Love You to Death

by Grant Michaels

  As Thor had mentioned, most of the clips were from about forty years ago. As I pored over the lines, I thought perhaps there was a great data base god somewhere, since the first few abstracts gave me more answers than I’d expected.

  KINGSLEY WILL CONTESTED—The will of deceased Helen Kingsley, most recent matriarch of the Gladys Gardner Chocolate Company, has Boston attorneys testing and battling each other’s wits. Kingsley’s husband, Jack Lough, the flamboyant, handsome Brahmin son, contested his wife’s will on the grounds that their daughter, Mary Kingsley-Lough, who stands to inherit the entire estate according to the terms of the will, is not a bloodline descendant at all, but was adopted as an infant. A thorough investigation is under way.

  The facts tumbled around in my tired brain. All kinds of notions I’d had were being disproved in one small paragraph. Helen Kingsley hadn’t died giving birth to her son Prentiss, as Danny had told me in Abigail. Not only that, she had an adopted daughter as well. Branco had been right about one thing—I believed too readily the lies people told me. I continued on to the next abstract.

  ADOPTION REVEALED—Federal Court investigators declared Kingsley heiress Mary Kingsley-Lough (nee Phinney) ineligible to inherit the multimillion-dollar Kingsley estate from the late Helen Kingsley. Mary Phinney was adopted in infancy by Helen Kingsley and her husband, society playboy Jack Lough. According to the terms of the original Gladys Kingsley Trust, set up three generations ago, only a bloodline Kingsley daughter may inherit the estate in total.

  That information confirmed the first abstract with an additional, incredible detail: Mary Phinney was the adopted daughter of Helen Kingsley. My heart was racing again as I read onward.

  KINGSLEY ESTATE DISTRIBUTED—The distribution terms of the multimillion-dollar estate of the late Helen Kingsley were released today by executors of the Gladys Kingsley Trust. Sixteen-year-old Prentiss Kingsley, natural son of Helen Kingsley and Jack Lough, receives a monthly allocation from the trust and, when he comes of age, acquires senior management privileges for the Gladys Gardner Chocolate Company. In a turnaround decision, the courts determined that Helen Kingsley’s widower Jack Lough, who contested his wife’s original will, and Kingsley’s adopted daughter, Mary, who stood to inherit the entire estate according to Helen Kingsley’s will, should both be denied any portion of the estate, according to the terms of the Gladys Kingsley Trust. Jack Lough is appealing the decision.

  No wonder Mary Phinney had despised Dan Doherty. She’d been denied her inheritance, and now it was about to go to something less than human, at least in her dim vision—a gay man. I continued on.

  SON BORN TO KINGSLEY WIDOWER-A strapping eleven-pound boy, John, was born last week to Jack Lough, Boston society gentleman and former husband of the late Helen Kingsley, and to his wife Myra (nee Gorbitch).

  LOUGH APPOINTED VICE-PRESIDENT-John Lough was recently appointed a Senior. Vice-President of the Gladys Gardner Chocolate Company. His brother, Prentiss Kingsley, is President and Chairman of the Board.

  It was enough for now. I was armed with new facts and ready to act. I could barely wait to share the treasures I’d unearthed.

  Snips was close by, and it wasn’t quite closing time, so Nikki would still be there. I jogged down Newbury Street all the way to the shop, clutching the computer paper like the Dead Sea Scrolls. I rushed into the shop breathing heavily from my short run. Nicole was surprised to see me there, and in such a state.

  “How was the funeral?” she asked.

  I hurried by her toward the back room, not even pausing as I exclaimed, “You won’t believe what I just found. Come back as soon as you lock up.” I zoomed into the back room and plopped heavily into a chair, not even bothering to take off my jacket. There was too much to do. I quickly called an old beau at the telephone company to get the street addresses for Mary Phinney and John Lough. My friend gave me the information, and I offered him a free style in exchange. So much for Ma Bell’s confidentiality clause.

  When Nicole joined me back there, I showed her what I’d discovered at the library. She seemed blasé.

  “What’s the point?” she asked.

