As we progressed up Commercial Street I spotted Cassie’s car several blocks ahead of us. Suddenly she pulled over, got out and started down the alley to the Rat. I pulled in behind her and followed her down the alley. Near the door I hitched Fargo to the big old anchor there and gave him sufficient lead on his extension leash to relax in sun or shade—but not enough to follow me inside, which would have been his first thought.
Once in, I sat down at the bar next to Cassie. “How’s the Red Baron today?”
She turned. “Well, howdy, Sherlock. Join me for lunch? I know it’s a little late. I just got back from taking a couple of guys down to Teterboro airport in New Jersey, and I’m starved.”
“No, thanks. I’ll settle for a Bud. Any news from the Pittsburgh pirates?”
“Not yet, and they’d better not take too much longer. I’m already getting bookings. It looks like an early season, thank God. And I’m not going to cancel flights with people I know, to accommodate three lunatics throwing a clambake! Although,” she added wistfully, “it would be a nice piece of change.”
“Well, you’re good at juggling. You’ll manage to fit everybody in, even if you have to fly somebody to Augusta via Pittsburgh.”
“Maine or Georgia?”
“Don’t be a wise-ass!” I grinned.
“Okay. I’m amenable,” she replied. “Tell me, how’s Cindy dealing with this stalker thing. It must be nerve-racking.”
“Dammit!” I set my beer down sharply. “We’ve been breaking our necks to keep this quiet. Even my mom didn’t know about it till an hour ago. How do you know?”
“Hey!” She spread both hands in front of her. “Don’t be so touchy. I’m not about to call the Enquirer. Sonny talked to the shrink at the clinic about the stalker. The shrink hadn’t dealt with many stalkers and thought Lainey might be of some help—she nursed at Bellevue a couple of years before coming back to the Cape, you know—so he called her in on it. Sonny was just trying to get some sort of profile on the guy…in fact I think he mainly wanted some reassurance the man would most likely not turn violent. It won’t be spread all over town. Take it easy.”
“Yeah, sorry. I’m just on edge. Maybe more than Cindy at this point. God, between the stalker and the Orrick workmen, and two pets barking and hissing—I’m beginning to resemble a snapping turtle, and Cindy is worse. In her mind, it seems to be my fault she can’t crowd her entire Catherine the Great wardrobe into the little closet at the cottage. Even that’s a dubious haven nowadays.” I took a long drink of my beer, and didn’t say no when Joe took another off the ice.
Cassie’s lunch arrived. And we sat silently for a few minutes while she knocked off the outer reaches of her hunger. Finally, she put down her fork and spoke.
“You know, a change of scenery wouldn’t hurt you two at all. Now, Nova Scotia is vastly underrated. We were up there last year, stayed in a wonderful B&B. It was originally an inn, owned in the eighteen-fifties by the parents of the woman, Anna, who became famous in The King and I.”
“I thought she was English,” I interrupted.
“So did I, but she was Canadian. And our room itself was once occupied by Oscar Wilde on one of his tours. Two enormous double beds so high there was a little stool beside each one to help you get in and out. And the bathroom was mammoth, with a tub bigger than Lake Erie. I had loads of fun pretending Lainey was a rubber ducky.”
“Should I mention that little game and its source when I tell Cindy about this great vacation place?” I asked seriously.
“I wouldn’t bother. Then we rented a car and drove out to the Acadian forest—the pines and the hemlocks are still murmuring. Then down to Fort Louisburg…we toured the old governor’s mansion and there was a double-banked harpsichord—like an organ. I’d never seen one like it, and luck was with us: some woman happened to be there playing it. It was fabulous!”
“The whole thing sounds fabulous,” I agreed. “But we are not on a fabulous budget at the moment.”
“Yeah, them fancy bathrooms and fountains you’re putting in don’t come free,” she mused. “Well, if you bought the gas, I could run you straight across to Halifax, save you something over an airline flight from Boston…in time and money.”
