The Cold Blue Blood: A Berger and Mitry Mystery

by David Handler

  Dolly, who was drinking martinis, seemed as giddy as a little girl on roller-skates. Bud Havenhurst was downright jolly, too. It was Bud who tended the bar, which was set up on a sideboard in the study, complete with ice bucket and tongs. It was Bud who made the introductions.

  The first islander Mitch met was Bud’s tall, young tennis-playing wife, Mandy. Mitch found her to be even more striking upon close encounter. Mandy Havenhurst had long, creamy blond hair, big blue eyes, lusciously plump lips and a dazzling smile. Her short, sleeveless white linen dress handsomely offset her tanned, toned arms and legs. She was not fashion-model pretty. Her jaw was a shade mannish, her nose rather broad and flat. But she was a very attractive woman, and certainly no older than thirty.

  Her handshake was firm, her manner direct. “You’re the heavy metal guitarist?”

  “Blues, actually. Just loud.”

  “And you have a place in New York?”

  “Yes, I do,” he replied, sipping his Bushmill on the rocks.

  “So do we. Nothing fancy—just a little pied-à-terre.” She spoke in rushed bursts and didn’t move her mouth when she talked. “I’d be lost without it. I spend as much time there as I can. The city is so alive. But I don’t have to tell you that. I read your reviews regularly. I almost never agree with you. But you write so well.”

  “Thank you, I think …” Mitch was already sorry he had come. He was out of practice. He felt tongue-tied and awkward.

  Or maybe it was just that there was something so decidedly MGM Technicolor about the whole scene. The ice bucket and tongs. The Dave Brubeck album tinkling softly in the background. The vast assortment of retro hors d’œuvres that Dolly had prepared—pigs in a blanket, chicken livers wrapped in bacon, miniature egg rolls. Mitch half-expected Gig Young to come tottering through the doorway in a plaid vest, hiccoughing discreetly.

  But it was Redfield and Bitsy Peck who arrived next. Dolly’s older brother did not resemble her in the least. He was a darkly colored, craggy-faced man with a massive head, barrel chest and uncommonly short legs. His trouser size, Mitch reflected, must have been 36-20. And, unlike Dolly, he was extremely reserved.

  “You’re the heavy metal guitarist?” he asked Mitch, his voice a mild murmur.

  “Blues, actually. Just loud.”

  “Do you gun, Mitch?”

  “Do I what?”

  “Gun. Hunt. Do you hunt?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Too bad. Have to thin out the deer periodically or they take over the whole island. Can never get anyone to help me.” Red Peck then wandered over to the window and sipped his drink, gazing out at the Sound. He was, seemingly, out of conversation.

  Bitsy was warm and bustling and full of enthusiasm. It was she who explained to Mitch why her husband was gone so much—Red was a pilot for United, specializing in the New York to Tokyo route. She also told him that they had two children, a son who was finishing up his sophomore year at Duke and a daughter, a dancer, who lived in San Francisco. Bitsy was a short, round, snub-nosed woman with freckles and light brown hair that she wore in a page-boy. She had on a denim jumper, a turtleneck, tights and garden clogs. She was friendly and motherly.

  And she and Dolly appeared to be soulmates. They immediately started burbling away about each other’s flowers, Dolly coming up for air just long enough to mention that she had to take more things out of the oven. Mitch asked her if she needed any help. She allowed as how she did. And so he joined the two of them in the kitchen, where they immediately lit into Mandy’s outfit.

  “If the poor dear’s going to wear her dresses that short,” observed Dolly, “then she should really do something about the backs of her thighs, don’t you think?”

  “I do,” Bitsy concurred. “She’s not sixteen. Then again, maybe men don’t notice or mind the pronounced wattling. Do they, Mitch?”

  “She’s a good-looking woman.”

  “Well, if you’re going to spout baloney like that you can go back to the study with the men,” Bitsy said merrily.

  “Mitch is planning to revive Niles’s vegetable garden,” Dolly informed her as she slid a sheet of egg rolls out of the oven.

  Bitsy let out a squeal of delight. “Outstanding! I can get you started whenever you’re ready, Mitch. I have dried chicken manure. I have bunny dung. I have the hugest compost pile in the state. They call me the Compost Lady. You’re welcome to as many wheelbarrow-loads as you can handle!”