  “Nikki, don’t you realize what all this means?”

  “No, darling.”

  “It means Mary Phinney and John Lough planned this whole thing together.”

  “Stanley,” she said, after taking a deep pull of smoke, “you sound like a fool.”

  “That’s seems to be my nickname lately.” I poured us both a drink. “At least now I understand the source of Mary Phinney’s foul disposition better. She was abandoned twice by two sets of parents and then again by the legal system.”

  “You’re not forgiving her, are you? You almost sound like one of those born-again people.”

  “No, doll. She’s still despicable, but at least I know the reason now.” I downed my bourbon in one gulp, like a real man. "I’d better call my friend Ruiko and see if I can borrow her car.”

  “Why do you need a car?”

  “Mary Phinney lives in Dorchester, and John Lough lives in Forest Hills. There’s no way I’m taking public transportation out there.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To confront them both and make them confess.”

  Sensing potential danger in my expedition, she said, “Do you know what you’re doing?”

  “As usual, no.”

  I called Ruiko and happily discovered that she didn’t need her car that night, so my plans could proceed immediately. Then I asked Nicole, “Can you drop by my place tonight and feed Sugar Baby?” I paused. “In case I don’t get home.”

  “What do you mean, don’t get home?”

  “There might be complications.”

  “Meaning?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Delays. Trouble.”

  Nicole became stern. “Stanley, if you really believe those people are killers, then why are you going after them?”

  “What else can I do? Branco won’t help. He’s got one idea in his head, and he refuses to see any other solution. He’s right, the rest of us are wrong.”

  “Sounds like you.”

  “We all have stubborn moments, doll.”

  “You and the lieutenant fight for an entirely different reason, not stubbornness. If you haven’t figured that out, you’re simply being … stubborn.”

  “Nikki, I got no time for theoretical debate.”

  Nicole growled in a low, mocking rendition of machismo, “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.” Then she extinguished her cigarette. “I will feed the cat, Stanley. Then I will remain at your apartment until you call me there or arrive in person. How long will you be?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You have to give me a time, Stanley.”

  “Why?”

  “So that I can call the lieutenant to go and save you if you’re not home by then.”

  “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that. I’ll call him if I need his help.”

  “It may be too late.”

  “Then let it be on his conscience. I’d better get going.”

  I stood up to leave, and Nicole got up and gave me a long hug. “Why must you indulge in these heroics?” she asked.

  I thought a few moments. “I don’t really know. Maybe it’s just to free Rafik for a repeat performance on Valentine’s Day. Who knows? Without the edge of danger to his lovemaking, perhaps he’ll be just another ordinary mortal.”

  “What about the lieutenant? Are you trying to prove something to him too?”

  “Maybe a little.”

  “What you do in the name of love.”

  “I’m not alone.”

  I kissed her and left the shop. On the quiet walk uptown to Ruiko’s place I had some time to wonder why, in fact, I was so damn stubborn. People have often accused me of compulsive behavior, a neurotic need to have my life ordered into discrete bundles of tidiness and logic, kind of like a computer. All I can say is, those people obviously haven’t seen my housekeeping habits or ana
lyzed my thought processes. I believe my stubbornness is part of my healthy Slavic tenacity, the ability to stand my ground in the face of adversity, or to hang onto any passing flotsam and ride out the storm.

  If Branco thought the matter closed and I didn’t, what was left for me to do but to pursue things in my own way, wantonly provoking people, stirring up the stew of lies and facts and events until the truth finally rose to the surface like the scum that must be skimmed off?

  19

  A LEAP OF FAITH

  MY FRIEND RUIKO LIVES IN THE FENWAY STUDIOS in a spacious, skylit duplex where she paints impressionist water-color scenes from her summertime travels around the world. Her excellent work has won her prizes and exhibits and fame. Our connection goes back before her days of great celebrity, and the give-and-take arrangement we have with her car—I contribute to the expenses, so I get to use it whenever it’s available—still exists without question. Ruiko remains a true friend despite her recent elevation to artist’s Valhalla.