“You’re a sweetheart, but we couldn’t do that. Not this time of year—you’re too likely to miss a handful of money from real customers.” I finished my beer, put some money on the bar and slid off the stool. “Gotta go rescue Fargo and pick up Wells. I’ve been headed for the cottage since mid-morning and keep making detours. Wells is doubtless on the phone to the SPCA as we speak.”
“Well, think about it. We could make it mid-week, when I’m not as busy. Just let me know.”
“Will do. Thanks for the offer.” I patted her shoulder and left to pick up Fargo.
He was lying in the shade, looking longingly across the alley at a couple of gulls bobbing in the shallow edge-waters of the bay.
As I untied him from the anchor, I noticed two men sitting on the bench nearby. They had been deep in conversation, but quit talking when I came out, and watched me reclaim my dog. The skinny one smiled and nodded; the chubby one scowled at the interruption. So much for fat people always being jolly.
CHAPTER EIGHT
With the motor left running, and Fargo left in the car, I went inside to get Wells, hoping she was not installed under the bed in its geographic center. No, she sat unmoving beside her water dish, giving me an evil look. I checked it, and—mea culpa—it was empty. I checked Fargo’s, two feet away and it was two-thirds full.
“I’m sorry, Lady Astor, that I forgot to fill your crystal water dish. But you could have tried Fargo’s. It all comes from the same spout, so if you are dehydrated it is definitely your own fault.”
She started to walk away, but I scooped her up and headed for the car, dumping her unceremoniously into the backseat, butting a protesting Fargo out of the driver’s seat whence he had moved, and backing rapidly out of the driveway. I felt I was living surrounded by difficult divas…or, I should say, two difficult divas and one prickly baritone.
When we reached the cottage, Wells leaped from the car window and hightailed it up the hill to Aunt Mae’s, where she was assured of her own private water bowl and food dish, both of which would immediately be filled and kept filled. Wells would weigh a good forty pounds if she lived with Aunt Mae. I kept Fargo on lead into the house, wanting to get the tape recorder off his collar before he tested its waterproof-to-one-hundred-feet claim.
That done, I was left in welcome solitude to take some chicken breasts out of the freezer and slop some marinade on them and splash some iced tea into a glass for me, first having lovingly filled both animals’ water bowls. Finally, I left a message on the phone mail of the leading diva, that I was at the cottage and that dinner was under control and I was headed for the deck. I placed tea and tape recorder on the table, turned the recorder to Play and plopped into a chair, my feet propped on the deck railing…and waited…and waited.
After a rather frightening silence, there came the sound of a sort of slurpy clicking noise, which I at last identified as Fargo chewing the final bite of his hot dog. Then a car door slammed nearby and a noisy engine started. Finally, my young couple continued their conversation.
They had at last agreed to leave Provincetown early on Saturday morning, which would put them in Fairfield in time to pick up poor Madison, so he wouldn’t be stuck for the whole weekend in confinement—nor would they have to pay not only for Saturday, but for Sunday as well. That settled, they began to discuss how to spend the evening...she leaning heavily toward the Poly-Cotton Club, he tending toward the Atlantic House.
Abruptly their conversation was interrupted by the overpowering sound of large quantities of paper being forcefully crumpled, with rather flat-tuned bells ringing in the background. What in the hell was that? I didn’t recall any nearby sounds even vaguely resembling those. I stared at the recorder, as if it could explain.
Then Fargo came in from hi
s swim and immediately clarified all. He shook himself, and then began to scratch his neck and collar. If he had been wearing the recorder, sounds would have been magnified by it. His nails rasping on the leather would make the paper noise, and his jingling tags provided the bells. I had a whole new frame of reference to learn.
I smiled, amused at Fargo’s various sound effects. But they did interrupt whatever conversation I was attempting to record, and some day, some conversation might be important and need to be captured in its entirety. Of course, the chewing noise was easily avoided, but the scratching was spontaneous. There must be some solution. I would think of something.
Out of the blue, a woman’s shrill voice with a strong mid-western accent resonated in my ear. I was so startled I almost turned my chair over, jumping to my feet and looking all around for the voice’s owner.
