“Why? Why are you looking for some white raven in a bell jar we auctioned in March? If you wanted the white raven, you should have come—”
“We only just got the flier, from a friend. Do you remember it?” Angie prodded, holding forth the crumpled paper.
“No. Yes, well, I can’t remember everything that we—”
“Was it under glass?” I said.
“Glass? No. Well, I don’t know. Look . . .” He started playing with his pocket watch again.
“Did you know that ravens are a protected species under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which, although it allows the hunting of ravens, prohibits the sale of ravens? Any idea how much U.S. Fish and Wildlife would fine you for selling that raven?” I smiled, just on the inside.
His unshaven jaw dropped and his bifocals slipped to the end of his nose, the pocket watch dangling from his hand, unmolested for a change.
I tried again. “We are very interested in finding that raven and whoever you sold it to. Otherwise I’ll fax this flier to U.S. Fish and Wildlife, they’ll come down and look at your ledgers, and maybe find that you’ve sold a few ducks, maybe a blue jay, which are also illegal to sell. So how about you save us all some fuss and go look in your roster and find who bought the white raven?”
Could I bust the chops of guys like this 9 to 5 for U.S. Fish and Wildlife?
He pushed up his bifocals and favored me with a dyspeptic sneer, then drifted back into his cluttered office, where I heard him rummaging about and muttering to himself before he emerged a few minutes later. He handed us a slip of torn notebook paper. Forcing a coffee-stained smile and without so much as a fare-thee-well, he closed the door in our faces.
“What’s it say?” Angie pulled at my arm.
I shrugged and handed it to her. Item: White crow in bell jar on rock. Buyer: Guy Partridge, dealer, Mallard Island, Maine.
“On a rock?” Angie frowned. “Not on a stick?”
“What it says.” I shrugged again. Rock, stick—whatever. How many white crows are out there, anyway? Darn few. This was probably the same crow. So how did it make it from Guy Partridge to Slim and his gang? We needed to know more. Or a lot less. I was getting sucked into this thing and knew it. But like a cat at a fishbowl, I wouldn’t be satisfied until the carpet was littered with broken glass, stinky water, and flopping guppies.
We climbed back in the Lincoln and roared along the rocky Ashuelot River back to Brattleboro. I don’t know how to pronounce Ashuelot, but I’ve been told it’s best to try while sneezing.
“Ever hear of a dealer named Guy Partridge?” Angie queried.
I wagged my head. “Sounds vaguely familiar, but no.”
Angie sulked a moment, stray blond locks lashing her face.
“Where the hell is Mallard Island?” She started fussing with the maps in the glove compartment, unfolded one, and let the wind rip it a bit. After a few moments, she bit her lip the way she does when she gets a crossword clue. “Mallard Island, just south of Kennebunk,” she said in mild wonder. “That’s a ways from here.”
“We’ll call first. Going a few miles down the road to Remington is one thing. Heading for the coast is another. I don’t want to blow my release deal with the judge. He likes fish.”
“I could go. I’ll rent a car.”
“You don’t even know if it’s the same bird.”
“What are the chances? I mean, how many other white crows have you seen in your travels?”
“Exactly? One, I guess. In a taxidermy museum, in northern Vermont. A white crow, wings out, not folded like this one. Doesn’t mean there aren’t others.”
Before long we were back in Brattleboro, and I slid the Lincoln in at a hydrant. While Angie waited in the car, I ran up to see if Defender Phil was at the courthouse. I found him outside a courtroom next to a sneering, scruffy-looking teen.
“Garth!” He spat little yellow flecks of pencil paint. “I only have a minute. Bobby, stay there, don’t move, okay?” The kid eyed the bailiff. “C’mon, Garth.” Phil led me into a vending-machine alcove.
“Here’s the scoop,” he said around a pencil in his teeth. “They found the truck. Someone tried to drive it into a lake, but it bogged down in the mud. Then they tried to torch it, but only burned the cab. There’s a dent in the front grille, just like you said, and a couple of Fletcher’s teeth and a button from his shirt inside the bumper. They look like his, anyway. A full autopsy, dental check, and all may take a while. This isn’t New York, if you know what I mean.”
