StoneDust (6 page)

“Wow. The Bowlands? The Barretts? And the Carters? The builder Carters? Sherry and Bill?”

“You heard it here first.”

“And the Fisks.”

“You wouldn't believe the bathing suit Michelle bought for that party.”

“But they've been in bed together for years.”

“
What
?” Marie grabbed my arm in a powerful hand and jerked hard. “What do you mean? What do you know?”

“Marie. It's a joke.”

“What do you mean, joke? What kind of joke?” she demanded, and I saw a lifetime of orgies pass unreported before her eyes.

“An expression.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Rick Bowland and Ted Barrett are on the Planning and Zoning Commission. Right? They have to approve new construction. Right? Bill Carter is a builder. And Duane does drains and footings and septics and speculates in land. When you've got a bunch of friends all in the business of building or regulating building, you could say they're in bed together.”

“Oh, I've heard that expression. Yeah, but you made a joke—Hey, that's pretty good, Ben.” She laughed loud and long, with great relief, and slapped one ample thigh.

“So they stayed overnight?”

“It was one of those parties, if you know what I mean.”

I said, “Oh, come on, Ted and Susan are the tightest couple I know.”

“Yeah,” Marie admitted. “You never hear nothin' about them. 'Course, they went bust…Wouldn't put anything past Sherry Carter.”

I shrugged. Personally, I thought Sherry was more talk than action; but I didn't want to argue with Marie, I wanted her to keep talking. Which she did, in a hoarse whisper in case the nanny was listening from the gazebo. “Mrs. Bowland? Wouldn't put anything past her, either, when she's drinkin'—You seen that party room the Fisks built?”

“Heard about it.”

“Check it out, sometime. Heavy duty.” She grinned, gap-toothedly. “Like a porn video.”

“How would you know about a porn video, Marie?”

“Hey, you wouldn't believe the people who go in and out of that little side room at the rental. Your cousin Brian told me—”

“You said just three couples—four couples, counting Duane and Michelle.”

“Plus the crashers.”

“Who?” I asked.

“Somebody stayed late. From the cookout. Slipped into the Jacuzzi with the rest of them.”

“Who?”

“Nobody knows.”

“Lights out?”

“I don't know. Nobody knows. But the word is, there was somebody else and they ran off into the woods.”

“Al Bell said they had a stripper who jumped out of a cake.”

“Al Bell doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground. What the hell would four couples in a Jacuzzi need a stripper for?”

“I wondered about that. But he said the stripper ran into the swamp.”

“The man is a fool, Ben. He doesn't know crap. There was no goddamned stripper. And that's the truth.”

“But there was a crasher.”

“Right.”

“I get it.”

“At last.”

I drove home and wandered over to Town Hall to chat up Vicky, who usually had her ear to the ground and had arrived at the cookout shortly before I left.

She was busy as hell and in no mood to chat, though she did hint she'd be available for a late beer and burger at the Yankee Drover. As I had some reason to hope that Rita Long might be up from New York, I weaseled out of it and asked, even as she edged me toward the door, “Do you know if any extras stayed on for Stage Two of the Fisk party?”

“No.”

“No, you don't know, or no, no one stayed?”

“No, I don't know, and I doubt any did. Michelle was acting like a chaperone at a Methodist dance.”

“Methodists don't dance.”

“That's what I meant. Bye, Ben. I gotta—”

“Did you by chance see Reg at the cookout?”

“What?”

“I gather you stayed late.”

“Not that late.”

“But did you see Reg?”

Vicky hesitated, then closed the door she'd been attempting to hustle me through. “When I arrived,” she said.

“I didn't see him then.”

“He didn't come in. He was kind of driving by.”

“Kind of? What do you mean?”

“I was coming from town, so I was about to turn left into their drive, when I saw Reg coming the other way, in his Blazer. I waited for him to turn right, but he just slowed down a second and then kept going.”

“When was this?”

“About six-thirty.”

“Did you talk?”

“No. I waved. But he just went by.”

