The Hot Pink Farmhouse bam-2

by David Handler

  “By offering to donate the land for the new school?”

  “Exactly. I’m a new face in town. I’m trying to make friends.”

  “Otherwise, you don’t get your building permits for The Aerie, right?”

  Bruce scowled at Mitch. “You said that, I didn’t. And you’d better not try to put those words in my mouth, guy, because I’ve got what I said on tape, word for word. And I said nothing about any quid pro quo. Not to you, and not to them. The parents want a new school. The community needs it. I simply said, ‘Here, take this land.’ ”

  “Your wife is head of the school board. How does that factor in?”

  “It doesn’t,” he answered sincerely. “Beyond the fact that we’re the kind of people who don’t believe in taking. When we become part of a community, we get involved.”

  “Is she an active participant in your business?”

  “No, she’s not.”

  “What about Takai Frye?”

  Bruce stiffened slightly, his nostrils flaring. “Takai Frye has expedited a number of local transactions for me. I’ve often found it helpful to take on a well-connected local individual as my point person.” Now he paused, searching Mitch’s face carefully. “Why do you ask about her?” he wondered.

  “Well, for starters, she told me that she’s the one who ratted out Jim Bolan to the state police-so you could snatch up his farm from the bank.”

  Bruce grew pale. “She told you that?”

  “She thinks it was Jim who tried to kill her this morning. She’s more than a little bit upset, as you can imagine.”

  Bruce jumped up out of his seat and began to pace restlessly back and forth, much the way Quirt did when he wanted to be let out to pee. “Look, I’d really rather not discuss Takai any more, Mitch,” he said, running his hands through his short, bristly hair. “Let’s just drop her, okay?” He continued to pace, his jaw muscles clenching. He seemed profoundly agitated. “Unless… That is to say, if you’d be willing to turn off your tape recorder.” He lunged for his own and shut it off. “I’d talk to you about her then, strictly man-to-man. Christ, I’ve got to talk to someone or I-I swear I’ll go postal!”

  Mitch immediately shut off his microcassette recorder and sat back in his chair, arms folded across his ample tummy.

  “Great…” Leanse heaved the hugest of sighs. “Thanks, guy. I mean that.” He sat back down, taking several slow, deep breaths to calm himself. “The truth is, Takai’s a bit of a problem in my life right now. See, the two of us had a-a romantic relationship. I quickly realized it was a major, major mistake, and I tried to break it off. But she won’t let go of me. I can’t get rid of her. I just can’t!” He fell into miserable silence for a moment before he added, “And now I don’t know what the hell to do.”

  Mostly, Mitch found himself wondering why Bruce Leanse was confiding in him this way. Had he no one else to spill his guts to? Someone like, say, a friend? Maybe not.

  “How did you know about us, Mitch? You did know, right?”

  “That’s her shearling jacket in your stateroom, isn’t it?”

  “Dead on,” Bruce affirmed. “She was here with me last evening. Left in a bit of a huff. We… we quarreled. I haven’t always been a good boy, Mitch, and that’s the sad truth. But I wasn’t looking for this. All I wanted when we moved out here was a nice quiet family life. No more tabloid photographers. No more hassles. And, above all, no more sneaking around on Babette. I was really, really trying to turn over a new leaf, okay?”

  Mitch nodded, thoroughly aware that he was talking to someone who’d busted a move on Des less than twenty-four hours ago, and was therefore a total snake. But he was not there aboard The Brat to point this out. He was there to listen.

  “But then I met Takai. And, Mitch, I’ve never wanted a woman as badly as I want her. I’m talking about ever.” Bruce shot a hungry glance up at the spiral staircase. “I hear the rustle of her nylons on those stairs and I can barely get my pants down fast enough. Half the time we don’t even make it into the stateroom. I’ve torn her dress right off her back, just like some crazed animal. Five minutes later, I want her all over again. And then, in the night, when I’m lying in bed next to my dear wife, I start wanting her all over again. My heart pounds, the sweat pours off me. I-I’ve had to start sleeping in the guest room.” He glanced at Mitch uncomfortably. “You’re probably asking yourself why I don’t just roll over and give Babette a jab

  …”

  “Well, maybe something like that.”

