by BV Lawson
“Tyler here rescued me.”
“Really, now?” Sailor looked from Nelia back to Drayco. “You know, Darcie’s not all bad, and she’s certainly a looker. You could do worse.”
Talk about one-eighties. The sheriff had been the chief town crier warning Drayco away from Darcie. Drayco wasn’t sure he liked the way Sailor’s thoughts seemed to be heading, and he hadn’t given the man reason to label him a home wrecker. If anything, quite the opposite. Nelia cleared her throat and studied her feet.
Some of Drayco’s good mood drained away, and he was grateful when Sailor changed the subject. “Did I tell you I had someone work the lottery angle? Couldn’t find any records of Beth Sterling winning a mid-Atlantic lottery anywhere.”
“You didn’t, but thanks. Makes you wonder if a relative or friend bought her a ticket farther afield.”
“Could be. So what have you been up to?”
“I chatted with Freaky Farland. He had a different story from the one he told you. Said he loaned the Sterlings money to thank them for taking care of Barry.”
The sheriff grunted. “That’s possible. Freaky was in jail for the good part of a year for assault. And I’m not making this up, it was battery on Arnold Sterling.”
Drayco was surprised. Maida had mentioned Freaky’s jail sentence, but she thought it was gambling-related. “You said he avoided jail time after the pipe bomb.”
“This happened later. Guess after the pipe bomb fiasco, the judge wasn’t in quite as forgiving a mood the second time.”
Drayco didn’t dwell on whether the sheriff was holding back information intentionally or accidentally. He didn’t seem the quid-pro-quo type. “And yet Arnold let his wife take care of Freaky’s son.”
“Wasn’t the boy’s fault. Maybe Arnold actually felt guilty. Since Freaky beat up Arnold after he saw Arnold strike Beth.”
Nelia had regained some of the color that had faded from her face, and she sandwiched herself between the sheriff and Drayco, linking arms with each. “No more shop talk. I’m off-duty, and I saw something that looks suspiciously like champagne.”
Drayco looked over his shoulder—no signs of Darcie. Then, with the sixth-sense feeling of being watched, he glanced toward the top of the grand staircase where Vesta Mae Gatewood was staring back at him. He broke off the connection when he tripped over a crease in the rug. When he glanced back up the stairs, Vesta Mae was gone.
21
The sheriff, Tyler, and Darcie had made the social gathering more palatable, but Drayco was still relieved to return to his temporary “home.” Lucy and Virginia were spending more time with Maida since Beth’s death, so he wasn’t too surprised to see them in front of the Crab. Above the inn, the hazy sky gave way to a muted sunset palette of rust and pomegranate. The early evening air couldn’t shake off much of the day’s heat and humidity.
Drayco spied Barry Farland’s ’66 Mustang convertible down the road as it sped toward the Lazy Crab. It came in so fast, Barry apparently didn’t see Virginia at the edge of the inn’s driveway—he was heading straight toward her. Before Drayco could react, Virginia wheeled out of the way to safety.
Barry jumped out of the car and didn’t bother turning it off or shutting the door as he raced over to Virginia. She slapped him on the arm. “What are you smoking, Bear?”
Red blotches popped up on Barry’s face as he said, “Sorry, Ginnie. Guess I need glasses.”
Lucy Harston raced over and stopped a foot away from Barry. The young man thrust his hands into his pockets. “Sorry, Mrs. Harston.”
She glared at him and checked her daughter and every inch of the wheelchair. Virginia wrinkled her nose. “Don’t make a fuss, Mom. You’ll embarrass me.” Lucy’s lips twisted as if there was a bad taste in her mouth.
Drayco was oddly relieved he wasn’t the recipient of Lucy’s wrath this time. But it did underscore what Virginia whispered to him before Barry arrived. That sometimes her mother’s obsessive control made her feel she couldn’t breathe.
Barry jerked his head at Drayco. “I stopped by to see you. If you got a minute.”
Drayco waited until Lucy and Virginia were bundled safely into their car and on their way. He said to Barry, “Close call there.”
“I drive too fast sometimes. A bad habit.”
“A dangerous one.”
“My boss, Blake Haffey the Third—he always emphasizes that third part—told me not to get more tickets because it gives the shop a black eye.”
