The Girl Who Ran Off With Daddy

by David Handler

  Lulu and I exchanged a puzzled look.

  “Check it out,” he elaborated. “The reason I seem different to you is that I’m now in total control of my own responses, okay? I have choices. I choose to be healthy. I choose to be relaxed. I am no longer a slave to competition. I no longer get upset about shit I can’t control.”

  “Healthy attitude in your line of work.”

  “You got that right. And here’s the best part: I don’t beat up on myself no more. I’ve pulled all of that shit over to the curb. I accept that I’m not perfect. I accept that I’m human. I’m learning, I’m growing, I’m chillin’.” Mr. Serenity jumped to his feet, limber and supple as a gymnast. “Of course, I still haven’t met the ultimate test.”

  “What’s that, Lieutenant?”

  “You, dude.”

  “Careful, I flatter easy.”

  “Dude, you don’t do nothing easy. But this time I’m not going to let you get to me.” They were bringing Tyler’s body out the door now, the cameramen pushing and shoving for position. Very watched them a moment, jaw working his gum, before he turned back to me. And smiled. And said, “Stay with me, dude.”

  “Why, darling, what on earth brings you to town?”

  “Nothing major. Just thought I’d come in and find another dead body. Hope you don’t mind.”

  She was sprawled on the Stickley leather settee in the living room working her way through a pile of manuscripts and a pot of Lemon Zinger. Tracy was asleep in the nursery. Pam was out shopping. “Another dead body?” She whipped off her reading glasses, forever self-conscious about them. “Whose?”

  “Tyler Kampmann, Clethra’s ex-boyfriend.”

  “Was it awful, darling?”

  “It wasn’t pretty. Actually, Lulu’s the one who found him. She could use a hug.”

  “Oh, my poor, brave sweetness,” Merilee cried, patting the settee next to her.

  Lulu needed no further encouragement. She dove into Merilee’s lap, whimpering, tail thumping, starved for her mommy’s undivided attention.

  “Mercy,” Merilee fretted, stroking her. “The men in Clethra’s life don’t seem to be faring too well these days, do they?”

  “Why should they be different than anyone else?”

  I sat wearily in the chair opposite her. Merilee extricated herself from Lulu and got another cup and poured me some tea.

  I thanked her, sipping it. “Anything good?” I asked, meaning the pile of manuscripts.

  “A remake of The Third Man with Keanu Reeves and Snoop Doggy Dogg that may not be too terrible. They’re moving it from Vienna to Telluride.”

  “Why does everything these days have to be a goddamned remake of something else?” I wondered. “Why don’t they do anything original anymore?”

  “Because, darling,” she replied, “that would mean someone would have to come up with an original thought. Not likely. And someone else would have to be willing to stake their entire career on it. Even less likely.”

  “I suppose I’m being terribly retro. Sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize, darling. That’s one of the things I adore about you.” Merilee sat back down, one leg folded underneath her. Women often sit that way, just as women often try on each other’s shoes and sample food off each other’s plates. Men never do any of these things. Someone ought to come up with an explanation for that sometime. “Did she come in with you?” she wondered, meaning Clethra.

  “I left her at the house.”

  “Alone?”

  “She’ll be fine. There’s a large trooper watching over her. And she has the Land Rover if she needs to …”

  She narrowed her eyes at me. “Needs to what, darling?”

  “Nothing. Never mind.”

  Could she have done it—driven in to the city right after me and strangled Tyler? She sure had the motive. And who better to slip into his coed dorm unnoticed. Hell, she probably still had her Barnard student ID card. But was she strong enough to kill Tyler with her bare hands?

  I finished my tea and got to my feet. “Have you made plans for tonight?”

  “Sigourney’s coming over for soup. Why?”

  “Cancel her. This is our night. We three are painting the town, just like old times.”

  “Oh, excellent,” she exclaimed happily.

  Lulu seemed pleased, too. She jumped down and began circling the settee at Warp Factor 9, snarfling excitedly.

  “Hoagy?” She said it softly, gazing at me over her teacup.

  “Yes, Merilee?”