“Didn't wave back?”

“No…”

“He didn't turn in?”

“I saw his face. He looked so sad…Like he was going to cry.”

“You didn't say anything Sunday, when I told you we found him.”

Vicky didn't answer me. Instead, she mused, “It was like he was saying goodbye or something. Too bad he didn't come in; it might have been different.”

“He wasn't invited.”

“Why not?”

“They'd kind of drifted apart after Reg stopped drinking. You didn't see him later?”

“No.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

“Why do you ask?”

“Between you and me, Janey wants to prove that Reg wasn't doing dope.”

“That's crazy. What does she care? They're divorcing, and besides, it's obvious he was.”

I agreed it looked that way. She said, “Why not leave it alone then?”

“What do you mean?”

“I have enough problems fighting Steve without this turning into a bigger deal than it was. You know, ‘Lax Government Encourages Newbury Dope Fiends.'”

“It's no big deal. I'm really just helping Janey ease into the idea that Reg ODed.”

“And what if he didn't?”

“Then Janey has a right to her insurance.”

“Of course.”

I promised to stop by re-election headquarters above the General Store for an envelope-stuffing session and went back to my office, where I put my feet up and reviewed: After dressing and eating and gassing up, Reg had swung past the Fisk party before disappearing until eleven. Terrific. I'd filled in another ten minutes. And heard that he'd looked sad. Which was about how I would have felt if my former best friends hadn't invited me to a cookout attended by half the town.

It had just occurred to me that Janey Hopkins might have spent her money better on Marie Butler, when I heard a familiar scratching noise at the door.

“Do I hear a muskrat?” I asked over my shoulder.

“No.”

“Otter?”

“No.”

“Does it wear braces and a smile like an Oldsmobile?”

“You rat.”

“Hello, Alison.”

She scuttled in, dropped her book bag and flute case on the floor, and climbed into the client's chair, though at eleven she'd not be house shopping, and even less likely to know Reg's whereabouts Saturday night. From my desk I produced a mini-size Kit Kat, which she opened solemnly.

“Guess what?”

“What?”

“The music teacher?”

“Who has a name.”

“Mr. Shipley. He gave me two tickets to the Newbury Friends of Music.”

“Great!”

“The Ping Quartet.”

“Really?” An inconsistent group, the Pings. Very good when they were good, dreary when they weren't.

“From Shanghai.”

“Yes.” They had in fact been living in Chicago for some years and were a regular feature on the Northeast concert circuit.

“Want to come?”

“Why not ask your mom?” I said, recalling insipid Brahms, bad Beethoven, and a grim dose of Ravel the last time the Pings had blown through town.

Alison's smile of gleaming braces closed like a zipper. “She won't come.”

“Did you ask her?” Mrs. Mealy was a shy woman, painfully conscious of old New England class lines that few but the very poor honored anymore.

“No. But she won't come. Will you?”

“Only if your mother won't go.”

“She won't.”

“Ask.”

“Okay. Then you'll come?”

“Sunday?”

“Three o'clock.”

***

Our neighboring towns in northwestern Connecticut were known for sparkling art galleries or serious antique shops (blessedly light on Ye Olde, but heavy on the checkbook), but Newbury had a lock on good music. One reason was our energetic and old-money funded Friends of Music. The other was that the movie theater in Town Hall doubled as a rather splendid concert auditorium, a gift way back in 1930 from a young heiress. Its official name, engraved above the marble portico, was Leslie Town Hall—Leslie for Edgar Leslie, a World War I hero who died in the great influenza epidemic of 1918 and whose connection to my maiden aunt was lost in history, if not in her heart.

A big crowd was bustling in behind us.

“Where should we sit?” asked Alison, cute and squirmy in a little dress Connie had produced from her gigantic attic.

“Down front on the left.”

We found two seats in the sixth row, behind Connie and a group of well-dressed elderly ladies discussing their recent trips to the Amazon.

The Pings, a handsome family of string players, took the stage.

I glanced at the program and groaned.

“What's wrong?”

