New Jersey Noir--Cape May

by William Baer

  Which gave me a little time to look around.

  She kept the place neat. Very lovely.

  I like neatness.

  I’m not a compulsive, but I’m very neat. “Neat” in the full sense of the word. Not just wearing neat, carefully ironed, lint-free suits and having a McDonald’s wrapper-free car. The truly neat person understands that it’s a three-part affair: the physical world around us, the body we boss around, and the command center itself—the mush within our skulls we call our brains.

  Our minds.

  Which, of course, is the hardest part to keep in order.

  I walked over and sat down on Kitty’s couch. She was also sitting, talking to her brother, who was a bit “tied up” at the moment.

  “Where are you?”

  I heard him eke out the word “trunk,” confirming my allegations.

  She hung up the phone, glaring across her red Persian rug. I was glad that her rifles were safely on the wall behind me.

  Before she could say something unpleasant, I spoke first.

  “Just answer a few questions, and I’ll be gone.”

  Like her brother, she could be “reasonable,” and that seemed to be the best course of action at the moment.

  “I’ve already answered all the questions. Ten years ago, and last week with some nice cop.”

  “He’s dead.”

  If she was surprised, she didn’t show it. Kitty wasn’t about to reveal anything she didn’t have to.

  “He was much nicer than you,” she insisted.

  “Most people are.”

  Actually, I think I’m a very nice person, but two people were dead, and one was her daughter, and I refused to quibble about it.

  “What do you want to know?”

  She wanted her big brother out of my trunk, but I acted as if I had nothing but time.

  I looked around the room, carefully, then I asked her a question I knew the answer to.

  “How much does O’Brien give you?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  Then she thought about her brother’s claustrophobic predicament, and she made an effort to cooperate.

  “Enough,” she assured me.

  “He keeps you comfortable.”

  “He keeps all of his women comfortable.”

  Which got me interested.

  “Like whom?”

  “Like, screw you!”

  I guess it was time to get to the heart of the matter.

  “I know you were at the bowling alley that night.”

  She was surprised, even impressed, and she didn’t attempt to deny it.

  “I’d tried to see the twins a number of times before that night,” she shrugged, “but they never responded. So I followed Nikki and her friends from the promenade.”

  “Why?”

  She shrugged again, as if she couldn’t really comprehend her own maternal urges.

  “I wanted to help. Somehow. In some way. And I did.”

  She seemed proud of herself.

  “How?”

  “By telling her that I wanted to help her.”

  She was attempting, not very cleverly, to be evasive.

  “By giving her permission,” I said.

  She was shocked and angry.

  “You can leave now, mister” she said.

  Which I took to be a “yes.”

  I stood up, walked to the door, and turned for one more question.

  “Why Nikki and not Rikki?”

  She shrugged, as if her two offspring were essentially interchangeable, and I believed her shrug.

  Outside, I immediately texted Xander, my computer kid, and left him a message. Since I already had my phone out, I checked to see if Roxs had sent her daily message. Not yet. So I checked her text from a month ago.

  Heading to Monument Valley. Looking for the Ringo Kid.

  We’d watched Stagecoach together with my uncle. That was about two months ago, which now seemed like a million years ago.

  A world ago.

  She smiled and said:

  “Wow, John Wayne was really handsome!”

  Of course, he was.

  I walked to my car, ignoring the four-legged creature howling inside the wooden shack, and opened the trunk.

  24

  Cheesequake

  Saturday, March 28th

  42°

  Sinatra again:

  You go to my head. . . .

  Well, maybe she was.

  You linger like a haunting refrain. . . .

  She was lingering beside me, wearing a preppy red Rutgers polo, tight new jeans, and cute leather moccasins. Looking hyper-nerdy, collegiate, perfect, beautiful beyond comprehensibility, and delicious (am I allowed to say that?).

  We were sitting in the front of a rented black SUV, cruising up the Garden State Parkway, the central nervous system of the greatest state in the union.

  Who doesn’t want to live in New Jersey?

  The highest cost of living.

  The highest property taxes.

  The most traffic congestion.

  The most racehorses (sorry Kentucky).

  The most diners.

  The first brewery.

  The first submarine (Paterson, NJ)

  The first baseball game.

  The first seaplane.

  The first light bulb.

  The first record player.

  The first electric guitar.

  The first medical center.

  The first drive-in.

  The first radio station (Paterson, NJ).

  The first boardwalk.

  The first college football game.

  The longest boardwalk.

  The largest seaport in America.

  Etc., etc.

  She shut off the Chairman of the Board.

  I tried not to let it ruin my perfect day.

  “Tell me about Jack Colt,” she said.

  I glanced over at She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed.

  “What you see is what you get.”

  She seemed dissatisfied, so I tried another tack.

