Nervous Water

by William G. Tapply

  “Sure,” I said. “You tell her the same thing. I’d rather she didn’t know I called. She might think I was checking up on her. We should keep our stories straight, you and I.”

  “You got it,” she said.

  After I hung up with Gina, I felt a little better, knowing that Evie felt apologetic, even if she’d commissioned her secretary to communicate her feelings to me instead of finding a minute to do it herself.

  I took out the paper on which Julie had typed the list of numbers from Cassie’s cell phone. Two full columns, single-spaced. Names, nicknames, initials. It was daunting. No way I could call all of them.

  I moved my finger down the list. They were alphabetical, the way, I assumed, she’d found them in the cell phone.

  I stopped at “Grannie.” Moze had mentioned that Cassie’s boyfriend, the one before she married Hurley, was called Grannie. There were two numbers. “Grannie-cell” and “Grannie-work.”

  At Grannie-work, the recorded message said, “This is Professor Grantham Webster, English Department, Cabot College.” Webster had a deep, rumbling voice with the hint of the Smoky Mountains in it. “Please leave a detailed message and a number where I can reach you. If you want to see me in person, my summer office hours are Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday, two to four. I don’t schedule appointments. You’re welcome to just drop in.”

  Okay. Thank you. Today was Wednesday. Maybe I would.

  I didn’t bother leaving a message.

  I tried Grannie-cell, got his voice mail, and left no message there, either.

  I went back to the list. Mostly first names, a few last names, nicknames, and initials that meant nothing to me. A diligent investigator would start at the beginning, and he’d call them all, and he’d interrogate everybody intensely, on the assumption that any one of them might have the answers he was looking for, and he’d make a note of those he didn’t reach so he could call them again.

  Not me. I couldn’t do that. There had to be a better way.

  I went back to the list. There were numbers for “Becca” and “James” and “Richard.” The Hurleys, I supposed, although there were also numbers for “Becky” and “Jimmy” and “Dick.” And there were numbers for people named Carla, Liz, Donna, and Sue. Numbers for Digger and Tipper and Flip. Numbers for Smith and Osborne, Grapelli and Bratonio, Shwartz and Grabowski. Numbers for Pizza and Chinese, Auto and Bank, Oil and Electric. There were initials. More names and nicknames and commercial places. More initials.

  There was that number for “Faith” in Rhode Island. My aunt, I assumed. According to Uncle Jake, Thurlow was Aunt Faith’s current married name.

  I called her number. It rang five times. Then a woman’s voice said, “You have reached the Thurlows. Please leave a message.” Aunt Faith’s voice, I guessed, a soft, breathy, elderly voice. She sounded nervous and sad. It made me want to see her, see what my aunt looked like after all these years, see if she really was nervous and sad, and if so, why.

  I didn’t leave a message. Uncle Jake had said she lived in Tiverton, which was just over the Massachusetts border. About an hour’s drive from Boston. I could find her. I decided I didn’t want to talk to her on the telephone. I wanted to sit across from her, watch her face, pat her hand, give her a hug.

  I leaned back in my chair, blew out a breath, and stretched my arms over my head. I’d been sitting there for about an hour, had made five or six calls, and I was exhausted. How the hell did the private investigators do it, hour after boring hour, day after excruciating day, year after interminable year?

  Gordon Cahill, the best PI I knew, once told me that investigating was like selling encyclopedias door-to-door. You could knock on a hundred doors and get every one of them slammed in your face, and then the next ten, bingo. Ten sales. You never knew. All you knew was, if you just kept staking out people, making phone calls, calling them again, following up leads, just keeping at it, sooner or later you’d get a hit.

  You’d sell a set of World Books.

  You’d find what you were looking for.

  If you didn’t do it, guaranteed you’d never get anywhere. So you just kept doing it.

  You had to have that kind of mentality, Gordie said. You had to thrive on drudgery. That’s why PIs, contrary to the movies and the novels, were notoriously boring people.

