‘He was a ‘roid-er.’ You’d be surprised how many old guys are.” She looks around the room. “It makes them crazy. They think it makes them sexy.” She frowns.
“He took steroids?”
“My guess anyway.”
“Where’d he get them?”
She looks around the room. Shakes her head.
I say, “Ernie ever talk to you about anything personal?”
“I don’t think he had anybody he really talked to. Quiet type, really.”
“So you don’t know anything about him?”
“Well, sometimes he talked, you know. I’m listening but I’m not real-hard listening. I’m washing-glasses listening. I’m watching-TV listening. He liked that half-attention thing. Some men do. They don’t like to be focused in on. It’s like they’re talking to themselves, and you’re just over-hearing it.”
“Did you ever hear about him blackmailing people?” I ask. She scrubs around with her bar rag.
“I know he collected stories about people if that’s what you mean. He liked secrets. He liked finding out about them. What he did with them, I don’t know.”
Another collector, I think. I know a little something about men like that.
“Did he ever tell you anything about these stories he collected?”
“Let me think,” she says. “He never said no names, but he was always telling me how stupid people were. Tell the truth, I think he made a lot of stuff up.
“There was some psychic who did readings for this woman and he’d tell her what to do to him sexually—you know—based on the cards. Ernie thought that was hysterical.”
I have to tell Squirt that one, I think.
“There was something about old homosexual guys…. It was just weird, and it made me feel funny to listen to his stories when he talked.”
“How did he find out all of this stuff?”
“Ernie watched people. He was like one of them old portraits where the eyes follow you around the room. That was his seat.” She points to a couple stools down, an end seat. “He liked to lean up against that wall. Sometimes he’d draw little things on his napkin, those whirligig things. The guy who caught the fish and rocked back so that the boat tipped, stuff like that. Then he’d show me. ‘See how it all connects,’ he’d say. ‘This part moves and then this part moves.’ He was totally into that.”
“That’s what he did to people,” I say kind of thinking aloud. “Did he have money?”
“He always had cash. But he was cheap. Sometimes he’d be here all night, tip me a dollar.”
Suddenly I’m aware of the stale smell of the bar. I tell Cha-Cha to call me if she remembers anything else. Outside, there’s a fog settling in.
I go over and watch Joe playing darts with a tall guy who reminds me of the shoe bomber and another shorter red-haired man.
“This is Rod,” he introduces me to the big guy, “And this is Tom Atkins. They played in Ernie’s dart’s league.” Joe introduces me as a P.I. who’s investigating Ernie’s death.
Rod shakes my hand. “Interesting,” he says.
Tom excuses himself and says he needs to hit the men’s room.
Rod says nodding toward the door, “It looks like we’re going to get some weather.” There’s the sound of thunder rumbling in the distance, and a Z of lightening lights up the sky.
“Yikes,” I say.
Joe says, “He’s right. We better get home.”
Joe and I walk to the car. The night is dense with humidity. A streetlight shines down on the parked car, and I can see Dreamer’s face pressed to the glass in the backseat.
I’m hunched over the wheel as I inch along the streets. The headlights barely dent the fog. The lightning flashes every few minutes and the sky looks like a neon sheet. “I hope we get home before this hits,” I say.
As I drive, I tell Joe what I learned from Cha-Cha. “I think Ernie liked power. I think he liked to exercise it in strange ways.” I tell him about the whirligigs. I say, “He liked to manipulate people. Did you learn anything from Rod or Tom before I came over?”
“Well, Rod’s an erratic thrower. Darts is a game of very little motion. He uses his body far too much.”
“I’ll have to remember that,” I tell Joe.
“We got on the subject of our wives. I told him about Edna dying. I told him I blamed myself when she died, even though she died of cancer. I told him I thought I should’ve been able to do something. Or do more.
“His wife died last year too. She fell down the stairs and broke her neck. He said she had been drinking. He sounded like he felt guilty about it, even if he wasn’t guilty.”
