GUNNER (ALTON RHODE MYSTERIES Book 5) (10 page)

CHAPTER 14 - VICTORIA

The Salmon Villas Motel was as advertised: badly named, almost vacant and well-kept, with a wide lawn that swept down through the trees to a small inlet on the Salmon River. Adirondack chairs lined the bank and a small sandy beach. A rowboat was tied to a small dock, and two canoes lay overturned and tethered to a tree. At the entrance to the motel office there was a bicycle rack with three bicycles. A sign on the wall said that the bicycles and boats were for the use of guests on “a first-come, first-serve” basis. It reminded me of an inn down the New Jersey shore where Alice and I had spent a weekend. There, the bikes had baskets on the handlebars that the management would fill with a picnic lunch gratis if you wanted. Alice and I were just getting to know each other. We went swimming in the ocean. I’m a strong swimmer, having in the past contended with a pack and a rifle, but I quickly learned that Alice, a swimming coach who once competed against kids who later went on to the Olympics, was a dolphin to my walrus. It was early in the season. The water was cold but later, back at the inn, Alice was warm. It was a good weekend.

There was no one in the motel office when I entered, but when I hit the bell on the desk a man appeared promptly from somewhere in back. He looked both surprised and happy to see me. He identified himself as the owner and I asked for a room. I guess he decided to push his luck because he mentioned that the two end “suites” were only $100 more a night than a regular room. When I told him that a regular room would do, he dropped the suite price by $25. While I thought that over, he chopped off another $25. I’m not a haggler, and I felt sorry for the guy. I took the suite before he decided to pay me for it. I was spending the blood money Vernon Maples gave me. Supporting the local economy in Panetta’s home town seemed the right thing to do.

“You here to do some fishing?” he asked. “You can fish off the dock or take out a boat. And you can wade downstream along the gravel banks. Just be careful. Every year winter ice flow gouges out some new channels near the shore that can surprise you. Water comes over the top of your waders and you might be in trouble.”

“I’m just passing through,” I said, handing over my credit card.

“Too bad. It’s not really good salmon season yet but I hear they’re killing the steelheads.”

“You have a nice place here,” I said, diplomatically, “almost could pass for a little resort. Did you ever think about changing the name to something a bit sexier?”

He gave me a look that told me I wasn’t the first to broach the subject.

“Did Kay down at the Chamber recommend us?”

“Yes. She said she’s not supposed to show favoritism, but she thinks this is a great place.”

He smiled.

“She’s right, of course. But I can’t change the name until I pay off the note. The company that owned the place before me and Angie bought it still has the rights to it. Should be all ours by this time next year. If we last that long.”

I dropped my luggage in my suite, which had a bedroom, a sitting area, small kitchen and a nice view of the Salmon River. Not 50 yards away on the opposite bank two fisherman wearing campaign hats, vests and waders were fly casting. It looked like a scene in an L.L. Bean catalog. I liked to fish and had always wanted to try fly fishing, which looked so elegant. As if reading my mind, one of the fishermen executed a graceful roll cast into a still patch of water that undoubtedly lay above a deep pool. I waited to see if he would get a hit. He didn’t. It has been my experience that you never see fisherman catch anything. But I know they do, just not when you want them to. The other fisherman stripped line from his reel as he whipped his long rod back and forth. The line made long, graceful arcs through the air to his rear and front before he finally let it settle in the water almost halfway across the river. He watched it for a minute and occasionally twitched his rod tip before bringing some line in and starting over.

I made a mental note to buy a fly rod and then I headed out to see Victoria Gustafson.   

The directions Kay had sketched out on the Chamber map were helpful. The unnamed cutoff, which GPS Gladys missed, was about two miles from the motel and just past a sign indicating that the Selkirk Lighthouse was four miles ahead. I drove through thick forest down a barely paved road that dead ended in a clearing and a one-story red clapboard house. The house itself looked fine, but I understood why even a blind man might consider the land surrounding it an eyesore. The entire front yard was a jumble of  refrigerators and ice chests; bed frames; rocking and straight-back chairs, couches; deck furniture, washers and dryers, televisions and television stands; cabinets; computers; dressers, window frames; sleighs and kiddie wagons; lamps with and without shades; ornate mailboxes and bird houses, and some things I couldn’t identify. The path up to the porch and front door was clear. As I walked through the yard past all the rusting and molding detritus, I braced myself for meeting Victoria Gustafson, who in my mind’s eye, had to weigh three hundred pounds and would be wearing a shapeless dress designed by Omar the Tent Maker. The front door was open. I knocked on the screen door.

