“You tried them all?”
“All except Dr. Fitch.”
“Madre mia!” Ricky shrieked, as if he’d been scalded. “What’re you waiting for? Slap those shoes on that hot tamale. Go for the hole. You always do, regardless of the lie.”
“He is a good liar,” I considered.
“Draw him out,” Ricky advised, “like you draw the golf ball.”
“When my game’s not off?”
“You’re always on,” Ricky insisted. “You’re a legend; the Walter Hagen of homicide. He won sixteen majors, including the PGA championship right here at Eisenhower.”
“Thanks, Ricky,” I said, feeling older than Arnold Palmer, “but that was back in 1926.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
I had dinner alone at a Wendy’s near Eisenhower Park. As alone as you can be at a busy fast-food restaurant. Maybe I should have gone to Ricky’s, but getting invited to someone’s home because they know you’re lonely seems even lonelier.
The Wendy’s was filled with an interesting cross section of American culture: plucky youngsters picking at kid’s meals, mostly for the toys; heart attack candidates glomming triple cheeseburgers and biggie fries; biker types wearing black Bermudas, white socks, and wife beaters. There was also a group that was headed for a pro soccer game, ordering taco salads in Spanish.
I was more interested in Murder on the Moor, however, reading it while eating, admiring the way Peter H. Couloir continues to operate so smoothly, while I floundered like my fish sandwich. Wishing that I could sift the clues, synthesize the situation, take a step back and let the suspects hang themselves, like the Frenchie does. His intellect was scintillating and I was brain-dead.
I was reading the final chapter, with five remaining suspects: the evil earl of Cranbrook, his shady gamekeeper, his creepy butler, the snooty Lady Barkworth, the dynamite Mrs. Phelps. I was clueless as to the culprit, and how Couloir would crack the case, short of hauling them all into an anteroom and getting out the rubber hoses. What’s brainpower over biceps, when gray matter is a gray area? Nonfictional killers, I know from experience, are always too desperate and dangerous to retire peacefully to a drawing room at the behest of some cerebral little detective and benignly announce, “Good show, old chap. You got me.”
“I have gathered you here,” Couloir murmured . . .
You lucky little stiff. There’s not a drawing room at Broken Oak that’s big enough for all my suspects.
“. . . to expose the murderer . . .”
Colonel Mustard, in the kitchen, with a candestick?
“. . . who is, at this very moment, among us.”
This little tec’s got big balls.
Quick glances were exchanged between the Earl, Lady Bark-worth, and Mrs. Phelps. And between the gamekeeper and the butler. “This is most inconvenient,” said Lady Barkworth.
Royalty’s always been a pain in the butt.
“It’s preposterous!” snapped the Earl.
“We shall see . . .”
Couloir’s got the evil earl all figured out. It’s about time. Now slap the cuffs on him and slap him silly.
“You did kill dear, sweet Esmond,” Lady Barkworth reminded the Earl.
“That was entirely an accident,” he said. “It’s quite apparent that Uncle Esmond murdered both Phelps and Algie.”
“How do you know?” asked Mrs. Phelps.
“He was holding the murder weapon,” explained the Earl. “And he would have shot me, had I not overpowered him in our struggle.”
“What was his motive?”
“He was quite deranged. Who could be certain? He never liked Americans, and old Algie may only have been in the wrong place at the wrong time, as I was.”
“In one instance, monsieur, you are correct,” said Couloir. “M. Spotswood merely stumbled onto the plot.”
“Plot? What plot?” asked the Earl.
“There was indeed a plot,” Couloir insisted. “And it was a most cleverly contrived one.”
“Then by all means,” said Lady Barkworth, “please enlighten us.”
Yeah. Shove it up their aristocratic asses.
“You see,” Couloir began, “we have learned that the Earl of Cranbrook owed M. Phelps a great deal of money, from some unfortunate business dealings.”
“That was common knowledge,” said the Earl. “Perhaps you are not so clever as your reputation would indicate.”
Good-bye, earl. Never taunt a cop.