“What do you mean?”
“Like he felt responsible. Like he should have done something about her drinking, or he should have been home that night, or he should have treated her better. People feel shame, and then they blame themselves. He said the cops questioned him about it.
“Rod was with Ernie when his wife died, as it turns out. They were replacing a door jamb at Rod’s business after hours.”
“So, if there was anything weird about Rod’s wife’s death, Ernie was Rod’s alibi?”
Joe nods.
“Lucky him,” I say. “So Ernie could have been blackmailing Rod too.”
“I don’t know.”
The fog is getting worse. I can barely see to drive.
“How about Tom?” I ask.
“He’s a nutritional consultant.”
“What does that mean?”
“He advises people about supplements and stuff. I guess he sells stuff to people online. There’s something fishy about him though.”
“What do you mean?”
“He just kept telling me that I could feel and look twenty years younger. He was pushy.”
“The bartender told me that a lot of old guys there take steroids. That Ernie did.”
“I wonder if Tom was Ernie’s steroid supplier.”
“It’s not illegal, is it?”
“Some of it is. Some of it is border-line illegal. They say some of those muscle supplements have amphetamines in them.”
We pull into Alligator Estates. Even the big tacky billboard at the entrance looks good to me. The fog is even thicker here though as we wind along and get closer to the swamp. “I’m exhausted,” I tell Joe.
“That was a rough drive,” he acknowledges.
I park in front of Joe’s trailer and wait till he gets safely up his steps. When my car crunches into my driveway, I notice that my outside light has burned out. I turn the car off and the dark buzzes. Thunder explodes the same time as a bolt rockets out of the sky. “Aah!” I say.
I creep my way up the steps with Dreamer right on my heels. I push the pen light on my key chain and it makes a thin beam to the knob. As I push the door inward, something clunks at my feet. I snap the inside light on and Dreamer and I both look down at a golf club lying across the doorway. Someone must have left it leaning there. “Uh oh” I say to Dreamer, because it’s a putter.
Chapter 26
I didn’t have a good night. Although there aren’t too many hiding places for murderers in my trailer, I checked all of them. Three times. Including the medicine cabinet. I don’t know, maybe it was a really little murderer.
“I’m in the wrong business,” I kept telling Dreamer as I searched. “I could be writing lesson plans for Lord of the Flies right now. I could be grading vocabulary quizzes.” What was I thinking—adventurous, exciting…. I keep hearing the detective’s voice saying, “Listen, it’s dangerous.”
I called the police station, left a message for him. “Someone left a putter leaning up against my door. Someone unscrewed my porch light bulb just enough so that it didn’t light.” Those aren’t really crimes, but I felt like he should know. I felt like he should care. I wonder if those are the same things….
I guess it should make me feel good that somebody thinks I might know something. Somebody thinks I’m WORTH scaring off. But it doesn’t.
&nbs
p; The dawn is overcast and humid. A storm front is stalled over the Gulf. The lightning and thunder are gone, and we are in a kind of lull of no-rain, but the wind is gusty. I walk Dreamer in a haze of too-little-sleep. The swamp is flooded and the grasses are leaning to one side. Even the ground feels unsteady. One panel in the trailer was buckling all night in the gusts of wind. It’d buckle in POP and then POP back out, like someone was knocking. At least the fog is gone.
I walk past Joe’s trailer. His blinds are closed so he’s still asleep. I almost called him last night, but I didn’t want him walking over to check on me. I didn’t want him to worry.
Miss Tilney is out gathering up her morning paper as I walk by. “Good morning,” I say, “Did you happen to see anyone at my trailer last night?”
She raises her eyebrows at me. She’s got a beige chenille robe on with pompoms on the sleeve ends and bottom. She looks like a lamp, a skinny lamp with legs. “Who?” she says.
“Was there anyone around my porch while I was out? Someone left me something, and I was wondering if you saw anyone?”
“A surprise?” she asks.
