StoneDust (4 page)

“I don't follow.”

“You said you were relieved to see him there. Were you surprised? Like maybe you didn't trust him?”

Joe crossed his big arms and hugged his lunchpail to his chest. “Maybe I didn't.”

“Because of something he said?”

“No.”

“Something that passed between you?”

“No.”

“What?”

“Just a funny feeling…”

“What feeling?”

“Who knows?…Like he was leaving something out.”

“Like what?”

“He wasn't telling me something.”

“Something he wanted to hide?”

“Yeah…I thought he was hiding something.”

“Drinking?”

“What else?”

“How about heroin?”

“Janey had it right, Ben. Booze. Dope. Just different seats on the
Titanic
.”

“So you were worried?”

“Until I saw him at the diner. Then I knew he was okay.”

“Not hiding anything?”

“He was there. Just like he promised.”

When Ed Hawley, the short-order cook, saw me enter the Church Hill Diner, he quick-popped a Certs into his mouth. The lunch rush had just ended and he invited me to join him in a booth where he sat down for the first time since he had started breakfast at six. He was a weathered-looking guy with burn-speckled hands and a walrus mustache. His eyes were weary, his nose rosy as mulled cherries. The Certs had taken effect by the time I carried my coffee to the booth, and Ed's breath smelled like a mint julep in horse country.

I had nothing against a couple of shots of bourbon after a long shift. But Ed had had his problems with booze, which he apparently regretted telling me.

“So how you doing?”

“Long day. You get a little older, it's the standing that kills you. How
you
doing, Mr. Abbott?”

“I don't know, Ed. Lost a friend last week. Kind of knocked a hole in things.”

“Mr. Hopkins?”

“Yeah. We grew up together. You know, played ball.” Ed was from elsewhere. He'd drifted into Newbury around the time I got out of prison and had for several years lived in the woods, until I found him a rental with front money requirements he could afford.

Ed said, “Good man. He came in every day after his wife left him. Couple of times I gave him a hand working at his house. You know, he thatched his own roof.”

“Only thatched roof in the county…Were you working on Saturday night?”

“'Til seven.”

“Did you see him?”

“The day he died? Sure. He had breakfast and then he came back for supper.”

“How was he at supper?”

Ed Hawley thought about that. “A little keyed up.”

“Nervous?”

“No, uh, hopeful. Turned on? Like he was looking forward to the evening. He was wearing a necktie. And a blazer. He was dressed up, going out.”

“Did he say where?”

“No, he wasn't very talky that night. Just ate real quick and left.”

“See which way he went?”

“Well, he was parked in front and just drove off, didn't turn around, so I guess he was heading toward Frenchtown.”

To go home, Reg would have turned around and gone the other way.

“Didn't really eat supper, you know.”

“No?”

“Just a BLT and coffee. He'd usually eat a lot more than that for supper. Pot roast or the haddock special. A real meal. But Saturday was just a sandwich.”

“You said, ‘keyed up,' Ed. Was he drinking?”

“No. No. Absolutely not. He always drinks coffee or diet Coke.”

“But had he maybe had one before he came in?”

“Didn't smell it,” Ed said, and he looked at me and looked away as we both realized that with a couple under his belt, Ed wouldn't know if he was downwind of Jack Daniels's distillery.

I stood outside the diner and looked down Church Hill Road. There was the video rental in the old railroad station, and Buzz's Getty, and beyond that a long stretch of empty road to Frenchtown. The Cedar Hill Feed Store would have been closed by six, as would the Town Line Dry Cleaners.

I hit Buzz's first. Like most of the local businessmen, I kept an account there. I filled the Olds with Super; as it ages, it seems happier burning the expensive stuff. Buzz opened the book when I went in to sign.

“Did you see Reg Saturday night?”

“Night he died? No. I took off early.”

“Who was on?”

“Pete Stock.”

“Is he around?”

“In jail.”

“
Pete
?”

“Over in Plainfield.”

“Why?”

“You hear how they chainsawed the Hitching Post?”

“That was
Pete
?”

“No. But when everybody ran, he couldn't get his truck started. Next day the troopers impounded it. And when Pete tried to get it back, they arrested him, thinking he knows who did it.”

“They can't do that.”

“Tim Hall's trying to get him out.”

“When was this?”

“Same night Reg died.”

“He's been sitting in jail since
Sunday
?”

