“I gotta disagree.” I used my big voice to smother their small ones and it worked. They all looked at me, curiosity and surprise on their faces. “Most of us used to be on the job. We protected people, kept them safe.” I looked at each of them in turn. Heads bobbed and spines stiffened, just a little. “Now we’re security for Mystic Cove. We still protect people and keep them safe, only in a different capacity. Last night one of our residents was murdered. How is it not our business?”
Jesse put down the coaster he’d been playing with. “But...but wouldn’t we be stepping on some toes? This morning you said it was police business.”
“I don’t want to step on that sheriff’s toes,” Billy said with a belch.
“They’re right, Addie.” Tyler lightly touched my arm. “You step on Spooner’s toes, and you’re asking for trouble.”
“Enough with the fucking toes,” I said loudly. “We’re not going to step on any toes. I have reason to believe GCSO would appreciate our insights.”
“Insights?” Tyler said. “Damned if you don’t sound like Dr. Phil.” A smattering of laughter that I extinguished with a cross look.
“But we don’t know nothing about the murder or the murderer,” Billy protested.
“Make no mistake,” I said, raising a finger, “you do know this murderer.” I couldn’t be sure if this was true, but I suspected it was. And the solemn faces around the table told me that they believed it as well. “You all know this person. You’ve seen him, spoken to him, maybe even shaken his hand.”
“You think the killer lives in the Cove,” Oscar said, dark eyes dancing.
“I do.”
“But...but how can we help?” Jesse sounded more confused than usual, and he was far too pale, a bleached ghost in the dim light.
“A murder investigation is like putting a jigsaw puzzle together. First thing you gotta do is gather all the pieces. That’s where you can help. You guys who worked Admiral Street saw Mel Dick almost every day. You saw things no one else did.”
“Nothing important,” Billy groused, but he didn’t sound so certain.
“This early in the game, we don’t know what’s important and what’s not. For instance, had Mel changed his habits lately? What about his state of mind—had he been preoccupied or distracted? Was he angry with anyone?”
“More like angry with everybody,” Billy said, pouring out the last of the beer.
“The old goat was awful forgetful lately,” Oscar said. “He must have told me that story about Mr. Jinks growling at Ms. Busy in Barnes and Noble about fifty times.”
“I heard that one too,” Tyler said.
“I heard plenty more that I’d like to share.” Billy waved his empty glass. “But my mouth is kinda dry.”
I ordered another pitcher along with an order of nachos and after that the dams burst. Everybody had a crazy Mel story. As I listened, I realized that the Mel Dick of recent weeks was very different from the man I had known. His natural suspicion had deepened into paranoia, his overblown confidence transformed into megalomania. And there was a new wrinkle: Mel Dick’s memory—formerly sharp as a tiger’s tooth—had become a rusty sieve. Jesse’s anecdote was typical.
One predawn morning Mel had caught the young man asleep in the guardhouse, although Jesse swore he was just resting his eyes. When Mel passed by an hour later, Jesse again apologized, but Mel had no memory of the incident.
“Then he got mad,” Jesse said, “and told me to get with the program ’cause pretty soon the world would know who Mel Dick is.”
“The prick always thought he was better than anybody else,” Billy said through a mouthful of nachos, “but lately he’s been ridiculous. He’s been...”
Oscar fingered his mustache. “Grandiose?”
“I was gonna say stuck-up.” Billy glowered at his old enemy.
Tyler snapped his fingers. “I got it—Dick was going senile.”
Billy wagged his head. “There’s maybe a ten percent chance at most that Mel Dick was senile.” Shit, Billy was quoting percentages, a sure sign he’d had too much to drink.
“Dick must have been senile,” Tyler repeated.
Billy’s jaw tightened and he locked Tyler in his sights. “Listen to me, dickhead—Mel Dick hit the links two, maybe three times a week. The man was my age, only in his sixties and healthy as a horse, still a young man. You wipe that grin off your face, Andrews, or I’ll do it for you! I’m telling you he was too young for Alzheimer’s.”