  Boring or not, I knew I didn’t have that kind of mentality.

  Twelve

  I got up, went to the kitchen, refilled my coffee mug. Henry wanted to go out, so I went out with him. I sipped my coffee at the picnic table and watched the chickadees at the feeders while Henry poked around.

  After a while we went back inside. I went into my office and was looking over that list of numbers from Cassie’s cell phone, wondering if I had the fortitude to start calling them, when the phone rang.

  I picked it up, said hello, and a male voice said, “Is this Mr. Coyne?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Who’s this?”

  “James Hurley?” He made it a question.

  “Yes, James. Sure. What’s up?”

  “I, um, wanted to apologize.”

  “Apologize,” I said. “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why do you bother to apologize?”

  “I feel bad.”

  I said nothing.

  “I was out of line the other day,” he said. “It was stupid. I’m sorry.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Apology not necessary, but accepted. Forget about it.”

  “I’ve got a bad temper,” he said. “Sometimes it gets me in trouble.”

  I waited, and when he didn’t say anything else, I said, “That’s why you called? To apologize? That’s it?”

  “Mainly, yes.” He cleared his throat. “I was wondering if you found out what happened to Cassie.”

  “You think something happened to her?”

  “I didn’t mean that. I just—”

  “You’re friendly with Cassie,” I said. “Isn’t that right?”

  “Friendly.” He hesitated. “What’s that supposed to mean? Friendly.”

  She had your number in her cell phone, for one thing, I wanted to say. Except I didn’t think that telling him I’d snatched Cassie’s phone from her car was a good idea.

  “Maybe I was mistaken,” I said instead.

  “No, no,” he said. “Cassie and I get along pretty well. You could say we’re friends. We were, anyway. I don’t see much of her anymore.”

  I said nothing.

  “Since she married my father, I mean.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s awkward, that’s all.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. “Are you saying that before she married your father, you and Cassie—?”

  “Oh, jeez, no.” He laughed quickly. “Nothing like that. We were just friends. I don’t get along so well with him, that’s all. My father.”

  “You mean since he married Cassie?”

  “I don’t like how he treats her.”

  “How does he treat her?”

  “Look,” said James Hurley. “It’s none of my business. Yours, either. She married him. She knew what she was getting into.”

  “Is your father abusive?”

  “He doesn’t beat her, if that’s what you mean.”

  “But?”

  I heard him blow a breath into the telephone. “Nothing. Forget I said anything, okay?”

  “So what do you think happened to Cassie?” I said.

  “I suppose she just had her fill of him, you know what I mean?”

  “You think she left him?” I said.

  “I don’t think anything,” he said. “I have no idea. It’s just, the way he treated her, I wouldn’t blame her.”

  “What about Rebecca?”

  “My sister? What about her?”

  “Where does she fit into the equation?”

  “Becca gets along with everybody,” he said. “She’s pretty much preoccupied by her baby. She’s kind of oblivious to everything else. Look, I’ve got t
o go.”

  “James,” I said, “if you talk to Cassie, please tell her I need to speak with her. Tell her it’s important. Ask her to call me.”

  “There’s no reason I’d be talking to Cassie,” he said.

  “But if you do.”

  “Should I say what it’s about?”

  “It’s about her father,” I said.

  “Really? Her father?”

  “That’s right,” I said. “Why?”

  “Oh, nothing,” he said. “I was under the impression that Cassie didn’t have any family left, that’s all.”

  “What gave you that idea?”

  “I don’t know. I probably misunderstood.”

  “She has a father,” I said, “and he wants to talk to her.”

  “Sure,” he said. “Anyway, sorry about the other day. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “I wasn’t scared,” I said.

  After I hung up from talking with James Hurley, I called the hospital in Portland. When I told the nurse who answered at the ICU my name and asked about Uncle Moze, she told me he’d had “a good night,” that he was “resting comfortably,” and that his condition was “still serious, but stable.”

  No, I couldn’t speak with him. He was heavily medicated. Yes, Dr. Drury had put me on their list and they had my number and would call me if there was any change.

