The Girl Who Ran Off With Daddy (25 page)

“Clethra and Arvin continued playing it well on into their teens. They slept in the same bed. They even gave each other pleasure.”

“
Reeeeally?!
” She coughed, then lowered her voice discreetly. “Honestly, that’s quite … Well, we’re approaching the ‘I’ word, are we not?”

“He loves her, Merilee. Truly and completely loves her.”

“Does she feel the same way?”

“She’s moved on.”

Merilee shook her head. “Poor little Arvin.”

“He’s fourteen.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning he’s not so little.”

“You don’t think that boy could have killed his own father, do you?”

“People kill their own fathers all the time,” I replied, with perhaps just a bit too much personal conviction.

She raised an eyebrow at me. “But how could he have gotten to the farm from Debbie’s Diner? He can’t drive.”

“Clethra can.”

“You’re suggesting the two of them together killed Thor?”

“You have to consider all the possibilities. Speaking of my father …”

“We weren’t, actually,” she pointed out tactfully. “But if you’d care to …”

“I believe I’ve figured out why his … condition has been so hard for me to deal with.”

“Yes, dear?” she said encouragingly.

“For a man,” I began, “your father is your very first hero. He’s your idol, your Errol Flynn. And you never outgrow worshiping him—even though you want to, even though you think you have. So when it’s his time to go, you want him to go out like a hero. Shoulders back, head high, laughing in the face of death. You don’t want him to be weak and frightened. You don’t want him to be needy. Because that shatters him in your eyes. And because … it makes you wonder if the same goddamned thing is going to happen to you when it’s your turn to go.”

Merilee’s brow creased, which is what it does when she’s trying not to cry. “Darling, what is it you want from that man?”

“I don’t want anything from him.”

“Horseradish. You want him to admit he was wrong about you.”

“I don’t want anything from him,” I insisted. “It would be nice if he read
one
of my novels before he died, but I’ve pretty much given up hope of that.”

“He’s not going to admit he was wrong, Hoagy. Just as he’s not going to admit he needs your help now. Don’t you know why?”

“Of course I do. Because he’s a mean, stubborn son of a bitch.”

Angrily, she shook her head at me. “Because he doesn’t want to admit to you that he’s
not
your Errol Flynn. That he
is
scared and confused and can’t handle things anymore. He can’t admit it, Hoagy. He won’t admit it. So it’s up to you to take control. You’re in charge now.”

“You seem to be confusing me with Speaker Newt.”

“You have to, darling. Whether you like it or not. Whether you like
him
or not. You’re the grown-up now. He’s the child. That’s the way it happens. It’s all a part of nature.”

“Nature sucks.”

“You’ve been hanging around with Clethra too much,” she observed, her eyes twinkling at me.

“I’m not happy about this, Merilee.”

“What’s to be happy about? We’re getting old.”

“I’m starting to figure that out, too.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“I was thinking about having my teeth bleached.”

“What about your father?”

“You’re absolutely right. His teeth could use a bleaching, too.”

“Hoagy …”

“And he and I need to have a talk.”

She took my face in her hands. “I’m terribly proud of you, mister.”

I kissed her. “I’d go right down the drain without you, Merilee.”

She nodded. “It’s true, you would.”

“You weren’t supposed to agree with me.”

“I wasn’t supposed to get my mother’s thighs either.” She stifled a weary yawn. “Thank you for tonight, darling. I needed it so.”

She put her head on my shoulder and we danced, swaying gently to
Stardust
there on the roof of the Carlyle in the New York City night, hardly moving at all. In fact, by the time the band took a short break, Merilee wasn’t moving, period. She’d fallen fast asleep right there in my arms. The poor woman was so exhausted she’d actually fallen asleep standing up.

Which made it official. Merilee Nash, international star of stage and screen and the one great love of my life,
had
become a farm animal.

“I’m so embarrassed.”

“Don’t be.”

“But it was our big night out and I fell asleep. You must hate me.”

“Forget about it, Merilee. I’ve done it myself.”

“And I’ve hated you for it.”

It was four in the morning and she was seated at the kitchen table with Tracy, who had just finished an early breakfast and was now giving grave consideration to a burp. Merilee was raiding Pam’s scones and looking ultra-sheepish.