“We shall see,” said Couloir, with more than a trace of self-confidence.
“He’d be a fool to have murdered him,” Lady Barkworth offered.
Mrs. Phelps said, “But not to have put someone up to it.”
I don’t know. The earl’s pretty good with that Webley-Vickers.
“Précisement, Madame,” Couloir continued. “But the Earl was not the only one who would gain from your husband’s untimely demise.”
Suddenly seeming more respectful of Couloir’s reputation, the Earl said, “Please do enlighten us, Detective.”
“You, Mrs. Phelps, will no doubt inherit your husband’s estate.”
And you, M. Couloir, are quite correct. However, I have enjoyed a very successful career in my own right, with no small remuneration.”
I think she’s saying she doesn’t need the money.
“Indeed, I have enjoyed your performances at both La Scala and the Paris Opera.”
On a cop’s pay?
“Why, M. Couloir, thank you.”
“Surely she did not shoot these two men,” the Earl interceded.
“Why not?” asked Lady Barkworth.
The Earl explained, “The Webley .44 is an extremely powerful handgun. Its recoil is far too severe for a woman . . .”
This was written in the prefeminist era. I know more than a few females who can handle any weapon.
“. . . and both Algie and Phelps were done in by perfectly placed shots through the center of the chest.”
“I too had taken that into consideration,” said Couloir. “Along with the fact that the lady’s hands are very small and delicate. Most expressive hands, heartrending in fact as Mimi’s in La Bohème , but incapable of handling such a volatile weapon.”
“Again, M. Couloir, I thank you.”
Turn her on, then turn her in?
“No, indeed,” Couloir affirmed. “Mrs. Phelps did not shoot either of the two gentlemen in question. But she did put someone up to it.”
“Why, M. Couloir,” Mrs. Phelps said as though accepting another compliment, “whatever led such a great detective to such an absurd conclusion?”
“Your perfume, madame.”
“What?”
“Eau de la Nuit, n’est-ce pas?”
“Yes, but why do you ask?”
“A lovely scent, with which I am quite familiar . . .”
Maybe you use it.
“. . . delicate as a summer night’s breeze off the Seine . . . it was in the room where the Earl struggled for the gun with Esmond. I would have recognized it immediately were it not for all the confusion, noise, and the overwhelming smell of gunpowder . . .”
What about the aroma of Uncle Esmond’s blood?
“. . . you, Mrs. Phelps, were in that room only moments earlier, handing the gun to Esmond, convincing him that his nephew had gone mad, murdered your husband and M. Spotswood, and you were pleading with Esmond to halt the Earl’s bloody rampage, using the Webley, setting the stage, as it were, to look as if poor demented Esmond had murdered all three.”
“Amusing scenario,” said Mrs. Phelps. “You should write comic opera. But how did I gain possession of this horrible murder weapon?”
“It was given to you by your accomplice, who committed both murders. Who is”
Damn. Where’s the last page?
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
I rushed home to search for that last page. I even looked in the fridge. I found a six-pack instead. Plus a stale loaf of bread, some cheese that’s not normally green
, and a box of Arm & Hammer baking soda Carol had put in more than a year ago. I tossed out the old food, tossed down a beer, and tried to relax with an idiot TV sitcom. I like Drew Carey but could not help thinking about that last page of Murder on the Moor. Is it in the basement, in that box of Carol’s stuff, where I originally discovered the broken little book? I turned off the boob tube and descended into the sepulcher for a look.
No page. Only scads of Carol’s stuff I still can’t throw out. Or even sift through. Just looking at it devastates me. I went back upstairs and popped the top of another cold one. “Of all the friends in time of grief, when threatening death looks grimmer, not one so sure can bring relief as this best friend, a brimmer.” I like that toast from an old play my wife begged me to see with her. I forget the title. Something about an opera. Written by a gay guy. The toast was the only part worth a damn.
