Seven Steps East

by Ben Benson

  She said, “You thought it had sunk, didn’t you? Well, that’s the first place we looked.”

  I said, “How’d you like to take a ride with me?”

  “In the State Police car?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’d love it. May I?”

  “Sure.”

  “Where?”

  “Along the lake.”

  “Wait until I get my jacket.”

  I would rather she had come without it. I waited. When she came out of the cottage again she had on a white and gray blazer that came down to her hips.

  She got into the cruiser and we drove down a narrow dirt road that ran along the shoreline. As we drove she lost interest in the boat and was asking questions about me. A half-mile ahead we came to a small marshy cove and the end of the lake. Nestled in the pines at the water’s edge was an old, weatherbeaten, unpainted cottage. As I stepped out of the cruiser an elderly man came out, banging a rusty screen door behind him. He was wearing a ragged shirt and torn pants. He hurried over to us.

  “Have you seen a gray rowboat?” I asked him.

  “I didn’t take the darn boat,” he said. He was unshaven and dirty. He wiped his nose with a stained sleeve. “It drifted in this morning half-filled with water.”

  “Where?” I asked him.

  He showed me. I went splashing along the shore in my field boots. I stopped. There, almost totally submerged, was the Blue Dolly. Along with it were three other waterlogged rowboats that had drifted in long ago and had never been reported.

  I called over Iva Hancock. She took off her sandals and came wading through.

  “Well,” she said. “You’re a very clever police officer.”

  I grinned. “They’re not always that simple.”

  And that was how I had first met Iva Hancock. After that I saw her as often as I could. It was the year she started at Bridgewater State Teachers College and we were limited to an occasional weekend when she came home and which coincided with my time off. When she quit school at Christmas I began to see her more frequently, taking her to a movie, or to a Grange dance, or to a church supper.

  By the end of the following summer it was all over between us. For several weeks she had been busy every night I had tried to date her. When I finally did manage to see her, we were parked one evening on a bluff overlooking Buzzards Bay.

  “It kills me to tell you this,” she said.

  “I guess I know. Another man, Iva?”

  She nodded. “I felt miserable about it. Perfectly miserable. I’d been holding off—”

  “Anybody I know?”

  “No. He’s a guest at the Mount Puritan.”

  “Where’s he from?”

  “Baltimore. His name is Roy Neville and he’s a second-year student at Tufts Medical School.”

  “All right,” I said. “So now I know. Was it so hard saying it?”

  “I’m really sorry, Ralph. We’ve had fun together. I thought I adored you. Honestly. But Roy came along. He’s everything I’ve wanted in life.”

  “You always liked money,” I said. “I suppose that’s part of it.”

  “His family does have money.” She put her head down and twisted the purse in her hands. “But that wasn’t the reason, Ralph. I was hoping you wouldn’t say it.”

  “My apologies,” I said. “I was being crude. My pride was hurt.”

  “I love him.”

  “That’s different,” I said. “I can’t fight that.”

  “It means an entirely new life for me,” she said. “Another world. Roy’s quite a wonderful person.”

  “I’m sure he is. Are you engaged to him?”

  “Not yet. But soon.”

  “I wish you luck,” I said. “On the level, Iva.”

  She pressed my hand. “Thanks, I know you mean it.”

  I took her home. I did not see her again that summer.

  I heard soon enough what happened to Iva Hancock and Roy Neville. When the summer was over, Roy went back to Baltimore for a short time, then returned to medical school in Boston. That was the finish of the brief romance. He wrote Iva that any thought of being serious with a girl would be impractical. He had two more years at medical school and three years of residency in a hospital before he could go into practice. He did not want any girl to wait for him. It was unfair to ask a girl to assume the hardship. To Iva the words were not even a soothing syrup. She felt she had risen to the bait like a hungry, gullible fish. To him it had been nothing more than a summer interlude.

  Shortly after that she wrote a note to me at the barracks, asking if I could come and see her on my next free evening. I did. She told me exactly what had happened. She made no excuses. I listened to her and agreed with her that it had been a mistake all around.