The woman who came to the door didn’t weigh 300 pounds. In fact, she was very thin. And even through the screening I could tell she had fine features.

“Can I help you?”

She had a well-modulated, educated voice.

“My name is Alton Rhode. I’m an investigator from New York City. Are you Victoria Gustafson?”

“Yes.”

“I would like to ask you some questions about your cousin, John.”

“Do you have some identification, Mr. Rhode?”

I took out my wallet and pressed my license against the screen. She glanced at it for a moment then unlatched the door. I opened it and she stepped back.

“Please come in. Would you like some coffee?’

“Yes, thank you.”

She led me into a small dining area. There was a small dark-wood table with a marble top surrounded by four matching chairs with espresso-colored leather backs. On the table were some notebooks, open, with a small coffee cup filled with pencils. There was also an iPad on a stand playing a piano version of a lyrical ballad. She tapped the screen and the song went off. She closed the notebooks and moved them and iPad to the side.

“You didn’t have to shut the music on my account,” I said. “
Greensleeves
, wasn’t it?”

Victoria Gustafson smiled.

“Yes. Perhaps the oldest traditional English folk song, dating back to 1580. Some people believe that it was composed by Henry VIII for Anne Boleyn. But scholars have pointed out that the Italian structure of the music did not reach England until after Henry's death. It’s more likely that Lady Green Sleeves was a prostitute. The green may refer to the grass stains on her gown that resulted from a tryst out of doors.”

“So it just as easily have been called
Mudsleeves
. Or
Manuresleeves
.”

She laughed.

“I will have to tell my students that. They like the hooker version a lot better than the royal version as it is. Please take a seat. I’ll put on a fresh pot. It won’t take a moment.”

She went into a kitchen and I sat. I looked around. The house was immaculate. The furniture wasn’t new, but everything seemed to be freshly dusted or polished. The odor of Pine Sol was strong. More important, I could also smell something freshly baked. I could hear drawers opening and closing, and the sound of percolating coffee.

On the dining room wall under a bay window was a sideboard, also with a marble top, in which two doors flanked shelves for wine bottles. Resting atop the sideboard was a triangular wooden case with a glass front containing a crisply folded American flag.

I walked over to the sideboard. Next to the flag case, but lying flat, was another wooden case, this one rectangular. Behind the cases were two silver picture frames. One held a color photo of John Panetta standing next to Victoria Gustafson in front of what looked to be a church. The resemblance was striking. The other frame contained a faded and dog-eared photo of Panetta in his jungle fatigues crossing a small stream with an M-60 machine gun slung across his shoulders. He was easily recognizable as a younger, and much gaunter, version of the man in the more recent photo. He was just coming up the bank, with other troopers lined up behind him a few feet apart. There was a pack of cigarettes attached by a band to his helmet. The grunts in the middle of the stream were in water up to their chest and all had their rifles held above their heads. When you looked very closely at the photo, you could see that Panetta had the middle finger of his right hand extended. But he was smiling into the camera.

The photo wasn’t very clear. I’d bet it was taken by a buddy. Hence, the finger and the grin. The frames and the cases were highly buffed. The flag case had a small plaque with Panetta’s name engraved on it. The other case contained his medals and service ribbons. The Medal of Honor, with the distinctive blue ribbon, was in the center. I’d seen photos of the medal, but never one up close. I felt a small chill run up my spine. Harry Truman, a World War I veteran, once said he’d rather have won a Medal of Honor than be President.

Victoria Gustafson finally emerged from the kitchen carrying a tray with a coffee pot, two cups, milk and sugar, and dish piled with blueberry muffins.

“You know they call him ‘Gunner’ Panetta around here because of what he did with that machine gun,” she said. “It took me a long time to come to grips with that, being antiwar like I was. But as I got older I realized that Johnny only did what he was told and from his medal citation it looks like he saved a lot of his buddies. He never bragged about it. And he never badmouthed me or anyone else, even those who ran off to Canada or dodged the draft. Said everyone was too young to be held accountable for what old fools in Washington or Hanoi did. He never cut me off. It was me who did that. After I made up with Johnny I asked for a photo of him in the service. He gave me that one. Said a friend took it. It’s a bit grainy because I had it blown up, but you can still see he was a good-looking boy.”  

