Little Easter (5 page)

Desperate Seed

I needed a drink; a particular drink from a certain bartender.

The Rusty Scupper was busy for Christmas week. Beside the usual crowd, two incongruous Japanese men in pin strikes were furiously waving Scotch-full tumblers at selections on the jukebox and exclaiming over loudly at one another. You didn’t have to be an expert in languages of the Pacific rim to divine that one wanted to hear Little Richard and the other, Elvis. Until they resolved their dispute, we’d all hear nothing but them.

Stan Long, the gas station owner, gave me a vaguely drunken nod and went back to cleaning the grease that would never come out from under his nails. No one else turned cartwheels for me. No one ever did. I was hoping to get to the bar without MacClough’s recognition. Life would be more simple without hope. Before I’d taken my third step, Johnny was busy tapping a Black and Tan. My drink. A drink I never needed to order here.

My head was swimming. No, drowning. Mistrusting MacClough hadn’t really occurred to me before. It occurred to me now. I thought John Francis was a lot of things, but never a murderer. Maybe! Everyone has closets and old bones in them. Some skeletons take a long time to rattle. I guess some never do. I tried telling myself it was just a desperate seed Kate Barnum had planted and that it would never flower. But when you are trying to convince yourself, you’ve already lost.

“Hey,” Johnny slapped the stout and ale on the bar, “it’s the wandering Jew from Brighton Beach.”

I put my right palm in his and we shook them a few times.

“What’s wrong?” he wanted to know.

I took too big of a swallow and nearly spit it up through my nose onto the bar. “Nothing,” I coughed. “Are ya takin’ up palm readin’?”

“Not if they’re all as sweaty as yours. God!” MacClough rubbed his hands on his apron for emphasis.

“Sorry,” I took a more human gulp. “What are they doin’ here?” I pointed at the Japanese contingent in an attempt to change subjects.

“Don’t know,” the barman shrugged his shoulders, “maybe they wanna build a golf course in Dugan’s Dump.”

I managed to laugh. “Tutti Fruiti” was now blasting on the box. Little Richard had won. I turned to the Japanese to wink my approval, but they were too busy mouthing the words and playing air piano.

“So . . .” the ex-cop paused, “what’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I don’t know. The Christmas blues, I guess.”

“You’re Jewish.”

“Exactly.” I put my empty glass up for another pour. “You ever get around to having that chat with the Suffolk cops?” I dropped the question in as skillfully as an armless man threading a needle.

Johnny gave me a killing glance: “In the city we were cops. Out here they’re overpaid meter maids with handguns.”

“Well?” I persisted.

“Well what?” he put down my refilled glass. “Yeah,” MacClough recalled the issue at hand almost wistfully, “it’s all talked out. What are you so interested for, anyway?”

“Hey,” I attacked in a whsiper. “I was the one who lied to the cops. I was the one who found the diamond heart.I was the one who found the body. Your fucking sweater was as close as you got to any of it.”

“Calm down,” he reached across the bar and smacked my cheek affectionately. “I surrender. You got plenty of right to be curious. To the Irish,” the ex-detective shouted over Little Richard, raising a Bushmill’s to the startled Japanese, “and those who wish they could be.”

The two little pinstriped men bowed slightly from the waist, poured a few fingers worth of amber off their own drinks and began arguing over the next jukebox number. Stan Long threw a greasy buck on the bar, muttered something about Guadalcanal and nodded his scornful
adieus.
Bob Street, from the Star Spangled Deli, replaced Stan at the bar.

“Tall Bud, please. What’s eating Stan?” Bob wanted to know.

As if choreographed, both MacClough and I threw pointing fingers at the jukebox and harmonized: “They’re building a golf course in Dugan’s Dump.”

John and I waited just long enough for the neon dollar signs to flash in Bob’s eyes before we started laughing. I slapped Bob’s back and MacClough roughed the deliman’s hair.

“The two jokers from Brooklyn.” Street finished the rest of his beer in silence with a scowl.

To make amends, I bought Bob another Bud. And in the name of global understanding, I sent a round over to the Nipponese duet by the Wurlitzer. They sent two rounds back. This sparked MacClough’s competitive nature and he bought everyone a shot on the house. Things quickly degenerated into an Olympic drinking event. Everybody would bring home the gold tonight, but we’d all be trading in our medals for aspirin in the morning.

