I went over to the hallway where Felix’s bedroom was located and, from past experience, I loudly knocked on the door. Once before, when I had spent the night due to some unfortunate complexities involving a column I had been researching for Shoreline, I had opened the door without announcing myself, and was face to face with Felix sitting up in bed, aiming a shotgun at me. Later I asked him why he had a shotgun handy like that, and he had said, “Even with my skill set, I’m not sure what I could hit with a pistol if someone was coming in at me, but a shotgun at that range would never miss.”
I waited a few seconds, and Felix emerged, wide awake, wearing a dark blue robe. I told him what I had discussed with Paula, and he rubbed at his chin, his fingers making a sound like they were going across sandpaper.
“Good call,” he said. “I’m just impressed that Carl Lessard was able to keep that info away from Reeve and his pals, since he had talked to Mark.”
“But he hadn’t talked to Mark.”
Paula was standing next to me, and I went on. “Carl told me that Mark had ‘informed’ him he was safe. Twice. He didn’t say if Mark told him where he was, or where he was going. He was just informed. That could mean the phone ringing in a code, two rings and a hang-up, followed by another two and a hang-up. Carl would be able to keep Mark’s whereabouts secret, but he still would know that he’s all right.”
Paula said “That . . . that makes sense.”
“Yes,” Felix said. “I like the sound of that.”
He gently clapped his hands together. “All right, chillun, let’s get dressed, have some crepes for breakfast, and head north.”
“I don’t think we have time for breakfast,” Paula said.
“Of course we do,” Felix said. “I made the crepe batter and it’s been in the refrigerator all night.”
By the time Paula and I were dressed and I had folded the bed back into a couch, Felix had coffee, orange juice, smoked bacon, and crepes ready for us to eat. Unlike last night, Paula and I eagerly took in the coffee, and Paula looked on as Felix worked a thin crepe pan, pouring the batter and expertly flipping them onto our plates, where he told us how to roll them up and spread maple syrup across.
Paula said: “Ask you a question?”
Felix scraped the last of the crepe batter out of the bowl with a bright red spatula. “Are you going to ask me how many times I hurt someone’s feelings over the years?”
“No, it’s just that you told me last night that you had a Greek father and Italian mother. We met yesterday at an Italian restaurant. You speak Italian. But crepes . . . they’re not what you call a traditional Greek or Italian food.”
Felix had a knowing smile on his face, looked to me, and I cut into a piece of bacon. “Felix is too modest to say so,” I explained, “but he learned crepe-making during a previous trip to Florida, where he spent some time with two sisters from Quebec.”
“Oh,” Paula said. “Is that the only thing you learned from the sisters?”
“The only thing I can show in public,” Felix said.
When we got outside to the Chevy Tahoe, the sun was well above the eastern horizon, and a few brave lobstermen were heading out on the cold waters to see what they could bring in. A hardy and somewhat nutty breed, if they were to fall overboard in the summer they could survive in the cold water for a reasonable amount of time, but on days like this their survival time was whittled down to mere minutes.
Yet they still went out.
Felix took out two long black duffel bags, and I knew better than to ask him what they contained. He put them in the rear of the Tahoe and came back to the driver’s side. From across the Tahoe’s hood, I said: “We’ll be heading north, so I have a favor to ask. I want to stop for a few minutes to see Diane Woods at the rehab center.”
Paula said: “Lewis, please—”
Felix interrupted. “It’ll be all right. I need to top off the Tahoe’s gas tank, pick up a few things, make a phone call or two.”
“Really?” Paula asked. “Phone calls?”
“Sure,” he said. “In order to get things done, Miss Quinn, sometimes you never know who you’ll eventually have to talk to. That means we can drop off Lewis and run those errands, and then come back to pick him up.” He eyed me. “That is, if he promises to be quick.”
“Promise.”
“All right, then.”