“No, no, no. Took him 'til yesterday to screw up his courage. Freddy Butler drove him over to the barracks and the troopers just locked him up.”

The pump bell rang. Buzz looked out, saw old Mildred Gill's Dodge, and went out to pump for her. I flipped pages in the gas book, back to the Saturday before last, and found the final entry, where Reg Hopkins had signed for 12.4 gallons of regular.

***

He was dressed for a date and gassed up to go anywhere. On the other hand, he might have been all dressed up with nowhere to go, a state of affairs I occasionally found myself in on a Newbury Saturday night.

So I stopped at the Rail Road Video.

A gigantic turquoise Harley-Davidson gleamed outside, which meant the clerk was Brian Chevalley, another cousin of mine, who doted on his bike and once rode it all the way to Bridgeport. He was perched behind the cash register, long-haired, earringed, and snaggle-toothed, reading
TV Guide
.

“Hey, Ben.”

“Brian. How you doing?”

Brian waved the
TV Guide
in answer. “When they get a load of what's on television tonight, they're going to knock the door down. You know, I think the people who make TV shows own video stores—Hey, we got that
Strictly Ballroom
you was asking for.”

“I'll take it…Listen,” I asked as he boxed the rental, “Saturday before last—the night Reg died—were you on?”

“Sure. I'm always Saturdays.”

“Reg come in that night?”

“Nope.”

***

Now I headed uphill.

No matter how bad Reg might have wanted a drink, I doubted he'd have gone into the White Birch Inn wearing a necktie. The last guy to try it had exited through a closed window. But I went into the biker joint anyway and asked Wide Greg. Wide Greg said definitely, no, Reg had not been in his joint in years.

Franco, proprietor of my own local, the Yankee Drover Inn, which stands a convenient two-hundred-foot stumble from my house, hadn't seen him either.

He hadn't hit the Newbury Package Store for booze or wine, said red-haired Ramona. Over at the Grand Union, the busy manager told me he didn't think Reg had bought beer, though he couldn't be sure, considering the volume of his store traffic.

Sherry Carter came loping out of the produce department, lean and alluring in tight stretchies and a remarkably short polo shirt.

“Feel,” she said, extending a shiny avocado. “What do you think?”

I was thinking what a treat she must have been in the Fisk Jacuzzi. I couldn't resist saying, “Heck of a party at Duane and Michelle's.”

“You left early.”

“Did it go on?”

“And on—Is this too hard?”

I told her it felt too hard to me.

“But I want it tonight.” She stroked it with her long fingers, and we exchanged secret smiles, based on the briefest of mutual gropes at a beer-drinking picnic last summer.

“That's not going to make it any softer—Say hi to Bill.”

***

When I drove a mile out to the Liquor Locker and asked troglodyte candidate Steve La France, the answer was the same: Reg hadn't come in in months, Steve assured me—and several voters stocking up on Bud.

I declined his offer of an “
i believe in steve
” bumper sticker. Handsomely printed in red, white, and blue, it projected a jaunty “new broom” image that spelled more trouble for Vicky McLachlan.

I suspected the professional hand of Georgia Bowland. Georgia had quit a hot public-relations career to become Rick's IBM wife and childbearer. Bored stiff and drinking a mite, she'd fallen in with the golf-and-business crowd. Whatever else had gone down in the Fisk Jacuzzi, it looked like Michelle and Sherry had recruited Georgia to advise the candidate whom their husbands trusted to take a bulldozer to Newbury's zoning laws.

Steve grinned at his audience. “We understand, Ben. You got better reason than most to support the incumbent.”

“Heard you enrolled Steve Junior in Newbury Prep.”

“Well, my wife is considering it. He has special needs.”

“Excellent school,” I told the fellows with the six-packs. “I went there. Of course, back then it wasn't so expensive. I guess everyone'll send their kids to Newbury Prep if we don't pass a school budget—what's tuition up to now, Steve? Sixteen, seventeen thousand a year?”

Steve muttered something about an eroded tax base. I started out the door. Then I got a wonderful, sneaky idea—the sort of killer idea that would have appealed to patient guys, like Machiavelli, Sun-Tzu, and the inventor of the time bomb. “Hey, instead of private school, why not shut down the public school—temporarily—'til we balance the budget?”

Steve's customers smiled. Fond memories of snow days. “Hell, you'd win the kids' vote, Steve.”

