“They’re so much alike,” I say.
“Hard to tell ’em apart, eh?” Annette says. “Well, the ugly son of a bitch with the mustache is Gary. The other ugly son of a bitch with the scar down the side of his face is Larry. It’s from a car crash, not a knife fight although he’s been in a couple of those.”
I study the brothers as they order beer and bark with their drinking buddies. They’re wearing the usual aforementioned male country attire and, yes, they have mullets.
Marsha grabs my wrist when I stand.
“Where in the hell are you goin’?”
“To talk with Gary and Larry.”
“Are you fuckin’ nuts?”
“I wanna go before I lose my nerve.” I nod at Marsha and Annette. “Wish me luck.”
The band is on break still, so Baxter’s is relatively quiet, except for the loud voices of its customers, likely louder now because of the booze. I make my way across the empty dance floor toward Gary and Larry’s table. It takes them a moment to realize I’m standing in front of them.
Gary, the mustached brother, gives me a hard squint.
“What’d ya want, old lady?” he says.
Beside him, Larry, his brother with the scar, snickers.
“First off, I’m not old. Second, I’m no lady,” I say.
Gary gives me an appreciative nod.
“I like your attitude,” he says. “What can we do for you?”
Larry’s head swivels.
“Uh, we don’t do business inside, if that’s why you’re here.”
I shake my head.
“Not interested. May I sit?”
Larry uses his foot to push a chair forward.
“Take a load off,” his brother says.
I fish two business cards from my wallet and place them on the table, one for each brother.
“My name is Isabel Long. I’m a private investigator. I’d like to ask you a few questions about Chet Waters.”
“Chet Waters? He’s a crispy critter.” Gary laughs into his raised beer can. “Why do you care about him?”
“His daughter, Annette, believes somebody killed him, and she wants me to find out if that’s true. She’s here with me tonight. See her over there?” I jab my thumb toward our table. “I live in Conwell, so I don’t know these parts very well. I thought maybe you could give me some information that’d be helpful.”
The brothers eye each other.
“Yeah, I see that bitch over there,” Gary says. “What kinda information?”
“For starters, how well did you know Chet Waters?”
“He bought junks, fixed some of ’em up, and sold the rest for parts,” Gary, who appears to be the spokesman, says.
“I already know that much. What was your relationship with him?”
“Relationship?” Gary sneers. “You fuckin’ with me, lady? Chet was an asshole.”
“Did you ever do business with him?” I ask.
“Sometimes. But it’s not what you think.”
“I heard you were at the junkyard a few days before the fire. Is that right?”
Gary nods.
“My brother’s into truck pullin’. You know what’s that?”
“Sure, I’ve been to a few truck pulls.”
“Huh? Well, we walked around checkin’ over his junks for a truck my brother could fix up. We found a couple, but the old bastard wanted too much for ’em. We tried talkin’ him down, but he got so pissed, he threw us out. We ended up goin’ to Sinclair’s instead. Got a better deal there.”
Behind me, the band returns to the stage. Soon the Beaumonts and I will be out of hearing range. I’m wondering if the drugs and money in the trunk of the Corolla could have belonged to the brothers. Maybe they weren’t searching for a truck but to check whether the car with the drugs had arrived. This is getting trickier.
“You weren’t interested in a Corolla he had?”
Gary sneers.
“Corolla? You couldn’t pull a shoppin’ cart with that piece of crap.” He slaps the table. “Besides, we only buy American.”
“Say, it’s gonna get real noisy in here. Could we meet some other time? I’d like to ask you more questions.”
“What for?”
“You got a long look at Chet’s junkyard just before he died in that fire. Maybe you both saw something.”
Gary raises an eyebrow.
“Maybe we can do that,” he says.
“Okay, you have my number on that card. Could I have yours, please?”
“Please?” Gary’s lips quiver. “Yeah, here it is.”
I pull my phone from the back pocket of my jeans and type in the number he tells me.
