44
* * *
Calhoun LaRoque hadn’t taken a breath. Into the brain and out of the mouth. Sala loved being surprised by people, their various incarnations never failed to amaze him.
Calhoun rose as Sala stepped forward and handed him his creds, shook his hand, introduced Ty. “Chief Christie is from Willicott, and I’m FBI. We’re not here to speak to you about Gunny Saks, sir. We’re here to ask you about your father, Mr. Henry LaRoque.”
A dark eyebrow shot up. “Mr. Henry? Why, for goodness sakes? The old man’s been gone longer than Courtney’s been able to vote. He’s old news. Wait, has Chief Masters discovered something after all this time?”
“No, sir,” Ty said.
Calhoun sighed, sat down again, and waved at two plush green leather chairs facing his desk. “I was all geared up to talk about Gunny Saks. That’s the story of the day, what everyone wants to know. Oh well, up to you, up to you. Sit down.”
He sat forward, folded his hands, and tried to look the dignified, serious, concerned banker, but he couldn’t pull it off. He looked too excited, like a kid on Christmas morning, and they heard his toes tapping beneath the desk. “At least can you tell me if she died?”
Did the man have no filter at all? Ty said, “You’ll be pleased to hear, sir, Gunny will be all right. The surgery was successful.”
“Huh. Well, good. I suppose these things happen, even in Haggersville.” Calhoun’s voice dropped to low and confiding. “I had surgery once myself. They took out my gallbladder. I’ll tell you it hurt pretty bad there for a while.” He smiled. “But I got better really fast because my wife hauled me out of bed and walked me all over the hospital, kept telling me I’m a great healer and besides, only weaklings need a gallbladder. She was perfectly right. What would you like to know about Mr. Henry?”
Ty settled into the very comfortable chair. “You can tell us why you were at odds with your father, Mr. LaRoque?”
“Me? At odds with Mr. Henry? Who told you that? He was a popular old man—well, he wasn’t old when I was a boy, I don’t guess. Growing up, he was too busy to spend much time with me. I don’t remember his ever throwing me a baseball or football. He never came to my basketball games, probably worried the bank would go under if he didn’t give it all his attention. He was that caught up in it. He was either holed up in his study or out and about, particularly in the evenings. Very popular, my father, but I guess you already know that.
“Come to think of it, looking back, I don’t think he particularly liked me. I don’t know why, but there it is. But then again, he didn’t particularly like my mom, either. He started sleeping with that scary Mrs. Chamberlain at the post office even before my mom died, at least that’s what I heard later. That went on for years, until the old man finally died, although to be fair, that wasn’t his decision.”
“Died?” Sala repeated slowly, an eyebrow raised. “No, it wasn’t his decision. We understand your father was murdered, brutally.”
“Yes, you’re right, of course. I never understood why the murderer had to kill him in so horrible a way.” Calhoun looked down at his Breitling watch, realized that wasn’t smart, looked up again. “I mean, a bullet would give you the same result, right? My father is still greatly missed, ask anyone in town. I remember there was standing room only at his memorial at the crematorium.” Calhoun paused, frowned down at his Montblanc pen. “Now that I think about it, and to be completely honest here, the old man was a real son of a bitch to me. But we pretended we got along well enough for the most part, no dramatic fallings-out.”
Ty said again, “A son of a bitch? How so, Mr. LaRoque—”
“Calhoun, please.”
Ty leaned forward. “Calhoun. How was he a son of a bitch?”
“You heard me. He was Santa Claus to everyone in town, but nothing for his wife or his son, not even his time. He never visited me at Dartmouth, gave me only enough money to keep food in my mouth. Wouldn’t you say that qualifies?”
Yeah, Ty guessed, it does, but she said, “I can see his behavior hurt you.”
“Yeah, but here I am whining and he’s been gone for five years. I didn’t even see him much until my wife and I moved from Baltimore back to Haggersville when he surprised me by putting me in charge of the bank, said he was retiring.
“I think he had to put me in charge, no choice, since he was big on tradition, and I was his only kid. He decided to will me this bank and his money. He knew I was smart and wouldn’t run his bank into the ground. You see, I managed a bank in Baltimore for twenty years, showed him I could do it very well.” Calhoun paused a moment. “I wish he’d sent me some of that money when I was in school or starting out.
