He wagged a finger. “Amateur hour, friend. That’s the first place they look. Besides, a lot of gas tanks are plastic these days.”
“Like everything else in cars.”
He smiled. I’d won him over. Proud now, Ollie talked about his tricks. He stuffed thin ropes of plastic-wrapped heroin in a car’s stiffening rails, covered by a panel that was sprayed and undercoated to match the body. He hollowed out truck batteries, stuck tiny motorcycle batteries in the shell, and packed the rest of the cavity with drugs. In some cars, he found he could stash a kilo in each windshield pillar. “It’s all in the details, in how you cover your work to make it look factory,” Ollie said. “In that sense, it’s not so different from a true restoration.”
I signaled “speed it up” with my finger. “Tie it all in to Phigg.”
As the drug-packing business pushed aside the legit restorations, Ollie grew nervous. So did the Montreal dealer. After all, Motorenwerk was supposed to be a snooty, Germans-only shop. How long before somebody noticed most of the cars in the garage were now two-year-old Camrys, Accords, Caravans? Ollie needed a beard or two—genuine resto projects that could sit around the shop a long time.
On cue, along came Tander Phigg with his rare Mercedes.
Ollie touched the bandage on his nose, winced. “It was perfect,” he said. “I saw immediately he was a rich sucker, the kind of guy who wants to be your pal so badly he’ll swallow any line of bullshit just to keep the peace. You ran a shop yourself. You must know the type.”
I knew. Nodded.
“That’s when I hired Josh,” Ollie said. “I told him he was going to lead the work on Mr. Phigg’s Mercedes, and I encouraged him to take his sweet time. He was an eager beaver. So eager, in fact, that I began taking in dull little maintenance jobs.”
“You keep Josh busy with the maintenance,” I said, “so he never really gets anything done on Phigg’s car.”
“Indeed.”
“He knows something stinks here.”
“He does,” Ollie said, “he does at that. Smart young man, and curious to boot. I’ll deal with him when I absolutely must, and not before.”
“Back up,” I said. “You were making good money with this Montreal guy?”
“Of course. That’s why the restorations ground to a halt.”
“So why’d you ding Phigg for thirty-five hundred bucks?”
“I didn’t!” he said. “With all due respect to the deceased, your friend was full of shit on that point.” As he said it, Ollie’s eyes cut down and left. He wasn’t telling me the whole truth.
“Strange detail to lie about,” I said.
“Care to see my copy of the original work order? It’s three feet behind you.”
“Sure.” If it was a bluff, I was calling it.
Ollie stepped around me to a two-drawer filing cabinet that he must have stuffed in here when the office filled up. He rifled through the top drawer, pulled a manila folder, flopped it on the bench in front of me, and folded his arms.
I opened it and saw right away that Motorenwerk used the same software I used to. At the bottom of the eighteen-month-old work order was Tander Phigg’s authorization signature. There was no record of any deposit, no credit-card receipt, no staple where such a receipt had once been.
If Ollie was faking me out, he was doing a hell of a job.
I shut the folder. Ollie gave me a “Well?” look.
“I’ll buy your version,” I said. “But like I said, it’s a strange thing to lie about.”
“Your friend fell hard,” Ollie said. I started to talk, but he waved a hand. “Okay, so he wasn’t your friend. He was a horse’s ass. Whatever he was to you, he fell fast and he fell hard.”
“Tell me.”
“Early on he dropped by every two weeks or so, the way most customers do. You know the routine. You show them the car, you talk about how hard it is to find parts, you drop names, you make them feel like their heap is the most important bloody thing in your life.”
I might have smiled.
“But then”—he squinted—“a year ago? Maybe a little less? He started coming by every week, sometimes twice a week. He got angry when he didn’t see enough progress to suit him. I got the feeling he was under pressure, was perhaps getting squeezed.”
“For what? By who?”
“I’ve told you all there is to tell, Sax,” he said. He tried to look me in the eye, but again his gaze dropped down and left. “I’m afraid you need to either accept that or fight me again.”