  “You tell me.”

  She did, gladly, telling me about myself.

  Happily.

  “You’re eerily famous, you’re a reputed tough guy, and you’re absolutely full of yourself.”

  I considered interrupting so I could refute the third and harshest of her characterizations, but I decided to let it go.

  “You bailed on football at Rutgers U, for some unknown reason, where you majored in two ‘first-rate’ career choices: philosophy and film.”

  “Cinema,” I corrected.

  She ignored me.

  “Somehow you survived Seton Hall Law, did some prosecuting in Paterson, then joined your uncle’s PI firm in downtown Paterson. You live on a big hill called Garrett Mountain with all your friends. Meaning you live alone. You’ve messed up all your relationships with the superior sex, which is why, incidentally, I’ll never bother to get involved, and you’re also a health nut, somehow subsisting on pizza, White Castle, fajitas, baked ziti, and diner omelettes. To compensate, you do sprints and beat a heavy bag.”

  “Somebody’s been talking to Nonna.”

  “I guess somebody’s a detective.”

  Is it possible to resist a wiseass Jersey girl?

  “Anything else?”

  “Yeah, she assured me that although you always wear the same exact clothes, it’s a new set every day, since you’ve got over twenty duplicates of the same Armani suit, the same Brooks Brothers shirt, and the same Florsheims. So despite the ‘beautiful mind’ weirdness of it all, it’s quite a relief to know that you actually change your clothes.”

  “Your ‘relief’ has always been my prime dir
ective.”

  “She also says that you’re thirty-two, nocturnal, and that nobody knows what color your eyes are since you’ve been wearing those stupid shades since you were a toddler.”

  “That’s a gross exaggeration.”

  “What color are they?”

  “Brown.”

  She seemed pleased with herself.

  “I didn’t know beach girls were such wiseasses.”

  “There’s a lot you don’t know, Jack Colt.”

  I didn’t argue with her. Besides, it was time for one of her non sequiturs.

  “I’m hungry.”

  She said it like a child, as if she hadn’t eaten in three days.

  “Have some fudge.”

  She found the box on the back seat, and she took a piece.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Somerville.”

  “Why?”

  “So I can get out of this car and talk to someone else.”

  The real reason was that Nonna had tracked down the serial number to a gun stolen in Somerville.

  “Mrs. Salerno also told me that you lost your parents when you were a kid and that you never talk about it.”

  She was serious.

  “I was ten months old.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  Why do I always do what pretty girls want?

  I told her.

  “They were killed in a car crash. North of here on the Parkway, near exit 157.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “When the paramedics got there, Sinatra was still singing.”

  She seemed confused for a moment, then less so.

  She pointed at the console.

  “The same CD?”

  “Yeah. My uncle gave it to me when I was thirteen. He thought I could handle it.”

  “Was he right?”

  “Yes.”

  By now, I’d pulled into the Cheesequake Service Area at Mile 123, parking in an isolated part of the parking lot, not far from the multifarious culinary palaces: Burger King, Sbarro’s, Nathan’s, etc. Even a Starbucks for the liquid-challenged.

  I looked over at the pretty girl sitting beside me.

  “I’ve never told anyone that before.”

  “The Sinatra CD?”

  “Yeah, the Sinatra CD.”

  “Thank you, Jack.”

  She meant it.

  “Now I need to tell you some things about ten years ago.”

  “All right.”

  She seemed ready, and there was no reason to beat around the bush.

  “Two days after Nikki and Billy met on the promenade, they were married in Delaware.”

  I let it sink in for a moment.

  Then I explained what happened. How two silly young kids had met on the promenade, how they’d fallen in love, how they met up later that night, deciding, inexplicably, to get married as soon as possible. But there was a problem, Nikki was only seventeen. She needed parental permission.

  Besides there was a twenty-four hour waiting period.

  After staying up all night, they drove to the Pines early the next morning and convinced Kitty Walsh, the mother, who was glad to help, to sign the permission form. The next day, they took the ferry to Lewes, took a cab to the office of the County Clerk of Peace in Georgetown, and got themselves married.

  Later that night, they took the ferry back to Cape May, tried to get Billy a room at the Gingerbread, which was already full, so they went over to the Queen Victoria. They were probably planning to tell Rikki and her father the next day, but, of course, Nikki ended up dead later that night.

  Rikki sat there, staring at the console.

  “Are you sure about this, Jack?”

  “Yes.”

  I tried to be delicate.

  “Was Nikki the impulsive type?”

  “No, not at all, Jack. I’m shocked.”

  “Are you shocked that she didn’t tell you first?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would you have done such a thing yourself?”

  “I can’t imagine it, but, of course, I really can’t know. Right?”

  She looked at me, then asked another question.

  “Is ‘love at first sight’ really real?”

