The Shimmering Blond Sister

by David Handler

  He was calling to tell her about J. Z. Cliffe, the burnout case who painted houses around town. How J. Z. had just left Big Sister stoned off of his gourd and just plain out there. Why J. Z.’s marriage to Kimberly had fallen apart. And why J. Z. remained filled with anger toward the Historic District’s “old prune-faced biddies.”

  “J. Z.’s girlfriend, Maggie, slings drinks weekends at the Monkey Farm,” Mitch added. “That means he’s been footloose and fancy-free every single night our flasher has struck. His mom, Connie, has a big place right there on Dorset Street. He lives in her guesthouse. Refresh my memory—is Connie one of the ladies who’s been victimized?”

  “That would be a no.”

  “Naturally. No way he’d flash his own mother, would he? Well, maybe he would. But let’s not go there. I’ve already had a full dose of weird tonight.” Mitch fell silent. “You’re not excited. Why aren’t you excited?”

  “The man’s a prospect, no question,” she admitted.

  “He should be home in ten minutes. Are you going to shadow him?”

  “Can’t. I’m sitting on someone else.”

  “Augie, am I right?”

  “Baby, just let me do my thing, will you?”

  “I can sit on J. Z. for you. I’ll jump in my truck and head right over there.”

  “Mitch, this isn’t Tombstone. I’m not deputizing you. And we’re not, repeat not, doing this. I’ll take it from here. Just watch a movie, will you?”

  “The Mets are playing.”

  “Even better. I’ll swing by your place later, if that sounds appealing to you.”

  “Extremely appealing. It so happens I picked up some lavender oil at the health food store today.”

  “And what are you planning to do with that?”

  “Well, first I’m going to massage you with it from head to toe. And then . . .” And then he proceeded to describe in great detail what else he planned to do—much of it involving his tongue and her most private crevices.

  “Um, okay, I’m hanging up now.” She flicked off her phone and waited for her pulse rate to slow back down to under a hundred. Then she called Oly, who promised he’d swing by the Cliffe place right away.

  A car pulled into the gravel driveway of the Captain Chadwick House with a loud thump and started its way around back toward the garage. Bertha Peck’s powder blue Mercedes 450 SL convertible. It was coming hard and fast and not particularly straight. The old girl was potted. Almost took out a row of Maddee Farrell’s cherished Blush Noisettes before she screeched to a halt, using her remote control to raise her garage door. Bertha swung in way wide, very nearly scraping the side of her car as she pulled in. Then idled there for a moment with the rear half of the Mercedes still sticking out before she inched the rest of the way in and shut off her engine. She got out of the car, hit the switch to close the garage door and went tottering up the path to the mansion’s rear entrance, humming to herself. A few moments later her living room lights came on upstairs. Then her bedroom lights. Then her bathroom light. After a minute, Des heard her toilet flush, and sincerely hoped it didn’t choose tonight to clog up again.

  By then her phone was vibrating again. Oly calling to report that there were lights on at Connie Cliffe’s house but that J. Z.’s guesthouse out back was dark. His van was there. His old MG ragtop wasn’t. Oly asked her if she wanted him to sit on the place. She suggested he resume patrolling but keep an eye on it.

  Kenny and Kimberly came out onto Beth’s screened-in porch now, Kimberly stretching herself out invitingly on the love seat. Kenny flicked off the lights so that the porch was in darkness. Des could no longer see the two of them. But she could hear their soft, intimate laughter. Crouched there in the arborvitae, she was starting to feel like a sleazoid peeper.

  A few minutes after that, Beth came tiptoeing out of the same back door of the building that Bertha had just entered, closing it softly behind her. Beth wore a linen blazer and clutched her purse in one hand. She did not head for the garage. Instead, she started up the driveway toward the street, staying on the grass so that her footsteps wouldn’t crunch on the gravel. When she reached the sidewalk she turned left and started down Dorset Street toward Big Branch Road, where the town’s shopping district was. Where in the hell was she going? Des wondered—although not for long.

  Because now there was activity at Augie’s place.

