The Coal Black Asphalt Tomb

by David Handler

  “Feel better now?” he asked, eyeing Mitch critically.

  “Much better, thanks.”

  “Did you pick up a bug or something?”

  “No, I’m just having a really rotten day,” Mitch said. “Forgive me for staring, but when I heard that your name was Young Henry I was expecting—”

  “Someone young?” He cackled in amusement. “Well, I was young, once upon a time. And when I first came to work hee-yah they took to calling me Young Henry so as to tell me apart from my dad, who also went by the name of Henry. He was the original head groundskeeper when this club first opened back in 1936—which also so happens to be when I was born.”

  “So that would make you…”

  “Seventy-eight years old,” he said. “You got something against older people working?”

  “No, sir. Not a thing.”

  “What would I do with myself all day if I didn’t work? Sit around on my keester watching Movies on Demand on the TV?”

  “No, sir. Besides, I don’t need the competition.”

  “You don’t need the what?”

  “Nothing. Don’t mind me.”

  “My dad put me to work hee-yah part time way back when I was still in high school. I hired on full time soon as I finished my schooling. When he retired back in 1972 I took over for him. Only job I’ve ever had. Or wanted.”

  “And is there a next-generation Henry learning the ropes from you?”

  “Afraid not. Our two girls both married paper pushers. And our grandsons don’t seem to care about a thing except for those handheld computer games of theirs. Always pushing the little buttons with their thumbs like lab monkeys. I can barely get them to talk to me. But I’ve got a couple of good young fellas I’m bringing along,” he said, meaning the middle-aged guys who were servicing the mower out in the garage. “And I have no intention of retiring any time soon. I’ve don’t need glasses or a hearing aid. And my doctor says he wishes his cholesterol and blood pressure were as low as mine. I get plenty of fresh air and exercise. I never smoked. Never drank anything stronger than bee-yah. I figure I should be good for another ten years easy.” He took another sip of his Coke, eyeing Mitch with those piercing blue eyes. “Bart’s a good kid. Buzzy’s lucky to have him.”

  “Do you mind if I ask you what you and he talked about?”

  “Don’t know if I do or I don’t.” Young Henry tilted his head at Mitch slightly. “Why are you asking?”

  “He’s been helping me collect some background information. We’re working on a story together for The Gazette.”

  “Uh-huh. So why don’t you talk to him about it?”

  “That’s not possible right now.”

  “Uh-huh. Well, no harm in repeating myself, I guess. Seems like I do it all the time whether I intend to or not—or so the wife says. Bart was asking me about that old spiked fence we used to have around the rose garden before the big fire of ’92.”

  Mitch opened the manila folder he was toting and removed Bob and Delia Paffin’s wedding photograph. “Do you mean this fence?”

  Young Henry squinted at it. “Yep, that’s the one. Can’t understand why the both of you are so curious about it. Hasn’t been they-yah since the ladies on the garden committee decided they wanted a boxwood hedge instead. Bart wondered if I had the vaguest idea where it might be these days. I told him I don’t have the vaguest idea at all. I know exactly where it is. Moved it they-yah myself.” He drained his bottle of Coke, smacking his lips together with pleasure. “Care for another, son? This one will cost ya.”

  “I’m just fine, thanks. Moved it where?”

  “To the Cahoon family cemetery up by our seventh fairway. Dorset’s cemetery commission is supposed to be responsible for the upkeep of the old family plots that are tucked around town, but most of the actual work gets done by volunteers from the VFW and the Boys Scouts. I take care of the Cahoon cemetery. Always have. It’s the neighborly thing to do. Some of those old gravestones are getting so crumbly I’m afraid they’ll turn to dust if I bump my mower into them. There’s one particular cluster of real early children’s gravestones, tiny ones, that’s in sad shape. That’s where I put the fence. I felt those little ’uns ought to be protected. Thought it looked kind of nice there, too.”

  “This would be those kids who died in 1696?”

  Young Henry frowned at him. “Sounds to me like you already knew the answer to your question.”

