The Coal Black Asphalt Tomb

by David Handler

  “How are you, Yolie?”

  “Always happy to see you.”

  “Me, too,” exclaimed Toni, who surprised the hell out of Des by giving her a great big oofy hug. “You’re looking fabulous.”

  “Why, thank you,” Des responded, taking notice of the new, size-huge diamond engagement ring Toni was sporting on her left ring finger.

  “Who is our victim, Miss Thing?”

  “Bart Shaver of The Gazette. He was shot three times in the back from very close range by what looks to me like a .38. But what do I know?”

  “More than I ever will. Bag and tag the victim’s cell phone, Sergeant. And go have a look-see in his car.”

  “Right, Loo. And his keys are…”

  “It’ll be unlocked,” Des said. “No one ever locks their cars in Dorset.”

  “Oh, right, I forgot. This is the sweet little place where nothing ever happens. Am I look-seeing for anything in particular?”

  “He was a reporter,” Des said. “I’d grab his laptop if it’s there. Also any five-by-eight notepads you might find.”

  “And canvass the neighbors down the road,” Yolie told her. “Find out if they heard the shots or saw somebody driving away. This is a dead-end road. There can’t be too many cars coming and going.”

  “On it, Loo.”

  Des eyed Toni curiously as she marched off, her little arms pumping.

  “She’s taking a cruise on The Love Boat,” Yolie explained, following Des’s gaze.

  “Who’s the lucky fellow?”

  “You know Vicki Dmytryk, that tall, blond district prosecutor?”

  “Sure. Vicki has a brother, Bill, who’s in private practice. I tangled with him in court once. So she and Bill hooked up?”

  “Guess again.”

  Des frowned at her for a second before she said, “Wait, no way.…”

  Yolie nodded solemnly. “Yes way.”

  “Did you ever—”

  “Not even maybe. All she’d ever told me was that she was tired of her uncles fixing her up with every unattached Italian-American man in the department.”

  “And now we know why. Does her family know she and Vicki are engaged?”

  “She hasn’t worked up the nerve to tell them yet. And they aren’t engaged, technically. That’s a promise ring she’s wearing. It’s like an agreement to agree or something. I don’t quite get it, but don’t go by me. I haven’t been on a date in eleven months. And he bailed on me during the salad course.”

  “You were too much woman for him, Yolie.”

  “I’m too much something,” she sighed, glancing at the death investigator who was crouched over Bart Shaver’s body. “Anything funky I should know?”

  “Actually, we do have a situation here.”

  “Is that right? Why is it that I never, ever hear the word ‘situation’ in connection with anything I’m going to like?”

  “I can pretty much guarantee you won’t like this. Allow me to hit rewind. A paving crew unearthed a set of human skeletal remains under Dorset Street yesterday morning. Possibly you noticed the tent and the ME’s crew when you drove by?”

  “Sure did. Whose remains are they?”

  “US Navy Lt. Lance Paffin, the older brother of our former first selectman, Bob.”

  “Who is a total weasel if I’m remembering right.”

  “You’re remembering right. Supposedly, Lance disappeared at sea off of his catboat, the Monster, in May of 1967 after a night of carousing at the country club over yonder with friends. Bob and his future bride, Delia, were there. So were Chase Fairchild and his future bride, Beryl, the parents of our current first selectwoman. And so was our soon-to-be-former Congressman Luke Cahoon. But as we now know—”

  “Wait, did you just say our soon-to-be-former congressman?”

  “I did. And I’ll get to that in a sec. We now know that Lance was never lost at sea. He’s been underneath Dorset Street this whole time. According to the ME, he suffered a fatal blow to the cranium from a spike-like object of some kind. Somebody murdered him. Somebody buried him. And somebody took the Monster out and left it adrift out there. The Coast Guard found it washed up on the rocks at Saybrook Point the following morning. No sign of Lance. An extensive search was conducted but his body was never found. Until yesterday, that is, when a road crew dug up the pavement on Dorset Street for the first time since May of 1967. It has needed regrading for years but Bob Paffin was always vehemently opposed to it—supposedly for financial reasons. And he had the strong editorial backing of our shooting victim’s elderly cousin, Clyde ‘Buzzy’ Shaver, who’s the editor and publisher of The Gazette as well as Bob’s lifelong friend. It also might interest you to know that Buzzy tried to shoot his own face off yesterday with a deer rifle. I managed to talk him out of it.”