Jesse scooped up more nachos. “Aunt Charlotte Potts was touched when she was fifty or so. They called it early...early something.”
“Early onset Alzheimer’s,” I said.
“Mel didn’t have Alzheimer’s!” Billy thumped his chest, an aging silverback. “The trouble with you youngsters is that you assume all us old farts are senile. Well, we’re not! Dementia is not a natural fact of getting old. It comes on gradual. Whatever scrambled Mel Dick’s brain happened overnight. Even in his last days, there were times when he was the old Mel.”
Tyler argued that this wasn’t unusual. “Sometimes Alzheimer patients are clearer in the daytime and more confused at night.”
“I know about sunsetting and this wasn’t it.” Billy’s jaw was clenched so tight I thought it might break.
“You know,” I said, “Mel’s condition sounds more like delirium than dementia.”
“Aren’t they the same thing?” Tyler asked.
“The symptoms are similar—confusion, memory loss, disorientation—but dementia is a progressive disease while delirium appears suddenly and comes and goes.”
“What causes it?” Tyler asked.
“Booze!” Billy guffawed.
“That’s right,” I said. “Also drugs, infection, even something as simple as dehydration can cause mental confusion.” I’d had a scare last March when Pop got a urinary infection and bugged out, but once the infection cleared, Pop was sharp as ever.
“One thing for sure, it wasn’t dehydration with Dick,” Oscar said cryptically.
We all stared at Oscar until Jesse laughed. “Oscar’s right. Mr. Dick was always drinking his sweet tea.”
We agreed—even in cool weather Mel Dick carried a giant thermos of iced tea.
“Okay, so maybe it was delirium,” Tyler admitted. “What does that mean?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “Delirium is certainly a medical emergency, a signal that something is terribly wrong. I’m wondering why the people close to Mel didn’t get him to a doctor.”
Tyler shrugged. “Maybe they didn’t notice anything was wrong.”
“If we noticed, they noticed,” Oscar said through pursed lips.
Tyler frowned and pushed his plate of half-eaten nachos away. “Fair enough, but if Mel Dick didn’t want to go to the doctor’s, no one was gonna make him.”
“So why didn’t Mrs. Dick just call GCSO and Baker Act his butt?” Oscar asked. “At least then a doctor would have examined him.”
“Anita Dick was a timid soul,” I said, though Oscar had a point.
“Maybe so,” Tyler said, “but if she had done the right thing, Mel would have been taken to a mental health facility for observation, and probably still be alive.”
“Maybe she didn’t want him alive,” Billy said with an evil smile.
Oscar nodded at Billy. “For once you’re right, old man.”
“I’m only two years older than you, punk!” A sharp thwack when Billy set his mug down.
Oscar smirked. “If it was my investigation, I’d look at the wife.”
“And what about Gigi,” I said, “or the other people close to Mel? Who’s to say one of them didn’t have a stake in Mel’s death?”
“I don’t blame ’em for letting him die,” Billy muttered, staring into his glass. “Mel Dick never he
lped anybody else. It was all about what other people could do for him. Still and all, I’m with Oscar—look at the wife first.”
“What about you, Billy?” Tyler asked with a sly smile. “You obviously had a grudge against Mel—can you account for your whereabouts on the night of the murder?” I kicked him under the table—why was Tyler provoking Billy?
Billy ran a hand through thinning hair. “Don’t quit your day job, Andrews.”
“It’s wrong to talk about Mr. Dick like this,” Jesse said, his voice pinched. “Can’t we let him rest in peace?”
“No, we can’t, not until his murderer is found.” And maybe not even then, I added silently.
Jesse sighed. “All day everybody’s been talking about Mr. Dick’s murder, but I didn’t see no tears. It’s like nobody loved him.”
Silence around the table. Was it shame?
“I don’t know about now,” I said, “but once Anita loved Mel Dick very much. I mean, when she married, she changed her name. Of her own free will she became Anita Dick. She must have loved him.”
Jesse added, “And Mr. Jinks loved Mr. Dick.”
“Mel Dick did love his damn dog.” Oscar spoke for us all.
