Snake Eater

by William G. Tapply

  Charlie stared at me for a minute, then sighed. “Okay. Give me those names. I’ll run ’em through the big mainframe, see what I can find out for you.”

  I nodded. “Good. You’ve earned your lunch.”

  I had copied the names onto a sheet of legal-size yellow paper, along with notes from my telephone efforts. I took it from my jacket pocket, unfolded it, and smoothed it out in front of Charlie.

  “This Whitlaw died in an auto accident eight years ago,” I said. “I talked to his wife. That’s the phone number. It’s for sure that he didn’t kill Daniel. And this Wanzer in Holyoke, he skipped out on his family six years ago, never to be heard from. The rest must’ve moved or something, because I got no phone numbers for them.”

  Charlie picked up the paper, folded it, and stuck it into his pocket. “Let’s see what we can find out,” he said.

  “I’m looking for the connection to Daniel.”

  “Well, hell, I know that.”

  “This lunch here, it’s your payment.”

  He nodded. “I’ll do it,” he said. “It doesn’t change anything, though.”

  “What?”

  “The advice is golden. You should forget it, Brady.”

  “I’ll consider it.”

  “Bullshit you will,” said Charlie.

  14

  I CALLED STATE POLICE Lieutenant Horowitz at 1010 Commonwealth Avenue that afternoon. He answered his phone with a weary “Yeah. Horowitz.”

  “It’s Brady Coyne. How you doing?”

  “Fantastic. But listen. Hearing your voice is still special, you know?”

  “I just thought I’d brighten up your day.”

  I heard him blow a bubble and pop it into the receiver. “So whaddya want?”

  “You think the only reason I’d call you is because I want something?”

  “Yeah.”

  “If you wanted something and thought I could help, would you call me?”

  “Bet your ass. You owe me.”

  “Feel free.”

  “I already do. So what is it?”

  “A colleague of yours name of Fusco. Lieutenant Dominick Fusco. Springfield.”

  “Sure. I know him.”

  “He’s investigating a homicide. The victim was a client of mine.”

  Horowitz sighed. “So?”

  “He won’t answer my calls. I want to know how the investigation is going.”

  “He’s probably too busy. You know, investigating homicides.”

  “I had something I wanted to tell him. Left a message for him to get back to me. He hasn’t. He’s avoiding me.”

  “Hard to blame him. If I had as much sense as him, I’d avoid you, too.”

  “So will you?”

  “Will I what, Coyne?”

  “Will you find out what the story is? The victim’s name was Daniel McCloud.”

  “Like do they have suspects, have they made an arrest?”

  “Yes. Like that.”

  “Do I get lunch out of this?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Even if Fusco’s got nothing?”

  “I just want to know. And I do have some information for him.”

  He exploded his bubble gum. “I’ll get back to you.”

  He hung up as I was saying “Thanks.”

  Gloria was perched atop a barstool when I walked into Skeeter’s Infield after closing the office for the weekend Friday afternoon. She was wearing a little black skirt that had ridden halfway up her thighs. She still had great legs.

  The rest of her looked equally terrific. Maybe there were a few tiny crinkles at the corners of her eyes and a few strands of gray mixed in with her glossy brown hair that hadn’t been there when she took my photograph outside a courtroom in New Haven more than twenty years earlier.

  But two kids—now young men—and one divorce later, Gloria Coyne still had it.

  I slid onto the stool beside her.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Hi, yourself.” She tilted her cheek for me to kiss, which I did, chastely.

  “Been good?”

  “You mean my behavior or my health?”

  “Either,” I said. “Both.”

  “My health is excellent.”

  “Otherwise no comment, huh?”

  She grinned.

  “What are you drinking?”

  “White wine, please.”

  “You used to like gin-and-tonics with a maraschino cherry in the bottom.”

  She shrugged. “I mostly just have a glass of wine nowadays.”

  “How about a gin-and-tonic? For old time’s sake.”

  “White wine is fine, Brady. You go ahead and have your Jack Daniel’s.”

