HardScape (10 page)

Chapter 11

Sunday didn't get any better.

Around dark Franco cut me off, suggesting I appoint a designated walker to get me home. I was dimly aware he gave the sports crowd watching the TV a nod, and my walker appeared in the form of an agitated Vicky McLachlan, whom I had earlier sent away, saying I had no desire to talk about Renny, thank you.

“You don't drink like this,” she noted, which was true, by and large. By the time I came up with a smart reply, we were already out the door, where I promptly forgot what I was going to say. The way home was a mismatch. Vicky is simply too short to steer a drunk and too lightly built to keep one from falling.

“Are you okay?”

I was in Scooter MacKay's hedge. “Fine. I'm fine.”

Vicky turned away from a car full of staring voters. I collected my thoughts. “I'm sorry you never got to know Renny.”

“I didn't know you knew him that well.”

“Oh, I did.”

“But you didn't hang out with him.”

“He was busy. And I was…busy.”

“Get out of the bushes.”

I climbed out, with her help. “Do you feel guilty?” she asked.

“Why should I?”

“I've never seen you so upset. You weren't like this when your father died.”

“You hardly knew me when my father died.” He had gone suddenly, heart attack in the ambulance. I got home just in time for the funeral. She spoke well at the church.

“You were cool as ice.”

“Then, I felt guilty. …”

At my front door, I invited her in. Vicky bit her lip. “I'll put you to bed.”

“I'm not sure I'm up—”

“I'll be the judge of that.”

Lying in Scooter's hedge, I had known that I had lost every inhibition and was about to renege again on my promise to myself to get out of Vicky's life before I did serious damage. I groped her on the stairs—artfully, I thought. But Monday morning I awoke to every indication that I had spent the night alone.

***

My mind was clear, despite a ferocious headache. Two hangovers in a row were one too many, and I had no intention of chasing this one with beer and Bloody Marys; I had coffee in my office, paid a couple of bills, balanced my checkbook. August is always a slow month. This year September looked worse. At nine-thirty, I telephoned Trooper Boyce.

“I was just about to call you,” she answered the phone. “Wondering if your memory has improved at all.”

“Would you like to have lunch with me?” I asked.

I believe she was so surprised that she said Yes before she could say No. I suggested the Hopkins Inn, overlooking Lake Waramaug. We agreed on twelve-thirty.

I telephoned the
New York Times
and booked another ad for the Richardson place. One of these days it was going to sell—you can't buy that kind of privacy easily—and I intended to be there at the closing. Then I walked over to the General Store and bought a
Times
, and the Danbury daily, to see what the papers had on Renny and Rita and Ron.

The
Danbury News-Times
gave what they called “The Death Plane” front-page treatment, with an equal-size headline for Rita's arrest. She was described as a “wealthy weekender from New York City.” Bail hearings were scheduled for this morning, which meant the poor woman had spent the night in jail despite her hotshot attorneys.

The
Times
had twelve lines in the Metro section about Renny and his plane but not a word about Rita's arrest. As I understand these things, the edition we get trucked up here leaves the printing plant about nine
P.M.
I wondered if they'd had time to print a story, or if Long's lawyers had hired a publicist to sit on it.

We're too far north to receive News Radio 88 from New York, and the local news tends to be of the canned national variety or the momentous public-broadcasting type. So what it came down to was that Rita's arrest was being downplayed and nobody but a few locals cared about Renny. I had, of course, missed the TV news Sunday night but assumed that the Hartford stations, at least, had included interviews with major case squadders Bender and Boyce.

The latter arrived at the Hopkins Inn looking flatteringly flustered. I had the definite feeling that some small female-kid part of her wanted lunch to be a date, so
I
was flattered. She looked kind of cute in a brown suit, with a handbag big enough for an automatic, and her hair all fluffy. She had on more makeup than on Saturday. Eyeliner, mostly, and some shadow that turned her gray gaze silver.

“Sorry I'm late,” she greeted me.