In Room 209 at the Porter Rehab and Extended Care Center, I met up with Diane, who was sitting in a comfortable chair, out of her bed, a cup of coffee in her hand. As I walked in, I stopped, looked again, and she said “Mister Cole.”
“Detective Sergeant Woods.”
She said: “You halted for a moment when you were coming in. Something catch your eye?”
“I stopped because something didn’t catch my eye,” I said. “Your walker. It’s not here.”
She pointed to a curved metal cane leaning against a nearby radiator. “I have moved up in mobility and have graduated to the cane. Have a seat.”
I sat on the edge of her bed. Just above the two of us, a television screen hung from the ceiling, showing either Good Morning America or the Today show. I couldn’t tell, and I didn’t think it made much of a difference.
Diane said: “Second things second, they’re giving me a break this morning, thanks to my marvelous progress.”
“Glad to hear that.”
“Well, I don’t expect you’ll be glad to hear what I’m saying next, first things first,” she said, the healing bruises on her face making her look that much more stern. “What the hell happened in Tyler yesterday, and did you have any part in it?”
I kept quiet, and she rolled her eyes. “For Christ’s sake, if you need me to be more specific, then I will. There was a shooting near the town common yesterday. What few witnesses we have said a male driving a green Honda Pilot drove like a maniac through the near intersection, jumped out of his car, and popped off two rounds at a man driving a Chevrolet Suburban. The Pilot drove off, the Suburban drove off. The Suburban was later abandoned, two of its tires shot off. Care to know what happened to the Pilot?”
“It was reported stolen.”
“Certainly,” she said, “by you. Or someone claiming to be you. You haven’t filed an official report at the station. What, you’re planning to do it here?”
“You’re still out on the disabled list, right? Then that doesn’t make sense, now, does it.”
Her eyes were hard and piercing. “Not too disabled to put that shooting together with what happened later last night. Poor Carl Lessard . . . tortured and then killed with two taps to the forehead. You know anything about that, Lewis? Or the fact that their law offices were torched?”
I didn’t know about the arson at the law offices of Adams & Lessard, but, based on what I’ve seen and learned, it didn’t surprise me much. It was like we were somewhat peaceful Europeans and woke one morning to find Mongols rampaging through our lands.
I kept quiet for another second or two, and then I said, “Boy, you’re feisty this morning. Glad to see that.”
I got off the bed and, before she could say anything or do anything, I kissed her on the forehead, then stepped back. “There are things in motion, concerning Mark Spencer. If I’m right, then it’ll all be resolved by the end of the day.”
“And the guy in the Suburban, and the murder of Carl?”
“Connected . . . but I don’t have enough to tell you anything yet. But I’ll gladly come back and tell you all, and then you can tell Captain Nickerson back at Tyler Beach that a guilt-ridden confidential informant called to confess all.”
She picked up her cup of coffee, and her expression looked like she was tempted to toss it in my face. But then her internal struggle seemed to resolve itself, for she took a sip and put it down on the radiator, near her new cane.
“All right, then,” she said. “My trust in you, friend, although battered and stretched, remains in place. And I do owe you my thanks for the pleasant nights’ sleep I’ve been getting . . .
so do what you plan to do. But don’t embarrass me, don’t embarrass the department, and for God’s sake watch your head. And your ass. Are you alone?”
“No,” I said. “I’m with Felix. And Paula Quinn.”
“Really? Where are they now?”
“Out gassing up our transport, picking up a few items. They’ll be back here in a few minutes.”
“You really think so? You left Paula alone with Felix Tinios. For all you know, she’s hijacked your transport and is driving to the nearest motel, begging Felix to give her riding lessons.”
I smiled. “I don’t think so. She seems to be resisting his charms.”
“Oh. Then she hasn’t switched sides, has she, and joined my winning team?”
“I don’t think so.”
She picked up her coffee again. “Strange days, my friend. Strange days.” Then something on the television caught her eye. “Lewis, come on back here, you’re going to want to see this.”