We stared at each other awhile.
Finally I used the gun to point at the window I’d climbed through. “You’ll want to fix that,” I said. “It’s how I got in.”
He put a hand out. “Gun, please.”
I shook my head. “Keeping it.” I stuck it down the back of my pants. “Not because I think you’ll back-shoot me, but because I might need it.”
“As you wish,” he said, making a fancy little bow. “Spoils of war.”
I turned to leave.
“Sax,” he said.
I stopped.
“Come here again that way, I’ll kill you.”
“I won’t.”
“I will.”
“I know. So I won’t.”
I walked out the front door wondering what Ollie was holding back.
* * *
In the F-150, I checked messages. Had a text from Randall: Call asap. Checked my watch. Almost midnight. I dialed.
Randall picked up on one. “Little piece of intel for you,” he said. Smug as hell, pleased with himself.
I took a guess. “You were right about that e-mail address? It belongs to Phigg’s kid?”
“I was indeed right. But it’s better than that.”
“You contact him?”
“I’m looking at him,” Randall said. “He’s in your kitchen, eating tomato soup and a grilled-cheese sandwich.”
* * *
Seventy minutes later, just after one in the morning, the soup was gone but Phigg’s kid was still there. He was talking with Randall at my kitchen table when I came in. He rose, stuck out a thin arm. “I’m Trey Phigg.” He almost whispered it.
While we shook I tried to superimpose his face on Phigg’s. It wasn’t easy. The son was whip-skinny, where Phigg was puffy; the kid was outdoors-brown, where Phigg was doughy. It took me a few seconds to see the biggest difference: During conversation, Phigg had always looked at your forehead or the bridge of your nose; the son looked you square in the eye.
The eye color was right, the height was right, the thick head of hair. The son’s was the color of wet sand.
I started to introduce myself. Randall made a keep-it-down gesture and jerked a thumb toward the bedrooms. “Trey’s wife and son are asleep.”
I nodded and sat.
Trey Phigg said, “Randall tells me you were helping my father with something. And that you found his body.”
“So you know,” I said. “I’m sorry. New Hampshire state cops call you?”
“I called them. It would have taken them a while to find me.”
“Why?”
“We’ve been overseas,” Trey said. “We got back to the States late last night.”
“Where from?”
“Vietnam. My wife’s family lives there.”
“How long were you there?”
“Four years.”
“You must really like your in-laws,” Randall said.
“No,” Trey said. “I really hated my father.” He stretched, yawned, looked at the wall clock. “It’s nice of you to put us up, Mister Sax. We’ll be out of your hair soon. I’ve got an appointment with a New Hampshire detective.” He rose, yawned again. “My body clock is in a tizzy. Good night.”
CHAPTER SIX
Randall and I looked at each other as Trey’s footsteps faded. “Helluva strange homecoming,” Randall said.
“You’re telling me.”
“Walk me to my car.”
Outside it was cool, all m
ugginess washed away by the storm.
“So he hates his father’s guts,” I said. “He’s gone four years. Comes back, boom: All of a sudden his father’s dead.”
“I figured you’d be thinking that way.”
“Aren’t you?”
“If Trey came back to the States, made a beeline for New Hampshire and hanged his dad, he sure picked weird accomplices,” Randall said. “The wife knows maybe ten words of English, and the kid’s three years old. Cute as a button.”
“Still,” I said. “What I’m thinking, you find out what flight he came in on and work up a timeline. That’s an easy way to rule him in or out.”
“And if we rule him in?”
I shrugged. “We keep looking at him. I’ll hitch a ride with him tomorrow, pump him on the drive.”
“What are you, Sherlock Holmes?”
“No,” I said. “I’m just a guy with a dead Barnburner on my hands.”
Randall looked at me awhile. “And why exactly is he on your hands?”
“You know why,” I said as we eye-locked. “He was a Barnburner.”
* * *
I woke up early the next morning to a fishy smell. Showered, dressed, headed downstairs.