  Maybe I was at fault then myself. She wanted to come back. I had a stubborn pride and didn’t relish the role of the once-rejected, now-restored suitor. I didn’t date her again. Soon afterwards I was transferred out of Yarmouth.

  When I heard of her again she was dating a town boy and a former high-school friend of hers, Kirk Chanslor. This last I heard from my mother. I had since been transferred entirely out of the D Troop area.

  It did seem incongruous to me that a girl who had yearned for so much would settle for a boy who was not particularly dashing and who was just starting on his career. But, as my mother said, this was the usual pattern. A girl always had her dreams and aspirations. Most of the time it was sensible to forget them and she ended up by marrying a boy in her own home town.

  Chapter 16

  By the next day they had interviewed everybody except Wendell Starrett. They tried to locate him but he had left no forwarding address when he checked out of the Mount Puritan. The car registration of his Cadillac was traced to an automobile rental agency in New York City. From there they obtained his home address, an apartment in the East Sixties. That brought a little information. The manager of the building told the New York Police that Starrett went away often on business trips. They were able to find his place of employment. The importing firm verified the fact that Starrett was away on a business trip to New England. His was a loose arrangement. He brought in new accounts, but he had no regular itinerary and he worked on a straight commission basis. He had been with them one year. The last report they had had of Starrett was that he was in the Cape Cod area and had stopped at the Mount Puritan.

  We spoke to the steward of the Mount Puritan. The hotel had ordered some cases of spiced cantaloup, watermelon and crab apples from him. Starrett had tried to interest them in branched fruits, fresh beluga caviar, truffles, pâté de foie gras, bur gherkins and Seckel pears. It was too late in the season for the hotel to make more than a few fill-in orders, but they were impressed enough with Starrett to want to make substantial purchases next season. I asked about the chocolate-covered ants and French-fried grasshoppers. Curiously enough, they were listed on a copy from Starrett’s order book. But I was informed that these were novelty items and not for the tastes of the guests of the Mount Puritan.

  Another day went by. We hadn’t made much progress and a lot of pressure was being generated from GHQ. I reported to Lieutenant Gahagan’s office in Barnstable and we talked. Among other things, they had been unable to make any contact with Wendell Starrett.

  “Not that I expect much from him, anyway,” Gahagan said to me. “According to Connie Ossipee she knew Starrett very slightly. There’s no sign of connection between him and Kirk Chanslor.”

  “I’m not sure she knows Starrett only slightly,” I said. “Maybe she’s better acquainted with him than we think.”

  “Why?”

  “When I was with them in the Oak Tavern, Starrett knew just what Connie Ossipee drank. He ordered for her without bothering to ask her.”

  “So what?”

  “They had said it was their first time together. To me, it’s a flaw in their story.”

  “Maybe,” Gahagan said. “But nothing I’d build a case on either. Anyway, you go over to
the Mount Puritan and talk to her. There could be some improvement in her memory. And on your way back, pick up Larry Pierce. We’ve got some more stuff on him.”

  It was a damp, rainy morning, the first one in many weeks. The clouds hung low over the landscape.

  It was ten o’clock when I drove around to the dormitory of the Mount Puritan. As I came into the small, poorly furnished lobby I saw a sign that said MAKE ALL INQUIRIES AT OFFICE. An arrow pointed right. I walked over and went in the open doorway.

  A plain, colorless woman of indeterminate age sat behind a small steel desk. She was sorting cards.

  “Good morning,” I said, showing my badge. “I’d like to speak with Constance Ossipee, please.”

  “I’d better talk to Mr. Raynham’s office first,” she said.

  “Don’t bother,” I said. “This has nothing to do with Raynham’s office. Call her down, please.”

  “You’d better wait,” she said tonelessly.

  “And you’d better call her down. Or I’ll go upstairs after her.”

  She frowned. “Miss Ossipee is leaving us anyway at the end of this week.”

  “That’s too bad.”

  “You can talk to her as long as you want after that.”