“This a real number?” I half-joke. “You’re not fuckin’ with me, are you?”
The brothers laugh.
“Yeah, that’s a real number,” Gary says. “Why don’t ya call me right now? Go ahead.”
I push the call button on my phone and within seconds, Gary’s is ringing.
“We’re all set,” I say. “How about later this week?”
“Yeah. Just don’t call too early,” Gary says.
“Fair enough. Thanks, guys.”
Of course, when I get back to the table, the cousins pester me for information. They want to smoke, so they drag me outside to a deck with the other smokers. The moon shines onto the lake’s black water.
Marsha bumps my arm. I swear it’s going to be bruised tomorrow.
“What did those assholes say?” she says.
“Not too much. They or rather Gary the talker claimed he and his brother were at the junkyard to find a vehicle to fix up for truck pulling. But they couldn’t work a deal with your father, Annette, so they went to Sinclair’s instead. Actually, he said your father ordered them to leave. Do you remember that?”
She blows a long stream of smoke.
“Now that you mention it, they were walkin’ all over the place with Pop. I wouldn’t put it past Pop to kick ’em out. He had no patience for those assholes,” she says. “Hey, maybe they were casin’ the joint.”
“Could be. When I asked if they were in the market for a Corolla, they acted like I was nuts.”
Annette’s eyes narrowed.
“That’s all you got from ’em?”
“For now. I’d say it was more like an icebreaker than an interview. The band was about to start. Gary gave me his number. We’re going to meet again in a few days.”
“You sure he gave you his real number?”
“Uh-huh, I even called him at the table to make sure. It’s the right one.”
Annette grins.
“That’s smart,” she says. “I don’t trust those guys.”
Annette takes the last long drag of her cigarette. She and Marsha are ready to head inside.
“Hold on a sec, Annette,” I say. “I heard about a fatal accident that happened when your father was a teenager. He was at the wheel when Al’s sister died. You ever hear about that?”
She makes a grinding kind of hum.
“Shit, that happened when Pop was in high school. My mother told me the story after I asked her about it. Some kid at school mentioned it. Ma told me not to bring it up around Pop. He’d get upset.”
“I was told your father and Al were good friends before that happened.”
“That’s what she said, too,” Annette says.
Marsha squints.
“So, do you think Al did it?” she asks.
“You think he snapped after all these years? I guess that’s my job to find out.”
“Yup,” Annette says.
The cousins drop what’s left of their butts in a can left on the deck just for that purpose. Once we’re back inside, we find fresh beers on the table none of us ordered. Moments later, Dave is back and sitting at the table’s empty chair.
“I thought you ladies looked thirsty,” he says above the noise.
“Thank you very much,” I say. “That’s mighty thoughtful of you, Dave.”
He
chuckles.
“Well, I have an ulterior motive,” he tells me. “How about another dance, Isabel?”
The Country Plowboys are cranking up a Lynyrd Skynyrd tune, so I’m game. I end up dancing two more times with Dave, who now has the nickname Dancin’ Dave.
After a break, he asks for one more fast one.
“Hope I see you here again, Isabel,” he tells me.
The cousins and I stay put until last call. The Beaumont brothers stick around, too. I watch them. Sometimes I catch them watching me.
Annette hooks up again with lover boy before they take off together. I get totally buzzed from beer in a can and am grateful Marsha drives us home in one piece. For once, I’m back after my mother’s gone to sleep.
News from the Old Farts
It’s Monday morning, and I’m on a Sophie pickup outside the Conwell General Store. Yesterday was a wash for me. I was hung over in the morning. I can’t recall the last time I drank so much beer. My mother, of course, wanted to hear all about it. I played down Dancin’ Dave and played up the Beaumont brothers. I took a long walk along the road past the maple trees, strung up with tubing. The official name is a sugar bush. Winter’s on the decline, mercifully. It’s only a matter of time when that sap starts flowing.