  “It’s not the same,” he insisted. “Babette is a genuinely classy person, a distinguished architect, my soul mate. She went to Harvard, for God’s sake. Do you honestly think I can do to her some of the things I do to Takai?”

  “I really wouldn’t know, Bruce.” Nor did he want to.

  “Believe me, Mitch, it’s a bad thing to be so out of control. Especially because I can’t even stand the woman. Takai Frye is an astonishingly not nice person. She’s mean, calculating, greedy. I need to break it off. I need my sanity back. Only, she won’t go quietly. I’m her ticket to the big dance, or so she believes. She wants a cushy, high-profile job in my company-or else.”

  “She’s threatened you?”

  Bruce nodded reluctantly. “Either I give her what she wants or she’ll tell Babette about us. Not only Babette but everyone in town. She’ll trash me with the old guard, Mitch. Turn the zoning and planning people against me. Tie up The Aerie for years and years. And she’d do it, too. She’s that vindictive. I don’t know what to do. I really don’t.”

  “Would Babette be surprised?”

  “Not in the least,” he answered bitterly. “That’s precisely my problem. The last time this happened, in Boulder two years ago, she told me flat-out she’d leave me if I ever slept around again. And take Ben with her. I cherish what Babette and I have together. I love my son. I don’t want him to spend his whole life thinking his father’s some horny louse. I want him to respect me. I don’t want…” Bruce’s voice cracked with strain. “I don’t want to lose my family, Mitch.”

  Nor that comforting illusion that he was a decent human being, Mitch reflected. Bruce needed this illusion about himself. True or not, it kept him going.

  “I’m not the one who tried to kill her,” he said to Mitch quietly from across the table. “If that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “I’m not,” said Mitch, which wasn’t entirely true. He was thinking that Bruce Leanse was a desperate man whose dream family and dream project were both about to go up in smoke, thanks to Takai Frye. That gave him more than enough reason for wanting her dead. Or maybe Babette had taken matters into her own hands-tried to save her marriage by eliminating the competition. This, too, was possible. Assuming she knew how to fire the humongous Barrett that Des had told him about.

  And Mitch was thinking something else. That Takai wasn’t wrong.

  She still had every reason in the world to be afraid.

  C HAPTER 8

  “If you don’t come here with passion, then don’t come at all!” Paul Weiss barked as he paced along behind them, glancing over their shoulders at their drawing pads. They were at the easels, warming up with one-minute gesture drawings of that evening’s model. “Stroke like you mean business!”

  There were ten students in Figure Drawing. Half of them were college-aged kids enrolled full-time at the Dorset Academy, supremely gifted and dedicated young artists who dressed in torn, paint-smeared clothes and sported numerous body piercings. On breaks, they clustered together over cigarettes to murmur to each other in their own language. It being an evening class, the others were part-timers. Retired blue bloods who were there for fun, middle-aged divorcees who had too much free time and money.

  And then there was Des. No one else in the studio was quite like her. But she was used to this particular fact of life. She wore a black T-shirt and jeans, and kept a fresh uniform in her cruiser in case she got beeped. So far this semester, she hadn’t been.

  “Leave
it on the page!”

  The model stood nude atop a wooden platform, bathed in the glow of a spotlight as she worked her way through a succession of quick poses. Her breasts were heavy and pendulous, her hips wide, thighs and buttocks exceedingly abundant. Rubenesque was the way to describe her. The notion that artists’ models resembled swimsuit babes was strictly a male fantasy. In fact, the Dorset Academy preferred their models on the plump side-generous curves were vastly more expressive. Furthermore, many of these overweight nude models were in fact men.

  “Don’t tighten up yet! Stay loose!”

  Paul always tried to loosen them up at the start with gesture drawings. Sometimes he had them draw with their wrong hand. Or even with their eyes closed. For the first hour he wanted them to open up, stroke boldly, feel the strength and movement of the pose. Only after they had moved on to longer poses would he start to get demanding about skeletal proportions, musculature and shadows-subjects about which he knew virtually everything there was to know. This stooped, slightly built man in his sixties was one of the foremost animal illustrators in America. He was exacting and tough but passionate. Des liked him quite a bit. And found herself soaking up his wisdom like a sponge.

