"No," Broghin said. "No, nothing like that."
Of course not, and she knew it, but she was leading him into an argument when there was nothing to argue about, the same as she'd done to me on the phone last night. Backing off from that dead-end, she cut through the repartee and asked an outright question, "Did Harraday die from a broken neck?"
"No."
"Was his murder premeditated or—"
"Goddammit!" the sheriff shouted, and it did me good to see he remained the same man beneath his newfound veneer of soft-spoken-ness. "I knew you'd start giving me the third-degree the minute I set foot in here. Why is it that you never let me do my job without running me through your gamut of inquisitiveness?"
"Oh my," Anna said, and burst out laughing. "Gamut of inquisitiveness. That's very nice. Oh, I enjoy that immensely, Franklin. That's a fine effort. Gamut of inquisitiveness."
"C'mon, give me a break."
"I am merely trying to understand our current situation. It may be your job, but it might very well be my life."
Broghin frowned and couldn't meet her eye. He had a hard time figuring out where to set his gaze and decided the dog's water dish was as good as any. "He died of natural causes."
"And what naturally caused him to slam-dunk himself into a garbage can?" I asked.
"I believe the sheriff meant he died an accidental death of sorts."
"Yup, it was an overdose."
"I see," Anna said. "Of what?"
"What difference does that make?"
"It could make a world of difference, as you already know, Franklin."
"Alcohol and barbiturates and cocaine," he admitted. "That's why I said it was a drug deal that went bad. He and his partner were probably trashing themselves and it got out of hand. Harraday overdosed and the other guy panicked and dumped the body. It only makes sense."
Anna's gaze caught mine.
"No," I said. "I don't think it does. Why would someone party with cocaine only to undermine it with the come-down effects of barbiturates? It doesn't seem like he'd do it in one sitting, anyway."
Broghin tried shifting to face me and couldn't quite heave himself around. "Not usually, but it happens. Listen you. Just stay put and don't go running around town trying to play cop."
"Somebody has to."
He went, "Hemphh" as though he'd caught an uppercut.
It was the wrong thing for me to say, and I knew it when I said it. Broghin's Bing Crosby quality went diving out the window. Now he sounded more like Ethel Merman. "You just let me handle this! You get in my way and I swear I'll throw your ass back in jail and keep you there until your social security checks come in!"
"You don't want me to run my gamut of inquisitiveness?"
Broghin's lips puffed into bloodless leeches. He hefted himself to his feet in a jumble of chins and spare tires and stuff clinking on his gun belt. "You think I'm kidding?"
"No."
Anna rolled the chair between me and the sheriff, her hands out in a placating manner. "Thank you for stopping by, Franklin. I value your judgment."
"Like hell you do, Anna!" He looked like Costello at the end of the Who's on First? routine. "You two are the most infuriating people I've ever met. Get this through your thick Kendrick skulls in case you're thinking of wandering around Felicity Grove with nothing better to do than pester the police and get into trouble—stay clear!" Anubis stood and eyed Broghin's yahoos as the sheriff grabbed his coat and beelined out the door.
"How adorably sweet that man can be," Anna said. "He fears for my life."
"Yes."
"I believe it's time we attempted to discover exactly what it is we've been caught in the middle of, Jon.”
“Good idea," I said.
In the back of my mind I wondered what our second faux pas was going to be like.
FIVE
That night I dreamed of making love to Michelle, which wasn't as strange as it might seem. Or maybe it was, but by now could be expected. Whenever I meet a new woman I'm attracted to she goes directly into my subconscious and winds up stirring a lot of silt.
I met Michelle in my senior year of college when I returned to finish school after finding my parents' killer. She and I both happened to take a course on the unlikely subject of Dadaism and French Surrealistic Poetry. Needless to say, the class was canceled due to lack of enrollment, and Michelle and I wound up in line together at the registrar's office for three hours, trying to change our schedules.
