Striking Back

by Mark Nykanen

  As they headed back to the Benz, Mommsa and Pants moseyed up the street hip to hip, nuzzling.

  The sheriff’s office was only two blocks away, but true to California form, they drove, arriving right at two. And there they were, a Welcome Wagon from hell: Blanche and her missile-headed cameraman.

  “No comment,” Delagopolis muttered. They all followed suit, except for Pants, who perhaps from force of habit lifted his shirt up over his face to hide from the camera.

  Great, we look like the Corleones going to court.

  Gwyn leaned into her mother’s ear, “Did you really say he has a great sense of p-r?”

  “No comment.”

  Sheriff Rory Hastings came out to the lobby to greet them personally, though this was far from a telling indicator of how things would go. Gwyn wouldn’t have recognized him if he hadn’t introduced himself. His hair had grayed and thinned, and he’d grown a thick salt and pepper mustache.

  The sheriff took one look at Pants, determined who he was, and asked him to wait in the lobby. Just as well. Pants would have set off all kinds of bells and alarms if he’d tried to pass the elaborate security checkpoint established after 9/11, Big Bear having landed high on the terrorist hit list, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Gwyn guessed the jihadists really hated snowboarders. God knows, she did.

  Hastings led Mommsa, her, and Delagopolis back to his office and introduced them to his grimacing assistant, Jane Turner, who looked like she’d been born in the middle of a grudge match—and then handed over to the losing side.

  “So,” Hasting said to Mommsa, elbows on his desk, fingers steepled momentarily, “we’re taking a second look at the unfortunate death of your late husband.”

  “I believe,” Delagopolis said, “that it would be more accurate to say that you’re taking your sixth or seventh look at John Appleton’s death.”

  “We dig till there’s nothing left to dig, counselor, and there’s a lot left to sink a shovel into in this case.”

  Enough with the metaphors already.

  “What I mean,” the sheriff said, as if any of them could possibly have missed his point, “is that we’ve still got some unanswered questions.”

  “We’ll see if we can help,” Delagopolis said.

  But why was Hastings even bothering? It made no sense to Gwyn. Did he actually expect to score points with the voters by finding out what really happened twenty-three years ago to the ultimate asshole, John Appleton?

  The sheriff opened a file and asked Mommsa for her chronology.

  This was an easy one for her. She didn’t remember. Never had. Delagopolis pointed this out.

  “Yes, I know,” Hastings responded. “I was the lead investigator, but the passage of time sometimes fills in the gaps.”

  “We call that ‘selective memory,’” Delagopolis countered, “and find that it often proves unreliable.”

  “But this wholesale forgetting, that’s a problem, too.”

  “Sometimes the mind forgets what the soul forgives,” Delagopolis said, probably quoting some Greek thinker.

  Hastings looked lost over that one, which was part of Delagopolis’ strategy: bamboozle ’em. He might just as readily have made up that line on the spot. A lot of times you didn’t know until you ran to Bartlett’s.

  “From my point of view,” Hastings soldiered on, “your client’s claim that she forgot everything that happened that day isn’t a cause for dime store philosophizing. It’s a serious problem, and you’ll see what I mean.”

  Delagopolis didn’t respond, and Hastings looked at Mommsa. “Do you recall a Steve Ventriel?”

  Oh-no. Gwyn found herself shrugging reflexively, but Mommsa looked stunned.

  Delagopolis jumped right in. “What about this Mr. Ventriel?”

  “Does your client remember what he did?”

  “I don’t believe she does. I don’t believe any of us do.”

  “Is that true?” Hastings looked directly at Gwyn.

  She swallowed, stayed still. No head moves, nothing.

  “I don’t think your clients really need a backgrounder,” Hastings said, “but here’s a quick one anyway since they don’t want to admit they remember Mr. Ventriel. He had one of those reptile farms that were so popular back then, kind of a roadside attraction. He made a living with lizards, snakes, crocs, the creepier the better.”