“So, can I leave town or what?”
“Don’t. There’s more. Fletcher was officially unemployed, though his mother told the police he’d been out west working a carnival, probably off the books.”
“Think he was with one of these carnivals when Mrs. Fletcher gave his feathery prize to Gunderson?” Must be where he picked up the word dang.
“Looking into that, but it would have been winter, not carnival season. He also used to work with some outfits here on the East Coast during the summers.” Phil glanced back to see if his wayward youth had run out on him. “Graduated college out in Portland two years ago, worked odd jobs since. Had a record, petty stuff, drug possession, DWI. Hanging out with carnies, so what do you expect? Police are trying to track down where he was out west and who he’s been seen with recently. Still nothing on the two men you saw him with. You sure you can’t tell us more about them?”
I laughed. “I think I gave the cops a hell of a description. The hat, the toothpick, the red hair, heights, approximate weights, builds—what more do they want? A cowboy and a Scotsman. I don’t think it could be more descriptive.”
Phil winced. “That description doesn’t sound good. Let’s say the guy with the hat and the guy with red hair.”
“Fine. Doesn’t the barmaid remember them? Don’t the other patrons who were there that night?”
“She’s local and on Bret’s side, sorta a hostile witness. Can you draw? Can your wife draw?”
“Draw,” I said dryly.
“Yes.” Phil edged out the door. “Drawings of these two suspects would help.”
“My drawing of Binky from a matchbook couldn’t get me into correspondence art school when I was eight, so I seriously doubt my spazoid stick figures would help much. Don’t the police usually have some kind of artist that—”
“Sure, when they believe it’s relevant. This isn’t one of those times. They don’t believe you.”
“Hey, I know I’m from out of town and all, but I’ve got a clean record and—”
He cleared his throat. “Technically you have a clean record.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” My eyes narrowed.
“Seems they spoke to a detective in New York. Wilkens? Watson? He wasn’t helpful to us.”
I gritted my teeth. “Walker!”
“Yup, that’s the guy.” He started drifting back down the hall toward the courtroom. “See if you can draw that picture. I gotta get back into court now.”
Hands on hips, I frowned as I watched him disappear into the throngs of court reporters, witnesses, police, and court functionaries.
Walker. My pestiferous nemesis wouldn’t rest until he caught me red-handed, and even if he didn’t, he was going to enjoy being a hard-ass and making my life difficult. Stupid flatfoot was hanging his hopes for detective sergeant on me, of all people. Okay, so I change a sign now and then. But Machine Gun Kelly I’m not. And he was certainly no Melvin Purvis.
I was fuming as I went down the stairs. Now he had these cops against me too. I’d be damned if I’d let that numskull ruin my life.
Betcha anything there’s a matchbook correspondence school for becoming a detective overnight, but I was still bitter about my failure to accurately depict Binky. Perhaps Walker and the Brattleboro cops didn’t realize it, but letting me know they were more or less working against me meant I had little choice but to at least put myself to work trying to clear me. If nothing else to show Walker he couldn’t bully me.
Would that I had any confidence in my public defender Phil, but I pegged him as a cocktail fork against the Mongol horde: useless. Unless the Mongol horde in question was serving cocktail weenies. Which they weren’t.
What I needed to do was locate those guys, find out why Bret was pals with them. Bret’s mom and maybe the barmaid needed visiting, and I was just the guy who didn’t want to do it.
I tromped down the steps to the parking lot, more exasperated than angry by the time I got back to the car. Angie was gone. In her place was a note:
Sweetums: Rented a car, gone to the coast—I’ll call from there—Stay out of trouble—XXXOOO. P.S.: Don’t be mad. Remember: I owed you one.
“Son of a . . .” I snarled. “Gimcrack!”
Chapter 13
I pulled up to the Fletchers’ modest Cape Cod, which was more a bungalow than a house, two bedrooms tops. The place was so cozy that I surmised Bret was an only child. The phone book listed only Mrs. Fletcher, so I further surmised that Mr. Fletcher was dead. Which figured. Bret had the frantic behavior of a mama’s boy gone haywire. I had a mind’s eyeful of his room already, pennants on the wall, plaid comforter on the bed, gun in the sock drawer.