After my fifth or so brimmer, I lost count. Murder on the Moor, the play by the gay guy, and the murders at Broken Oak blurred. In my state, nothing made sense. There seemed to be no reason since the Age of Reason. No enlightenment since the Age of Enlightenment. No information in this so-called Information Age, except easy online gun buying and A-bomb recipes. Artificial intelligence is displacing little gray cells, common sense, gut feeling.
Gut feeling’s my only strength, in lieu of merely average gray matter. And a bottle of Bud is as good a muse as a fine Bordeaux. At least I don’t need fancy bar concoctions, like pousse cafés or perfect martinis, to create case-breaking insights. No one makes a perfect pousse café, anyway, or cares to drink it. And a perfect martini’s merely a glass of gin.
I stopped drinking and sat at the kitchen table, jotting down possible scenarios for the Broken Oak murders on a pad Carol used for grocery lists. First, Randy Randall could have murdered O’Reilly for threatening to buy Broken Oak, raze Dame Winifred’s historic mansion, and slap condos all over the property. But Randall could have checked O’Reilly’s finances and found he was flat broke. Or, and this is stretching it, Randy could also have been in love with Mrs. O and was killing two birds with one stone. And she could have put him up to it, having the looks, charm, and brains not to do the dirty work herself. Then Randall murdered Al Jones as a cover-up when Jones stumbled onto their plot, or witnessed the murder, and demanded blackmail or threatened to turn them in. Randall did seem overly protective of Mrs. O when I noticed she was signed up for so many golf lessons. He could also have whacked Jones out of jealousy.
Second, the terrible-tempered Dr. Fitch could have killed O’Reilly over the money he owed him. Or maybe he’d played a bad round and simply had to take it out on somebody. Even if the shoes with the missing heel spike fit him, however, it proves nothing.
Third, Randy Randall’s fatso cousin Gregory murdered O’Reilly to protect the property and save the mansion. He had to have been outside; otherwise, where had he gotten all those golf balls under his cot? He could have a crush on Mrs. O, figuratively speaking, adoring her from his window behind the spires and gargoyles. Like Quasimodo and Esmeralda, longingly watching her take lesson after lesson from the tall Texan. But isn’t he too heavy and slow to whack anyone?
Fourth, Slim killed O’Reilly for being a lousy tipper. Maybe Jones stiffed him after caddying in that tournament he won. Murder most foul is committed for much less.
Fifth, Vince Henry killed O’Reilly for the Malcolm X IQ comment. Then he whacked Jones for criticizing the way the greens were cut.
Sixth, but certainly not last, the enigmatic Mrs. O put her lover, Jones, up to killing her husband. Then she whacked him with the swing he’d helped her to perfect. The Enquirer would love that bit of irony.
Fuzzy and frustrated, I put the list aside, grabbed another beer, and wandered outside, like O’Reilly at his last cocktail party. Instead of heading for a water hazard to empty my bladder, however, I walked to the small graveyard along Bayville Avenue where Carol was buried. I visited her, even though she wouldn’t like seeing me loaded and lachrymose.
I poured some beer onto one of the graves, intoning, “To quench the fire of anguish in some eye, there hidden far beneath and long ago.” Omar Khayyam said that. I used to tell my wife it was really Omar Kanopka, a Polack rug dealer and distant relative from Perth Amboy. I still think it’s funny, though I know too many toasts and have had too many cocktail parties alone lately.
I sat beside Carol’s grave in the darkness. I didn’t dare pour a drop in her memory, but I dropped a few tears. I dropped my empty beer can into a trash barrel on the way out. Let the grave digger get the nickel deposit. I wandered along Bayville Avenue, where my tenants waved as they drove past while I tried to look sober. I watched them turn into my driveway. I could almost hear them laughing and clamoring out of their car, groping and fondling each other as they climbed the outside stairs to their apartment. More than ever, I wished they were my kids.
I walked past the Renaissance Adult Home, where I pray I’ll never have to stay. Bury me next to my wife before I’m infirm and senile, with fresh breezes off the Sound and someone, even if it’s only the grave digger, occasionally pouring a drop on my grave.
