by Carl Schmidt
“OK,” Angele said slowly, nodding her head. “I think we’re done here.”
“Gee, just when things were getting interesting,” I said to myself.
• • •
It was a tasty start to Monday morning, but by comparison, the next three interviews were milquetoast.
Wendy Douglas was so shy that I imagined she instinctually faces the sun to avoid confronting her own shadow.
Ellen Rangeley had just been laid off at Walmart for repeatedly arguing with customers.
Francine Thibaudeau was seventeen. She had dropped out of high school three years earlier and was still looking for her first job.
We had allowed a half-hour for each interview. We could easily have concluded the last three in the time it takes Dustin Pedroia to steal second base. Had we anticipated our lineup, we could have gone extra innings with Marla Vickory. And if Misty Starbird had been available for our morning session, she could have prearranged our schedule to better suit the coming attractions. She would, however, be available on Skype in the afternoon.
“Quite the morning,” I said to Angele as we sat in the Athens Grille over soup and sandwiches.
“If those four women represent the available workforce, it’s no wonder the unemployment rate is so high,” she replied.
“I was pulling for Marla,” I said, “until she mentioned that she was married.”
“I almost hired her, Jesse,” Angele replied, restraining a grin.
“Really? What stopped you?” I asked.
Angele waited patiently to respond until the miso soup from my spoon was on its way down my throat. Then she said, “Because she’s a terrible shot.”
I was just able to complete my swallow before letting out a chuckle. It appeared that Angele was angling to have some of the miso return via my nose. In matters of comedy and soup, timing is everything.
I checked my notes. There were two more ladies on our schedule for the afternoon: Jean Rawlins at 2:00, and Holly Winters at 2:30.
We concluded our leisurely lunch and were back in the office at 1:45. This gave me time to launch Skype on our laptop. Nancy Clearlight had everything shipshape for the visual hookup at Misty’s end.
“I see calm seas and fireworks, but not necessarily in that order,” Misty said. “By 3:00 PM, you’ll have a new employee.”
Angele was sitting at the desk, and I had returned to my ringside seat on the couch when Jean Rawlins came through the door at precisely two o’clock. My first reaction was to check the spelling of our applicant’s first name. We had it as J-E-A-N, but probably it should have been G-E-N-E. On the other hand, the gentleman might be French.
He appeared to be in his mid-forties and wore a gray three-piece suit with a conservative tie. Angele initiated a line of questioning regarding our prospect’s “genealogy.”
“I am Angele Boucher, and you are Mister Rawlins, I presume,” Angele said as she stood up to shake his hand.
“That’s correct. Gene Rawlins, to be precise,” he replied, gripping her hand firmly—a little too firmly according to the wince that streaked across Angele’s face as he retained his grasp far beyond acceptable norms for both intensity and duration.
“Our ad read ‘Men need not apply,’” Angele said in a chilly tone. “Obviously some need arose for you anyway.”
“I’m here to call attention to your hiring practices,” he said in a voice unnecessarily loud for the size of the room.
“I thought you were applying for a job,” Angele replied.
“I am with the American Civil Liberties Union,” he retorted.
“Are you planning to leave your post?” Angele asked.
“Not a chance,” he shot back.
“Then how can you possibly work for us as well? Our advertisement made it clear that the vacancy is a full-time position.”
It was clear that the fireworks were just getting started, and it was a distinct possibility that Gene had bitten off more than he could chew. Nonetheless, he swallowed hard and proceeded, “Are you aware that when considering applicants for a job, it is illegal to discriminate on the basis of sex?”
Angele responded to his provocative inquiry with a question of her own.
“Are managers of strip joints required to consider males when hiring lap dancers?”
“Uhhh…” came the hesitant reply.
“At the present time there are four individuals on the payroll at Jesse Thorpe and Company. Three are males. I am the only female, and I work just one day a week. We are looking to balance our hormonal distribution in order to be more responsive and successful with our clientele. Are you suggesting there is something criminal in our business approach?”
“Well…” he stammered.
“The woman from your office who called to make this appointment said her name was Jean Rawlins, and then pointedly spelled out your last name, leaving it to me to assume the spelling of the first, not to mention the gender of the person who’d arrive and consume a half-hour of our time.
“We have a fairly good idea of the type of person we are looking for, and neither Jesse nor I can envision a man to fit the bill. We decided to word the ad in a way to streamline our selection process and keep our costs down.”
“You go girl,” Misty interjected.
“Thank you, Miss Starbird,” Angele replied.
Gene and his three-piece suit squirmed in the chair. He was surrounded. Misty stared at him through the laptop screen on his left, Angele eyed him with a measure of contempt from across the desk and I had his back covered. Angele continued the badgering.
“It might interest you to know, Gene, that I have made annual donations to the ACLU for the past ten years. Perhaps in the future, my money would be better spent elsewhere.”
Mr. Rawlins remained silent for several moments to consider his options. Finally, he put his palms on the desk in front of him and applied enough downward force to lift his sluggish torso off the chair.