  “Draw with your whole arm!”

  She drew with her whole arm, giving herself over fully to the lines and the shapes. Shutting down her intellect. Loving it. She cherished her time here in the paint-splattered studio with its huge glass skylights. It was a sanctuary. Every time she walked in here she felt privileged. And had no doubt whatsoever that she had made the right move. None.

  “You’ve come with a lot of passion tonight, Desiree,” he said approvingly when he paused at her drawing pad. “Your lines are much more expressive. You’re not just pushing the lead around the page. Good, good.”

  She knew why, of course. It was seeing Moose Frye dead. It was the horror. That was what got her started drawing in the first place. And although she hadn’t realized it until this very second, her need to draw had diminished since she’d parted company with Major Crimes. Now that the action had found her once again, she could feel her juices flowing, roiling, demanding.

  As the model reached for the heavens with both arms raised, her face exuding unbridled sensual rapture, Des flipped to a new page and kept on stroking, well aware that this was another reason why she was bringing something extra:

  Their pleasingly plump model this evening was none other than Melanie Zide.

  No mistake about it-Colin Falconer’s dumpy, henna-haired secretary, a young woman who was preparing to sue the school board for sexual harassment, was a nude model after-hours at the Dorset Academy of Fine Arts. And what a model! Freed of her drab clothes and thick glasses, Melanie was a woman transformed-graceful, uninhibited and positively charged with voluptuous female sexuality.

  None of which added up. And Melanie knew it. Between poses, she kept shooting uncertain, myopic glances in Des’s direction.

  Every twenty minutes, the model got a rest break. When her timer went off, Melanie immediately stepped down from the platform and slipped on her robe and glasses. Most of the models brought a book to read on their breaks. Melanie buried her nose in The Journals of Sylvia Plath while the students streamed out of the studio for some fresh air. It tended to get quite warm in there with the door closed. But it had to stay closed when there was a model, just as there had to be a sign on the door that read: MODEL POSING-DO NOT ENTER.

  “I almost didn’t recognize you, Melanie,” Des said to her, flexing the cramped muscles in her drawing hand. “We met in Superintendent Falconer’s office yesterday, remember?”

  “You probably think me being here is really weird,” Melanie blurted out. Clearly, she’d been expecting Des to come at her.

  “No weirder than me being here myself,” Des responded, smiling at her.

  “It takes me to another place,” Melanie offered as explanation. “It’s very Zen, very in the moment. I enjoy expressing myself this way.”

  “I hear you.”

  “Besides, they pay me in cash, and I need it,” she said defensively. “Dorset’s an expensive place to live and I’ve got a mother who’s in a nursing home and a brother who can’t deal with it.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Where did you learn to pose?”

  “I took modern dance when I was in college.”

  “It shows, girl. What school did you go to?”

  “Why are you asking me so many questions?” Melanie demanded, her round face scrunching tightly.

  Des backed right off, taking a long drink from her bottle of mineral water. “I’m an admirer, that’s all.”

  “Look, they know all about this at school, okay? And it’s perfectly okay with them.”

  “I’m sure it is.”

  Now Melanie shoved her book into the pocket of her robe, peering at Des warily. “You know, don’t you. That Colin’s a cyber creep. Mrs. Leanse told you.”

  “Yes, she did.”

  “It was awful. The stuff he left on his screen. I mean, you would not believe the things those two men said to each other. I’m glad Colin’s on medical leave, because he is one sick individual. You work alongside someone every day, and you think you know him and then… Wow, it’s just so weird.” Melanie was starting to blither now. She seemed anxious and frazzled, as if she had a special reason to be concerned about Des. Des wondered what it was. “I work in a small-town school, you know? Nothing ever happens. And suddenly there’s this thing with Colin. And Moose Frye getting killed. And, I mean, there was even a television news crew from Hartford in the office this afternoon. That is just so weird.” Melanie paused, chewing on the inside of her mouth. “Do you think they’ll catch her killer?”

