by Lee Harris
“Oh, you. I told Carlotta I didn’t want to talk to you. Didn’t you get the message?”
“I did and I’m sorry to intrude, but I thought if you had a few minutes—I don’t want to upset you, but I think you know a lot that can be helpful.”
She gave me an appraising look, her face tight and her eyes cool. “You’re not what I expected.”
I didn’t know how to respond, so I said nothing.
“Come on in.” She opened the door all the way, and I walked into her foyer. “Give me your coat. We can sit in the living room. I’ve just been picking up after the kids.” She hung my coat in a closet next to the door, and we went into the living room and sat.
“I appreciate this,” I said.
“I expected some tough detective-type.”
“I teach a course in poetry at a college near my home.”
“Poetry,” she said, as though it were something she hadn’t heard about for a long time. “My dad used to read poetry.”
“Bambi, I’m very sorry about your husband.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “They were crazy to go out on the lake that night. They should have known better—Clark should have known better. He could never say no when Matty dared him, but he didn’t kill Matty. He loved him. I don’t care what Annie and Carlotta say. Clark didn’t have it in him to kill anything.”
“When did you last see Clark?”
“Sometime that afternoon. It was Val’s birthday and the guys were going out to celebrate. They went to this Italian restaurant they liked.”
“What did he say before he left?”
“Not to wait up for him.”
“Was that unusual?”
She shook her head. “Not when the three of them went out together. Sometimes they’d take in a late movie, sometimes they’d go to a bar and sit for a couple of hours. I didn’t think anything of it. He said good-bye to the kids and kissed me—” She swallowed painfully.
“Did he come back to the house for anything later?”
“No. He walked out and I never saw him again.”
“Were you home that night?”
“The whole night.”
“Do you remember if he was wearing boots when he left the house?”
“Work boots, I think. He wore them a lot in the winter.”
“Did Clark own a gun?” I asked.
“Never.” She looked very defensive. “Never in his life.”
“Did he sell guns in the store?”
“No. He sold hardware things, tools and nails and building and household supplies.”
“How did he get into the business?” I asked. “Did he start the store himself or was it his parents’?”
“His parents are dead. He started working for the original owner when he was young. When the old guy wanted to retire, Clark bought him out. It’s a real institution, that store. We’ve got everything.”
“But no guns.”
“No guns. I don’t think Clark ever shot a gun in his life. Matty did. He was a big hunter. He probably had a handgun even if Annie says he didn’t. Annie says what’s convenient.”
“What about Val? Do you think he could have owned a gun?”
“Anyone could own a gun. Since the accident, I’ve been thinking about getting one myself, but I’m scared because of the kids. They’re into everything. A gun’s no good if it’s locked away when you need it.”
“Did you get along with Carlotta and Annie?”
“I got along. We all got along.”
“Do you like them as friends?”
“I have other friends. These were my husband’s friends’ wives. I liked them. Annie’s been very nice to me since the accident, I mean really nice. Carlotta’s been a little cool. She went away somewhere right after it happened and when she came back, I don’t know. It’s been tough on all of us. She’s called a lot.”
“I heard you had a funeral for Clark right after the accident.”
“I knew they were gone,” she said. “They found Matty’s red scarf at the break in the ice. I knew if he was gone, then Clark was gone.”
“Carlotta thinks Val is still alive,” I said.
“Don’t you believe it. He’s gone, too. They went on that ice together and they died together. He’ll float up. He’ll probably have a bullet hole in him, too. Watch and see.”
“Who do you think shot him?”
“Matty. I think Matty shot Val first. Then Clark got the gun away from him and shot him accidentally. That’s how this all happened.”
“Why would Matty shoot Val?” I asked.
“Jealousy,” she said. “Matty never succeeded at anything in his whole life. His life was one failure after another. The only thing he did right was marrying Annie. She was a catch. She’s good-looking, and she’s got some money. It helps, when you have a husband that doesn’t always bring home a paycheck.”
“How did Matty and Annie meet?” I thought it would be a good idea to get everyone’s point of view.
“I think Val knew her first. He may even have introduced them. It was before Val met Carlotta.”
“Was Annie from around here?”
“Uh, from near New York, I think. New Jersey, maybe.”
“Do you think there was anything going on between Val and Annie?”
Her eyebrows rose. “Val and Annie? I never thought of that.”
“Think about it now.”
She looked at me. Her face was so serious through the whole conversation that she could have been working through a final exam. “I don’t think so,” she said. “Val and Carlotta, they’re a good couple. They’re good together. And I think Matty and Annie were, too. Annie likes to flirt a little, but I don’t think she means anything by it. She’s got a real good heart.”
It was hard to tell whether Bambi was being honest or saying nice things because she thought it was the right thing to do. She struck me as a genuinely good person—but I’ve been wrong before.
“Does Clark have brothers and sisters?”
“No, there’s just him. Maybe that’s why he always felt the guys were like his brothers. A person needs a family. I’ve got a big one, and it’s helped a lot, especially since the accident.”