  “That’s very nice of you.”

  “Now tell me what you want to plant,” she commanded him.

  “I was thinking about tomatoes.”

  “Oh, excellent!” she exclaimed. “I am doing several heirlooms this year, but I also have Sweet One Millions and a few early disease-resistant varieties. Your timing is perfect. The soil temperature is ideal. And if you move fast you can still get your cukes in. I have a whole forest of lettuce you can have, too. The season’s running a bit late this year.” She paused to sample an egg roll, nibbling at it delicately. “Tell me, did your wife garden?”

  A sudden tidal wave of emotion came crashing over Mitch. His Adam’s apple seemed to double in size, eyes stung, chest tightened. It still happened to him sometimes when Maisie came up unexpectedly. “Yes …” he responded hoarsely. “Yes, she did.” Then he excused himself and fled for the powder room.

  Only there wasn’t one. No bathroom downstairs, period. He finally found one at the top of the stairs. It was the master bath, complete with claw-footed tub and festive wallpaper featuring horseless carriages and men wearing goggles and long duffel coats. Mitch rinsed his face and gazed at his reflection in the mirror, breathing in and out. His eye strayed over to a cluster of prescription pill bottles on the top shelf of a white wicker unit next to the sink. It was, he observed, a full-fledged dispensary of mother’s little helpers. Dolly Seymour had prescriptions for Prozac, for Valium and for Vicodin, also known as housewife’s heroin. Dolly also had a prescription for lithium, which was serious medicine for serious manic-depression. This was, Mitch reflected, one hurting lady. There was a bottle of Relafen, an anti-inflammatory, that was in Niles Seymour’s name. Also a bottle of Urispas, a prostate medication. The man had left his pills behind when he flew the coop. And Dolly had kept them. Mitch found this mildly curious.

  Mandy Havenhurst was seated on the stairs when he came back down, blocking his way. Her skirt was hiked up very invitingly on her thighs. From where Mitch was standing, there was not a thing wrong with them.

  “You didn’t have children?” she asked, tossing her long blond hair at him provocatively.

  “No, we didn’t.” Mitch was trapped there on the steps. He couldn’t go around her. He couldn’t go over her. He sat down on a step above her and said, “We weren’t ready.”

  “I’m so ready I could bust. I’d like to have at least two. Maybe three. But Bud keeps saying he’s too old to be a father all over again.”

  Mitch nodded, wondering why she was telling a complete stranger this.

  “I’m in the city a lot,” she went on. “We should go to a museum together or something. I know nobody. And Bud will never go in. He’s afraid of New York, I think. He grew up out here. Everyone he knows he’s known since childhood. I can’t imagine that, can you? Knowing all the same people your whole life?”

  “No, I can’t.”

  “Don’t get me wrong—I love it here. But it can be so insulated. I’d go stir-crazy if I had to be out here full-time.” She hesitated, glancing up at him through her long eyelashes. “What I mean is, it’s nice to meet up with someone who’s real.”

  “Thank you,” he said, suddenly aware that they were not alone.

  Bud Havenhurst was hovering in the doorway, jealously watching the two of them. Dolly’s ex-husband was positively coiled with tension, his eyes agleam. He reminded Mitch of Claude Rains in Notorious any time Ingrid Bergman got near Cary Grant. Clearly, Bud could not believe that this lovely blond trophy was his. Clearly, he did believe that every other ma
n wanted her as much as he did. Did Mandy encourage this belief by being just a bit too attentive toward younger, available men? Mitch wondered. Because they did seem to be playing some kind of a game. She was staring right back at her husband now, her chin raised, a look of brazen challenge on her face.

  I do not want to get mixed up in this, Mitch said to himself.

  “Freshen your drink, Mitch?” Bud asked him tightly.

  Mandy had to let him pass now. He joined Bud in the study. There was a love seat and a pair of matching armchairs in there. Also a desk with a computer and printer on it.

  “I wanted you to know, Mitch, just how great I think it is to have some new blood out here,” the lawyer said as he mixed his drink. He sounded very edgy. And he was gripping the glass so tightly Mitch thought it might shatter in his hand. “I hope you didn’t think I was being rude to you the day you came to my office. I’m just very protective of Dolly. We all are. Niles Seymour put her through hell.” He handed Mitch his refilled glass, peering at him carefully. “Fine girl, Mandy, don’t you think?”

