The Poisoned Rose

by Daniel Judson

  Before I could say anything more the line went dead.

  Chapter Seven

  It was just ten when I left the Hansom House. I stopped at a filling station on North Sea Road and bought all the gasoline I could with the change from my pocket. It wasn’t much, but it would be enough to get me to Sag Harbor and back.

  I took the back roads through Noyac, along the rim of Peconic Bay, and made it to Long Beach Road a few minutes before eleven.

  Long Beach was on a strip of land one hundred yards wide and maybe three hundred yards long that ran between Peconic Bay and Sag Harbor Cove. It was here, last November, that Augie and I caught up with the Caddy when that kid Vogler was killed. On the cove side of the road, beach grass grew in clumps, and on the bay side, a small beach marked with white stones and shells ran from a blacktop parking lot to the water.

  I pulled into that lot and killed the motor and lights. The night was stagnant, the surface of the dark water smooth, creaseless. It was as if someone had taken an iron to it. I heard nothing but the steady ringing of crickets and frogs coming from the cove side of the road as I got out of my car.

  Across the lot a woman was standing a few feet from the water’s edge, alone. I walked to her. It took me a minute to reach her. As I walked, I noticed two cars parked side by side on the opposite end of the lot— a small dark blue pickup truck and another beside it. I couldn’t see the second car, so I didn’t know if it was empty or not. But someone was in the pickup, behind the wheel and smoking a cigarette. It was too far off and too dark in that part of the lot for me to see who that someone was. But I was fairly certain I knew.

  I wondered if he was still in possession of both his chrome plated .357 and his sense that all was even between us, whatever that meant.

  The stones and shells that cluttered the beach made sounds under my feet, announcing my approach. The woman was facing the water, but when she heard me coming she turned to look at me.

  She was wearing tan pleated slacks and a white mannish shirt, the cuffs folded over twice. She stood with her hands in her pockets, her chin held up slightly, her shoulders back, like a cadet. Her hair was dark and thick and fell all one length to a blunt cut just past the collar of her shirt. She had an athletic build, a good tan, and offered me a pleasant smile as I approached her. I didn’t recognize her.

  I didn’t really know what to expect, but I knew I hadn’t expected this. She acted as if we were friends getting together for cocktails, not strangers meeting under less than cordial circumstances on a dark beach off a lonely strip of road.

  She stood with ease and poise, smiled warmly at me, and yet she seemed to be waiting for something, watching me closely. Maybe she was waiting for what I would say, as if this would somehow determine how things were going to go for us.

  We were just a few feet apart. I could hear little over the peal of frogs and crickets across the street.

  “You’re Marie?”

  She laughed once, as though from relief. Or maybe it was surprise. But her smile widened even more.

  “Yes,” she said. Her voice was faint and raspy, barely above a whisper.

  “Are you sick?”

  “Laryngitis. From the air conditioning, where I work.”

  I nodded.

  “Thanks for meeting me,” she said.

  I glanced toward the pickup truck. The figure was still behind the wheel. I saw the glow of his cigarette. I looked back at Marie.

  “What is it you want?” I said.

  “If I’m straight with you, will you be straight with me?”

  “It would probably be better for both of us if we were.”

  “Good.”

  “So what is it you want?”

  “I assume you’re working for my brother.” It was an obvious strain for her to talk. Her voice sounded whiskeyed.

  “No. I don’t work for him. I don’t work for anyone.”

  “But you were sent to find me, right? That’s why you were at the cottage last night.”

  “Right.”

  She cocked her head, gesture of curiosity. “But you weren’t sent by my brother.”

  “I don’t know who your brother is. I was sent by a man who was hired by your family. I don’t know who exactly in your family hired him. Maybe it was your brother.”

  She considered all this carefully, then said, “So you don’t know who I am.”

  “Just that your name is Marie Welles.”

  “That’s all you know?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’ve never seen me before?”

  “No. Not that I can remember. Why?”

  “Have you ever heard of my family?”

  “No.”

  She thought about that, then said, “I wanted to meet you because I need to ask a favor of you.”

  I said nothing to that.

  “I know about you,” she said. “I’ve heard about you. I know you’ve helped people before.” She nodded toward the truck. Her voice was giving out but she continued nonetheless. “Our friend over there told me what happened last night, what you did. It was the act of a compassionate man. I’d like to think that a compassionate man is also a reasonable man. I thought if we met face to face that maybe I could appeal to your reason and humanity. I thought maybe between you and me we could maybe work something out.”

  “Like what?”

  “I come from a very powerful family. I don’t know if you know that. I don’t know what you know, how much you’ve been told. My family is dangerous and I no longer want anything to do with them. I’ve decided to start my life over again and I don’t want them, or anyone, to know how to find me. You can understand that, can’t you?”

  I nodded. “From what I understand, they’re worried about you and would like to know that you’re okay.”

  “They’re only worried about themselves. My well-being has never been a concern of theirs. There is nothing…compassionate about my family. I know they’ve probably told you that I’m crazy. But I’m not. They’re crazy, and they’re dangerous, and I want to be free of them once and for all. If that means living my life like a criminal on the run, then that’s what I’ll do.”

