“I haven’t seen his preliminary finds yet,” Des answered truthfully.
“Well, what in God’s name was Lance doing under there?”
“Not a whole heck of a lot.”
The congressman glared down his long nose at her. “Sarcasm? You show up here requesting face time with me so you can pitch sarcasm? Lance Paffin was a friend of mine.”
“Really? That’s not how I’ve heard it.”
Calmly, he laced his fingers together around his bent left knee. His socks sagged. Des could see three inches of pale, hairless shin above them. “Exactly what have you heard?”
“That you and Lance had an argument the night he disappeared.”
Luke Cahoon shrugged his shoulders. “We always argued. The man was a total ass when it came to certain subjects.”
“Certain subjects such as Noelle?”
“We argued about all sorts of things.”
“Such as Noelle?”
“Yes, Noelle,” he acknowledged impatiently. “That was the night Noelle and I met. She was a school chum of Beryl’s. I liked her right away. She was the first girl I’d liked ever since I’d…” He broke off, his face darkening. “I told that preening peacock of a flyboy to stay away from Noelle or I’d kill him with my bare hands. I meant it, too. I’ve committed murder, Master Sergeant. I killed at least eight enemy soldiers in combat—that I know of. But Lance Paffin was the only man who I’ve actually said those words to in my entire life.”
“Because of what he’d done to Frances Shaver?”
“You’re damned right.”
“Did you and Lance come to blows that night?”
“Not a chance. Lance didn’t care enough about any woman to put up a fight for her. Plus he was a coward at heart. Any man who could behave the way he did toward Frances is a coward. There was no fistfight. Just an exchange of words out in the parking lot.”
“And then what happened?”
“He laughed me off and went trolling for other prey.”
“Anyone in particular?”
“Not that I recall.”
“Congressman, what really happened to Lance Paffin that night?”
“I have no idea. All I remember is that he was ‘stoked’ to take the Monster out. It was quite late and we’d all had a lot to drink. No one else wanted to go with him.”
“Not even his brother Bob?”
“Bob doesn’t go out on boats. He gets seasick.”
“And then what happened?”
“Lance took her out by himself and was never seen again. End of story.”
“So you have no idea how his body came to be buried underneath Dorset Street?”
“Master Sergeant, you asked me what I know. I just told you. Let’s move this along, shall we?”
“Sir, we’ve reviewed our case file from 1967 and found some red flags. The Lance Paffin investigation was not handled in a way that the state police can be proud of.”
He drew back from her, studying her curiously. “So that’s why you’re here. You’re doing your father’s bidding, aren’t you? He’s trying to bypass the Major Crime Squad and keep it quiet. Of course he is. He’s an organization man. That’s what organization men do.”
Des kept her face a blank. “I’m simply here to ask you the questions that you’re going to be asked again approximately twelve hours from now—in much less private surroundings.”
“Questions such as…”
“Fingerprint evidence taken from the tiller of the Monster somehow managed to disappear. And the lead investigator, Dave Stank, somehow managed to reappear as your chief of staff when you were elected to Congress.”
“You’re thinking that it doesn’t look very good.”
“I’m not the only one who’ll be thinking it.”
“I can assure you there was no quid pro quo,” he said mildly. “The Stankinator was a good man. Smart, energetic and focused. He made a strong impression on me during that investigation.”
“What investigation, Congressman? There was zero follow-through.”
He let out a pained sigh. “After I was voted in, Dave reached out to me and mentioned that he was looking for a new career opportunity. I gave him one. Any subsequent success that he enjoyed was due entirely to his own hard work. Beyond that, I wouldn’t care to comment further.”
“That’s your privilege, sir. But you will be asked these questions again later today. And once you get the Major Crime Squad, you get the media. There will be scrutiny. A lot of it. And it won’t be pretty.”
