The Blood Red Indian Summer

by David Handler

  “You’re saying Plotka’s a creep who has no case and yet the NFL suspended Tyrone Grantham anyway. They were just looking for an excuse, weren’t they?”

  Des nodded. “They’re tired of his act.”

  “So am I. When I was growing up in New York City in the eighties, I had three huge sports heroes—Dwight Gooden, Darryl Strawberry and Lawrence Taylor. All three of them turned out to be drugged-out bums. I was utterly crushed. Never, ever got over it. Kids need heroes who they can count on. Not that professional athletes are heroes. But you have to be older before you can recognize who the real heroes in this world are.”

  “Such as?…”

  “My dad. He showed up every single day at Boys and Girls High to teach those kids algebra. Not a lot of them made it. But some of them did. And it was because he was there. And then he came home every night and was there for me. He never ditched my mom for a younger babe. He paid his bills on time. That’s my idea of a hero—my dad. Your dad, too, don’t you think?”

  Her only response was taut silence.

  “How is your dad?”

  “Well, I almost blew his head off this morning.”

  “Accidentally or on purpose?”

  “Don’t even go there. He’d driving me nuts. He haunts my hallways all night long. He’s gloomy, listless…” She glanced at her watch. “At this very minute I guarantee you he’s sitting in my living room with his jacket on staring at a rerun of NCIS for about the fifteenth time.”

  “Okay, I’ll grant you he’s no Mr. Sardonicus.”

  “Mister who?”

  “Wait, are you telling me you’ve never seen Mr. Sardonicus with Oscar Homolka? It’s a William Castle shlocko classic. I can’t believe you’ve never seen Mr. Sardonicus with Oscar Homolka. That settles it—this year’s Halloween viewing will be highlighted by a special midnight screening of Mr. Sardonicus with Oscar Homolka.”

  “Are you really, truly into this movie or do you just like saying the name Oscar Homolka?”

  “Both,” he confessed. “Why is it that I can’t lie to you?”

  “Because you know I’ll shoot you if you do.”

  “Right, right. I knew there was a good reason.”

  They took the narrow sandy path back toward his snug little antique cottage. As they neared the house, Quirt, Mitch’s lean outdoor hunter, darted across the garden and collided headfirst with Mitch’s shin. Just the cat’s way of telling Mitch he was hungry. Mitch let him inside and Quirt headed straight for the kibble bowl. Clemmie, who rarely ventured out, was taking a power nap in her easy chair.

  The little house had exposed chestnut posts and beams, a stone fireplace and oak plank floors. It was basically just one big room—with windows that looked out at the water in three different directions. There was a kitchen and a bathroom. A sleeping loft that was up a steep, narrow staircase. He’d furnished the place with whatever he could find. The moth-eaten loveseat and easy chairs had been in his neighbor’s barn. The coffee table was an ancient rowboat with an old storm window over it. His desk a mahogany door that he’d dragged home from the dump and set atop sawhorses. Mitch’s sky blue Fender Stratocaster and monster stack of amps took up one corner of the living room. Books and DVDs were piled pretty much everywhere else.

  He put some old Sam and Dave on the stereo and asked Des what she felt like having for dinner.

  “Don’t bother making anything for me. I’m really not hungry.”

  “Well, that’s just tough. You’re going to eat. I don’t like the way you’re losing weight again. You have almost no boobage.”

  “Mitch, I never have any boobage.”

  “And just take a look at your booty, will you?”

  “Why, what’s wrong with my booty?”

  “Not a thing—I just like looking at it,” he said, grinning at her. “Hey, I know, I could run over to McGee’s and get two chili cheeseburgers and a couple of orders of spiral fries. Also something for you.”

  She shook her head at him. “Doughboy, you haven’t stuffed your pie hole this way in ages.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I mean you have powdered donut residue all over your T-shirt. And that grease around your fingernails has Utz potato chips written all over it.”

  “That’ll teach me to fall for a trained investigator.”

  “What is this?” she demanded. “Are you getting antsy about me meeting your folks?”

  “Not at all. They’ll adore you. How could they not?”

  “I just hope my father won’t be a total drag.”

  “Don’t even worry about it. My dad can get anyone to lighten up. He’s amazing that way.” Mitch went in the kitchen and started poking around. “I have a loaf of day-old ciabbata and some stinky Hooligan cheese. What would you say to a grilled cheese and bacon sandwich with slices of my late-season tomatoes? There’s also a half-bottle of that amusing Cote-du-Rhone. Deal?”