  First, he shut off the Neil Diamond concert. Then the lights inside his apartment. Then his garage went dark, too. She just caught sight of him in the darkness as he left the garage on foot, clad in dark pants and a dark long-sleeved shirt. He started his way across the expansive backyard, moving swiftly and quietly. Des took off after him, staying a careful distance back, one hand on her holster to keep the leather quiet. When Augie reached the low split-rail fence that marked the property line he paused, not moving, not making a sound. Des held her ground maybe fifty feet behind him, not moving, not making a sound. He seemed to be waiting for something. Or someone. Had he spotted one of the troopers cruising by? Was he on the lookout for Beth, his favorite stalkee? Because, hello, Beth had just gone the other way down Dorset Street toward Big Branch, effectively leaving him in her dust. It was so dark that Des couldn’t tell what Augie was doing. She only knew that he didn’t budge from his perch at that low fence for five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen . . .

  Until suddenly he was on the move again. Climbing over the fence and moving with silent stealth across the parking lot that was behind the old grain and feed store next door. The building had been converted into law offices. Deserted on a Saturday night. It sat on the corner of Dorset Street and little Maple Lane. Directly across Maple Lane from it sat Rut Peck’s farmhouse, which was currently vacant. Old Rut had moved into Essex Meadows and put the house up for sale.

  Augie crossed the lane and plunged his way into Rut’s wild, over grown yard. Des stayed right behind him, moving as quietly as she could. It was becoming clearer to her now—how the Dorset Flasher had been able to elude her sweeps. The man was never out in the open. He worked his way across the village by way of people’s backyards, driveways, little side roads. But she was on to him now.

  And tonight she’d be right there to cuff him.

  As Des pursued him across Rut’s yard a dog began to bark from a nearby house. A big dog with a husky bark. There were only two other houses on Maple Lane. One belonged to Nan Sidell, a single mother with two young sons. Nan taught at the middle school. Did she have a dog? Des couldn’t recall. But there were lights on at her place. The other house, which belonged to an old village handyman named Ray Smith, was dark. And Ray’s truck was gone.

  Des came to a halt in the blackness of Rut’s yard, her ears straining. She couldn’t hear Augie’s footsteps now because of that barking dog. Couldn’t make out his silhouette either. Damn, had she lost him? She yanked her Maglite from her belt and flicked it on, its beam pointed downward. Saw a shiver of movement in the thicket of bushes up ahead of her—there—and flicked it off, moving in that direction. Down toward the Lieutenant River. Of course. The river snaked its way through the entire Historic District. Its banks were the Flasher’s own private highway. Mercifully, the barking dog fell silent now. Des could hear Augie moving his way through the brush again. Hear something else, too. A rustle in the brush behind her. Was someone else out there with them in the darkness? The dog? She turned around but saw no one, heard no one.

  A car was making its way slowly along Dorset Street. It stopped when it reached Maple Lane, its high beams sweeping across Rut’s yard as it turned in. It was a state police cruiser. It was Oly. He eased his way down to Nan Sidell’s house and came to a stop. Des heard him get out. Right away, the dog started barking again.

  Des took off, moving toward the riverbank out beyond Rut’s house. Hoping, praying, she hadn’t lost Augie’s trail. Footsteps. She heard footsteps in the darkness again—someone crashing through the brush right behind her. No, next to her. Wait, no, all around her. She whirled, her flash
light’s beam revealing nothing. Hell, what was . . . ? So fast now, too fast. Des heard a scuffle, a groan of pain, then a sickening thud. And now somebody was running again. She still couldn’t see a living soul in the dense, overgrown thicket. But she definitely heard somebody and started running hard in that direction—until she tripped over something and fell hard to the ground, her flashlight rolling off into the weeds. Cursing, Des got back up and retrieved it, pointing it down at the object she’d tripped over.

  Augie Donatelli lay there in the tall weeds at her feet with the back of his head bashed in.

  He had a very surprised look on his face. He wasn’t wearing a ski mask. Des saw no ski mask. He lay in a fetal position, as if he’d crumpled to his knees and then tipped over sideways. There was blood. A lot of it. And brain matter. A lot of it. A wooden baseball bat lay in the grass next to him.

  Des sprinted through the brush after his attacker—only to find herself standing out in the middle of Maple Lane. She saw no one. Heard no one. Nothing. Just Oly’s cruiser parked out in front of Nan Sidell’s place. Oly was nowhere in sight. He must have gone inside the house. Nan’s dog was still barking.

