Snake Eater (9 page)

Sunday morning I called the house in Wellesley. I wanted to say hello to Joey, my younger son. The answering machine took it. Gloria asked me to leave my name and number and the time of my call. I declined her invitation.

I tried Billy, my other son, at his dorm room at UMass. No answer.

So much for family ties.

I spent the afternoon rummaging distractedly through the weekend paperwork that Julie had stuffed into my briefcase. That evening around suppertime Cammie called. “Can you come to a party next Saturday afternoon?” she said.

“Yes. Wouldn’t miss it.”

“Dress casual.”

“Gladly.”

“They’re releasing Daniel’s body on Tuesday.”

“Do they have any new evidence?”

“If they do, they’re not sharing it with me.”

“I’ll give Lieutenant Fusco a call,” I said, “see what he knows. I’ll be there Saturday.”

“Please bring Terri.”

“I’ll try.”

After a hesitation, she said, “Is something the matter?”

“I don’t know. A boy-girl thing, I guess.”

She chuckled. “Tell her I’ll be very sad if she doesn’t come.”

“I’ll tell her exactly that.”

And I did. I said, “Cammie will be very sad if you don’t come.”

“You don’t need to do that, Brady,” said Terri. “Of course I’ll go with you. I hope
you’d
be sad if I didn’t go.”

“That’s the truth. I missed you this weekend.”

“Wow,” she said softly.

“Wow?”

“That’s about the most vulnerable thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“I don’t always say what I’m thinking.”

“Maybe you should try it more often.”

I pondered that bit of advice after I hung up with her. I concluded that, on the whole, it was dangerous advice.

I called State Police Lieutenant Dominick Fusco on Monday morning. He was unavailable. I requested he return my call. He didn’t. I tried again Tuesday, and then on Wednesday. Finally, on Thursday afternoon, Julie buzzed me and said that Lieutenant Fusco was on the line.

I pressed the blinking button on my console and said, “Coyne.”

“Fusco,” he said. “What can you do for me?”

“I was just wondering how the Daniel McCloud investigation is going.”

“That’s what I figured. That’s why I didn’t call you right back.”

“Well…”

“You haven’t got anything for me, right?”

“Right.”

“Mr. Coyne,” said Fusco, “we don’t normally feel obligated to share the progress of our investigations with citizens. If we did that, we’d have no time for investigating.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Daniel McCloud’s murder is not the only case on my agenda just now, Mr. Coyne. Here’s how it works, okay? You got something for me, you make sure I know it. That’s your duty as a citizen, lawyer or no lawyer. If I come up with something, I’ll probably pursue the hell out of it. But it’s possible I might not have the time or the inclination to share it with you. Get it?”

“This conversation we’re having here is what you call effective public relations,” I said. “Right?”

“My job,” said Fusco, “ain’t relating to the public. My job is arresting them when they break the law.”

“Be nice, then, if you’d do your job.”

I think Fusco and I hung up on each other simultaneously. Goes to show what happens when you say what you’re thinking.

Terri and I had to park about a quarter of a mile from Daniel’s house on Saturday afternoon. Daniel’s friends had turned out in force. I hadn’t realized he had that many friends. The roadside was lined with parked vehicles. Battered old pickups, mainly, with a few battered old sedans, most of them Fords and Chevvies. My BMW was one of the few unbattered vehicles in the bunch.

Terri and I walked to the house holding hands. We wore jeans and flannel shirts and windbreakers and sneakers. Twins. Terri looked especially terrific in jeans. The way she squeezed my hand and bumped shoulders with me as we walked was terrific, too. It occurred to me that maybe she had satisfied her need for space for a while.

We weaved our way among the guests as we made our way toward the back of the house. I guessed there were close to a hundred people milling around Daniel’s property holding plastic glasses or beer cans. I didn’t recognize anybody, but several of them said, “Hey, how ya doin?” to me and Terri anyway. Rural good-neighborliness.

The bar was set up on the deck behind the house. That’s where we found Cammie. When she saw us she smiled and came over. Brian Sweeney was with her. His hand was wrapped around a beer can, and the stub of a dead cigar was wedged into the corner of his mouth. Cammie had her arm tucked through his.

She exchanged quick kisses with Terri and gave me a big hug. Sweeney shook my hand and gave Terri a little courtly bow.

“Thanks for coming, you guys,” said Cammie.

“Wouldn’t have missed it,” I said.

