Cruelest Month (11 page)

19

Lost in thought, Ray climbed the stairs
leading from the basement of the library and pushed his way through the aluminum doors into the dull gray afternoon. Outside, he took a few minutes to look around the area adjacent to the library—the parking lot and the sidewalks leading up to the village and the harbor. The village sidewalk was a quick to and fro, but at the harbor he walked slowly past the slips lined up at right angles along their long slender ribbon of land. The marina had stood empty since late October, when the last boat had been moved to winter storage. Today only a few clumps of snow remained in areas protected from the sun and rain.

A gentle rain was falling from low hanging clouds. The large homes on the west arm of the bay, mostly seasonal dwellings, were shrouded in a mist that clung to the shoreline. Standing at the end of the pier, next to a tall navigation light, Ray gazed out at the big lake. Beyond the harbor there was the bay, and, beyond that, open water stretched north to the Straits of Mackinac. Ray stood for a long moment, concentrating on the sound of the wind and the rhythmic splash of the gentle surf against the side of the pier. He closed his eyes. The air, still with a bit of winter’s frigid bite, smelled fresh and clean. He opened his eyes slowly retracing his steps back toward to the library.

Against the gloom of the day, Ray found the interior of the Last Chance with its familiar smells of burgers and beer welcoming. Jack Grochowski, the longtime owner, leaned over the bar and gave Ray a warm greeting.

“The usual,” said Ray, settling onto a stool.

“‘’Fraid we’re not doing the usual anymore,” answered Jack. “I can give you a Columbian supremo, I have a very nice French roast, a Viennese, and my current favorite’s a dark roast with hints of mocha and cinnamon.”

“What happened to the Eight O’clock from Sam’s Club, made with that special water you were always bragging about?”

“Progress,” answered Jack, rubbing a wrinkled hand across his grizzled beard. “People don’t want that old style anymore. I’m just keeping up with the times. Let me recommend the French roast. I think that’s close to what I used to serve you.”

“Sure,” Ray said. He watched as Jack inserted the coffee pod, his hands unsteady, into the shiny new machine that occupied the same shelf space where generations of Mr. Coffees had lived and died.

“Tell me what you think,” said Jack, setting a new, white mug with the steaming brew in front of Ray.

“It’s good, Jack,” said Ray, after several careful sips. “It’ll take some getting used to, but it’s good. Never thought you’d be one to buckle under pressure, though.”

“Well, you know, it’s the girls that work here,” Jack said, perching himself on a stool he kept behind the bar. “They keep saying it’ll be less fuss, that we wouldn’t be throwing so much coffee away. Yeah, I’m not sure of the economics. I think it’s mostly that the girls are into all these yuppie flavors.” He paused while he sipped from his own mug. “Yeah, well, things are changing. Point in case. I’ve been stocking these ‘craft beers,’ whatever that means. They sell like crazy, especially to the summer people. In fact, it’s worth having Bell’s or Shorts on tap during the season.” He took another thoughtful sip of coffee. “But I know you didn’t come in to talk about coffee or beer. I saw the news on TV. And I was sorry to see it. Good old Vinnie. I’ll miss that old boy.” He leaned close to the bar. “What happened Ray?”

“We’re still trying to figure that out. We’ll know more in a few days.”

Jack slouched. “Which usually means you know more than you’re telling, but that’s all you’re letting out.”

This time Ray leaned into the bar. “So I heard from several people that Fox was a frequent customer.”

“He was,” Jack responded, perking up. “Came in three, four, five days a week. Have a shell or two. ‘Course when his daughter’d bring him in for a burger, he’d make a big thing of it, like he only came here with her, like it was such a treat. And there’s a perfect example of what I was talking about.”

“Example?”

“People wanting new things. Vinnie, for years, would only drink Bud or Bud Lite. We’ve always had some imports in bottles, but I don’t think he ever tried one. Now these craft beers, I’ve got one on tap for the first time last June. In fact, I gave him a glass just for fun, expecting he’d swear it wasn’t a Bud. Hah! He loved it. That’s all he’s had since. And that old tightwad was willing to pay twice as much. And instead of nursing one for hours, he’d drink two.

“This past Saturday, do you remember Vinnie coming in?”

“Ray, that’s almost a week ago. I’m struggling with what happened yesterday.”

“Well, give it a shot,” pressed Ray.

“I can’t say for sure. The days sorta blend.”

“Was he alone? Did he come with a group? Did he meet people here?”

“Well, there was a group of them over the years, seven or eight of them back in the day. Most are gone now. Last year or two, it’s mostly Vinnie, his buddy Tommy, and Mildred Hall.”