  “Deal,” she agreed. “For our starter course grab the wine and two glasses and I’ll meet you up in the sleeping loft. We can do some scientific research on whether we recognize each other in the dark. If you have any trouble I’ll be the one who’s naked under the covers.”

  “Be right there,” he said eagerly, fetching two glasses from the cupboard.

  For the record, Mitch had no trouble recognizing her in the dark.

  Later on, his growling stomach insisted on being fed. Des was dozing contentedly next to him. It was the most relaxed she’d been since the Deacon moved in. Mitch slipped out of bed quietly and tiptoed down to the kitchen, where he heated up his Lodge cast iron skillet and laid some thick slices of bacon in it to cook.

  When his phone rang he grabbed it on the first ring, hoping it didn’t wake her.

  “Oh, Mitch, thank God you’re there!” It was Lila Joshua, the more fluttery of the two sisters. “I have been trying to call you for nearly thirty minutes but an automated recording kept telling me they could not complete my call as dialed. An operator finally got through for me.”

  “Did you remember to use the area code, Lila?” The phone company now required Dorseteers to dial the 860 area code even for local calls. It wasn’t an easy habit to get into, especially for older, wiftier residents.

  “I-I may have forgotten,” she confessed. “It so happens I’m just a bit—”

  “Here, give that to me…” Now he heard a more assertive voice on the other end of the line. “Is that you, Mitch?”

  “What can I do for you, Luanne?”

  “It’s Winston. He’s taken off again. I turned my back for one second and he was out the door and gone. I tried to go after him but you would not believe how fast he can scoot. And it’s terribly dark out.”

  Now Mitch heard Des’s cell phone ring up in the sleeping loft. She answered it right away.

  “Luanne, do you have any idea where Winston was heading?” he asked.

  “That’s the part that has us a bit alarmed. Just before he darted out of the door he, well, he said he really wanted to go ‘bite some colored ass.’”

  “Uh-oh…”

  CHAPTER 5

  WHEN HER CELL RANG she snatched it off the nightstand and said, “This is Resident Trooper Mitry.” It was nearly ten-thirty, according to her watch.

  “Young lady, you need to get over here right now,” a familiar male voice thundered at her.

  “What seems to be the problem, Mr. Bond?”

  “He has an out-of-control dance party or rave or whatever they call it going on over there. Hundreds of them are swarming the neighborhood…” Them. “They’re screaming like banshees and-and playing their thug music so loud it’s shaking my whole house. I demand that you do something.”

  “I’ll be right over.”

  Des had just swung her size twelve-and-half AA bare feet to the floor when her cell rang again. This time it was the 911 dispatcher. A call had just come in from Mr. Rondell Grantham requesting an ambulance to treat the victim of an “incident” at the Grantham resid
ence. Little brother hadn’t asked for state police assistance but it was automatic for Des to be called. She hurried down the stairs for her uniform and discovered Mitch throwing on a T-shirt and shorts. “You going somewhere, boyfriend?”

  “Winston has wandered off again. The Joshua sisters are afraid he may have headed over to Tyrone Grantham’s.” He watched her jump into her uniform. “And you?”

  “They’re having a party. And there’s been an incident of some kind.”

  Mitch frowned at her. “Des, you don’t suppose?…”

  “I don’t suppose anything yet.” She was fully dressed in less than two minutes. Her West Point training. “But you’ll never get in the gate on your own. I’m flooring it there. Can you keep up with me?”

  “You betcha. Mind you, if I had a brand new Silverado with the 360-horsepower Vortec—”

  “Mitch, you don’t need a new a truck.”

  “Be right behind you, Master Sergeant.”

  She went outside to her cruiser, jumped in and pushed it across the rickety causeway. Mitch stayed right behind her on the dirt road that twisted through the Nature Preserve, but once she made it onto the smooth pavement of Old Shore Road and floored it, he fell back a bit, his vintage sepia-toned headlights growing weaker in her rearview mirror. When she turned onto Turkey Neck and ran into the hot mess there, he caught up with her again.

  Dozens and dozens of parked cars were crowded onto shoulders of the narrow road. Des spotted plenty of New York license plates, not to mention New Jersey and Rhode Island. Partiers were coming and going on foot right down the middle of the street. Boisterous groups of young guys, joshing and laughing. Couples walking hand in hand. All of them black. Them. She had to hit her siren to get through, Mitch snug on her tail. The media mob, when she managed to get near the Grantham place, seemed even bigger than before. The bright lights of the news cameras lit up the driveway out front like a red carpet movie premiere. People were lined up at the gate trying to get in. Big, impassive Trooper Olsen was turning them away.

