” She colored slightly. “If he didn’t really care for women at all.”

  Mitch sat there wondering if this whole business was getting even weirder than he’d imagined possible. “You just suggested that Buzzy Shaver might be gay. Now you’re hinting the same about Lance Paffin. You don’t think that the two of them were involved, do you?”

  “I never think about such things, Mitch. There are a great many things in life that I’d simply rather not know about. All I can tell you is that Lance had his way with any woman he wanted. He had his way with Buzzy’s sister, Frances, who was Luke Cahoon’s girl.” Beryl’s face dropped. “When Lance decided he was done with her she fell apart, poor thing. It was terribly sad. And so cruel of him. But that was Lance. If he wanted someone he took her—and to hell with the consequences. He had his way with Delia. She was absolutely crazy about him. And he had me, again and again and again. He was … extraordinarily well endowed. And very proud of it. And I wanted him so badly that I could barely think about anything else. All he had to do was look at me and I was ready for him. He could have me anytime, anywhere. I didn’t care. I just wanted him.”

  “Would you have married him if he’d asked you to?” Bitsy asked her.

  “Never,” Beryl answered firmly.

  “Why not?” Mitch asked.

  “Because Lance wouldn’t have been faithful to me. I needed a steady, dependable man like Chase. I’m really quite a disorganized and helpless person. I always have been. Chase looked after me. Now Glynis does. She handles my investments, pays my taxes, makes whatever decisions need to be made about the house and car and so on. I become totally paralyzed if I have to make a decision. I needed a man like Chase, not Lance. We weren’t right for each other. We never so much as dated, you know. Never had a meal together or went to a movie. It was strictly about sex. It … wasn’t that way with Chase,” she confessed. “Chase was a dear, sweet man. He was very patient with me, attentive, diligent. Yet I never experienced a single orgasm during our entire marriage. I must have faked ten thousand orgasms.”

  Mitch sipped his Postum in cautious silence, amazed by Beryl Fairchild’s candor. Men didn’t talk about much of anything with each other. Women, he was discovering, talked about everything. “Did Chase know about you and Lance?”

  “If he did, he never let on.”

  “You two never talked about it?”

  “We never talked about it.”

  “So he didn’t know why you made that spring break trip to Barbados?”

  Beryl’s eyes widened. “How on earth did you…”

  “Not to worry,” Bitsy assured her. “We won’t tell Glynis.”

  “Did Chase know what really happened to Lance that night?”

  “If he did he never he never let on,” she said again, though with a bit less conviction in her voice this time.

  “Do you have any idea what happened to him?”

  Beryl smiled at him faintly. “The resident trooper instructed you to ask me that, didn’t she? She can’t ask me about it herself.
Not without Glynis watching over me like a pit bull. The answer is no, Mitch. I have no idea what happened to Lance. He told us he was ‘stoked’ to take the Monster out for a sail. And that was the last we saw of him.”

  “Did he and Luke Cahoon get into a fight that night?”

  Beryl pursed her lips. “They argued.”

  “About the war in Vietnam?”

  “About Noelle. Luke never forgave Lance for what he did to Frances. How could he? Luke was on his own for a good long while after she died. Heartbroken, really. Bob and Delia decided to fix him up with Noelle that night. I’d known Noelle for years. She was a lovely girl. Luke liked her right way. Noelle liked him, too. There was a lot about Luke to like. He was a good-looking fellow in a shaggy sort of way. An ex-Marine who was a bright light at Yale Law School. Anyhow, when Lance showed up here Luke was not happy to see him. He took Lance outside and told him straight away that that if he tried anything with Noelle he’d kill him. Or at least that’s how I heard it from Noelle in the powder room.”

  “And did Lance try anything with Noelle?”