I sat back down.

“Sorry I took so long,” she said. “But I just made these muffins and they deserve perked coffee. Hope you don’t mind.”

“Worth the wait, I’m sure.”

“It may ruin your dinner.”

“I’ll chance it.”

As she poured the coffee I took her in. My first impression through the screen was correct. She was a handsome woman, with dark skin, gray hair cut short and dark eyes. Her lips were full and she had strong cheekbones. She would have been a knockout when young, and wasn’t bad to look at now as a woman presumably in her 60’s. I could tell by the way she glanced up at me when she was pouring that she knew I was sizing her up. I saw her lip curl into a small smile. She liked being admired.

Once they were poured, we each fixed our own coffee the way we liked. It was strong and good, as perked coffee usually is when fresh. I took a muffin. It was worth the wait and I told her so.

“Thank you. Now, perhaps you can tell me why a private investigator is involved in John’s case. Has someone been apprehended? Are you working for the defense?”

Victoria Gustafson was a sharp woman.

“No. In fact, just the opposite.”

I gave her the same version of the truth I’d given Joan Tolentine. She appeared to accept it.

“Well, I don’t know how I can help, but I’ll try. But I’d like to ask you a question first. Why did you ask who I was when I answered the door?”

When I hesitated she said, “Because of the yard?”

“Yes,” I replied. “You don’t seem to be the kind of person who would have a yard like that.” I waved my muffin-free hand. “I mean, this house is spotless.”

I thought that I offended her and was about to apologize when she smiled.

“It is terribly disgusting, isn’t it? Just about all of those things belong to Otto. My ex-husband. He owned a small consignment business downtown that went under and he moved all that stuff here. There was a freak snowstorm before he could put up a tent to protect it all, and he said the hell with it. Then we got divorced and he just left it here. Court wouldn’t let me get rid of it until our divorce was final, since he claimed some of the stuff was still valuable. Who knows, maybe the mailboxes and birdhouses will bring something. He’s been ordered to take it all away but he keeps stalling. I’ll probably have to pay to do it myself.” 

Otto sounded like a real winner.

CHAPTER 15 - OTTO

“I’ve taught at the Pulaski Academy and Central School for more than 30 years. I married late. I was 40. Maybe it was a mistake. I miscarried twice and that was that. Otto and I never had children. But the kids at the academy keep me busy.”

We were on our second cups of coffee and Victoria Gustafson was telling me about her life. I was paying attention, but I was also considering a second blueberry muffin. Where food is concerned, I can multitask with the best of them. I thought I’d wait a few minutes. No sense in acting like a hog. I also didn’t want to break her train of thought. Living alone in the boonies like she did, she probably relished the chance to have an intelligent conversation. 

“Until his murder, Johnnie was my only living relative. All our people are gone. We didn’t come from archetypal Italian families with a slew of kids. I was an only child, as was he, and his folks had both died fairly young. He came to live with us, so growing up we were more like brother and sister than first cousins. We did everything together. Fished, played cowboys and Indians, you name it. But once we got into high school, we drifted apart. He moved into an apartment with some of his buddies. All they talked about was joining the Army to get out of Pulaski. I mean there wasn’t much work up here. We never got along after that. I was what you’d call a free spirit. You know, peace, love and controlled substances. Anti-everything, especially the war and the people fighting it. I mean I didn’t spit at the guys coming home or anything.” She paused and looked sad. “I might have called him a baby killer, though. Not my finest hour. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking.”

“I wouldn’t beat yourself up too much, Mrs. Gustafson. Thinking isn’t something that any of us do particularly well at that age.”

“You’re kind to say that. And, please, it’s Vicki. And may I call you Alton?”

“Of course. When did you reconcile with your cousin?”

“Not for a long time. After he came back from his second tour, when he won the medal, we hardly spoke, even though I had rethought some of my positions. I tried to mend fences. But he wasn’t interested. I don’t think it was because of anything I’d done. He wasn’t rude or anything. I think his second tour changed him. He’d seen too much. He just up and left. Dropped off some stuff at my place — I was living in an apartment by then — and said he might send for it. He never did, so I put it in a trunk. Sill have it. It’s up in the attic.” She smiled. “Otto isn’t the only pack rat around here. I don’t like to throw things out.”

