“Who is it?” Des called to him from the tub.
“Girlfriend, you are in for a real treat,” Mitch assured her, flinging open the front door to the frosty night air just as Hangtown came roaring up to the cottage on his Indian Chief.
“Took you at your word, Big Mitch,” he called out to him, yanking off his leather helmet and goggles. “Tonight’s family night-it’s Jerry and Ben Stiller versus Bob and Jakob Dylan.” He was referring to Celebrity Deathmatch.
“Well, sure… Come on in.” Mitch flicked on the television while his new friend came thumping heavily into the room. The old master seemed to fill the entire house with his massive size and aura. “Have a seat, Hangtown. Can I get you a whiskey?”
“Naw, I’m cool… Oh, damn!”
Johnny Gomez and Nick Diamond, Deathmatch ’s commentators, were delivering their patented sign-off: “Good fight, good night.” The Claymation wrestling show was already over. He’d missed it.
“Next time I’ll tape it,” Mitch vowed, as Des came striding in. She’d toweled off and thrown on one of Mitch’s old flannel shirts, which just did manage to cover the essentials. “Hangtown, say hello to Desiree Mitry. Des, this is Wendell Frye.”
Des was speechless. She could not believe she was face-to-face with such a famous and reclusive man.
“You’re the new resident trooper,” Hangtown exclaimed, feasting on her with his bright-blue eyes. “I was told that you mm-rr-draw beautifully. But I was not told you are an utter goddess. By God, if I were fifty years younger I’d fall right to my knees and kiss your dainty pink toes.”
“Dainty? Man, you must be looking through the wrong end of a telescope.”
“In fact, I just may have to anyway,” he said valiantly. “Although I won’t be able to get back up without assistance.”
“You, sir, are an old goat,” Des observed.
“Third generation. I come by it honestly.”
“Well, if you don’t behave yourself I’ll have to get my handcuffs.”
“Hey, you promised you’d only play that game with me,” Mitch objected.
Now Hangtown was peering at the still-life display on the floor next to her easel. “God, you’re in three-point perspective hell, aren’t you.”
“Totally,” she answered glumly.
“You’re frustrated. Don’t be. I can help you with this. But you have to make me a promise.”
“What is it?”
“I want you to think of yourself as growing one day younger each and every day for the rest of your life,” Hangtown said to her, his voice soaring. “Growing more open to new ideas, more excited, more alive. Will you do that?”
Des considered this, her brow furrowing. “Okay…”
“Now, take this drawing-it’s wrong, all wrong.” He hobbled over to the easel and flipped her sketch pad to a fresh page, gripping the stub of graphite stick she’d left there. “Your problem is your damned adult brain,” he said, squinting down at the arrangement of bottles at his feet. “It’s telling you that the wine bottle is twelve inches high, the same way it tells you the curb you’re about to step off of is twelve inches high, even though your eyes are trying to tell your brain it’s only four inches high-that’s the foreshortening. But if your brain believed your eyes, you’d fall in the street and scrape your beautiful knees, am I right?”
Des shook her head at him, mystified. “I guess, but-”
“A child does accept that the curb is four inches high, and does trip and fall. I say this to you, Desiree, because children in pre-school art classes can do three-point perspective without a hitch. They ace it. It’s only we adults who have trouble with it. You must break free of your adult mind. See as a child sees. Accept as a child accepts. Here, I’ll show you…”
Now Hangtown began to draw, working swiftly and lightly from top to bottom, first finding the proportions of his bottles, then his shapes. Then he began to apply more pressure, deftly using the side of the stick to add shading and weight until the bottles were suddenly there on the page, each in exact proportion to the other. The old man drew with passion and vitality, wielding the graphite stick like a sword. He seemed forty years younger. He reminded Mitch of Zorro.
And in less than three minutes he had created a still-life drawing that was not only incredibly accurate but bursting with vitality.
“I had no idea you could draw,” Des whispered, awestruck.
“Of course I can draw,” he said indignantly. “I’m an artist, girl. And you, Big Mitch, you’re a lucky man. To think I was trying to press Moose on you.”
