“Why here and why in person? Wouldn’t a phone call to a Boston or even a Pittsburgh wholesaler have been easier?”
“Sure.” Cassie laughed. “But this guy Frank loves an excuse to fly and he’s got a nice four-seater Cessna, so they piled in it and headed east. And before you ask, why Ptown…one of the men was here with his wife last summer and had a delicious lobster dinner. Are you getting the picture…three little boys off on a lark.”
An ashtray on the rickety table between us told me I could smoke, so I pulled one out. Cassie lifted it from my fingers, so I pulled out another and lit both. “I thought you were quitting,” I mentioned casually.
“Uh, not really, but my pack is out in the car. I smoke less if I have to take time to go get them. It kind of keeps Lainey off my case.”
And mine were right here, handy. Sometimes I think I supply the entire eastern seaboard of non-smokers, wannabe non-smokers and occasional smokers. I wished I had taken the beer. I wished I had stock in whoever makes Virginia Slims. But I got back to the reason for my visit. “Wasn’t there something about renting your plane, and landing in the dark in an unlit cornfield?”
“My God! What is Harmon spreading around? Yes, Frank wanted to rent the plane and fly it himself. It would be a bit cheaper for them, but I think he really would just like to fly it. He’s licensed for twin engine and checked out in a plane like mine. However, I told him: where my plane goes, I go. They want the seafood to arrive just before or just after dawn, so the cooks can start cooking in the morning and be ready to serve by noon. Frank has his own little grass strip on his farm with limited lights. It’s plenty long enough and nice and smooth, he says. The lighting is more or less adequate, especially with someone on board who knows the approach. For heaven’s sake there’s no mystery about this.”
I took a drag on my cigarette. I was beginning to feel foolish. “So you think it’s all aboveboard? That Frank was being truthful?”
“Alex,” her voice was heavy with patience. “The man is hardly going to ask me to land a plane in some dark, rutted field where I’m going crash and kill him and his two friends, and make chowder out of all his seafood.”
“Yeah, I guess not. Did Officer Hatcher overhear any of this?”
She took another cigarette. “Yes, every word, while he tried to look busy with the tire gauge. He also thought everything sounded legit. We agreed they were all ignorant about seafood—they thought you cook scallops in their shells—but that Frank was knowledgeable about planes. Okay?”
“I reckon. It just sounded kind of funny the way I heard it. When is this great shipment taking place, and where are they getting all that seafood?”
“In about three weeks. They’re going to firm up the date next week so I can lock in my schedule. I gave them the address of Cape End Wholesalers here, and Phil Pino’s phone down in Wellfleet. If he doesn’t have all the scallops they want, I guess he can get them. Satisfied, mother?”
“Just trying to be helpful,” I said, somewhat miffed.
“I know, darlin’, and I love you for it. Seriously, you look tired, Alex. Have you and your lady thought of grabbing a few fun-filled days somewhere before the season really starts?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
I tossed my tea bottle into the recycling bin and went on my way.
At home I buried my hockey T-shirt into my catchall bureau drawer where Cindy never goes and put on a sloganless tan one. Knowing there were no twenty-four hour drinking rules before going to the supermarket tomorrow, I snagged a cold Bud and bid good-day to the departing Orrick Philharmonic as I hit the deck chair for the still-warm rays of sun.
CHAPTER SEVEN
My wardrobe was running thin on clothing to make me look appreciably different when I went out on my patrol to check up on Edgar, and keep an eye out for the stalker as well. Edgar had been in place for nearly a week now, and I didn’t check up all day every day as I had at the beginning. But I did go out once most every day.
He had reported to Sonny as of yesterday that he had spotted no one showing unusual interest in Cindy. I wanted to make sure he was doing all he should before we began to wonder if somehow Cindy had imagined her follower. I found that solution hard to accept, anyway. Cindy is not afraid of men as such. Indeed, she gets along well with most men and likes them, gay or straight.