  She took a step toward me then. “Do I seem crazy to you?”

  I looked at her eyes. They were clear, steady. Something about them right then seemed familiar. But I ignored that. Finally, I shrugged and said, “No, you don’t.”

  “It’s easy to believe what you hear, isn’t it? They tell you I’m crazy and you have no reason to doubt them. I mean, people believe what they hear about you, right. They believe and they come to you for help, not knowing or caring that you just want to be left alone.”

  I felt uncomfortable suddenly. Marie was watching my face closely.

  “You still haven’t told me what it is you want, Marie.”

  “I’ll live like a criminal if I have to. I’m prepared to do that. But if I don’t have to, if I can find some place where no one knows me, where no one can find me and I can live a relatively normal life, then I’d of course rather that. I don’t deserve to live my life in fear, afraid to leave the house, hiding. No one does.”

  I thought about my life these last few months—these last few years. Hiding from people in need, hiding from Frank Gannon, the Chief, Tina. I thought about this but said nothing.

  “You know how the rich are, Mac,” she said. “You know them as well as I do. You grew up one of them.”

  “How do you know me?” I said quickly.

  “I did my homework, that’s all. People talk out here, you know that. And I know you can’t possibly have any loyalty to my family, since you’ve claimed you don’t even know who they are. They’re just another rich family to you, so you can’t want to help them. Everything I know about you tells me this.”

  She took another step toward me. If I wanted to, I could have reached out and touched her.

  “I want to offer you a deal,” she said. “Do you think you might be interested in that?”

  I watche
d her face closely. Her features seemed somehow unnatural, as if constructed. Now that we were so close I could see, despite the darkness, several thin, intricate scars—old ones, by the look of them. I thought then for some reason of Augie’s face.

  “What kind of deal?” I asked.

  “I want to ask you to tell whoever sent you that you looked but couldn’t find me. I want you to tell them that I moved to New Haven but that no one knows exactly where.”

  “Why New Haven?”

  “I went to Yale. It makes sense that I’d hide in a city I knew well, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m thinking maybe my family will see my living there as a kind of self-imposed exile and decide to leave it at that and not try to find me. Like I said, they’re dangerous and they’re crazy, but they’re also business-minded. Why waste time trying to lock me up if I’ve sent myself away.”

  I wanted to ask her why they wanted to lock her up but didn’t. Instead, I said, “In my experience, people with resources tend to be more than willing to exhaust them. If finding you is that important to them, I can’t imagine they’d see the fact that you’re living across Long Island Sound as that much of an obstacle. They’d hire men to go to New Haven and look for you.”

  “Which means no one will be looking for me here, and that’s all I really want. I don’t want to leave the East End. It’s my home. So all I’d have to do is stay out of sight.”

  “That’s easier said than done.”

  “Scully knows a few things about staying hidden. He can help me.”

  “Who?”

  She paused, as if to consider whether or not she’d just made a mistake by saying his name. “Skull,” she said.

  “That’s him in the pickup.”

  She was uncertain suddenly as to how much she should admit. Finally, she said, “Yeah.”

  “I’d like to talk to him, if I could. I’d like to ask him a few questions about last night.”

  “He says it would probably be for the best if you two avoided each other for the time being.”

  “Why’s that?”

  She shrugged. “I really don’t know.”

  “You said he knows some things about hiding.”

  “He does. He thinks of himself as my protector.”

  “And the dead kid at the cottage. What was he to you?”

  She didn’t answer at first. “His name was Tim Carter,” she said finally. “He took care of me, too. For a while, anyway.”

  “You know that Scully ran out on him without even calling an ambulance. Just left him to die.”

  She nodded. “He told me all about it. He also told me that you tried to save Tim’s life. Did it without even stopping to think about it, which means you are by your nature compassionate.”

  “So you know that we were shot at by someone outside. Someone who just happened to show up the same time I did.”

  “Yes.”

  “Any idea who that someone was?”

  “Tim had enemies.”

  “You and he used to live together, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t seem all that broken up over his murder. Or surprised, for that matter.”

  “We were over a while ago. We meant nothing to each other now. Anyway, what happened to him, he brought it upon himself.”

  This seemed an odd statement—and cold for someone so concerned about compassion.

  “How so?” I said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “How did he bring it upon himself?”

  “He wasn’t anywhere as clever as he thought he was. And for what he had gotten himself into, he needed to be very clever.”

  “What had he gotten himself into?”

  “Let’s just say he was in over his head.”

  “I don’t suppose you want to give me a little more than that.”

  “The less you know, the better it’ll be for you.”

  “And you.”

  She nodded. “And me.”

  “That’s not good enough. I was present at the scene of a murder. I’m going to need more.”

  “Tim was in the drug business,” she said. “Someone was after him for money he owed. Has been for a while.”

  I thought about this, weighing whether or not me having approached the cottage from the front as someone else approached it from the rear could really have been a coincidence.

  What choice did I have but to take her word on this? What would she and her “protector” gain by ever telling anyone I was there? And if Frank Gannon really did value me as much as he said he did, why would he send a man to kill Carter while I was there trying to talk to him? Standing beside him?