“So in the end, I guess that has to mean he wasn’t really disappointed in me, doesn’t it? He would have even left me that monstrous house of his, except I told him I didn’t want it.”
He began weaving the Montblanc through long, thin fingers. “He left his house to Haggersville. They’ve kept his study like a shrine to him, haven’t touched a thing. I think my old bedroom is a storage room now. Last time I looked, there were boxes of copy paper stacked up in there. All my posters of Wilt were gone.”
Sala said, “Did your father know what you thought of him?”
“Oh sure, when I was an adult making my own living, I told him. It didn’t seem to bother him much. I remember he laughed at me, told me to get over it. That’s about it.” Calhoun rose, an obvious dismissal that Ty and Sala ignored. He sat back down and sighed.
Ty said, “Mr. LaRoque—Calhoun—who do you think murdered your father?”
“I haven’t a clue, Chief. Chief Masters never had a clue, either. No one had a clue. My dad had no enemies, like I’ve said, everyone loved him. Ask anyone around town.”
“Did you love him, Calhoun?”
“I suppose I did, early on, since he was my dad. My wife always laughed at the stories I told her about how he treated my mom and me. She said he had crazy wiring and to forget it.”
Sala said, “Did you ever see your father wear a large Star of David belt buckle?”
Calhoun drew back. “I’ve heard talk about a weird belt buckle they found in the lake, and that’s why Gunny Saks was struck down. Do you really think it belonged to Mr. Henry?”
“Yes,” Sala said, “I assume you saw him wear it?”
Calhoun shook his head. “Gunny made a mistake, understandable since she’s—” He waggled his fingers to his head and rolled his eyes. “It couldn’t have been Mr. Henry’s. He always wore suspenders, even though he didn’t need them to hold up his pants. He was skinny, like me. I bought him an alligator belt once for Christmas, but he never wore it. Only red suspenders. He always said real men wore suspenders, like his father did before him. I’ll bet he was even cremated in those red suspenders.” Calhoun stopped cold. “Now isn’t that odd? He never suggested I wear suspenders, never gave me any, so I never have.”
“I haven’t, either,” Sala said.
Ty asked, “Why do you call your own father ‘Mr. Henry’?”
“Hey, that’s what everyone’s always called him, my mom, too.”
Sala said, “You said Mr. Henry was cremated. What did you do with his ashes?”
“His ashes? Oh, I scattered them in Baltimore, off Fells Point into the Patapsco River. It was storming that day, and I didn’t want to motor all the way out to the ocean.”
“Do you still have the urn?”
Calhoun thought about that a minute, frowned. “I think I donated it to the thrift store. I mean, poor people die, too, so why not have a really nice urn for their loved ones’ ashes? Mr. Henry’s was the best money could buy, ceramic, as I recall.”
When Sala and Ty left, Courtney Wells tossed her beautiful curly hair at them and nodded toward the stairs. Ty gave her a big smile, whispered, “He can’t wait to tell you everything.”
Ty said to Sala, “The man’s certifiable.”
“Or he likes to play-act at being certifiable.”<
br />
“And he gets away with it, which would mean he’s not at all stupid.”
“No, Calhoun is anything but stupid. Both he and Mrs. Chamberlain agree Mr. Henry never wore belts, only red suspenders. So how did his belt buckle—according to Gunny Saks—end up in Lake Massey with all those bones? It’s got to mean Mr. Henry wasn’t cremated after all, that his bones were there at the bottom of Lake Massey.”
“And he was wearing the Star of David belt buckle when he was thrown in. Or,” Ty added, “Gunny Saks is wrong about all of it, and we’re chasing giraffes. But someone did try to murder her.”
Her cell rang. It was Lulie Saks. Gunny was fully awake, and there was something very different about her.
45
* * *
HAGGERSVILLE COMMUNITY HOSPITAL
LATE TUESDAY AFTERNOON
Sala and Ty paused to speak to Officer Romero Diaz, sitting outside Gunny Saks’s cubicle in the ICU. He was late twenties, buff, too handsome for his own good, a heartbreaker, Ty bet. He assured them they shouldn’t worry, nobody was going to hurt Gunny. His voice changed when he said her name.