Yes, there I was, subjected to doing my own legwork to make sure there wasn’t some sort of gross miscarriage of justice on my behalf.
Toggling the rearview mirror in my direction, I tried to corral my hair. What was I going to say? “Hello, Mrs. Fletcher, I’m the guy who chased your kid into traffic?” Watch out for the old lady’s fry pan, Garth! Bong! Maybe I could claim I was an insurance adjuster, or—
“Can I help you?”
She’d snuck up on me from behind, grocery bag on her arm. I knew her immediately. She had Bret’s rosy cheeks, downy complexion, and thin brown hair.
And she suddenly knew who I was too. An excruciating silence followed before I stammered, “Mrs. Fletcher, I want . . . you to know that I, uh, well . . . Bret—I’m very sorry about it.” Her eye glistened, and she reddened a bit more. I clambered out of the car. “I never wanted, intended for this to happen. You see . . .”
Mrs. Fletcher brushed past me like I’d just won a bake-off with her cobbler recipe. I winced, wiped sweat from my brow, and pursued.
“I’m trying to find out who it was in the truck, Mrs. Fletcher, that’s why I came. I thought maybe you knew—”
“I knew,” she tremoloed without stopping.
“What?”
“I knew Bret was with some bad crowd, I knew it,” she sniffled. “Carnies.”
“Carnies? Do you know who?”
“Don’t you think the police have asked me? I don’t know. I should have known, but I didn’t. A mother gets scared of the truth sometimes. For all I know you was one of them. I talked with the police, I talked with the reporter. Go away.” She climbed the three steps to the screen door and yanked the mail from her mail basket.
I was about to lose her and figured I could endure another lashing to get in a good question. But I got ambitious.
“Where did he get the white crow?”
The mail crunched in her fist. Turning slowly from the door, she held up a trembling, bony hand. I took a step back. The look on her face was . . . The eyes looked right through me, like those of some kind of evil centaur.
“The devil himself,” she hissed, “is in that crow.” One of her bony fingers swept past the hedges and flower beds and toward the backyard. Looked like a heck of a storm had done a number on some large trees there, which had been uprooted, their gnarled roots like bony black hands clawing the earth. Sawdust and piles of logs were evidence that a cleanup was in progress. Funny, but none of the neighbors’ trees looked any worse for wear.
“Look at what it did. Burning. I should have burned it,” she spat.
I was too stunned to say anything more as I watched her recede into the dark house and shut the door.
Burning? The devil? Felled trees? Jeez, welcome to New England, home of H. P. Lovecraft. The bloated corpulence of Cthulhu and the boundless demon-sultan Azathoth probably lived in the split-level next door like Ozzie and Harriet. Must be a fearsome sight when they turn out to trim the azaleas.
I smoothed the goose bumps down on my arms and made tracks for the Lincoln. I felt like a heel for bothering the old gal, but she seemed a little far gone anyway. But the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree—Bret was a wacko in his own right.
It wasn’t until I got back to the car that I smacked myself in the forehead. She’d spoken to a reporter. Of course. There would be an obituary.
The Lincoln and I wheeled over to the library, which I’d noticed on my way back and forth from the courthouse. I went to the research desk and asked the tie-dyed kid at the counter for yesterday’s local paper. I took the papers to a nearby table but didn’t find Bret’s obituary.
I went back to the counter. “Do you have today’s paper?”
“Dude over there.” He pointed. “When he’s through.”
I sank into a chair opposite the man behind the paper and waited politely. He merrily bounced one crossed leg and hummed softly, the white of his sock blinking at me from under his slacks.
“Shame,” he said from behind the paper. “Boy that young, hit by a truck. Shame.”
I smelled cloves, and a familiar shiver wriggled up my spine. The man lowered his paper. It was Jim Kim and his happy grin. “Here to read about your handiwork?”
