“I wouldn’t beat yourself up too much, Mrs. Gustafson. Thinking isn’t something that any of us do particularly well at that age.”
“You’re kind to say that. And, please, it’s Vicki. And may I call you Alton?”
“Of course. When did you reconcile with your cousin?”
“Not for a long time. After he came back from his second tour, when he won the medal, we hardly spoke, even though I had rethought some of my positions. I tried to mend fences. But he wasn’t interested. I don’t think it was because of anything I’d done. He wasn’t rude or anything. I think his second tour changed him. He’d seen too much. He just up and left. Dropped off some stuff at my place — I was living in an apartment by then — and said he might send for it. He never did, so I put it in a trunk. Sill have it. It’s up in the attic.” She smiled. “Otto isn’t the only pack rat around here. I don’t like to throw things out.”
“What kind of stuff?”
“Army stuff. It was all jumbled up in a box. I didn’t even go through it until a couple of years ago. That’s when I found his medals and ribbons and things, and thought I’d do something with them. I put those in that little case over there I bought at a flea market. I showed it to him when he came by on one of his visits. Asked him if he wanted it. He told me that for all he cared it all could go back up in the attic. But he wasn’t mad or anything. I think he was actually touched. But I put the display in a drawer whenever he came over. Otto wanted me to sell them, especially the big one, but I said that wouldn’t be right. Otto is always looking to make a buck.”
“I think it may be illegal to sell a Medal of Honor.”
“Wouldn’t stop Otto. Anyway, I guess I’ve come a long way from my Woodstock days. Come in here and see Johnny’s medals and flag from his funeral and you’d think I was a Gold Star mother, not just a cousin who felt badly about how I treated him when he came home from Vietnam.”
“When was the last time you saw John?”
She thought a moment.
“About a year and a half ago.” She looked over at the sideboard. “That’s when that picture was taken. After some sort of church function. I’d gotten him going to Sunday mass with me when he was around. He was planning to come up again a few weeks ago, but then he was killed. I spoke to him on the phone. I think he was going to bring up his lady friend. Joan. I met her at the funeral. I think he was quite fond of her. I almost felt badly about getting the flag from his casket, and not her, but I’m family. Have you met her? Wanted to know all about John and what he was like growing up. Said he never spoke to her about the war and wondered if he ever opened up about it with me. Of course, he never really did. Only thing he ever told me was that he hated officers and was always getting into trouble, which was why he was never promoted. Of course, after he got the medal, they wanted to make him a sergeant or something, but he left the Army.”
I had wondered why a man with two tours was still a Specialist 4th Class. Panetta had probably been a hard case, some of whom make the best soldiers in a crunch. I thought of Vernon Maples. A man you wouldn’t turn your back on, except in combat when you wanted him watching your back.
“You probably should speak to Joan,” Vicki said. “Nice woman.”
“I already have. You said you had other material about John’s service still in the attic. Do you think I could see it?”
“I don’t see why not. If the squirrels haven’t gotten to it. Ever have squirrels in your house? Pain in the rear to get rid of. That’s one thing Otto is good at, I’ll give him that.” She laughed. “But if I have to choose, I’ll take the squirrels.”
She got up.
“I’ll go see if I can find the trunk. Please, have another muffin.”
I heard the screen door behind me open and then slam shut.
“Whore you?”
I turned to see a man holding a single-barrel shotgun. I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I presumed he’d said, “Who are you?” The shotgun wasn’t pointed at me. But he held it in the crook of his arm like he knew how to use it. It was a 12-gauge. Even someone who doesn’t know how to use such a cannon can do a lot of damage.
“Name is Rhode,” I said. I didn’t stand. As long as the shotgun remained pointed in the general direction of the floor, I wasn’t going to make a move to my own gun. I’d see how it played out. “I came out to talk to Victoria.”
“Victoria, huh? What are doin’ on my property?” He looked at the woman. “This your latest, Vicki? Kind of young, ain’t he?”