  “Damn, girl, you’ve been busy.”

  “Just a typical day in the life a small town resident trooper,” Des said as they stood there in what now qualified as more than a light drizzle. The techies had put on rain slickers.

  Yolie glowered up at the sky. “Was it supposed to rain today?”

  “Forty percent chance of widely scattered showers.”

  “Somebody gets paid to make that shit up? I want his job.” She studied Des, her brown eyes narrowing. “So what’s the up?”

  “The up is that the people who were the last ones to see Lance alive concocted an elaborate fable about what happened to him. They’ve been living with that fable for a long, long time. And now…”

  “They’ve got some explaining to do,” Yolie said, nodding her head.

  “As do we, I’m sorry to say. We dropped the ball on this one, Yolie. It was winky-wink from start to finish. We cut a bunch of shmancy country club blue bloods way too much slack. All of them had been drinking heavily. And I’m told there was a pretty heated quarrel out in the parking lot. Something happened that night. But the investigators who followed up didn’t follow up. No one was questioned any further. Not Lance’s friends. Not the club staff. Not anyone who worked at or lived near the yacht club. Fingerprint evidence that was taken from the boat’s tiller somehow went missing. And our lead investigator somehow ended up with a sweet job as chief of staff for soon-to-be Congressman Luke Cahoon. The media will go nutcakes with this one when the details come out. And they will come out.”

  Yolie shrugged her bulked up weightlifter’s shoulders. “Ancient history. Who cares?”

  “The Deacon cares.”

  Her face dropped. “Oh, so it’s like that.”

  “Yes, it’s like that. Just between us? He got the ME’s findings yesterday afternoon. He’s been slow walking them to your squad commander to give me a window of time before this whole thing explodes in our faces.”

  “So what are you telling me?” Yolie demanded, her nostrils flaring. “You’ve been running your own one-girl murder squad?”

  “That’s correct.” Des braced herself for an explosion. Yolie was uber-turfy.

  But she merely nodded her head and said, “Whatever.”

  Des looked at her in disbelief. “You’re okay with it?”

  “Oh, hell no,” she said calmly. “But it is what it is. And this is me rolling with it. I had what you’d call an epiphany a few weeks ago. And I have Toni to thank for it. Know what she told me? That I’m a miserable person to be stuck in a car with because I wake up pissed off at the world and I stayed pissed off all day and night. And that if I don’t figure out how to be happy I won’t ever be able to make anyone else happy—like, say, a man.”

  “Toni said that?”

  “Girl dealt me some pretty serious wisdom. I took it to heart. Some days I do pretty good at it, too.”

  “And other days?”

  “I still just want to punch somebody’s face in.” Yolie thumbed her chin thoughtfully. “You are going to share what you found out, aren’t you?”

  “Of course. Lance was someone who had many, many enemies—the reason being that he boinked everyone. The man was an equal oppor
tunity hound. He boinked brother Bob’s fiancée, Delia. He boinked our first selectwoman’s mother, Beryl. Got her pregnant even. He also boinked Luke Cahoon’s fiancée, Frances Shaver, kid sister of Buzzy. When Lance dumped Frances she killed herself. Neither the congressman nor Buzzy ever got over it. When I spoke to the congressman this morning about Frances he went four paws up on me. Told me he intends to retire from the US Congress today at 5 PM because he can’t bear to have her name dragged through the mud again.”

  “And are you buying into that?”

  “Oh, hell no. As soon as I left him the congressman ditched his aides and took off. His present whereabouts are unknown. And now Buzzy Shaver’s young cousin Bart has three fresh holes in his back.”

  “What do you know about him?”

  Des glanced over at Bart, her chest tightening. “I know that he took what he did seriously. He even tried to go after Bob Paffin for being a corrupt dirtbag until Buzzy shut him down. Bob’s been quietly keeping The Gazette afloat financially. Or I should say he was. As soon as the voters gave him the boot he pulled the plug on Buzzy, which means The Gazette has to go entirely digital next month. It’s Bart who’s been making that happen. Buzzy’s still a card-carrying member of the manual-typewriter generation. Plus he has major emphysema.”