“Well, I’ll tell you, Fred, I am not going to sit all afternoon in a stuffy bar smelling of beer and stale cigars because you didn’t have the good sense to bring comfortable shoes.”
“Pauline, the problem is not my shoes, we must have walked five damn miles a’ready. Just one cold beer won’t hurt either of us. Might even improve your humor. Sure couldn’t hurt it.”
“Well, I’m telling you, Fred, just one and I mean just…”
The voice trailed off about the time I got my breath back and the lovebirds must have entered the Rat. But I am a trained investigator, and I figure out things like this. Obviously, during one of his collar scratches outside the Wharf Rat, Fargo managed to hit the Receive button and catch the touching dialogue between Fred and Pauline, doubtless two of the tourists we are annually so happy to see.
I found myself hoping Fred indeed rested his feet all afternoon with at least three beers, while Pauline plodded ever onward, collecting plastic bag after smiley-faced plastic bag of clever souvenirs and sticky, made-right-before-your-eyes saltwater taffy for the grandkids, the next-door neighbors, Fred’s boss and Cousin Betty, who could never be pleased no matter how you tried.
But my handsome sports watch had still more clever tricks in its plastic case. Next I heard the voice of one of the Blues Brothers—coming or going—stop to pass the time of day with Fargo.
“Hi there, Fargo, won’t they let you in, boy? Now I call that a cryin’ shame. You got better manners than most of the people already in there. Well, you be good, and Alex will be back soon.” Footfalls crunched on the gravel path but I couldn’t determine the direction.
There had been a brief jingle of bells as the Blues Brother scratched Fargo’s chin, and a continuous soft thump throughout the conversation as Fargo’s tail wagged against the old anchor. I was getting pretty good at interpreting the stylish sport watch’s ancillary sounds. And as I thought of it, I shouldn’t have been surprised at Fargo changing the mode of the recorder. The buttons were small and close together. One good swipe with a paw and it could easily go from one function to another.
Still, I was unprepared for the next sound my new techno-toy belched forth across the cottage deck.
“Nice looking dog,” a pleasant male voice remarked.
“Likely to take your hand off,” a grumpy tenor replied.
“I doubt it, but I guess he could. That’s a funny looking collar he’s wearing.”
“It’s one of those electronic ones that keep the dog in his own yard. You know, it beeps real loud in his ear if he goes too near his boundary. Or I guess maybe you wouldn’t know, being a city fella.”
Our tenor sounded condescending. I wondered if these were the two silent men I encountered on my way out of the Wharf Rat. If they were, I’d bet that the tenor was the unfriendly chubby guy.
“Did Frank call?” Mr. Nice Guy asked.
“Yes. He’ll be out in two weeks from today. Says he’s been scoutin’ and has the perfect place. And he says two weeks gives us plenty of time out here to do some scout work on our own—you know—to check schedules, busy times, whether they have a good sized staff, amount and weight of cargo we’ll have. He wants a complete picture,” The tenor finished importantly.
Nice Guy sighed heavily. “Oh, that’s our good old nit-picking Frank. If he had his way there’d be a printed, illustrated book of instructions for every job we do…with a quiz at the end.”
“Has it occurred to you,” the tenor asked sarcastically, “that just possibly that’s why every job we’ve done has been a success?”
Suddenly I knew them…I was sure of it! They had to be Cassie’s Pittsburgh pirates…two of them anyway. One average looking, one rather fat and a missing one named Frank!
“Can it,” Mr. Nice muttered. “Somebody coming out.”
And I heard my own voice asking, “So, big boy, ready for a swim?” Followed by a click. Most likely me hitting the Off button as I gave Fargo a pat and freed him from the anchor. Followed by silence.
My God, I breathed. Maybe Harmon was going to prove right for once! That conversation did not have one reference to seafood, or a benefit lunch and dinner or a veterans group or their brand-new clubhouse back home in dear old East Burnt Elm Tree, Pennsylvania.
