The Nutting Girl

by Fred DeVecca

  “That’s the problem, isn’t it? Drinking takes a lot of time, man. But I haven’t had a drink in like two days, three days, whatever it is. I’m jonesing bad here. And don’t lecture me about time. My time’s almost out.”

  “Only if you want it to be,” replied Sarah.

  “All I want is a drink. Morphine kills pain but I still need the drink.”

  “Here.” Sarah reached into her bag and came out with a sealed bottle of Jameson, which she handed to Mooney. He promptly twisted it open and took a healthy chug. And then another.

  He wiped his mouth and let out a deep sigh. “Whew. Now that’s what I’m talking about. Thank you, sweetie.”

  “You’re welcome. And don’t call me sweetie.”

  “Thank you, honey.”

  “Oh fuck you, Mooney,” she replied. “Just drink the damn whiskey and shut up.”

  He calmed down and smoothed out. You could almost see the physical change taking place. Ironically, this poison was bringing him back to life. Then he started talking.

  “So, it was two or three nights ago. I’m sitting at home. Next thing I know, I’m lying here in the damn hospital. That’s all I know. They tell me Victoria is dead. But I don’t know anything about that. I don’t know anything about anything. Except here I am.”

  “You had a blackout, Mooney.”

  “Yeah. It’s not the first one.”

  “And it won’t be the last.”

  “For a change, I think you’re right, Raven.”

  Of course we were both stating the obvious, with a high degree of irony.

  “You knew Victoria pretty damn well,” Sarah said accusingly.

  “Well, yeah. She was in the movie. She might even have had a couple of lines. I auditioned her. I hired her.”

  Sarah asked, “What else did you do to her?”

  “Okay, honey, I know what you’re driving at. But forget it. I didn’t kill her. Why would I do that? I didn’t fuck her either. I didn’t know her that well. I don’t fuck everybody who’s in my films. Regardless of what you may hear.”

  “Just the stars?” This was still Sarah.

  Mooney laughed and took another healthy swig.

  “Oh, hell no. I’m not an elitist. I’ll fuck anybody, star or not. As long as they look good.”

  “She looked good,” Sarah said.

  “Did she? I didn’t notice.”

  “She was gorgeous, Mooney,” Sarah insisted.

  He blew out a puff of air. “She looked pretty ordinary to me. It was a fucking movie. It had pretty girls in it. Come on. Sue me.”

  Sarah continued, “I get the feeling you notice all the good-looking young girls.”

  “Oh hell,” Mooney replied. “When you’re already fucking the most beautiful woman on earth, nobody else looks good at all. Know what I mean?”

  Chapter Forty- Four

  Well, Hardly Ever

  I tended to agree with his assessment. I too thought Julie might be the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. But then I didn’t live in Hollywood, where they grow them like mangos. I lived in Shelburne Falls, where someone like her was pretty damn rare.

  Mooney was confirming he and Julie were lovers, which we knew anyway. If we could place any kind of credibility at all on what the sorry sonofabitch had to say. Especially in his condition.

  “You know what she looked like, Raven. Who could look at another woman with her around?”

  Sarah folded her arms across her chest. “How about with her not around?” she asked.

  Mooney laughed at this concept, a bitter, broken sound. “What do you know about love, little girl? Have you ever been in love? I loved her more than anything in the fucking world. Yeah, she was beautiful. But, oh hell, there was so much more to her than that.”

  “I know,” said Sarah. “I loved her too.”

  “Not the way I did, little girl. Not the way I did.”

  But Sarah wouldn’t give up. “She blinds you,” she went on. “I saw that too. When you’re around her, it’s almost a semi-religious experience. She’s all you can see. But what about when she’s gone? For me, she’s still all I can think of. But, for you … you, you’ve got the damn bottle now. And I think you’ve got other stuff too. If you know what I mean.”

  Mooney stared at her, through her. “No, I don’t know what you mean, little girl.”