  I have a set of car keys, so after brushing the accumulated snow from the hood and the windows of the old station wagon, I climbed inside, ready to begin my night’s sortie. Ah, the convenience of a private carriage without the hassles of ownership, I thought, with the naivete of someone who never drives during wintertime. Inside, attached to the dashboard, was one of those yellow “stickies” onto which Ruiko had penned in one of her many distinctive calligraphics the word OIL. It was typical of her to render so artistically a political reminder about fossil fuel.

  I pushed the key into the ignition switch and turned it. The frozen lock required extra force to twist it to the Start position. The starter groaned painfully and barely turned the engine over. The sluggish battery seemed to resent my intrusion on its hibernation. Was there enough juice to get the engine going? After a few worrisome minutes of pathetic sounds from under the hood, the engine stumbled to unsteady life.. Puffs of black smoke trailing behind, I maneuvered the car out of the parking lot and onto Massachusetts Avenue, heading south towards Dorchester and Forest Hills, where Mary Phinney and John Lough lived.

  I went to Mary Phinney’s place first, since it was closer; but no one was home there, so I continued on to Forest Hills. By then the car was warm and running more smoothly, and I was feeling more confident too. Once in Forest Hills, I saw that some parts of the neighborhood had retained their prim white-middle-class aura with well-kept houses and sidewalks cleared of snow. Some of the charming cottages even had long icicles hanging down from the roof in perfect complement to shuttered windows and snow-covered hedges. I found John Lough’s house easily on the wide, well-lit street. Instead of his staid maroon sedan in the driveway though, another car was parked there—a boxy, generic thing. I guessed whose car that had to be. The house lights were on. I parked Ruiko’s wagon on the street and walked to the front door. I rang the bell, waited, rang it again, waited some more, then finally banged directly on the door. I sensed someone moving behind it, then heard the sharp clack of the peephole being opened and shut.

  “I know you’re in there,” I shouted, then realized what a fool I was being. If John Lough and Mary Phinney had purposefully killed two people and had inadvertently killed another, why did I think myself immune from harm? What was to stop them from shooting me dead on the spot, then claiming that I’d been intruding on their property? Like Liz Carlini, I seemed to have lost my survival instinct.

  Then the door opened slowly. I prepared myself to avert the barrel of a gun if it emerged through the crack, but instead, the face of Mary Phinney appeared with its usual disapproving scowl. Now, at least, I knew the origin of that anger: It was mostly disappointment.

  “What do you want here?” she barked.

  That seemed to be her opening line with me no matter where we met.

  “I want to talk to you and John.”

  “He’s not here, and I have nothing to say to you.”

  “Mary, I know why you and John did what you did, but you should both give yourselves up. Don’t make it worse.”

  “Get away from here before I call the police.”

  “Go ahead. Then you can hear me tell them what I found out today, about you and Helen Kingsley, and your stepbrother Prentiss, and how you lost everything, and—”

  “Quiet!” she snapped. “Get away from me. I don’t want you near me.”

  “But even when the police arrest you and John, they can’t force you to testify against each other, since you’re married.”

  She glared at me. “Where’d you hear that?”

  “It’s true, isn’t it?”

  “It’s none of your damn business.”

  “I figure it’s all part of your plan to take-over the company. If you’re married to your business partner, chances are you won’t get double-crossed.”

  “That’s not why we got married.”

  “Don’t tell me it was for sex, or something sordid like that.”

  “You shut your dirty mouth.”

  “Maybe it’s an Oedipal kind of marriage. You’re the mommy and he’s the naughty boy.”

  Mary Phinney’s face became livid as I continued to provoke her.

  “It sure is a neat arrangement though, with the two of you trying to swipe half the estate from Prentiss Kingsley and Liz Carlini and Dan Doherty. Too bad you didn’t check out the legal complications before you started killing people. You didn’t get anything from the estate before, and you won’t get anything now, and you certainly won’t get away with the deaths of three people, not if I have anything to say about it.”

  “You don’t know anything about the estate. This all started long before you were even born, so what do you know?”

