The Coal Black Asphalt Tomb

by David Handler

  “I don’t know what to think,” Des said, looking around at the group of old friends. “But I do know that all of you, along with two of your gang who are no longer with us, Chase Fairchild and Congressman Cahoon’s ex-wife, Noelle, made up a story one warm spring night forty-seven years ago. And now that story has finally caught up with you. Bob? You knew your brother Lance was underneath Dorset Street. You’ve always known it. That’s why you fought so hard against regrading it when you were first selectman. Also why you fought to stay in office for so many years. Thirty-four of them to be exact.” She looked at Buzzy Shaver. “That’s why you attacked Glynis so viciously during the campaign. Demanding recount after recount when the tally went against you. Denouncing her regrading plan as evil and just plain un-American. Because you knew Lance was down there, too. And because you were doing Bob’s bidding. He’s been quietly bankrolling The Gazette for years. You would have folded a long time ago without his backing.” On Buzzy’s surprised look she said, “Yeah, I know all about that. Bart told me.”

  Again, the newsroom fell silent—aside from the hard, steady rain that was now falling on the roof.

  “Two people are dead,” Des went on. “One died in 1967. The other is still warm up at the Cahoon cemetery. You folks have been sitting on this story for your entire adult lives. It’s time to get it out in the open. Tell me, what really happened to Lance that night?”

  Not one of them would answer her. Or look at her or each other. They just stared straight ahead in stony silence.

  “Tell her, Mother,” Glynis said pleadingly. “Tell me.”

  Beryl Fairchild drew in her breath, but she remained mute.

  Delia Paffin’s head was starting to jiggle slightly on her neck. The lady was trembling with fear. And Bob Paffin, he of the weak heart, was looking real pale standing there next to her.

  “You’re not going to pass out on me again, are you?” Des asked him.

  “Perhaps we should talk to an attorney,” he responded weakly.

  “I’m an attorney,” Glynis reminded him.

  “As am I, it so happens,” the congressman said.

  “Look, it’s over, people,” Des informed them. “You’ve held together for all of these years but it’s over. A pair of top-notch Major Crime Squad investigators are going to be walking through that door any minute now. Either you can tell me right now what you’ve been hiding or you can tell them—in an interrogation room while the whole lot of you are under arrest for criminal conspiracy and illegal disposition of a body, just for starters. They will cut you no slack. Not even you, Congressman. You’ll get no free pass.”

  “Wouldn’t expect one,” he said, his jaw clenched tight.

  “I’m your resident trooper. If you’re straight with me I’ll do everything I can to help you out. I look out for my people. But once Lieutenant Snipes and Sergeant Tedone are here it’ll be their case and I won’t be able to do a thing for you. And I sure would feel a whole lot better if you’d give me that gun,” she said to Buzzy Shaver. “Hand it over.”

  “No,” he growled, gripping it tightly.

  “You should have taken Bart’s phone, too, you know.”

  He frowned at her. “His what?”

  “His cell phone. After you shot him you took his laptop and notepads but you left his cell phone. I found it in the grass next to his body.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Bart’s call log, Mr. Shaver. He placed two calls shortly before he died. One of them was to this office. He asked you to meet him up there, didn’t he?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he repeated.

  “Sure, you do. I’m talking about your young cousin. The one who called you Uncle Buzzy as a sign of his affection. You were the only family he had. He loved you. He also loved The Gazette. Wanted to keep it going as an online newspaper. Build a life here for himself and his girlfriend, Mary Ann. The one you don’t like because she’s plain faced. She doesn’t know yet that Bart’s dead. I still have to call her and give her the news. I’m really looking forward to it.” She moved a few steps closer to Buzzy, holding her hand out. “Give me the gun.”

  “No!” he snarled, baring his hideous yellow teeth at her.

  “Give it to me. Deal with me. This is your last chance. Let me help you before it’s too late.”

  Buzzy let out a wet, painful cough that wracked his entire chest. “You get away from me,” he warned her, gasping for breath. “Get away or I’ll shoot you right where you stand.”

  That was when the door to The Gazette opened.

  But it wasn’t Yolie and Toni who walked in.

