The Coal Black Asphalt Tomb: A Berger and Mitry Mystery (Berger and Mitry Mysteries) (6 page)

Des nodded. “If you’re up to it.”

He handed the empty glass to his wife and stood back up. He seemed steady enough on his feet. “Of course. Come on in.”

There was a round glass table in the sunroom where it looked as if Bob and Delia had been playing a game of gin rummy. Delia wiped the cards from the table and the three of them sat down there, Skippy settling himself at Delia’s feet.

From where she sat Des could see a long, long way up and down the Lieutenant River. “This is a lovely spot,” she observed, acutely aware that Delia hadn’t offered her coffee. A minor social slight, but Des noticed it. She was meant to. This was how disses were served in Dorset.

Bob was gazing across the table at her in disbelief. “This must be some kind of a sick joke. Are you telling us that my brother has been underneath Dorset Street this whole time?”

“I’m telling you that
someone
has been under Dorset Street. And absolutely no one is regarding it as a joke, sick or otherwise. The chief medical examiner has attended the site personally. And the officer’s remains are being treated with the utmost care and respect.”

“Well, do you know
how
he died?”

“Not yet. We won’t know until the ME conducts a thorough examination. And it may be impossible to tell after so many years.”

“But you … you think it’s Lance?”

“That’s what I’m here to find out. We need your help, Bob.”

“Of course. Anything I can do.”

“Anything,” Delia chimed in. “Anything at all.”

Des reached for her notepad and pen. “For starters, would you happen to remember how tall your brother was?”

“Lance was an honest six-footer, unlike a lot of men who claim to be but are actually five-foot-ten.”

“Do you recall if he had any distinguishing injuries?”

Bob looked at Des blankly. “What are those?”

“Did he suffer any broken bones when he was growing up?”

“He did, yes. Lance broke his collarbone sledding down Johnny Cake Hill when he was, oh, ten years old.”

“Right or left?”

“Right, I’m pretty sure. And he broke his left wrist playing basketball in high school. Some thug from Old Saybrook tripped him.”

“Did Lance wear jewelry of any kind?”

“His naval academy class ring. Never took it off. He was so proud of it. Remember, Delia?”

“I remember,” she said quietly.

“Which finger did he wear it on?”

“His right ring finger.” Bob narrowed his gaze at her. “Did you recover his ring?”

“What month of the year was Lance born?”

“July.”

“That would make his birthstone…”

“His ring had a ruby set in it.”

“And he was a member of which class?”

“The class of ’62. His class motto was the word ‘honor.’ It was engraved on the ring. And his name was engraved on the inside.”

“Did Lance wear a wristwatch?”

“Yes, he did. Our folks gave him a Rolex Submariner as a graduation present.”

“Which wrist did he wear it on?”

“His left.” Bob ran a bony hand through his white hair. “This kind of information will help you figure out whether or not it’s Lance?”

“It’ll help. Were you and Lance full brothers?”

“What on earth does that mean?”

“Did you share the same biological mother and father?”

“Of course we did,” he said indignantly. “Why wouldn’t we? He was born six years before I was. It was just we two. Mother was unable to have any more children after I was born.”

“Bob, I’m sorry for the inconvenience but a technician from the ME’s office will probably stop by later today to take a cheek swab from you.”

“What on earth for?” Delia demanded.

“If Bob and Lance were full brothers then Bob’s DNA will match that of the remains.”

The Paffins both fell into horrified silence.

“I-I just don’t understand how this is possible,” Bob said.

“That’s what we’re going to find out. I’ve been asked to get some background about the night your brother disappeared. Can you tell me about it?”

“It was the night of the spring dance at the club. A Saturday night. The twentieth of May, as I said. The spring dance was a serious event back in those days. It marked the official launch of the social calendar. That meant brand new gowns for the ladies. White dinner jackets for the gents. A full orchestra, dancing, prime rib, champagne.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“It
was
fun,” Delia acknowledged, thawing one, possibly two degrees. “I may be a bit biased but I believe we had a lot more fun in those days than the young people do now. Boys were boys. Girls were girls. And all of us were young and foolish.”

Out on the river a snowy egret swooped low over the water as it flew upriver, flapping its wings effortlessly.

“Lance attended the dance?”

“Yes, he did,” Bob replied.

“In his dress blues?”