  “Yes.”

  She shrugged.

  “What happened to Billy?”

  “I don’t know. I’m guessing that he woke up the next morning, and everyone was talking about the Cove Beach murder. I’m guessing that he realized that he’d be the main suspect, so he took off. Leaving town. I have no idea where he went, but he never showed up again in North Jersey.”

  “He’s my brother-in-law.”

  She seemed amazed by the idea.

  “Yes.”

  “Did he kill my sister?”

  “I don’t know.”

  25

  Somerville

  Saturday, March 28th

  45°

  The old lady insisted on “tea and shortbread cookies,” and I didn’t have the heart to tell her how ridiculous it sounded.

  Three years ago, when her husband, Bruno Vitelli, a retired Somerville cop, died of heart failure, someone came to the post-burial reception at their home and stole his service revolver from a drawer upstairs in the master bedroom. It was the same Beretta 92 that had killed Edward Colt and ended up in Nikki’s desk drawer.

  I thought I should be polite.

  “I’m a huge Van Cleef fan.”

  The widow, Mrs. Wendy Vitelli, was perfectly delighted, as she held out the cookie tray.

  Being a gentleman, I took one.

  She was sixty or so, plumpish, terminally friendly, and she kept a cozy comfortable house.

  “We’re very proud of him,” she said, “and his memory.”

  “Did you ever meet him?”

  Since I knew I’d never get out of the house without trying one of her homemades, I took a small bite of the bland-looking shortbread, and I was astonished how good it tasted. I looked down at the tray, now on the coffee table, and I counted the cookies. There were three of us in the room—me, Mrs. Vitelli, and Rikki—and five remaining cookies, which meant that, given Rikki’s weight and exacting trimness, I could probably end up with three, if not four.

  “I knew his cousins, but I only saw him once when he came back to town one time. I was a young girl back then, and he was as nice as a man could be nice, but he still scared me to death!”

  Since I was being so polite, I looked over at Rikki and tried to explain what we were talking about.

  “Lee Van Cleef was the greatest badass in film history, and he grew up here in Somerville.”

  Rikki was interested, but she needed some help, and Mrs. Vitelli tried to prompt her.

  “Have you ever seen any of those spaghetti westerns, my dear?”

  Rikki didn’t have a clue.

  “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,” I tried.

  Rikki shook her head in the negative, as I’d fully anticipated.

  “How about High Noon?” I tried, thinking it might have a chance.

  “With Gary Cooper?”

  “Yes, dearie. Lee was one of the outlaws. He had a lovely heart in real life, but the dear Lord gave him sinister looks.”

  I tried to conjure a visual.

  “He had cold piercing eyes, super-high cheekbones, and a hawklike nose. He was also lean and mean. I loved the guy.”

  “I thought you hated bad guys?” Rikki kidded.

  “Only in real life.”

  As casually as possible, I took another cookie, and no one seemed to notice.

  It was time to get to the gun.

  “How many people came after the burial?”

  “The place was packed. I was naturally distraught and teary, but I did my bes
t to be welcoming, and I appreciated all the nice tributes to Bruno. We were very close. Married for thirty-four happy years.”

  I felt sorry for the old woman, and Rikki, sitting next to her on the living room couch, placed a comforting hand over the widow’s hand.

  “Were there people there you didn’t know?”

  “Yes. Bruno knew everyone in town, and we both have lots of relatives.”

  I took out the pictures and handed them to the widow.

  “I know it was three years ago, but I’d appreciate it if you could take a look.”

  She did.

  Carefully.

  They were my “suspect photos,” most of which were pictures of the girls and Tommy, etc., way back at the time of the murder.

  She took her time.

  Then she stopped at one, looking at me across the tantalizing tray of shortbreads.

  Amazed.

  “Is that Veronica Miller?”

  “Yes.”

  I was equally amazed.

  “How do you know her?”

  “She’s a cousin of mine. Once removed. On the Scottish side.”

  Thus the shortbread.

  “Was she there that day?”

  “I can’t remember. I don’t think so.”

  I tried to prompt her.

  “No redheads?”

  I knew it was a lot to ask a grieving widow to remember something like that from three years ago.

  “There was a redhead,” she remembered, “but I only saw her from a distance. Maybe it was Ronnie.”

  Rikki, Ronnie’s best friend, was stunned and silent.

  I have to admit, I was also taken back a bit.

  26

  Fairmount

  Saturday, March 28th

  46°

  Rikki stood in the cemetery and cried.

  Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea.

  Two nights ago on the beach, I’d asked her about lots of stuff, including her job. I wondered why a registered nurse would prefer to work as an EMT. There’s a definite hierarchy in the nursing world, just like everywhere else in the world, with nurses at the top, paramedics in the middle, and EMT’s at the lower end.