  “She seems very nice.”

  “I’m a lucky man,” Bud acknowledged, beaming. “There are some mornings when I wake up … Hey, boy, I can’t believe how happy I am.”

  Mitch heard jovial voices coming from the entry hall now. Young Evan had arrived with his companion, Jamie. Evan was in his mid-twenties, tall and slender and tanned, with wavy black hair and Dolly’s delicate features and blue eyes. He wore a gauzy shirt unbuttoned to his stomach, jeans and leather sandals. Jamie was about fifty, trimly built and fashionably turned out in a blue blazer, yellow Sea Island cotton shirt and white slacks. Mitch was positive he looked familiar, but he couldn’t place him.

  “So you’re the heavy metal metal guitarist,” Jamie exclaimed, pumping Mitch’s hand.

  “Blues, actually. Just loud. I guess I’ll have to amp down.”

  “Not on our account,” Evan assured him.

  Jamie nodded in agreement. “‘To each his own, said the old woman as she French-kissed the cow.’ An old expression of my dear mom’s, slightly embellished by myself. Welcome to B.S., Mitch. I’m a huge fan of your work. For one thing, you actually know what you’re talking about—which is shockingly unusual. And you are not personal or mean. So many critics these days just want to land a zinger. They don’t realize how much words can hurt.”

  “Sure they do,” Mitch countered. “That’s why they do it.”

  “You’ll have to come see our lighthouse,” said Evan. “It’s way cool. Second tallest on the Southern New England Coast. The Block Island Lighthouse is taller by ten feet.”

  “I’d love to. Is it used for anything anymore?”

  “Absolutely,” Jamie replied cheerfully. “It’s a great place to get high.”

  Now it clicked—it was the drug reference that did it. “I just realized something,” Mitch said. “You’re Jamie Devers.”

  “It’s true,” Jamie confessed, smiling. “I was.”

  Better known to the world as Bucky Stevens, the resident little cute kid on Just Blame Bucky, which ranked as one of the classic fifties family sitcoms, right up there with Father Knows Best, Leave It to Beaver and The Donna Reed Show. In his heyday, Jamie Devers had been one of the biggest stars on television, a round-faced little munchkin with freckles and a cowlick and an amusingly adenoidal way of saying, “I didn’t dood it.” But, as so often happened, he outgrew his cuteness. And the show got cancelled. Jamie Devers grew a beard and got mixed up with the Peter Fonda–Dennis Hopper Hollywood drug scene of the late sixties. Got himself busted several times. Then disappeared from public view altogether. Until he’d surfaced a few years back with a highly controversial tell-all memoir, which alleged that during his prepubescent heyday he had regularly been sexually abused by a secret gay fraternity of male studio executives, agents and actors. His scathing memoir, entitled I Dood It, also claimed that the actress who’d played Bucky’s television mom had carried on a long, secret love affair with a black L.A. Dodgers outfielder. The book had become a huge bestseller and thrust Jamie back in the limelight for a brief time. Now he was out here, living on Big Sister with Evan Havenhurst and dealing in antiques. He seemed at peace. He was certainly fit and cheerful.

  “Do you sail?” he asked Mitch.

  “No, I’m a city kid, through and through. I can’t even swim.”

  “Not a problem—that’s why they have life preservers. I can’t swim either. Child stars can’t do anything. Hell, I didn’t learn how to tie my own shoelaces until I was …” Jamie paused, glancing down at own his feet. “Actually, I still don’t know how to.” He let out a huge guffaw. “You’ll have to come out for a sail sometime with us, Mitch. You’ll enjoy it. And I promise you we’ll even wear clothes.”

  This comment did not go over well with Bud, who immediately stalked off, red-faced.

  Evan let out a pained sigh. “Jaymo, why must you rub his nose in it?”

  “Sorry, Ev,” said Jamie, patting his hand. “The Bud man’s just such a prig I can’t help myself.”

  Evan went to fetch them drinks, leaving Mitch with the one-time star.

  “Still doing any acting, Jamie?”