Bob nodded. “He was home on leave for a couple of weeks from Vietnam. Scheduled to go back the very next morning, in fact. I attended the dance with this lovely young lady right here. I’d recently asked Delia to be my wife and she had accepted. I graduated from Brown the year prior to that. Got my real estate license and went to work in the family business.”

“You didn’t serve during the Vietnam War?”

Bob colored slightly. “Couldn’t. I have a slight heart murmur. I’ve had it my whole life. It doesn’t really give me any trouble.”

“It most certainly does,” Delia clucked at him.

“But nothing could hold Lance back. My big brother had as sharp a mind as you’ll ever come across. He got accepted to Yale
and
Harvard. Instead, he chose Annapolis. He wanted to serve. Lance was…” Bob broke off, gazing down at his hands. “I was always in awe of him. He was a strapping, handsome fellow who was so full of life that he lit up the room. Men were drawn to him. He was a natural leader. And the girls were helpless around him. One spin around the dance floor was all it took. My brother had star quality. I’m positive that he would have achieved great success in politics, business—any career that he chose. When he died the best of us died. Would you care to see his picture?”

“Yes, I would.”

He got up from the table and led Des into his study, a wood-paneled lair lined with bookcases. Delia followed the two of them in there. She was not about to leave Bob alone with the resident trooper. Nor was Skippy. It was carpeted in there, which meant it smelled even stronger of dog pee and Glade. There was an executive-sized walnut desk. Comfortable leather armchairs. And many, many framed photos on the wall of Bob and his big brother Lance. Bob had been a scrawny youth with a big Adam’s apple and a frightened look on his face. Lance had been muscular and quite handsome, if your taste ran to rugged Adonis types with strong jaws and confident grins. He wore his uniform so well that he looked like a damned recruiting poster. One of the pictures was of him hard at work sanding a single mast wood-hulled catboat.

“That’s the
Monster
,” Bob said, his gaze following hers. “She was a little honey. Lance named her after the golden retriever we had when we were kids. He loved that boat. She was a twelve-and-half-foot Herreshoff that was built back in ’39. He bought her for a song while he was in high school and restored her all by himself. Are you familiar with the Herreshoff, Des?”

“Afraid not,” she said.

“It was designed by Nathanael G. Herreshoff way back in 1914 as a training boat for young sailors in Buzzards Bay. It has a heavy keel and is stable in gusty conditions. Lance loved to sail her. That’s when he was at his happiest.” Bob’s face fell. “He took her out that night after the dance. I never saw him again.”

“Did Lance come to the dance with a date?”

“By himself. He wasn’t seeing anyone special. He joined us at our table for a while. Lance was always welcome to join us if he cared to, although he wasn’t really part of our group. We were a younger bunch. A nice little group of friends who’d all grown up together. There was Delia and me. There was my oldest and best school chum, Chase Fairchild, our first selectwoman’s father. My God, it’s been seven years now since Chase passed away. I still can’t believe he’s gone. He was fit as a fiddle. Played tennis three times a week. Then one day the doctor told him he had pancreatic cancer and in a couple of months he-he was gone. Just like that.” Bob broke off, his eyes moistening. “Chase was in a particularly giddy mood the night of the spring dance. He’d worked up the nerve to propose to Beryl Beckwith, the girl who would become Glynis’s mother. That took nerve, believe me. Beryl was
the
prettiest girl in town.”

“She’s still a lovely woman,” Delia pointed out. “And I swear she hasn’t gained a single ounce since college.”

“Every guy in Dorset wanted to marry Beryl,” Bob recalled. “Except for me, of course. I’d already met my dream girl.”

“Now don’t be silly,” Delia chided him. “I was never in Beryl’s league.”

“Who else belonged to this little group of yours?”

Bob lifted his weak chin slightly. “Luke Cahoon, naturally. Luke and I have been pals since we were in kindergarten.”