“It is clear that civil liberties are not being restrained by your company,” he said slowly. “I apologize, Ms. Boucher, for taking up so much of your valuable time.”
He put out a limp hand and shook Angele’s, more gently this time around.
“Thank you, Mr. Rawlins. Your response has renewed my faith in your organization. Perhaps I’ll double my contribution next year.”
Gene smiled meekly at Angele and Misty, then nodded to me and walked out the door and shuffled down the hall. Angele then turned the laptop around and remarked, “You nailed the part about the fireworks, Misty.”
“With a few notable Hollywood exceptions, the stars never lie,” Misty replied with a wink. “What’s the name of your next applicant?”
“Holly Winters,” Angele said.
“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose,” Misty opined.
Angele smiled.
“Tis the season to be Holly,” I piped in melodiously.
The ladies groaned in two-part harmony.
9
Detective Musk
She peered through the glass window on the door, and Angele waved her in. I liked Holly Winters even before she opened her mouth.
She had a calm sense of well-being and a pleasing smile. She appeared to be in her early fifties, wise to the world, but not weary of it. Her brown eyes were clear and her outfit was quietly professional. Of the six applicants—five if you discount the interloper, Gene Rawlins—she was the only one who brought a resume.
I stepped forward, introduced myself and then said, “This is Angele Boucher. She will be conducting the interview.”
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Thorpe,” she replied with a warm handshake, before turning to Angele and sitting down.
Angele skimmed the resume and then handed it to me.
Holly’s home address was New York City. She had been a policewoman for twenty-two years. She retired from the force with distinction and a partial disability after a bullet shattered the femur in her left leg. It was two years befor
e she was able to walk again. She had been working as a security guard in Queens for the past four years.
“Your resume says you live in New York,” Angele began. “Why are you applying to work for us?”
“I happened to be here visiting my daughter for the holidays when I saw your ad in the Portland Times,” Holly said. “I’ve grown weary of the city, and I’d be happier if I could live near Mary. My husband passed away two years ago. There’s not much of anything holding me to New York anymore.”
“Welcome to Maine,” Angele said. “We’d be delighted if you’d join our investigative team.”
“That was quick,” Holly said. “When would you like me to start?”
“New Year’s Day,” I called out from the sofa. “At noon,” I added.
Holly turned in her chair and gave me a friendly smile. “Perfect,” she replied.
“I’ll be going,” Misty chimed in. “It looks as if you have a new and shining star in your constellation.”
“Thanks, Misty,” Angele responded, after spinning the laptop around to catch our associate mystic signing off.
I got up from the sofa and sat down in a chair beside Holly. For the next hour we discussed her salary, our general operating procedures and the electronic tools at our disposal, including computer programs, security cameras and GPS tracking devices. In short order, she was comfortable with every aspect of our routine. She also demonstrated her own technical expertise by offering a few specific recommendations, online databases, cutting edge surveillance equipment and the like. A new and satisfying aroma filled the room. If Christian Dior could bottle the fragrance, he might label it Detective Musk.
It was 3:30 when I brought up our New Year’s Day assignment, the surveillance and tracking of Nicole Levesque. When I had finished relating Father O’Reilly’s tale of family dysfunction, Holly furrowed her brow.
“Why would a priest be making child support payments in cash?” she thought out loud. “Certainly he and Nicole have private checking accounts. She should know that her bank could not provide him with any of her personal information; that is strictly confidential. Barring a court order for criminal or civil proceedings, there would be no legal access to her home address through her bank.”
“I ran that line of reasoning by him myself,” I replied. “He explained that a teller might find the annual transaction to be peculiar, perhaps scandalous. Even if he made the check out to cash, there would be a trail to the depositor’s account.”
“Does he declare child support on his income taxes?” Holly asked. “Cash payments would raise a red flag for any IRS auditor.”
“We didn’t discuss his taxes,” I replied.
“It seems highly unusual and suspicious,” she said, shaking her head.
“We’ll meet with him at noon on Wednesday,” I added. “I don’t think we should discuss those details at that time, but you could visit with him after we finish tailing Nicole. If we manage to find out where she lives, we might even talk with her, pending Father O’Reilly’s blessings of course.”
“What harm could come by letting the father see his child? It’s very disturbing,” Holly concluded.
“It sure is,” Angele added.
With that, I rose from my chair, and the lovely ladies followed suit.
“If you’ll permit it, I’d like to welcome you to our company with a hug,” I said. “We’re probably a little more folksy and less formal here than they are in the Big Apple.”
“New Yorkers know a thing or two about embracing, Jesse,” she said as she gave me a squeeze.
“We’ll meet here at 11:00 AM on Wednesday and arrange the details for your first day on the job,” I said.
“I’ll bring my Springfield .357, but I’ll leave it in the car,” Holly said. “Naturally, I don’t have a license yet to conceal it in the state of Maine. I’ll apply for one tomorrow. Technically, I’m not yet a resident. Perhaps if you supplied me with a notice of employment, I could acquire a license more quickly.”
“I’ll type that up for you on our letterhead right now,” Angele said.
