Nervous Water

by William G. Tapply

  The gun barrel poked into me. “Don’t fuckin’ move,” she said. “I got number two steel shot in here, and I can pump three loads into you before you finish blinking.”

  “Come on,” I said. “This is uncomfortable.”

  “Tough,” she said. “Who in hell are you, anyway, and why are you following me around, and how do you know my name?”

  “Can I turn around?”

  “No, damn it. I don’t like being stalked.”

  “I wasn’t stalking you,” I said. “I just want to talk with you.”

  “Why should I want to talk to you?”

  “I’ve got news for you,” I said. “I’m your cousin. I’m Brady Coyne.”

  “Who?”

  “Your cousin. You were just a baby last time I saw you. I have a message from your father.”

  “Like hell you do,” she said. “I don’t have any father.”

  “Moze,” I said. “Moses Crandall.”

  “Moses Crandall,” she said, “is not my father.”

  Twenty-Two

  “Look,” I said. “This is extremely uncomfortable. I’m going to straighten up and turn around now, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t shoot me. Okay?”

  “Hang on,” she said. “You got any ID?”

  “My wallet’s in my back pocket.”

  “Take it out. Slowly. Keep your other hand on the wall.” The gun barrel stopped poking into my back.

  I reached around with my left hand, slid my wallet from my hip pocket, and held it there behind me.

  She took it from me. Then she said, “Okay. You can turn around.”

  I pushed myself away from the door of the trailer and turned to face Cassie. Creases bracketed her mouth like parentheses, and she had squint wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. She had coppery skin and coal black hair and those sharp blue Crandall eyes. She looked older than I’d expected, older than she’d appeared in the picture on Grannie Webster’s desk. More timeworn.

  She had stepped back. She was holding a pump-action shotgun at her hip, and it was pointing at my stomach. She looked me up and down. “So you’re my cousin, huh?”

  I nodded. “Please aim that thing somewhere else.”

  “I don’t think so,” she said. “Why don’t you sit down. Keep your hands where I can see ’em.” She handed my wallet to me.

  I put the wallet back into my pocket, then sat on the cinder block with my hands on my knees. “Why the gun? What are you afraid of?”

  She shook her head. “Just tell me why you were following me.”

  “I’ve been trying to track you down for a week,” I said. “Your father’s in the hospital.”

  She shook her head. “I told you. Moses Crandall is not my father.”

  “He’s desperate to see you.”

  “I don’t want to see him.”

  “Why not?”

  “None of your business that I can see.”

  “He’s in bad shape, Cassie. He had a heart attack. He’s got an aortic aneurysm. He damn near died. You wouldn’t recognize him. It’s like he got old and frail overnight.”

  I watched the emotions wrestle on her face. After a few seconds she shook her head, lowered the barrel of her pump gun, and narrowed her eyes at me. “You’re really my cousin?”

  I nodded. “My mother was Hope Crandall. Moze’s sister. He’s my uncle. When I was a kid my father and I used to go out on Uncle Moze’s lobster boat with him. I remember you when you were a toddler.”

  “I guess maybe I remember old Moze mentioning you.” She gave a little shrug. “You might as well come inside. I got iced tea in the fridge.”

  We went in. The Rolling Stones were now singing “Gimme Shelter.” The music was deafening as it thumped and ricocheted around inside the little tin trailer.

  Cassie reached up to a boom box on a shelf and turned it off. The sudden silence was profound.

  “I dig the Stones,” I said. “Music from my youth.”

  “Dig.” She smiled.

  The trailer seemed even smaller from the inside than from the outside. There was a kitchenette you could barely turn around in, with a little pull-down table and bench seats. It was equipped with built-in miniature appliances—a two-burner stovetop, a refrigerator not much bigger than the microwave oven that sat on top of it, a square bathroom-sized sink. The adjacent living room was cramped with a faded love seat and a ragged upholstered chair and a square wooden table with a small TV on it. Beyond that a folding door closed off what I assumed was the bedroom. The whole place was finished in faded linoleum and peeling fabric wallpaper and dull aluminum and cheap wood paneling.