“Mildred Hall, really?”

“Yea. Now she wasn’t as regular as the other two, but she was often with them.”

“Was she drinking craft beer with Vinnie?”

Jack laughed and rolled off his stool. “Mildred has her special tea.”

“That makes sense,” said Ray.

“You don’t understand.” Jack walked to the end of the bar, brought back a teacup and saucer, and set them in front of Ray. “And here’s the special tea,” he said, retrieving a bottle from the back row next to the mirror.

“Lagavulin, 12 years old.”

“Yup. I stock it for her; never had it in the place before. Two shots in this teacup, she’d have.” He pointed. “They liked to sit over in that booth, the two guys on one side, Margaret on the other. She’d always drink one tea and I’d ask her if she wanted another, and she’d always say, ‘I can’t, I’m driving.’ The guys thought it was a good joke, the tea and all. They never caught on.”

Anyone new hanging around lately, anything unusual?”

“Nothing I can remember. This is the slowest time of year.”

“Do you know about Fox’s book?” asked Ray.

“Oh, yeah, that book. It’s all he’s talked about for a year. Before the book, he mostly talked about World War II and all his bomber adventures. Then that whole Capone thing took over.”

“Have you seen the book?”

“I got a copy back at the house. He gave it to me for Christmas. I’m not much of a reader, but I’ve made my way through most of it.”

“And?”

“Well, Vinnie’s a good story teller, he is. And there might be some truth in his book. I mean we all know Capone made a lot of money and was doing his best not to give it to the taxman. But, well, I can say there’s always lots of fun in the telling, and the listening.”

Ray finished his coffee and set the mug back on the counter. “It’s pretty good coffee, Jack. I’m not a convert yet, but this could grow on me. Listen, if anything occurs to you about Vinnie, give me a call.”

“I’ll do that, Ray. I’ll miss old Vinnie. There aren’t many of us left.”

Sue Lawrence scraped back a chair at the conference table. “I thought you were going to be back earlier,” she said to Ray.

“Did I say that?”

“No, not exactly, but I thought you were just going to talk to Joan Barton.”

“Well, I was going through the village, and I got inspired.” Ray told Sue about his several conversations.

“So,” said Sue mildly, “what you established is that we’re clueless as to who walked out with Fox’s book, no one remembers seeing him after Mildred Hall dropped him off in the village on Saturday afternoon, and that he drank craft beer.”

“No, there’s more. Not that they’re relevant to this investigation. But still surprising and interesting.”

“Like?”

“Mildred Hall, my old chemistry teacher, Fox’s sometime driver. She told me that she only spent time with Fox at the casino and the library. Turns out she also would have drinks with Fox and Tommy Fuller at the Last Chance.”

“That’s pretty scandalous, Ray.”

“It gets better. Jack keeps a special bottle of high-end single malt Scotch for her and serves it up in a proper teacup.”

Sue shrugged. “What can I say, or as my Grandmother would say, ‘A lady has to protect her reputation.’” She smiled and added, “And what you high school boys didn’t know was that Mildred Hall probably had a number of interesting lovers and spent her evenings drinking Scotch and having torrid encounters while you were home memorizing the periodic chart.”

Doing her best to control her mirth, Sue unrolled a plastic covered map, turned it 180 degrees for Ray, and pushed it across the table. “I read Fox’s book very carefully and highlighted the possible burial sites for the Capone stash.”

Ray looked at the large ellipse that encompassed the coastline from Frankfort to Charlevoix and included the Manitou and Fox islands.

“Where do you think we should start hunting for the guys digging in the sand?” she asked, doing her best to control the grin.

Ray just shook his head.

“This weekend…” began Sue.

“Yes?”

“I’m running down to Ann Arbor to spend some time with friends, and I was wondering about Simone. Could she stay with you?”

Ray took a moment to respond. “That should be fine,” he drawled. “If something happens that I’m mostly on the job, she can ride with me.”

“And I’d like to take a little extra time. I should be back here Monday by 1o’clock. Are you okay with that?”

“No problem,” Ray said, looking at the map again. “You’ve got a mountain of leave time. You should be using it.”

“Great. And here’s the
quid pro quo
: on my way out of Ann Arbor on Monday morning I’ll stop at Zingerman’s for you.”

“Now you’re talking,” said Ray. “Give me a few minutes to make a list.”

20

After leaving the office, Ray drove
to the Lake Michigan shoreline for a long walk with Simone. Ray started their hike at a brisk pace and held it for several miles, but when they turned to retrace their steps, he allowed Simone to dictate the pace. They stopped frequently so Simone could carefully inspect pieces of driftwood, clumps of dune grass, and the assorted detritus that collects on a beach.