A couple of movies and dinners later and we were more than friends and occasional lovers; it kept on that way for most of the spring semester, right into our final weeks at the university, when we rapidly became more serious. She was a lifeline I held on to more tightly than I would have under different circumstances, and she was an orphan who liked the idea of having someone to take care of her after having to look out for herself for so long. I proved to be a composite father, mother, brother, and child figure, as well as her husband. Our marriage came shrieking like a newborn out of misplaced needs and wants.
But needs and wants count. We lasted longer than we should have, more than two years. During that time I don't think we ever had so much as a fight, which only served to confirm that we didn't really give a damn what the other was doing. I opened the bookshop in the Village with the money I'd inherited, and Michelle worked as an aerobics instructor until she realized she could make a mint stripping at one of the Manhattan clubs that regularly featured porno stars and ladies who took baths in big tubs of champagne. Even that didn't bother me so much as her getting dropped off at five in the morning on the back of motorcycles driven by guys named Viper and Noose, the skin of her shoulders and breasts slowly filling with tattoos of dragons, orchids, and Iron Crosses. When she started getting tattoos of other men's names along her inner thigh, it was pretty obvious our marriage had come to an end and at least one of us should take heed.
The only emotional baggage I still carry around is my resentment that she doesn't call me more often at four in the morning.
I lounged in bed for an hour, writing scurrilous notes and making lists. I underlined Margaret's, Richie's, and Anna's names and circled them over and over, drawing arrows between them with big question marks across the page. Philip Marlowe had nothing on me. In the light of morning, I wasn't quite as sure as I had been last night that we had anything here. Even my suspicions about Richie's OD hadn't held up through the night. Broghin had been right—when you're partying, you'll take anything you can get your hands on: Quaaludes, amphetamines, coke, crack, even LSD and heroin were making comebacks in the city, giving cocaine a run for its money as the selected drug of stressed-out Yuppies.
Nothing came easily, there was no sense to be made like this. I finally tore out the page and threw the crumpled ball in the trash.
I called the shop and spoke with my assistant Debi Kiko Mashima, a twenty-year-old NYU student who is probably the most brilliant person I've ever met, except for the fact that she's never realized that she could find much better employment just about anywhere else. As a second generation Japanese, she'd caught the best of both worlds: the hard-drive studying learned under the tutelage of her family, and a breezy hipness and sense of humor she'd picked up on the streets. Only her love for books keeps her with me, which is fine, because I'll be at a tremendous loss when she graduates. She's one of those people whose smile is so infectious that her glow of cheerfulness rubs against you like an affectionate cat.
"Hey, Boss!" Debi said. "What's happening up in Felicitous Grove?"
"You mean excluding the broken body in the trash, the freaked-out sheriff, crazy Mr. Crummler and his hordes of demons and ghosts, and a new woman to whom I may soon pledge my undying love?"
"Yeah, excluding all that. You doing anything?”
“Nothing much."
Debi's airy laugh made me chuckle. "You'll have to fill me in when you get back."
"Will do. And thanks for working the overtime.”
“No problem at pay and a
half, Boss."
"We never discussed pay and a half."
"Oooh, and now is such a bad time, what with you being in such a clinch at this time, eh?"
Debi had finally smartened up to this whole employment thing. "You win, of course. I hope the extra hours aren't cutting into your classes or affecting your love life too much."
"Nah," she said. "Me and my boyfriend Chuck do it right in back of the shop. The Bronte sisters turn him on."
"Me, too."
Again the laughter, but when she was done she slashed straight to the bone. Her lively tone sobered in a hearbeat and she said, "Be careful, Boss."
"Deb, you've been working with me for six months and no matter how many times I've asked you to stop calling me Boss, you still do. It makes me feel like a mafioso."
"What can I say? You remind me of Bruce Springsteen. Gotta go, Boss, those German sellers are here and I've—"
"What? They're in New York now?"