“Bambi, when did the three men become friends?”
“It must have been at Bennett High School. That’s in Buffalo. It couldn’t have been later. Val went off to one college and Matty went to another. Clark went to UB for a semester and then dropped out. So if they hadn’t known each other in high school, they would never have met. They were all in different places after that.”
“So they all went to Bennett?”
“I think so. Clark did. He told me.”
“Was he living with his parents then?”
“He must have been. I’m not sure when they died, but I don’t think it was that long ago. I mean, he was finished with school by that time.”
“Bambi, I’m staying with Carlotta. You can call me there if you want to tell me anything. If you don’t want her to know you’ve called, I’ll give you my phone number at home. Leave a message on my answering machine or tell my husband, Jack, you want to talk to me.”
“OK.”
I wrote the number and my name on a slip of paper and gave it to her. “If Val wanted to disappear, do you have any idea where he would go?”
“Val’s dead, Chris. You don’t walk away from an accident on the ice. Don’t you know what that red scarf meant? Clark was pulling Matty up with it after Matty was shot. The double weight must have broken the ice under Clark, and he dropped in the water, too. Matty must have let go of the scarf. That’s how come they found it. It was very light, cashmere or something. But they all went down. You’re not going to find Val alive. It’s all over.”
I thanked her for her time and her help and drove back to Carlotta’s house, mulling over her theory of the scarf.
* * *
Carlotta was sitting in a leather chair in Val’s study, three desk drawers stacked beside her. She looked u
p as I entered the room. “Success?” she said.
“Yes. She talked to me. She thinks Matty was the man with the gun.”
“If I had to guess, I’d say the same thing. So she thinks Clark took the gun away from him?”
“In a fight that started between Matty and Val.”
“Over what?”
“Jealousy. Val had everything, Matty couldn’t make it in the world of business.”
“She’s got it right there, but Matty never seemed jealous of anyone. Quite the reverse.”
“It’s just a theory. Have you found anything in the desk?”
“Nothing to explain that insurance policy. But I’ve learned something very interesting. I called the company and tried to find out whether the policy was still active. The agent gave me a little lesson in insurance. If Matty died before Val, no one inherits the million. And if both of them died in the accident, before Annie could inherit there would have to be proof that Val died first.”
“That is interesting. So if Val is alive, Annie doesn’t inherit. And even if Val’s body is found, it’s a tough case to prove.”
“Exactly.” I noted a little triumph in her voice.
“Is there a date on the policy, Carlotta?” I sat in the other leather chair.
“Yes. He took it out about a year before I met him.”
“Maybe Matty was in financial trouble and Val wanted to see to it that he was taken care of.”
“Maybe,” she said, but it was clear she wasn’t convinced.
“Carlotta, what we’ve learned in the last few hours is that there was something unusual about the relationship those three men had. Each of the wives has told me that her husband loved the other two, but Bambi thought Matty was jealous of Val, and Annie thought there was bad blood between Val and Matty because of her.”
“That’s absurd.”
“It doesn’t matter whether it’s absurd. It doesn’t even matter whether it’s true. They have these perceptions. You seem to be the only one of the three who doesn’t feel there was trouble between any two of them.”
“There wasn’t. They were friends, they loved each other, they went out together and we went out as couples. Annie and Bambi are looking for something where nothing exists. I understand why. They’ve lost their husbands—and maybe I have, too, but I think when they were having dinner that night at Giordano’s, they were three happy guys.”
“One of whom had a gun.”
She didn’t answer. She looked down at the drawer next to her and pulled out a couple of pieces of paper. “I certainly haven’t found a license to carry a gun here.”
“Bambi was home the whole night on February fourteenth. She says Clark never came back after he left for dinner. He was wearing work boots when he went out.”
“He always did in the winter,” Carlotta said. “He would have to go outside with a customer to pick something up or put it in the car.” Her voice was low. Only her husband had no one to vouch for him.
* * *
I sat in the living room and looked at the local paper. There’s nothing stranger than reading the problems of a community about which you know nothing. The names make no sense, the problems, while often similar to hometown problems, have their own peculiar spins. Carlotta had said the New York Times would not be available till about noon; they were flown in from New York and then had to be driven from the airport. You forget sometimes how much you get used to living in the New York metropolitan area.
I had walked out of the study to leave her alone. She had invited me here to try to find her husband, and everything I had learned made it seem that he was the man with the gun. I put the paper down and thought about who else I needed to find and talk to. Jake, Val’s business partner, was at the top of the list, and every time I had mentioned him, Carlotta had rather deftly turned the conversation away from him. It might not hurt to talk to the detective in charge of the case, too. He would know whether any taxi drivers remembered driving Val away from the beach that night, and maybe he would have tried to find the bus drivers, too, although that was surely a slim possibility. So there was Jake and there was the detective. And after that, there was the inevitable question: Then, what? It’s the question I hate most.