  “What do you think is going on here?”

  “A love story.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because it’s always a love story, Merilee. The trick is figuring out which kind.”

  “Which kind of love story?”

  “Which kind of love.”

  My study was now Tracy’s nursery. I used the phone in our bedroom, which was where my desk had ended up. Clethra answered on the second ring, sounding shaken and scared. She’d already heard the news from Barry, who got it from Ruth, who had been visited by Very, who still moved fast, even in his newly chilled state.

  “God, poor Tyler,” she wailed mournfully. “D-Do they know who did it?”

  “Not yet.”

  “What’s happening to me, Hoagy? Why is this happening?”

  “I wish I knew, Clethra. But I don’t. What did you do today?”

  “Nothing much.”

  “Go anywhere?”

  “Not really.”

  “Are the police still there?”

  “Trooper Slawski’s here. Him and a couple of others.”

  “Would you ask him to call me when he gets a chance?”

  “Okay.” She was silent a moment. “Why Tyler, Hoagy?”

  “You tell me,” I snapped.

  “W-What do you mean?”

  “I mean you haven’t exactly been honest with me, have you?” I said, getting rough with her and hating myself for it. It’s damned cruel to use someone’s grief to pry them open. But sometimes in my line I have to. That’s one of the reasons I don’t like my line. One of many.

  “I have so!” she cried. “Don’t you believe me?”

  “Why the hell should I? You’ve done nothing but lie to me.

  “That’s not true! Why are you talking to me this way?”

  “You lied to me about you and Thor. First you said he was your lover, then you said he wasn’t. Now he’s dead. You told me Tyler didn’t know anything about you two. And now he’s dead. I’m sick of this, Clethra. I’m sick of having to peel you like a Vidalia onion. I’m sick of finding dead people.”

  “But Tyler didn’t know anything!” she sobbed. “I swear he didn’t. He knew shit about me and Thor!”

  Briefly, I stopped breathing. Not that it was anything she’d said. It was how she’d said it. All a matter of the emphasis a single word. “Okay, Clethra,” I said, slowly and carefully. “Then did he know something about you and someone other than Thor?”

  She was silent again. “Well, maybe,” she admitted grudgingly. “But, like, I can’t believe anybody would give a shit.”

  “Who was he, Clethra?”

  “I mean, not enough to kill Tyler. I mean, like, why bother?”

  “Who was he, Clethra?”

  She let out a huge sigh. Or maybe it was a sob. And then she told me.

  I caught up with him on Madison Avenue right around the corner from his school. The Dalton School was on East Eighty-ninth Street, and was the private academy of choice for the children of New York City’s social and cultural cream. Classes had just let out for the day. He was scuffling along all by himself in a blue blazer, white oxford cloth button-down shirt and khakis, his shoulders hunched, his nose buried in a sci-fi paperback.

  He noticed the Jag right away when I honked. Hard not to. I said to get in. He got in, squeezing his geeky frame around Lulu, who ended up on the floor at his feet, immensely put out.

  “How was school today, Arvin?”


  “Okay,” he replied sullenly. His body might have been right there next to mine, but his voice was two or three light-years away.

  “Surprised you didn’t take a couple of days off.”

  He said nothing. The eyes behind his thick, wire-rimmed glasses were vacant and lusterless. He had withdrawn into a place where nobody could hurt him.

  “It’s okay to be upset, you know,” I told him. “It’s even okay to cry.”

  Again he said nothing.

  I left it alone. Worked us over to Fifth and parked there. We strolled into Central Park. There were a lot of rollerbladers and dog-walkers out. The leaves were falling from the trees in huge bunches. I bought us two Italian ices from a vendor. We ate them while we walked. Lulu chased squirrels, which is one of her favorite things in the world to do—squirrels being just about the only members of the animal kingdom she can scare.

  “Someone murdered Tyler Kampmann today, Arvin,” I said, watching his face for a reaction.

  It wasn’t surprise. It was a satisfied smile. “Good,” he said.

  I frowned at him. “Good?”