  Cassie pointed at the living room. “Have a seat.”

  I went over and sat in the chair.

  A minute later she came in with two glasses in her hand. The pump gun had disappeared.

  She handed me one of the glasses and sat in the corner of the love seat with her legs curled under her. “Tell me about Moze,” she said.

  So I told her about getting that phone call from Uncle Moze after all those years and going out on his lobster boat with him. I described how he had been grief-stricken about being out of touch with Cassie and had asked me to try to track her down and how soon after that he’d had a heart attack.

  I told her about visiting our aunt Faith, and how Faith had told me that Cassie had been there asking about Mary and Norman Dillman, her biological parents.

  When I finished, I saw tears brimming in her eyes. “I’ve been terribly mad at him,” she said.

  “You should go see him,” I said. “He’s at Maine Medical in Portland. I’d be happy to drive you over there.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s complicated.”

  I sipped my iced tea and said nothing.

  “He never told me he wasn’t my father,” she said after a minute. “All these years I’m thinking I know who I am, where I came from. He lied to me. My whole life was a lie. Do you know what it’s like, finding out something like that?”

  I shook my head. “I can’t imagine.”

  “It changes everything,” she said. “There was no reason he couldn’t tell me. I would’ve still loved him.”

  “Maybe he just thought of you as his little girl,” I said. “Moze and Lillian, they raised you from the day you were born, practically. I don’t think they intended to hide it from you. It wasn’t really like it was a secret. After Lillian died, Moze just didn’t get around to it.”

  “He should’ve told me. I have a right to know.”

  “It was a mistake,” I said. “But a forgivable mistake.”

  She was shaking her head. “I don’t know if it’s forgivable. I don’t know.”

  “It must’ve been a jolt,” I said. “Finding out.”

  Cassie was huddled in the corner of the love seat staring down at the glass of iced tea she was holding in both hands on her lap. When she looked up at me, I saw that her eyes were red and her cheeks were wet.

  “It was my birth certificate,” she said. “When you get a marriage license, you have to provide a birth certificate. I’d never had any need for one before that. So I called the town clerk in Moulton and they sent me one. It said my parents were Mary Crandall and Norman Dillman. I called up the town clerk and told her it was a mistake, and she told me no, it was no mistake. So I did some research, and I learned that Norman Dillman got murdered just a couple months before I was born. He was some kind of small-time criminal, I guess. So then I tracked down Aunt Faith. I wanted to know what happened.”

  “Mary took back her maiden name when Norman got killed,” I said. “I figure she wanted to be sure you were a Crandall instead of a Dillman.”

  “Damned considerate of her,” said Cassie.

  I smiled. “After you were born, she gave you to Uncle Moze and Aunt Lillian, and then she ran off with a minor-league baseball player. She died of cancer a while ago.”

  “Yes, right,” she said. “See? That’s what I mean. My father was murdered? My mother loved me
so much that she gave me away? Now they’re both dead? I don’t know how I’m supposed to deal with that.”

  “Moze should’ve told you,” I said. “But he didn’t. You’ve got to keep in mind, you were always the main thing in his life. Still are.”

  She nodded. “I guess so.” She looked at me. “So how do you know all this stuff?”

  “I’ve been poking around.”

  She smiled quickly. “You’re a nosy sonofabitch, aren’t you?”

  I nodded. “Moze asked me to try to find you. It’s taken all the nosiness I could muster. You’ve got to mend fences with him.”

  “Is he going to be okay?”

  “I saw him yesterday. He’s still in ICU, but they think he’s going to make it. He’ll never be the same. You have a heart attack at his age, it changes you. And he’s got that aneurysm. It could explode anytime.”

  “I had decided to just cut Moses Crandall out of my life,” she said. “Forget the whole family-roots thing. My childhood, my father, everything I thought I knew. Just try to start from scratch.”