“And I couldn’t care less,” he said. “Before you waste any more of our time, Master Sergeant, I’m going to tell you something that no other human being on this planet knows. Not even those three incredibly loyal people who I just kicked out of this vehicle. I am formally announcing my retirement from the US Congress at 5 PM today, effective immediately. Absolutely no one else knows about this. If word leaks out before I have a chance to make my announcement I’ll know who the source was and I’ll have your badge. Do you understand?”
“Not exactly. Is this because of the Lance Paffin matter?”
“Officially, I’m retiring because I want to spend more time with my family. Not very original, I’ll grant you, but it’ll have to do. My daughter, Katie, and her husband Ken live up in Burlington, Vermont, with my three grandkids. I’m a complete stranger to those kids. I’d like for them to get to know me. I’d like to write my memoirs. Maybe teach a class on modern governance at Yale if they’ll have me.”
“And how about unofficially?”
“Let’s just say I’m getting out because I can’t bear to go through this again.”
“Go through what, sir?”
“I fought two tours of duty in ’Nam, Master Sergeant. I saw things that no human being should ever have to see. Yet nothing that happened to me over there compared to the pain I felt when Frances took her own life. I’d loved her with my heart and soul ever since I was a boy. What Lance did to her … that was the single worst thing I’ve ever experienced. I can’t go through it all over again. I can’t let the media drag her name through the mud simply because of my own high profile as a US congressman. I won’t let Frances be used that way. She was the only woman I’ve ever loved. There was never anyone else.”
“What about Noelle?”
“I was smitten by Noelle,” he answered wistfully. “Couldn’t take my eyes off her at the spring dance. She caught me staring at her from across the table and smiled at me ever so faintly. I’ll never forget that smile. Noelle was a wonderful person who gave me every bit of love she had. I tried to love her back. Truly, I did. But I had no love inside of me to give her. Noelle realized it soon enough and we went our separate ways. It was an amicable divorce, if such a thing is even…” He trailed off. Seemed far away for a moment. Then shook himself and said, “I owe it to Frances to head off this mess if I can. I owe it to Buzzy, too.”
“You’ve heard that he tried to shoot himself yesterday?”
Luke Cahoon nodded his head sadly. “Poor Buzzy can’t bear to go through it again either. He adored Frances.”
“With all due respect, Congressman, your retirement won’t head off our investigation.”
“You’ll do what you have to do,” he acknowledged. “But at least the media won’t bray quite so loudly if I step out of the picture. Besides, I’ve had it with the partisan blood sport in Washington. I’m viewed as something of a hopeless old fuddy-duddy, you know, because I don’t happen to consider the fellow who sits across the aisle from me to be Satan’s spawn. I started serving in Congress because I wanted to fight for things. And I did fight for them. I brought jobs home to my district. I exposed tens of millions of dollars of fraud in our military procurement procedures. I’ve seen to the health needs of our combat veterans when not one of those armchair warriors on Capitol Hill gave a damn about them. When I saw a problem I tried to solve it. That’s what the voters elect us to do. But Congress doesn’t solve problems anymore. Now we are the pro
blem.”
“And so you’re going to run away? I thought you were a fighter.”
“I don’t want to fight anymore. I’m all done fighting.”
“I don’t believe you, Congressman.”
He shot an angry look at her. “Are you calling me a liar?”
“Let’s just say I don’t understand.”
“And you never will. Not if I have anything to say about it. And I do.”
CHAPTER 10
“MAKE SURE IT’S GOOD and taut, Mitch.”
“Good and taut,” he promised Bitsy, yanking hard on the orange string line. They were busy staking and measuring the site of his future patio. The day had turned overcast and raw. Gray clouds hung low over the waters of the sound, and the gulls were exceptionally vocal. Mitch drove the stake into the earth with a rubber mallet and stepped back to examine their work. “What do you think?”
“I think ten-by-twelve is too small,” Bitsy responded, kneeling there in her overalls. “Let’s try twelve-by-fourteen.”
“Let’s,” he agreed. “Wait, do you have enough bluestone tucked away?”
“Oh, sure. I’ve got piles of leftovers. They won’t all be the same size but we’ll figure out a way to fit them together.”