  To look for any other possible explanations would be to invite paranoia.

  I’d been at the wrong place at the wrong time. A simple nexus of bad luck—my life was filled with those, no?

  “Are all your friends like those two?” I said finally.

  “What do you mean?”

  “They carried guns, for starters. Carter had a police record. And, according to you, enemies. Scully looks like he might have both. What’s a rich girl from Halsey Neck Lane doing mixed up with guys like that?”

  “What’s a boy from Gin Lane doing hiding from the world above a bar?”

  I said nothing.

  “Staying alive, that’s what I’m doing with guys like that,” she said finally. “I choose my friends carefully. I’ve had to think that way for a while now. If a man can help me keep my brother from getting his hands on me, then I do what I have to do to keep that man around. It’s as simple as that.”

  I looked at her for a long time. She stared back at me.

  So there it was.

  “I can pay you,” she offered. “It wouldn’t be much, but it would be something.”

  “This isn’t about money.”

  “Then what is it about?”

  We both had secrets we wanted to keep. This was clear. It was also clear that she knew things about me—more than most people knew. I thought about what Augie had said months ago, how some secrets break through to the surface while others remain buried, and how random it all seemed.

  Then I remembered his second analogy, that secrets were more like mines waiting to be triggered than treasure waiting to be found.

  I glanced toward the pickup again. The smoker was still behind the wheel, still watching us. Then I looked back at Marie. Suddenly I didn’t much care that I owed Frank. Suddenly all I could think about was the last time he’d sent me to find a woman who did not want to be found.

  More than that, this was family shit—rich family shit. And I didn’t want anything to do with that.

  “Keep your money,” I said.

  “So you’ll help me.”

  I nodded. “It wouldn’t look very good for me if someone happened to spot you any time in the near future. You’ll have to be careful. The man who sent me is crazy and dangerous in his own way. I don’t want him coming back to me and saying someone saw you buying groceries in the IGA. Do you understand?”

  “It’s pretty obvious that our mutual best interests lie in me not being found. My own sense of self-preservation guarantees your preservation. This appears to be one of those few times in life when it just works out like that.”

  “How do you survive?” I asked. “How do you make money?”

  “I waitress, off the books.”

  “Where?”

  “A little place out in—” She caught herself and stopped short. She was looking at me squarely, her hands still deep in the pockets of her slacks, her posture still that of a cadet’s. Her mouth was sealed tightly.

  “You have to be careful of things like that,” I said. “Little slips can lead to trouble, for both of us.”

  “Maybe I’m not as clever as I think I am,” she said.

  “Very few of us are.”

  “So we have a deal?” she pressed. “You’ll do this for me?”

  The sound of the crickets and the fro
gs swelled then, filling up the open night, ringing like countless alarm bells. It was almost deafening.

  “Yeah,” I said. “We have a deal.”

  We shook hands and said goodbye. I returned to my LeMans and drove away from the parking lot. The last I saw of Marie Welles, she was still standing at the water’s edge, watching me go. The pickup was still parked by her vehicle, blocking my view of it. But the driver—the man who called himself Skull—was heading toward her, lighting a new cigarette as he walked.

  I managed to make it back to the Hansom House without running out of gas. I craved my bed deeply, more so than I had ever imagined I could. As I started up the stairs, I thought about what I would tell Frank. After all, I had done what he asked. I had found the woman. The other part of it, the lie I would tell him regarding where she was, I didn’t really care about. The way I saw it, I’d be lying to save a life. Or at least lying to play no part in destroying a life. And I’d be lying to a liar. I anticipated my first good night’s sleep in a long time.

  I had my life back. Tina was out of my place, Augie was home, and my debt to Frank, as far as I was concerned, had been paid. I was even able to convince myself that Tim Carter’s death—still fresh on my mind—would in no way affect me. All I had to worry about now was making a living and staying out of the Chief’s way. Making a living would be the more difficult of the two. Dodging the Chief was going to be easy enough. All I had to do was stay in my apartment whenever I wasn’t working. And right now that didn’t sound all that bad to me.

  It was a little past eleven when I got back. There wasn’t much activity in the bar below; tomorrow was a workday and everybody with a job was at home, enjoying the sleep of the just. I had to be at work by eight. I looked forward to sleeping straight through the night and calling Frank in the morning.

  But it was when I reached the top of the second flight of stairs that I realized at once just how gravely misplaced my optimism was. I froze in the heat of my hallway, dead in my tracks.

  Standing outside my door, waiting for me, was the Chief.

  Chapter Eight

  He was a physically imposing man, tall, long legged, wide through the shoulders. He was in uniform, complete with thick leather belt and gun and tall boots. His hair was thinning, gray, but his face held the ruggedness of an outdoorsman. It was deeply lined, gaunt and grim, colorless now, though I knew his complexion to be usually ruddy. When I was young and he was just a cop, all the children feared him and told wild stories about him. Back then he had reminded me of one of those mountain men from the movies. As I grew he didn’t diminish in size at all. He held his stature, his prominence. I could only assume that today’s children held him in the same regard and spread their own half-truths about him.