  “I did a little research, Mary, and I know about you and the Kingsley family, and I know that three people are dead and the killer is still free. The question is, who’s at the bottom of it all? Is it you or is it John?”

  “I had nothing to do with the killings.”

  “Then it’s John.”

  Mary stared at me. The opaque pupils of her eyes seemed to block any part of her real self from coming out. “Maybe it’s true,” she said. “Maybe he’s finally taking care of old business that was never settled right.”

  “So he’s out to get Liz Carlini?”

  “You’d better get away from here before he comes back, before he has a real reason to shoot someone—for trespassing!”

  Her threat gave me exactly the information I needed. Now I was certain that John Lough had gone to Abigail to kill Liz Carlini. I left Mary Phinney standing at the door, looking slightly bewildered. Perhaps she couldn’t believe she’d actually scared me off. Well, she hadn’t. I had more important things to do. I drove away quickly and looked for a pay phone, which was not easy to find in that part of town, especially one that worked. Oh, for a car phone now! When I found a public phone, I first tried calling Liz Carlini in Abigail to warn her of John Lough’s arrival. All I got was the answering machine with Prentiss Kingsley’s message. It was strange to hear a dead man’s voice asking you to leave a message. I left a rather frenetic one telling Liz that John Lough was on his way out there. Then, mid-sentence, I wondered, Was I too late? Had he already done the deed? Was he standing there at that very moment, screening the call, listening to me blabber away everything I knew?

  I hung up fast and called Lieutenant Branco at the station. He wasn’t there, so I called his private number, the one he’d given me for emergency use only, in case I had urgent information for him. Hell, this was urgent. Branco answered on the second ring. I quickly explained what had happened, but as usual he didn’t want to believe me. He actually accused me of having a Dick Tracy complex. That was the last straw for my patience, since my true hero is Perry Mason. I heard myself screaming at him over the phone, “Goddammit, Vito, just get someone out there!” Then I slammed the receiver down, feeling like a real he-man, one who is on a first-name swearing basis with a big-shot cop.

  I got back in Ruiko’s car and headed onto the expre
ssway going north. I broke the speed limit all the way to Abigail. That was just another of many mistakes I made that night. The aged station wagon couldn’t bear the strain of high-speed driving. There on Route 128, when I was nearing my destination, without warning the dashboard lit up like a Christmas tree. All shapes of colored icons were blinking and beeping at me, telling me to stop the engine and abandon ship. One of the lighted panels said CHECK GAGES, and at that critical moment, my first response was to question the spelling. There’s no predicting how your mind will focus in an emergency. I pulled the car onto the shoulder and turned off the engine. I waited five minutes, thinking maybe if it cooled down, I could drive it again. But it took fifteen precious minutes before I could start the engine without a repeat performance of the dashboard’s special effects. Once I got the car going again, I found if I kept the speedometer under forty—Is such a thing possible on Route 128?—the lights only glowed instead of blinking brightly, and the buzzers and beepers remained silent. Along with everything else after tonight, I’d probably have to spring for an engine overhaul, or perhaps even replace Ruiko’s car.

  I finally got to Abigail. I drove the car at a crawl through the center of town and noticed a snarl of police cruisers and people clustered around one part of the marina. Had John Lough already killed Liz Carlini down here near the water, not up at the house? I stopped and asked an observer what had happened. As it turned out, it was a bomb scare on one of the large yachts. Then I wondered if Liz had planned to leave Abigail by boat, to escape from John Lough that way. Perhaps he’d foreseen her scheme and prevented it. Even if there were no bomb, the mere threat of one could disrupt her escape plans.

  I got back in the car and drove up the hill to the Kingsley house. On the incline, the dashboard began to glow again, more brightly the higher I climbed, until finally, with nary a clank or a pop, the engine just stopped, completely dead. I got out and witnessed a colorful cocktail of steaming viscous fluids dripping out from under the chassis. Ruiko’s poor car had apparently gasped its last, but I had no time to mourn its demise. I said a quiet thank-you to it, then trotted the rest of the way up the hill.