  “Just making sure.”

  “That’s it, all right.” He peered at the photo again. “This is Bob and Delia’s wedding, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, sir. I guess you’re a bit older than they are.”

  Young Henry nodded. “Five, six years.”

  “That would make you about the same age as Bob’s brother Lance.”

  “Just about. Lance was one class ahead of me.”

  “What did you think of him?”

  “Think of him?” He let loose with another cackle of laughter. “Lance was the wildest young buck Dorset’s ever seen. That fella couldn’t get enough of women—I am talking two, three different women a day, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year. He wanted them all. And they all wanted him. Even the married ones who should have known better. Why, he could turn even the most prim and proper ones into shameless hussies. One Sunday morning—and I’ll never forget this for as long as I live—I came in hee-yah real early to get some mowing done for my dad. This was back in, let’s see, the summer of ’62 it was. There’d been a luau party here the night before or some such. Anyhow, I’m walking by the pool and what do I see but Lance and another man’s pretty blond wife fast asleep together on a couple mats, naked as can be. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I woke those two up and told them in no uncertain terms to get their clothes on and get the hell out. This hee-yah is a nice club for nice people, not a brothel. She was awful ashamed. As well she should have been, her not only being married but a good fifteen years older than Lance. She couldn’t get dressed and run fast enough. But Lance was as cool as can be. Offered me fifty dollars cash money to keep my mouth shut. ‘Here’s something for your trouble, sport,’ was what he said. Which I didn’t care for one bit. Don’t ever call me ‘sport.’”

  “I won’t.”

  “I told him to keep his money.”

  “Did you ever tell anyone what you saw?”

  “Not a soul. Not my dad. And for danged sure not the wife. She’s a devout Christian and would have insisted I speak up. But I figured what people want to do is their own business. Besides which, I didn’t want that particular married lady for an enemy.” Young Henry sat back in his chair with a sigh. “Lance always gave me a sneaky smile after that, like him and me played for the same team.”

  “And how about the married lady?”

  “Couldn’t look me in the eye. She’d scurry off soon as she saw me coming.”

  “What do you think happened to Lance on the night he disappeared?”

  “Why, he took the Monster out and fell overboard. Everyone knows that.”

  “Everyone doesn’t know that he was found buried under Dorset Street yesterday morning in his dress blues.”

  Young Henry’s eyes widened. “Is that why they stopped the dig?”

  “It is.”

  “He’s been under the road this whole time?”

  Mitch nodded. “With a fractured skull.”

  “Say, you must be the Mitch who keeps company with our resident trooper.”

  “It’s true, I am.”

  “Is she figuring that somebody murdered Lance?”

  “It certainly appears that way.”

  Young Henry tugged at a big ear. “Holy Toledo.…”

  “Do you have any idea who might have wanted him dead?”

  “You mean other than half of the men in Dorset? The way Lance went through women somebody was bound to go after him eventually. He was asking for it.” Young Henry handed the Paffins’ wedding photo back to Mitch and said, “When I told Bart where he could find this hee-y
ah fence he ran out that door like a bat out of hell. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s where you’ll find him right this very minute.”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised either.” Mitch’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He reached for it, glancing down at its screen. Des was texting him her next destination. He pocketed it, running a hand through his damp, unruly curls. “Why didn’t you want her for an enemy?”

  Young Henry frowned at him. “Who’s this we’re talking about now?”

  “The married lady who you found by the pool with Lance.”

  “Oh, her.” His weathered face dropped. “Because she was in a position to get me fired if she decided I was going to cause trouble for her.”

  “Trouble with her husband, you mean?”

  “That, too.”

  “There was some other kind?”

  “Oh, most definitely.”

  “Would you mind elaborating on that?”

  “I don’t mind. See, it so happens that the lady in question was also the mother of one of Lance’s own friends.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “I do. I do say.”

  Mitch leaned forward, his pulse quickening. “Which friend?”