Trey was in the same kitchen chair as last night. Next to him sat a cute little boy. The boy took one look at me, slipped from his chair, and hid behind his mother’s legs. She turned, smiled, half bowed—and just about stepped on one of my cats. They were both eyeball-stalking her, the lady with the fish.
“This is my wife, Kieu,” Trey said, rising. “My son, Tuan.” Then he spoke rapid-fire Vietnamese, I guessed, and wound up saying my name. His wife half bowed again, plucked the skillet from the burner, extended it with a question in her eyes.
I looked at the skillet, which was full of a noodles-and-shrimp thing. I said sure. I was just being polite, but when she plated me up and I took a bite, I liked it. A lot.
While I ate I watched Trey watch his family. He was proud of them, and he didn’t try to make the boy act like a grown-up. In a few minutes he glanced at my plate, saw it was empty, spoke to Kieu. She smiled and plated me up some more.
While I dug in Trey said, “I showed her the miraculous place where you can get all the exotic food you want, twenty-four hours a day.”
“Where’s that?”
“Stop and Shop.”
We laughed. I asked where the New Hampshire Staties wanted him to go. He said the office was in Concord, the state capital. We decided I’d drive him.
While Trey got ready I texted Randall, who was on his way over to put new sash weights in a bunch of windows. He said he’d be happy to keep an eye on Kieu and the kid.
By seven thirty Trey and I were northbound in his rented Dodge Stratus. He’d insisted we take that car, probably didn’t want me paying for gas. He asked me to drive. “You know how you see Asian drivers poke along in the fast lane, and everybody gets furious at them?” he said.
“Yeah.”
“I hate to admit it, but that’s how I drive now.” He swept an arm at the Massachusetts Turnpike on a perfect day. “These roads terrify me. I need to get my sea legs back.”
“Four years,” I said. “Long time.”
He said nothing.
“All to get away from your dad?”
“All? No. It’s complicated.”
I waited.
“We fought constantly,” Trey said after a while. “Typical father-son stuff, but … I blew it out of proportion. I was a drama queen, if you want to know the truth.”
“Teenagers and perspective.”
“Yes. Any comment he made about my hair, clothes, grades was World War Three.”
“Were you scared you’d make like your dad?” I said. “Take the easy road to the corner office?”
He looked at me. “Of course.”
“To be different, you made a rebel stand. Took off for parts unknown.”
“Just as my father had,” Trey said. “Thus repeating the pattern in spite of my best efforts. The irony is not lost, I can assure you.”
We were quiet for a few miles. When I hit I-495 North I said, “Well, you sure did one thing right.”
He looked at me.
“You didn’t name your son Tander Phigg the Fourth.”
Trey laughed a long time. “You’re fucking-A right I didn’t,” he said. “Pardon my French.”
I said, “Yesterday somebody asked me what I thought of your father. First thing came to mind was horse’s ass.”
“Okay.”
“But he did some good things,” I said. “He got sober. He stayed sober a long time. Helped plenty others sober up, too.”
“Huh.”
“How much did Randall tell you about things?”
“My father hanged himself in Rourke, Hew Hampshire.”
Randall had played it smart—had sketched things out for Trey, leaving me room to spin the details when the time was right and do some digging while I was at it.
I said, “You surprised your father killed himself?”
He took his time. Finally he said, “Yes.”
“Why?”
“Ego,” Trey said. “No. Almost ego, but not quite. Self-importance. He thought the sun would forget to rise if he wasn’t around to remind it.”
“That’s about the way I see it.”
“What are you saying?”
I shrugged, drove. Moved right to take I-93 North.
Keeping a peripheral-vision eye on Trey to gauge his reaction, I said, “Your father died flat broke. He was collecting cans and eating crackers in an abandoned shack.”
“What? There is absolutely no way that can be true.”
“It’s true,” I said. “I guess the cops and lawyers’ll tell you more.”
“How? Is there any chance he had a drug or booze habit? Prescription meds, maybe?”
“No.”