  “T-Tyler was a schmuck,” he sputtered, Adam’s apple bobbing up and down inside his pimply throat. “He treated Clethra like shit and then he sold that videotape of her for all that money. He got what he deserved, you ask me.

  “Have any idea who did it?”

  “Who, me?” His voice shot up several octaves, way up into the land of the Pigeon Sisters. “W-Why would … ?” Back down it came, into Barry White country. “Why would I have any idea?”

  “Well, he did sort of take Clethra away from you, didn’t he?”

  Arvin’s eyes widened in shock, as if he’d just been shot in the back by a Special Forces sniper stationed on the roof of the Metropolitan Museum. He made a huge, painful effort to swallow and failed, gagging. Ashen, he stumbled toward a bench and flopped down onto it. “She told you?”

  I sat next to him. “Let’s say I figured it out.”

  “How?”

  “Everyone ought to be good at something.” Me, I was good at having a dirty mind. “Care to tell me about it, Arvin?”

  “Do I have to?” he wondered plaintively.

  “You don’t have to do anything,” I said to him, crossing my legs. “But I’m trying to help her. As well as stop whoever is doing all of this. Whatever you can tell me might be important.”

  “Well, okay … Only, it sounds a whole lot worse than … What I mean is we love each other, okay?”

  “Like brother and sister?”

  He gazed at me earnestly. “Do you have a sister, Hoagy?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Clethra and me,” he said, “we’re as close as two people can possibly be. Whatever happened to her while we were growing up, she always shared it with me. Personal stuff. Stuff no one else knows. And same here. I-I tell her everything. We spent a lot of time alone together, see. Thor and Mom were always away on speaking tours, and Clethra was old enough we really didn’t need anyone to stay with us. We’re there for each other. Know what I mean?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  He hesitated, fidgeting uncomfortably on the bench. He wasn’t pale anymore. He was bright red. “When we were real little we’d go in Mom’s closet and I’d show her m-my thing. And she’d show me hers. And … as we got older, we stayed really open with each other about what was happening to us. Our bodies, I mean. Like, she learned about boys from me and I learned about g-girls from …” He stopped short, gulping for air. “Is that weird?”

  “Not really.”

  “Sometimes, when it was just the two of us, we’d sleep in the same b-bed together. Clethra doesn’t like to sleep alone. She sometimes gets frightened.”

  “I know.”

  He looked at me sharply. “How do you know that?”

  “She told me,” I replied. “Go on, Arvin.”

  “One night …” His knees were jiggling almost convulsively now. His breathing was jagged. “I w-was eleven, she was fifteen … We discovered if I put my … if I did things to her that she would … that she …” He took a deep breath, glancing at me furtively. “I even used my tongue sometimes,” he blurted out.

  “Did she do things for you?”

  “When I was old enough.”

  “How?”

  “How?” he echoed, puzzled.

  “How did she give you pleasure?”

  “With her hand.”

  “Did the two of you ever go all the way together?”

  “Oh, no,” he gasped, appalled. “Never. Not ever. I-I never have. Not with anyone. A lot of the guys in my class have. Or they say they have. But not me. And Clethra, she’s too old for that stuff now. She’s more interested in, y’know, other guys.”

  “Bother you much?”

  “Does what bother me much?”

  “Do you miss being with her that way?”

  “Well, sure,” he admitted. “She says she still loves me and someday I’ll meet a girl my own age and everything, but I miss her bad. And I don’t like other girls. They’re so vain and shallow and dorky.”

  “Nobody’s perfect.”

  “Clethra is,” he said insistently. “Clethra’s perfect.”

  “Sorry. My mistake.”

  He sat there staring at me miserably. “Did she tell Tyler about her and me?”

  “She did.”

  “She must have been stoned,” he said feebly. “She gets real blabby when she’s stoned. Otherwise she never would have … I-I mean, that was our secret.”

  And one helluva juicy little secret it was, too. Enterprising Tyler could have cleared another half million for this tale of forbidden love, easy. True, it would have been a little tough on Clethra and the poor kid. But so what? He’d be a made man—a millionaire by his twenty-first birthday, every college student’s dream these days. Only, Tyler hadn’t made it to his twenty-first birthday. And I had a pretty good idea why.

