Cobalt (6 page)

Of approximately two thousand objects offered for sale and individually priced, not one was either rare or beautiful. On tables crowded against the inside wall, dozens of gaudily painted porcelain clowns with leering smiles faced an army of machine-carved Cape Cod fishermen brandishing vibrant red lobsters. Plaster fish were stacked in four-foot pyramids on either side of the door, and in a water-filled bucket just in front of the cash register a blue plastic whale endlessly swam around and around and now and then spurted a geyser of water through a blowhole in its head. On the wall were posters celebrating the glory of summer on Cape Cod, and printed Chinese calendars on bamboo scrolls. On the door and window frames were tiny mirrors in seashell-littered frames. Suspended in the large many-paned front window was a profusion of stained-glass plaques of sailboats, sunsets, and endangered species. The ceiling was a tinkling sea of glass, bamboo, and metal wind chimes. Everything had “Olde Cape Cod” stamped prominently on its bottom or back. Clarisse began a game in which she searched the shop for a color that was found in nature, but soon gave it up as a waste of time.

She had been so stunned when she first saw the shop that she had been scarcely able to reply to Beatrice Rowell's pleasantries when Valentine had introduced the two women. Beatrice, the shop's owner, was probably forty-five, and something about her
screamed
divorcée, but she was very pleasant, and dressed—if not with flair—then at least not without taste. Clarisse thought that perhaps the Provincetown Crafts Boutique was some sort of elaborate joke, with Beatrice laughing every time a tourist made a purchase. Clarisse wasn't laughing yet.

She picked up the instruction booklet for the machine in the corner which heat-pressed decals onto T-shirts, but then reflected that perhaps she ought first to master the intricacies of the electronic cash register, which after half an hour's experimentation, she hadn't yet been able to open.

It was nearly eleven o'clock and the tourists were just beginning to show themselves on the street in oppressive numbers. Each time someone entered the shop, a music-box chime played the first four notes of “Lara's Theme.” Clarisse experimented with keeping the door propped open, but the early heat of the day was unpleasant and she satisfied herself with disconnecting the wire that triggered the music. When a customer wanted to know the price of one of the carved fishermen—which was clearly marked $2.98—Clarisse replied, “It's forty-five dollars, not including tax,” because she was afraid the man would want to buy it and she would have to admit her ignorance of the cash register.

The door of the shop was held open for this rapidly retreating customer by a policeman. He turned to a fellow officer who was standing outside and said something which Clarisse did not hear. The fellow officer wandered off, and the handsome policeman—Clarisse had rapidly determined
that
—came inside with a smile.

He stepped up to the counter, rested his hands flat on the edge, and let his eyes sweep boldly over her. Since Clarisse had already done the same for him, she allowed her eyes to remain demurely on his face. He was tall and slender with skin that looked incapable of burning or blemishing. His closely cut wavy black hair framed a strongly featured face with high cheekbones, a sensual pouty mouth, and large nearly black eyes bordered with heavy lashes. His uniform, unlike those of the other cops she'd seen in town, seemed tailored to fit his body.

“The last time I saw you,” said Clarisse, “there was a corpse between us.”

He nodded, but said nothing.

“Have you come to take me away from all this?” She glanced around the shop with a little grimace. “For questioning, I mean?”

“My name is Matteo Montalvo.” He spoke his own name with an accent, and Clarisse immediately conjectured that he had been raised in Provincetown's Portuguese community. “Call me Matt though.”

“I like Matteo better,” said Clarisse. “Do you want me to lock up?” she asked. “And come down to the station with you for a few hours? Say until closing time, whenever that is?”

“No,” he smiled, and glanced around the shop. “I wish I worked in a place as nice as this.” Clarisse charitably supposed that he referred to the air conditioning. “I came to ask you out.”

Clarisse paused only a moment before answering. “Sure! Just let me close up.” She hopped down off the stool.

“No!” laughed Matteo. “Wednesday night.”

Clarisse sighed, then looked up. “Oh,” she sighed disappointed, “and I thought it was my first invitation to breakfast with a cop…”

Just before noon, when his shift began at the Throne and Scepter across the way from the Provincetown Crafts Boutique, Valentine came into the shop, bringing a tongue sandwich and a bottle of Saratoga Water for her. “Thank you for the sandwich,” Clarisse said with a lowering glance which Valentine ignored. “And for the position. It's a shopgirl's dream.”

“As soon as I saw what Beatrice was stocking, I knew it was for you.”

A woman customer pointed to a small jewelry box completely covered with tiny scallop shells. “How much?”

Clarisse consulted a printed list of prices taped to the counter. “Ninety-four-fifty.”

The woman grabbed her husband's sleeve and pulled him out of the shop.

“Nothing in this place is over fifteen dollars,” said Valentine. “Let me see that price list.”

Clarisse explained her problems with the register and Valentine, with little difficulty, showed her how it worked. “Well that wasn't hard,” she said. “I thought you had to have a degree in higher math for these things. Come back on your break and show me how to operate the T-shirt press.”

He leaned on the counter and began to eat a turkey club that he had brought for himself. He occasionally helped himself to a drink from Clarisse's bottle of Saratoga Water.

“So,” said Clarisse, “is the whole town buzzing with news of the murder? Have people been asking if I've recovered from the trauma yet?”

“Well,” said Valentine, “I ran into a couple of people on my way here, and I talked to George while he was making the sandwiches. At least everybody seems to have heard. Nobody mentioned you though.”

“I guess it takes time for these things to get around. By the end of the day this place will be mobbed with people asking me what it felt like to discover a corpse at sunrise. I'll be the heroine of the hour.”