“Interesting thought,” said Steve. “Weird, but interesting. Just might steal that from you, Ben.”

“In that case, I
will
have a bumper sticker.”

I slapped it on a truck with Texas plates.

***

Early that evening, I hit paydirt. Sort of.

Recalling from somewhere that recovering alcoholics often have a sweet tooth, I stopped at Dr. Mead's Ice Cream Drive In. The parking lot was crammed with Little Leaguers, coaches and parents lining up for postgame malts and sundaes.

I got on line and, when things quieted down, bought a low-fat yogurt and asked Doc Mead himself if Reg had been by Saturday night. “The night he died.” I dropped my change in a tip cup marked: “For the kids' college.”

Mead scratched his shiny bald head.

“Yeah. I was probably the last friend to see him alive.”

“What time?”

“Eleven. I was closing, but I pulled him a soft pistachio. Thank God. Can you imagine turning a customer away the night he dies?”

“How'd he seem?”

“Down. Ordered a double in a cup with a cover. Then he ordered a cone and ate that while we talked a second. Inhaled it and split.”

“Wha'd you talk about?”

“Nothing, really. Weather. Late night. Glad he'd caught me open, said goodnight, and split.”

“Was he drinking?”

“I don't think so. Didn't smell it. He looked fine, just down.”

“Which way did he go?”

“Why, Ben?”

“Curious. Which way?”

“I really don't remember. I was mopping the floor when he pulled out.”

“Toward Frenchtown?” I don't know why I asked. He could have ended up in that bridge from either direction.

“No. He headed up toward the flagpole.”

Pondering the five hours between a BLT and ice cream, I went to the Town Hall movie theater to take one last shot with Cindy Butler, the tax assessor's clerk who doubled as a ticket taker. The last of the seven-o'clock crowd were hurrying in. Coming attractions were blaring in the dark. I waited in the lobby until Cindy had shut the doors.

“Did you see Reg Saturday night?”

Her eyes got big. “What Saturday? The night he died?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“
One Hundred and One Dalmatians
?—Besides, I'd remember, Ben. If I'd seen him
that
night…Maybe he went to the Fisks' cookout.”

Maybe I was too dumb to live.

Chapter 5

I had my excuses: For one, blazer and necktie weren't exactly cookout dress code; for another, I'd been at the cookout and I hadn't seen him. Though I had left early, hoping to get a call from Rita Long, who I had thought might have come up from New York for the weekend.

Still, I should have thought about it on my own.

Reg Hopkins and Duane Fisk had been best friends since kindergarten. They'd built their businesses side by side, pooled their profits and made a bunch of fast money together, back in flush times when new houses and mini-malls were sprouting like jewelweed in July. Their summer deep-sea fishing trip had been an annual rite—boys only, no wives and kiddies. Same as their Montana elk hunt, from which they would return, usually elkless, with half-grown beards their women would make them shave.

I went home, denuded my fledgling basil crop to make a pesto, and, when dinner hour was over, telephoned the Fisks. Michelle answered.

“Hi, it's Ben with a belated thank you. Great cookout.”

“Oh, I'm glad. When you left early I thought maybe you hated it.”

Were she a WASP, people would have called Michelle perky; being Italian, she was more like fiery. She was round, chubby sometimes, with a knockout face, short black hair, and eyes that seemed to crackle. The thought of her frolicking in the Jacuzzi-for-eight was intriguing, though I suspected that even up to her chin in swirling water and houseguests, she'd be talking a blue streak. She loved to talk. This evening, however, she sounded subdued.

“No, it was great,” I rattled on. “I was wiped and I had clients coming up from the city real early Sunday, so I figured I'd better crash.”

“Were they worth getting up early?”

“They loved the town.”

“Do they want to build, by any chance? You know, we've still got that ten acres on Morris Mountain.”

“They say they want old—you know, authentic Colonial—but then, they don't want to be near the road and they want views and big bathrooms and lots of glass.”

Michelle laughed. “Don't forget our ten acres.”

“Top of my list. They're coming back next weekend, and I'll just happen to swing by Morris Mountain.”

“Tell them we'll give them a break on the footings and the septic.”

I let silence build a moment. Then I said, “Speaking of which…”

“What?”

“Reg.”

“Poor Reg. God, poor Duane, he's just destroyed.”