And she is not imaginative when it comes to fancying rapists under the bed or kidnappers lurking in the shrubbery. Something had frightened her and I had no doubt it was real. We had been careful not to spread word of her problem around. Not even Mom and Aunt Mae knew. I hadn’t even told Cassie, and I certainly hadn’t told Peter and the Wolf…our two good friends who ran a B&B which catered—in every sense of the word—to gay men. Peter’s first name really was Peter, and Wolf’s last name was Wolf—someone coined the sobriquet and it stuck.
So, I needed a new disguise. I had a brilliant thought. I went outdoors and asked one of Orrick’s electricians, who was about my size, if he had an extra pair of coveralls in his van. He allowed as how he did, having picked up his laundry only yesterday.
I asked if I could borrow a pair, assuring him I would have them laundered and back in place tomorrow. Puzzled but agreeable, he went to his van and pulled out a pair with one or two paint spatters, a varnish stain and one knee worn through. Perfect.
Standing in the yard of the courthouse, along with several other idlers, I realized I must have misjudged the height of the coveralls’ owner. Both the legs and arms were too long, and I had to cuff them both twice to get them the length they should be for me. They looked a bit clumsy, but I was sure that, accessorized by old sneakers, white work socks, my Red Sox cap and a pair of wire-frame glasses with clear glass lenses, no one would recognize me.
I lazily watched Cindy disappear into the health food store for some lunch hour shopping, while Edgar sauntered across the street to admire the window décor of The Catch fishing tackle mart. I was taking a sip of my lukewarm soda when peals of girlish laughter drifted across the grass to me.
Looking up, I saw my mother and Aunt Mae, collapsed against each other and pointing at me with great delight. I could cheerfully have strangled them both, but I managed to shake my head and to mouth the words, “I don’t know you.” They looked confused, but at least stopped their sophomoric act, as I walked over to them. I loudly gave them directions on how to get to a restaurant near the Wharf Rat, along with many gestures, and then muttered, “Go to the Rat. I’ll meet you shortly.” Chastened, they hurried away, and I sauntered to my car.
There, I wiggled out of my failed costume, tossing it and my cap and glasses into the backseat and revealing the jeans and shirt I had fortunately worn underneath. I may have looked a little sweaty and disheveled, but at least I was me again—if indeed I had ever been anyone else.
As I approached their table at the Rat, both women looked quite relieved to see me in something like normal garb and began simultaneously to babble apologies for blowing my cover. I had no choice, of course, but to tell them what was going on and why. Over my beer and their white wine and salads, we sorted it all out, apologies were accepted and we all returned to something like normal.
Both women were naturally concerned for Cindy and outraged at whoever was causing her, and peripherally me, such distress. Both my mother and my aunt had been widowed young, but under very different circumstances. Aunt Mae’s husband had died in his late forties of a sudden cerebral hemorrhage. Aunt Mae had never remarried, being unable to find a man she considered even half as wonderful as Uncle Frank had been. She began raising herbs to fill some of the painfully empty time, and became so good at it, she now had a large herb garden and had converted her garage into a small but well-known shop where she sold both dried and potted herbs in season. She had even published two little books on the subject, and actually sold a fair number of them.
Mom’s widowhood came along much more dramatically. My father died when I was twelve and Sonny fourteen, which would have put Mom at about
thirty-seven or -eight. As I remember him, my father was a heavy drinker and not a merry one. Although he never abused any of us physically, he was sarcastic, critical and withdrawn. He hated his job. Although he was good at it, he always left the impression that he was much too intelligent to be manager of the local supermarket and that somehow Mom, Sonny and I had entrapped him there.
The summer that changed our lives for the worse and then for the better, had Provincetown sideswiped by a powerful hurricane. Dad had closed the market early, seen to it that the large glass windows were covered with plywood, that the generator was set up to kick in if—when—the power failed, etc. He then visited his favorite bar and fortified himself and finally came home, angry at the many inconveniences he had suffered already that day.