  “Boyfriend, I never was an actor,” he replied, with no trace of bitterness. “Being a child star means being you. When you get to be older, and you find out they now expect you to play a role, you discover you never really learned how. And you have no real life experiences to draw upon, since you’ve had no real life.” Evan returned now with glasses of wine for each of them. Jamie thanked him and turned back to Mitch. “In answer to your next question: No, I never watch the reruns. It was all a lie. Bogus people living in a bogus world. In fact, we don’t even own a TV That’s all behind me now. So is Tinsel Town. Beverly Hills is the only ghetto in America where the rats don’t live in the walls. Being here, I have achieved peace for the first time in my life.” He glanced fondly at his handsome young companion. “Poor Evan still has the bug, I’m afraid. That’s how we met—he was in an acting class that I was teaching in New York. I’ve been doing my best to talk him out of it. That’s absolutely the only thing Bud and I see eye to eye on.”

  Evan had brought hors d’œuvres that needed heating. He excused himself to go take care of them. Mitch and Jamie drifted into the study, where Bud and Red sat talking. The subject was Niles Seymour and what a bastard he was.

  “It wasn’t enough that he broke Dolly’s heart,” Red was saying, his voice a low murmur. “He had to leave her high and dry, too. That’s the detestable part.”

  “Unforgivable,” agreed Jamie, sipping his wine.

  “He cleaned out their joint checking and savings accounts,” Bud explained to Mitch. “He even liquidated their stock portfolio. Well over a hundred thousand dollars altogether. And he used their joint Visa card to buy two airplane tickets to St. Croix—before Dolly could get around to freezing it.”

  Mitch nodded, wondering why they were suddenly being so open with him.

  “Has he filed for the divorce yet?” Jamie asked Bud.

  “No, but she will,” Bud replied. “On the grounds of desertion.”

  “I call it outright theft,” Red fumed. “He should be in jail. The man is a no-good con artist.”

  “I wouldn’t call him no good,” Jamie said. “I’d call him damned good. He’s handsome. He’s charming. And he’s as persuasive as hell. Convinced Dolly to put his name on everything, didn’t he?”

  “We can’t touch him, Red,” Bud admitted glumly. “Niles had a legal right to that money.”

  “But the money in those accounts was hers,” Red said insistently. He had grown considerably more loquacious with a couple of stiff drinks in him. And, like Bud, he was very protective of Dolly. “Those investments were hers. They do not belong to Niles Seymour and that … that … bimbo.”

  “Who is the other woman?” Mitch asked.

  “We don’t know,” Bud answered, reaching for his scotch. “Some little redhead he knew in Atlantic C
ity before he met Dolly, apparently. All we can say for certain is that one day she showed up at the Saybrook Point Inn and the next day Niles, his car and every penny Dolly had to her name were gone.”

  “We spotted them together,” Red mentioned. “Bud and I. We’d docked at the inn after a sail for a bite of brunch. And there they were having a cozy breakfast together in the dining room. She was exactly what you’d expect from Niles—young and sleazy. A thorough tramp.”

  “Dolly found a Dear John letter on the kitchen table the next morning,” Bud added. “Bastard didn’t even have the nerve to face her. Just cleared out.”

  “What does he do for a living?”

  Evan came in now with a platter of quesadillas. He lingered, refilling his father’s scotch and Jamie’s wineglass.

  “He sells things,” Red answered. “Menswear, cars, yachts …”

  “And himself,” Bud added bitterly. “Above all, Niles Seymour sells himself.”

  At the mention of the name Evan abruptly slammed the wine bottle down and went fleeing back to the kitchen.

  “Evan doesn’t like to talk about him,” Jamie explained to Mitch quietly. “He murdered Bobo, you see. We loved Bobo. She was our baby. Most traumatic experience of Evan’s life, watching that poor little dachsund writhe in pain in his arms, unable to do a thing to help her. The vet did an autopsy—said someone had fed her ground meat laced with arsenic. We could never prove it was Niles, but we have no doubt. He’s the one who was always complaining about her barking.” Jamie’s face tightened at the memory. “He used to call us the Queers. Was always leaving us nasty little notes that began: ‘Dear Queers.’ If we left a trash can out. If we had people in for drinks … I think he believed we were having gay orgies. He’s a truly horrible person.”