“You care about her,” Ty said.
Diaz said, “Sure, we grew up together. I always thought she was a sweet kid, and so beautiful. Nobody’s going to get near her.” He touched his fingers to his holstered Beretta.
Ty and Sala squeezed into the small cubicle space to stand next to Ms. Saks and Chief Masters.
Lulie looked up even as she kept stroking her daughter’s face. “Gunny fell asleep again after they gave her a pain medicine in her IV. She had a bad headache.” She paused a moment, getting herself together. “They say she had a blood clot—a subdural hematoma, pushing on her brain. Both her surgeon and the nurses say her vitals are good now.” She paused, swallowed. “She’ll be all right.”
“You said she was different?” Ty said. “What did you mean, Ms. Saks?”
Chief Masters said, “Actually, I told Lulie she was different. Lulie’d stepped out for a minute when Gunny opened her eyes. She looked confused for a second, then she smiled at me and called me by a nickname that nobody’s called me for years—BBD, stands for Big Bad Dan. I didn’t even know Gunny knew that name.”
“Did you call him by that nickname, Ms. Saks?” Ty asked.
“Yes, like everyone else did when he was younger, before he became Chief Masters, but it stopped when Gunny was a little girl.” She touched her fist to his arm.
Chief Masters plowed his fingers through his thick hair. “Yeah, yeah, when I finally decided to grow up—no more bar fights and speeding my Mustang through town, generally scaring the crap out of people.”
Lulie said, “I really liked that Mustang.”
“Yeah, I did, too, but my dad was hooting and cheering when I finally sold it.” He paused a moment, then picked up Gunny’s still, pale hand, a lovely hand, with long, narrow fingers, clear-polished short nails. “Like I told Lulie, Gunny’s smile, the way she looked at me, spoke to me, she seemed different somehow. She was taking me in, focused on me. I’ve never seen Gunny look at me like that. There was real awareness in her eyes. Then she sort of whimpered deep in her throat, whispered her head hurt, and I called the nurse. Like Lulie said, the nurse injected something for pain in her IV, and she fell asleep again.”
“Gunny was hovering on the edge of sleep when I came back in, and she didn’t speak any more,” Lulie said to them. She drew in a deep breath. “I don’t quite understand what you mean, Dan. It is strange, though. She called you BBD after all these years? The first thing she said when she woke up and saw you?”
He nodded. “I’ve been thinking about it since you called Ty, Lulie. Let me say when Gunny smiles, it’s always sweet, loving, and you know there are only kind thoughts behind that smile, no sarcasm, no irony. There aren’t any layers to Gunny’s smiles. Everything is right there, for all to see.”
“What he’s trying to say in a nice way is Gunny is simple. Everything’s on the surface. She’s guileless, open, childlike, I guess you could say.”
He nodded. “Okay, but not this time, Lulie. When she smiled at me, she was here, with me, and her eyes were alive with emotion as she tried to remember what had happened, put together where she was. I’ll tell you, her eyes seemed to penetrate right into me—I don’t know—sorry, I’m not explaining it well.”
Lulie lightly laid her hand on his arm. “We’ll see soon enough when she wakes up again.”
Sala said, “Before she does, can we talk a minute about Henry LaRoque? Both Mrs. Chamberlain and Calhoun LaRoque told us his father was cremated.”
Lulie blinked at them. “Mr. Henry? Yes, that’s right, he was cremated at the Sparrow Crematorium. They also have memorial facilities and most everyone in town was there. There wasn’t a viewing because of the way he was killed.”
Chief Masters said, “He looked like he’d been through the Spanish Inquisition. They had to keep him covered.”
Lulie said, “Oh, I see, you’re wondering how his belt buckle ended up in Lake Massey with all those bones. How that’s possible? He really was cremated, though. Could Gunny have been mistaken?”
Sala said, “Then why would anyone have tried to kill her, Ms. Saks? Her being attacked was all about that belt buckle. She said she did see it, and for whatever reason, Mr. Henry told her to keep it a secret, made her promise not to tell anyone, including you. Neither Mrs. Chamberlain nor Calhoun ever saw that belt buckle. They said he only wore suspenders.”