“What kind of stuff?”

“Army stuff. It was all jumbled up in a box. I didn’t even go through it until a couple of years ago. That’s when I found his medals and ribbons and things, and thought I’d do something with them. I put those in that little case over there I bought at a flea market. I showed it to him when he came by on one of his visits. Asked him if he wanted it. He told me that for all he cared it all could go back up in the attic. But he wasn’t mad or anything. I think he was actually touched. But I put the display in a drawer whenever he came over. Otto wanted me to sell them, especially the big one, but I said that wouldn’t be right. Otto is always looking to make a buck.”

“I think it may be illegal to sell a Medal of Honor.”

“Wouldn’t stop Otto. Anyway, I guess I’ve come a long way from my Woodstock days. Come in here and see Johnny’s medals and flag from his funeral and you’d think I was a Gold Star mother, not just a cousin who felt badly about how I treated him when he came home from Vietnam.”

“When was the last time you saw John?”

She thought a moment.

“About a year and a half ago.” She looked over at the sideboard. “That’s when that picture was taken. After some sort of church function. I’d gotten him going to Sunday mass with me when he was around. He was planning to come up again a few weeks ago, but then he was killed. I spoke to him on the phone. I think he was going to bring up his lady friend. Joan. I met her at the funeral. I think he was quite fond of her. I almost felt badly about getting the flag from his casket, and not her, but I’m family. Have you met her? Wanted to know all about John and what he was like growing up. Said he never spoke to her about the war and wondered if he ever opened up about it with me. Of course, he never really did. Only thing he ever told me was that he hated officers and was always getting into trouble, which was why he was never promoted. Of course, after he got the medal, they wanted to make him a sergeant or something, but he left the Army.”

I had wondered why a man with two tours was still a Specialist 4th Class. Panetta had probably been a hard case, some of whom make the best soldiers in a crunch. I thought of Vernon Maples. A man you wouldn’t turn your back on, except in combat when you wanted him watching your back. 

“You probably should speak to Joan,” Vicki said. “Nice woman.”

“I already have. You said you had other material about John’s service still in the attic. Do you think I could see it?”

“I don’t see why not. If the squirrels haven’t gotten to it. Ever have squirrels in your house? Pain in the rear to get rid of. That’s one thing Otto is good at, I’ll give him that.” She laughed. “But if I have to choose, I’ll take the squirrels.”

She got up.

“I’ll go see if I can find the trunk. Please, have another muffin.”

I heard the screen door behind me open and then slam shut.

“Whore you?”

I turned to see a man holding a single-barrel shotgun. I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I presumed he’d said, “Who are you?” The shotgun wasn’t pointed at me. But he held it in the crook of his arm like he knew how to use it. It was a 12-gauge. Even someone who doesn’t know how to use such a cannon can do a lot of damage.

“Name is Rhode,” I said. I didn’t stand. As long as the shotgun remained pointed in the general direction of the floor, I wasn’t going to make a move to my own gun. I’d see how it played out. “I came out to talk to Victoria.”

“Victoria, huh? What are doin’ on my property?” He looked at the woman. “This your latest, Vicki? Kind of young, ain’t he?”

“Otto, behave yourself,” she said. “And don’t be crude. I haven’t had a ‘latest’ in years. And this isn’t your property, anymore. I got it in the divorce.”

“Well, it’s still my stuff outside there.”

“And I wish you’d get all that crap out of the yard. Nobody is going to buy this place with it looking like a junkyard.”

“I don’t want you to sell. This was our home, damn it!”

Somehow I had gotten myself into the middle of a domestic dispute. I knew how that usually worked out. Now, I stood up, figuring I’d be able to draw my gun faster, if it came to that. I kept my eye on the shotgun. If Otto made a move, I was ready. He was a tall, rangy man with sideburns and a three-day growth of beard. He was wearing overalls and a work shirt, with a tan hunter’s cap that matched his boots. Otto might have been a pain in the ass, and many years my senior, but he looked capable enough and I wasn’t about to underestimate him.

Vicki sighed.

“Let’s talk about that later. Mr. Rhode is a detective from New York. He’s looking into some things about Gunner’s death.”

Otto looked at me.

“Vicki, I want to talk about it now,” he said. But he put the gun down, leaning it against a chair. “It’s important.” There was a pleading tone in his voice.

