Name Games (16 page)

“That’s a terrible feeling—not knowing,” Pierce commiserated.

In his line of work, Pierce often consoled distressed families in the midst of calamities far more weighty than lost pets. It was kind of him to judge my uncertain recollections worthy of his sympathies. It was the same kindness that had prompted his concern for the feelings of the Norris children, who still wondered what had become of their German shepherd. As we approached the crossroad leading to the farmhouse, I asked, “Did you want to stop to tell the Norrises about Rambo?”

“I need to check in at the department. I’ll call them from there.”

So I passed through the intersection, heading back toward town, and our conversation lapsed. I still entertained thoughts of Charlie and Willy, and chances are, Pierce continued to ponder Checkers and Squire.

These musings of more innocent times were interrupted when we passed the porn shops, specifically the blushing-pink barn that housed Star-Spangled Video. What drew my attention was not the building itself, not its lurid signage, but rather an empty space in the parking lot—the fuzzy edge of a dry rectangle was still visible on the wet gravel. The Bavarian V-8, my car’s green twin, was gone.

It had not passed us while we searched the ditch (I’d surely have noticed it), which meant that it had not headed out of town, toward the interstate. Instead, it must have driven into Dumont. I’d never seen another car like mine in the area. Whose was it?

“I just had a thought,” said Pierce.

“Me too.” I assumed that he had also noticed the missing green car.

But he continued, “Bruno’s story. Obviously, he saw the dog get hit, but I wonder if he really saw a Jeep do it through his rearview mirror. Somehow, that part of the story had the ring of fabrication. Maybe he hit the dog himself.” Pierce pondered this a moment before allowing, “But then, Bruno may be an excellent driver. I’ve never seen him behind the wheel.”

“I have,” I assured Pierce.

Then I added, “Poor Rambo.”

Late that morning, in the conference area of my outer office at the
Register,
I sat with the paper’s managing editor, Lucille Haring, and features editor, Glee Savage, planning our coverage of Carrol Cantrell’s murder investigation. Glee would not normally be involved with such a story, but she had, after all, first covered Carrol’s visit to Dumont, so she was now our staff authority on the victim. What’s more, it was impossible to separate the murder story from that of the soon-to-open miniatures convention, which fell squarely within Glee’s domain. All three of us took the attitude that traditional roles didn’t matter as much as our ability to report news, so we didn’t bother fretting over job descriptions. We were a team.

“I thought I’d develop a sidebar,” said Glee, adjusting her half-frame glasses while skimming her notes, “profiling some of the other artisans who’ll exhibit at the convention. These are the gentlemen visited by Bruno in Milwaukee over the weekend. I ought to be able to reach most of them by phone before they arrive—maybe they can shed more light on the rivalry.”

“That sounds good,” said Lucy, scratching out an item on her list. Shifting toward me in her chair, she crossed the legs of her twill pantsuit and asked, “Can I assume we’ll keep the story on page one till there’s an arrest?”

“For now, sure. If Bruno can’t come up with any proof that he
was
in Milwaukee at the time of the murder Sunday morning—or if Pierce comes up with evidence that he
wasn’t
—we should see an arrest fairly soon. Otherwise, there’s no way of telling how long this could drag on.”

Listening to this, Glee had been sucking the tip of her pen, troubled. She asked both Lucy and me, “Is Bruno the
only
active suspect? He’s kind of a flake, and we’ve seen him vent a vindictive streak, but my gut tells me he didn’t do it.”

Lucy answered, “We’re following Cantrell’s probate proceedings in California to see if they reveal any interests that could have motivated murder. And here in Dumont, we’re still waiting for the coroner’s report, which ought to be cut-and-dried. Barring any surprises on those two fronts, everything points to Bruno.”

“
Unless,
” I reminded her, “his alibi checks out.”

“Duly noted,” Lucy assured me.

“What’s troublesome about this case…,” I began to tell both of them, but I was distracted by a figure crossing the newsroom toward the glass wall of my office.

Following my glance, Glee told me, “You seem to have a visitor, Mark. Miss Exner, I believe.”