“Actually, I already have.” The sketch he’d made was tucked in his jacket pocket. He unfolded it and showed it to her. “See, it’s a sort of patchwork quilt pattern. With empty one-foot squares that’ll be here, here and here. I can use these spaces for growing mint or thyme or whatever. Unless you think that would be too Martha Stewart-y. Why are you looking at me that way?”
Bitsy was gaping at him. “Sorry, I just … this is beautiful, Mitch. Did you design it all by yourself?”
“Not exactly.”
“Oh, of course.” She reached over and squeezed his hand. “It’ll be a lovely tribute to her. I’ll order a couple of yards of stone dust from Dorset Landscaping right away. Once we’ve laid a good level bed we’ll fetch the stones from my place with your truck. Heck, we can knock this off in no time.”
One thing Mitch had learned about Bitsy was that when it came to garden projects she did not dillydally around. Just marched right on over with her stakes, string lines and can-do spirit, raring to go. He’d been sprawled on his sofa with Clemmie and cup of hot cocoa watching one of Douglas Sirk’s kitschiest 1950s masterpieces, All That Heaven Allows, a torrid tale of forbidden romance about a wealthy country club widow (Jane Wyman) and her much younger gardener (Rock Hudson). Mitch had felt a powerful urge to dive headfirst into Sirk ever since he’d had that cup of Postum yesterday at the club with the elegant Beryl Fairchild.
“Bitsy, what do you know about Bart Shaver?” he asked as they expanded the stake lines by two feet in each direction.
“He’s a very nice boy. Buzzy doesn’t deserve him.”
“Okay, you’ll have to explain that.”
“Bart’s decent and honorable, and from what I hear he wants to do good things with The Gazette. All Buzzy’s ever done is shill for Bob Paffin and bore the hell out of people with that stupid ‘Buzzings’ column of his. As if anyone in town gives a hoot what that mean old man has to say about…” She broke off, puffing slightly. “I have a personal issue with Buzzy. I used to write the gardening column for The Gazette, you know.”
“No, I didn’t know.”
“It was before you came to town. I had to give it up.”
“Why?”
“Because Buzzy’s behavior toward me was unacceptable. He was just unbelievably nasty. He hated my column. Hated all of my ideas for the paper. Hated having a fee-male in his precious newsroom. He has this stupid sign on the wall that says NO WHISTLING ALLOWED. It may as well say NO WOMEN. He’s rude to all of the ladies. I am not a dog, Mitch. One day I finally told the old sourpuss that I was tired of being treated like one and I walked out. I’ve never been back since.”
“I guess that explains it.…”
“Explains what?”
“Why Bart can’t get the ladies in town to help him.”
“You bet it does. We’ve staged a boycott.”
“You said Buzzy hated your ideas for the paper. What sort of ideas?”
“Trend pieces about things that were going on in the community. Features that I thought would be of interest to mothers and daughters.”
“I didn’t know you were so interested in journalism.”
“Young sir, I’ll have you know that I was editor in chief of The Sophian my senior year at Smith. I had a reputation as something of a muckraker, too. When I sank my teeth in I wouldn’t let go.”
“My Aunt Myrna had a schnauzer just like that.”
“Mitchell Berger, are you making fun of me?”
“Never.”
“You’d better not be. Because I don’t talk about this with most people.”
“That’s for sure. You’ve never said a word. How come?”
Bitsy gave the string line a tug. “Is your end good and taut?”
“Plenty good and taut. How come, Bitsy?”
“It’s not something I’m proud of,” she answered uncomfortably. “What I did after I graduated, I mean. I-I had this dream about moving to New York City and working on a fashion magazine. I wanted to be one of those chic young career girls who get to go to runway shows and offbeat art galleries. I wanted my own cute little apartment on the East Side. I wanted all of that. I even had a real shot at a job as assistant to the lady who was accessories editor at Vogue.”