“That’s right,” I tell her.
“Young lady, the Two Tones were playing at the Sand Trap last night. I was out,” she announces.
“All night?” I ask.
“7-9:00. Our gig is the first Thursday of every month.”
“Gig?”
“Our band. I play tambourine,” she says, exasperated. She bangs her newspaper against her hip to illustrate her point, her pom-poms aflutter. “We usually have a big crowd. Everyone dances around the pool. And when I say dance, I mean dance. Not this wiggle stuff. Real steps. She snaps her fingers: and a one, and a two and a three, to show me. “But last night was slow. It’s that murder that’s got everyone spooked. People are staying home, not canoodling about.”
“Did you walk home then. Alone?”
“Of course not. I took the cart, just like I always do. I didn’t see a thing,” she tells me. Her blue eyebrows look puzzled. “What kind of surprise?”
“Someone left a putter on my doorstep last night.” I say.
“Wow! An in-your-face threat! That would piss me off,” she tells me.
“It SCARES me off,” I say.
“You’re a weenie,” she concludes.
“I’m not a weenie.”
“Listen, someone is showing his hand.”
“Whose hand does it look like?” I ask her.
“Let me put on my thinking cap,” she says and stomps into her trailer.
I imagine her in there wearing some pointy witch hat meditating with her blue eyebrows furrowed. It should make me feel weird, I know, but it’s kind of comforting knowing she’s on my side.
∙∙∙•••●●●•••∙∙∙
“Oh,” Squirt says when I get in to work. “You got a haircut. It’s very…,” she decides “aerodynamic.”
“That’s me,” I say. “Aerodynamic. Energetic.” I’m wearing my pink shirt again. “I’m getting my life in gear. I decided some things last night. The minute I made the decision to get divorced, it was like a huge weight lifted off of me, and I felt lighter.”
“Maybe that’s your haircut,” Squrit says.
“I’m not kidding. I’m going forward with my life. No more stalled out-ness.”
“You gonna tackle Lesson Three?”
“And, I’m pissed off.” I tell her about the putter. I don’t tell her I’m scared. Miss Tilney: My new role model.
“Oooh,” she says.
“Is that all you have to say?”
“You have any idea who did it?”
“No,” I admit. “But I’m sure as hell going to find out. I’ve got the names of all those trailer park people.”
“Let’s run some searches,” Squirt says.
“Don’t you have better things to do?” I hesitate.
“I have some time,” she says.
We huddle up around her computer.
For Fred, there’s a record of his marriage to Feather (whose real name is evidently Minerva) five years ago. Fred has had many letters to the editor published in local newspapers over the years. We scroll through them. He calls himself a conservative libertarian. He seems to love to complain about government interference in people’s lives. He seems to be mad about many things. Feather has one DUI and several other traffic infractions. It occurs to me that I’ve never seen her sober.
Gene Swan published a book called Friendly Floridian Fungii back in 1998. If we were looking for a poisoner, this would be interesting.
Miss Clara Tilney was married in 1955. She was arrested in 1967 for drug possession. Hmmm, I think.
Richard Jones, accountant, uneventful life.… I scan the page. For Susie, there are some mentions of her LPGA tour events. She finished in the top ten once. She was better than she admitted.
Dick and Gladys Mayberry. Gladys and Dick worked for Commerce Investments and Mortgages. He actually went to jail for fraud, seven months. He fudged the appraisals of several houses so that the mortgages would go through. His credit score is not very good.
“And he told me he took early retirement,” I mutter. “Everybody lies to me.”
For Holy Innocent’s Church, there are addresses listed in many states. I find some newspaper articles that mention the church. There’s also a monthly newsletter. There’s a part about starting a satellite church here in Ft. Palms, and there’s a mention of a Brother William also. There are several real estate transactions listed. Evidently, the church has been expanding quickly.
George McIntyre has a record of his divorce, but otherwise his life has been as spotless as his car.