“Good advice, despite his screwy motivations. So, why did you want to see me?”
Barry picked at the skull earring in his left lobe. “I took a look at Arnold Sterling’s car, or what’s left of it. Thought you’d like to know it didn’t have any brake fluid, either. Like Beth’s car.”
“Any signs the accident caused it?”
“Not this time either. The master cylinder was pretty much intact. The brake lines weren’t.”
“Cut?”
“And how. Made to look more jagged and not clean like you’d find with a sharp knife. Kind of clumsy. If I was going to tamper with a car to make it fail, I’d plan it out different.”
Drayco made a note of that. Next time he wanted to commit murder-by-car, he knew where to come. Perhaps the car was the intended mode of Arnold’s death in the first place. When the joyriding teenager wrecked it, that prompted Plan B. If so, why imitate the District murderer’s M.O.? As a joke? To see how it felt to strangle someone?
Drayco asked, “Have you mentioned any of this to your father?”
“There’s no reason to, is there? I mean, it doesn’t prove anything.”
“I’ll need to brief the sheriff.”
Barry starting twisting his leather wristband. “I’m worried they’ll think it’s Dad.”
Barry hadn’t lumped Drayco in with the law enforcement “they” group, an indication of his trust. Maybe Drayco didn’t deserve it since Barry was every bit as much a viable suspect as his father. This child-man, kicking at a patch of weeds poking up through the asphalt driveway, had a diamond-in-the-rough spark hard to resist. Mark Sargosian used to tell Drayco he had a nose for sizing up character the way fox terriers uncover truffles. Fingers crossed this wasn’t an exception.
After Barry hurried home to take care of his father’s supper, Drayco headed inside the B&B and sat on the Chickering piano bench. He put in a call to Sailor, who answered in mock exasperation, “You’re keeping me from a hot date on a Saturday night.” Since the sheriff’s wife was out of town, “hot” meant a fresh bowl of popcorn and “date” a baseball game on satellite TV.
“Barry Farland told me he had a look at Arnold Sterling’s car. He thinks the brake lines were cut. And there was no fluid, similar to Beth’s accident.”
“You serious? I’ll have to get our contract mechanic to verify this.”
“You do that, but I think you’ll find it’s gospel. Had any progress finding who sold gin to Beth?”
“You’re not giving up on that one, are you? Just because we didn’t find booze at her house doesn’t mean she didn’t stash it away before her suicide.”
“I don’t buy it. If there was a strong odor of gin on her clothes as the EMT guys said, why no similar odors or spills in her car or at home? And no telltale bottle?”
“A friend she met somewhere, then. And they toasted one another’s good health.”
“She was a teetotaler, according to Maida and the Harstons. She’s a nurse—she could have arranged any number of prescription medicines for an overdose. Much easier and more efficient.”
“Good points. But motive, my good man. Where’s the motive for her murder?”
That was the giant question mark. They had separate grievances toward husband and wife, none for both. “Money is a strong candidate. Arnold was a gambler, yet Beth kept finding a steady stream of cash to pay his debts.”
“That damned phantom lottery money. Gotta crack the whip on my deputies to dig deeper. I did check the ledger-boy alibis. The
two deceased names were paid off years ago.”
“Did Quintier and Farland have alibis?”
“That’s where things get tricky. The EMT’s weren’t sure how long the wreck had been there when they arrived. It was some tourist from Rhode Island driving in the opposite direction who spotted it. So, if you add an hour or two to be safe, neither Freaky nor Caleb have hard and fast alibis for that entire stretch of time.”
“Maybe they worked together. It would be hard to pull this off, without an accomplice.”
“Are you sure you haven’t been watching too many late-night movies, Drayco? Someone would be loony to pull the same stunt twice.”
“A husband and wife involved in two accidents in a short period of time with identical, unusual damage patterns?”
Drayco could almost hear the sheriff shaking his head. “You win, you win. I’m treating Beth’s death as a possible homicide, ’kay? We’ll hear what Beth’s brother-in-law has to say when he arrives tomorrow. I steered him toward the Crab. Don’t tell the other businesses in town. Can’t appear to play favorites.”