"Yeah, we're having coffee. A husband and wife team, been in the book trade since before Il Duce and the housepainter planned to take over the world. We're talking ancient, but really nice people. Apparently it was a last minute arrangement to mix business with pleasure and come visit their great-granddaughter, who works in the fashion district. But don't worry, I've got it under control. They've been telling me about the wall coming down, like it happened this morning. We're going to lunch and work out a deal for several more books."
"Two important words, Deb: currency conversion. Don't get screwed around on it."
She threw on a Japanese accent. "Ah so, tank'a vewwy much. Kiko no undastand concept'a papah money. Kiko sit all day paint face for Kabuki tonight. Tank' a vewwy much."
"Hey, I can't afford ..."
"Relax, you'll love it. I think I can get us a couple of first editions of Grass's Headbirths and Cat and Mouse, too. There's a guy on the Upper East Side willing to pay bucks for them."
"The couple speak English?" I asked.
"No, I'm fluent in German. Didn't I ever tell you that? Japanese, too. Maybe it has something to do with the war. And hey, remember me when I want an unscheduled night off."
"You got it."
"Auf Wiedersehen, Boss."
I hung up and went downstairs. Anubis wandered over and slurped my hand, then stalked back to Anna. She sat beside her reading table finishing up the Christie novel, another book already laid out and waiting to replace Sleeping Murder. "How many times have you read that?" I asked.
"Three. I sometimes wonder if she did not make her villains too appealing. I enjoy them all quite a lot, even when they're unmasked as the murderers. And then I hate to see them foiled."
"I'm like that with Elmore Leonard. His bad guys are often hipper than the heroes."
"You look refreshed," she said. "Did you sleep well?"
"Yes."
"Good. Breakfast is in the kitchen."
She had made another feast exactly as yesterday's even though there was still enough leftover food in the refrigerator to feed Peoria. "Anna, you're overcooking like mad. Don't bother with this every day."
"But I enjoy it, dear."
Each of us collected our thoughts and turned them over, waiting for pieces to click and hoping for bolts of inspiration and enlightenment. My grandmother has the ultimate poker face, like a Himalayan lama who had total control over each facial muscle, every tic and nuance.
Eventually she broke the silence. "I am going to pay a visit to the owner of the pawnshop. Perhaps Margaret's jewelry had genuine value and she was murdered for it, and then Richie in turn." She didn't seem convinced it was the proper tack to take, but realized a thread had to be pulled before any of the tapestry could unravel. "It's a long shot I'd like to follow up on. What are your plans?"
"I don't know," I said, thinking about my rotten list. "You could ask Lowell for more information about Richie's dealings with the criminal element."
"Anna, only you could make a car thief sound like Moriarity."
She shrugged and tossed the book aside. No helpful hints from Dame Agatha this morning. "Well then, you'll think of something."
"Drop me off in town and I'll rent a truck from Edelman's Garage."
"A truck?'
"Yeah. I'm going to drive up into the back hills. I think I'll go see Maurice Harraday."
"Be careful," she said as she resumed reading. "And remember to call him Tons."
~ * ~
After I picked up a '78 Jeep with a cracked windshield, no heater, and a smashed back bumper from Duke Edelman, I followed my grandmother's advice and went to see Lowell. He sat behind his desk at the police station, talking on the phone while tapping out his frustration with a pencil. I took the opportunity to use his coffee-maker to grab myself a cup while he calmly spoke to a woman who wanted him to arrest her husband's friends for keeping him out until three o'clock in the morning, and him with his allergies.
Across the hall, Broghin's door was open but he wasn't in his office. When Lowell had finished explaining a vast amount of constitutional law to the woman, he hung up and said, "Let's go for a drive."
"You don't sound happy."
"That's a rare state of being for me lately.”
“We headed anywhere in particular?"
"C'mon."
