Death at Dawn

by Arthur Day

  Her voice floated out of the darkness beside me. “I am too MJ.”

  “Shall we go inside and have another glass of wine?”

  “We shall but just a short one. I am a working girl and need my beauty sleep.”

  I poured a half a glass for her and a glass for me. We stood there looking at each other in the light of the living room lamps. “To friends,” I said and raised my glass.

  “To friends,” Dianne said, and we clinked glasses. I saw in her eyes a darkness, a deepening of her feelings; we were standing so close I could feel her breathing as she exhaled, see the faint lines around her mouth and the tiny crows’ feet at the corner of her eyes. I do not know if I even thought about it but suddenly I found my hand gently stroking her cheek

  “No,” she said and backed away from me. “We cannot do this. We’re friends and I want to remain friends so this is as far as we can go. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right,” I said. “I should not have touched you. I apologize. Still friends?”

  Dianne smiled. “Of course. It was my fault entirely. I got carried away by the moment.” She raised her glass and finished off the wine. “Perhaps it was this,” she held up her glass “but I think that you are a wonderful man and hard to resist. Anyway, I should get back to my place. Thanks MJ for a wonderful evening. “She shrugged somewhat ruefully. “At least it was for me.” She turned and started for the door.

  “It was for me as well,” I told her retreating back. “Drive safe. Talk with you soon.”

  She raised one arm and waggled her fingers in farewell and was out the door and gone.

  McCAAL

  Sally Bennett lived in a trim, white cape built into the side of a hill leading up to one of the several parks in West Hartford. A short driveway led to a one-car garage but there was already a car in the drive so I parked on the street and walked up a flight of concrete steps to the front door. A man answered and not a happy man at that.

  “Yeah? What do you want? Whatever it is we’re not buying so bug off.” He was a big man in his fifties and running to fat with a broad, fleshy face and the nose reddened by drink.

  “My name is Michael McCaal. I spoke with Mrs. Bennett on the phone and she asked me to come by if I wanted to talk about a friend of hers, Pam Pease.”

  “Eddy. Who is it?” Her voice came from the back of the house.

  “Nobody Sally.” He tried to close the door but I had my foot firmly over the threshold.

  “Move your damned foot or I call the police.”

  I gave him my broadest and warmest smile. “Perhaps I could speak with the lady while you’re doing that.”

  “Eddie. Mr. McCaal called and asked if I would talk to him about a friend. Do come in Mr. McCaal. Eddie please back off and stop being a complete asshole. I know you can do it if you really concentrate.”

  “Dammit Sally,” Eddie blustered but he moved back from the door.

  Sally Bennett could not have weighed more than one hundred twenty pounds soaking wet. She was a little slip of a lady with black hair turning grey. She had dark eyes and a slightly hooked nose that gave her a somewhat rakish appearance. She was wearing a red housecoat ringed with green dragons jumping up towards her chin. She smiled and gestured for me to come in. “Don’t mind my brother,” she said. “He gets very protective and loses his manners along with his common sense.” She turned to her left and walked into a spacious living room that went all the way from the front to the back of the house. On the walls were prints of Van Gogh and others that I did not recognize. An upright Baldwin piano stood against one wall and a green couch and chair combination against the other.

  She motioned towards the couch and sank down into one of the chairs. Her entire lower body seemed to disappear. “Now then Mr. McCaal. What can I do for you? I warn you that I haven’t seen or talked with Pam in a while so I may not be able to answer your questions, but you said on the phone that you and she were married so that may be academic.” She smiled, and I could see the beautiful young woman she must have been.

  “How long have you and Pam known each other?”

  “Longer than I care to remember. We met at the Junior School here in West Hartford. It’s now a museum but back then it was quite a nice school with a big rectangular wooden building in front and a more modern classroom building up a slight hill in back. If you think I’m small now you should have seen me then. I was tiny, and boys liked to pick on me. One day a boy named Brian Setilus was getting ready to rip my schoolbooks out of my arms and throw them on the ground. Pam walked up through the gathering crowd of kids and told him to leave me alone. Instead he grabbed my arm and caused a couple of books to fall.”

  “So whatcha gonna do now?” he shouted and the boys in back of him sniggered.

  “Well Pam got a look on her face that I was to become very familiar with. She took two steps forward, looked up into his sneering face and kneed him in his crotch. He fell to the ground screaming. She got suspended for a week and we were close friends from then on.”

  “Only a week?” I asked with a smile insinuating that the punishment was too severe for the crime.

  “Girls were not supposed to do that,” Sally replied. “The boy’s parents wanted her expelled. They claimed that she had all but neutered their son. That would have been a boon to mankind if you ask me but back then my opinion did not count for much. The Pease family had a lot of clout and it was settled on a week.”

  “You’ve known her a lot longer than I have. When we were married we both worked and we had no kids so we saw each other coming and going a lot of the time. We knew what buttons not to push. We visited her family up in Rockmarsh. She is a very controlled person. I never knew what she was really thinking unless she was really mad or really happy. I guess what I’m trying to say is that anything you can tell me about her would be a help right now.”