“That’s right,” Chief Masters said, “red suspenders. But why would he show this particular belt buckle to Gunny? Why would it be a secret Gunny had to keep? It was his, after all.”
Lulie said, “Why wouldn’t she tell me about it after he was murdered five years ago? I mean, what would a secret matter after he was dead?”
Chief Masters squeezed her hand. “I bet she forgot, Lulie, and it simply slipped out of her head. Seems to me Gunny’s always lived in the here and now, that is, when she could focus. She’s always accepted whatever comes her way, doesn’t question it. You tell her to do something, she does it, and then she forgets about it.”
“Yes, that’s true,” Lulie said. “But why would Mr. Henry swear her to secrecy? Why would Mr. Henry care? It’s a stupid belt buckle, nothing more. That’s why her story seemed so strange to me.”
Ty picked it up. “Mrs. Chamberlain told us Gunny worked at the Sparrow Crematorium before the post office.”
“Yes, she did,” Lulie said. “Mrs. Sparrow—Elaine Sparrow, Landry and Eric’s mother—hired Gunny to assist Mrs. Chugger at the reception desk. She greeted people, handed out cookies at the memorials, occasionally answered the phone. You know, odds and ends, nothing too taxing.” She paused. “After the Sparrow parents died and Landry married Susan, she became Gunny’s boss. Gunny really liked Susan, but it bothered her seeing dead people, especially seeing them shoved into an oven and burned up. I asked her how that was possible, I mean, her job didn’t require she be near the actual cremations. Turns out she’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time and it freaked her out. Susan told me she was sorry about losing Gunny. She told me Gunny was very good with grieving family members, very empathetic and gentle. Then Danny, you got her hired at the post office.”
Chief Masters nodded. “Lulie, Gunny squeezed my hand. She’s coming around again.”
Gunny felt light against her eyelids, not too bright or hurtful, but soothing and warm, comforting. She felt no particular pain in her head now, only a sort of heaviness, like a weight bearing down on her, and wasn’t that odd? She slowly opened her eyes, looked up into her mother’s beautiful face, then at her godfather and the two strangers behind them, a man and a woman, both about her age, both focused entirely on her, their expressions serious. Were they from the church? Was she dying?
“Gunny? Baby?”
Her mother’s voice, like sweet clear bells, like when she was reassuring her after a nightmare or when she’d told her how wonderful she was when Gunny ma
naged the grades she needed to graduate high school. When was high school? It had to be a long time ago, hadn’t it?
She heard her mother’s voice again, next to her cheek. “Can you speak to me, Gunny?”
Gunny. She suddenly remembered the bag race when she was six years old and all the kids had to hop toward a finish line with garbage bags belted under their armpits. She’d stumbled all over herself, and Bertie Wyman had called her a gunnysack. And it had stuck. It was better than the other names the kids called her, like dummy and doofus. She’d never complained to her mother because she didn’t mind those names as much as the names she’d heard adults call her, like simple but always very sweet. After the garbage bag race, Gunny was what everyone called her, her mom included. Her mom said it was charming and fun, even though she realized now her mom had hated it, and was only trying to make the best of it. But she’d accepted being called Gunny, really hadn’t given it much thought.
Now, though, she realized it wasn’t right. Gunny wouldn’t do. She wanted her mother to know it, wanted her godfather to know it, too. She whispered, “Mom, please call me Leigh. That’s my name. Leigh Ann Saks. Gunny sounds like some sort of marine. Gunny was okay when I was a little girl, but not anymore.”
There was utter silence. Leigh heard her mother suck in her breath. She felt the weight of their stares, the many unspoken questions hanging in the air, heavy as the weight on her head.
“It’s been a long time since I was a child, Mom,” she whispered. “I’m an adult. I’m also thirsty.”
It was her godfather who spoke first, his voice soothing as the soft light. “Not a problem, Leigh. It might take me a little while to get used to it, so be patient with me.” He put a straw in her mouth. “Slow, Gunny—Leigh—real slow, okay, sweetheart?”
It felt like heaven, and she wanted to drink the entire glass of water fast, all in one long gulp, but she felt pain building up somewhere in her chest and stopped. “Thank you,” she whispered. Her mother lightly touched a Kleenex to her mouth.
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