I'd seen Duane at the funeral, a thirty-five-year-old guy looking middle-aged with grief.

“Who do you think is going to move in on Reg's business? I doubt Janey's going to run it.”

“She's looking for a buyer.”

“Lots of luck. Without Reg, what is it but some used machines and a bunch of upkeep?”

“I don't know, Ben. Duane's been talking to Tony Canning.”

“Oh, come on. I wouldn't recommend Tony to build an outhouse.”

Michelle laughed. I asked, “Why don't you guys buy it?”

“Like you said, Ben: Without Reg, what is Hopkins Septic except some old machines?”

“Good will.”

“We'd still have to get someone to manage it,” Michelle said firmly, and it was pretty clear that she and Duane had kicked the idea around and found it wanting. She sounded a little cool all of a sudden, so I switched back to party talk.

“Was that lamb marinade a dark secret? I noticed Duane hardly used the dome at all and it was still moist.” They had grilled a butterfly lamb vegetarians would have killed for.

“You like that? Soy, sherry, and olive oil. Grate in a big ginger root and crush a bunch of garlic.”

“How long?”

“Five, six hours. You can use the low-salt soy so you don't get Chinese eyes.”

“Terrific…Hey, Michelle, you're not doing a mother-in-law recipe on me, are you?”

“Huh?”

“Leaving out one major ingredient?”

“Ben, I wouldn't do that to you…Probably.” She laughed.

“Thanks. And thanks for the party. You know, I didn't see him that night.”

“Who?”

“Reg. Did he get there after I left?”

“No. We didn't invite him.”

“Oh, I just figured…”

“Reg was a different guy since he stopped drinking. We tried, but he just couldn't relate. Just between you and me, it got really uncomfortable. One time we did the lamb he got all bent out of shape because of the sherry. Jeez, Ben, the alcohol cooks off. But he wouldn't touch it.”

“But you still did business.”

“It was hard. Sure, Duane and Reg went way back, but, you know—hey, people change. What are you going to do? Right?”

“So you didn't see him the night he died?”

“No. Like I told you. He wasn't invited. Listen, Ben, thanks for calling. You take care now.”

“Thanks for the marinade.”

“Don't forget Morris Mountain.”

I hung up, put my feet on the desk, and imagined what it felt like not to have invited your best friend to your party the night he overdosed.

What could I report to Janey Hopkins? Reg Hopkins had been cold sober at five in his office. He had left the diner shortly after six, apparently sober, gassed up the Blazer, disappeared for nearly five hours, and surfaced for ice cream, again apparently sober, only to disappear until they found him in the bridge.

I guess Janey had gotten her money's worth. I'd certainly touched a lot of bases. But five missing hours was a long time. Not to mention the hours between ice cream and dawn.

The next day I got smarter.

I drove down to Frenchtown, to Chevalley Enterprises—a seven-bay garage my cousin Renny had created and which was now run by his widow, Betty, and his big brother Pinkerton. Pink had been a hell of a dirt-track racer in his day, but like most Chevalley men—Renny being the notable exception—he was long on aggression, short on patience, and utterly devoid of managerial skills. The outfit was lumbering along regardless. Betty Butler Chevalley was learning fast how to operate the office, and Pink, while no manager in the conventional sense, managed to terrorize his mechanics into turning in a reasonable day's work.

Mainly because they were the only show in town, they had hung on to the state police towing contract for the area, which was why I was visiting. I located Pink by his shouting.

“
Which one of you guys took my screwdriver
?”

Six mechanics buried their faces in car innards. A seventh scuttled off to the parts room, and two men took a Buick for a test drive.

“It's a Philips. It's marked ‘P.C.': Pink Chevalley. My screwdriver—”

“Hey, Pink? Got a minute?”

“Got all day with no goddamned tools. Turn your back and some son of a bitch is using your best screwdriver to open oil cans. What's up, Ben?”

“Come on, I'll buy you a cup of coffee.”

There was free coffee in the Chevalley waiting room, a very comfortable space with good chairs and newspapers and coffee and donuts.

“May I buy you a donut too?”

Betty Chevalley, redheaded, plump, and harried, called from the computer, “He's already eaten twelve today.”

Pink snatched up his thirteenth and lumbered outdoors, where he was happier. I followed. “Listen, you towed Reg's Blazer?”