  “Is that what this is all about?” I waved my hand around, indicating the trailer. “Starting from scratch?”

  “Huh?” she said. “This? Living here?” She laughed quickly. “Not hardly. This is, I’m hiding out, trying to figure out what to do next. That’s what this is all about. Right now, this is just saving my life, not starting a new one.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That man I married?”

  I nodded. “Richard Hurley. The dentist.”

  “Yes. Him. I found out he killed his previous wife, and I sure as hell don’t intend to wait around for him to kill me.”

  “What did you say?” I leaned forward. “He killed his wife? Do you know that?”

  She nodded. “I overheard him talking with his daughter. Rebecca. Arguing, I mean. What I heard, it was clear what happened. Ellen—his wife—she had an asthma attack, fell down and hurt herself, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t really move, and he…Richard…he refused to get her inhaler. He just stood there and…and watched her gasp for air and suffocate and die. That’s murder, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” I said. “That would certainly be murder. Are you sure of this?”

  She shrugged. “What I heard, it was jumbled, both of ’em talking at once, mostly, but you couldn’t mistake the gist of it. I’ve been playing that scenario in my head over and over ever since I heard it, picturing this man I married standing there watching his wife die.”

  “His first wife,” I said, “Becca and James’s mother, she committed suicide. Do you know anything about that?”

  Cassie shook her head. “Only that Becca came home from school and found her mother in her car in the garage with the motor running. Richard was at work all day. He couldn’t have had anything to do with that.”

  I was thinking about the legal case against Richard Hurley for the murder of his second wife. Based on what Cassie had said, without Hurley’s confession, unless Becca or James had witnessed it, there was no case whatsoever.

  I looked up at her. “So,” I said, “here you are. Do you have a plan?”

  “Do I intend to live here forever, do you mean?” She smiled quickly. “Not hardly. I got a friend who’s helping me. He’s the one who found this place for me, brought me here.”

  “Grantham Webster? Is that who you mean?”

  She nodded, then arched her eyebrows. “How do you know about Grannie?”

  “I talked to him. I told you I’ve been looking for you. He said he didn’t know where you were. He—”

  “Grannie wouldn’t tell you anything,” she said quickly. “He’d lie for me, no matter what. I know that much. I guess he’s pretty mad at me, though. I sort of dumped him when I decided to get married. But he came through for me when I had to get away from Richard. Except now he doesn’t want to speak to me anymore.”

  “Is that who you were trying to call today?”

  “When you were spying on me at Roy’s, you mean?”

  “You knew I was there?”

  She smiled. “I hope you’re not a private investigator or something.”

  “Actually, I’m a lawyer.”

  “Well, good,” she said. “Because you’d make a crummy detective. Dot told me you’d been asking about me, showing my picture around, and that you were still out there in the parking lot in the green BMW with Massachusetts plates.”

  “Oh, well,” I said. “So you were trying to call Grannie?”

  She nodded. “He knows it’s me, and he won’t even answer anymore. I guess I don’t blame him. I didn’t treat him very well. I made a huge mistake. I still love him. He’s a great guy.” She shrugged. “That’s it. That’s what I want to tell him. That I really do love him. That I blew it.”

  “Did you try his cell phone?”

  “Cell phone, office phone. He was supposed to be having office hours this afternoon.”

  I reached over to touch her hand. She flinched, and then relaxed.

  “Cassie,” I said, “I’ve got some bad news for you.”

  “I don’t need any more bad news.”

  “I’m sorry.” I hesitated. “Grannie was killed on Friday.”

  She looked at me. “Killed?”

  “He was shot twice in the chest,” I said. “He was in his office.”

  “Murdered?” She blinked. “You saying somebody murdered him?”

  I nodded.

  She hunched her shoulders and put her hands together as if she were praying and covered her mouth and nose with them. Her eyes darted wildly around the inside of the trailer. Then they stopped on my face. “It was him, wasn’t it?”