“Ravel. The Friends of Music ought to set aside a Ravel Haters Room we could retreat to.”

Aunt Connie turned around and told me to behave myself. The first violin stamped his foot and the Pings galloped into some fine Mozart. I scanned the program notes, written with a flourish by Scooter's wife; Eleanor made the Ravel piece sound interesting, but when they got to it, it wasn't.

There's something about Ravel. Musicians love the guy. There's rarely a Friends concert without him, and barely a note of movie and TV music that hasn't been lifted from the Frenchman that critics more knowledgeable than I have dubbed “the musical self-abuser.” I whispered to Alison that New Guinea headhunter pickup bands play Ravel on their neighbors' skulls at least once an evening.

Predictably, he cleared the hall like grapeshot. Only half the audience returned from intermission, which was a shame, because the Pings had grown to a quintet, procuring the services of a vast lady in red who played a showy piano. She bounced on her stool like a Jeep Cherokee on a washboard road and tossed her long black hair with such ecstasy that I had to wonder what it would be like to be on the bottom making love with her. After she took her bows, the Pings got real with a Corelli piece intended to make angels weep.

“Jesus!” Alison breathed when it was over.

“‘Gosh' will do, thank you.”

“Why do you always correct me?”

I glanced at Connie's white head. She was applauding with enthusiasm. I said, “Because when I was growing up, Connie and my parents did it for me, and it helps me know now what's appropriate when and where. Makes you comfortable, no matter what the company.”

“But Ben, it was a ‘Jesus!' moment.”

I admitted she had me there and wondered if ice cream at the General Store was a good idea. But we were being very grown up today, and Alison said, a little tentatively, as she does when she's afraid of being disappointed, “There's a reception to meet the musicians. Can we go?”

“Yeah, I want to meet the lady in red.”

“Say ‘yes,' Ben. Not ‘yeah.'”

The lady in red turned out to be as jolly offstage as on, and Alison got a little jealous until the violinist paid some attention to her, which left her starry-eyed all the way home. I walked her to the barn door.

“Thanks for asking me.”

“Thanks for coming. Hey, Ben?”

“What?”

“I heard you were asking about Mr. Hopkins?”

“Yes?”

“You should have asked me.”

“Oh, really?”

“The big kids saw him that night.”

“When?”

“Late.”

“Where?”

She drew back, and I realized I had grabbed her shoulder and was squeezing. “Sorry.” I stepped back. “What do you mean, hon? Who saw him?”

“I don't know. Big kids. They were riding their bikes real late and they saw him.”

Bikes. When I was a “big kid” fourteen to sixteen, we walked everywhere. But nowadays they got around on bikes, which we had scorned as kid stuff as soon as we were old enough to start counting the years to a driver's license.

“Where did they see him?”

“The party that the Fisks gave.”

“The cookout?”

“No. You know. The grownup party. The Jacuzzi party.”

I bent down until we were eye to eye. “This is important. What time?”

“Late. Midnight, maybe.”

“What were they doing out at the Fisks' at midnight?”

“Some of them rode out hoping to watch.”

“Watch what?”

“You know. The Jacuzzi. The grownups in the Jacuzzi.”

“And they say they saw Mr. Hopkins go to the party, at midnight?”

“I think so.”

“In his Chevy Blazer?”

“Yeah. The blue S10 with the WindVents.”

Just that once, I didn't tell her to say “yes” for “yeah.”

I'd inquired of about fifteen people if they'd seen Reg. Who had the answer, but my little backyard neighbor? I thought immediately of going out and bracing Duane and Michelle, who had assured me Reg hadn't showed. But that was strong stuff to base on high-school stories. Better, maybe, to come at them sideways.

Bill Carter had been at the sleepover. And Bill had built a $600,000 spec house he couldn't unload, which gave a real estate agent some leverage.

Chapter 7

It was one of those houses built for the builder's convenience. Bill Carter had plunked it smack on the required setback line, ignoring a lovely rise sixty feet deeper in the lot. The driveway, sporting a pretentious wiggle, invaded the property in precisely the spot that destroyed maximum privacy. The septic field looked like he had buried Moby Dick in the front yard.