  I had never heard Sarah sound so harsh. She leaned forward, relentless as an avenging angel. “I think you do, big man. And I mean that ironically, in case you’re wondering. You’re the furthest thing from big, you tiny sonofabitch.”

  Sarah’s assault was starting to get to Mooney. His voice rose as he said, “You don’t know much about alcoholics, do you? You don’t have to tell an alcoholic he’s a worthless piece of crap. We already know that. Right, Raven?”

  I remained silent.

  Mooney was simmering inside. His face got redder than it already was. He closed his eyes tight and bit his lip.

  Sarah was unfazed. “We can stand here all day and let you lecture little ol’ me on things like love and alcohol if you want,” she said. “But that doesn’t sound like much fun to me. Or you can actually answer my question. Remember, I’m the one who brought that bottle in here for you.”

  He took a gulp from it and closed his eyes, waiting for it to take effect. “Yeah. Thank you, kiddo, for that.” He calmed down again and opened his eyes. “I’ll gladly answer your questions. One question per bottle. That sound fair?”

  “I only brought one bottle.”

  “So you get one question.”

  “I already asked it.”

  “Can you repeat the question?”

  “Yes,” she hissed. “Yes I can. I asked you to tell me about your other stuff since Julie disappeared.”

  “That’s not a question. Put it in the form of a question. Or I won’t answer it.”

  Now Sarah was losing her cool. I watched her hands form into fists. “What are we—on fucking Jeopardy? Okay—what the hell kind of other stuff have you had going on since Julie disappeared? Besides drinking, I mean?”

  “Okay, since you have now put it in the form of a question, I will gladly answer.”

  Then he shut up.

  Sarah said, “We’re waiting.”

  He took a gulp of the Jameson. “All right, since you asked so nicely. I’m a man of my word. Sure, I was fucking that other girl. And more besides her. But only since Julie went away.”

  “Never before that?”

  “Never.”

  Then he thought it over. “Well, hardly ever.”

  Chapter Forty-Five

  The Good and the Bad

  A couple of days went by. Then they came to get me. Two guys in cheap suits—one skinny, one fat. Well, not fat, exactly—husky with a gut that hung over his belt, but only a bit. An athlete gone to seed. He was the bad cop. The skinny guy was the good cop. They had the act down pretty well.

  There were more of them too—three plainclothes guys. Those were the guys who grabbed me.

  I was walking down Bridge Street. It was, by all appearances, a normal day. I was saying “hi” to random people, looking into shop windows. I knew pretty much everyone on the street—this was Shelburne Falls, after all. There were a few tourists I, of course, did not know. You can always spot them. They have vacant stares, walk so slowly you trip over them, and they wear cameras. They look like they want us locals to entertain them. I avoid the tourists like the freaking plague.

  These guys were not tourists. The first one I noticed was chubby, very young, puffy face, pimples, and dressed in nerdy attire, complete with black-rimmed glasses. He was smoking a cigarette and leaning against the window of the newsstand.

  Walking toward me was a working-class guy wearing blue jeans, a John Deere cap, and a two-day growth of beard.

  Coming up behind me was a straight-arrow type clad in a neat, businesslike, blue suit. Him I couldn’t see until they grabbed me, since he was walking behind me. Had I seen him, I would have bee
n suspicious. There are no businessmen in Shelburne Falls. Or rather, no businessmen dressed like that. What businessmen there are in Shelburne Falls dress like hippies.

  As I approached the newsstand, the chubby one suddenly left his perch and was standing in front of me, blocking my path. I stopped.

  The working-class guy shifted his route and he was in front of me too.

  Then the businessman put his arms around my waist from behind, grabbed my hands, and half-whispered into my ear “Mister Raven? Mr. Francis Raven?”

  After taking a second to absorb what was happening, I replied, “Yes.”

  He loosened his grip and said, “Good. Just keep walking. Follow us.”

  These guys were good. They were pros. The working-class guy led the way down Bridge Street with the businessman remaining behind and the nerd backing off to join him there. I was fairly certain they were going to turn into the police station, but they didn’t. They kept walking down the street until they got to the new bank with the new and unoccupied offices upstairs.