I walked back and she toggled a remote that raised the volume. It showed the path of the approaching Hurricane Toni, and it looked like our stretch of New England was going to be smack-dab in its path.
“It’s up to a Category Two now,” she said. “They’re calling it the Thanksgiving Day storm. First of its kind in a long time. How’s your house?”
“With lots of holes in it.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Going to find Mark Spencer today and then get the damn house fixed, even if it means selling my blood,” I said.
“That’s it? That’s your plan?”
I turned and strolled out of her room. “Only one I got.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
It was a two-hour drive up to Lake Pettis, going on Route 16, and Felix dodged the two tollbooths in Dover and Rochester so that our progress wouldn’t be recorded. For the most part it was a quiet drive, save for one time when we were going through a town called Ossipee—and it seemed like we were going through Ossipee for a long time—and we passed a restaurant that sold pizza. From behind me Paula sighed, and I said “What’s up?”
“Oh, not much,” she said. “But did you see that old farmhouse by the road, right past the pizza place?”
“No, I guess I missed it.”
“That’s the point, I suppose,” she said. “A single mom was murdered there, for no good reason. Her boyfriend was in jail, she had sort of taken over his marijuana business, and one moron asked two other morons to help kill her and rob her. She was at the house, they slammed her in the head with a blunt object, tied and taped her up, and dumped her in a pond up in North Conway.”
“Charming,” I said.
“It gets better. No, it gets worse. Her little girl was left behind in her car seat, in the car, parked near the pond. The three idiots sent e-mails and text messages back and forth, so they were scooped up in no time. And the poor single mom . . . she didn’t die from the beating. She died from drowning, after they tossed her in.”
Paula looked out the rear of the Tahoe. “A simple, old, country farmhouse in the middle of quiet New Hampshire, and it was the scene of a murder that makes me queasy to even talk about.”
Felix sped up the Tahoe. “No offense, Paula, but that isn’t really the stirring ‘let’s go get the job done against all odds’ kind of speech we could use right now.”
“The truth is still the truth.”
“Not if you ignore it.”
Since it was late November, most of the gaudy orange, red, and yellow foliage had fallen from the trees, leaving bare, gray limbs from the ghost trees along the sides of the road. Route 16 was mostly two-lane, cutting right through the heart of the White Mountains. We slowed down some as we approached the outlet-mall oasis that is North Conway, and in a few minutes of skilled driving from Felix and skilled navigating from Paula, we passed through North Conway and were again in rural New Hampshire.
“Who picked Lake Pettis?” I asked. “You or him?”
“I recommended us finding a nice remote place for a vacation, and Mark took it from there. He said a client recommended it as a good vacation spot.”
Felix said, “Maybe he was looking for another recommendation. To find a place he could use as a retreat if something happened. Like a Wyoming motorcycle gang going after his butt.”
I knew Paula was tempted to say once again that her fiancé had nothing to do with Wyoming or a motorcycle gang, but she kept quiet as we went through downtown Pettis: a general store with two gas pumps, a town hall, a Grange Hall, and a Civil War monument.
“Quiet,” I said.
“Too quiet, that was one of Mark’s complaints.”
A few more minutes of directions, and we were at the northern end of Lake Pettis. It seemed long and narrow, with the narrowest point being where we parked, along a stretch of road that actually had parking spaces outlined in yellow paint. We all got out and walked across the road. We were facing a sandy beach, perhaps a hundred feet wide. It was deserted. A raft with a diving board sticking out had been pulled to shore, and a lifeguard station was on its side.
On either side of the beach, there was a rocky shoreline, which then curved out toward the lake, with cottages and small homes scattered among tall pine trees and a few leafless birch trees. There were docks that had been pulled in, and there were a few mooring floats still bobbing in the still lake water, and an orange-and-white buoy warning NO WAKE ZONE. Out in the distance were green lumps that were the lake islands.
I shaded my eyes with a hand. “Which island out there did you rent?”
“You see that big one on the left?”