“Oh?” said Lucy, sounding uncharacteristically chipper. Sitting with her back to the newsroom, she spun her short shock of red hair, looking over her shoulder to confirm the arrival of my Chicago lawyer friend, Roxanne Exner. Both Glee and Lucy knew Roxanne from her frequent visits to Dumont during the past year, but Lucy had first met Roxanne earlier, in Chicago, while Lucy and I were still at the
Journal.
Lucy had snapped to attention at the mention of Roxanne’s name because she still carried something of a torch for the woman. On the summer night when they had first crossed paths at a cocktail party hosted by Neil and me at our loft in the city, Roxanne had just cropped her hair into a mannish bob that left Lucy breathless. What Lucy didn’t know, though, was that Roxanne had done this only as a temporary concession to Carl Creighton, her lover, who had acquired a new convertible. The misunderstanding was quickly corrected, but not until after Lucy had made a move on Roxanne. Though unsettled by the experience, Roxanne—always self-assured—had dismissed the incident as the unfortunate aftermath of a bad haircut, deciding on the spot to grow back her tresses. Less confident women might thereafter have eschewed Lucy, but not Roxanne. She seemed to take perverse pride in the knowledge that she was attractive to women as well as to men. All this only served to convince Lucy that there was still hope.

Roxanne rapped on the glass wall, and I waved her in. Opening the door, she apologized, “Didn’t mean to interrupt. This looks important.”

Rising, I checked my watch. “God, it’s past noon. We ran late.” Stepping to her, I offered a kiss. Her lips met mine, but not fully; the side of my mouth touched the opposite side of hers. I told her, “You’re looking great, as usual, even after a four-hour drive.”

Roxanne had always struck me as the most stylish woman I knew—not stylish in the hyperconscious “fashion” sense epitomized by Glee Savage, but stylish in the “personal” sense—she always seemed to know precisely what to wear, always understated, always quietly glamorous. That day in my office, she wore a handsome gray flannel business suit (Donna Karan, if my eye can be trusted) with a tight skirt that dropped to midcalf, slit up past the knee. For color, she wore knotted around her neck a gold-hued silk scarf that bore an uncanny resemblance to Bruno’s cravat. I couldn’t imagine how she’d managed to arrive looking so fresh and unrumpled, ready to do her law thing.

In response to my flattery, she rolled her eyes as if she didn’t believe me. That too had always struck me about Roxanne: even at thirty-seven, approaching the maturity of middle age, she didn’t quite understand that her beauty was more than physical. She was smart, pleasantly aggressive, and at times truly loving. But she also honed a cynical edge that both marked her humor and marred her ability to “connect.” Not that she lacked confidence (just watch her in a courtroom); she’d simply never been adept at accepting compliments.

There was no need for introductions, as everyone in the room was already well acquainted, so our opening lines of small talk focused on the weather, the long drive, the quickening pace of life as the transition from summer to autumn unfolded that week. But Roxanne soon brought the conversation down to business—not her legal dealings with Quatro Press, but the murder story that was the topic of the meeting she had interrupted. “
Well
now,” she said, “it seems that sleepy little Dumont is in the news again. I hate to point this out, Mark, but the crime rate has taken a decided turn for the worse since your arrival here.”

Though her comment had a morbid ring, it was nonetheless funny, eliciting a good laugh from Glee, Lucy, and me. I asked Roxanne, “You’ve heard all about it?”

She sat, lolling. “It wasn’t exactly front-page news in Chicago, but the strangulation of the ‘king of miniatures’ made an irresistible headline—as I’m sure
you
can appreciate.” She smirked.

I sat, joining the rest of them around the low table. “Doug Pierce really has his hands full with this. Murder is serious enough in its own right, but the timing makes this case doubly urgent—he’s up for reelection.”

“Doug can handle it,” Roxanne said flatly. She’d come to know Pierce shortly after my move to Dumont, when he’d befriended me during an ugly incident that sullied my arrival. “He’s an able sheriff and a good detective—at least in my book.” And that said a lot. If Roxanne had harbored any doubts about the man, she’d not have hesitated to voice them. Pressing on, she asked succinctly, “Any suspects?”

“Just one—”

“Mark,” Glee interrupted me, “this is basically where Lucille and I left off. If you don’t mind, I’d like to get hopping on that sidebar.” She gathered her notes.

“Oh. Sure. Fine, gals. Roxanne has an appointment after lunch, so we should be on our way. I’ll fill her in at the Grill.”

Glee was already on her feet, chomping to get to her desk. She extended her hand to Roxanne, exchanged a lady-shake, and excused herself from the room.