Uptight, his manners were mechanical, back straight enough to surf on as we walked to his cruiser. I fed off his bad mood and fell back into funk, wishing the tulips would arrive today. We drove past the courthouse, then over to the high school where we circled the ice-encrusted football field. He refused to talk, and the solid frustration that had been growing in my chest shifted into the steady beat of annoyance. Still, I kept my mouth shut because we were basically doing the same thing we had done two days ago when he picked me up from the airport. Another ten minutes passed, blinding slashes of light reflecting off the snow of last night as we drove by the lumber yard, power station and movie theater, before Lowell scratched his beard stubble and said, "I think Richie's killer left a note.”
“Okay.”
“Now the question.”
“So where is it?"
“Uh-huh."
My stomach filled with the warm ebb of blood and nausea. Muscles in my neck bunched tight, and the hair on my nape pricked like quills. On top of that, the anger turned too, into rage, because Lowell shouldn't have wasted the twenty minutes before he told me. "What makes you think so?”
“That night," he began and dragged up short. "That night I searched the yard to make sure the perp was gone. Broghin stayed with the body. Anna and Jim Witherton came out onto the porch, and the sheriff kept telling them to go inside and stay in the house. When I got back I noticed a dry spot on Richie's pants leg.”
“As if something had been covering it while the snow came down.”
“Yeah.”
“Is that it?"
"This morning I walked in on Broghin and he was folding up a water-stained piece of paper, you could see that ink had run. It made a connection, not much of one, but I guess it showed because he threw it in a drawer like a boy caught with his father's Playboy. That meant a whole lot more." He slowed for a red light. A couple holding hands, pushing a stroller, stepped into the crosswalk. "I've been on this job for eight years and I thought I'd seen that man in just about every mood there is. Happy as a kid at Christmas, proud, vengeful, even throwing up on himself. But I've never actually seen him rattled."
"Anna can do it to him easily. I want her protected.”
“I don't think the note was for her."
"Why?"
"Because Broghin can be a jerk but he's still a good sheriff. If he thought she was in any kind of danger he would have had me or one of the other boys watching over her around the clock."
"So you say."
"It's the truth, and you know it, Jon."
I wasn't certain what I knew anymore, except that I didn't know as much as I needed to; we drove around the park, nostalgia trying to work into my system and utterly failing. Feli
city Grove wasn't as retrograde as I'd come to believe, and it lost more of its sleepy, peaceful milieu all the time—it seemed the town had caught up fast with the insanity of the cities. What was going to come next?
"You think maybe he or his family was threatened?" I asked.
"Yeah, I do." The world was being squeezed through his Clint Eastwood squint. "The sheriff's been on edge for two days. He barks at the people he's usually nice to and he's a genuine doll to everybody he always screams at."
"I noticed. He actually called me Johnny."
Lowell shook his head. "He's twisted ass over backwards, and the only thing that can do that is for something to prod the man where he breathes."
"I promised not to get in the way and obstruct justice on this one if I could help it, but if you think that Broghin himself is hiding evidence . . .?"
"I didn't say that."
"No, but you came perilously close."
"I know you don't get along with the man, and I can't say I blame you. You just think of him as a butterball who razzes you too much, but I've seen him put his life on the line. Whatever the hell is eating at him, I've got to give him time to work it out."
"Why are you telling me this?" I said, staring out the window so I wouldn't have to look at him. "You know I'm not going to let it lie."
He reached out and touched my arm gently, with his wrist hanging over my shoulder, the way we had posed for our football team yearbook pictures. I didn't like this pull of the past. "Because I'm asking you to let it lie."
My turn to be in charge of the silence. We drove back to the police station and he pulled up in front of the Jeep. We sat there for another few minutes, watching the traffic lights change, people walking by. Between us, the shotgun's presence was disturbing and comforting.
"Okay, Lowell," I said. "I'll let you run with it for now. I'll give Broghin the benefit of the doubt, but only for so long." We got out of the car. "If what he's hiding has anything to do with Anna I'm going to find out. And then there'll be hell and me to pay."
"Good line," he said. "I like that. You're going to have knees knocking from here to Jacksonville."
The Dead Past Page 4