  “Is she in some kind of trouble?”

  Pam’s disappearance had obviously not hit the Hartford paper or TV news yet. “She went missing a couple of days ago. I don’t know if she did this because she wanted to for reasons of her own or someone kidnapped her. There has been no ransom demand, so the sheriff does not think that money is involved. After we divorced we lost track of each other as each went their own way. I did not know she had moved from New York apartment to the one in Rockmarsh until I moved up here myself. Talk about a big coincidence. Was she working up here that you know of?”

  “Eddie. Bring out some beer and cheese,” Sally called. “Honest to God, it should be automatic when we have company. I like Heineken. When I was little we used to go on vacations to a little island in the Dutch East Indies. Heineken was all over the place but I’m dodging your question a little, aren’t I? I need a pause to put this old memory in gear. Don’t you find as you grow older that you remember all kinds of events and people in your life but when you try and pull up something specific you draw a blank. EDDIE?” she yelled. “I’m sorry Mr. McCaal. This does not say much for our manners and hospitality. He’s probably out in the garage in his man cave drinking and looking at porn. I don’t allow those pictures in the house.” She levered herself out of the chair and disappeared into the kitchen only to reappear a minute later with two green bottles and a small dish with cheese and crackers. “I took the liberty of presuming that you would like a beer. If coffee is your choice I can make some up. Just take a minute.”

  “Beer would be fine. Thank you.” I took one of the bottles and waited for her to put the cheese on the coffee table and sink back into her chair.

  “I didn’t even know where Pam was living until she called one day out of the blue and asked if she could stop by and say Hi. Of course, I said, and we had a wonderful reunion complete with all the girly things about the bad times and the good times and what she did and what I did and you of course. I think she still loves you from the way she talked about that time. She had a certain look in her ey
es when she talked of you and it wasn’t hate. Anyway, she said she just got tired of the big city and when you guys split up she decided to come up here where her family was and start over. I think she found it harder to do that than she thought. Hartford is not the center of the publishing world and the job market was tight at that time, so she was having a hard time translating her skills into some other line of business. She told me that she had been on lots of interviews, but nothing had ever come of them. She had her own money left to her by her grandfather, so she was not clipping food stamps, but I think she was a little bored and frustrated by her situation. Regardless of family money, Pam was always competitive, always fighting to succeed. Since that time, we’ve talked occasionally on the phone, but I have not seen her.” Sally took a pull from her bottle and smacked her lips in satisfaction. “Do help yourself.” she gestured towards the plate of cheese and crackers. “I know it’s a bit early but maybe you skipped lunch or something.”

  “Did she mention any other people in her life? I’ve talked with her current partner but other than you and him I do not know of any other person who was close to her. I know she had friends where she worked in New York. We occasionally threw a party for her friends and mine, but I can’t think of anyone from that time who might hold a grudge.”

  I was fishing, and I knew it, but I needed a break, something or someone who would provide the means of finding out what happened to Pam. I did not believe that someone from her distant past was responsible. Going even further back to the time before we met seemed even more unlikely. Sally sat and watched me very patiently as I tried to think of something else to ask that I might have forgotten. From the rear of the house I heard the sound of a door shutting. Eddie must have come in from the garage. “Did she ever mention someone named Jake?” It was a long shot but it was the only name I had left.

  “Jake? Is that a name?”

  “Probably.”

  Sally took a pull from her bottle and then turned her head to look out the window. Clattering sounds came from the kitchen.

  “I don’t think she ever mentioned the name. It was a while back and my memory isn’t what it was thirty years ago, but the name is distinctive enough that I think I would have remembered it. There was something else, though.” She turned back and looked at me. “About a year ago we were talking on the phone and she mentioned that she had taken a job with a relative of hers, an old man who needed assistance to stay in his own home. Cooking, housework, helping him in and out of bed and helping him in the bathroom. She said that she had not been interested initially but he had been so insistent and sounded so desperate that she did not feel she could refuse.”

  “Did she give a name for this relative?”

  “No. She said he insisted on privacy for fear his relatives would find out he was still alive and descend upon him en masse. I thought that was a little dramatic, but it seemed like a minor point. I was glad she had found something to do other than the occasional interview. She sounded happy on the phone but that may have been for my benefit. I have no way of knowing since this was all over the phone.”

  “So apparently this relative was able to afford her help?”

  “The family has lots of money as I said. I got the impression that this person had more than most perhaps because he had inherited more since he was a previous generation and perhaps because he was good with money and had made his own. She didn’t go into detail, but I don’t think she would have worked for nothing.”

  I had to agree with her on that. When we had been married Pam had been pulling down one hundred twenty-five thousand a year. True, we were living in one of the most expensive places in the country, but she was still making good money and seemed to enjoy the status and buying power that her salary gave her. Maybe she had adjusted to the lesser pay scales in the Hartford area, but I doubted she would work for free, especially at a job like that. Whatever he was paying her it must have been a hefty sum. How many Peases could still be alive? They would have some clue as to her past. Something to check out. I got to my feet. “Thank you so much Mrs. Bennett. I really appreciate you taking the time for me. You have been helpful. Can I take the bottles and cheese into the kitchen?