  “You used to drink lots of gin. And you’d get all…”

  “Amorous,” she said.

  I smiled.

  “That’s probably why I’ve just been sticking to white wine lately,” she replied.

  Skeeter came over and held out his hand. “Hey, Mr. Coyne. How ya doin’?”

  I took his hand. “Pretty good, Skeets. You?”

  “No complaints. Except for the Sox.”

  “They need someone who can get from first to third on a single,” I said.

  “And someone else who can come in from the bullpen and throw strikes. What ever happened to Dick Radatz? What’re you folks drinking?”

  “Blackjack on the rocks. Lady’ll have a glass of white wine.”

  “No, I think I’ll have a gin-and-tonic,” said Gloria. “With a maraschino cherry in it.”

  Skeeter nodded and went to make our drinks. I turned to Gloria. “Thanks for coming.”

  She shrugged. “It sounded important.”

  “How are the boys?”

  She frowned. “Fine, I guess. They’re pretty much men, you know.”

  “Heard from Billy?”

  “Not lately.”

  “Me neither.”

  She put her hand on my arm. “You didn’t ask me to meet you so we could pool our ignorance about William and Joseph, Brady. What is it?”

  “I don’t know.” I paused to light a cigarette. “I just don’t understand women, I guess.”

  “This is not a revelation to me.”

  “I know.”

  “You’re looking for insight.”

  “Yes. After all these years, I suppose I still am.”

  “Girl trouble, huh?”

  I shrugged.

  “And you want my advice?”

  I looked up at her. “I got dumped.”

  She grinned. “Welcome to the real world.”

  Skeeter brought our drinks. I lifted my glass, and Gloria touched it with her gin-and-tonic. “To the real world,” I toasted.

  Gloria sipped her gin and tonic and smiled.

  “Remember Terri?” I said.

  “Pretty lady. The boys liked her a lot. Too young for you.”

  I shrugged. “She didn’t think so. Neither did I, actually. Now, maybe, I’m not so sure. Anyway, I had this friend, nice quiet guy living a peaceful country life, with a lady friend who loved him, and he was, um, murdered, and—”

  “Murdered,” said Gloria. “Aw, Brady.”

  I nodded. “A tragic, inexplicable thing. Terri has talked a lot with Cammie—Daniel’s woman friend—since it happened.”

  “And then she dumped you.”

  “Yes. I guess that’s what you’d call it. That’s the chronology of it. And I just can’t help thinking there’s a cause-effect relationship between the two events. Daniel getting murdered and Terri ending it with me.”

  She smiled and shook her head.

  “What’s funny?” I said.

  “You. Men. Your egos.”

  “Oh. I see.”

  “Think about it.”

  I thought about it. “So you’re saying…”

  “You’ve always been the one to do it,” she said. “Starting with me. Right?”

  I shrugged.

  “So it’s happened to you, that’s all. Long overdue.
Admit it. It’s just… you. Don’t try to make anything more out of it. I know. You’d rather there was some explanation. Something that would allow you to escape with your dignity, or pride, or masculine ego, or whatever it is. The lady dumped you, Brady. She beat you to it. Simple as that.”

  I sipped my drink. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” I said.

  Gloria shrugged. Then she smiled. “Yes.”

  After a minute, I said, “It hurts, though, you know?”

  She touched my hand. “Believe me, I know.”

  We finished our drinks. I asked Gloria to have dinner with me, but she said she had a date. I walked her out to her car and held the door for her while she slid in. Her skirt slid way up and she didn’t bother tugging it down. I bent in and kissed her cheek. “Thanks for the wisdom,” I said.

  “Hey,” she said, “that’s what ex-wives are for.”

  15

  SATURDAY NIGHT. LATE. I wondered what Terri was doing. I thought of calling her. I was afraid there’d be no answer at her apartment, though. So I didn’t. In keeping with my mood, John Coltrane’s sax was blowing “Blue Train” on the stereo. I was at the table by the glass sliders sipping Sleepytime tea and trying to work my way through some back issues of the Yale Law Review when the phone rang.