Maybe they really were going to meet up with one of our incoming fishing or “tourist” boats and pick up a big load of dope. And they might want to make sure the incoming boat did not carry a large enough crew, so that they had to worry about getting stiffed by them.
With only Cassie and the three passengers, they wouldn’t especially need to know about weight and bulk of the “cargo.” That’s if they were sure of using Cassie’s plane, but what if they were thinking they might have to try and get it all aboard the smaller Cessna? They might well have to leave at least one man behind to drive or fly home commercial. And if they did have to use the Cessna, they’d doubtless need to refuel at least once en route, so they’d want to make sure their cargo looked innocuous.
By damn, Harmon! I think you’ve done it!
But Cassie! Cassie would be a problem to them from the get-go. She would immediately realize that the “cargo” was not packed in coolers. And even if they did put it in coolers as a disguise, they would probably not be met by a refrigerated truck at the cornfield…if, indeed, that was even their destination. My joke to Mom about their flying to Florida—or anyplace else—might well have been more truth than fiction.
And Cassie. She would never accept a payoff. So at whatever obscure landing field they used, the plane would be quickly painted a new color and given fake registration numbers, and Cassie…Cassie would be dead.
CHAPTER NINE
My first thought was to dash back to the Rat. Just possibly they had gone in for a drink or something to eat, and might still be there. But I could hardly hold them there by my great good looks alone. I could yell for help from any local men who were in the bar, but what if someone—anyone—got hurt?
I had no legal right even to try to detain them verbally. They had done nothing wrong that I knew of. They were almost certainly conspiring to traffic in an illegal substance and possibly even to murder, and I had the tape to prove it. But I was not a cop with a badge and pistol allowing me to cuff them and take them in for questioning.
So, call police headquarters and hope Sonny would be there.
He was not.
Nacho said he and Mitch were following some tip they had gotten on the recent hit-and-run, and she did not know when they would be back. She would have him call me. I bit my tongue and thanked her. I did not have the right to ask her to send out cops on my request unless someone was in imminent danger.
Shit. I put the old-fashioned phone back in its cradle on the bedside table and walked back through the kitchen, out onto the deck where Fargo lay contentedly, watching Wells serpentine through the reeds on a critter hunt. I wished my only problem were an empty water dish, with an alternate one at hand.
Damn Sonny! Why did he personally have to follow up the hit-and-run tip? He was the one who talked of how valuable Mitch had become, what a gifted detective he had become.
Surely Mitch could ask
the necessary questions, look at the suspect’s vehicle and decide whether or not to impound it, whether to check any persons who might prove the suspect was or was not the errant driver, whether he or she had been drinking, whether…oh, hell, I wasn’t the one interviewing the suspect.
I dragged the gas grill out from under the shelter of the deck and into a level area of the yard and wiped it down. I washed a couple of potatoes to ready them for the little microwave oven we had bought for the cottage a couple of weeks back. Small though it was, it still took up about a third of the kitchen counter space, making me quite careful as I cut up a salad.
I still loved the cottage, but I was beginning to take its shortcomings seriously. I looked upon them as ongoing irritants rather than laughing at them as part of getting away from the workaday world. And I think Cindy was doing the same thing. She seemed very temperamental these days, and I rather imagine she would have said the same about me.
I hoped we would get back into the real house soon and would find the new bedroom, etc.—I refused to call it the Master Suite—all we had looked forward to. And I hoped we would both survive—both emotionally and financially—the furnishing thereof. One part of me wanted to buy a bed and call it quits for a while on the house, and have Cassie fly us to Halifax, where we would rent a car and get lost for a couple of weeks. But I had the feeling Cindy would either collapse or strangle me if I even suggested that alternative.
And here was my opportunity to find out if I dared. I heard her car…no, I heard two cars. Now what? I hurried to the living room window; it was Sonny and the two of them were looking at something in Aunt Mae’s budding garden. Good, it gave me a chance to get another chicken breast into the micro a minute to thaw it and then into the marinade. I washed another potato and put it with the others. The salad would do for three. Bingo!
Murder Takes to the Hill Page 6