“Sherry's sorry she couldn't make it, Ben.”

That was fine with me. Flirty gazelles notwithstanding, Sherry was very much the brains of the Carter marriage, and I was grateful to have Bill to myself. I claimed I was sorry too and said, “Let's see your house.”

Bill was proud of the kitchen, where he'd saved some money on Garland and Sub-Zero knockoffs, and prouder still of the downstairs powder room, which offered guests pushing the front door bell an unobstructed view of its fine porcelain commode.

“The entire structure,” Bill beamed, “is architect-designed.”

I told him we could work around that problem too. I'd always liked him. He was the kind of optimist you had to be if you wanted to raise spec houses for a living.

“I'm amazed, Ben. I thought she'd sell in a flash. Goddamned recession.”

“It's a bitch, Bill.” I wondered, not for the first time, whether “the economy” had become a secular society's “the Devil made me do it.”

“So what do you say?”

“I don't know, man. You gave Fred an exclusive.”

“I told you, Fred's history. I'm firing him.”

“Yeah, but if Fred couldn't sell—”

“Fred's got his head in the clouds. Says I'm asking estate money for—You know what he called this? He called it a suburban house without a suburb. You believe the nerve of the guy?”

My ablest competitor had hit the nail on the head. Bill Carter needed a corporate buyer heading up the ladder so fast he didn't care where he lived for the next two years. But that sort didn't buy houses in the woods. They flocked with their own around cul de sacs like Rick and Georgia Bowlands'.

“Hell, Ben. You could sell this place in a week.” He punctuated this compliment with a hearty slap on the back, which, from a former all-state guard, sent me reeling with camaraderie. Back in grade school, you could count on him to scare off bullies.

Doubting Donald Trump could have sold it in his best year, I said, “Not for six hundred thousand.”

“Okay, I know that. Get me five-fifty.”

“I don't get a lot of customers for such…But I'll see what I can do.”

“Advertising! You'll want to do a lot of advertising.”

“Costly,” I said.

“Blank check, fella. Pay you out of your commission.”

“I don't think so.”

His face fell. He knew better, but he'd been surfing on hope again. Frustrated, he grouched, “And I suppose you'll hold me up for the full commission, too?”

I'd been waiting for that opening and said, with a most generous smile, “No. I'll knock off a point. Charge you five percent.”

“Fred was working for four!” he protested indignantly.

That was patently untrue, but I had no intention of alienating Bill by calling him a liar, so I said, “Ordinarily I charge six. Five for old times' sake.”

Bill tried an ursine scowl, but he was too amiable to give it teeth.

I said, “Go ask Duane and Michelle what I charge 'em on their land deals. Or ask Janey Hopkins what Fred was charging Reg. Five for good customers. Five for friends.”

Bill hunched up even more bearlike. It still didn't work, as the bear he was like could have entertained in a petting zoo.

I said, “Come on, Bill, you were in with Reg on that little office conversion you did on Church Hill Road. What did I charge you?”

“Five.”

“Did I sell it?”

“Yeah. You sold it.”

“How long did it take?”

“Three months.”

“Did you get your price?”

“Yeah.”

“How'd Reg look when he left the party the other night?”

“Oh, he was fine. No probl—”

“What time did he leave?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I just wondered what time it was when Reg left the Fisk party. Was it after midnight?”

The bear now looked like he'd frozen solid in a snowstorm. Only his eyes moved and they moved slowly, sliding at me, down at the knotholes in the number-three-grade maple floor, back up at me. “What are you talking about, Ben?”

I wandered away from him, into the family room. Bill followed, looming uncertainly. Outside the sliding glass doors was a handsome flagstone terrace set in stone dust.

“Did you lay the terrace yourself?”

“Yeah.”

“Nice work.”