A man about Sweeney’s age grabbed his arm. Sweeney whirled around, yelled, “Holy shit,” and embraced him. They wandered away, their arms across each other’s shoulders.

Cammie watched them for a moment, then turned back to us. She smiled. “Nothing tighter than army buddies,” she said. She cocked her head at me. “Maybe later we can do some business?”

I nodded. “Of course.”

Cammie turned to Terri, bent, and whispered something to her. Terri nodded. “Let me borrow her for a minute, okay?” said Cammie to me.

I shrugged. “Sure.”

The two of them wandered away. Cammie had her hand on Terri’s shoulder. I had the feeling they were discussing me.

So I found myself standing there on the deck. I was surrounded by people, but I was alone. I spotted Roscoe Pollard and Vinnie Colletti. Roscoe noticed me and waved. I waved back. I found several big washtubs full of ice and Budweiser. I went over and fished out two cans. I weaved through the people toward Cammie and Terri. The two women were leaning their elbows on the deck railing, staring off toward the river and talking softly, their heads close together. I pressed the cold beer can against Terri’s neck. “Hey!” she squealed. She spun around and glared at me. I held up the Bud. “Oh,” she said. “Thanks.”

She took the can and turned back to her conversation with Cammie.

I shrugged and wandered off the deck and out into the yard. I started to head toward the knot of people that included Roscoe and Vinnie, then changed my mind. I felt like an outsider.

So I stood there. I sipped from my beer and lit a cigarette.

A hand squeezed my elbow. “You get the cold shoulder, there, Mr. Coyne?”

It was Sweeney. I smiled. “From the ladies?” I nodded. “Looks like it. And it’s Brady, okay?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Okay.”

We found ourselves sauntering away from the crowd in the yard, headed more or less in the direction of the river. Sweeney, I guessed, like Daniel, was not comfortable in crowds.

“Listen,” said Sweeney as we walked. “Daniel told me about how you kept him out of jail that time. It woulda killed him, you know?”

“I didn’t really do much, truthfully,” I said. “They dropped the charges before I could do anything.”

“Well, he sure appreciated it.”

He stopped walking to light a wooden match with his thumbnail. He ignited his cigar butt. “Hard to believe,” he puffed.

“Daniel?”

He exhaled and nodded.

“That he’s dead, you mean.”

He shrugged. “Not so much that. I guess I never find death hard to believe anymore. How it happened, I mean.”

“An ugly way to go.”

He turned to face me. “There are uglier ways, Brady. Believe me. What I hear, that was pretty quick. What I mean is somebody getting the drop on him like that. I never saw Daniel with his defenses down.”

“It’s been a long time since you guys were in the jungle,” I said.

“Don’t matter. You never lose it.” He removed the cigar from his mouth and took a long draft from his beer can. “You heard anything?”

I shook my head.

“No suspects, no evidence?”

“No,” I said. “I talked to the state cop in charge a couple days ago. Lieutenant Fusco. Not very forthcoming. Doesn’t seem to me they’re getting anywhere. They questioned you, didn’t they?”

“Me?” he said. “Yeah. State cops dropped by. Vermont cops. I’m living up there in the sticks. Kinda like Daniel. Little place in the woods. Catch some fish, shoot some deer.” He smiled. “You don’t get the jungle out of your system, you know? Anyways, they asked me about who might want to kill him. How the hell would I know?”

“You said you’d check around with the men from your team,” I said.

He nodded. “I am. Most of ’em are here.” He shook his head. “Hard to figure, though. I mean, somebody in command, sure, there’ll be times when you want to kill the guy, if you know what I mean. But that’s just the stress of it. Daniel brought us through.”

“What about Roscoe and Vinnie?”

Sweeney turned his head and spat a flake of tobacco onto the ground. “Yeah,” he said, “they were with us. Damn good soldiers. Good men, Roscoe and Vinnie.”

“They’re not… sick?”

“The Orange? Nope. They were the lucky ones.”

“And they were close to Daniel, huh?”

“We all were close with each other. Daniel was our glue.”

“He was a pretty lovable guy, from what I could see,” I said.

Sweeney stopped and leaned back against the trunk of an oak tree. “Lovable,” he repeated. He smiled. Sadly, I thought. “Well, he was, yes. But Daniel could fool you. You meet Daniel, you think he’s this gentle teddy bear. Which he was. But in the jungle he was like some other kind of animal. I mean, a fucking predator, you know? He was completely comfortable, tuned in to every sound, every smell. He could tell you whether it was a monkey or a VC just by the sound of something moving a bush. And he could kill like no man I ever knew.”