“Moose doesn’t have to be pressed on anyone,” Mitch said, feeling Des’s eyes on him.
“And now I shall leave you healthy young lovers. You’ve much better things to do. But before I go…” Hangtown hurriedly scrawled his name on the lower right-hand corner of his drawing, then dropped the graphite stub in Des’s hand. “From me to you, Trooper Mitry. Welcome to Dorset.”
Des stared at him, gape-jawed. By signing his drawing he had just presented her with a gift that was worth thousands of dollars.
“You know why I did that, don’t you?” he said, cackling at her with glee. “Because I can’t make love to you tonight. I’m too damned old, and you’re my friend’s girl. But I still fell in love tonight. Madly and truly.” He leaned forward and kissed Des on the cheek. “Greta can authenticate it in case you ever need to sell it. Stuff happens. Believe me, I know.”
“I-I can’t accept this,” she sputtered.
“Of course you can.”
“But, Mr. Frye, you can’t just give me this. This is insane!”
“Beautiful, and stubborn, too.” Hangtown held a gnarled hand out, palm up. “Twenty bucks.”
“Deal.” She promptly went up to the sleeping loft to get her wallet, leaving Mitch alone in the living room with him.
“I wanted to assure you of something,” Mitch said. “We were talking about it at dinner and it’s been on my mind…”
“What is it, Big Mitch?”
“I’d never write about you. I’d never do that.”
“Hell, I know that,” he said, clapping him on the back. “But I also know that you may have to.” Hangtown fell silent, a troubled look crossing his face. “Some things can’t be avoided.”
“What makes you say that?” Mitch asked, studying him.
“You get a feeling about things at my age,” he replied darkly. “About people and what they might do. Whatever happens, Big Mitch, whatever needs doing… it’s okay by me. Better you than some effete bed wetter who can’t stand Bud and Lou.”
Des came back down the stairs now, money in hand.
Hangtown snatched it from her and stuffed it in his jacket pocket. “Easiest double-sawbuck I ever made,” he exclaimed happily. “Beer and smokes money for a week.” He started toward the door now, waving an arm at them. “Good fight, good night.”
“Are you okay to drive?” Mitch asked, heading outside with him. “I can run you home in my truck.”
“Nonsense, I’m not drunk,” he replied, climbing slowly back onto his bike. “Just crazy.” And with that the great Wendell Frye kick-started his engine, donned his helmet and goggles and headed off into the night.
Mitch threw another log on the fire, and he and Des curled up together in front of it, snuggling under the afghan that Mitch kept there for that very purpose. Clemmie and Quirt, who had disappeared with such a big, loud stranger in the house, ventured back out, Quirt rolling around on his back while Clemmie determinedly pad-pad-padded at Mitch’s tummy with her front paws. Clemmie did this with great regularity. Mitch chose to take it as a sign of affection, rather than a commentary on his weight.
“Well, well, he’s still got him some funk in his trunks, hasn’t he?”
“Quite the lady’s man,” Mitch agreed. “In fact, I’d be willing to bet there are beautiful women scattered all over the world with his signed drawings.”
“Um, okay, did you just say what I think you said?”
“I don’t know. What do you think I said?”
She batted her eyelashes at him. “That you think I’m beautiful.”
“Why, do you have a problem with that?”
“Shoot no. I just like to know where I stand-especially when I find out someone’s been pressing his daughter on you.”
Mitch raised an eyebrow at her. “You’re not jealous, are you?”
“I don’t get jealous. Don’t have to. I carry a loaded semiautomatic weapon, remember?”
“Believe me, that’s not something I ever forget.”
“See that you don’t,” she said, rubbing her cheek gently against his to let him know she was kidding. They were still new with each other’s feelings, and still careful with them. “I met Moose myself today. I liked her.”
“Well, you won’t like Takai, believe me.”
“She was bitchy to Bella on the phone. Really arrogant.”
“That’s Takai. She’s hooked up with Bruce Leanse-in more ways than one, I gather.” Mitch tipped her face up toward his, kissing her lightly on the forehead. “He hit on you today, am I right?”