Progress at last. Having the sheriff on board the homicide theory would give Drayco some breathing room. Just as important, Drayco valued the sheriff’s knowledge of the town and its cast of characters.
Drayco leaned against the piano and ran his finger silently over a span of seven keys, C-D-E-F-G-A-B. Six murder victims, four in D.C., two in Cape Unity. And one possible attempted murder on Virginia. All related, copycat, or an opportunistic mix?
Melodies ran nonstop through Drayco’s head, and he had to play musical detective to track whatever external stimulus prompted it. The theme he heard now was a line from the requiem mass for the dead, in this case, Mozart’s setting, quidquid latet apparebit, nil inultum remanebit—“whatever is hidden will be revealed, and nothing will remain unavenged.”
PART TWO
Calm in his cradle
The living lies.
May love and mercy
Unclose his eyes!!
—From the song “Ecce Puer,” poetry by James Joyce,
music by David Del Tredici
Sunday 12 July
Drayco awoke drenched in sweat. He told Maida she could turn the air conditioner up, hoping it would save her money. But he paid the price with dream after dream of clawing his way through flames.
He also awoke with a renewed certainty Arnold Sterling’s murder must be connected to the Marcus Laessig case. At least, that’s what his conscious mind was telling him. His subconscious wasn’t so sure—if you could believe his dream where Sterling’s killer morphed into Beth as she pulled the wire tight around her husband’s neck.
Job number one was to learn more about Arnold Sterling. Trouble is, Sterling had few friends, and most of the people he associated with were in jail. Or were unwilling to talk about him. Even Sheriff Sailor hadn’t had much luck getting Sterling’s circle of miscreants to open up.
Thanks to a tip from Limping Mike, Drayco had a new lead that meant ducking out before sunrise, hopefully without waking Maida. He was grateful for the hand-held GPS in his car, navigating in the half-light through twisting roads without signs. Was the lack of signs a way to deter visitors? Or these people just relished their anonymous existence, an unmarked life in an unmarked land. Thanks to Mike’s excellent directions, Drayco found his target in the unincorporated Tassantassa.
The full yellowish-red moon ringed with thin wisps of clouds looked like a rotting peach as it slowly set behind the trailer park filled with what could best be described as “homewrecks.” The technological wonders of nearby Wallops Island and its launch facility were a stark contrast to this place, the evidence of neglect everywhere he looked. And Exhibit A was the trailer in front of him.
Bits of the cinder-block foundation peeked out from underneath the rusted, twisted aluminum strips. The wooden railing along the three stairs leading up to the door had fallen half-way to the ground, as if too tired to make the effort anymore. An old refrigerator and an upended table flanked the stairs. And even they looked embarrassed by the stained foam chair lying nearby, bits of fluff poking out like Einstein’s hair.
But if Mike was correct, Drayco had the timing right. The trailer’s occupant would be leaving soon to head to a small dock that also wasn’t on any maps, where the man parked his boat. The same boat he was rumored to have used to catch illegal striped bass in defiance of the federal Lacey Act, fishing inside the Exclusive Economic Zone. The poachers who didn’t get caught could net thousands of dollars from seafood distributors and restaurants who never asked where the fish came from.
No wonder he was one of Arnold Sterling’s few “friends.”
The man who opened the door had about the same size and hair as a grizzly bear. And after one look at him, Drayco saw he wasn’t just a poacher. His broken, rotting brown teeth, skin lesions, and twitching eyes were classic signs of a meth addict.
Those twitching eyes narrowed upon seeing Drayco. “You a cop? Then ya better arrest me right now ’cause I ain’t sayin’ nothin’.”
“Not a cop. I understand you knew Arnold Sterling. I’m trying to find out who killed him, and I hope you can help. Perhaps we can chat inside for a moment?”
The man, who Limping Mike said was called Saul Imler, hesitated a moment before waving Drayco in. Imler motioned toward a couch underneath faded duck decoys mounted on one wall. Drayco lowered himself gingerly on the stained couch and surveyed the wood paneling and brown carpet with as many holes as Imler had missing teeth.