It took several trips to carry all of Simone’s weekend supplies into the house: her bed, a crate, a bag of food and treats, a doggie raincoat, and a bag of toys. All were neatly packed and organized in Sue’s usual fashion.

For dinner, Ray constructed a sandwich with bread sliced from a peasant loaf and some aged Vermont cheddar. After he pressed it into a Panini pan, he opened a can and dished out food for Simone. She approached the bowl warily, smelled the contents, and returned to Ray’s side, and looking up at him with large, expectant eyes.

Ray had promised Sue that he would not share his gastronomical creations with Simone and that she would be kept on her usual diet of gourmet canine food. But after a session of sad eyes he retrieved her dish and topped the brackish mixture of congealed gristle and meat with some pieces of cheddar. He watched with delight at how quickly she ate her dinner.

The rest of the evening was spent quietly. He filled several journal pages and then looked at the stack of books that had been collecting on his desk. He passed over several newly released novels. He needed something calming, something that would complement his pensive mood. He settled on Jim Harrison’s newest volume of poetry, and, starting at the back, he paged through it in a random manner. This was the first read. He knew that he would return to the book many times over the years, finding favorites among the carefully crafted poems.

Ray woke in the early light to the sound of snoring. He opened one eye and peered across the floor to the empty dog bed. Rolling over, he found Simone stretched out on the pillow next to him.

Ray parked behind Nora Jennings’ Ford Explorer, pulled Simone into his arms, and walked to the back door of the cottage. Ray had done odd jobs for Nora and her husband Hugh when he was in high school and college, and had stayed in touch with them through the years. After Hugh’s death, he had made a special point of checking on Nora by phone, and occasionally dropping by her isolated home on a bluff above the Lake Michigan shore.

His rapping brought a cacophony of barking as the resident dogs, Falstaff, a Labrador, and Hal, a Welsh terrier, charged the door to welcome the visitor. Nora pushed back the curtains and peered out before sliding back the deadbolt.

“I thought you were coming right over,” she said, hustling him into the kitchen. “The coffee’s not completely fresh.”

“It just takes longer to do things,” Ray explained. “I hadn’t factored in how long Simone would insist on walking this morning. Is it okay that I bring her in?”

“She’s in already. Just set her down. She gets along fine with the boys.” Nora started filling the two coffee mugs that were already standing on the table. “I made those cookies, oatmeal with walnuts, just the way you like them.”

Ray settled at the table and looked out at Lake Michigan through a wall of glass. There were modest swells in the light wind, the water dull and gray under a thick overcast.

“How was Detroit?” he asked.

“The best part was climbing in my truck and pulling onto I-75. God, was I glad to get out of there. Two weeks in Grosse Pointe was more than I could bear. I know my daughter means well, but that’s just not where I want to be.” Nora pulled a chair next to him to share the view, “The guys hate it, too.” She looked off toward the couch where they were curled up, one at each end, Simone in the center.”

“How’s your daughter?”

“Same old. She tried to drag me off to a couple of retirement communities. Keeps telling me she’d sleep so much better at night if she knew I was in one of those awful places.”

“And you?”

“Are you kidding? Look at the lake. Is that magnificent or what? I don’t want the noise of the city. And I don’t want to be around all those people, especially in one of those places with a bunch of old crabby geezers.”

“And I suppose….”

“Yes, I told her. I’m not much of a diplomat anymore. I say what I think. It’s one of the prerogatives of old age. By the end of two weeks, she was happy to see me go. Think I’ve finally convinced her that she doesn’t want me just down the road.” She added a spoonful of sugar to her coffee, stirred until it was dissolved. “You said you had some questions, some history questions. What are you going to do when I die, Ray?”

“You don’t get to. But,” he said, pointing to a desk on the south wall covered with books, binders, loose papers, and an old IBM Selectric, “I’d really like it if you would get this history of Cedar County in print. It’s been, what 10 years now?”

“Yeah, just in case, right?”

“Is there some way I could help you?” asked Ray. “I could find someone to get all this on a computer and ready for printing.”

Helen was silent for a long time. “I think I’d like that, Ray,” she said finally. “My fingers.” She held up her hands.

Ray noted the swelling around the joints and the misalignment of the digits.

“It’s always worse in the winter. I’ve talked to the doctor about it. He gave me some medicine for the pain, but said there’s not much he can do about it. It’s the damn age thing.” She paused and looked at her paper-laden desk. “The book, would it cost much to do that?”