  Cursing, Des yanked her phone off her belt and called it in.

  Dorset Street was no longer quiet. Dozens of Historic District residents were out on the sidewalk, talking and gawking. Maple Lane had been closed off. The Major Crime Squad’s techies were there from Meriden in their cube vans, along with a death investigator from the Medical Examiner’s Office. So were news crews from Connecticut’s four local TV stations, who were always up for a murder—especially when it took place in a ritzy village like Dorset. Rut Peck’s overgrown yard was cordoned off, the crime scene lit up by the high beams of several cruisers. More cruisers were sweeping the neighborhood for anyone who was out on foot. Anyone who’d seen anything. Anything.

  It was a 911 call from Nan Sidell that had brought Oly to the scene literally seconds before Augie’s murder went down. Des knew Nan pretty well, having given a talk to the lady’s seventh-grade class about drugs last semester. Nan was a fragile-looking little blue-eyed blonde whose husband had left her a while back for his rather dumpy secretary. Nan’s two little boys were blue-eyed and tow-headed, same as her. Phillip, who was twelve, was lanky and tall for his age. Almost a head taller than his mother. Ten-year-old Peter was considerably shorter and pudgier.

  “I’ve been keeping an eye on Rut’s house ever since he moved out,” Nan explained to Des, standing there barefoot in the middle of Maple Lane, her eyes huge with fright. Nan had her big yellow Lab close to her on a leash. Her two boys were right by her side. “Rut still has a lot of his furniture here. His silver, some antiques. I-I thought I heard someone messing around over there.”

  “Messing around as in . . . ?”

  “Tromping around in the brush. Maybe trying to break in. I didn’t know. And then Josie started barking her fool head off, so I figured I’d better call it in.”

  “You figured right, Nan. Did you see anyone fleeing the scene? Anyone at all?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “How about you guys?” Des asked the boys.

  Phillip shrugged his narrow shoulders. “We were in bed.”

  “Past our bedtime,” Peter chimed in, nodding his head.

  “Sure, I get you,” Des said easily. “You’d turned in for the night, lights out. But Josie’s got a mighty big bark. Maybe she woke you up. Did you hear anything? Or maybe go to the window and see somebody?”

  The boys exchanged a long, hard look before Phillip said, “No.” His voice was very firm. “Nothing.”

  “Nothing,” echoed his younger brother, blue eyes gleaming.

  The last to arrive from Meriden was a two-person team of homicide investigators from the Major Crime Squad, led by Lieutenant Rico “Soave” Tedone, who’d been Des’s semibright weasel of a sergeant back in her glory days. Soave was still working on that goatee and shaved-head look. And still not quite making it happen. He was a bulked-up bodybuilder but way short and way, way insecure. Not that he had a thing to worry about. Soave was wired right into the Waterbury Mafia, the tightly knit clan of Italian-American brothers, cousins and in-laws who pretty much ran the Connecticut State Police. Soave’s older brother, Angelo, and Angelo’s brother-in-law, Carl Polito, were high up on the ladder—right there under Deputy Superintendent Buck Mitry.

  Des made her way down to the foot of Maple Lane and said, “Evening, Rico. How’s Tawny?”

  “Big as an Escalade,” he answered proudly. The man had finally married his girlfriend of nine years and she was currently expecting their first child. Real? Des found it hard to imagine Soave as someone’s, anyone’s, father. But it was going to happen. Life went on. “The baby’s due any day now. I never know from one minute to the next when I’ll be flooring it to the hospital.”

  “You’re just lucky you got such quality backup, little man.” His partner, Sergeant Yolanda Snipes, showed Des her huge smile. “Miss Thing, I have been missing you.”

  “Back at you, Yolie.”

  “What have you got for us, Des?” Soave wanted to know. “No, wait, don’t tell me. It’s Saturday night in quaint, cozy Dorset, where everyone is rich and WASP-y and perfect. So I’m going out on a limb here: It’s whack.”

  “It’s all that, Rico. And more.”

  “Break it down, will you?”

  “Break it down?” Yolie let out a guffaw. “Sorry, is MC Hammer back in the house and no one told me?”

  “My bad,” he growled at her. The two of them bickered nonstop. It was how they communicated. “Please run it for us. Yo, is that cool enough for you?”