  Well, I thought the offices were unoccupied. They led me up the stairs, and what I saw was a bright, freshly painted, shiny, sunlit, busy office that looked like it had been functioning for a while. It had been cut up into one big room and two smaller sections, each with a desk and chairs and filing cabinets and computers. There was a woman working on the computer at one of the desks and my two new friends—Skinny Cop and Fat Cop, Good Cop and Bad Cop—standing at the door to greet us all.

  “Mr. Francis Raven?” said Skinny.

  “Yes,” I replied.

  “I’m Agent Broadhurst and this is Agent Estes. FBI. Welcome.”

  They wore badges around their necks and they politely pointed them out to me.

  “Nice digs,” I said.

  “We like it.”

  The three plainclothes guys who grabbed me faded away into the background, and Broadhurst and Estes—Skinny and Fat, Good and Bad—gently pushed me into the larger of the two offices, where they sat me on a surprisingly comfortable chair. Broadhurst sat behind the desk and Estes sat on it, practically in my face.

  “Lovely day out there,” said Broadhurst.

  “Every day in Shelburne Falls is lovely,” I replied.

  “Yeah. Nice town you got here. I could move here when I retire.”

  “Everybody wants to move here.”

  “So,” interrupted Estes, “We’ve got a few questions. You got a few minutes?”

  “Do I need a lawyer?”

  “You might.”

  The only lawyer I ever used was Karen Slowinski, and she was now in her eighties and more than likely retired. Possibly even dead or suffering from dementia. I hadn’t seen or heard from her in years. I knew a couple of other, younger lawyers in town, but I had never needed to employ them. I decided to take my chances with these guys.

  “Never mind. Let’s get on with it,” I said.

  “What do you do for a living?” asked Estes.

  “Nothing. I’m retired.”

  “Don’t you run a movie theater?”

  “Yeah. But I don’t make much money from that.”

  “How do you pay your bills?”

  “I live cheaply. My house is paid off. I never go anywhere. I don’t eat much. I get a small pension from the town too. I got shot while working for them.”

  “That’s not much income.”

  “I’m poor. What can I say?”

  “That monster German Shepherd of yours must eat a lot, huh?”

  “I feed him dead bodies.”

  He laughed. “Yeah. That’s what we suspected. Dog eating well these days?”

  “Not losing much weight.”

  “Yeah. Bodies all around this town.”

  “Yep.”

  “We count four of them.”

  “Four?” This gave me pause. I looked at him for clarification.

  “Yeah—Pasternak, Norcross, Mooney. And, oh yeah—Dunleavy.”

  “Dunleavy? You mean Harvey?” I made a face. “You don’t think I killed him, do you? He was ninety-four, for Christ’s sake.”

  “Did you?”

  “No. And Mooney’s not dead.”

  “Not quite. Not yet. He’s a body nonetheless. You been busy.”

  Broadhurst, playing Good Cop, said, “Come on. Help us out here. We can’t help you if you don’t help us. And we want to help you. We really do.”

  I couldn’t believe this shit. “What’s the FBI involved in this for, anyway? Isn’t this local stuff?”

  “A prominent national person like Norcross?” replied Broadhurst. “That’s when we get involved. And all these others are connected to that. Somehow.”

  “This is ridiculous,” I said.

  “All we want is to ask you some questions. Then you can be on your way,” said Broadhurst.

  “Maybe,” added Estes.

  “Ask away,” I said, throwing up my hands.

  “Mooney and Pasternak went into the river on Monday night. Where were you Monday night?”

  “I don’t know. Same place I am every night—home, at a bar, at Clara’s. I don’t know.”

  “Did you buy three plane tickets to New Orleans?”

  “Yeah, I did.”

  “Leaving town?”

  “Visiting my cousin.”

  “Convenient.”

  “You don’t like Mooney much, do you?”

  “Not really, no. To be honest.”

  “Well, we want you to be honest.”

  “I always am.”

  He chuckled at this.