For William Blaine there are many hits, but they are baseball players on minor league teams and real estate tycoons in Nevada and nothing that seems to have anything to do with THIS William Blaine. It doesn’t seem that this William Blaine was born. He’s had no traffic violations. He has no credit score. He owns no property. He doesn’t exist outside of the church of the Holy Innocents.
“William,” I say aloud, “I believe you made up that name. Blaine. How Hollywood of you…”
George gave me his cell phone number the other night. I call him now. “Is William Blaine your stepfather’s real name?”
“Please don’t call him my stepfather,” George says.
“Well, is it?”
“They had to give up all earthly possessions when they joined the church, including their old identity. My mother used to be Joan McIntyre. Now she’s May Blaine.”
“Do you know who he used to be?”
“Nope.”
“Thanks,” I tell him. I write down “Joan McIntyre” on a new page.
Squirt scrolls around for Joan. She has several traffic tickets. She also has an arrest record. Seems once she stole over $2,000 worth of merchandise from Neiman Marcus. The charge was reduced to a municipal offense, but she did two weeks community service and paid a fine.
“I gotta go home and go to Ernie’s funeral,” I tell Squirt. “Maybe I’ll be able to find out some more there.”
Chapter 27
The minute I get home, there’s a knock on the door. It’s the detective. He’s got a yellow slicker on which makes him look even bigger. I let him in. He stands on my mat dripping. “Would you like a towel or something?” I ask him.
“Okay,” he says. He unzips his raincoat and wipes his face with a towel. He smells like rain and soap and rubber.
“Sit down,” I say. I take the cot. He takes the cardboard chair. Dreamer sinks down on his feet.
“I got your message,” he says.
I nod. “The putter,” I say.
He nods. “Is that it?” he looks toward the door. “Did you touch it?”
I roll my eyes at him. “With a napkin,” I say.
“I’ll take it then.”
I hear a car pull up outside, voices and door slamming. In a moment, there’s a knock on my door. “Who could that be?” I ask him, as if he’d know.
I open the door. “Mom?” I say. There’s a taxi pulling out of my driveway.
“Hello, dear,” my mother says. She’s got a plastic hair protector tied over her head, a Burberry raincoat and two suitcases. “Whoosh,” she says, “what a flight!”
The detective stands up and helps me carry the suitcases in while she peels her wet clothes off. “Dave Johansen,” he introduces himself. She introduces herself and says, “Thank you. I’m so sorry to disturb you two.”
I realize she thinks we’re a couple of some sort. “He’s a cop,” I say.
“Oh,” she says, “how nice. My husband was an officer for years.”
“But what are you doing here?” I ask after she gets her coat off and she’s perched on the cot next to me.
“I got lonely,” she tells me.
“But…,” I say.
“The doctor recommended a vacation. He said I was suffering from stress.”
“The doctor?” I say. “Suffering?”
“And I missed the dog,” she pats Dreamer. Dreamer thumps her tail and stares up at my mother. My mother feeds her table scraps, really good table scraps, so Dreamer is especially happy to see her.
“Mom…,” I say.
“It was an impulse,” she tells me. “I came on a whim,” she explains to the detective. She says the word “whim” like it’s a propellant, a kind of magic carpet.
“My daughter used to live twelve blocks away from me. That was nice,” she tells him. “She taught high school, so her hours were nice too. And she had summers off.” I feel like I don’t even exist.
“I used to teach high school too,” he tells her.
“What subject?”
“Earth sciences.”
“Earth sciences. Lola, can you imagine?” she tells me. I have to admit, I am a little surprised. The detective, a teacher? “Can I make some tea?” she asks me. “Would you like some?” she asks the detective. She gets up and starts opening and shutting my kitchen cabinets.
“Well,” I say, because there’s only one mug.
“No thank you. I have to go,” he says. He snaps shut the little notebook that has been on his lap.
“I don’t understand this,” my mother says peering into my empty cabinets.
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