By then Mom had pulled her car into the garage, and the three of us had dragged the outdoor furniture into the basement and closed any windows, doors and attic vents we could find. We had just gathered all the candles in the house when Dad drove into the yard, obviously and vocally pissed that he had to get out and re-open the garage door in the pouring rain.
The night was a horror. Dad blew a gasket when he found that dinner consisted of do-it-yourself cold sandwiches. Mom was worn out from helping move all the furniture, and making the house as secure as possible; hot food was out of the picture anyway, as the power had long since failed. Dad retired to the den and sat in front of a black TV screen with his scotch.
Mom, Sonny and I sat in the kitchen, listening to sounds we did not realize the house could make and survive. The building that was always so cozy in winter now presented us with chill drafts it had never before allowed to enter. The rain sounded like people throwing rocks at the windows, and we were sure they must break and let the rocks fly in to hurt us. There were unidentified crashes from time to time: Trees? Utility poles? Objects sailing into other objects riding a demon wind? The dark was palpable with no lights in the house or on the street. And the candles provided a few little islands of yellow that brought no comfort.
None of the three of us wanted to go upstairs to bed, so we spent the night at the kitchen table. Sometimes we turned the battery radio on long enough to be told the storm was expected to diminish by a dawn we feared would never come. Sometimes we dozed in the straight chairs, wakening every few minutes as we lost balance. Finally, we put our heads down on the table, having digested all the terror we could hold, and simply became numb.
Daylight finally did come, as it inevitably must, unless it is truly, finally the end of the world. The wind had slackened to a mild gale; the rain was a manageable downpour. We realized we had survived and were overtaken by a silly lethargy that made us giggle at nothing and satisfy our hunger noisily with the stale leftovers of last night’s banquet.
Dad came in from the den where he had slept on the couch, expecting a steaming mug of coffee and a trencherman’s breakfast. He looked with distaste and disdain at our sandwiches with the curling edges and hardening streaks of mayonnaise, at the glasses holding flat soda or smudged with congealing milk. He poured a hefty shot of scotch, added a bit of water from the tap, and sat down, turning on the radio only to curse the announcer who warned of flooding in low areas and downed wires which could still kill.
Finishing his drink, he declared he must get to work and see what damage the store had sustained. He didn’t question what his house or his family might have sustained. Sonny informed him that a large branch from our neighbor’s tree blocked our driveway.
Dad told him to put on a coat and help him move it. Mom said that it could have live wires tangled in it and that Sonny wasn’t going anywhere near it. Sonny looked relieved. Dad shrugged and said she’d turn her son into a fairy yet at the rate she was going, grabbed his slicker and went out to drag the branch aside.
The radio announcer had been right.
We were now a family of three with no breadwinner. Mom got a job, Sonny and I helped as and when we could. There may have been additional aid from Aunt Mae and our grandmother— I never knew. I did know that, financially strapped or not, we were more lighthearted and content than we had ever been. Eventually Mom got promoted, first Sonny and then I became independent…and everyone’s checkbook now looked reasonably healthy.
Over the years, Mom had several invitations to marriage that I knew of. She turned them down gently but firmly. Now—it still seems strange to use these words in reference to my mother—she is in the midst of a very successful affair with an actor several years her junior. She had met Noel Fortnum when he was appearing in a play here last summer and they were immediately attracted. Neither seems especially interested in marriage, but they obviously care deeply for each other. At first I thought the long-distance relationship might not work. Now I think perhaps the distance makes it work better. All that really matters to me is—Mom is happy.
Aunt Mae looked at her watch, caught Joe’s eye and made a “check” motion with her hand and said, “Jeanne, we’d best stir ourselves. Being late will just make it drag on longer.”
“What’s dragging on?” I asked.
“The bi-monthly meeting of the Ladies’ Altar Guild,” Mom answered for her. “I’m chairwoman this year, so I guess they can’t start without me, but I do hate being late. It just makes it look as if you consider your time more valuable than anyone else’s. Now listen, you two girls be careful and call either of us if you want some extra company. Any time.”