“Bail hearing?”

“Denied.” She studied my reaction. I was surprised. I had figured Long's legal muscle could spring Rita on bail. Of course, local courts don't always cotton to $400-an-hour outside attorneys throwing their weight around.

Trooper Boyce said, “Should we order a drink or should I open my notebook?”

“Coffee for me. What would you like? And you're going to need two notebooks.”

She spread her big hands on the table. “Two?”

“I want to talk to you about Rita Long and I want to talk to you about Renny Chevalley. Renny first.”

“I'm going to read you your rights.”

“No need.”

She read them anyway, in a low voice, by heart, while holding a menu. A prosperous-looking couple at the next table exchanged the little smile lovers do when they see another couple sharing a special moment.

“Are you ready?” I said.

“Do you understand your rights?”

“Yes, goddammit. This isn't a confession.”

“But your memory has improved.”

“Renny first.”

“Go.”

“Renny Chevalley would not fly coke into Newbury.”

“How come?”

I told her all about my cousin. She listened, taking notes. When I was done, she said, “Your opinion is noted. It's now part of our investigation.”

“No. You don't get it. What everyone thinks happened up there didn't happen. It's something else.”

“What?”

“I have racked my brain. I can't think, but it's not what you see. If he was flying dope he was tricked into it. Maybe he discovered it and tried to stop them. Maybe that's why they shot him.”

“We've considered that.”

“And?”

“We're considering various possibilities. The problem with this theory is Why did they leave the coke behind?”

“The bag broke.”

“Maybe. But it would have been worth the trouble to stuff it in their pockets. Thousands of dollars. Dope smugglers usually do it for the money.” She saw my disappointment. “Tell you what I'll do: I'll follow up each of the facts you've laid out about your cousin's life, his business. We'll see what his financial situation was. Keep in mind, whatever he did,
someone
shot him, and that's murder.”

I still hadn't conveyed how absurd it was. “Saturday night I got the impression that the police think one smuggler killing another isn't the crime of the century.”

Marian Boyce said, “I just told you, I'm investigating a murder. Two murders, actually. What did you recall about Mrs. Long?”

“Where did the plane come from?”

“Your cousin rented it in Danbury. What did you recall about Mrs. Long?”

“She didn't do it.”

Marian Boyce gestured for me to continue.

“She didn't do it,” I repeated.

“Who did?”

“I still think it was a hunting accident.”

“The coroner doesn't agree. He was shot in the back from the turret. The slug struck him at a high angle.”

“The woods slope up sharply. It could have come from the woods. Thirty yards inside the trees, a hunter would be standing as high as the top of the tower.”

“We found no sign of a hunter.”

“Mrs. Long told me they had a prowler the night before.”

“Turned out to be a raccoon. Trooper Moody shot it.”

“What if the raccoon didn't do it?”

“Huh?”

“What if there was a prowler and the raccoon happened to be the wrong raccoon in the wrong place at the wrong time?” I was not unaware that
I
had been the prowler; I was merely trying to get the detective's attention. It wasn't working. She inspected her nail polish.

I said, “You've probably figured out by now that they were lovers.”

“No shit, Sherlock.”

“Has it occurred to you that her husband might have shot Ron?”

“Mr. Long was in the Rose Garden of the White House, having his picture taken with the President of the United States.…Do you have any more information?”

I had no information, and, with Jack Long off the hook, only one theory. “If I find a hunter—a poacher—who shot him by accident, can I come straight to you?”

“Fast as you can dial 911.”

“I'm trying to tell you she didn't do it.”

“You've got the same problem with your cousin: You're not telling me why.”

“I just know it. I know she could not have killed Ron.”

“Why?”

“She loved him too much.”

“Wait a minute. You said you met her at the cookout. And you went to appraise her house. Then you drank a glass of champagne in her turret. If that was your total contact with the woman, how do you
know
she loved her boyfriend too much to kill him?”