Billy cleared his throat. “So what if Mel loved his dog? So what? Hitler loved Blondie. The fucking tri-county area is chockablock full of Mel Dick haters. If it were my investigation, I’d start with the people closest to Dick and work my way outward.”
“Stupid man,” Oscar said softly, his dark face shining. “You shouldn’t look for people who hated Mel Dick, look for those who feared him.”
Oscar had hit on something. People killed for lots of reasons—money, lust, revenge. But fear was always a part of the equation, maybe the main part. So who feared Mel Dick? Based on my chat with José Barracas, I’d bet the owner of the G and G was one, but surely there were others.
“Addie?” Tyler’s voice came from a thousand miles away. “You game for another pitcher?”
I glanced at my watch. It was past midnight and Pop had been alone all day, but I wasn’t tired. I wanted to play the game a bit longer. Then I heard Grammy Ludwika’s chiding voice, cracked with age, “Oh, Malutka, so many wishes for such a little girl. If wishes were fishes, there’d be no room for water.” This time my conscience won out.
It didn’t always.
After extracting a promise from Tyler to get Billy home safely, I said goodnight. To my surprise Oscar drained the beer he’d been nursing and fell in at my side. Outside cold rain pounded the desolate parking lot that sprouted potholes, thorny weeds and rust-bucket cars.
“See you tomorrow,” I said, eager to get inside the Vic and crank the heat.
“I saw Mel Dick last night.”
I wanted to tell him off for holding back, but that was Oscar. “We’ll talk in my car.”
“Good idea, it’s cold as a witch’s tit out here.”
I switched the car heater to the max. A few years in the Florida sun and my blood had turned to rainwater.
Oscar stared out at the pattering rain. “Gonna be cold in Mystic Cove over the next few days—radio said it was Arctic air moving in.” He turned to face me. “I liked what you said about us guards protecting people, but you were wrong.”
“You said you saw Mel last night.” I said, more sharply than I’d intended, but I didn’t have time for Oscar’s game, whatever it was.
Oscar’s smiled, white teeth gleaming from his dark face. Strange, Oscar wasn’t a man to take pleasure from many things, but he obviously enjoyed this. “As you know, I worked swing shift on Admiral Street last night. It happened around seven. Tyler was late in giving me my break so I was outside the guardhouse, watching for him.”
I got the picture. When unhappy, Oscar prowled like a caged tiger.
“I heard the golf cart before I saw it, coming from Birnam Wood. Then it shot into Admiral Street like it was a damn comet—went by like that.” Oscar pushed one arm in the air. “I acted fast. I stood in the middle of the street, waving my arms and yelling ‘Stop!’ but the cart kept coming. At the last second I realized it wasn’t going to stop. I jumped into the swale, but not before I got a good look at the driver—it was Mel Dick, looking like the devil was on his ass.”
“Did you tell the police?”
“Yeah, I talked to some guy. Berry. I also reported the incident to Andrews right after it happened, but I guess he didn’t tell you about it. Am I right?”
Oscar took my silence for assent.
“It’s a shame, ain’t it, Chief? Nobody cares anymore. Adding insult to injury, right after I almost get run over by that maniac, I stuck my head out of the ditch just as a goddamned white Prius was sneaking by. The driver had to have seen me fall on my ass in the ditch, but he just drove on by. Didn’t even check if I’m all right. It’s a shame—nobody cares anymore.”
“And do you care, Oscar? Do you?” I guess the imp of the perverse was on my shoulder that night.
He smiled broadly. “Of course I don’t care, Chief. Why should I? Nobody else does.”
That night Oscar’s story nagged at me, vague disquiet nibbling like a minnow. I was missing something, but the source of my unease refused to be caught. Like when you tried to recall the name of a familiar song, the harder you tried, the more elusive the name became.
So I let it pass, trusting that the connection would reveal itself in its own good time.
Chapter Seven
Red Claw, Red Fang
My sleep was fractured by wild dreams I could not remember but disturbed me nonetheless. Yet when I woke in the predawn darkness, the question that had troubled me last night had risen to the surface. After getting off a couple of emails, I checked on Pop, who’d been asleep when I’d gotten home last night. I cracked his bedroom door and heard a soft moan.