“Maybe,” said Valentine doubtfully.

“I just wonder if we'll ever find out anything about Jeff King and what he was doing yesterday—in the last hours of his life I mean.”

Valentine shrugged. “I heard a little about
that
…”

“Oh?”

“Well, after he left you on the pier, fresh off the ferry from Boston, he went to the Boatslip. In the ladies' room he changed into a pair of green swim briefs. They were very low-cut in the back. He swam in the pool for about half an hour but didn't do any diving. He had two drinks—both vodka and tonics. And he was selling drugs by the poolside out of his gym bag. MDA for sixty a gram, Black Beauties for seven a tab, and crystal coke for one-twenty-five a gram. I couldn't find out how many contacts he made. He went to Ciro and Sal's for dinner. Jimmy waited on him. He had eggplant parmesan and a glass of wine, house dressing on his salad—not bad for a last meal. He had dessert at the Portuguese bakery across from the candy store. Nobody knows for sure what he bought, but it was probably a cannoli with almond filling. He went back to the Boatslip, changed into his costume—but not in the ladies' room—and went to the party. He paid the cover charge with a hundred-dollar bill but didn't leave any tips when he got drinks.”

Clarisse paused a moment. “Did he leave a printed itinerary?”

“People are talking. News got out before most people had gone to bed.”

“I just don't understand,” moaned Clarisse. “There's a minute-by-minute account of the corpse's doings and goings, and nobody mentioned
me
? I mean, I
found
him. I even
touched
him. Maybe I'll get in the papers.”

“I don't think so,” said Valentine. “Murder is bad for business. Everything'll be handled very quietly.”

“Well, the police came to see me again a little while ago,” said Clarisse.

“I thought they got your statement this morning. You were at the station long enough to write your autobiography.”

“No, the cop had only one question to ask.”

“What was that?”

“‘Do you want to go out Wednesday night?' Wednesday night's his night off.”

“He came to ask you for a date? I never thought a woman appeared to advantage when she was identifying a corpse.”

“He saw through the superficialities of the situation. Anyway, I said yes.”

Valentine's eyes widened. “Was he cute?”

“I could spend the rest of my life with that man,” sighed Clarisse. “And he was Portuguese too—you know what
that
means.”

“Yeah,” said Valentine. “All Portuguese men have big—”

“Hearts,” said Clarisse quickly.

“But this cop didn't mention the murder?”

“No,” said Clarisse. “I wonder if they even know that Mr. King was selling drugs. I wonder if they know any of what you told me.”

“Probably not. The entire FBI doesn't have the investigative powers of five gossiping queens.”

“There's something you said that I don't understand: How do you know Jeff King didn't change into his costume in the ladies' room at the Boatslip?”

“Because there was a big contingent of dykes there late yesterday afternoon, and it was off-limits to men. My friend Larry was sitting on the porch of the Casablanca all afternoon—that's right across the street—and he saw Jeff go in with his bag, and come out later in his costume, but without the bag. So somewhere in the Boatslip he changed his clothes.”

“That means he was probably staying in somebody's room. Maybe he tricked,” suggested Clarisse.

“If it was only a trick he wouldn't have left his bag. It was more likely he ran into somebody who agreed to put him up. Somebody he already knew. That also means that his bag is still somewhere in the Boatslip.”

“So at least there's
one
person who's not talking,” said Clarisse ruefully. “I just wish all these people would get the really important part right.”

Valentine looked up from his sandwich curiously.

“The really important part,” said Clarisse, “is that
I
found him, alerted the police, and provided positive identification.”

“Give up, doll,” said Valentine. “This dead drug dealer isn't going to make you famous. I wasn't going to tell you this, but the rumor is that the body was found by an antique dealer from Chicago who was on a bad acid trip, and it sent him over the edge and he had to be flown to the hospital in Hyannis.”

Clarissa was incensed. “Oh,” she cried, “stealing my thunder! Don't talk to me about the detective abilities of the male homosexual. My one chance to get my picture on the cover of
Real Detective
and
True Police Stories
—and the gay community can't get it straight!”

S
HORTLY AFTER VALENTINE had left the shop, Beatrice returned to look in on Clarisse.

She opened the door, stuck in her head, pulled her dark glasses down low on the bridge of her nose, and peered at Clarisse over the top of them. “How are you getting along?”

“Just fine,” replied Clarisse with a grin that was as wide as it was insincere.

Beatrice came all the way into the shop. She wore a forest-green linen dress with black trim and a black sash. Her sandals were lacquered black. Her skin was of a leathered toughness that is attained only in women of a certain age who have spent nearly all of their lives in Florida or southern California.

“I'm so glad you've come to work for me,” said Beatrice. “I'm so happy that Danny found you for me.”

“Danny?”

“Dan Valentine,” said Beatrice with surprise.

“Oh,
Danny
,” replied Clarisse. “Yes, well, I needed the job.”

“You're from Boston?”

Clarisse nodded.

“Did you work in retail there?”

“I was the principal legal consultant for a major advertising firm with offices in Boston, San Juan, and Honolulu.”

“And you gave that up to come work
here
?”

“I was tired of the grind,” said Clarisse with a confiding nod. “The constant travel to Puerto Rico and Hawaii wore me out.”

“I'm afraid you'll find it very dull in the Provincetown Crafts Boutique then,” said Beatrice, with some concern in her voice. “But I hope you find it exciting enough to stay on for the whole summer. I had a girl in here, hired her on April Fools' Day—and I was the fool. She robbed me blind.”