  “You were kind of obsessed with Pasternak, weren’t you? Chasing her around. Carrying her picture. You had at least one tête-à-tête with her.”

  “Tête-à-tête? What the hell is a tête-à-tête?”

  “It’s a private conversation between two people.”

  “Then yes.”

  “Okay. What was up with all that?”

  “I was hired to find her.”

  “By whom?”

  “Her sister.”

  “She has no sister.”

  “So I’m told.” My sarcasm probably wasn’t helping my cause, but I couldn’t help myself.

  “Would it surprise you to find out your DNA was on both of them?”

  “No. I touched both of them recently. DNA can stick around for six weeks.”

  “Thank you for that information. But we know.”

  “You guys are good.”

  “We really are. How’s this for good?” He leaned forward menacingly. “You meet this pretty, red-haired girl Pasternak, here for the film. You fall for her. Everyone knows you love redheads. You find out Mooney was fucking her. And you never liked Mooney to begin with. Then you start fucking her yourself. You get her pregnant. She still loves Mooney though. You can’t deal with that. So you push them both into the drink.”

  I was shocked. I felt the blood drain from my face. “That’s insane. Pregnant! Me, the father? That’s so totally wrong. Do a test.”

  “We did. We got your DNA. It’s a match with the fetus. DNA is a hundred percent accurate for paternity.”

  “What!”

  “Yes. And we have an eyewitness who saw you push them.”

  That’s when I called Karen. Turns out she wasn’t retired or dead or senile. She wasn’t working much but she was still an active member of the bar and she came right down to meet us, right after she advised me to stop talking, advice I was glad to comply with.

  When she arrived, Estes slapped cuffs on me and they shuttled me down to the State police barracks on Route 2, where they were going to keep me until they could transfer me to the federal prison in Devens.

  The charge—first degree murder.

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Anything for a Friend

  I did not kill Edith Marie Pasternak, aka Victoria Fortune, nor did I get her pregnant. Nor did I ever have sex with her. I barely knew her.

  I was being set up.

  Karen said I was in deep shit but there were ways ou
t. We just had to find them. And we had to find out how I was being set up, and just as importantly, by whom.

  I had my suspicions. Presuming the cops were legit, which I believed they were, I could think of only one person evil enough, and powerful enough, to do that, and that person was shot up with painkillers in a hospital.

  Meanwhile, I sat on a cot in a coffin-sized cell awaiting an appearance before a judge. By the time they wheeled me into Greenfield to appear before him, Karen had talked them down to manslaughter.

  The judge set bail at $25,000, which Karen said was fairly standard for manslaughter, and probably what they wanted to charge me with in the first place. They took me back to my new coffin home to await my move to Devens.

  I sat there for a while on that cot. I had no idea what to do. In fact, there was nothing I could do. My fate was in the hands of others. But it was likely I was going to spend some time in jail. I didn’t know anyone with $25,000 to spare who cared if I lived or died. I was wondering who was going to take care of Marlowe. He didn’t get along too well with anyone but me, not even Clara or Sarah.

  Then the guard came by, opened up my cell, and said, “Raven? You’re outta here. Let’s go.”

  He led me out to a DMV-like window, where a clerk gave me back the stuff they’d taken during my arrest and pointed me to the door, without a word of explanation. I walked out to a sunny day, with traffic whizzing by along Route 2.

  And there he was, leaning against a red Range Rover looking like crap, like he would fall over if he wasn’t leaning against the car. It was Mooney.

  “Mooney, you bastard. You set me up.”

  “Maybe I did. Maybe I didn’t.”

  “How did you do it, Mooney? You were in the hospital.”

  “They’ve got nothing on you. Not really.”

  “Sounds like they’ve got something. They’ve got an eyewitness. And they’ve got DNA. That’s bad. I should know. I was a cop once. I know a little about the law.”

  “One day. One fucking day you were a cop. I made a movie about cops once. I know more about the law than you do. And here’s my legal assessment. Yeah, you’re probably screwed. But maybe, if you play your cards right, you can get un-screwed.”