A stone dust base cost less than a concrete slab, but it's one economy I applaud. Strong, yet porous, it makes a more forgiving bed. There's nothing rigid for ice to crack—no small matter in New England winters—while in barefoot weather it lets the cold ground absorb the heat of the sun. You'd best be sure of your mason, however, as wide joints invite weeds. Bill's were narrow as Sherry's pinky.

“Did Reg leave after midnight, or before?”

“I didn't see him.”

“You said he looked fine.”

“I didn't see him leave, is what I meant.”

“Oh.” I shrugged and looked around for another change of subject. “Where'd you get that chandelier?”

“Sherry bought it at an auction.”

Imagine Sherry picking her long-limbed way about a jumbled salesroom, then descending upon the auctioneer with a preemptive bid. I certainly could.

“Neat. Does something for the room—Listen, Bill. Go talk to a couple of other brokers. Try one of the franchise outfits. Maybe they'll find you somebody. Otherwise, give me a ring. I'll see what we can do.”

He was staring hard. And for once he didn't look so amiable.

I said, “Just so we understand up front. I'd go multiple listing right away. I can't handle it as an exclusive.”

Bill Carter said he'd think about it.

I drove directly to the Fisks' place on River Road, hoping he wouldn't telephone Michelle before I got there.

***

Their front lawn was littered with specimen trees. Kousa was blooming; pear, cherry, and crabapples had already leafed out. They'd planted them too close together and crowded the driveway, creating the impression of an overstocked wholesale nursery.

The house loomed, chockablock with architectural details from many eras, though its mansard roof allowed realtors to call it a French Colonial, despite the historical fact that in New England most French colonists had huddled in shacks on the outskirts of English towns.

In our cups one night at the Yankee Drover, Fred Gleason and I swore a solemn vow to slap a ten percent surcharge on any house that called itself a French Colonial. I don't know about him, but I kept my word, and the damnedest thing was, people paid it anyhow. So if Duane and Michelle ever decided to sell, their seven-fifty mansion would go for a cool eight twenty-five. It
was
beautifully kept. When they had finished the new party room they'd painted the whole joint; it all looked brand new, neat and clean.

Duane still drove a truck—a fully loaded deluxe PowerWagon—which wasn't in the drive. Michelle had gone European, tooling around town in an Audi Quattro that I lusted after, secretly. It was in the circle drive at the front door, red and delicious as an apple. I parked by the garage and knocked on the back door.

High heels clicked busily over the kitchen floor and the next second Michelle flung the door open with a whiff of perfume and makeup. She looked very pretty, dressed to go out for lunch in a little suit that hugged her hips and stopped just above her knees. If I had a chemical dislike of Janey Hopkins, I liked Michelle very much, chemically speaking.

“Ben. Hi. Come in. I'm just running out, but what's up? Hey, did they like Morris Mountain?”

She ushered me in and, waving at the coffee machine, said, “Coffee's still warm. I just shut it off.”

“Thanks. Black.”

She clicked to the counter and poured a cup, while I let my imagination drift toward her brimming Jacuzzi. She came back, dark eyes flashing, cheery smile ablaze—the nice-girl-smart-woman looks of a CNN newscaster—and who hasn't wanted to jump
their
bones on a slow news night?

“Sit, sit. It's just lunch at the club. They'll wait.” We sat at a maple table. “Tell me: How'd it go?” She pushed sugar my way and offered a spoon. She had chubby little fingers, and with that Jacuzzi already bubbling, there was something erotically grasping about them.

“So? Did they like it?”

“They liked the view.”

“Good. Good. So?”

“Unfortunately, they had brought a friend with them and the friend had some horror story about someone she knew who had had a terrible experience building a house.”

“Did they
listen
to her?”

“Like a mosquito in their ears. It didn't help. Anyhow, they're coming back next week, so they still think I'm the one. Who knows?”

“Well, there's more where they came from…New Yorkers?”

“That's where the money is.”

“I love 'em. Listen, thanks, Ben. Drink up. I've really got to get down there. I'm on the Stand for Steve committee.”