  CHAPTER 13

  SEVERAL CARS WERE PARKED in the damp, creosote-scented dirt road outside of the office of The Gazette. And when Des went inside she found the newsroom crowded with people, most of them over the age of seventy. Bob and Delia Paffin were standing there, both wearing raincoats and tense expressions. The missing congressman, Luke Cahoon, was there, looking grave and statesmanlike. Beryl Fairchild was there, looking cool and calm. So was her daughter, who looked anything but. Glynis was pacing back and forth, back and forth.

  Buzzy Shaver was seated in a swivel chair in front of his enormous rolltop desk wearing a white button-down shirt, dark green knit tie and gray slacks. There was a nearly full bottle of Old Overholt rye whiskey and a shot glass on the desk next to his vintage manual typewriter. Also a laptop that looked an awful lot like Bart’s laptop. A half dozen five-by-eight notepads were stacked on top of it. In his right hand Buzzy was holding a Ruger Speed Six revolver, a circa-seventies six-shooter that had a short barrel and a round, compact grip. The Ruger wasn’t much for long-range accuracy but for close-up work it did just fine. Fired a .38 Smith and Wesson cartridge if Des’s memory served her right. And it did.

  Buzzy wasn’t pointing it at anyone. Just sitting there holding it in the palm of his hand, his moist, pendulous lower lip stuck out peevishly.

  “Want to give me that gun?” Des asked him, breaking the taut silence in the newsroom.

  “I don’t think so,” the old editor wheezed in response. “Although you’re welcome to try and take it from me.”

  “Is that some kind of a dare?”

  Buzzy didn’t answer her. Just poured himself a jolt of Old Overholt and drank it down while the others stood there in stiff silence.

  “I’m sorry to disappoint you, Mr. Shaver, but if you’re angling for an officer-assisted suicide you picked the wrong trooper. Also the wrong day. Yesterday, I felt genuine sympathy for you. Today, you can go ahead and blow your miserable head off for all I care.”

  “That was your big mistake,” he said, gazing down at the Ruger in his hand. “You shouldn’t have talked me out of it.”

  “Don’t you put any of this on me. And don’t bother trying to play with my head. I won’t lose my temper and shoot you. Not going to happen. I have a lot more experience at this sort of thing than you do. Just for starters, I know that you’re not going to shoot yourself. Not in front of all of these nice ladies. So why don’t you just put the gun down, okay? You and I both know that you won’t be using it again.”

  “Again?” Glynis looked at her sharply. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Somebody shot Bart Shaver to death in the Cahoon family cemetery about an hour ago.”

  Glynis let out a gasp. Her mother and the others merely stood there stone-faced. They already knew. Of course they did.

  “Bart was shot three times in the back from very close range with a .38. His killer took Bart’s laptop and notepads.” Des gestured at Buzzy’s desk. “That laptop and those notepads, unless I’m wrong. And I’m not. Have you fired that gun recently, Mr. Shaver?”

  “You know I have.”

  “I don’t know a damned thing.” Des looked around at the group of old friends who were gathered there. “For instance, why are all of you here?” On their total silence she gazed at Dorset’s former first selectman and said, “How about it, Bob?”

  “Beryl phoned me and asked me to come here,” he answered quietly.

  “And what about you, Congressman? I heard you rabbited on your staff after I left you in Fairburn.”

  “I needed to be alone for a while, Master Sergeant,” Luke Cahoon said, gazing down his long nose at her. “Senior centers happen to depress the hell out of me. It’s the smell of all of that perfume, chiefly. It reminds me of funeral parlors. So I got the hell away from there. I do have that right, you know. If I feel like going somewhere, I go somewhere.”

  “And where did you go?”

  “Are you questioning me?”

  “Have you been to your house up on Johnny Cake Hill Road?”

  “The congressman was at my house,” Bob interjected. “We were in my study having a highball when Beryl called. He and I drove here together.”

  “So I’ll find your black Suburban at the Paffin place?” she asked the congressman.

  “Yes, you’ll find it there,” he answered with elaborate patience.

  Des turned to Delia Paffin. “And you were where?”