I was close to telling her about the video and the couple I saw they were. But I was afraid it would lead to more misery for Rita Long rather than less, so I said, “By the way she held his body.”

“I hope the food here is worth the drive.” She put away her notebook. “So tell me, what's it like to grow up a rich kid?”

“I wasn't a rich kid.”

“Trooper Moody said your father was mayor. Mine pounded a beat in New Haven. To me, you're a rich kid.”

“Well, in that case, it was very pleasant growing up in Newbury. A little boring, but we made our own fun.”

“I heard the guys at the barracks laughing about some fun you made with Trooper Moody.”

I couldn't stop the grin that jumped on my face. “The next time you see Ollie, watch how he always walks behind his car before he gets in.”

“Wha'd you do? They wouldn't tell me.”

“Why not?”

“One thousand state police. Fifty women.”

She spoke matter-of-factly, but I got the impression that being tough enough to handle bigotry didn't mean she didn't get lonely. So I said, “Renny helped.”

“Is that supposed to be a character reference?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, because he was backing me up. Trooper Moody had done something pretty awful to me.”

“What?”

“A cop thing.…I was a teenager. It seemed like a big deal at the time.”

“Did he humiliate you in front of your friends?”

“How'd you guess?”

“I'm a cop. So wha'd you do?—Don't worry, as long as you didn't murder somebody the statute of limitations is up. Besides, I don't kiss and tell.” She flashed her pretty smile. I told my story, the least I owed her for the information, which hadn't made the newspapers, that Renny had rented his plane at Danbury Airport.

“There was a dance that night at the grange hall. Out on the edge of town? So Renny and I sneaked a double-barrel twelve-gauge out of my father's gun case and hid it in the field behind the grange hall. Then we borrowed a hundred-foot logging chain from Renny's brother Pink—by the way, handcuffing Pink the other night was not your finest community-relations effort.”

“Judgment call,” Marian shrugged. “The man's big enough to do a lot of damage. So what happened?”

“Well, we wheelbarrowed the chain to the Church Hill Diner. And when Ollie drove up and went inside for his coffee break, we tied one end around that huge maple out front and the other around his rear axle.”

“You're kidding.”

“Bunched the slack under the car. Renny was afraid of getting caught, which was fine by me because I wanted to watch, so he ran back behind the grange hall to fire the shotgun in the air. Both barrels.
Kabooooooom
! You can imagine how it echoed on a still summer night, and just to make sure, he re-loaded and let off two more.

“Ollie came out of the diner like someone had fired him from a cannon, leaped into his cruiser, hit lights, siren, and ignition all at once and floored the beast. He was driving a big, fast Ford that year—”

Marian was starting to laugh. “The LTD. Four-barrel carbs.”

“That's the one. It took off,
screaming
up Church Hill, smoking, burning rubber. He hit forty before the chain fetched up. All of a sudden—Bang!—rear wheels, axle, and differential were bouncing at the end of the chain, but Ollie kept going. He slid a hundred yards in this huge spray of sparks and smoke before he finally scrunched to a stop in the middle of Church Hill Road. Scooter McKay took a picture, but his father wouldn't print it.”

“Rotten kids.”

“Long time ago.…Marian—May I call you Marian?”

“Yes, Ben. Of course, call me Marian.”

“We were both ‘rotten kids.' Me worse than him. But he was never a kid to smuggle coke. He just wasn't. You gotta know that.”

“And Rita Long's not a woman to shoot her lover. You know something? You're a romantic guy, Ben. Got a girl?”

“Nothing that's going anywhere. Which is fine with me. How about you? Got a fella?”

“Two at the moment,” she answered, volunteering nothing more about her love life as she picked up the menu. “What do you recommend?”

“The view.”

She perused the menu, noticed me frowning, and leaned over the table. “Hey.”

“What?”

“You're kind of pent up about your cousin, right now. Why don't you just give yourself a couple of days to rethink all this?”

“I knew Rita Long didn't kill her boyfriend before I found out about Renny.”