I reached for a scone myself and sat, munching on it. Pam’s scones were superior. The currants made all the difference. “Besides, it was quite late.”

“Hoagy, it was a quarter to eleven.”

“Was it? Well, in the country that’s late.”

“I’m so embarrassed.”

“You shouldn’t be, Merilee. You’ve never looked or sounded lovelier.”

She stared at me in horror. “I
snored?
”

“Not to worry. I don’t believe the musicians noticed. It was so soft and gentle. More like a purr, really. And my shoulder muffled quite a bit of it. Of course, they did notice when I carried you to the elevator …”

“Why, what did I—?”

“Your mouth, after all, was agape.”

“My mouth was what?”

“And then there was the matter of that drool on your chin. But that was, you know, cute.”

“Cute, Hoagy?
Cute?
” She sighed grandly, tragically. “Oh, God, what’s happening to us? Are we turning into a boring, old married couple?”

“We can’t possibly be. We’re not married, remember?”

“That’s right, we’re not. Whew, that’s a relief.”

“I’ll say.”

Tracy was nodding off now—like mother, like daughter. Merilee carried her into the nursery and put her down. I poured myself a glass of milk and washed down another scone with it.

Merilee returned, running her fingers through my hair. “I’m sorry, darling. I was just so sleepy.”

I took her in my arms and kissed her. “Are you sleepy now?”

She gave me her up-from-under look. “As it happens, I’m not.”

“Good, neither am I.” I smiled at her. “Let’s go to bed.”

T
YLER KAMPMANN’S DEATH MADE
page one of all three New York City newspapers next morning. Not because they tied it in to Thor’s murder. They still didn’t have it that Tyler used to date the girl who ran off with Thor Gibbs. No, it was front-page news simply because it’s still front-page news when a student at a prestigious Ivy League university is found murdered in his dorm room. I can’t speak for the future.

Actually, I can. But I’d rather not.

Not that it was going to take the press long to connect Tyler. The folks at
Hard Copy
had to know he was Clethra’s ex-boyfriend—they’d bought the videotape from him. They’d break it on that evening’s broadcast, no question. The so-called legitimate press would then pick it up from them. People keep wondering how come the cash press keeps outscooping the competition. It’s simple—they get what they pay for. Good, dishonest American value. Nothing more or less.

Robbery, according to Detective Lieutenant Romaine Very of the NYPD, had been ruled out. He had told them about the cash found on Tyler’s body. He had not mentioned the hefty bank deposit slip or the tall, dashing, bogus uncle who’d found the body. They had it that Tyler’s neighbor, Ian Gardner, found him. Very didn’t believe in being straight with the press. Very hated the press. After numerous celebrity blowouts of my own, I couldn’t blame him. That’s not to say I hate the press. I just wish they’d go after real news with the same lunatic zeal they go after Julia Roberts.

We slept late that morning. Or at least we stayed in bed together an awfully long time. I’ll let you use your imagination here. I’m sure it will be far more feverish and lurid than the reality of what goes on between two middle-aged white people who have been having sex together off and on since the days when Mickey Rourke was considered a promising young acting talent.

Merilee luxuriated there under the covers while I showered and dressed. She was still there when I left, looking slightly debauched and more than slightly pleased with herself.

I got back out to the country about one, top up, Lulu napping in the seat next to me. It was a brisk, slate-gray day with a gusty wind that buffeted the Jag like a tall-masted schooner at sea and made little maelstroms of the downed leaves, its cold bite hinting at November and the long, cold winter that waited on the other side of it. Lulu stirred when we got off the highway and started our way up narrow Route 156 for home. The cows were grazing alongside the road at Tiffany Farms near Reynolds’ general store. She barked at them gleefully. That’s another one of her biggest thrills in life—barking at cows.

The press vans still lined Joshua Town Road. One of our besieged neighbors went hurtling past them, looking like he was on his way out to buy sandbags and razor wire. Me he glowered at—I had caused an invasion of noisy outsiders. You don’t do that in Lyme. It’s the worst offense there is, worse than selling out to a developer. The trooper at the foot of our drive let me in.