“Otto, behave yourself,” she said. “And don’t be crude. I haven’t had a ‘latest’ in years. And this isn’t your property, anymore. I got it in the divorce.”
“Well, it’s still my stuff outside there.”
“And I wish you’d get all that crap out of the yard. Nobody is going to buy this place with it looking like a junkyard.”
“I don’t want you to sell. This was our home, damn it!”
Somehow I had gotten myself into the middle of a domestic dispute. I knew how that usually worked out. Now, I stood up, figuring I’d be able to draw my gun faster, if it came to that. I kept my eye on the shotgun. If Otto made a move, I was ready. He was a tall, rangy man with sideburns and a three-day growth of beard. He was wearing overalls and a work shirt, with a tan hunter’s cap that matched his boots. Otto might have been a pain in the ass, and many years my senior, but he looked capable enough and I wasn’t about to underestimate him.
Vicki sighed.
“Let’s talk about that later. Mr. Rhode is a detective from New York. He’s looking into some things about Gunner’s death.”
Otto looked at me.
“Vicki, I want to talk about it now,” he said. But he put the gun down, leaning it against a chair. “It’s important.” There was a pleading tone in his voice.
I could see that she was torn.
“It’s all right,” I said. “I’ll come back later. Maybe you can get those photos out of the attic.”
She smiled in gratitude.
“I have to go to Albany tomorrow morning for some continuing education classes and a teachers’ conference,” she said. “I’m staying overnight. I should be back by noon on Sunday. Will that be all right? Will you still be here?”
“I’ll stick around.” I gave her my card. “Just call me and I’ll come over.”
Otto walked me out on the porch.
“Isn’t a 12-gauge overkill for squirrels?”
“What are you talking about? Oh, Vicki told you about them. Nah. I trap them. The shotgun’s loaded with deer slugs. Don’t like to use a rifle too close to town.”
“I didn’t think it was deer season.”
“It ain’t. Now, why are you bothering my wife about Gunner?”
I didn’t correct him about his marital status.
“That’s confidential. Did you know him?”
“Sure. He was a good guy. We got along. I liked it when he came around. Made Vicki happy. And we’d go out for a couple of belts at the VFW hall. Neither of us were members, but everyone knew who he was and, hell, we just about always drank for free.”
“He ever talk about the war with you?”
“Nah.”
“He ever mention he had any problems up here with anyone? Someone who might have held a grudge?”
He thought about it.
“Nah. Gunner had mellowed. We mostly talked hunting and fishing. Guy stuff. Old times, you know.”
“You knew him before he went to Vietnam?”
“No. But we were about the same age, so we knew some of the same people. It’s a small town. He left before I got drafted. He had it a lot rougher than me. I never left the States. Wound up in the quartermaster corps at Fort Lee, in Virginia.”
“Where’s the VFW?”
I thought the post might be worth a visit. Panetta might have opened up to some veterans, or the bartender.
“Block or two past the Salina Street bridge on the river. Sometimes me and Gunner would take a boat u
p there and dock right at the post. Rather than drive home shit-faced, if you know what I mean. Cops around here can be a pain in the ass, but they don’t patrol the Salmon.” He laughed. “Course, we almost sunk a couple of times.”
“Anyone else from the old days that he kept in touch with?”
“Not that I know of. Vicki might know. You might ask her.”
“I was about to, when you showed up.”
“Sorry, about that, inside” he said. “I get kind of crazy around Vicki. Never shoulda married an Eye-talian. Shoulda stuck to my own kind, a square head. But she got into my blood, you know?”
I couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so I gave him my card and told him to call me if he remembered anything else. Then I left.