  “Yo, I’m cool twenty-four/seven,” Yolie fired back, her Latina’s liquid brown eyes twinkling at Des. She was a brash, fearless, hard charger with braided hair out of Hartford’s tough Frog Hollow section—half Cuban, half black and all pit bull. Yolie had put on twenty pounds of rock-hard muscle since she’d played the point for Coach Vivian Stringer at Rutgers. Her knit top was cropped at the shoulders, tattoos adorning both of her bulging biceps. Barefoot, she stood five feet nine. In her chunky heels she towered over Soave. Intimidated the hell out of him. Intimidated most of the men in the state police. She was tough, smart and she didn’t do well around fools. “Talk to me, girl—how’s your cute boy Mitch?”

  “It’s going great. We’ve never been happier.”

  “When are you two getting married?”

  “It’s going great. We’ve never been happier.”

  “I hear you. Won’t go near there no more.” Yolie heaved a sigh. “Me, I can’t even get a man to ask me out for a cup of coffee. Don’t matter whether he’s black, white or mauve. . . .” She’d had a brief thing with Soave’s cousin Richie back when Richie was on Narcotics, but he was married now. “Is there something wrong with my personal hygiene?”

  “Not a thing, Yolie. You’re terrific.”

  “Yo, can we talk about the dead guy now?” Soave demanded.

  “First I’d better give you a little background, Rico. We have an ongoing situation that began two weekends ago. A certain party in a ski mask who’s been—”

  “This would be your weenie waver, right? Channel Eight was all over that. The news anchors could barely keep a straight face.”

  “Yeah, it’s been a laugh riot—until now.”

  Soave raised his chin at her. “Keep talking.”

  “He’s been leaving presents, too. I got a special delivery on my very own welcome mat last night—a nice, fresh turd of human origin.”

  Yolie blinked at her. “Ow, that’s just disgusting.”

  “And our victim . . . ?”

  “Mr. Donatelli moved here ten months ago. He was a widower. Also a retired New York City police detective.”

  Soave made a face. “Damn, that means his buds will be all over this.”

  “He lived and worked two doors down, at the Captain Chadwick House. It’s a high-end condo complex. He was caretaker there, although the head of
the board assured me he’d be getting bounced soon. The man was an obnoxious boor as well as a drinker. Never around when the tenants needed him. Plus he was borderline stalking one of them, a good-looking widow named Beth Breslauer.” Des shoved her heavy horn-rimmed glasses up her nose. “Between us, I thought that he might be the Dorset Flasher. So I was tailing him on foot just now when it all—”

  “Wait, wait,” Yolie broke in. “You witnessed the murder?”

  “Yes and no. I saw him leave his apartment. Pursued him as he made his way through the brush in the vicinity of the crime scene. I was definitely nearby when it happened. Heard a blow struck. Heard someone running away. Maybe one person. Maybe more than one. I can’t be sure because I couldn’t see a damned thing. A neighbor, Nan Sidell, heard someone prowling around and called it in. But she didn’t see anybody either.”

  Soave thumbed his moustache, pondering this. “So, what, someone else besides you was following him?”

  “That’s certainly one possibility.”

  “Who would want to do that?”

  “That all depends, Rico. If Augie was, in fact, the Dorset Flasher, then what we’re looking at here could be an unsubtle form of payback.”

  He stared at her. “You mean like a vigilante killing?

  “I do.”

  “Whoa, I don’t like the sound of that at all. Is there another scenario?”

  “That Augie was out here following the Dorset Flasher himself—once a cop, always a cop. Yesterday, he suggested to me that he might have an idea who our man was. I advised him to stay out of it. Could be he didn’t follow my advice. Could be our Dorset Flasher graduated to the big time tonight.”

  “Killed Augie Donatelli to conceal his identity?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Any chance it’s none of the above?” Yolie wondered. “How about this neighbor? What’s up with her?”

  “Nan tips the scales at ninety-five pounds, tops, and has no motive.”

  “We know this for a fact?”

  “Yolie, we don’t know anything for a fact. And I have to lay something else on you folks that you’re not going to like. Augie and I had a public altercation yesterday. He did a lot of yelling and ended up flat on his butt.”