  CHAPTER 14

  THE NEWSROOM WAS SO crowded with people that Mitch felt as if he’d just walked into a color-drenched remake of Front Page Woman, a zippy little 1935 Warner Brothers newsroom drama helmed by Michael Curtiz. All that was missing were Bette Davis, George Brent and the zippy. There was no zippy. The air was heavy with tension. And the place was teeming with public officials, past and present. US Congressman Luke Cahoon was standing there with his shaggy eyebrows and air of patrician authority. So was Glynis Fairchild-Forniaux, Dorset’s hard-charging first selectwoman, along with Bob Paffin, her weak-chinned, snowy-haired dick of a predecessor and Bob’s pudgy wife, Delia, with her rosy apple cheeks and Tang-colored hair. Beryl Fairchild, the first selectwoman’s elegant, silver-haired mother was there. And Buzzy Shaver was slumped there in a chair at his rolltop desk with his liverish lower lip stuck out and a short-barreled revolver clutched in his right hand. He wasn’t pointing it at anyone. But it had a way of commanding attention.

  It sure had the attention of Dorset’s uncommonly lovely resident trooper.

  “Good afternoon, Master Sergeant,” Mitch said to her.

  Des peered at him in that way she did whenever she was worried about him. He did happen to be soaking wet—it was a long walk back to his truck in the rain. And he suspected that he still looked somewhat shaken, possibly because he was. “Right back at you,” she said guardedly, glancing at the manila envelope that was tucked under his arm. “What have you got there?”

  “A pretty darned good local news story for The Gazette. It’s got political intrigue, suicide, sex, more sex. Oh, and a couple of murders, too.”

  “Young man, we’re rather busy right now,” the congressman said.

  “On the contrary,” Des said. “The door to The Gazette is always open. Anyone who has a story to share can just walk right in and share it. That’s a Shaver family tradition, right?”

  Buzzy Shaver didn’t respond. Just sat there at his desk, gun in hand, glowering and wheezing.

  Mitch noticed that he had a bottle of Old Overholt on the desk. “I knew you’d keep a bottle of Old Overalls around this place,” he exclaimed. “Why, it’s been the beloved house grog of ink-stained wretches from coast to coast ever since there have been ink-stained wretches from coast to coast. I used to work with an old-time restaurant critic who drank an entire bottle of that rotgut every single day. Really, really made me wonder what it was doing to her palate. Do you mind if I join you, Mr. Shaver?” There was a coffeemaker on a table over in the corner. Mitch fetched a Styrofoam cup and poured himself a generous jolt of the rye whiskey. “You’re supposed to get plastered at a wake, right? That’s what this is, isn’t it? Mind you, I don’t usually imbibe so early in the day. Especially the hard stuff. This is making me feel just like Jack Nicholson.” He raised the Styrofoam cup ceremoniously into the air and drawled, “‘Here’s to the first of the day, fellas. To old D.H. Lawrence.…’” Mitch drank it down in one big gulp. As he felt it burn his throat he flapped his left elbow like a chicken and gasped, “‘Nick-nick-nick, fiff-fiff-fiff, gyahh … Indians.’”

  Everyone in the newsroom with the exception of Des stared at him in dumfounded amazement.

  “Not a lot of Easy Rider fans here, huh? Why am I not surprised?” He poured himself another stiff jolt of the stuff. “Wow, this would remove
that stubborn old varnish from my dining table in no time. I wonder what it’s doing to the lining of my stomach. Check that, no I don’t. Anyone else care to join me?” On their stony silence he said, “You keep this in your bottom desk drawer, am I right, Mr. Shaver? Sure I am. I knew that. But the gun’s a bit of a surprise. Then again, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised—considering the condition I found Bart in less than fifteen minutes after he called me.”

  “He called you?” Glynis spoke up.

  Des said, “As I mentioned, Bart placed two calls shortly before he died. One was to his Uncle Buzzy. The other was to Mitch.”

  “Correct.” Mitch gulped down his second shot of rye, aware of Des’s gaze on him. “He asked me to meet him at the old Cahoon cemetery. The one that’s right next to your house at the top of Johnny Cake Hill, Congressman.”

  The congressman said nothing to that. Just stared at him.

  “But why did he call you?” Glynis wondered.