  “Call her, please,” I said.

  She twisted in her seat. There was a panel beside the desk with a double vertical row of numbered white buttons. She pressed one of them.

  “You can’t talk to her in this office,” the woman said. “And you’re not allowed to wander around on the grounds. You wait for her out in the reception room.”

  “Suits me fine,” I said. “Has Miss Ossipee received any phone calls lately?”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “No, you wouldn’t,” I said. I went out to the lobby again, sat down on a long, hard, wooden bench and waited. I heard the sound of footsteps on the stairs above. I stood up. Connie Ossipee came down. Her face was paler than when I last saw her and her blonde hair seemed lusterless. She was in her black, lace-trimmed uniform dress.

  “Oh, hi,” she said. But she didn’t appear very glad to see me.

  “Please sit down,” I said. “I have a couple of questions to ask.”

  She sat down.

  I said, “I heard you’re getting through the end of the week.”

  “You heard right,” she said.

  “What happened? Did you get fired?”

  “Mr. Raynham accepted my resignation. Why should you care?”

  “This is no gag, Miss Ossipee. This is a murder case. If we thought for one minute anyone was trying to intimidate a witness, we’d trample on him real quick.”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “I quit the joint.”

  “You sure? The lieutenant will want to know.”

  “You tell him I can’t get out of here soon enough to suit me. Now what else do you want?”

  I said, “We’re trying to find Wendell Starrett.”

  She looked up quickly. “What for?”

  “A few routine questions. He left no forwarding address. I thought you’d be able to tell us.”

  “Why me? He didn’t confide in me.”

  “You seemed friendly enough with him.”

  “He didn’t tell me where he was going.”

  “Has he phoned or written you since?”

  “No.”

  “When was the last time you saw him?”

  “That day in Sachem. Look, I hardly knew the man.”

  “I was wondering about that. He knew what you liked to drink.”

  “What?”

  “Vodka and tonic. Remember?”

  “So what?”

  “Small point,” I said. “How would he know?”

  She was silent for a moment. “I could have told him in the dining room once when we were discussing drinks.”

  She could have, but I didn’t think so. I let it go.

  “You don’t know where he is?” I asked.

  “No. He didn’t say a word to me.”

  “I had an idea you were closer than that.”

  “You guessed wrong.”

  “When are you leaving here?”

  “Saturday night after dinner.”

  “Did you want to leave sooner?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If Raynham is holding back your pay—”

  “No. I can wait until Saturday. I want to line up something first.”

  “Where can we reach you?”

  “The lieutenant has my home address.” She stood up. “Is there anything else?”

  “No, that’s all for now,” I said. “Thanks.”

  “For what?” she asked. She moved toward the stairway and went up quickly.

  I parked in front of Maitland’s used-car lot. Larry Pierce was outside, leaning against the shack and smoking a cigarette. When he saw my car he flipped the cigarette away and walked over slowly.

  “Trouble?” he asked.

  “I guess. The lieutenant wants to see you.”

  “You come to take me?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll tell Maitland. He’s inside. There’s nothing doing anyway.”

  He walked back to the shack, went inside for a moment and came out again. He crossed the gravel, got into the car beside me and lit another cigarette.

  “When Lieutenant Gahagan let me go,” he said as I started the motor, “he told me not to leave town. I had a feeling he’d want me back.” He extended a battered pack of cigarettes.

  I shook my head. “No, thanks. I’ve cut down a lot. Going pretty good.”

  “Wish I could,” he said disconsolately. “I smoke almost three packs a day.” He put the cigarettes away. “Do they still think I killed Kirk?”

  “I hope you didn’t, Larry.”

  “I didn’t. They’re pushing hard that I did. All on account of that fight I had with Kirk outside the drugstore. Hell, I had fights with Kirk before when we were kids. I fought with Danny Piersall and Art Yeager and the others. And they fought with Kirk. That’s the way kids are, always trying to beat one another. You don’t know. You weren’t brought up in a small town.”

  “It’s the same in a big town,” I said.