Her eyes widened. “Damn, you scare me sometimes.”
“Hey, I have a really crazy idea…”
“What is it?” she demanded, instantly tensing.
“Whoa, why are you suddenly on red alert?”
“Because the last time I heard those words from a man’s mouth it was Brandon wanting to get us into a threesome with a paralegal named Amber.”
“And did you?” asked Mitch. “Ow, that hurt!”
“So stop talking trash at me.”
“I was going to suggest you spend the night,” he grumbled, rubbing his arm where she’d slugged him.
“Mitch, we have been over this up, down and sideways. I am brand-new on this job. And appearances matter. And until the people get a chance to know me I don’t want them getting any wrong ideas.”
“They know all about us, girlfriend,” he informed her. “Takai did.”
“But how?”
“There are no secrets in Dorset, that’s how. Gossip is their lifeblood. Face up to it-they are going to talk about us, and there’s not a thing we can do about it except enjoy doing exactly what they say we’re doing.” He kissed her gently. Or at least it started out gently. If possible, they wanted each other more than they had an hour ago. “Although I can’t imagine they have any idea just how good it is.”
“None,” she whispered, stroking his face, bathing him in the glow of her smile. “Um, okay, I’m thinking maybe I can make an exception tonight…”
“You won’t be sorry,” he vowed.
“I haven’t been sorry yet.”
“Des, I have a serious confession to make…”
“Now what?” she wondered, her voice filling with dread.
“At this very moment, in this very spot, I am the happiest man on earth.”
She let out a faint whimper, which was something she did when he said something unexpectedly nice to her. Like that afternoon in Woodbridge when he brought her those flowers and they ended up together on the kitchen floor of her old house. Right now, she threw off the flannel shirt she had on and melted right into his arms, her caramel-toned skin warm and smooth and satiny.
They stayed right there in front of the fire, making slow, tender love deep into the night. Eventually, they stumbled upstairs to bed and slept, both cats curled trustingly around them.
Mitch dreamed he was in a dungeon. Rondo Hattan was there. And so was Des. The Creeper had her stretched out on a rack, naked, just as in one of those lurid comic-book illustrations of the early fifties. And he was mashing her dainty pink toes with a pair of pliers, one by one. And she was screaming. And Mitch tried to cry out, but he could not make a sound. Except for a beeping noise…
Until with a start Mitch realized he was awake and the beeping was coming from Des’s pager. She was out of bed and reaching for the phone on his nightstand. He looked at the alarm clock, yawning. It was only five thirty. Barely light out.
“It’s Mitry,” Des barked into the phone. “Go.” She listened to the calm, detached voice on the other end of the phone, her face revealing nothing. “I’ll be there in ten minutes,” she said, when it fell silent. Then she went dashing outside in Mitch’s robe for the clean uniform that was in her cruiser.
Mitch padded downstairs after her, fuzzy-headed. He felt as if they’d slept for less than ten minutes. Quirt was meowing fiercely to be let out. Mitch complied, and was putting the coffee on when Des came back with her uniform inside a dry cleaner’s bag. “Trouble?” he asked her.
“Got me a major-league hot one,” she responded, starting toward the bathroom to change. “A car’s exploded on Route 156 up by Winston Farms. I’ve got dead cows, bales of hay on fire. A real mess.” She paused in the bathroom doorway, a troubled expression on her face. “Plus there’s the remains of a victim inside the car. We can’t be positive yet, but…”
“Who is it, Des?”
She took a deep breath and said, “Mitch, it’s Takai Frye’s Porsche.”
“Oh my God…”
CHAPTER 6
It was the smell that got to her.
Des could smell the grilled meat from a half mile away. And what she found when she got to that rural crossroads at Winston Farms was uncommonly grisly. An explosion had flipped the red Porsche directly onto its back over by the feed troughs, where it ignited the poor animals and the bales of feed into a gas-powered fireball that she later learned could be seen twenty miles away in New London.