  Henry and I had lunch in the garden. Leftover pepperoni pizza, reheated in the toaster-oven, and iced coffee. Henry got the pizza crusts.

  I sat there in the Adirondack chair, tilted my head back, and looked up at the sky. I thought about Uncle Moze, the taciturn old bird, secretive about his aneurysm, desperate to reconcile with Cassie. And now he’d had a heart attack. A bad one, it seemed.

  And so I was feeling the urgency. I had to get in touch with Cassie, tell her about Uncle Moze.

  I pushed myself to my feet, went into the kitchen, and put my plate and glass in the dishwasher. I looked at the clock. Almost two in the afternoon.

  I headed for the front door.

  Henry trailed behind me, looking hopeful.

  “Not this time,” I said to him. “You stay and guard the house. I’ll be back in time to give you supper.”

  He lay down, put his chin on his paws, and watched me out of the tops of his eyes.

  It was hard to leave him there. Dogs are at least as skilled as women at making a man feel guilty.

  Cabot College was a small liberal-arts school bordering the Brookline Golf Course near Larz Anderson Park. I’d driven past it many times, but this was the first time I’d ever turned into the entrance and followed the long curving driveway between the rows of hundred-year-old beech and maple trees to the Greek Revival building that, according to the sign, housed Student Services.

  The lawns were lush and freshly mown and utterly empty of poetry-reading and sunbathing and Frisbee-throwing summer-school students. In fact, the campus struck me as deserted. The only signs of life were the half dozen vehicles in the visitors’ lot.

  I parked there, went into the building, and followed the sound of a muffled voice to an open office door. I peeked in, and a pretty young woman—she might have been a student, she looked that young—peeked out at me. She was talking on the telephone, but she smiled and curled a finger at me.

  I went in and stood far enough back from her desk to give her privacy. She looked me up and down as she talked on the phone. When she hung up, she leaned back in her chair and said, “Hi. Can I do something for you?”

  “Can you tell me how to find Professor Webster’s office?” I said.

  “Sure. I doubt he’ll be there, though.”

  “His office hours are two to four today, I thought. Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Today’s Wednesday and it’s, um”—I glanced at my watch—“it’s a little after two.”

  “We’re between sessions,” she said. “We have two summer sessions. The first one ended last week, and the next one doesn’t start ’til next week.” She shrugged. “On the other hand, Professor Webster is very dedicated. I could call, see if he’s there, save you a ten-minute walk, if you like.”

  “A ten-minute walk wouldn’t hurt me,” I said, “but thanks. That would be a help.”

  She pecked out a number on her phone, put it to her ear, and gazed up at the ceiling. Then she looked at me and said, “Professor Webster? It’s Mary Beth over at Student Services…Oh, fine. Quiet.” She laughed softly at something he said. “Look, I have someone here for you.” She nodded, put her hand over the receiver, and looked at me. “He wants to know who you are and what you want.”

  “Tell him my name is Brady Coyne and I’m a lawyer.”

  Mary Beth repeated that information for Webster, listened for a minute, then nodded, smiled, and said, “Okay. Sure. Thanks,” and hung up.

  She looked at me. “He says, that’s what he gets for keeping office hours during break. Lawyers coming after him. Professor Webster’s got a great sense of humor. Anyway, he’s waiting for you. Come on. I’ll show you how to find the English building.”

  I followed Mary Beth outside, and she pointed across a broad expanse of lawn to a brick building nestled among several other more-or-less identical brick buildings. “His office is on the second floor,” she said. “Number 203. He’s probably the only person in the entire building.”

  Less than ten minutes later I’d crossed the lawn, entered the English building, mounted a flight of stairs, and stopped outside the open door to room 203.

  Grantham Webster—“Grannie”—was seated in a high-backed leather chair at his desk with his back to the doorway, pecking away at a desktop computer.

  I stood in the doorway, cleared my throat, and said, “Professor Webster?”