  “Nonsense,” she replied. Just leave them there. Eddie can earn his keep, so to speak. Please let me know what you find out. We are close, and I will worry now until I hear from her or from you.”

  As I walked through the door and down the walk to where my car was parked I was hoping for the former.

  BUCKMASTER

  John Buckmaster walked through the door to their house feeling more dead than alive. It had been one of those days when nothing seemed to improve regardless of his efforts and those of his deputies. “The faster we go the behinder we get,” he muttered to himself as he took off his big black belt and locked his Glock 19 in the gun safe. Nicole wouldn’t be home yet so he took a Budweiser from the fridge, settled into an easy chair in the living room and turned on the evening news. No mention of Pam Pease. Well, CBS had run her story two days before and, barring some new development it had become yesterday’s news literally. Buckmaster sipped his beer. There had been no new developments in her disappearance. She was a ghost. No one had seen her. She had left no tracks that anyone could find, and no one had any idea where she might have gone if she had gone voluntarily. He could not call in CSI until he had an actual crime scene. No show on Broadway until you have a show on Broadway he thought as the talking head finished his list of local issues and the weather guru came on.

  He had finished his beer and was thinking about finding something in the icebox for him and Nicole to eat when he heard her car crunching up the gravel driveway. He and Nicole had gotten married only a few months before and he didn’t regret it for a second. She was the light in the darkness that kept him going when all around him had turned to shit. His only regret was that he had taken so long to pop the question. The near disaster with Jennifer Walker and the marriage of her father had finally turned on the proverbial lightbulb in his mind. She provided the strength when he was down, the encouragement when he was uncertain, love when he turned to her in the night his mind full of demons. He went back into the living room and was fixing her weak gin and tonic when the kitchen door closed with a thump. “I’m home,” she yelled as she appeared in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. “Aren’t you glad?”

  “Actually I am and always will be,” Buckmaster replied with a smile. “Did you a break any hearts today?” This was a standard question and he got a standard answer.

  “None that didn’t deserve it.” She took the drink from his hand. “Indeed, I brought you a present, someone who might be able to help you with the Pease case.” She turned back into the kitchen. “Come on in Henry. My husband’s a bear but he doesn’t bite.”

  “Talk about bringing work home,” John chided her gently.

  “Henry Monoosan, this is my husband sheriff John Buckmaster. Henry has to leave in a little while so I thought it worthwhile that you two talk while I occupy myself in the kitchen with this.” She held up her gin and tonic. Is there still a package of ground beef in the fridge?”

  “I think so. I was about to check when you drove up.”

  “Good. Mr. Monoosan please join us for a simple dinner.”

  “Thank you Mrs. Buckmaster but if you could just give me a lift to the bus station in a little while that will be splendid.”

  “You got it, Hank,” she replied breezily.

  Henry Monoosan was small and bent and gray. He wore a wrinkled suit and a white shirt that had seen better times. He peered at Buckmaster through thick glasses. His hands trembled noticeably. Parkinsons perhaps or simply age Buckmaster thought as he gestured to one of the easy chairs in front of the TV that he clicked off. Monoosan was the type of man that no one ever noticed. If he passed you on the street you would not have been able to describe him a minute later. You might not even have noticed him in p
assing. What could he possibly add to the narrative? Buckmaster sat down in a chair opposite Henry and gestured for him to start.

  “First of all, I want to thank you Sheriff for seeing me tonight. I know you are off duty and undoubtedly treasure your leisure time. Your wife was nice enough to give me a lift and suggest that we talk.”

  “I saw the search for Pamela Pease on the TV a couple of days ago. This interested me because of my work. I am a biographer you see. I choose to write about people that did not gain national importance; therefore, my income is small, and I spend most of my days in libraries or dusty attics or talking to people about the current subject of my labor. Before you ask, I cannot tell you where Pamela is now or under what circumstances she went missing. I realize that is what you really need but I thought I might be indirectly helpful.”

  “Hear him out John. We talked at the diner and I was fascinated, and I think he can help you.” Nicole came in from the kitchen with a fresh beer and handed it to her husband. She cocked an eyebrow at Monoosan who shook his head.

  “Thank you but I don’t drink. I need all my wits to do what I do, and I can’t afford it anyway. I am currently researching Carl Pease. The family, as you know, is very prominent in Connecticut. They have produced financiers, crooks and bankers. I think a biography of Carl might sell well in the state, especially considering that he had plenty of peculiarities.” He drew a manila folder from his case. “I have here all that I’ve collected and put into some sort of reasonable form for you to go through but if you like I can relate that part of his life in which you might be interested.” He laid the folder on the small coffee table next to the chair and looked at Buckmaster who gestured for him to continue. Nicole came in and sat down without a word.

  “Carl Pease was a man who liked to live large. His father, Samuel, had been a visionary and in the nineteen forties had divested all of his railroad holdings. With the proceeds he started a trucking company called Pease Xpress.”