She was the first officer on the scene. Members of Dorset’s volunteer fire department, with support from volunteer crews from East Haddam and Moodus, were still hosing down the smoldering wreckage with foam. As she got out of her cruiser in the dawn’s gray light, Des could make out bits of charred, twisted auto debris scattered for hundreds of feet around. A dozen or more cows were dead, their body parts mingling with those of the Porsche. It had to be one of the ugliest crime scenes Des had ever seen. But it was the smell of that meat that bothered her more than anything else.
It would be a while before she’d find herself cutting into a steak again.
It was a calm, crisp morning. Glistening frost blanketed the fields, and steam rose off the man-made pond out behind the Winston’s feed trough, where a collection of family members stood in saucer-eyed disbelief. A few horrified neighbors were out watching from across the road as well.
The volunteer firefighters seemed pretty shaken themselves. They were competently trained, but they were still civilians. Many of them were barely out of high school. They’d never seen anything like this.
Des’s contractor, Tim Keefe, was the man in charge. Dorset’s assistant fire chief was a husky, red-faced fellow with a walrus mustache. He was barely thirty, but very steady and mature. In the big city, a lot of men Tim’s age still seemed like boys to her. Here in Dorset, they were middle-aged family men.
“Morning, trooper,” he said to her grimly as he stood there in his firefighter’s gear, clutching a license plate in one hand.
She motioned toward the car. “Is the victim still…?
“What’s left of Takai is still in there,” he affirmed hoarsely. “Poor woman. No one deserves to die like that. I found this across the road.” He held it out to her-it was a personalized plate that read: MYTOY. “It’s hers, all right. I’d know it anywhere. Only new turbo in town. Damned car probably cost her more than my whole house did. We, uh, didn’t attempt to move her yet. Didn’t know what we were dealing with-whether it was a crime scene or whatever.”
“You did right, Tim. What I need you to do now is keep everyone away from this scene until the Emergency Services team gets here. They have to check for undetonated explosives before we attempt to do a thing, okay?”
“Sure thing. I’ll pass it along.”
Des immediately got on her radio and reached out to the Westbrook barracks for Emergency Services, the Bomb Squad and Major Crimes. She
also ran a check on the MYTOY license plate. It was Takai’s, all right.
Then she slogged her way through the foam and crouched down for a firsthand look inside the Porsche, her stomach muscles tightening involuntarily. The internal temperature of a vehicle in a gas explosion was generally between eighteen hundred and two thousand degrees. A human being didn’t stay pretty for long in that kind of heat. Takai Frye certainly hadn’t. Not that what was in there even looked like a person now. Her body was nothing more than charred remains. It appeared to be intact, although some of the thinner bones, such as her hands, had turned to ash.
Des stared at it, thinking: I will need crime scene photos. I will need to draw this.
A pair of uniformed troopers pulled up now, the sirens on their cruisers blaring. They immediately got to work cordoning off the area and closing the road to all non-emergency vehicles.
Des strode out into the road to look for skid marks, Tim Keefe tagging along beside her. He seemed to have something more he wanted to tell her. She didn’t see any skids-Takai hadn’t swerved, hadn’t hit her brakes. Whatever happened, it happened without warning. “Was it the farmer who phoned it in?” she asked him.
“No, that was me, actually,” he replied, removing his big yellow firefighter’s hat. He was losing his hair on top, and with his hat off he looked a lot older. “I live just up the road. I was up early, with the new baby and all. Soon as I heard the explosions I jumped in my truck and came flying down here.”
“How many explosions did you hear, Tim?”
“Three. Two real quick ones, followed by a much louder one. I’m guessing the last one was the gas tank. As far as those first two, I never actually heard a car bomb go off. So I wouldn’t know how it would sound…”
“How did these sound?”
“Like shots, to be honest.”
Des raised her eyebrows at him. “A shotgun?”
He nodded. “That was my first thought. The sound sure carried like shotgun fire. It’s duck-hunting season now, so I’ve been hearing it a lot-especially early in the morning.” Tim trailed off, rubbing his high dome of forehead with the palm of his hand. “Except if it was a shotgun, man, it was a real boomer. The mother of all shotguns.”
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