Does the pain follow you everywhere, Papa?
As I dressed for work, I kept thinking how fucked everything was. After moving to Florida, I’d sworn off the family business—not only was Pop a former cop but all four of my older sisters were in law enforcement—but the only job I could land was rent-a-cop at Mystic Cove, which turned out to be the worst of both worlds. I looked like a cop in my tan shirt and khakis and I could still put on a cop face, but I had no power, no responsibility. A scarecrow that couldn’t scare a sparrow.
I heard noises. Pop was up and I had a full plate ahead of me.
“You should have woken me when you got home last night, Adelajda,” Pop growled. Stanislaw Michal Gorsky could be tough as nails or soft as silk. This morning he sounded rusty as an old saw.
“I got in late.”
“I wanted to speak with you.” Pop gave me the hairy eyeball. Then he smiled and said, “You’re bright-eyed this morning.”
“I don’t know about that. Coffee or tea this morning?”
Pop arranged his bones in the worn recliner. “Maybe a little coffee.”
A good sign, I told myself. Didn’t Pop ask for coffee on his better days? I filled the chipped mug emblazoned with the Maryland state flag with equal parts coffee and cream and brought it to him, along with a plate of scrambled eggs and whole wheat toast.
“What’s all this?” Pop asked.
“You need to eat.” I set the coffee and food on the standing tray by the recliner and rolled it into place. Then I grabbed my plate from the kitchen counter and took my usual seat on the sofa.
“This looks good,” my father said, eyeing the plate. “What time did you get in last night?” Most people didn’t hear my father’s accent, but I did. Unlike Mom, whose forebears left Krakow a century earlier, Pop’s parents immigrated when he was five.
“Sometime past midnight.” I mounded scrambled egg on a piece of toast, folded it in half, devoured it in two bites.
“A long day, like the old days.” Pop was alway
s bringing up the old days, carrying the past as if it were a backpack. Between bites I brought Pop up to speed, only smoothing over my ill-conceived conversation with Anita and Spooner’s subsequent anger.
“This sheriff wants your help,” Pop said.
“Yes, he does. It’s an unusual arrangement, but I’m going to play along, at least for now. And I have to say that Spooner was appreciative.”
Pop grunted. “Watch the faces of those who bow low, daughter. And how does your boss feel about this arrangement?” Leave it to Stan Gorsky to cut to the bone.
“Mr. Richt doesn’t know about it, but if he did I’m certain he would not approve.”
“You and rules, like oil and vinegar.”
I’d heard this before, more times than I could count. When I signed up for the police academy Pop hadn’t approved. He had not voiced direct opposition—he wasn’t that kind of father—but his doubts were written on his face. Not without cause he questioned my ability to follow the rules and procedures that went with the uniform. Parents never saw their children as complete adults, but as adult versions of the children they had been. Maybe there was truth in this vision, but there was blindness as well.
“Am I making a mistake?”
Pop sipped his coffee, lifting the mug with both hands. “Why risk your job? Why help Spooner?”
“And why do you always answer a question with a question?”
“Because that’s where the answers are. But I’d like an answer.”
I wasn’t sure I had one. This wasn’t about facts or logic, but something else altogether. At last I said, “Sometimes I dream about bubble boy—you know who I mean?”
Pop nodded slowly. “The boy with the immune disorder who lived in a germ-free bubble for all his years. The bubble gave him life.”
“No, it gave him existence, not life. I guess I’m doing this because I don’t want to dream about bubble boy anymore. Those eggs okay?”
Pop glanced at the untouched food, as if in surprise. He scooped a smidge of egg onto his fork and nibbled. “Delicious, but I’ve had enough for now.”
I swallowed my anger and cleared the dishes—sometimes Pop didn’t even try. When I returned to the living room, my father’s eyes had closed. His breaths were so shallow his chest barely moved. Slowly, inexorably, my father was drifting away from me and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
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