Imler opened a working refrigerator against one wall and pulled out a liter bottle of ginger beer. He guzzled down half of it before stopping to take a breath, then wiped his mouth with his T-shirt that sported a Smurf holding an AK-47. “Didn’t know him all that well. Don’t think I can help you.”
“Must have been hard on him, being confined to that wheelchair.”
“Couldn’t come see me here no more, but he got around all right.”
“It made him a sitting duck for his attacker.”
“Yeah. Guess it did, that.”
“How long did you know him?”
“Ten years, give or take twenty. We was sort of on-again, off-again. He could be a dumb shit. Guess I can, too. But that wasn’t why we was on the outs from time to time. Didn’t particular like the way he treated his wife.”
Drayco felt something poking him in the back and reached around to pull out a pink doll wedged between cushions. Imler grinned. “Belongs to my granddaughter Kylie. She’s eight now. Into that Princess Periwinkle stuff.”
Drayco examined the doll. She had braided blond hair like Nelia Tyler’s, but he doubted Tyler would ever be caught dead wearing that many sequins. “She make you wear a tiara?”
Imler guffawed. “And one of those fluffy pink snakes that goes around your neck.”
“A feather boa?”
“Yeah, guess that’s what they call it.”
“I’ve been chatting with Lucy Harston and her daughter, Virginia. They were friends of the Sterlings. Did Arnold talk about them much?”
Imler took another swig of the ginger beer, then shook his head. “Tell you one thing, that weren’t no accident.”
“What do you mean?”
“The girl and that car.”
Drayco laid the doll back on the sofa. “But why would someone want to kill a twelve-year-old girl in a wheelchair?”
“Reckon it was Caleb Quintier. Arnie used to say Quintier was capable of killing his own mother, hell his twin brother, if he had one. Doubt he’d think twice about whacking some kid.”
“Yet I doubt he’d do anything that wouldn’t net him a profit.”
“Maybe somebody paid him to do, for all I know. Maybe he paid somebody to whack Arnie, too. Arnie weren’t the smartest fish in the ocean.”
“Gambling with the wrong crowd?”
“Gambling with any crowd. Guess everybody’s an addict, of one kind or the other.”
It took one to know one.
As Drayco spied more lesions on Imler’s face than he saw at first glance, he made a note to consult the sheriff on this man’s meth habits. It wouldn’t do to have his little granddaughter anywhere near a lab. Although Drayco didn’t smell any acetone, ethyl ether, or other meth “soup” ingredients. Only mildew.
“Mr. Imler, did Arnie mention the name Marcus Laessig?”
Imler picked at his eyelashes. “Don’t recollect it.”
“Did any of his gambling take him to Washington, D.C.?”
“Arnie was a lazy ass bastard. Didn’t wanna get up out of his recliner to take a leak. And that was before the wheelchair. Doubt he set foot outside the county.”
“How about his wife, Beth?”
“Damned fine filly he had there. The only real good thing he ever did was marry that woman. But yeah, she mighta gone to Washington a few times.” Imler picked at his other eyelash. “Think she said something about a doctor she had to see. Didn’t wanna discuss it much.”
“Did she get on Quintier’s bad side, too?”
“Quintier wanted to get her on her back if you know what I mean. Often wondered why she didn’t take him up on it. Coulda showed her a good time. Made her happy, for once in her life.”
“How unhappy was she?”
Imler took another swig of the ginger beer. “Unhappy enough to whack Arnie? Hell, yes. If I were in her shoes, I mighta done it, myself.”
With Imler’s eyes looking at either the door or the cedar fish clock on the wall, it was evident he was getting antsy to start his “work” day. Drayco wasn’t getting much else out of the man, so he left Imler to get his fishing gear together.
Back in the Starfire, Drayco headed out in the other direction along the cracked asphalt road, past three other trailers that were clones of Imler’s. He stopped in front of the faded sign leading into the trailer park. It said, “Dreamland Homes. A Touch of Class.”
Shaking his head, he drove back to the B&B, where Maida’s new guest had arrived. Trenton Sterling was the polished diamond to his brother Arnold’s scrap of coal. He could have stepped out of a pro golf wear catalog and sported a trendy two-day stubble. A malachite-bead watch adorned his right wrist, and his belt had a sterling silver chevron buckle.