Lucy took a little longer leaving. She knew that Glee was right—there was plenty of work to be done—but even so, now that Roxanne had arrived, she’d have liked to hang around. I briefly considered inviting Lucy to lunch with us, but she did have a deadline, and besides, Roxanne and I would enjoy being alone. So I waited while Lucy rose, checking her clipboard once more. She told me, “I’ll get writers assigned to these other two stories—we need someone at the sheriff’s department, and another at the morgue.”

“Great. Let’s put our heads together later this afternoon.”

“Miss Exner,” Lucy said, “nice to see you again.” She was obviously flummoxed, addressing Roxanne by her last name.

“My pleasure, Miss Haring.” Roxanne offered a smile with a farewell nod.

Lucy literally backed out of my office, as if to prolong sharing Roxanne’s space before disappearing into the newsroom. I had rarely, if ever, witnessed scatterbrained behavior from her—she was normally, in fact unerringly, a model of military precision. So I told Roxanne, who was accustomed to giving gibes, not receiving them, “I think she likes you.”

“I
know
she likes me.” Coyly she added, “But she’s not my type.”

“Hungry?”

“Starved—I got an early start this morning.”

So we got up to leave the office. I noticed that Roxanne hadn’t carried an umbrella; assuming the weather was now dry, I didn’t bother to grab my coat. We zigzagged through the newsroom together and descended the front stairs, arriving in the
Register
’s lobby. I told Connie, our receptionist, who resembled a bank teller perched behind a window there, “We’re on our way to the First Avenue Grill. I’ll be back in an hour or so.”

“Enjoy your lunch, Mr. Manning.”

Out on First Avenue, people and cars rushed to lunch or errands, lending Dumont’s main drag a hint of urban buzz. It was a far cry from Michigan Avenue, the swank Chicago boulevard that I had walked every day when I worked at the
Journal,
but this quieter streetscape had its own allure—no belching buses, no drug-crazed cabbies, no wailing sirens.

The sky was doing its noontide best to brighten, but a thick layer of clouds reduced the sun to a white glow in the damp, gray air. That morning’s drizzle had spent itself—the trees and awnings had stopped dripping—so we strolled the block or so toward the restaurant, talking, poking along while others hustled past.

Roxanne revived the topic of the murder, asking, “You said there’s a suspect?”

“Right—Bruno. He’s all we’ve got right now.”

She broke stride briefly. “Bruno?” she asked, finding the name unusual.

“He’s French, a rival of the victim’s, a big name in miniatures, and quite a character. Our best theory is that Bruno strangled Carrol with his own silk scarf.”

Roxanne looked confused. “
Whose
silk scarf—Bruno’s or Carrol’s?”

“Bruno’s. He wore it all the time, up till the murder. In fact, it looked a lot like yours.” I fingered the gold-toned scarf that hung over her shoulder.

She stopped there on the sidewalk and unfurled the long end of her scarf, displaying it for me. “I find that unlikely. This is Hermès. It’s for women.”

“He
is
French,” I glibly reminded her. But even as I spoke, I noticed that her scarf, held open for me, was patterned with an irregular design of big horse bridles, saddle buckles, and other equestrian motifs, all in a jumbled palette of yellows, browns, and golds. From a distance, wrinkled, it had looked just like Bruno’s cravat. Up close, though, it bore no resemblance to the scarf found snagged on the banister—that scarf was patterned with a smaller, repeating design, like wallpaper.

“You’re right,” I conceded, smoothing the Hermès scarf over her shoulder again, “this isn’t the same as Bruno’s.” Draping my arm (as well as the scarf) across her shoulder, I guided her onward.

Continuing our walk, she slid her arm around my waist; any passerby would have assumed we were romantically involved. There was a time, of course, when we
were
so involved, but our lives had changed profoundly since then, and we now contented ourselves to share a loving friendship that had survived even intimacy.

“Bruno…,” she thought aloud. “Can’t say I’ve heard of him, but then, I’d never heard of Carrol Cantrell either.”

I explained, “Bruno is his first name. I usually mangle the rest of it—Hérisson.”

“Harrison?” she asked. (I had mangled it again.) “Sounds English, not French.”

I gave it another try: “Hérisson.” Then, just to make sure, I spelled it for her.

“Ah,” she said, affecting a comic, throaty accent, “but of course—Hérisson,” pronouncing it masterfully. Her features paused in thought for a moment, then she laughed, dropping her hand from my waist.