Following a serious bout of bowing, back slapping, winking and hand pumping, I stood with Sato and Tadamichi. There was no golf course in their futures nor in ours. No, they’d just wanted to visit an old American whaling village before returning to their jobs as executives in the commercial fishing industry. Too bad Conrad Dugan wasn’t around to exploit their apparent fascination. After the introductions, we wound up bleating “Suspicious Minds” along with Elvis. God, we were awful, but it felt awfully good.

Kate Barnum’s ruse
had
been a desperate seed. After laughing with John Francis, I was sure of it. I felt it, or maybe that was simply the alcohol. I don’t know. Maybe in her shoes I would’ve tried the same stunt. I wasn’t anxious to find out any time soon. I was free of the witch’s curse and the world was a better place off my shoulders.

I said my “see ya laters” to Bob and Johnny and did some ceremonial partings with the fishermen in suits. I had to get home. I felt like writing. That lasted until I reached my car door. By then the only thing I felt like doing was throwing up. And not being into self-denial, I did exactly that.

Buddha Belly

I never did get around to writing that night nor did I find the words to report the dead sapling buried in the mud of Dugan’s Dump. I did, however, manage to have one hell of a hangover.

A week had come between the world and me and that hangover. I was ten pages into a short story about two Japanese businessmen and a small town’s reaction to their visit. I suppose I was trying to say something about stereotypes and judging books . . . You know. But really, I was just having fun playing with words.

In Sound Hill, most of the talk had turned from the murdered woman and her pet canary to returned Christmas ties and already broken New Year’s resolutions. Even Kate Barnum had seemed to let it go. Her works in the
Whaler
focused mostly on pork barrel bills before the county legislature.

Oh yeah, I still hadn’t summoned up the will to call the cops. For all I knew, the dead man was still out there rotting in the barren field. I make no excuses for my procrastination. I didn’t want to stir things up or rattle anyone’s cage. Sleeping dogs were going to lie right where they were. For all my confidence in MacClough, I wasn’t taking any chances. And in spite of Barnum’s printed silence, I guess part of me could still hear her chanting Johnny’s name.

I was busy renewing my amazement with truly white snow when my tiresome phone chirped me out of my trance.

“Yeah.” I could be such a charmer.

“Detective Sergeant Mickelson, Suffolk County Police. Is Mr. Klein at home?”

“Speaking,” I wondered if the bored detective could hear my intestines twisting into knots. “What can I do for you?”

“We have your sweater back from the lab,” Mickelson yawned into his mouthpiece. “The tests came out negative, like we figured.”

“Good thing,” I laughed nervously. “My travel agent was havin’ a tough time bookin’ me a first-class room in Rio.”

He greeted my weak levity with a long dose of silence. Then: “You can pick the garment up at this address during normal business hours.”

“Thank you, detective. I’ll probably be down today,” I offered too cheerfully.

“Ain’t that grand. Maybe we should put the Christmas lights back up,” Mickelson chided. “Oh, by the way, Mr. Klein, since you’re coming in, why don’t ya stop by my office for a few minutes. See ya, let’s say, within the hour.”

The click and dial tone told me I would have to save my witty repartee until we spoke in person. I threw on my collection of silver zippers, suede laces and black leather that the world called a motorcycle jacket. I didn’t have the pierced ear and Harley to complete the image. Christ, I didn’t even own a Schwinn.

It wasn’t much of an office, really. More like an appliance box with the top missing. Mickelson wasn’t at his desk. I imagine that was intentional. He was giving me time to sweat and my pores were putting the minutes to good use. Sweat was good. Nerves were good. Years ago, MacClough had schooled me on that:

“Most people can’t help actin’ nervous and guilty around cops. Even fuckin’ priests and house pets get the jitters in the presence of guns and badges. Cops are used to people being uncomfortable around ’em. The perps are the cool ones. They’ve usually been through it all before. The cool ones; those are the ones we didn’t trust. Not that we trusted anybody.”

When Mickelson came in I was wiping my palms off on my own black jeans.

“You giving the bunt sign or starting a fire?” the thick necked detective asked rhetorically.

He pressed down on my shoulder with a big meaty paw when I tried standing to meet him. I recognized his face as one of those I’d told my story to on the night of the railroad execution. The face had registered, but so had a lot of others.