  Oh, that Steve Ventriel. But Gwyn said nothing, just nodded, noticed they were all nodding now. Yes, how interesting, a reptile farm. A petting zoo for those who find warm-blooded creatures too emotionally challenging.

  “He died last year,” Hastings said.

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” Delagopolis managed a straight face.

  “Yes, a natural death. Considering the number of times he was bitten by his snakes, it’s a wonder he made it to eighty-three.”

  “I trust his passing was painless,” Delagopolis said.

  Gwyn was now certain he was doing all he could to suppress a smile.

  “Not exactly. Lung cancer. That’s a bad one. I visited him in the hospital because I got to wondering if he’d want to own up to anything before he died, make a clean breast of things. Some people do, you know,” said as if soul-cleansing might strike his listeners as extremely odd. In this case, Hastings displayed a keen understanding of his audience.

  And, Gwyn wanted to shout, did he?

  But Hastings sat there smiling, steepling his fingers again, keeping his visitors in suspense.

  Wait a second, Gwyn said to herself. Ventriel died last year, and he’s only talking to us now? We’re home free.

  “I think we’re waiting to hear what you have to say, sheriff.” Delagopolis’ most ingenuous voice, the one he typically reserved for the most gullible witnesses.

  “That’s funny,” Hastings said, “because I’m waiting to hear what your clients have to say.”

  “Okay, the waiting game’s over. We surrender. What did he say?” Delagopolis cutting his words with a sharper edge.

  “He said a lot of things, and I got to be honest with you and tell you he was heavily doped-up.”

  “I assumed as much.”

  “And he rambled. As a matter of fact, he had early Alzheimer’s.”

  “You’re not making much of a case for your witness.”

  “Oh, but I am. Give me a little time here.”

  Delagopolis offered a formal nod. “Have at it.”

  “He actually rambled a lot, but certain things he said were very clear and stood out. I’ll boil them down for you. He said the day before Mr. Appleton died, he came by and offered Ventriel a lot of money to ‘borrow’ all of his ‘vipers.’ That’s how he put it, and that’s what he always called them, according to the people who knew him.

  “He said Mr. Appleton had been drinking . . . ”

  No bulletin there.

  “. . . and wanted the poisonous ones. Ventriel also said John Appleton wanted to know if they’d been defanged. Mr. Ventriel said that really made him mad, because he considered defanging a snake to be very cruel. So the important thing to remember here is that all his snakes had fangs and venom.”

  “Feature that,” Delagopolis said, “snakes with fangs and venom.”

  “Poisonous snakes, counselor.”

  Mommsa and Gwyn stared at Hastings. They could have been looking at the risen John Appleton himself for all the horror wrought by the sheriff’s words.

  “Now understand that I’m piecing it all together for you. This comes from hours of sitting by his side.”

  “And it’s all recorded?”

  “Oh, sure, every last word. You can hear him fading in and out of consciousness, slurring his words, but what I’m telling you he said clearly enough.”

  “Enough for whom?”

  “We’ll see about that, but let me go on, because one of the things about this case that’s always bugged me was why that reptile farm happened to be closed on the day Mr. Appleton died, and why it stayed closed for about three weeks. Not
only was it closed, but Mr. Ventriel picked that very day to take an unplanned holiday to Los Angeles, a city he used to say was like hell itself.

  “You may recall,” Hastings added, “that we had a lot of questions for him back then, but he never said much. In a lot of ways he was a very cagey man. It wasn’t until he was dying in that hospital bed that we started getting some answers.”

  “So the heavily sedated Alzheimer’s patient was able to enlighten you?” Delagopolis said.

  “He did and he didn’t. He said he’d rented his snakes to John Appleton for a thousand dollars, more than Ventriel could make in a month of Sundays back then, and got another thousand dollar deposit just in case any of them got away.”

  Hastings stared at Mommsa and then at Gwyn.

  The suspense knotted her stomach, and she tasted the sour salad dressing from lunch rising in her throat. Did the dead guy talk or not?

  Delagopolis made a show of looking at his watch.

  “Are you bored, counselor?”

  Delagopolis shook his head.