I passed the restaurant called Steve’s Pier. It was busy and noisy as always. The food’s great, but I’d prefer pablum at the Renaissance Adult Home to five-pound lobsters amid clusters of clamoring yuppies with cell phones.
I also passed a homey little deli, closed for the night, and several small shops, including the all-night Laundromat where I occasionally wash my clothes. Not because my washing machine at home is broken, but because I have to get out of the house and be with people, away from solitary cocktail parties.
Passing the Laundromat, I glanced through the plate glass front window, hoping to recognize someone, if only to wave. It was past midnight, but lonely souls in Bayville are soaping and rinsing at all hours. I never expected to see Mrs. O’Reilly, alone and leaning into one of the dryers. She was poured into a pair of faded jeans, obviously braless under a thin cotton T-shirt. My beer buzz faded like her jeans as I suddenly recalled that the Black Widow and I were neighbors, that she’s still at the Tides Motel, only a short walk from here.
As she took an armload of clothes from the dryer, I stared through the plate glass like a peeper. Her looks and the realization that killers also do laundry were captivating. She saw me and waved, smiling as if it were old home week, and she’s not a prime suspect.
“You staking me out?” she asked, when I moved to the Laundromat’s open front door.
“I live up the street,” I admitted.
“So you’ve told me.”
“Just getting some air,” I said, staying outside, keeping my beer breath with me.
“Cops also need air,” she sighed, folding her laundry.
Had I misread her? Like Murder on the Moor ? Misapplying a seemingly similar murder plot between her and Randy Randall?
I could not help saying, “Like killers need clean clothes?”
“Don’t look,” she said, ignoring the comment and folding a lacy pair of panties, similar to the ones in the sand trap with the condom. Could I snare a pair without her taking me for a fetishist?
“They’re pretty,” I said, stepping inside.
“Pretty personal,” she told me, tucking them under a sweatshirt she’d already folded.
Women are amazing. You catch them in their birthday suits and they don’t so much as blush. You accuse them of murder and they become concerned about hiding their underwear.
“Gotta go,” I told her, giving up on my panty raid. They looked pretty average without Mrs. O in them, and dryers kill DNA.
“Too bad.” She feigned a pout. Like a prizefighter feints, then jabs?
“But don’t you go anywhere,” I warned.
“Can you give me a hand before you go?” she asked, stacking her folded clothes to overflowing in a large laundry basket.
Watch it, Kanopka. This could be a sucker punch.
“Where’s your car?” I asked.
I sa
w myself placing the laundry basket in her trunk, while she raised a five iron behind me.
“I walked here,” she said, hoisting the heavy basket like a feather. “I don’t need any help with this, but you could carry the bleach and this detergent. I kept dropping them on the way here.”
Was she strong enough to have whacked Al Jones and hoisted him into his trunk? I took the bleach and detergent, knowing only that she’s good-looking enough to get anyone to do her dirty work, including me, when I should be arresting her.
Her room at the Tides was tidy. Why had I thought it would be a mess?
“Put them on the dresser,” she said, setting her laundry basket on the bed, putting away the clean clothes.
I did not take my eyes off her, partly because she’s pretty and partly because she could whip out a five iron.
“Gotta go,” I repeated. “It’s getting late.”
“But I owe you something for your help.”
“You owe me nothing but the truth,” I lectured her in full detective mode.
“I’ve told you the truth.”
“Then we’re even.”
“Truth is, I have a good bottle of Scotch I don’t want to drink by myself.”
“Well . . .”
The last thing I needed was another drink, or getting drunk with a murder suspect. I felt I staggered a bit on the short walk from the Laundromat to the Tides.
“A short one,” I said, “but that’s all.”
She produced a bottle of Chivas Regal, two of the motel’s plastic cups, and ice from its plastic bucket.
“You must miss your house,” I said, as she poured. “There’s not much room in here.”
“I’m used to small spaces,” she shrugged. “I grew up in Levittown, in a house the size of a cracker box.”
You could buy a new Levit house, including a new TV set, for about four thousand bucks in the 1940s. Now those cracker boxes cost a fortune.
Deadly Divots Page 15
