Elaine Orr - Jolie Gentil 04 - Any Port in a Storm (19 page)

NOT EVEN MY threat to follow Aunt Madge to Matawan and out her and Harry would deter her, so on Sunday morning she and Harry left for St. Columbkill’s and, unknown to them, I was right behind them. It seemed like a good day to talk to Agnes Flaherty, the young girl Hayden had injured so badly. And if I did it while Aunt Madge and Harry were busy, I wouldn’t have to account for my time to anyone. At least not to them.

I thought about inviting George to go with me and decided against it.
First, he’d go to Mass at St. Anthony’s and it meant I’d have to wait until at least ten-thirty. Second, he’d tell me not to go, and I wasn’t in a mood to hear that.

I had a plant on the floor of the passenger seat.
I have decided that Michael Keaton was largely right in the film The Paper when he said if you have a clipboard you can get in anywhere. I would add that if you want to talk to people about an emotional topic, a plant is better.

The Flaherty’s address had been easy to find, and it looked as if she and her parents were on the front porch drinking iced tea when I got there at almost eleven o’clock.
My plant and I went up their walk and introduced ourselves.

“So,” her father said, “you’re the one I should thank.”

“Daddy,” Agnes said, in a low voice. She was as pretty as she had been in a high school yearbook photo that was often used in news articles, but her eyes had a tired look. I figured it took a lot of effort for her to get around, and it was wearing on her.

“I honestly didn’t kill him, Mr. Flaherty.
I’m trying to prove that.”

“Don’t see why,” he said.
“Anybody up here would give you a medal.” He almost glared at me, which I assumed was for denying that I killed Hayden.

Mrs. Flaherty excused herself and went into the house.

“I know you have many painful memories,” I nodded at Agnes, “and I’m sorry to ask, but I really need to fully clear my name.
More now, because his family just filed a wrongful death suit against me and…”

“Those bastards!” he said, very loudly.

Agnes started to cry.

“Oh, gosh, I’m sorry,” I said.
And I was.

Mr. Flaherty’s self-righteous attitude deflated and he put a hand on his daughter’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry, honey. You know how I get when all this comes up.”

She hiccupped and drew a hand over her eyes to wipe tears.
“And you know it doesn’t help.”

Mr. Flaherty looked chagrined.
He kept his hand on his daughter’s shoulder, but turned to look at me. “I’m sorry you had to get hurt, too,” he said.

I set the plant, a coleus this time, on the top porch step.
“I should really go.”

“You don’t have to,” Agnes said.
“What was it you wanted?”

Her father gestured that I should sit in his wife’s chair, and I did.
“I’m trying to understand why Hayden was in Ocean Alley in the first place. He doesn’t seem to have had any ties there. I thought maybe if I knew more about him it would help me figure out either who killed him or who is trying to make it look as if I did.”

Agnes looked at me, and I sensed a very determined young woman was behind those tired eyes.
“Hayden and I didn’t keep in touch, but I heard some things from a couple of the girls I used to cheerlead with.” She took a deep breath. “Do you know his sister Veronica and her husband, Ricardo Bruno?”

“We spoke briefly,” I said, not mentioning they had asked me to leave.

“He lived with them mostly the last year,” Agnes said. “I heard that his sister’s husband asked him to do him some favors, and that’s why he went to your town.”

“What kind of favors?”
Her father’s tone was sharp.

“She didn’t really know.
All she knew was that Hayden told Mark Montgomery that he was going to help Ricardo develop new markets, whatever that means.”

“Humph,” said Mr. Flaherty.

“What about humph?” I asked.

“Everybody in town knows that Ricardo Bruno sells street drugs, mostly pot, but some pills, too.”

“If ‘everybody knows,’ why doesn’t someone do something?” I asked.

“I can only guess it’s because his car dealership employs about thirty people, and there aren’t any new jobs coming in,” Mr. Flaherty said.
“And people say he doesn’t sell dope around here, so no other local kids’ lives get ruined.”

Mrs. Flaherty came to the door.
“Lunch,” she said, and quickly moved away from the door.

“I guess that’s my cue to shut up,” Mr. Flaherty said.

I looked at Agnes. “Anything else you can tell me?”

She shook her head.

“Thanks for talking to me.”
I walked slowly to my car. On the one hand, it seemed like a wasted trip, but the conversation had made it clear that Hayden was doing something with Ricardo Bruno. Maybe selling dope for him. Maybe Hayden didn’t sell enough or something, and it made his brother-in-law mad enough to kill him.

“That’s ridiculous,” I said, aloud.
“Everyone knows where they were the night of the hurricane. Ricardo was probably with his wife.”

I WAS JUST GETTING back into Ocean Alley when my phone chirped.

“Are you avoiding me?” George asked.

“Nope. Did I tell you Aunt Madge and Harry are going to crash the Grossos’ church today?”

“You know you didn’t,” he said. “Where are you?”

“Just leaving the B&B. Do you want to meet…?”

“Jolie,” he said, in an exasperated tone, “I’m not a naïve kid.
I’m sitting in the parking lot at the Cozy Corner.”

Crud
. “Okay, I’ll tell you. Meet me at Java Jolt in about ten minutes.”

George swore and I hung up.

I MASSAGED THE back of my neck as I walked into Java Jolt.
Driving that much just made my neck stiffer. I looked around and didn’t see George, so I ordered and sat at a table in the back of the small shop. It was crowded, and I realized that some of the other coffee shops were probably already closed for the season. Good for Joe, I thought.

My coffee had cooled by the time George walked in, scowled at me and ordered from Joe.

I don’t need someone else who wants to approve what I do.