“I do.”
“It’s on the other side. Cute place, small blue cottage, has its own private beach.”
Felix kept quiet, just keeping his eyes on the empty water, the deserted road, and the quiet homes. Then he said: “Hate to raise an obvious point, but I don’t see a way of getting out there. Paula? Did you two rent a boat, or did someone take you back and forth?”
“The owner of the cottage had a small Boston Whaler that came with the rental. The owner met us here at the beach when we came up for the first day.”
“Is he around?” I asked.
“No, she’s not,” Paula said. “She said she had a rule every year, get up to the lake a month before Memorial Day, and leave for Florida a month after Labor Day. A true snowbird.”
The lake looked so quiet, so empty, so lonely. I put my hands in my coat. “Folks, best I can come up with is for you two to take the left side of the lake, I’ll take the right side. Start knocking on doors until we find someone who’ll take us out there.”
Paula said “No offense, but why don’t I come with you, Lewis?”
“Because we need a boat. We don’t need Felix scaring people.”
Felix said “No offense taken, Paula. C’mon, you knock on the doors, and I’ll be the strong silent type, hovering in the background.”
From the beach I walked along the town sidewalk, until it ended just past the rocky shoreline. I walked along the side of the road for a few minutes and then came across a dirt road to the left that was unmarked, save for a tree trunk that had about a dozen brightly painted wooden signs running up its side, each sign carrying a name, like Munce or Gilligan or Troy. Down the dirt road I started, and I ignored the first two homes I came across, since they didn’t directly abut the lake. The road curved to the left and the lake came back into view, with small homes and cottages lined up along the shore, one right after another. The first two cottages—one-story, stained dark, and with front porches—had planks of wood placed over the windows. Pretty clear sign that whoever resided there was gone for the winter. As I walked, I thought about what it might be like, to live on a lake. You wouldn’t have the constant to and fro of the Atlantic, seeing the sun rise over the ocean and promise a new day, nor would you see the constant stream of boat traffic that reminded one that the biggest and most populous highways in the world are the oceans.
But a lake did have its advantages, on
ce you got past the summer people who probably raised hell with big water-ski boats and JetSkis. The spring and fall when you had the place to yourself, along with the year-round residents. And the winter, when the lake froze and snow covered everything, with the only sounds being the occasional snowmobile and lake ice shifting.
Tempting, but I planned to stay with my own damaged place back at Tyler Beach.
If Hurricane Toni would let me.
The next place was a typical New England home, and nobody answered the door. The next cottage had wood over its windows, and the next home, a bright yellow Cape Cod, had an older man with dark green chinos and checked flannel shirt, raking pine needles out of his dirt front yard.
I stopped and he looked up at me, wearing a Red Sox baseball cap. His face was worn and wrinkled, but his eyes twinkled, like he found it so very amusing to be up and about and alive on this late autumn day.
“Hi,” I said.
“Hey ya,” he said back.
“Looks like some work you’ve got going on here.”
He took in his tidy yard, with two birdfeeders and even a squirrel feeder. A freshly washed light red Chevrolet pickup truck with Maine license plates was parked in a dirt lot off the side of the road. “Well, it can take some doing. I rake up all these Christly pine needles to keep the place clean, and about a week later here I am, doing it again.”
I nodded and said, “Sir, my name is Cole. Lewis Cole. I was hoping to take a quick spin out on the lake, but it looks like everyone’s put their boats away for the winter.”
He leaned on his rake. “True enough. About October the loons and such are heading out, and most people board up their homes, get them winterized, take their boats out. Why do you want to take a ride out on the lake? Can get pretty brisk out there on the water, and most of the foliage is gone.”
“I came up here with a couple of friends of mine, and I live on the ocean, and I’d just like to take a boat ride out on the lake.”
He scratched at his ear. “Would you leave your driver’s license behind as a deposit?”
Blood Foam: A Lewis Cole Mystery (Lewis Cole series) Page 13