“I saw Georgia's bumper stickers. Are you really backing
Steve
La France against
Vicky
?”

“Time for a change, Ben. I know she's your friend, but she's out of step.”

“She's done a spectacular job; we almost went under three years ago and you know it.”

“She can't solve Newbury's problems throwing taxpayers' money at them; not while she undercuts the tax base.” (Translation: Cut the school budget, again, and stop forcing builders to comply with zoning. Michelle, to her credit, uttered no sanctimony about crime and disorder; this was about money.)

Poor Vicky. The younger club ladies, women with time on their hands and plenty of energy, like Michelle Fisk and Sherry Carter and Georgia Bowland, could grab a lot of headlines in the
Clarion
. And with their smiley good looks, Scooter would give them plenty of picture space too. Lookers for La France.

“We're doing a fundraiser—a dance. What do you think of ‘Stomp for Steve'?”

I started to say that “Stomp for Steve” sounded friendly as a drive-by shooting. But I bit my tongue. Vicky would find a better time to say it, publicly.

“Georgia thinks we should call it ‘Dance for La France.'”

“Sounds elitist. I'd stick with ‘Stomp for Steve.'…Listen, I was just talking to Bill Carter.”

“Oh, good. You're going to sell his house. Boy did he get in a jam with that one. You'll save him, Ben. Come on, drink up. I gotta go.” She took my cup and headed for the sink.

“Bill told me that Reg was at your party.”

She got a funny little smile on her face, pivoted for a moment on her heel, and sat down again. Elbows on the table, chin resting on her chubby hands, she studied me with more puzzlement than irritation.

“What's up, Ben? I don't get this.”

“You told me Reg wasn't here the night he died. Bill says he was.”

“So?”

“Why didn't you tell me he was here?”

“I don't have to tell you the truth.”

“I beg pardon.”

“You heard me. It's not any of your business who was here.”

“Reg was my friend. And he died that night. And his widow asked me—”

“His
widow
? His
widow
, Ben, dumped him. What the hell business is it of hers where he was that night?”

“Michelle.”

“Ben, you're way out of line. Come on, we're friends. We go back a long way; and you and Duane, forever. But come on. You're crowding us something weird. I don't know what your problem is, but it's not right.” She had taken her chin off her hands by then, and heat was flaring deep in her eyes, heat she contained as she stood up and said, “I really have to go.”

“What time did Reg leave?”

“One-ten.”

“Exactly one-ten?”

“By that clock.” She pointed at a replica Regulator in a too-shiny oak box. “You want to know why he left at one-ten? Because I threw him out. You want to know why I threw him out?”

“Yes I do.”

“Because in my kitchen. At my table. Where my kids eat breakfast. He was snorting heroin.”

“You saw him?”

“I came in for ice. The icemaker in the bar ran out and here he was, sitting right where you are, with a foot-long line of heroin.”

“How'd you know it was heroin?”

She gave me a look of burning gasoline, then surprised me with a subdued, “Actually, I didn't know. It was white powder. I thought it was coke. But later, when they said he died of heroin, then I knew what I'd seen.”

“That's when you threw him out?”

“Of course. I'm not having anybody do drugs in my house…Okay, now and then Duane and me'll smoke some grass. The kids working for him might slip him a joint. They get off on the idea of ‘Old Duane and Michelle' getting stoned. But we sure don't go looking for it. It's illegal. Who needs it? If I want to get high, I can drink wine. Duane's fine on beer.”

I nodded agreement. There was a simplicity to honest alcohol.

“Wha'd he say?”

“I don't know. I didn't hear him.” She surprised me with a laugh. “I was screaming my head off. You should have heard me, Ben. ‘Get out of my house. Get out of my effin' house'—believe the mouth on me?—But I was so upset. I mean, first he barges in and then he sneaks into my kitchen. It was disgusting. It was a really rotten thing for him to do.”

“So he just left?”

“Scooped up his garbage and left. By then Duane came. He heard me yelling. He calmed me down and we went back to the party.”