I nodded. “I guess that’s how you survived.”

“Were you over there, Brady?”

I shook my head.

He grinned. “Probably marching around in the streets, huh?”

I shrugged. “I did some of that, yes.”

“I never hated Jane Fonda, myself,” said Sweeney. “Figured most of you people just wanted us home. We wanted the same damn thing.”

“That’s how I felt about it.”

“Old Daniel,” said Sweeney, “he could be an animal in the jungle. But he wasn’t an animal. He was a man.” Sweeney chuckled softly. “The old Snake Eater.”

“Snake Eater? Daniel?”

He nodded. “It was a term of honor. Actually, it’s kind of a general name that’s sometimes used for Special Forces guys. The Snake Eaters. Like Green Berets, except we all thought that was dumb. We never called ourselves Green Berets. But Daniel, that sonofabitch actually ate snakes. They taught us how to survive in the jungle, see? How to kill a snake and skin it and eat it raw. But Daniel, he already knew that. He did it when he was a kid. He’d eat any damn thing. Grubs and ants and leeches. I saw him do it. He kept tryin’ to get us to do it, too. Ants I got so I could swallow. Never could get a leech down, though. No problem for Daniel. See, we were all
taught
how to eat all this stuff, but Daniel actually
did
it. He used to say, compared to the rest of it, raw snake was a ‘farkin’ delicacy.’”

I grinned. Sweeney had Daniel’s blend of Scottish burr and Georgia farmboy down pat.

“So, anyway,” he continued after a moment, “that’s how come we called him Snake Eater. It’s like, there are lots of godfathers. But only one you actually call Godfather. Listen, you want another beer?”

“After this conversation, I could use something.”

Sweeney grinned. “Didn’t mean to freak you out, there, Brady. I just—shit, I miss Daniel, that’s all. Helps, talking about him.”

I nodded.

“Hang on. I’ll be right back.”

He headed back to the house. I shaded my eyes and tried to spot Terri. I didn’t see her.

Sweeney was back in a few minutes. He handed me a beer.

“Thanks,” I said.

“We had to go through places where they had defoliated,” he said. “We didn’t know there was a problem.”

“Agent Orange,” I said.

He nodded. “Most of us got it. I guess Pollard and Colletti were about the only ones who didn’t.”

“How’d they manage to escape it?”

Sweeney shrugged. “Just lucky, I guess. Galinski died of it. His widow got a little settlement from Uncle. Me and Daniel, we tried to get some help. Daniel’s friend there…”

“Charlie McDevitt.”

“Yeah. Charlie. He tried to help us.”

“Charlie’s a friend of mine. That’s how I met Daniel.”

“I know. When he was in jail. Anyway, Charlie tried to help us, but we got the runaround.”

“Does smoking marijuana help you?” I said.

He cocked his head at me, then smiled. “Yeah. It’s the only thing that helps. Daniel kept me supplied. Don’t know what the fuck I’m gonna do now. Try growing my own, I guess.”

A woman bumped up against Sweeney and grabbed onto his arm. “Hey, Bri’,” she slurred. “How they hangin’?”

He looked at her, then smiled. He put his arm across her shoulders. “How you makin’ out, Ronnie?”

“Jus’ pissa.”

She was probably in her forties. She was fat and graying, but she had youthful skin.

She was very drunk.

Sweeney nudged her to look at me. “Ronnie Galinski,” he said, “this is Brady Coyne. Daniel’s lawyer.”

She looked at me without interest, then turned back to Sweeney. “Don’t know why the fuck I’m here,” she said. “Wouldn’ta come, but Neddie woulda wanted me to. Neddie loved the bas’ard. Sumbitch got Neddie killed.”

“It wasn’t Daniel’s fault,” said Sweeney gently.

“That shit jus’ ate him up, Bri’,” she said. “His legs swole up and his skin fell off and his brain caught fire.”

Sweeney put his arm around her. “I know, hon,” he said softly. “I remember.”

Sweeney glanced at me, then gently steered Ronnie Galinski away. He had his arm across her shoulders, and he was bending to her, talking to her.

Galinski. That, I recalled, was the name of the soldier who had died of Agent Orange poisoning. His widow was not, apparently, a Daniel McCloud fan.

I felt something soft brush the back of my neck. I turned around. Terri said, “Hi.”

I touched her hair. “Having fun?”

“Weirdest wake I’ve ever been to. Quite an assortment, huh?”