  “Grocery shopping at the A&P. Bob reached me on my cell phone after he heard from Beryl, and I met him here. Him and Luke, that is to say. I still have the groceries outside in my car. And my receipt, which is time-stamped. And you can ask the cashier, Rosie, if you don’t believe me.”

  “I didn’t say I didn’t believe you.”

  “You didn’t have to,” Delia huffed, her plump cheeks mottling. “I can see it in those eyes of yours.”

  Des looked at Glynis now. “And you’re here because—”

  “You phoned me and suggested I meet you here. I’m grateful that you did, Des.”

  “No problem. You told me you wanted to be in the loop. Welcome to the loop.” Next Des turned to Beryl Fairchild and said, “Why did you phone Bob?”

  Beryl glanced over at Buzzy, who continued to sit there at his desk chair, Ruger in hand, glowering. “I stopped by here to look in on Buzzy,” she explained in a soft voice. “I’m the one who brought him home from the hospital this morning, you see. Once I got him settled there I left to run some errands. I tried phoning him a while later to see how he was doing but he didn’t answer. After I’d tried him several times I got a bit concerned so I drove to his house. He wasn’t home. I thought he might have come here. I didn’t see his car parked out front but I came inside anyway to see if Bart knew where he was.”

  “Bart’s car was here?”

  “No, but he likes … liked to ride his bike to work. Only, Bart wasn’t here either. No one was. The place was deserted.”

  “And the office door was unlocked?”

  “We never lock this newsroom during business hours,” Buzzy informed her. “It’s a family tradition. My father never locked it. And my grandfather never locked it. If anyone has a story for us they can just walk right in, whether someone’s here or not. That’s one tradition my ball boy didn’t dare trample on. Besides, there’s nothing around here worth stealing.”

  “Not even that Ruger of yours?”

  He glanced down at his gun. “This I keep locked in the bottom drawer of my desk, along with a bottle of the good stuff. Also a family tradition.”

  “I was going to leave a note on Buzzy’s desk asking him to please call me,” Beryl went on, “when he suddenly came bursting in the door with that—that gun in his hand.”

  “Did he say anything to you about Bart?
”

  “He didn’t say anything to me at all. He was having trouble breathing.”

  “How about the laptop and notepads? Did he have those with him when he came in the door?”

  Beryl lowered her blue eyes, swallowing. “I don’t recall.”

  “You’re a lousy liar, ma’am.”

  “I sat him down right there and made him use his inhaler. Then I poured him a stiff drink.”

  “Did his doctors put him on antidepressants when they discharged him? Because those meds don’t mix well with alcohol. Are you on meds, Mr. Shaver?”

  “They gave me some pills to take home with me,” Buzzy grumbled. “I flushed them right down the toilet.”

  “He looked as if he needed a drink,” Beryl said defensively.

  The newsroom fell silent now. Or make that almost silent.

  “Oh, no.…” Glynis gazed up at the ceiling with a horrified look on her face. “What’s that tapping sound?”

  “I’m just a small-town newspaperman, Madam First Seelectman,” Buzzy answered sourly. “But it sure sounds like rain to me.”

  Glynis shook her head in disbelief. “I honestly don’t know how this day can get any worse.”

  “Stay loose—it’s still early,” Des said. “So let me see if I’ve got this straight: Bob Paffin can vouch for the congressman’s whereabouts at the time of the shooting, and vice versa, which means that neither one of you has an alibi. Delia Paffin was at the supermarket, which means she was also on her way to and from the supermarket and has no one to vouch for her whereabouts while she was. Beryl Fairchild was driving to and fro and has no one to vouch for her either. And how about you, Glynis? Where were you an hour ago?”

  Glynis blinked at her. “Why, I was in my office at Town Hall. You know that.”

  “No, I don’t know that, actually. I called you on your cell. You could have been anywhere.”

  “Well, yes, that’s true,” she allowed. “But I was in my office. If you don’t believe me my secretary can … you don’t think that I had anything to—”