“Gambling?”
“Not that I know of. It would’ve been hard for him to hide that, the circles he ran in.”
“What, then?”
I shrugged and made a snap decision not to talk about Motorenwerk. Yet. “All of us Barnburners thought he was loaded,” I said. I saw the question on his face. “It’s an AA group. The Barnburners. Tight bunch. Your father must’ve mentioned it when you were a kid.”
“I suppose so,” he said. “I didn’t listen to him much.”
I nodded. “From what your father said, your grandfather ran a big paper mill and left your father a bundle. We thought he was set for life.”
“Me too.” Half laugh. “Truth be told, I thought I was set for life.”
“You’re taking it pretty well.”
Shrug.
I needed to get him going. “Phigg Paper, was it?”
Trey straightened in his seat and put on a radio-announcer voice. “In 1928 Tander Phigg, Senior, a twenty-one-year-old immigrant from Liverpool, stood on the banks of the Nashua River. Phigg had the clothes on his back, four dollars, and a note from his father asking any fellow Liverpudlian to take on the youth as an apprentice. But he also had a dream: to dominate the market for paper receipts used in the fast-growing cash-register market.”
“I guess you heard that story a few times around the dinner table, huh?”
“Worse,” Trey said. “That was the intro to an industrial film my dad made about the company. He used to bring in a projectionist after Sunday dinner. We’d watch it in his study.”
Trey was quiet as we crossed into New Hampshire. He was a smart kid. I could feel him organizing his thoughts, making sure he told it clean and clear, maybe crossing out details he didn’t want me to know.
Trey’s grandfather, Tander Phigg, Sr., launched Phigg Paper Products, Inc., in 1928, just in time for the Depression. Married a Catholic girl in 1932 despite her mother’s promise to kill herself out of shame.
“Yikes,” I said. “Different world back then, huh?”
Trey waved a hand. “Basic histrionics. She didn’t kill herself, in case you’re l
ooking for a family suicide history.”
Like I said—smart kid.
In 1934, the Catholic girl died while delivering her first child, Tander Phigg, Jr. Unlike virtually all men of the day, Phigg Senior never remarried. This led to rumors about the old man and the German housekeeper/nanny who raised Phigg Junior. The rumors were true, Trey had decided long ago.
Phigg Paper Products hung on through the Depression, then struck government-contract gold during World War II, then took off in the postwar boom. Tander Phigg, Sr., became an old-fashioned industrial baron. He was the biggest employer in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, for more than a generation. He kept his name out of the papers and gave wads of money to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, even though he’d never set foot on campus and never would.
Trey went quiet again, staring up I-93 as it narrowed to two lanes. We had maybe twenty minutes to Concord, and I wanted more info. I thought of another guy I knew a while back, the son of a physicist. The son made 80 million bucks as a venture capitalist—and felt like a failure. “Your father was the son of a great man,” I said. “That’s not always an easy thing.”
Trey nodded slowly and looked at me, maybe reevaluating me, before he went on.
Tander Phigg, Jr., was an only child, raised by the nanny he loved like a mother (and whom, most likely, his father loved like a wife). He went to a bunch of brand-name boarding schools but left them all suddenly and quietly. Nobody ever explained why, so he must’ve been thrown out, Gentleman Jim style. He finally scraped together a high school diploma and started at UMass Amherst in 1952.
Trey’s tone made me glance over. I said, “What’s wrong with that?”
“The sons of the rich did not go to UMass back then,” he said. “Harvard, Dartmouth, maybe Bates or Williams in a pinch.”
“Big deal.”
“It was then, and my father, and his father, knew it. Trust me.”
Phigg Junior graduated on schedule in 1956. As far as Trey knew, his father didn’t do a single memorable thing in the four years. Diploma in hand, he tried the MBA program at UMass’s Isenberg School. Dropped out after two semesters.
Long pause now. We were hitting the southern edge of Concord, didn’t have a lot of time left. I said, “And?”
Purgatory Chasm: A Mystery Page 6