  “Well, he disappeared that very same night. So he certainly didn’t have a lot of time to work with. Not that Lance ever needed much time.” Beryl let out a sigh of regret. “Luke and Noelle seemed so happy together at first. But the marriage just didn’t take. Noelle told me she simply couldn’t make him happy. The poor man never got over losing Frances. She was the love of his life.”

  Mitch’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He looked at it, then excused himself and went over by the windows to take the call.

  “I’ve been trying to get in touch with Beryl Fairchild,” Des informed him. “I don’t suppose you know where she is, do you?”

  “I have a pretty fair idea,” he responded, gazing out at the garden. It was too neat and orderly for his taste. Mitch preferred a wild profusion of barely controlled chaos. “Why, what’s going on?”

  “Buzzy Shaver just tried to reconfigure that icky lower lip of his by blowing his entire head off. I managed to talk him out of it. He’s on a twenty-four-hour suicide watch at Middlesex Hospital. I thought she would want to know.”

  “I’ll be sure to tell her. Do you want me to include your use of the word ‘icky?’”

  “And then you and me need to log some serious face time, wild man. If that can be arranged.”

  “You just talked me into it. Your place or mine?”

  CHAPTER 7

  “IT MAY INTEREST YOU to know that Lance Paffin was extremely well hung. Proud of it, too.”

  Des found herself staring across the table at him in amazement. “How on earth did you…”

  “Beryl Fairchild just whipped it out, so to speak. She was totally into Lance, by the way. Wanted him more than she’s ever wanted any other man—including her husband, Chase. She never experienced an orgasm during their entire marriage.”

  “She told you that?”

  “She also told me, and I quote, ‘I must have faked ten thousand orgasms.’ Which, if I’m not mistaken, was the subtitle of Hedy Lamarr’s memoir of her life and times as a Hollywood glamour girl.”

  They were at her place overlooking Uncas Lake eating big bowls of her lentil soup by candlelight, the better to see the moonlight reflecting off of the lake. On the stereo was a vintage recording of Mary Lou Williams playing live at The Cookery.

  “Lance and Luke Cahoon did exchange words out in the parking lot that night,” he went on, slurping his soup loudly. “The future congressman warned Lance about making any fast and furious moves on Noelle. Or so Noelle told Beryl.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Cool your jets, thin person. There’s more. Beryl also hinted that Lance and Buzzy Shaver were gay.”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me one bit about Buzzy.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because of what I found hanging from his bedroom closet door.”

  Mitch gazed at her eagerly. “What did you…”

  “His mother’s nightgown and robe. They smelled strongly of her perfume. There’s still a bottle of it in her bedroom, along with all of her clothing. He’s never given any of it away. Her hairbrush still has strands of her hair in it.”

  “Whoa, I’m getting that powerful Norman Bates vibe again. Tell me, did you go down into his basement?”

  “Feel free to climb off of the Psycho express any time, big boy.”

  “Beryl thinks that Lance’s obsessive womanizing might have been his way of proving to himself that he wasn’t gay.”

  Des nodded. “I knew a guy like that when I started on the job. He hit on every woman he met to convince himself he was straight. He eventually came out. But Lance was a Navy fighter jock. Guys like him didn’t come out in those days. Hell, they still don’t.”

  “So it’s something to consider.” Mitch finished the last of his soup, mopping the bowl with a hunk of bread. “As a possible explanation for what he was doing underneath Dorset Street, I mean. Maybe we’ve been looking for love and/or hate in all the wrong places.” He took a sip of wine. “So listen, I’ve been hangin’ with the girls all day and I’ve got to ask you something serious. Is there anything you don’t tell each other?”

  “Seriously? No.”

  “Wow, guys are really boring in comparison.”