  Terri, I thought.

  Wishful thinking, I knew.

  “It’s Cammie,” she said when I answered.

  “Nice to hear your voice. Everything all right?”

  She let out a long breath.

  “Hey, are you okay?”

  She uttered a sound in her throat. A moan or a sob.

  “Cammie, what is it?”

  “Oh, shit,” she mumbled. “Brady, can you help me?”

  “Of course. What’s the matter?”

  “I almost shot a cop.”

  “What?”

  “It was just a few minutes ago. I had just gone to bed. I heard noises outside. I went to the window. I saw somebody skulking around with a flashlight. I put on a robe and grabbed my gun and I went out onto the porch. He… he was right there. He shone his light in my face and I started to point my gun at him and he said he was the police.”

  “Oakley?”

  “Yeah. Him. I never saw his face. But I recognized his voice. He said he was just checking to make sure everything was all right. He said he was concerned for my safety. Because of Daniel, I guess is what he meant. He…” Her voice trailed off.

  “Maybe he was just doing his job.”

  “Bullshit.” Her voice was harsh. “It’s just what Daniel said. Brady, he saw that I had a gun. He’ll figure out it’s not licensed. I will not give up my gun.”

  “Maybe you should. What if you had shot him?”

  “Are they supposed to come prowling around at night like that?”

  “No. Not without telling you first.”

  “And shining the light like that on me. I know the bastard was… looking at me.”

  “Did he say anything?”

  “Just what I told you. I told him to just leave me alone, I was fine. He called me ma’am, polite as pie, tipped his hat, even. Sarcastic, see? Brady, isn’t there anything we can do? In court, or something? This has been going on too long. It’s not fair.”

  “I don’t know, Cammie. He hasn’t really done anything illegal.”

  “He’s been harassing me—us, me and Daniel—since day one. Isn’t that enough?”

  “Cammie, I’d love to help you—”

  “Yeah, but…”

  “No. Listen. I’ll talk to his chief. See if we can straighten it out that way.”

  “Will you?”

  “Sure. Monday. Okay?”

  “Thank you.”

  “In the meantime, keep your doors locked.”

  “Doors locked and gun handy,” she said.

  “For Christ sake, be careful.”

  “Exactly.”

  I had been to the Wilson Falls police station once before, when I visited Daniel during his weekend in jail. It occupied one wing of the town hall, a no-nonsense square brick building across the village green from the Congregational church.

  Chief Francis Padula kept me waiting for fifteen minutes. I sat by myself on a wooden bench and smoked two cigarettes under the watchful eye of the desk sergeant. He didn’t even offer me coffee. I knew there had to be a pot of cop coffee somewhere around there.

  Finally the chief appeared from a corridor and said, “Mr. Coyne?”

  I stubbed out my cigarette and stood up.

  He came toward me. He was a compact man in his late thirties with a small mouth and closely cropped hair. He wore a starched white shirt with French cuffs and a blue-and-gray striped necktie snugged tight to his throat. He extended his hand to me without smiling. “Francis Padula,” he said.

  I took his hand. “Thanks for seeing me.”

  “Come this way.” He turned and I followed him into his office.

  He sat behind his desk. I took the straight-backed wooden chair across from him. He folded his hands on the blotter and said, “You were Daniel McCloud’s attorney.”

  I nodded.

  “Damn shame,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “I can’t talk about the case.”

  “That’s not why I’m here.”

  He leaned forward and arched his eyebrows. “So what is it?” His eyes were fixed on mine. They were dark brown, almost black. The exact same shade as Terri’s, I realized.

  “It’s about Officer Oakley.”

  He leaned back. “What about Officer Oakley, Mr. Coyne?”

  “I’d rather not file a complaint.”

  “I’d rather you didn’t. Maybe you better explain.”