I put my forehead in my hand, closed my eyes, and tried to see where all this was leading. Val had no family to turn to, so where would he go? But he did have a family, parents who lived somewhere in Germany. Could he have left the country?
“Sorry I fell apart, Chris.” Carlotta’s voice came from behind.
“Carlotta, did Val have a passport?” I stood, suddenly filled with renewed energy.
“Yes, we both did.”
“Where did he keep it? It wasn’t in the safe deposit box.”
“You’re right. Let me think. He kept both our passports. We went to England and France last year, so they’re new. They must be in his chest of drawers. You didn’t find them in the desk, did you?”
“No. I would have looked at his.”
“You think he left the country?”
“I don’t know what to think. But he has parents over there. Even if they weren’t on good terms, when you’re in trouble, you go home.”
“Come upstairs with me. I’ll look in the chest.”
I followed her up to her bedroom, a large room with an adjoining sitting room and bath, the kind of luxury that takes my breath away. She went directly to a large chest of drawers and opened the top drawer.
“He keeps certain personal papers here,” she said. “I’ve never looked before, but I remember he took the passports out of this drawer before we went away. Let’s see, I think they’re dark blue.”
I stood away from her, not wanting to interfere. If nothing turned up pretty soon, I would have to ask her permission to go through the contents myself.
“Here they are, two passports, his and hers.” She handed them to me.
I opened Val’s and looked at the first few pages, at the picture, then at the stamps from English and French immigration, and finally from the U.S. at the end of their trip. “I guess he didn’t leave the country,” I said, some-what disappointed. Not that I could have located his parents even if I could prove he had flown to Germany.
“And everything here is pretty neat,” she said. “It doesn’t look disrupted, as if he were looking for something in a hurry.”
“Were there ever any calls to Germany on your phone bill?”
“Never. I would remember that.”
“Any other foreign country?”
“We don’t have friends there. I don’t even know how to dial Europe.”
“Then that pretty much leaves that out. There are two people I want to see, Carlotta, Jake and the detective in charge of the case. Do you think you can get me to see one of them this afternoon?”
“I’ll call the sheriff’s office and see if Detective Murdock is there. He might come down to our local police station, and we can go over after lunch.”
“And Jake?”
“I’ll call him later.” She looked at her watch. “It’s time for lunch. We have a nice little coffee shop in the center of town, and I haven’t been there since they renovated. Want to give it a try?”
I said I did, but I really wanted to know why she wouldn’t call her husband’s partner and set up a meeting.
8
The coffee shop had been transformed into a tearoom in the time since Carlotta had last visited, and it was very pretty, with flowered wallpaper, little round tables with fussy cloths, and a scalloped menu offering appealing things to eat. Before leaving the house Carlotta had set up an appointment with Detective Murdock, and when we finished our dainty lunch we walked down the street to the police station. It was the kind of homey place that Oakwood’s police station is, where people are greeted in a friendly way and treated like neighbors. I remembered with some amusement the first time I went to the Brooklyn station house where I met Jack and talked to a desk sergeant, a woman who begrudged me the thirty seconds it took to tell me she
couldn’t help me because the case was too old. I had the feeling this was a place where, even if the message were the same, the delivery would be a lot more pleasant.
Detective Murdock came down a hall and shook hands with Carlotta. He was tall and had a deep voice, a thick mustache, and a trimmer body than a lot of Jack’s fellow cops.
“Detective, this is Chris Bennett, a friend from near New York City. She’s trying to help me find Val.”
“Good to meet you,” he said, extending a large hand, which I shook. “You want to know what I know?”
“If you’ll tell me.”
“Sure. Want to come this way?”
“I’ll see you later,” Carlotta said, and I walked along beside Murdock, entering a small office with a desk and two chairs.
“Take your coat off and make yourself comfortable. I know what you’re here for. Mrs. Krassky told me about it. She thinks her husband’s still alive, doesn’t she?”
“She hopes he is.”
“Well, we all hope he is, we just don’t think it’s possible.”
“May I sketch out a couple of ways I think he might be alive?”
“It’s all yours. I’d love to hear them.”
“One is that he never went to the lake with his friends on the night of Valentine’s Day.”
“You mean he went home after they all had dinner together?”
“Yes. That’s what Carlotta thinks happened. She thinks her husband wouldn’t have gone to the lake with the others because he wasn’t the kind of person who would walk across the frozen lake.”
“Are you aware his watch was found in Mr. Franklin’s vehicle?”
I was and it troubled me. “Maybe he changed his mind after he took the watch off.”
The detective smiled. “A little far out, but stranger things have happened. If he didn’t go, I’ll grant you he may be alive. The question is, where is he. And another important question is why he’s in hiding.”
“I don’t know where, Detective. But I think the why is fairly obvious. He goes home, he goes to sleep, he gets up in the morning expecting to go to work, and he hears the news of his friends’ disappearance.”