In a couple of minutes, Holly folded the letter and put it in her purse.
A number of calls had come in during the interviews, but we let them go to voicemail; none of them sounded urgent. I planned to remain in Portland the entire week, so I’d attend to them tomorrow if possible, and Holly would be here to pitch in starting Wednesday.
The three of us left the office, happy with new beginnings.
• • •
Angele and I had an early supper and then cuddled on the couch to stream the premiere episode of Breaking Bad. We both had ignored that series during its virgin run on AMC. Angele was averse to the violent content, and I was not particularly attracted to the premise, but it received lots of attention as the finale approached, and several friends raved about it, so we decided to have a look.
We were pleasantly surprised. We howled at Walter White (Bryan Cranston), in his underwear cooking meth in an RV, parked in a remote desert area outside of Albuquerque. Within ten minutes, we were hooked. Four episodes flew by, and bodies began piling up. It was eleven o’clock when I got up from the couch and went to the kitchen for refreshments.
Anticipating New Year’s Eve and/or a successful outcome in our search for an associate PI, a bottle of Cold Duck had been chilling in Angele’s refrigerator for several days. Seven-and-a-half minutes after the cork popped out of the bottle, Angele popped out of her clothes and hauled me to the bedroom. In short order, she had her way with my zipper and buttons. Evidently she had an extended celebration in mind, especially with that part of me that was extended in her direction.
We managed, more or less, to stay on top of the bed for the next half-hour. During the final ten-minute stretch, Angele became a bronc rider, hanging on to her steed for dear life, long after the eight-second horn had sounded. Thankfully, she wasn’t wearing spurs.
At the close of the rodeo, Calamity Jane leaned forward, dismounted and sprawled breathless in a heap at my side.
10
Midnight Kiss
The Rusty Tavern was filled to capacity when we took the stage on New Year’s Eve at ten o’clock. We were given a nice round of applause as we began to play, but after two or three songs, it was clear that most of the patrons were intent on celebrating the Gregorian calendar. Any band would do. They weren’t there to hear Ocean Noises; they were there to rid themselves of the previous year. The crowd cheered randomly through our songs, but not at the appropriate musical moments. Champagne and liquor were in charge of the house. We were wallpaper in a room full of inebriated lemmings, destined to go over the cliff at midnight.
At 11:00 we closed our first set with “Private Investigations.” Hardly anyone noticed. We were yesterday’s news, if any news at all. Out with the old; in with the new. Our fifteen minutes of fame had passed us by in two short months.
Backstage, Eric and Billy were clearly annoyed that no one was listening.
“All they can hear is the sound of the clock ticking,” Eric said with contempt.
“Maybe we should play ‘Auld Lang Syne’ at 11:15 and then split,” Billy suggested.
“Maybe the two of you should play better,” Amanda retorted sharply.
I agreed with Amanda, but I kept my mouth shut. The truth was that the tavern did come alive once during our first set. Amanda stirred them from their nostalgic torpor with a spirited rendition of “A Whiter Shade of Pale.” She sang the song like Annie Lennox with a splash of Down East brine.
We skipped the light fandango
turned cartwheels ‘cross the floor
I was feeling kinda seasick
but the crowd called out for more…
When she got to the end of the fourth line, the crowd did as they were told and generally whooped it up. When the song was over, two guys in the back staggered to their feet and shouted, “More, more…” but most of the others returned to their drinks, turned a whiter shade of pale and nodded off w
ith their smart phones.
“We need some new material,” Willie concluded philosophically.
What I needed was a quiet place where I could gather myself during our ten-minute break. I slipped out the back door into a dark alley and the cold night air.
Sentient beings have memory triggers. Pavlov trained dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell. The smell of marigolds transports Angele to her childhood with visions of her mother setting out annuals in the garden each spring. For me, the most potent wistful prompt is the sight of my own exhalation on a damp, chilly evening. I inhaled deeply and exhaled slowly, watching my breath condense into an ivory cloud. Suddenly, I was flooded with images of my past. My father was murdered on a night like this in a random collision of circumstances.
• • •
I was fourteen years old when my dad, Thomas Christopher Thorpe, got up from the dinner table and announced that we needed pumpkin pie for dessert. He drove into the October night, parked his car in the supermarket lot and was halfway to the front door when he inadvertently stepped into a lovers’ quarrel. He was shot dead by Jason Savage, a twenty-two year old man, high on cocaine.
The loss of my father was devastating, to say the least, but I have learned to set that aside and relive the more inspiring and thought-provoking times that he and I had shared. One such memory dovetailed seamlessly with the crowd’s reaction to our first set at the Rusty Tavern and our fifteen minutes of fame.
“America is a fickle and temperamental nation,” my father once said, “and we take ourselves too seriously.”
We had stayed up late together, watching the movie, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, my dad’s favorite film. He had seen it dozens of times before, but this was my first. I didn’t realize it at the time, but in retrospect it was a seminal evening for me.
“Without humor, Jesse, life is pretty much worthless,” he said.