  So I did. I related Cammie Russell’s complaints to the chief—her perception that Oakley had been harassing her and Daniel for years, how he had arrested Daniel, ticketed the cars of all the guests at the funeral party, and frightened Cammie the previous Saturday night by prowling around the property. Padula studied the ceiling as I talked. I couldn’t read his expression. Bored patience or thoughtful concern. One or the other.

  When I was done, he said, “I’m not sure I understand your problem.”

  “You add it all up,” I said, “and it’s pretty obvious. I mean, ticketing all those cars, for example, while there’s a funeral going on.”

  “All those cars were parked illegally. It’s what I instruct my officers to do. Ticket illegally parked vehicles.”

  “Still. Under the circumstances, it was uncalled for.”

  “That arrest last summer,” he said, “was classic. Perfect police work. I think you know that. You don’t think Officer Oakley acted on his own on that one, do you?”

  I shrugged.

  “Look, Mr. Coyne. Wilson Falls is a small town. I have a small force. When police work needs to be done, there are only a few policemen to do it. Sergeant Oakley is one of them. Any citizen who runs into a police officer here, they’re very likely to run into Richard Oakley. Something like that marijuana bust, several of my officers were involved. Oakley was one of them. That’s all. It was a good bust.”

  “So why did the prosecution dismiss it?”

  He leaned forward. His eyes bored into mine. He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it. “Ancient history,” he said.

  “What about the other night? You just can’t do that. Skulking around, scaring a citizen like that. It’s harassment. I want it to stop.”

  He shook his head. “Come off it, Mr. Coyne. It’s not harassment.”

  “Maybe a judge should decide that.”

  He smiled thinly. “And she would have to testify. I’m sure her character is impeccable.”

  “Look—”

  “You know how it works, Mr. Coyne.”

  “Somebody should’ve told her that there’d be an officer coming around, at least.”

  Padula nodded. “That’s my responsibility.”

  “I just want Oakley to leave her alone. Rightly or wrongly, he upsets her.
It seems simple enough.”

  “It’s fairly routine to keep an eye on a woman who lives alone after a murder has occurred.”

  “Sure,” I said. “It’s good responsible police work. Fine. But it doesn’t need to be Oakley. So maybe he hasn’t done anything wrong. Maybe it’s all in her head. But he spooks her. It doesn’t seem necessary. Cammie Russell just wants him to steer clear of her.”

  “I’ll consider what you’ve told me.” He stared at me for a moment. “There’s some things you don’t know, Mr. Coyne.”

  “There are lots of things I don’t know.”

  He shrugged.

  “Something you should tell me?” I said.

  He hesitated, then said, “No. It doesn’t matter. I’ll speak to Sergeant Oakley.” He stood up.

  I was dismissed. I reached across his desk to shake hands with him. “Thanks,” I said.

  He came around the desk as I turned for the door. “Mr. Coyne.”

  “Yes?”

  “Richard Oakley’s a good cop.”

  “Sure.”

  “He did not murder Daniel McCloud.”

  “Goodness,” I said. “I should hope not.”

  Fifteen minutes later I pulled into the gravel turnaround in front of Daniel’s shop. A cardboard sign hung in the window. CLOSED. I shaded my eyes and peered in. It still looked exactly as it did on the morning I saw Daniel’s body in there. I couldn’t tell if the bloodstain had been cleaned up.

  I walked up the path to the house. I wanted to tell Cammie that I had talked to Oakley’s chief I also needed a mug of coffee.

  I rang the bell and waited for her to come to the door. It was one of those gray mid-November New England days when the air is cold and moist and a brittle breeze brings the promise of the season’s first snowfall. I shivered and hugged myself in my insubstantial sports jacket. After a minute I tiptoed up to peer through the high window on the door. I saw no lights inside, no sign of life.

  I followed the path around the house and continued across the back lawn to Cammie’s studio.

  There was no bell beside the door. I knocked and called, “Cammie. It’s Brady.”

  I waited. From inside I could hear music, too blurred and faint to identify.

  After a minute or two I knocked again. When there was no response, I tried the doorknob. I had told her to keep it locked. But it turned and the door swung open. I stepped inside. “Cammie?” I called.