The ducks were back, the natural spring slowly filling their pond back up again. And Dwayne was back, too, hard at work on the foundation of the carriage barn. Had himself a helper now. Clethra, a red bandanna tied over her head, was sighting through his transit and calling out elevations to him as he moved his tape measure from spot to spot. Death metal thumped on the stereo of his pickup. Both of them waved when I pulled up.

Dwayne went and turned down the music. “Borrowed your house guest, Mr. H. Hope ya don’t mind.”

“Not as long as you’re paying her out of your own pocket.”

“I got, like, bored watching television,” Clethra explained.

“I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear that.”

“Um, my mom called a little while ago,” she mentioned, glancing uneasily over in Dwayne’s direction.

He got busy in the barn, discreetly out of earshot.

She lit a cigarette and drew on it, poking at the gravel with her steel-toed boot. “They’re coming back out to Barry’s place sometime later today. Like, to talk to the police and take care of Thor’s body and stuff.”

“I can run over there with you. If you want to see her, I mean.”

“I don’t,” she declared, her chin stuck out defiantly.

“What about Arvin?”

“What about him?”

“Don’t you want to see him?”

“Not really. I need to take care of
me
right now. I mean, there’s just been too much bad shit going down, y’know?”

“Yes, I do.”

She tilted her head at me quizzically. “And you’re cool with that?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You don’t think I’m being, like, selfish?”

“I think you’re trying to survive.”

“Will I?” she asked me pleadingly.

“I hope so.”

“Do you really?”

“I hope we all do, Clethra. I’m extremely retro that way.”

I headed for the house, leaving her staring after me. I get a lot of that from my celebrities. I get a lot of that from everybody.

There were three more faxes from her editor. I threw them in the trash unread, put down food and water for Lulu and made myself a sandwich out of homemade peanut butter and Merilee’s wild blackberry jam. I put on a pot of coffee. I was pouring it when Chick Munger eased his unmarked cruiser up the drive and got out. I doubted the lieutenant’s timing was a coincidence. He must have told the trooper on the driveway to contact him when I showed.

He came into the house without knocking and sat down at the kitchen table across from me, smelling of Vitalis, the tremor in his left eye so bad it looked as if it were transmitting Morse code ….
Dot-dot … Dash … Dot
… He wore that same shiny three-piece suit and a tie that looked way too much like a Spanish omelet. He had cut himself shaving that morning—there was a spot of dried blood on his chin. The way his hands were shaking, he was lucky he hadn’t cut his throat. I offered him coffee. He took it black, slurping it loudly from his cup. I ate. He watched me. Lulu watched him watch me, her lip curled. She didn’t like him. She has very good instincts that way.

“How’s your investigation going, Lieutenant?”

“It’s not,” Munger grunted.

“What brings you out?”

“Came by to get shoe prints from you,” he answered in his nasal New Britain accent. “So’s we can get a reading vis-à-vis that mud.”

“Slawski told me he wasn’t very optimistic about it.”

“Slawski told you a lot,” he said sourly.

“What else is on your mind, Lieutenant? Surely you didn’t come all the way out here personally just for an errand like that.”

Munger eyed me shrewdly, or what I’m sure he thought was shrewdly. “Maybe the reason we’re not getting nowhere, Hoag, is we’re pointed in the wrong direction.”

I chewed on my sandwich, not liking where this was going.

“Kinda funny,” he went on, “how you was around when Gibbs got knocked off, and then, boomp, you was there in New York, too, when this other kid gets it.”

“Boomp?”

“Kinda funny,” he repeated.

“I was on my way in to the city when Tyler Kampmann was strangled,” I pointed out. “And I was visiting my parents in Essex when Thor was attacked.”

“Details.” He waved me off with a trembly hand. “Smart cookie like you can figure your way around ‘em.”

Lulu started coughing violently.

Munger scowled. “What’s her problem?”

“It’s just been a long time since anyone’s called me a smart cookie.”

“You better be, pal,” he warned, sneering at me, “on account of you’re our prime suspect from now on, far as I’m concerned. And I don’t care what Slawski thinks.”

“Yes, you’ve made that rather clear.”

“And I
sure
as hell don’t care what that pomegranate from New York City, that Romaine whatever—”