I was hungry. Vicki’s blueberry muffin, good as it was, hadn’t put the slightest dent in my appetite. Two might have, but Otto and his shotgun had stopped me from having another. I got into my car and pulled out one of the brochures I’d picked up at the Chamber of Commerce. In it was a large ad for “The Riverfront” restaurant in Pulaski, which claimed to have “the freshest seafood and best steaks on Lake Ontario.” How could I go wrong? I plugged the address into my GPS and headed into town, visions of broiled salmon or steelhead trout swimming in my head. A half hour later I was seated at a nice table overlooking Lake Ontario, a martini in one hand and a massive menu in the other.
That’s when reality set in. The seafood special of the day was mahi-mahi. I called my waiter over.
“Mahi-mahi is the freshest seafood you have? What about salmon or trout. Or, maybe, a nice largemouth bass?”
“I’m sorry, sir. None of the restaurants around here serve local fish.”
“But mahi-mahi is dolphin. The name is Hawaiian. Hawaii is about 4,500 miles from here.”
“I believe we source our mahi-mahi from Florida, sir. It’s not a mammal, you know. Dolphin is also the name of a fish, in case you are worried.”
“I know damn well you’re not serving Flipper! But I’ll also be dammed if I’ll eat fish on Lake Ontario if it has to get here by air. I mean, you advertise ‘the freshest seafood’ on the lake.”
“And it is,” the waiter said. “It comes from the ocean. See that water out there. It’s Lake Ontario. We don’t advertise the freshest lake fish. That would be misleading.”
He said it with such a rural smugness that I wished I had one of John Panetta’s machine guns.
“The baked haddock is excellent, sir, as are the broiled South African lobster tails.”
He knew he made a mistake when he brought up another continent. I gave up on the “seafood.” His next recommendation might be from another planet.
“Bring me another martini, please.”
In the end, I had a prime rib.
CHAPTER 16– THE CHIEF
I woke up the next morning to pounding at my door. I told whoever it was to hold the horses and threw on a pair of pants. I looked through the peep hole. A young cop was standing outside.
“Chief wants to see you,” he said when I opened the door.
He was a good-looking kid. A patrol car was parked sideways behind my car.
“Why?”
He gave me a just-following-orders shrug.
“Chief of what?”
“Selkirk Police Department.”
“Where’s the station.”
“Block before the lighthouse. Why?”
“Tell him I’ll be there in a half hour. I want to take a shower.”
“I’m supposed to bring you.”
“Am I under arrest?”
“No.”
“Then I’m driving my own car there. If you want to wait, I’ll follow you.”
He hesitated.
“That going to be a problem?”
“No. I’ll wait.”
“I should warn you, I’m going to stop for coffee.”
“We have coffee.”
I looked at him.
“There’s a place just before we get to the station,” he said, with a small grin. “Mom and Pop. They know how to make real coffee.”
“How do you take yours?”
“Milk, two sugars. Chief likes it black. He uses Splenda, but we have a lot of that crap in the office.”
He walked back to his car and I closed the door. Twenty minutes later I followed him out of the motel. After a few miles he pulled into a small country store. I went in and got three large coffees. They didn’t have any donuts but I got a half dozen bear claws, still warm. When in Rome.
I didn’t know what the Chief wanted me for, but I played it safe. By the time we got to the station, there were only five bear claws left in the bag. I followed the young cop into the building, a one-story brick affair. A woman civilian behind a counter smiled at him. There was another cop sitting behind a desk working on a computer. He didn’t bother to look up.
“Follow me,” my cop said.
I held up the two bags I was holding. He smiled.
“Bear claws?”
I saw the other cop look up. I nodded.
“Leave the claws and my coffee with Sally.”
I did and he took me to the back of the station to an office. The door was closed. A plaque next to it said: “CHIEF OF POLICE, Vito F. Rizzuto.” He knocked and opened the door.
“Here’s the private eye, Chief.”
He stepped aside and I went in. He left, shutting the door behind me.