  “Any idea what Bart was doing here in this old cemetery?”

  “All I know is he phoned Mitch and asked Mitch to meet him here.”

  “Yeah, I saw your boy’s truck.” Yolie looked around, frowning. “Where is he?”

  “He went wandering off across the seventh fairway. Told me this was all his fault. I have no idea what he meant. He wasn’t ready to talk about it.”

  “Was Buzzy Shaver partying at the club the night Lance disappeared?”

  “I’m told not. He had to stay home and take care of his mother.”

  “Yet as soon as Lance’s remains are found he tries to blow his face off. And the congressman suddenly decides to retire. And now we’ve got us a shooting victim and there’s no way Bart’s death isn’t tied in with whatever happened to Lance forty-seven years ago. Or am I missing something?”

  “You’re not missing a thing.”

  “And you weren’t kidding, Miss Thing. We’ve got us a situation.” Yolie mulled it over. “For starters, we’d better find our missing congressman. Are you sure he’s not home?”

  “No, I’m not sure. He could be hiding out. But I didn’t have just cause to break down his door.”

  “Leave that to me. We need to find out where he’s been for the past hour. Same goes for the rest of your blue-blooded Depends set. We have to account for everybody’s whereabouts.”

  Toni came marching back toward them now, her little arms still pumping. “Victim’s car is clean, Loo,” she reported. “No laptop. No notepads. I haven’t found a neighbor yet who heard or saw a thing. But a lot of folks aren’t home right now. I can try them again later.”

  Yolie looked at Des. “Any other ideas?”

  “I thought I saw fresh tire prints out there. But maybe those belong to someone who visited a loved one here today. Maybe the shooter cut across that fairway on foot and left the scene by way of the club’s parking lot. If so, he or she may have been observed by someone in the club. For that matter, he or she may be hiding in plain sight by eating lunch there as we speak.”

  Yolie nodded. “Sergeant, you’ll want to write down the names of everyone who signed in at the club today.”

  “Will do, Loo.”

  “Want me to notify the next of kin?” Des asked.

  “That would be great.”

  Not to mention easy. Her cell rang at that very moment. It was Buzzy Shaver.

  He wheezed in her ear before he said, “Resident Trooper Mitry? I was wondering if you could swing by the newsroom. There are some folks here who’d like to speak with you.”

  “I’ll be right there, Mr. Shaver.” She rang off and said, “After you girls get things buttoned up here you may want to meet me at offices of The Gazette on Dorset Street.”

  Yolie peered at Des curiously. “Real, what’s going on?”

  “Real, I have no idea.”

  As Des went striding out of the old cemetery she tried calling Mitch on his cell. He didn’t pick up. She texted him the 411 on where she was heading. Then she jumped into her cruiser and took off.

  CHAPTER 12

  MITCH DIDN’T FEEL A thing as he staggered his way across the seventh fairway in the chilly drizzle. His feet were numb. His legs seemed to be operating under their own power. And his head wasn’t even in Dorset at all. It was back at another old cemetery, the one in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, where Maisie had been laid to rest on that bright, crisp fall morning. She’d been a Lawrenson, and all of the Lawrensons were buried in a family plot that was a stone’s throw from the fabled Sedgwick Pie, where the ancestors of Edie Sedgwick, the Andy Warhol superstar, could be found. The gravestones in that cemetery had been slate, not brownstone. And there were maple leaves on the ground that morning. The color of the fallen leaves matched the hand-knit shawl that Maisie’s sister, Gretchen, had been wearing over her black dress.

  Now that was genuine Douglas Sirk.

  As Mitch made his way across the fairway, dazed, he felt as if he were right back there again with his grief and his utter aloneness. Maisie’s mom shooting hard, narrow looks at him. Her dad refusing to look at him at all—as if Maisie’s death from ovarian cancer was somehow his fault. As if Maisie would still be alive if she’d married someone else. Someone who wasn’t a fat Jewish movie critic from New York City whose grandparents had arrived in America by way of Ellis Island and Orchard Street.

  I didn’t kill her.

  That was what he kept wanting to tell Mrs. Lawrenson. Even though she wouldn’t speak to him before or after the ceremony. Even though part of him—a mighty big part—did blame himself. Because he wasn’t able to stop it from happening.