“Accessories are…”
“Handbags, gloves, that sort of thing. My English lit professor had been her roommate at Radcliffe. She wrote me a glowing letter of recommendation. I mailed it off to her friend at Vogue, who actually called me. We had a very nice chat on the phone and scheduled an interview at her office in the city later that week.”
“And then what happened?”
Bitsy’s face tightened. “I never went on the interview.”
“You cancelled it?”
“Nothing quite so mature as that. I simply failed to show up.”
“How come?”
“Because my parents were dead set against the idea of me working in the big, bad city. And they for darned sure didn’t want me living there on my own. I didn’t have the spine to stand up to them. So I caved. Ended up back here in Dorset as the assistant children’s librarian. I spent three miserable years doing that until I married Redfield.”
“Bitsy, I can’t believe you never told me this before.”
“What’s to tell? It was a just a silly, stupid dream.”
“Sorry, but you’re talking to the wrong hombre. I don’t think there’s anything silly or stupid about dreams. You’re also talking to someone who has a perfectly nice apartment in the city. It’s not on the East Side, but it’s plenty cute and you’re plenty welcome to stay there any time you want.”
She frowned at him, puzzled. “What would I do with myself?”
“Anything you want. Knock yourself out.”
“You’re very sweet, Mitch, but that particular dream died a long, long time ago. And I don’t like to think about it. It just makes me sad when I do.” Bitsy grabbed her rubber mallet and pounded the stake into the ground with great resolve. “Why did you ask me about Bart Shaver?”
“Because he’s in desperate need of volunteers.”
“I’m sure he is. But Bart won’t get one woman in town to help him. Not while that cantankerous old man is still around.”
Mitch heard the telephone ring inside of his house. He went in and answered it.
The voice on the other end said, “Mitch, this is Bart Shaver of The Gazette calling. I just moseyed over to the country club and had a nice long chat with Young Henry. Mind you, there’s no such thing as a nice short chat with Young Henry. Do you know where the Cahoon family cemetery is?”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
“It’s on Johnny Cake Hill Road. Not far from the old Cahoon mansion at the top of the hill.”
“Oh, sure,
I know the place you mean. It’s that pocket-sized cemetery hidden behind all of those bushes, right? I didn’t realize it had a name.”
“The Cahoons started burying their people up there way back in the 1600s—more than a hundred years before the town established Duck River Cemetery. There are a lot of Lays buried there, too. The two families intermarried early on. There’s six other pre-Revolution family plots scattered throughout Dorset. Did you know that?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“It’s fascinating stuff. I’ll have to write a story about it one of these days. What makes the Cahoon family plot so unusual is that it’s situated smack-dab in the middle of the club’s seventh fairway. Or it would be if the designer hadn’t figured out how to tuck it into its own little corner.”
“You mean they had to build the golf course around it?”
“That’s exactly what they had to do. Can you meet me up there in, say, an hour? I may have found what you’re looking for.”
CHAPTER 11
“YOU WENT AROUND ME, damn you!”
“Good morning to you, too, First Selectwoman.” Des had just parked her cruiser in the lot behind Town Hall when the passenger door flew open and in jumped Glynis. “How are you today?”
“Don’t you dare play dumb with me!” she roared, slamming the door shut behind her. “You have really pissed me off. And you do not want to piss me off.”
“Yes, I can see that.” What Des saw was a side of Glynis Fairchild-Forniaux she’d never witnessed before. Dorset’s intensely driven first selectwoman had herself a serious temper. Her face was red. Her blues eyes were bulging. The lady looked deranged. Des wondered if this was a family trait. “Is there something in particular that I did?”
“You know there is. I expressly told you I wanted to be there when you spoke to my mother and you expressly ignored me.”
“I haven’t spoken to your mother, Glynis.”
“No, you had your boyfriend do it. Talk about devious.”
“Mitch goes his way, I go mine. And I think that pretty much wraps this up. Now if you’ll please excuse me…”
Glynis didn’t budge. Just sat there with her arms crossed and her chin stuck out. “Damn it, Des, I thought we were on the same side.”
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