I had so many things I wanted to say, or ask, or do that my circuits locked. I was only able to stab my finger impotently in the direction of my mystery pal, my unknown best friend, my anonymous confidant, my Korean shadow.
“Yes, Garth, his obituary is in today’s paper.” He moved into the chair next to mine, handing over the paper, which was folded to display Bret’s obituary. “I’m finished. And if you don’t mind me saying so”—he patted my forearm like a dear old chum, his voice subdued but no less jocular—“I think you should finish up here. Got your stuff back, didn’t you? Believe me, things are well in hand. Go back to New York, get some decent Chinese food, for Pete’s sake.”
“Who are you? What do you want?” I finally blurted, which got me cross looks from the book-stack shushers.
“It’s me, Jimmy. And I want the same thing you want. Only more.”
“So you’re not going to tell me who you are, is that it?”
“I’ll tell you who I am, Garth. I’m your friend.”
“Look, if you don’t mind me saying so, Jimmy, you’re a very creepy guy. To tell the truth, you—of all the people mixed up in this business—have convinced me I’d have a healthier future if I back away from this thing. But the State of Vermont has different ideas.”
“Creepy?” Kim looked genuinely hurt, stroking his thin mustache. “I never thought of myself as creepy. If it was anybody else, Garth, I’d be offended. And here I am trying to help you extricate yourself from the jam you’re in.”
“Help me? You know what’s going on, right? You can help get me out of this mess?”
“What are the magic words?”
“Okay,” I sighed. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for calling you creepy.”
“That’s okay, Garth. You’re under some stress here.” He slapped my knee. “Look, how about I see what I can do—as a friend—to sort of pave your way south, get the district attorney to see what a good egg you are? You’ll go home then, won’t you? Leave this dirty business to me?”
“You betcha I will. I’ll try.”
“Try?” He tittered.
“This crow is like gum on my shoe. I wipe it off and step right back into it.”
“That’s not entirely true. You didn’t have to go back to Bermuda, now, did you? For a fifty-dollar crow?” He stood and gave his knuckles a self-satisfied crack.
“Scout’s honor, I’ll forget about the crow. You and your friends can have him.”
He smiled, turned to go, but came back and leaned over me. “By the way, Garth, this is just between you and me, okay? You wou
ldn’t want to spoil everything.”
I shook my head. “Believe me, if it means getting out of this and back home, scot-free, I’m your best friend.”
Now, what should I have done?
A. Call the police. (Yeah, right . . .)
B. Call my public defender. (Remember the weenie fork?)
C. Follow him. (Hell, I didn’t even want him following me.)
D. Threaten him. (With what? My disapproval?)
E. Punch him. (I liked this idea a whole lot at the time.)
I still don’t know. As a New Yorker, though, my instincts are not to go to the cops about somebody who may well have influence. In the Big Apple, you don’t rat out someone who can put the fix in to make the traffic cops go easy on your block’s parking tickets or get the postman not to crumple your mail. Cops have their own wiles, their own secret ways and motivations. The way I always figure it, the police are in a really difficult spot, floating in a Bermuda Triangle between the criminals, the public, and the courts, and the whims of either on a given day may set their moral compasses spinning. DAs are all about convictions, so definitely not on my side. Go to pencil-muncher Phil, who’s already doubting me, with a story about a threatening, friendly Korean? Don’t think so. Anyway, I finger Jimmy, or follow, or do anything to irk him . . . Who knows? He could make it worse for me—I could get twenty-five years.
It briefly made sense that he might be in cahoots with Bret’s cohorts, sent here—as before—to steer me away from the crow. But he’d talked about smoothing things over with the DA for me. I just couldn’t fathom how someone with connections like that, someone with political pull, would be involved with those lunkheads who’d stolen my stuffed crow. From the way my preppy Korean friend talked and dressed, he didn’t seem like a confederate of Slim’s. Jimmy wasn’t at the Maple Motor Court bar, and he was definitely too tall and far too composed to be one of the guys who pillaged my apartment. He was slick and would have had pros do his dirty work. Clearly, he had interests of his own. No doubt he wanted the crow for himself, or at least for Bret’s crew to have it.
But why? Whose interests did he represent?
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