  I didn’t kill her.

  But I did kill Bart Shaver.

  And there was no way he would ever stop blaming himself. Not for as long as he lived.

  Eventually, his feet delivered him down the cart path to the head groundskeeper’s building, which was tucked behind a fence near the third green. It was a combination office, tool shed and garage. A dump truck was parked outside of the open garage door, along with two big rider mowers and a golf cart that had been converted for utility duty. Inside, the garage was crammed with a number of smaller mowers as well as whackers, trimmers, edgers, spreaders and leaf blowers. Huge bags of grass seed, fertilizer, sand and assorted weed-killing agents were stacked high on wooden pallets.

  Two middle-aged guys in overalls were in the process of taking a mower apart on the floor of the garage. Make that one of them was taking it apart. The other was consulting the service manual and cursing a lot.

  An open doorway connected the garage to the office, where an elderly man was seated at a cluttered desk poring over a seed catalogue. A potbellied stove was going in the corner of the cozy office. Mitch made his way over toward it. He hadn’t realized it but he was shivering from the cold.

  “Hello, they-yah, young fella,” the old man exclaimed with the salty Rhode Island inflection that Mitch occasionally heard come from the mouths of Dorset’s older working people. “Something I can do for you? Or did you just come in to warm your bones?”

  “I was … looking for Young Henry.” Mitch’s own voice sounded rusty.

  “And you found him.” Young Henry had to be pushing eighty, although he still seemed ruddy and plenty fit in his checked wool shirt, moleskin trousers and well-worn work boots. Alert, too. His blue eyes were piercing and sharp. He had big ears, a big, bony nose and huge brown hands that were roughened from a lifetime of outdoor work. “You’re not a member, are you? I’m pretty sure I know all of the club members.”

  “My name’s Mitch. I’m a friend of Bart Shaver.”

  “Is that right? Afraid you missed him. Bart was hee-yah, oh, must be an hour ago.” H
e peered at Mitch curiously. “Say, you don’t look so hot, you don’t mind me saying so. Kind of on the pale side. Are you okay?”

  “Define … okay.”

  “Park yourself there, son,” he commanded him, gesturing to an old easy chair next to the stove. “Have just the thing for you. Got a quarter?”

  “A quarter?…”

  “Never you mind. It’s my treat.” Young Henry sprang nimbly to his feet and went over to a battered red Coca-Cola vending machine—a boxy floor-chest model that had to be fifty years old. He fished a couple of quarters out of his trouser pocket, popped them into the coin slot and, raised the lid. Removed two chilled six-and-a-half-ounce glass bottles and lowered the lid. Opened them with the opener that was fixed to the side of the chest, handed Mitch one and sat back down with the other. “Now you drink that whole thing right down,” he ordered Mitch. “It’ll put the color back in your cheeks.”

  Mitch gulped it down. He didn’t usually care much for soda pop but he had to admit that this particular bottle of icy cold Coke tasted awfully damned good. Also that its infusion of corn syrup, caffeine and god-knows-what-else perked him up almost instantly.

  “Doesn’t taste any good unless it’s in a glass bottle,” Old Henry informed him, sipping his leisurely.

  “I thought they stopped making these little glass bottles last year.”

  “Yes, sir, they did.”

  “Wait, don’t tell me. You have a ten-year supply of them stashed somewhere, don’t you?”

  Young Henry didn’t say. Just smiled at him. “Mind you, the glass isn’t near as thick as it used to be in the old days. But that’s life. You have to make do. We’ve had that machine since the early sixties. Used to be by the swimming pool until the club decided to install the snack bar. They wanted us to get rid of it. Dad said to them, heck, I’ll take it. And darned if it doesn’t still run. That’s because they built things to last in those days. Would you believe that the compressor on the last refrigerator the wife and I bought crapped out in less than five years? Plus the danged thing never did keep my bee-yah cold enough.”

  Mitch warmed his hands over the stove, gazing around at the homey office. There seemed to be duck decoys and fishing rods everywhere. An old wall clock was tick-tocking away. It felt as if the old man’s whole life had been lived in this office, tick-tock, tick-tock. He was totally at ease here, tick-tock, tick-tock.