  “Bart was doing a favor for me—speaking to someone on my behalf. I’ve just spoken to that someone and he confirmed that he did indeed talk to Bart shortly before Bart called me.”

  “Who were you speaking with?” Bob Paffin asked hoarsely.

  “Young Henry, the head groundskeeper at the country club. I just love Dorset, don’t you? Where else but hee-yah would a guy who’s seventy-eight years old be called Young Henry? Nice fellow. Serves one heck of a bottle of Coca-Cola, too. A glass bottle, not plastic. Glass makes all of the difference.” He glanced over at Des and said, “How am I doing so far, thin person?”

  She smiled at him with her pale green eyes. “You’re doing just fine.”

  “Thanks, don’t mind if I do.” He tossed back some more Old Overholt. “Did I remember to offer you a drink?”

  “Thanks, but I’m on the clock right now. Mitch, what’s in that envelope?”

  “What, this? It’s an eight-by-ten glossy of a wedding photo that ran in The Gazette back in 1969.”

  Buzzy Shaver stirred for the first time since Mitch had walked in. “Where’d you get that?” he demanded.

  “From your files. Bart loaned it to me.”

  “He had no right to do that.”

  “And yet he did. How about that?” Mitch removed the photo from the envelope and set it on a desk for the others to look at. They crowded around him—all except for Buzzy, who sat stubbornly at his desk, gun in hand. “This will be a real trip down memory lane for you, Mr. and Mrs. Paffin. It’s your wedding photo. You were married in the old rose garden at the club. You had to pull some strings because the garden was already booked for the date you wanted, but Chase Fairchild’s father was president of the club and he made it happen. It must have been a lovely event. And yet you don’t seem to have very fond memories of the old rose garden, Mrs. Paffin. When I asked you a perfectly innocent question about it yesterday you got downright snappish. I couldn’t imagine why. It got me to wondering, so I dropped by here and had a chat with Bart. Sure enough, The Gazette still had the photos of your big day. There’s the two of you.…” Mitch tapped the photo with his index finger. “That’s Chase Fairchild. That’s you, Mrs. Fairchild. There’s our future congressman, Luke Cahoon, with Noelle. There are Old Henry’s roses. And, if you look closely, you’ll notice the low wrought-iron spiked fence that used to enclose the garden. Or ‘properly’ enclose it, as you described it, Mrs. Paffin. It was removed after the fire of ’92 destroyed the—”

  “Pull over a sec,” Des said. “Did you say spiked fence?”

  “I did. I most certainly did.”

  She snatched the photo from the desk and had a closer look. “Keep talking.”

  “According to the ME, Lance Paffin suffered a fatal wound to the back of his skull from a tapered, spike-like object of some kind. Any number of objects could have made such a wound. My money was on a square-headed nail. My own cottage is full of them.”

  Congressman Cahoon shot a glare at Des. Mitch could only guess why.

  “I wouldn’t have given much consideration to the spiked fence around Old Henry’s garden if Mrs. Paffin hadn’t reacted the way that she did. When I asked Bart what might have happened to the fence he said he didn’t know. But he did have a pretty good idea who would.”

  “Young Henry?” Des asked.

  Mitch nodded. “Young Henry, who is Dorset through and through. The man looks out for his neighbors and never throws a thing away. He maintains the Cahoon cemetery free of charge, you know. Some of the earliest brownstone gravestones up there have started to crumble. He was particularly concerned about a cluster of children’s gravestones from way back in 1696. So he installed a protective fence around them. The very same fence that used to enclose Old Henry’s rose garden. My guess? If you examine the spikes in that fence with the wound in the back of Lance Paffin’s skull you’ll find a match. My guess? Lance Paffin died right there at the club that night.” He glanced over at Des and said, “Am I still doing okay?”

  She smiled at him with her eyes again. “More than okay.”

  “Are you sure I can’t offer you a drink?”

  “Positive. Keep going.”

  “Thanks, don’t mind if I do.” Mitch poured himself another jolt of Old Overholt, turning his attention back to Buzzy Shaver. “After Bart spoke to Young Henry he called and asked me to meet him up there. That’s why he called you, too. Bart was a good reporter. He didn’t know why I was so interested in locating that particular fence. But he did know how to put two and two together and he figured it must have something to do with Lance’s death. So he asked you about it, didn’t he, Mr. Shaver? You were the natural person for him to ask. You know everything there is to know about this town’s history. Unfortunately for Bart, you also know everything there is to know about what happened to Lance that night—because you took part in it. Poor Bart had no idea. And no way to know that when you drove up there you were planning to shoot him.”