Okay, now it made sense. Now Des knew why she’d heard fear in Captain Rundle’s voice on the phone. Pennington Lucas Cahoon had been Southeastern Connecticut’s representative to the US Congress for the past forty years. Luke Cahoon was a fixture on the nation’s political stage—an outspoken, independent-minded blue blood whose family had called Dorset home for more than three hundred years. The Cahoons were one of the first families that had settled in Dorset. The congressman still maintained the historic white colonial that he grew up in at the top of Johnny Cake Hill Road. A caretaker looked after the place. A caretaker and Des. When she first became resident trooper it was made crystal clear to her that she was to drive by the congressman’s house every single day and check its doors and windows. Mostly, Luke Cahoon was a creature of Capitol Hill, where he claimed that he voted his conscience, not his party affiliation. Which happened to be Republican. This made him something of a relic. He was one of the only moderate social progressives who still sat on the GOP side of the aisle. Possibly the only one. But Luke Cahoon was so popular with voters of both parties that no one ever bothered to mount a serious campaign against him.

“Mind you, he was still just plain old Luke back in those days,” Bob pointed out. “Still had two more years of law school to go at Yale because he’d taken time out to serve as a US Marine in Vietnam. Luke’s a decorated war hero, as you may know. But by the time he got home from there he was so fervently against the war that he became the leader of Yale’s antiwar movement. That’s how he ended up in politics.” Bob’s face tightened. “He and Lance didn’t agree about the war at all. They argued about it constantly.”

“Did they argue about it the night of the spring dance?”

Bob nodded. “Every time they saw each other. Political passions ran high in those days, Des. People were involved. They cared. These days they don’t care as much about anything, except possibly the outcome of
American Idol
. It’s kind of a shame, if you ask me.”

“That was the night Luke met Noelle, wasn’t it, Bob?” Delia said.

“Yes, I believe it was. Chase and Beryl arranged it. Beryl knew Noelle from Miss Porter’s and invited her to join us. Luke had been … on his own for a while,” he explained. Or, make that, didn’t explain. “Noelle Crawford. She was a tall, slim girl with black hair and pale skin. A striking girl. The two of them ended up getting married. They had a daughter together, Katie. But the marriage didn’t take. They split up after three years. Luke never did remarry.”

“Noelle ended up with an orthopedic surgeon from Marblehead,” Delia said. “They were happy together. She’s gone now, too. A lot of old friends are.”

“And how about Mr. Shaver? Was he part of your group that night?”

“Buzzy and I have been pals our whole lives,” Bob replied, smiling faintly. “We were a couple of little stinkers together. Got into all kinds of trouble. But he didn’t mix with our group socially. Couldn’t. He had to look after his mom. She was very fragile emotionally.”

“So your group that evening consisted of three couples plus Lance?”

“That’s right.”

“It was a lovely evening,” Delia recalled in a lilting voice. “Naturally, because of what happened, it’s not an evening that any of us can look back on fondly. But we had a lot of fun. We laughed. We drank. We danced out on the terrace. A warm breeze was blowing. The Flower Moon was nearly full.”

“Lance was as high-spirited as I’d ever seen him,” Bob added wistfully. “He didn’t want his last night of freedom to end. Kept insisting we drink one more bottle of champagne, then another. It was way past midnight by the time we cleared out. Everyone else had gone home by then, including the club’s staff. And Lance
still
wasn’t ready to call it a night. Decided he just
had
to take the
Monster
out for a moonlight sail. One last sail before he returned to active duty. He was … what was that word he used, Delia?
Stoked
. He was
stoked
to take her out. He asked us to join him. She held four people comfortably. But no one else was in the mood.”

“Not even you?”

“If you knew me better, Des, you’d know that I get seasick in a bathtub. I never go sailing or fishing with anyone.”

“The rest of us simply wanted to go home to bed,” Delia said.

“So he took her out by himself. And we never saw him again.”

“Were you the last people to see him alive?”

“Yes, we believe so. There was no one at the yacht club at that hour.”

“And was it you who reported him missing?”

Bob nodded. “He didn’t come back. Didn’t report for duty in the morning when he was supposed to. I was shocked. But I figured, okay, maybe he fell asleep out there. He did have a lot to drink. Once he’s slept it off he’ll be back. This is Lance we’re talking about. Lance knows what he’s doing. I kept checking at the yacht club all day long to see if the
Monster
was back in her slip. His Mustang was in the parking lot. Unlocked, keys in the ignition. It was a white GT. Had the biggest engine they made in those days. Lance loved that car. Loved speed. When he…” Bob trailed off, swallowing. “When he didn’t come back by late afternoon I called the Coast Guard. They found the
Monster
smashed up on the rocks by the Saybrook Point lighthouse. No sign of Lance.”