I arrive a little later at the store than I planned, so I can’t visit the Old Farts first. But as Ruth pulls away, I tell my granddaughter, “What do you say kiddo? Let’s visit the… ” but I stop mid-sentence. Ruth would string me up if Old Farts were the first words out of her baby’s mouth.
The usual gang is inside. The Fattest Old Fart, who naturally sits alone, announces my entrance.
“And she’s brought the baby with her,” he says.
I sit with Sophie beside him.
“Nice to see you’re all alive and kicking,” I joke.
“Yeah, it’s been a while,” the Fattest Old Fart says.
“Like maybe a few days.”
“That long?”
They gush a bit about the baby. The Skinniest Old Fart gives me a cup of coffee and the usual line about the espresso machine. But then the joking dies down, and everyone is as serious as the Serious Old Fart.
I glance from one man to another.
“What’s going on?”
“You haven’t heard,” the Bald Old Fart says.
“Heard what?”
The Fattest Old Fart gives me a long look.
“Eleanor Smith passed away last night,” he says.
“Eleanor? What happened?”
“What we heard is that when Jack came home from the Rooster, her part of the house was dark. The dogs were barking outside. He thought it was strange, so he went over to her place. That’s when he found her on the floor. He called the ambulance, but Eleanor died on the way to the hospital. Seems she had a heart attack.”
I say nothing. I let the others do the talking. They say Jack is broken up about his sister’s death. He’s keeping it quiet. He’s not putting in an obit until after she’s buried tomorrow at the family plot in the town cemetery, the same one where Sam’s ashes are in the ground. Jack wants to get his sister buried as soon as possible, so there won’t be a wake or service at the church. He doesn’t want to draw any attention from the newspapers and TV stations that went nuts over the Adela Collins case. Snoopy reporters would be back in town pestering the locals. I can see the headlines now. How about: Convicted killer dies months after confession.
If Eleanor had died without my chasing the case, Adela’s disappearance would have remained an unsolved hilltown mystery. Finding out helped the woman’s family reach some resolution, albeit an uneasy one. I wonder if it contributed to Eleanor’s death in some way. If so, that means I did, too.
Stop it, Isabel. Just stop it. Eleanor may have had limited mental capacities, but she was responsible after all. She’s just lucky Adela’s father, Andrew Snow, showed compassion and didn’t press for a prison sentence.
“It’s a private service,” the Serious Old Fart says. “Jack’s not even having anything at the church. He’s meeting the minister at the cemetery.”
“Isn’t the ground too frozen?” I ask.
“Jack asked his cousin, Fred, to get a piece of equipment to dig the grave. He needs just enough space for an urn.”
“When is it?”
“Eleven o’clock tomorrow morning,” the Fattest Old Fart says quietly. “We thought you’d want to know.”
I zip Sophie’s snowsuit and pull on her mittens.
“Yes, I do. Thanks for telling me.”
The Fattest Old Fart leans toward me.
“Are you all right, Isabel?”
“Yeah,” I whisper.
I rush back to my car. I almost bump into Andrew Snow as he walks between two pickup trucks with his head down.
“Hey, Andrew, how’ve you been?” I greet him.
Andrew isn’t smiling.
“You must’ve heard about Eleanor,” he says.
“Just now.” I tip my head toward the store. “In there.”
“It’s a tragic story all around,” he says.
“I agree.” I shift Sophie in my arms. I like Andrew a lot, but I’m not interested in deliberating about Eleanor with him or anybody else. “Sorry. I gotta get going. The baby.”
“Yeah, I understand,” he says.
In the car, Sophie is strapped into her seat. She plays with a silly, squeaky toy I gave her. I pull my phone from my purse and scroll through the contacts. I find Jack’s number. My call goes directly to voice mail.
“Hey, Jack, this is Isabel. I’m sorry to hear about Eleanor, real sorry. Call me if you want. Bye.”