  Buzzy stared down at the revolver in his hand. “He was a nosy damned pest.”

  “Nosy damned pests make the best reporters,” Mitch informed him. “They taught us that in journalism school.”

  “Wouldn’t take no for an answer. Kept fighting me over that same stupid story about Bob’s driveway. The kid was a stubborn pain in the behind.”

  “Stubborn pains in the behind make the best reporters. They taught us that in journalism school, too.”

  “And then today he calls up and…” Buzzy trailed off, coughing wetly. “Tells me he has a pretty fair idea of how Lance died. Wants me to have a look up at the Cahoon cemetery before he goes public with it. So I headed up there.”

  “And you shot him,” Des said quietly.

  “I had to,” he insisted, gazing around the newsroom. “I love these people. And they still have a lot of good years left. All I’ve got is a few months. I did it for the old bunch. They’re like family to me.”

  “Yeah, but Bart was family,” Mitch pointed out.

  “And he was trying to destroy this newspaper,” Buzzy said angrily. “Every single goddamned day he’d start in on how we were no longer a ‘sustainable business model.’ I told him The Gazette isn’t a business—it’s an institution. And I’ll be damned if it disappears inside of some lousy computer on my watch.”

  “He asked you to meet him at the cemetery,” Des said, nudging him along.

  Buzzy nodded. “And he showed me that spiked fence. Told me he was positive it had something to do with Lance’s death. I said, ‘What do you know about Lance’s death?’ He said ‘Not as much as you do.’ I demanded to know what he meant by that. He said, ‘You know what really happened. That’s why you fought the regrading plan so hard. You and Bob both.’ I told him to leave it alone. ‘It’s ancient history,’ I said to him. ‘Let the dead stay dead.’ Do you know what that kid said to me? He said, ‘No, sir, this is one story you are not going to bury.’ He wouldn’t listen to me. Wouldn’t goddamned listen. Just started to walk away. So I stopped him,” Buzzy said, hefting the gun in his h
and.

  “Three shots to the back make for a very effective stopper,” Mitch acknowledged. “But you didn’t finish the job, Mr. Shaver. You also needed to kill Young Henry, who knows where that fence is, and you needed to kill me before I had a chance to show this photo to our resident trooper. But you’re not much of a pro at this murder thing, are you?” He drank down some more of Buzzy Shaver’s Old Overholt, smacking his lips with pleasure. He was actually starting to like the taste of the stuff. What was that about? “Master Sergeant, would you like to hear something totally whack?”

  “You trying to tell me that what I’ve been listening to isn’t whack?”

  “If they’d just called the police and said it was an accident they would have gotten away with it. Lance was a high-spirited, reckless sort. He got plastered, slipped and hit his head on the fence. Bam. It happens. Stuff like that happens. There would have been a lot of tut-tutting about rich kids who drink too much but absolutely no one would have gone to jail. They didn’t do that. They went all John Ford instead.”

  Des frowned at him. “They went all what?”

  “They circled the wagons to protect one of their own.”

  “Who?”

  “Whoever Lance was fighting with when he smacked his head on the spiked fence.”

  “Before you say another word, young fellow, I’d like to remind you that this gun holds six bullets.” Buzzy raised it and pointed it right at Mitch. “I fired three. That means I’ve still got three.”

  Mitch’s mouth suddenly went dry. He really, really didn’t like having guns pointed at him—especially when they weren’t loaded with movie blanks. He was a total wuss that way.

  “I could shoot both you and the resident trooper right here and now before the major crime folks arrive. That’ll nip this thing right in the bud.”

  “I’m afraid it won’t, Mr. Shaver,” Des responded in a voice that Mitch found remarkably calm. Not that it surprised him. His ladylove’s coolness in the face of danger never surprised him. Ice water. She had ice water in her veins. “Lieutenant Snipes and Sergeant Tedone already know everything that I know. Besides, Mitch and I aren’t standing right next to you the way Bart was. We must be a good ten feet away.”