I waited till they were safely out the door before ordering another beer and lunch…and then canceling both. I decided to go home and take the furry ones to the cottage so they, too, could have some peace. I’d call Cindy later and tell her where I was.
Ordinarily I don’t fall for advertising gimmicks. A gizmo that usually sells for a hundred dollars, but is available right now for nineteen ninety-five doesn’t snare me. Telling me that if I order this very minute, you will send me two gizmos for the price of one doesn’t have me running for the phone. Advising me that the gizmo is guaranteed for life leaves me unimpressed, for the simple reason I have never been able to figure out whose life they mean. The announcer’s? Mine? The manufacturer’s? The gizmo’s? The TV station’s? And exactly what constitutes life in this circumstance?
But about three weeks ago, I was trying to ignore the Orrick Concerto and turned on the telly. The movie I got must surely have been a loser even in 1950 and was no better some sixty years later, but in desperation, I left it on.
One of the commercials that seemed to pop up about every five minutes, advertised a sound-activated long-range mini tape recorder which you wore on your wrist, like a handsome sports watch, and batteries were even included. It was valued at more than twice what they were charging for it and—yes—if I called now, they’d send me two…both guaranteed for life!
I figured it might come in handy in my work at some time. I saw no need of two, but figured I’d give the extra one to Sonny, who might also find it useful. I went briskly to the phone and placed my order and promptly forgot about it.
Today, when I took the mail from the mailbox, it included a small carton with a generic company return address, and I had to go in the house and open the damn thing before I remembered what it was. The printed instructions and lifetime warranty, written in elegant script, reminded me what I had ordered. And made me wonder what in the name of heaven I had been thinking of.
A handsome sports watch it definitely was not. It was bulky as hell and looked more like one of those ankle bracelets some unfortunate people have to wear to prove to the police they really are at home.
Wondering if it worked as well as it looked, I followed the instructions to get it ready for action, backed off about eight feet and spoke a few words at my natural volume. I rewound the tape and hit the Play button. And I heard my voice, a bit scratchy and tinny, but easily understandable say, “Hi there! I’m about to rob the jewelry store. Want anything?”
I was pleasantly surprised with my new techno-toy. Only the looks of the thing disappointed me. It w
as about as inconspicuous as walking around with a grenade on your wrist. I’d have to think of some other way to carry it.
At this point, Fargo pushed the carton off the table, checking to see if it contained food. And I got my bright idea.
Scrabbling in the kitchen junk drawer, I pulled out a roll of tape. Then I took Fargo’s collar off, taped the recorder to it and returned it to his neck. He didn’t like it. He shook his head, then he rubbed his neck along the carpet, next he tried scratching it and finally he sat and looked at me accusingly.
I petted him and told him it wouldn’t be for long. Actually I was dying to try my gizmo out in an area with background noise and various people talking. I promised him a hot dog and his ears went up. I apologized to Wells and promised her the cottage later and dragged Fargo out the door.
After parking downtown on McMillan Wharf, I walked Fargo, still stretching his neck from time to time, over to one of the hot dog stands.
A smiling face appeared at the service window. “Hi, Alex. Good afternoon, Fargo. What will it be?”
“And a good afternoon to you, Ginny. A plain hotdog for my furry friend and one with mustard and relish for me, plus a coffee, please.”
Minutes later the order appeared on a little cardboard tray, with Fargo’s hot dog neatly cut into bite-size pieces and a small bowl of water beside it. Service was first-class here if you were Fargo.
I looked around the area, deciding which of the benches in the grassy strip along the edge of the concrete wharf to choose. Finally I spotted a bench about ten feet from a young couple just starting their own lunch and walked over to it. Placing Fargo’s meal and water on the ground, I put the gizmo on Receive and addressed my own hot dog.
I couldn’t quite hear their conversation…something about whether to go home tomorrow or the next day…something about a place that was closed on Saturday. I wondered if the gizmo was getting any of this. The couple soon left, and we were not far behind. I decided to wait until we got home to see how the recorder had worked. I turned it off and let Fargo into the car.
Murder Takes to the Hill Page 5