  “Because I thought this would be news to at least one of your clients—Mr. Ventriel renting out a dozen of his most poisonous snakes.”

  Hastings looked at Mommsa, who looked at Gwyn, who stared out a window behind Hastings, the bright blue mountain sky coming alive with the darkest memories.

  “If I were to say that I, personally, am astounded, would that make your day?” Delagopolis said.

  Hastings grinned, apparently appreciative of the thrust and parry. Nothing personal for him or Delagopolis in this. It was how they made their living. The personal belonged to the two women listening to the story unfold. “He never got his snakes back.”

  Delagopolis struck a rueful tone. “I hope he was able to grieve for them.”

  “Anyway,” Hastings said, “the murder weapons—”

  “Ah-ah-ah,” Delagopolis said, finger raised. “Assumption, assumption.”

  “No, let’s call it an ‘operating theory.’ The murder weapons crawled away. You may recall that I consulted with a number of herpetologists, and I’ll tell you I came to the conclusion that this was the most perfect crime I’d ever investigated: murder weapons that disappear all by themselves.”

  “Maybe, and please forgive me if I’m suggesting a conclusion so obvious that it’s already occurred to you, the late Mr. Appleton was considering a career change. Snake charmer?”

  “That would have been a real stretch for him, now wouldn’t it? Because everything I’ve ever heard about him, the one thing he wasn’t was a charming man. Wasn’t that so, Mrs. Appleton?” His voice lowered on that last line, and Gwyn sensed the mood changing swiftly. The showboating was over. Hastings was moving in for whatever his words could claim.

  A murder charge? Is that what he wants?

  Mommsa never answered him.

  “See, one of the mysteries of this case was why he suddenly became so interested in snakes, Mrs. Appleton. Up till then, you were the one making carvings of them. Isn’t that right?”

  Mommsa nodded—this was part of the accepted narrative—but she remained silent.

  Hasting reached behind him and lifted up one of her old snake carvings and placed it on the desk right in front of her.

  Mommsa pushed away so fast she almost tipped her chair over backward. The appearance of the rattlesnake was terrifyingly real: caught in mid-strike, its fangs and forked tongue facing her. Mommsa refused to look at it. Delagopolis insisted that Hastings remove the carving right now or he’d escort his client from the office.

  Hastings handed it to his dour-faced assistant, who carried it away. “Did that scare you, Mrs. Appleton?”

  Mommsa nodded.

  Delagopolis leaned across the desk. “You know it did, and if you play one more cheap trick on my clients, I’m not only walking them out of here, I’m going to tie you up in a harassment suit till you retire. I’m a vengeful man, sheriff. Don’t think for a second I won’t.”

  Hastings did his best to ignore the lawyer. “Was he getting you some models for your work, Mrs. Appleton?”

  She shook her head.

  “Here’s something I want you to think about. Mr. Ventriel told me you also came by to see him, to say you were sorry about the snakes. He said you seemed more upset about the snakes ‘disappearing,’ that’s the word he said you used, then about the horrible death of your husband. But he said what really got him to wondering was when you gave him another thousand dollars to cover the cost of the missing snakes. He said he’d told you about the deposit, but you insisted anyway. And that’s why he wanted to talk to me, even though he had to work really hard to say anything with all those pain killers in his system. He just wasn’t comfortable with you giving him that extra money. But you say you don’t remember him. Maybe you want to hear what he said about this? I mean, the man himself?”

  Hastings shot a look at Delagopolis, who didn’t object. Either now or in discovery, he might have been thinking.

  Mommsa again said nothing, and Hastings pushed the play button on a cassette recorder.

  “Somethin’ ’bout that, not right,” they heard a terribly weakened voice say. “She give me a thousand dollar,” even with the cancer and all those drugs he managed to make it sound like a lordly sum, as it might have been for him back then. “And wouldn’t take it back. I try, I try . . . ”

  He coughed, a horrible wracking sound, as bad a cough as Gwyn had ever heard, like pieces of his dying lung might come spitting out of the recorder. When it subsided, an even weaker voice said,

  “I try to understand.” The hiss of tape, mumbled words, then, “. . . like a payoff.”