George sat across from me. “Why wouldn’t you tell me where you’d been?” he asked.

“Because I figured I’d tell you when I saw you.
I went to Matawan to talk to Agnes Flaherty and her parents. Or her father, anyway.”

“Who is…oh, the girl from the car accident?” he asked.

“Yep, wasn’t there long, but I learned one thing,” I said.

He just stared at me.

“Her father said ‘everyone knows’ that Ricardo Bruno, Hayden’s brother-in-law, sells pot.”

“And we care why?” George asked.

“Josh was pretty sure he saw Hayden selling something like that. He would have needed a source. What if he was selling for Ricardo?”

George thought about that for a moment.
“What difference does it make?”

“Maybe nothing, but maybe it’s why he wanted to get chummy with people much younger than he is.”
I was trying to remember something else Agnes said. “Oh. Agnes said she heard that Hayden told Mark Montgomery, the guy who spoke at the funeral, that Hayden was going to help Ricardo develop some new markets.”

“He could do that anywhere,” George said, frowning.
“Why come all the way down to Ocean Alley?”

“I still think that’s where Hayden’s godmother comes in, Joe Pedone’s sister.”

George gave a dismissive wave. “Are we still being a little self-centered?”

No swearing in Java Jolt.
“It’s the only link between Hayden’s family and me.”

“Did I mention you seem a little self-centered?” George asked.

I ignored the question. “Okay, so Ricardo Bruno recruits Hayden because selling pot is not exactly the image a car dealership owner wants to gives off, and Hayden’s a screw-up and he might know other screw-ups to sell to. It might mean Hayden, or Ricardo, spent time with a rougher crowd than we thought. Maybe one of them killed Hayden.”

“In the middle of a hurricane?” George asked.

“Tropical storm,” I said, and he ignored this.

He shrugged. “I guess it’s something to add to the mix. That’s all?”

“Yeah, except I feel sorry for Agnes.”
I described her father’s bellicose reaction to Hayden’s name and how Agnes cried. “I think she’s stuck living at home, and she probably doesn’t like it.”

“What I’m more interested in is where they get the marijuana to sell.”

“I don’t see how we could figure that out,” I said. “Would it help?”

“Maybe not, but if we make the Brunos look bad it might help with the lawsuit.
Maybe someone would say that their loss is less ‘emotional’ and more of a business loss.” He grinned. “Ricardo Bruno will have to hire another mule.”

AUNT MADGE AND HARRY had done their homework. They made certain Hayden’s parents were not having rolls and coffee with the other members of St. Columbkill’s parish that morning, and then they’d mixed with other parishioners.

“So,” she said, “we just told people we wanted to move to a smaller community now that we’re retired, and we wanted to visit the churches as we explored the towns.”

“And they fell for it,” George said. George and I had been sitting in the kitchen arguing over whether Hayden had come to Ocean Alley mostly to bug me (which George continued to maintain was pretty self-centered) when Aunt Madge and Harry came back.

“They had no reason not to believe us,” Harry said.

“I implied we knew the Grossos and felt so bad about the death of their son,” Aunt Madge said. “A couple people at the table where we sat just said things like ‘it was a heavy cross to bear’ or some other bland thing, but pretty soon there was just one other couple, and they had a lot to say.”

“Does the name Brady mean anything to you?” Harry asked me.

I shook my head. “Should it?”

“Not really,” he said.
“They just seemed to know a lot about the Grossos.”

“Like what?” George took a pen out of his pocke
t and pulled a napkin toward him. Aunt Madge raised an eyebrow and passed him the notebook she uses to take messages when the phone rings.

“That Hayden was nothing but trouble to his parents after he was about fifteen, and the reason he was with his sister Veronica and her husband was that his parents said he couldn’t come back home.”

“Except for Thanksgiving and Christmas,” Harry threw in.

Aunt Madge nodded, and continued.
“What surprised us was that this couple thought having Hayden live with his sister was a bad idea, because her husband had gotten in some trouble when he was in high school.”

“They said that Veronica maintained the Bruno guy had cleaned up his act,” Harry said.
“Didn’t sound as if the Brady couple agreed.”

“But that’s about when they seemed to think we were a little too interested,” Aunt Madge said.
“They changed the subject to the weather.”

“So, how did we do?” Aunt Madge asked.

“You want to be a reporter?” George asked.

“Goodness no.
Jolie’d never get any rest.”

I FELT AS IF I was pushing a rock up a hill with my nose. I kept talking to people and learning little. I needed to make someone do something, something that would tell me who was trying to blame me for Hayden’s murder. I was at Harry’s on Monday morning, hoping to find a folder with a house to appraise when my cell phone chirped.

“You need to get over here,” Sgt. Morehouse said.

“For a tea party?” I asked.

“Don’t be a smartass.
I need to talk to you.” He hung up.

I looked at Harry.
“Seems as if he’d be a little more formal if he wanted to question me about something.”

Harry frowned.
“I’ll stop by in half an hour. If they won’t let me see you I’ll send a lawyer.”

“Isn’t that a little dramatic?” I asked.

“All of this is. I don’t like it,” he said.

Me either.

I WENT TO THE counter at the small police station and the officer on duty let me in.
I walked to Morehouse’s tiny office and peered in. “Do I need a lawyer?”

“Did you do anything?” he asked.

“That doesn’t seem to matter,” I said.

“Very funny.
Believe it or not, I’m going to tell you a couple of things.”

I said nothing while he searched for a piece of paper on his desk.

“Got the tox test back on Mr. Grosso.
Seemed he was fond of a certain green plant.”

I nodded.