“Not so much. It isn’t the investment it used to be. There are new technologies called print-on-demand. Basically, you just pay to get the book formatted. And I could probably help you find some underwriters.”

“Let me think about it. So what do you need today? You said you had a question.”

“The Hollingsford Estate, what can you tell me about it?”

“Hollingsford…my, I haven’t thought about that in a long time. Is it still there?” She answered her own question in a few seconds. “Yes, it’s down at the end of the National Shoreline. It should have been part of the Park, but talk was they had better lawyers and more political connections than everyone else. When the final boundaries were drawn, it was excluded.”

“Did you know the people, the Hollingsfords?”

“No, but my mother did. My mother, she was from Chicago, and I think they were, too. I don’t know if she knew them from up here or down there.”

“Where you ever there? Did you ever visit the estate?”

“I may have as a child. My mother was a real gadabout. But I have no memory of it.”

“Here’s another question: When I was growing up, I heard lots of stories of Al Capone coming up here in the ’20s. There were rumors that he and his boys may have tried to hide some of his misbegotten wealth up here, bags of gold coins buried on beaches and hidden away in houses like the one on the Hollingsford Estate.”

Nora scowled. “I was just a little girl when that could have happened, but let me tell you, Ray, those stories have been around for as long as I can remember. And that’s all they’ve ever been, rumors. Let’s see, what do they call them now? Urban legends. I’ve heard about Capone having a house in Frankfort. He also had a place in Leland, and maybe a place up in that Methodist summer colony in Petoskey.” She chuckled at her joke. “And, Ray, how we girls were warned to avoid swarthy city-types, sharpies, men driving big Cadillacs and Buicks, men coming up here to woo young farm girls and take them back to Chicago or Cicero to a fate worse than death.”

“Never to be seen or heard from again,” added Ray.

“Worse than that, they were seen again. A year or two later they’d be back—dropped off by a Greyhound at the end of the drive with their name and address on a label hanging by a string around their neck. Their bodies would be covered with oozing pustules and their brains rotted by syphilis. The girls would either die quickly, surrounded by distraught relatives, or they would end up at the Traverse City State Hospital for the rest of their miserable days.”

“Yes, I see, you were duly warned.”

“Never mind that I never saw anyone fitting the description. And actually, I’ve always really liked dark-haired, olive-skinned men—those brooding Mediterranean types. But,” she said wistfully, “in the end it was Hugh that captured my heart. His reddish-blond hair, his light freckled skin, and his Scotch heritage.” She paused briefly. “Anyway, by that time I was old enough to be in danger, Capone was either in jail or long dead. And I was a college girl in Ann Arbor.”

“I sense you don’t put much stock in the Capone story.”

“Stock, schlock, it’s a bunch of junk. You know, Ray, people are always getting excited about stuff that has little or no truth to it. The important things that they should be concerned about go unnoticed. But why all this talk about Capone?”

“Vincent Fox, he spends a lot of time around the library. He’s written a book on Capone.”

“Vinnie, the old guy in the buckskin jacket?”

“Yes.”

“I know who he is, nothing much more.”

“He was found dead Monday, while you were away.” Ray gave her the information his department had made public and told her about Fox’s book.

“Well, I’m sorry he’s dead. Truly, there’s too much of that going around. And I missed the fact that he’s an author. Probably a good thing. I may have ridiculed the book. I’ve become such a sarcastic old crone, bit of a book snob, too.” She got up to refill their mugs. “I’m afraid I’m not giving you much help. Is there anything else?”

“A drowning on Lake Michigan about twenty years ago, the body ended up on the Hollingsford beach.”

“Drownings,” she sighed. “There were so many over the years. Was there something special about this one?”

“It was early in the season, late May or early June. The victim was a 15-year-old kid from Sandville.”

Nora took a sip of coffee, set her mug back on the table. “The warm air fools the kids. They don’t understand the difference between air temperatures and water temperatures.” She paused, “But 20 years ago, nothing particular comes to mind. I’m sorry. And now there’s something I want to know.”

“What’s that?”

“A security system, my daughter thinks I should invest in one.” She waved her hand. “It’s more about getting help if I’m sick or something rather than burglars.”

Ray sat for a long moment without responding.

“Well,” said Nora. “Cat’s got your tongue?”

“They’re the bane of my existence. The summer people are always putting them in their cottages, and we respond to lots of false alarms. But, Nora, in your case I think it’s a good idea. You’d wear one of the lavaliere call units.”

“Who should I call?” she asked.

“Let me get back to you on that. I’ll ask around and give you a call or stop by at the beginning of the work week.” When he stood, Simone jumped off the couch and raced to his side, ready to get back on the road.