Good-Bye Eleanor Smith
I arrive at the town cemetery as Jack takes a metal urn from the back of a hearse. He’s talking with the driver from the funeral home. The minister of the Conwell Congregational Church and Jack’s cousin, Fred, are the only other people here. Everybody is in black. Jack wears only a suit and tie but no coat despite the cold.
They all turn my way. Jack nods as I shut the Subaru’s door and walk toward them. They wait for me.
“I hope you don’t mind my coming,” I tell Jack.
He hugs the urn of his sister’s ashes.
“It’s fine, Isabel, really,” he says quietly, and then he tells Fred, “Why don’t you get the dogs?”
As we walk uphill through the snow, Fred goes to Jack’s pickup parked behind the hearse. It’s a sweet gesture on Jack’s part to bring the creatures that mattered the most to his sister to her burial.
Fred wrestles with the dogs in the pickup truck’s cab as he gets them leashed, and then they’re barking and tugging him toward us. They obey Jack when he orders them to sit and be quiet. He continues to hug the urn.
“Ready?” the minister asks.
The reverend talks about Eleanor in glowing terms. It’s obvious he never met her, but he managed to glean some things from the people in town like how she enjoyed cooking for her brother at the Rooster and at home. She loved taking her dogs for walks in the woods and sitting with them in her sunroom. He, of course, leaves out the nasty stuff.
Jack steps forward, and taking a knee in the grave’s cleared spot, he places the urn inside the hole. His head is down a few minutes before he walks behind a stone, where he picks up two shovels.
Fred hands me the dogs’ leashes.
“You mind taking ’em?”
“Not at all.”
I hold the dogs in place, clucking to keep them calm, while Jack and Fred cover the urn with dirt and set the shovels on the ground when they’re done.
Jack stands beside me. His cousin, who takes the dogs’ leashes from my hand, is on my other side.
No one says a word. The only sounds come from the crows perched high in the trees and a cough from the minister.
Then Jack takes my bare hand. I give his a gentle squeeze.
“I loved my sister,” he says. “She loved me. I was a very lucky man to have her. Good-bye, Sis.”
Ja
ck sobs beside me. His shoulders shake. I pull him close and wrap my arms around him.
“Oh, Jack,” I whisper.
I just let him cry. I cry for him.
Fred gives Jack a pat on the shoulder. The minister does the same before he leaves.
“It’s okay, buddy,” Fred says kindly.
Jack nods, and I let him go as he reaches for a handkerchief in his pants pocket. I am about to leave as well when he touches my arm.
“Isabel, we’re having some food at the house. The Rooster’s new cook, Carole, made it for us. Why don’t you join Fred and me?”
“You sure?”
He gives me an honest grin.
“Yeah, I’m sure, Isabel.”
“Let me call my mother, and I’ll meet you there.”
The Scene of the Crime
Ma, of course, gives her whole-hearted approval when I call her. After I learned about Eleanor’s death yesterday, we had a lengthy discussion about whether I should show up at the cemetery even though I wasn’t invited. Jack never returned my phone call, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me.
“I want to be there for Jack,” I told her.
“Then you should go,” she said.
I pull my car beside Jack’s pickup that’s parked in his driveway. I heave a big sigh when I get out. The last time I was here, I discovered Eleanor was the person who killed Adela Collins, and then she tried to do the same to me, or at least knock me out, when I chased her into the woods. Jack found me and carried me to his bed. Then everything fell apart.
Could it all have happened only a few months ago?
The mutts are on Jack’s porch, hollering their heads off, and he comes through the door to calm them down. He’s still wearing a white shirt and black pants, but the tie is gone. The top buttons of his shirt are undone. He grins as I walk toward him.
“They’ll get used to you comin’ around,” he tells me.
I try not to read too much into his statement.
Fred is at the kitchen table with an open bottle of beer. The table is set, even with a vase filled with red and white carnations.
“Did you do this?” I ask Jack.
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