  “I’m sure they will,” Des said. “They have a top man on the case.”

  She had passed along to Soave the information Mitch had picked up from the Frye family. That Takai had been the one who’d informed on Jim, costing him his farm and thereby giving him a reason for wanting her dead. That Hangtown could alibi him for the time of the murder-the two of them were getting high together, which violated Jim’s parole but surely ranked as the least of his worries right now. Des couldn’t help wondering how it all hung together. Were Takai’s fears of Jim warranted? Was Hangtown lying to protect him? Had Jim been the one perched up on that granite outcropping with the Barrett? Why the Barrett? Why such devastating firepower?

  Melanie’s timer went off now, ending their rest break. Des returned to her easel as the others trickled back in. As soon as Paul Weiss had shut the door behind him, Melanie discreetly disrobed and returned to the platform, where she stretched out on her side, one arm outreached, the other folded beneath her neck. Her back was arched, her chubby toes pointed. It was a languorous, provocative pose that emphasized the generous curves of her hips and buttocks.

  Des was just getting her placed on the page when somebody pushed open the studio door without knocking and barged right in. It was Soave, who stood frozen there in the doorway with his eyeballs bulging. He simply could not believe that he was in a public place staring at a naked woman.

  Paul Weiss immediately demanded to know what he wanted.

  Des, who had left word where she’d be if Soave needed her, flung her stick down and led him out into the corridor, closing the door behind them.

  “Wow, I could get into art big-time,” he said to her eagerly.

  “Grow up, Rico,” she snapped. “That is so not mature.”

  “What’s her name, anyway? Could I meet her?”

  “What you could do is shut up. You’re embarrassing yourself.”

  Soave held up both hands in a gesture of surrender. “My bad. Sorry.”

  “Is there something wrong with your setup over at town hall?” she demanded irritably.

  “No, it’s perfect. Got everything I need.”

  “Then what in the hell do you want?”

  “To touch base,” he explained, shrugging his muscle-bound shoulders.

  “Does it have to
be right this minute?”

  “I’m afraid so. You don’t mind, do you?”

  They went in the lounge, where Soave flopped down on one of the sofas. There were tables to eat at, vending machines filled with junk food and truly awful coffee. The walls were crowded with drawings and watercolors that students had pinned up. Most were classroom exercises, a number of them astonishingly good. A young couple was slouched on one of the other sofas, eating take-out pizza. Otherwise, Des and Soave were alone in there.

  “I’ve been fighting off the media all day,” he complained wearily. “The TV people just nailed me at town hall. Wanted to know what we knew.”

  “How much did you give them?” Des asked, standing before him with her arms folded. She generally didn’t care for the way Soave handled himself under the bright lights. Rather than keeping his comments terse and specific, he was prone to making vague, empty promises that made him sound like a politician who was running for something.

  “I told them Jim Bolan is presently under house arrest,” he answered. “Pending the results of further investigation.”

  “You gave them Jim?” she asked, aghast. It qualified as a total rush to judgment, in her opinion. It would be several days before the forensics lab would know whether the DNA from the saliva on the cigarette butt matched Jim’s blood sample. “He tested positive for gunshot residue, is that it?”

  “So he wore gloves,” Soave growled at her. Translation: The residue test had turned up negative. “I still like him for it, Des. I like him large. He has motive, opportunity. He was a sniper in ’Nam. He’s done time.”

  “What about Wendell Frye’s alibi?”

  “It can be shaken,” Soave said confidently. “Who’s to say the old guy didn’t nod off for twenty, thirty minutes? He admits he was stoned. Maybe Jim even slipped a little something extra into his coffee. If that’s the case, we’ll find traces of it in the blood sample we took.” They’d taken it so they could test Hangtown’s DNA against the victims. “Besides which, we bagged us a pair of Jim’s boots in the mudroom, okay? The soles look like a dead-nuts match for the shoe impression we found up at the shooter’s roost. If we can make that stick, we’re in.”