  Hastings switched it off. “He thought you were trying to buy his silence, Mrs. Appleton, but the thing of it is, he’d already decided to keep everything to himself. I knew that back then, because I’d questioned him and he was cagey, like I said before. I knew he didn’t want to talk. And I didn’t have enough to make him talk. I couldn’t implicate him in John Appleton’s death. I just couldn’t figure out why he was being so quiet. How about you, Mrs. Appleton? You got any idea why he was so quiet?”

  Mommsa’s head moved back and forth again, her body rigid as plaster and looking as likely to crack.

  “Then, as he was lying in that bed, he told me he’d been hearing stories for a long time about what went on out at the Appleton place. And every summer those stories would start up again as soon as you guys arrived. I guess he’d talked to a deputy or two in his time. So all of this came out little by little toward the end, and sort of made sense. He hears your husband was a grade A bastard, and thinks, ‘The hell with him. Good riddance.’ But it wasn’t that simple. It never is, is it?”

  Hastings looked from Mommsa to Gwyn, held his eyes on her as he started up again. “It wasn’t simple because he told me one more thing. He said something about your daughter there, Mrs. Appleton.” He let the disclosure linger till it felt like a gun pressed to each of their heads.

  “Okay, what did he say?” Delagopolis.

  Hastings shook his head. “I wish I could say. I couldn’t make it out. Just, ‘Gwyn, she . . .’ and then he was mumbling so’s even I couldn’t make sense of it, and I’d been listening to him for days at that point. I’ll tell you, it was very frustrating, because this came just a day before he died, and he never talked again. I felt like that last bit about Miss Sanders was a sweet nut in a hard shell, if you don’t mind my using an old country expression, and I never thought I’d get to crack it open.”

  “Is that right?” Delagopolis said.

  “Were you thanking him with that money, Mrs. Appleton?”

  “I don’t believe my client can answer that question.”

  “I believe she is.”

  Delagopolis looked over to see Mommsa’s head moving up and down, wooden as ever.

  “Why would you do that, Mrs. Appleton? Thanking the man who’d provided the poisonous snakes that killed your husband?” Hastings scratched his head, purely for effect, in Gwy
n’s opinion. “I just never could figure that out. Entertainment value?”

  “You’re going too far, Sheriff.”

  “I apologize, Mrs. Appleton. Your lawyer’s right. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  This guy’s sharp, Gwyn thought. Apologizing, moving around to make his point. This is going somewhere by way of Timbuktu, and it’s not a good place. Not at all.

  Hastings put his hands out, palms up, and offered his most earnest voice yet. “Is there anything you wanted to say about thanking him, Mrs. Appleton? I saw you nod your head yes. Why did you do that? Why’d you think it was necessary to thank him?”

  Delagopolis turned to Mommsa and held her shoulder, as if to still her head. It worked. “I’m certain my client doesn’t have anything to say.” Delagopolis kept his hand on Mommsa while he spoke to Hastings. “It sounds like your Mr. Ventriel didn’t tell you much more than an appalling story about taking some money from a widow, who it’s clear to me was so obviously full of grief that she thought she had to pay him the thousand dollars to cover the loss of the snakes. And he took advantage of her greatly compromised condition by accepting the money. A scoundrel. End of story.”

  “A true story, it seems.”

  “Maybe yes, maybe no. In any case, the doped-up speculations of an unscrupulous, cancer-ridden Alzheimer’s patient didn’t warrant our trip up here. This is on a par with your original investigation, the way your men touched everything that could take a print.”

  Hastings nodded, far too readily for Gwyn’s comfort. “I’d have to agree that there were problems then, but there’s even more to this case.”

  There always is.

  “But first I’d like you to take a look at this photograph, Mrs. Appleton. Maybe it’ll help your memory. Maybe it’ll even help you remember why he brought up your daughter there at the end.” Hastings slid an eight by ten color photo of John Appleton’s body taken within hours of his death.