  “No, a small town is different. Everybody knows everybody else. But there are cliques. Wheels within wheels. If you’re not with the clique then you’re on the outside. There’s no place to go, nothing to do. You know what I mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “I hung out with Kirk, but only on the fringes. I was never really part of the clique. Kirk hung out with the kids who had dough. They could do things I couldn’t. They had dates. I had to work after school and summers. I didn’t date. Whatever money I earned, I had to turn in to the house. My father was a drinker. You knew that, Ralph. He was a heavy drinker. That habit cost a lot of money.”

  “I know.”

  “So I didn’t date girls. Besides, to take out a girl you had to have a car. They wouldn’t go with you otherwise. I was sixteen, seventeen years old then. I was working as a helper in a gas station in Falmouth. I used to hitchhike to work to save bus fare. I wanted a car bad. I enjoyed mechanical work.” He flipped his cigarette out the window. “I’d have given my right arm for a fifteen-year-old jalopy like some of the gang pitched in and bought. I went to work in that gas station near the air base. A little more pay. But still I couldn’t put by any money for a car of my own. So I started to book numbers for Jed Pontius. I used to get business from the air field. But that’s all ancient history.”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Where would I come to the murder, for chrissakes? Why? Just because I once had a fight with Kirk?”

  “Larry, I was once on a case where a man murdered his wife. She had overcooked his breakfast egg that day.”

  “Naw, that must have been only the trigger,” Pierce said. “I’ve heard of those. Something else was burning the guy. The egg only set him off.”

  “That’s right. Has anything been burning you, Larry?”

  “Yeah, to ma
ke a few bucks. That’s been burning me in the worst way. It has nothing to do with Kirk.”

  “What about girls?”

  “What about them? Where did I ever compete with Kirk? How many girls were there our age in Sachem, and who had money to take them out? Three girls. Alice Joselyn, Lucy Perry and Iva Hancock. Even the guys who had cars couldn’t always take them out. Lots of times they’d have no money for gas. They’d sit in their parked cars on Sea Street in front of the drugstore. Hell, that wasn’t my idea of a date.”

  We were passing through the center of town, the public library, the two banks, the post office, Bay’s Men’s Shop, Marion’s Tots and Togs, with the beauty parlor upstairs, the Oak Tavern, the liquor store, the white Congregational Church with its tall, graceful spire.

  “Outside of Art Yeager,” he said, “most of us had to work in the summer. Some of the girls worked summers, too. In the hotels, the restaurants, the gift shops. None of us came from very rich families, outside of Art Yeager, I mean. My father was a commercial fisherman. Even Iva was working a couple of hours a week at Corcoran’s Drugstore. That was the summer you met her, wasn’t it?”

  “That’s right,” I said.

  “Well, she enjoyed working. She never had a break, that girl. With her looks, she could have gone into some beauty contest and met some rich guy or something.”

  “You still carrying a torch for her, Larry?”

  “Maybe. A lot of us have been carrying the torch for Iva. She might date you once in a while when she had nothing else to do. Most of us gave it up because we knew there was no chance for us. I remember when you first came to town. That weekend when Alice Joselyn’s boat was missing and you found it. That was it with Iva. You were a couple of years older than us. You were single. Sure, we all hated your guts. You had your own car and it wasn’t an old piece of junk. You had money. Compared to us you were rich. You were getting a hundred bucks a week. And your room, meals, uniform, weapons and laundry were all paid for by the Commonwealth. Man, we were no competition for you at all.”

  “If I remember,” I said, “I didn’t make too much ground either.”

  “It was that guy from Baltimore who was staying at the Mount Puritan. That Roy. He turned her head. What would you expect from any normal girl? Especially with a mother who’s like a drag anchor around her neck. You yourself have seen Mrs. Hancock crying and carrying on all the time, never wanting to be alone for a minute. Iva had trouble enough getting out on a date once in a while. If I was the girl, I’d have married anyone to get out of Sachem. Not Iva, though. She wouldn’t do a thing like that. The man she’d marry would have to be a good guy.”