  “Arvin, who else knew about Clethra and you? Did Thor know?” Thor, who’d taken Clethra away from him just as Tyler had. And was dead, too. “Did your mom know?”

  “No one knew,” Arvin answered bitterly. “Not unless she told them.”

  We sat there in silence. Lulu came strutting back to us, all rough and tough after her latest triumph over the rodent kingdom. She sat between my feet. I patted her on the head.

  “Hoagy?”

  “Yes, Arvin?”

  “Is it wrong what we did?”

  I sighed inwardly. “I don’t know very much about right and wrong. I used to think I did, but I don’t anymore.”

  “Are you gonna tell on us?”

  “Not unless I have to.”

  “But you would if you had to?” he persisted.

  “I won’t have to.”

  “What if Clethra wants to put it in her b-book?”

  “Then I’ll have something to say about it. See, if somebody gets hurt—in this case, it would be you—that is wrong.” I patted his jiggling knee. “That much I do know, Arvin.”

  “It was a secret,” he said, his voice rising. “I can’t believe she … It was our …” He broke off, his scrawny chest heaving, his eyes filling with tears. It was finally happening. He was finally letting go.

  I reached for my linen handkerchief, only I wasn’t fast enough. By the time I’d gotten it out of my pocket he didn’t need it anymore. He’d fought back those tears and he’d conquered them. Arvin Gibbs was one tough customer, all right. Particularly on himself. He would not give in. He would not cry.

  We were dressing for dinner when Slawski called.

  “Mr. Hoag, this is Resident State Trooper Tyrone Slawski calling from Lyme, Connecticut,” he barked into my ear. “Detective Lieutenant Romaine Very of the New York Police Department is presently on the line along with myself. Per your suggestion, Detective Lieutenant Very called me earlier today so as to interface on the multiple victim scenario as well as to establish lines of mutual interdepartmental communication.”

  “
Oh, good,” I said. “I knew you two would hit it off.” Just as I knew Very would try Munger first and hate him.

  “If you will please hold on a moment,” Slawski continued, ignoring this, “I will expedite a conference call configuration so the three of us may converse in a simultaneous manner.”

  The line went dead.

  I sat down on the edge of the bed and waited. I was in no hurry. Merilee was still in the bathtub devouring her new issue of People magazine. Thor had made the cover, an old Life magazine photo of him on skis alongside Papa Hemingway in Ketchum, both of them looking virile and invincible. The headline read: LAST CHAPTER FOR THE LAST MAN’S MAN.

  After a moment I heard Very say, “Hello?” And Slawski say, “Hello?” I chimed in a greeting, just to hold up my end. All three of us could hear each other perfectly, even though Mr. Serenity and I were in New York and Slawski was in Lyme. And to think they say the world is going straight to hell. Well, they don’t say it, but I do.

  “Lieutenant, I would like to bring both yourself and Mr. Hoag up-to-date on the preliminary findings of the state medical examiner,” Slawski began, “which I have, I am pleased to report, managed to obtain through a former teammate who is associated with the laboratory.” Translation: Munger was shutting him out. “The deceased, Mr. Thorvin Gibbs, suffered extensive shattering of the parietal and occipital regions of the skull, which were driven downward with great force into the corresponding lobes of the cerebrum … As we deduced from the visual evidence, the weapon was the six-pound sledgehammer recovered at the scene. There appear to have been three blows, one blow delivered with greater verticality than the others, which may indicate the victim was down on the ground when it was delivered … Blood and hair found on the sledge match those of the deceased. Blood samples found in the woodshed also match the victim’s.”

  “Anyone else’s blood found there?” It was Very who asked this.

  “No sir. Just the victim’s.”

  “Do the blows tell us anything about the killer’s height or weight?” My question.

  “At present, they won’t commit to anything more precise than average height and weight, most likely right-handed. A weighted sledge swung high overhead makes a pulverizing wound. We’re talking massive trauma. Serious lab work may tell us more, but that will take several days.”