  “Who?”

  “Richard. He found out that Grannie helped me get away. He’s after me. He figured out that I know what he did to Ellen, and he’s going to find me and kill me, too.”

  I squeezed her hand. “No he’s not.”

  “You don’t know Richard Hurley,” she said. “He always gets what he wants.”

  “Well,” I said, “the first thing to do is get the hell out of here. If I was able to track you down, I guess anybody could. We’ll go talk to the police. Then we’ll head up to Portland and visit Moze. Okay?”

  She let out a long breath. “Whatever you say. I’m tired of making decisions. I’ll do whatever you think I should do.”

  I stood up and held my hands out to her. She looked up at me, gave me a sad half smile, took my hands, and pulled herself to her feet. She was nearly my height, and she looked intently into my eyes as if they might tell her that she could trust me.

  Then she smiled, put her arms around my neck, and hugged me. “Good to see you again, Cousin,” she whispered.

  I put my arms around her. “You, too.”

  “I’m awfully sad about Grannie,” she murmured into my shoulder. “It was because of me. What happened to him. I treated him terribly, and he was still always there for me. He was the only one I had. The only one I could depend on. Even after I dumped him. He’d get awfully mad sometimes, but he was still there for me. Grannie was like my only real family.”

  I patted her back. I couldn’t think of anything to say.

  She leaned back and looked at me. “Well, I guess I do still have some family, even if old Moze isn’t my father.”

  “He’s at least your uncle,” I said. “And you and I, we’re cousins either way.”

  “So you think we should talk to the police? I mean, would it do any good?”

  “We’ve got two murders,” I said. “Hurley’s wife and Grannie. And…there’s one other thing, too.”

  Cassie frowned. “What?”

  “When they brought Moze in with his heart attack, the doctor noticed a bruise on his chest. It looked like the mark a fist would make.”

  She shook her head, pulled away from me, and sat down heavily on the love seat. “You’re saying somebody punched him?”

  “Evidently.” I hesitated. “The police think he knows who did it, but he won’t tell
them.”

  “Why wouldn’t he tell them?”

  I shrugged.

  She looked up at me for a minute. Then she said, “Oh, shit. I get it. They think it was me? They think I punched old Moze, and he’s protecting me?”

  I nodded. “There’s something else.”

  “What?”

  “Moze had a collection of framed photos lined up on top of his TV. Photos of you, fifteen or twenty of them, from when you were a baby. And—”

  “Those photos are still there?”

  I nodded.

  Cassie smiled. “He’s always been so…so reserved. Dour, almost. About his feelings, I mean. He expects you to know he loves you. He doesn’t think you need to hear it.”

  “You might find that he’s changed,” I said.

  She shrugged. “So what about the photos?”

  “They were all smashed and broken.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It looked like somebody threw them against the wall.”

  “Threw them?”

  I nodded. “As if in a rage.”

  “They think I did that?”

  “They think whoever punched him did it.”

  “But why? I don’t—” She stopped and narrowed her eyes. “It was Richard, wasn’t it? Just like he killed Grannie. The bastard.”

  “Well,” I said, “it makes sense, but we don’t know any of this. I think we should go to the police and tell them everything. They’ll sort it out. We can start in Moulton. I’ve been in contact with the officer there who’s on Moze’s case. Let’s go talk to her.”

  “You mean right now?”

  “Why wait?”

  Cassie was shaking her head. “He killed Grannie and he hit Moze because of me. He knows that I know all about him. I’m so dumb.”

  “Forget it,” I said. “We’ve got to go to the police.”

  “And I married him.” She shook her head. “I knew it was stupid, and I did it anyway.”

  “Come on, Cassie. It’s done. Forget it.”

  She stood up. “Okay. Let’s get going. Let’s do it.”

  She stood up and started for the door.

  “Don’t you want to brush your hair or touch up your lipstick or change your shoes or wash your face or put on some earrings or something?”