“Towed into Plainfield. Battery was dead. Lights on all night.” Pink laughed.

“What's funny?”

“Ollie Moody tried to dump us. Hires this Exxon asshole from down Route Seven. Guy couldn't respond to his first call. Truck wouldn't start and he had four flat tires. Can you imagine that?”

Knowing the Chevalleys—a far-flung family, clannish and not entirely civilized—I had little trouble imagining their competitor's problems.

“Did you notice how much gas was in the Blazer?”

“Battery was dead.”

“Yeah, right. Did the needle swing up or down?”

“He had them high-tech idiot lights. No juice, no computer, no idiot lights.”

Smarter, but not smarter enough.

Pink looked anxious to get back to his yelling.

“Did it bounce?” I asked.

“Did what bounce?”

“The Blazer, when you towed it.”

“Of course it bounced. It's a Blazer.”

“Did it bounce like with a full tank or with an empty tank?”

“Huh?”

“Reg told me he had to keep the tank full, otherwise it would bang his head on the roof.”

“Oh, yeah. Yeah. I know what you mean.”

“Full or empty?”

Pink thought back. “I had to pick it up myself 'cause that high-school kid I had driving Sundays got lost in the flatbed…You know, I'd guess nearer empty than full. Came around a bend and the rear wheels busted loose.”

“She bounced?”

“Sliding like a snake. Guy coming the other way must have swallowed his teeth. Dumb Blazer. Half the town's riding around in a goddamned empty truck. Of course the goddamned things bounce. I told Reg a hundred times, chuck a few sandbags in back. No big deal for a man who digs septics, right? He kept putting it off, puttin' it off. Now look what happens.”

“I don't think the bouncing killed him, Pink.”

“No, but I'm the guy doing the towing, and the 'sucker's sliding over the road. I gotta go to work before them bastards steal the rest of my tools.”

“By the way, the Olds got a little shimmy in the front end.”

“How fast?”

“One-ten.”

Pink looked grave. “That should not happen. Bring her in.”

“I was hoping it was something inexpensive, like balancing the wheels?”

“Could be.”

“Pink, how much gas does the Blazer hold?”

“Twenty gallons.”

“How many miles they get to a gallon?”

“Twenty if the wind's behind you.”

“So half a tank of gas, ten gallons, two hundred miles.”

“Ask Betty, she'll figure it out on the computer.”

He thundered back into the garage, and I went and told Betty that Aunt Connie was a little upset about something they had done to her Lincoln. Betty said she'd take care of it.

I drove home to my office, wondering how Reg had racked up two or three hundred miles in less than five hours. One thing was for sure: He hadn't done it bar-hopping around Newbury. Nor had he burned more than a gallon driving to the covered bridge. But he could have run up to Hartford to buy heroin. Or over to Waterbury. Or down to Bridgeport, Stamford, or Norwalk—the old Long Island Sound cities that boasted busy ghettos. He could have driven to New York, for that matter, or maybe even Boston. Or he could have just driven lonely circles, hour after hour on the country roads.

I remembered something I'd meant to ask Pink. I telephoned. Betty paged him and he picked up the phone, bellowing over the shriek of airguns.

“Hey, Pink. Did you see the scratch down the side of Reg's Blazer?”

“What are you, an insurance adjuster?”

“Did you see the scratch? Did he hit the bridge?”

“Naw. Looked to me like some son of a bitch ran a church key along it.”

Can-opener scratches on a shiny car had been known to happen on ghetto streets.

I typed up some notes on the eight or nine conversations and calculated I'd spent another hour with Pink. I didn't feel right charging Janey for another hour, however; nor, despite all the talk, did I have much to tell her.

As it was, she called me, sounding very tense, and came by my office. I said, “I don't know what to tell you. But so far, I haven't found anyone who saw him high. That's about it.”

“Look at this.”

She handed me a sheet of typing paper rolled up in a rubber band. I slipped it off and spread it out; someone had chopped up magazines to cut out a word here and a letter there and then pasted them down in the following order: “
haven't they suffered enough damage already?
”

“Who's suffered enough damage already?” I asked.

Janey's face was tight, with twin red dots flaring at her cheek-bones. “This was inside.” She unrolled a photograph of her children. Mark and Jason, I recalled. Or Gabriel or something like that. Two cute little guys—miniature versions of Reg with Janey's ambitious mouth—waiting for their schoolbus.