“Here,” he reached into a drawer, pulled out Johnny’s old bar sweater and tossed it to me.

The weathered wool wasn’t any worse for wear, not that it could get much worse. I folded the old soldier up and tucked it under my arm. The detective just sort of sat there, saying nothing, watching me.

“Will that be all?” I asked after reaching my discomfort threshold.

“Mostly, yeah,” Mickelson grunted. “You can go.”

“Then why did you drag—” my voice was in midcrescendo when he cut me off.

“Don’t get indignant, Mr. Klein,” he waved me and my voice back down. “I guess I wanted to let you know we’re not as stupid as you might think. Do you really imagine that we swallowed that line of shit you fed us on the night of the murder? Come on. We’re human. We wanted to go home for the holiday. But now all the gifts are open and the turkey’s all finished.”

“What’s this all about, Mickelson,” I challenged.

“You tell me, Klein. Your story had some gaps in it. Details were missing. That’s pretty clear. We just can’t figure out why, exactly. My gut tells me you’re protecting someone. And my gut,” he rubbed his Buddha belly, “is seldom wrong.”

His belly wasn’t wrong, but something else most definitely was. If MacClough had been in and talked it all out, why was I here? That night at the Rusty Scupper, MacClough had clearly stated that everything was taken care of. Maybe I hadn’t listened closely enough or maybe I was just drunk. There was a third possibility. Maybe Johnny was lying.

“Detective Mickelson, did you ever talk to John MacClough?” I questioned straight out.

“The ex-cop bar owner?” he yawned back. “Sure. Don’t fret, Klein, he vouched for you. Seemed like a good guy, for a city cop.”

“That’s all he did?” I blurted out, regretting the question as soon as it left my lips.

“What did you want him to do?” The heavyset detective leaned forward with sudden interest.

“Nothin’,” I feigned indifference and stood to go.

“So long, Mr. Klein. I just wanted to let you know that I’ll figure it out. And when I get to the bottom of it, I hope you’re not there. Why don’t you tell me who you’re covering for and be done with it?”

I ignored that and asked a question of my own. “Any word on who the dead woman was?”

“Why?” His face showed little real interest, but his raised eyebrows said different.

“I don’t know. Curious, I guess. I was the last one to see her alive.” That was amongst the ten stupidest things I’ve ever said and I’ve said a lot of stupid things.

“Not unless you killed her you weren’t. Now get out of here before I put you back on the suspect list.” Mickelson pointed to the door and began punching up a phone number.

“Well . . .” I waited.

“You still here?” he looked properly annoyed. “What? What?”

“About the dead woman.”

“She died a Jane Doe. She’s still a Jane Doe. And my gut tells me . . .”

I was out of the appliance box before he could finish the sentence. I’d heard enough about his belly for one day. The witch’s curse was back and haunting me again. In the car I ran through a list of excuses and maybes that might account for the discrepancy between Mickelson’s telling and MacClough’s.

“That’s it!” I slapped the wheel and screamed to no one but me. Johnny had spoken to another detective Mickelson was probably in charge of one part of the investigation and there was another detective, maybe ten other detectives, handling different aspects of the case. Lord knows, there were enough cops at the Scupper that night to divide the case a hundred ways and still have leftovers.

The Scupper was chilly and empty of paying customers. MacClough stood behind the bar sipping a long Bush-mills, staring glassy-eyed through the front window across Main Street at Stan Long’s desolate self-service pumps. Patsy Cline’s “Crazy” was just finishing its twirl on the Wurlitzer. That was odd. Johnny hated that song. He’d reset the jukebox every time it came on and claim the record was too scratchy. Maybe his last patron had played it. No matter.

The red golf sweater I’d gifted him for Christmas was busy being broken in. I liked him better in the old one. I’d left the old one in my car. Johnny couldn’t know I had it yet. That would be tipping my hand.

Just as I hitched my heel onto the bar rail, “Crazy” came on again.

“Hey!” I snapped my fingers at MacClough.

There was moisture—tears, I thought—in Johnny’s eyes as he turned in my direction. But before the salt water could roll out onto his ruddy cheeks, the barman rubbed them away.

“Goddamn air’s too dry in here. Irritates my eyes,” he offered nonchalantly and rubbed some more. “I’ll get a humidifier and fix that right up.”