  He swiveled around. He had skin the color of dark maple syrup, short curly black hair with flecks of gray in it, and half-glasses perched down toward the tip of his nose. He was small and wiry. I guessed he was about my age. He was wearing a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up over his elbows and a striped necktie pulled loose at his throat.

  He lowered his head and looked up at me over his glasses. “You’re the lawyer?” he said.

  I nodded. “Brady Coyne.”

  “I’m Grantham Webster.” He turned back to his computer, ejected a CD from it, put it into a plastic case, and slid the case into a wire rack on his desk. Then he swiveled around, took off his glasses, stood up, and smiled. “Come on in. Tell me what I’ve done this time.”

  I went over and held out my hand. “Thanks for seeing me, Mr. Webster.”

  “Grannie,” he said. “Everybody calls me Grannie.” He shook my hand. His was long and bony. He had a firm, confident grip. He pointed to the wooden chair in front of his desk. “Have a seat.”

  I sat, and Webster resumed his seat in the high-backed chair across from me. His desk was a jumble of papers and books. There was one framed picture with its back to me, a mug with a college seal full of pens and pencils, and a green-shaded desk lamp. “I’m Cassie Crandall’s cousin,” I said.

  He nodded as if he already knew that. “Cassie in trouble again?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I can’t seem to locate her.”

  He blew out a breath. “You’ve come to the wrong man, I’m afraid,” he said. “I’m not with Cassie anymore. You should talk to her husband.”

  “I did. He doesn’t seem to know where she is. Either that or he’s not telling me. I’ve tried calling her. The mailbox in her cell phone is full. I’m a little concerned.”

  “Let’s see,” said Webster. “You’re Cassie’s cousin, and you’re a lawyer. So which is the operative role here?”

  “Cousin. Her father—my uncle—is in the hospital. He and Cassie have been out of touch. I want to put them back in touch.”

  “Out of touch, you say?”

  I nodded.

  “Hm,” he said. “That’s very odd. Cassie adores her father. Talked about him all the time. Old Moze. Raised her all by himself. He’s a lobsterman.” He smiled. “I
guess you know that. Anyway, Cassie made a point of speaking with him on the telephone regularly. Every Sunday evening, no matter where she was, what she was doing, she’d give him a call. If they are, as you say, out of touch, that’s most worrisome. I know she’d want to know that he’s hospitalized.”

  “Do you think something could’ve happened to her?” I said.

  “Sir,” he said, “I have no idea what Cassie’s up to these days. All I know is, we’re together for nearly four years, and then one day she tells me she’s decided to marry this dentist who’s old enough to be her father. We were living together. Committed. Or at least, that’s what I thought. She moved directly from my house to the dentist’s house. Just like that. Hello, good-bye, have a nice life.”

  “That must’ve been a punch in the gut for you,” I said.

  He plucked his glasses off his nose and leaned toward me. “Nicely put,” he said. “That’s how it felt. I never saw it coming. A sucker punch.” He lifted one hand, then let it fall on his desk. “But that’s how it goes. You get over it. The earth keeps spinning. People are still starving in Ethiopia. What are you going to do?”

  “If Cassie were to go away somewhere…”

  “Leave the dentist, you mean?” He shook his head. “I don’t—” A sudden buzz stopped him. He fumbled among the papers on his desk and came up with a cell phone. He glanced at its little screen, frowned, flipped it open, pressed it against his ear, and said, “What do you want?”

  He gazed up at the ceiling as he listened. Then he said, “Wait. Stop. Hold on.” He looked at me. “Give me a minute, okay? Close the door?”

  I nodded, stood up, went out into the hallway, and shut the office door behind me. I leaned against the opposite wall, trying not to listen. From inside Webster’s office I could hear the occasional murmur of his side of the conversation, though I couldn’t distinguish his words. Mostly, it seemed that he was listening.

  At one point his tone suddenly shifted, and his voice was louder, and I heard him say, “Forget it. It’s not going to happen.”