I could see that she was torn.

“It’s all right,” I said. “I’ll come back later. Maybe you can get those photos out of the attic.”

She smiled in gratitude.

“I have to go to Albany tomorrow morning for some continuing education classes and a teachers’ conference,” she said. “I’m staying overnight. I should be back by noon on Sunday. Will that be all right? Will you still be here?”

“I’ll stick around.” I gave her my card. “Just call me and I’ll come over.”

Otto walked me out on the porch.

“Isn’t a 12-gauge overkill for squirrels?”

“What are you talking about? Oh, Vicki told you about them. Nah. I trap them. The shotgun’s loaded with deer slugs. Don’t like to use a rifle too close to town.”

“I didn’t think it was deer season.”

“It ain’t. Now, why are you bothering my wife about Gunner?”

I didn’t correct him about his marital status.

“That’s confidential. Did you know him?”

“Sure. He was a good guy. We got along. I liked it when he came around. Made Vicki happy. And we’d go out for a couple of belts at the VFW hall. Neither of us were members, but everyone knew who he was and, hell, we just about always drank for free.”

“He ever talk about the war with you?”

“Nah.”

“He ever mention he had any problems up here with anyone? Someone who might have held a grudge?”

He thought about it.

“Nah. Gunner had mellowed. We mostly talked hunting and fishing. Guy stuff. Old times, you know.”

“You knew him before he went to Vietnam?”

“No. But we were about the same age, so we knew some of the same people. It’s a small town. He left before I got drafted. He had it a lot rougher than me. I never left the States. Wound up in the quartermaster corps at Fort Lee, in Virginia.”

“Where’s the VFW?”

I thought the post might be worth a visit. Panetta might have opened up to some veterans, or the bartender.   

“Block or two past the Salina Street bridge on the river. Sometimes me and Gunner would take a boat up there and dock right at the post. Rather than drive home shit-faced, if you know what I mean. Cops around here can be a pain in the ass, but they don’t patrol the Salmon.” He laughed. “Course, we almost sunk a couple of times.”

“Anyone else from the old days that he kept in touch with?”

“Not that I know of. Vicki might know. You might ask her.”

“I was about to, when you showed up.”

“Sorry, about that, inside” he said. “I get kind of crazy around Vicki. Never shoulda married an Eye-talian. Shoulda stuck to my own kind, a square head. But she got into my blood, you know?”

I couldn’t think of anything to say to that, so I gave him my card and told him to call me if he remembered anything else. Then I left.

I was hungry. Vicki’s blueberry muffin, good as it was, hadn’t put the slightest dent in my appetite. Two might have, but Otto and his shotgun had stopped me from having another. I got into my car and pulled out one of the brochures I’d picked up at the Chamber of Commerce. In it was a large ad for “The Riverfront” restaurant in Pulaski, which claimed to have “the freshest seafood and best steaks on Lake Ontario.” How could I go wrong? I plugged the address into my GPS and headed into town, visions of broiled salmon or steelhead trout swimming in my head. A half hour later I was seated at a nice table overlooking Lake Ontario, a martini in one hand and a massive menu in the other.

That’s when reality set in. The seafood special of the day was mahi-mahi. I called my waiter over.

“Mahi-mahi is the freshest seafood you have? What about salmon or trout. Or, maybe, a nice largemouth bass?”

“I’m sorry, sir. None of the restaurants around here serve local fish.”

“But mahi-mahi is dolphin. The name is Hawaiian. Hawaii is about 4,500 miles from here.”

“I believe we source our mahi-mahi from Florida, sir. It’s not a mammal, you know. Dolphin is also the name of a fish, in case you are worried.”

“I know damn well you’re not serving Flipper! But I’ll also be dammed if I’ll eat fish on Lake Ontario if it has to get here by air. I mean, you advertise ‘the freshest seafood’ on the lake.”

“And it is,” the waiter said. “It comes from the ocean. See that water out there. It’s Lake Ontario. We don’t advertise the freshest lake fish. That would be misleading.”

He said it with such a rural smugness that I wished I had one of John Panetta’s machine guns.

“The baked haddock is excellent, sir, as are the broiled South African lobster tails.”

He knew he made a mistake when he brought up another continent. I gave up on the “seafood.” His next recommendation might be from another planet.

“Bring me another martini, please.”

In the end, I had a prime rib.