  “Wow, are you just figuring that out?” She pushed up the sleeves of the ancient flannel shirt she had on. It and nothing else. That was what she’d been wearing at her easel when he arrived. She’d scanned several of her crime-scene photos of the skeletal remains and bulldog clipped them to her eighteen-by-twenty-four-inch Strathmore 400 drawing pad. Then made one gesture sketch after another with a graphite stick, using her entire arm, moving nimbly on the balls of her bare feet. She hated every single sketch. There was no freedom, passion, energy, anything. She’d gotten so pissed off that she’d practically hurled the damned easel off of her deck into the lake below. “I figured something out tonight. I really, really need to jump my game.”

  He nodded. “Of course you do. In the immortal words of the late, great Warren Zevon, ‘Your shit’s fucked up.’”

  She peered at him. “You knew that?”

  “I know you. I know you’ve been unhappy with your work for weeks. And you’ll stay unhappy until you make a meaningful commitment.”

  “Meaningful commitment as in…”

  “Take an extended leave so you can draw full time. Or, hell, quit your job. Because right now you’re not giving your drawing the attention it needs.”

  “I do serve two masters,” she acknowledged.

  “Three. You’re forgetting about me.”

  She showed him her smile. “Right, how silly of me. You honestly think I should quit my job?”

  “I think you’re an artist, and that nothing else matters. I think you should do whatever you need to do. Hell, go to Tahiti for six months if you want. Just know this—whatever you decide, I support you.”

  “God, you really are the Stepford boyfriend.”

  “You would never have known that expression if you hadn’t met me,” he pointed out, beaming at her.

  “I also wouldn’t have known the meaning of the word geshrai. Although I’m still not sure I’m down with all of its nuances.”

  “Wasn’t there a professor at the academy who you really liked?”

  “Susan Vail. What about her?”

  “Maybe you could study with her one-on-one. While you’re trying to decide what to do with the rest of your life, I mean.”

  “Mitch, do you have any idea how much private studies cost?”

  “I know how much it’ll cost if you piss away your talent. Let’s consider it my birthday present to you.”

  “It’s not my birthday.”

  “Why don’t you call her?”

  “I’m not sure she’d even be interested.”

  “Call her and find out.”

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “Just call her.”

  She glared across the tabl
e at him. Mitch was the kindest man she’d ever known, but when it came to the subject of her artist within he could turn downright fierce. “You can let go of this any time.”

  “Fine, I’ll let go. But I didn’t bring it up, remember? You did.” He sat back in his chair, gazing out the window at the lake. “You know who I really don’t get? Bob Paffin. How could he go on idolizing his big brother when the guy was boinking Delia whenever he felt like it? For that matter, how could Bob marry her knowing that?”

  “Very good questions. I don’t have any answers. But I do have it on good authority that our former first selectman is a crook.”

  “Which good authority would that be?”

  “Bart Shaver. He’s trying to keep The Gazette alive as an online newspaper. He thinks that community newspapers are the only way to hold local government accountable to the voters.”

  “He’s right.”

  “He’s a nice young guy. Real dedicated, too. He spent days at the public works garage and nailed Bob cold for using town manpower and resources to regravel his own driveway. But Uncle Buzzy spiked the story.”

  “And you’re telling me this because…”

  “Bart’s pretty much a one-man operation. There’s no money to pay staffers. He needs volunteers to help out. And he’s a huge admirer of yours. He thinks you write with verve.”

  “He said that? He actually said verve?”

  “He did.”

  “You don’t hear that word much anymore,” Mitch said grudgingly.

  “And you don’t meet many people like Bart.”

  “Well, well. I just may have to look him up.”

  “I thought you might want to.”

  “Think you’re pretty smart, don’t you?”

  “Little bit.”

  “You’re not bad looking either—in a leggy, insanely erotic sort of a way.”

  “It’s the shirt,” she explained, fingering its frayed collar. “With some women it’s silk. With me it’s aged flannel. I look good in it.”

  “You look good out of it, too. I just may have to dive across this table and tear that thing off of you—with my teeth.”

  She moved her empty soup bowl a judicious eighteen inches over to one side, gazing at him through her eyelashes. “So what’s stopping you?”