The man who glowered at me from behind a big metal desk was a lot older than I expected. He had a fleshy face and an oversize red-veined nose that comes from a hard-liquor life. His hair was white and cut short. He wore his tan uniform badly, the bottom portion of his Sam Browne belt digging into an ample gut. A holster with a pearl-handled revolver hung from a coat rack against the wall behind him.
“Lemme see your I.D.”
I put two containers of coffee on his desk and handed over my license and my card identifying me as a consultant to the N.Y.P.D.
“Thought you might want some coffee.”
He looked annoyed.
“Where’s it from?”
I told him. He grunted and took the coffee. Didn’t say thanks.
“Brought some bear claws there, too. Left them with your deputy.”
He picked up his phone and punched a button.
“Save me a claw,” he growled, then put the phone down and looked at me. He reached into his top drawer and took out some little yellow packets and emptied their content into his coffee. I love fat people who try to keep their caloric intake below 4,000 by using artificial sweeteners. He drank some coffee. “This doesn’t make us pals, pal. What are you doing in my town?”
I was pretty sure he already knew the answer. There was one chair in front of his desk. I sat. That annoyed him some more.
“I hear you have the best bear claws in upstate New York.”
He ignored me and scanned my I.D. He held up the consultant card.
“Whose dick did you suck to get this? Doesn’t mean jackshit to me. You carrying a piece?”
I opened my jacket.
“Got a license for that?”
“Yeah. And the bullets, too.”
“Lemme see.”
I knew I was in trouble the moment I saw the Sam Browne belt and the pearl-handled revolver. There may be nothing more dangerous than a small-town police chief who thinks he’s George Patton. Although I don’t think Patton wore a Sam Browne. That might have been Pershing. I dug out my permit and flipped it on his desk.
“Anybody in your family play shortstop for the Yankees, Chief?”
He threw all my I.D. back across the desk.
“I hate the fuckin’ Yankees. I’m a Red Sox fan. Now, I asked you a question, and I want an answer. Why are you bothering Vicki Gustafson?”
“I wasn’t aware I was bothering her,” I said, sipping my coffee. “She even invited me back.” I looked at my watch. “Look, Chief, you’re not my only fan. If you want an autograph, fine. But I’ve got places to go, p
eople to see. Can we wrap this up, whatever this is?”
“I got a right to know what’s going on around here.”
“Actually, you don’t. You have the right to ask me what I’m up to. And I have the right to tell you to suck farts. But since you are a cop, and I used to be one, if you ask me politely maybe I’ll tell you. I was going to ask the cops in Pulaski for some info, and I have no problem having a nice conversation with you boys in Selkirk, as well, but if you piss me off I’ll just leave and take my bear claws with me.”
His neck reddened and he gave me what he probably thought was a killer stare. I stared back and smiled. There was no way I was going to be out-glared by someone who used Splenda. Finally, he looked away, using a sip of coffee to cover his capitulation in the staring contest.
“OK,” he said finally. “Maybe I came on too strong. So, now I’m askin’ nice. What’s goin’ on?”
I decided that I might have to use the bear claw threat more often. I also decided that there was no harm in having the local gendarmes on my side. Hell, he might even know something useful. So, I told him what I was doing.
“What makes you think Panetta wasn’t killed by a robber? I read about the case, him being a local boy and all. Made some calls down there. I thought they had D.N.A. evidence. A spook.”
I was running out of variations of the lie I’d been telling. Rizzuto might be dim, but he was still a cop. I certainly couldn’t tell him that the killer had confessed to me and I was looking for the people that hired him.
“I didn’t say it wasn’t a robber. Probably is. But the D.A. has zilch and is under a lot of pressure to solve this thing. It’s a long shot, but he doesn’t want any surprises. He wouldn’t send someone up here, officially, on what’s probably a wild-goose chase. But I owe him some favors, like that card I showed you. So, here I am. Who knows? Maybe it’s someone from his past who happens to be black.”
GUNNER (ALTON RHODE MYSTERIES Book 5) Page 11