  “Hey, Des,” he said when she pulled up at the gate. “The Jewett girls got here two seconds ago.” Marge and Mary Jewett ran Dorset’s volunteer ambulance service.

  “What happened, Oly?”

  “Fist fight between a couple of partiers, I hear. I was just on my way back to check it out.”

  “You can stay here. I’m on it.”

  “It was supposed to be a small party, Des. Clarence had a very short guest list. He left the father-in-law, Calvin, up here to make sure no one else slipped in. Because I told him flat out—I’m a state trooper, not your doorman. Well, you know how it goes with parties. Word gets out and everyone just starts showing up. Good old Calvin let in pretty much anyone who had a pretty girl with him. I’ve got it on lockdown now.”

  Des looked around at the media crowd. “Any sign of Plotka?”

  “Him I haven’t seen, thank God.”

  She jerked a thumb back in Mitch’s direction. “He’s with me.”

  She eased down the gravel driveway with Mitch on her tail and pulled up behind the Dorset volunteer ambulance van, hearing the music loud and clear. Jay-Z and Alicia Keys were singing “Empire State of Mind.” Not exactly her idea of “thug” music but what did she know? Mitch pulled up behind her and got out.

  “If Winston’s here, you hustle him home and don’t look back,” she said briskly as they started around the house toward the pool. “Just clear out, got it?”

  “Got it.”

  At least a hundred partiers were enjoying the warm night air, the swimming pool and each other. They were dancing to the music. Splashing around in the water in their bathing suits. Shrieking, laughing, having a great time. And why not? They were kicking it at the mansion of an NFL superstar. There was a long table loaded with food, an open bar and more than a trace of reefer smoke in the air. A DJ was working the music. Lights were on inside the house, upstairs and down, but the party seemed to be confined to the outdoors.

  Des didn’t spot either of the Grantham brothers or Jameson sisters. She did see Calvin floating in the pool on an inflatable chaise, his man boobs sagging, beer gut hanging out. Des could have gone her whole life without seeing Calvin Jameson in swim trunks. She went directly to the DJ and ran a finger across her throat. He cut the music at once. A chorus of boos met the silence until the partiers noticed her uniform. Then they fell silent, too.

  The Jewett sisters were crouched over a lounge chair by the pool house with a cluster of guests gathered around them. It was Winston Lash who Marge and Mary were attending to. The old fellow was stretched out there, in a pair of striped PJs and bedroom slippers, bleeding from his nose and mouth. Marge was packing his nostrils with gauze while Mary pressed an ice pack against his upper lip and blood-soaked handlebar moustache.

  Standing nearby, sobbing and carrying on, was a deeply upset twenty-something sister who was wearing a gold string bikini and a lot of exotic war paint. She was amply built. Her full breasts and even fuller booty were pretty much exploding out of that little bikini.

  Clarence was standing there, too, seething with anger. Two burly young guys were trying to settle him down. At least half a dozen partiers had whipped out their cell phones and were sending streaming video of it all to their friends.

  “Evening, girls,” Des said to Marge and Mary, ultra-mindful of the camera phones. Bystanders routinely produced them at crime scenes these days and there wasn’t a thing she could do about it—other than go about her business the right way. “How’s Mr. Lash?”

  “He’s responsive, which is good,” Marge answered.

  “What the hell happened to him?” Mitch wanted to know.

  “He got punched in the face by that giant over there,” Mary said, meaning Clarence. “The back of Winston’s head hit the pavement pretty hard but he never lost consciousness, according to the witnesses. His pupils are reactive to light. He’s not complaining of dizziness or ringing in his ears or nausea. Mind you, he’s normally a tad confused due to his dementia but we don’t believe he suffered a concussion. Just a bloody nose and a cut lip.”

  “What’s your name?” Des asked the girl in the bikini.

  “Asia,” she responded, sniffling.

  “Your full name, please.”

  “What you be needing my full name for?”

  “If I’m going to file an incident report then I have to have your name, your address…”

  “Why you be needing to file an incident report?” Asia turned plaintively to Clarence. “Why she be needing to file a—?”

  “Why don’t you just tell me what happened,” Des said to her patiently.

  Before Asia could do that, Rondell came rushing across the pool area toward them, looking like a middle-aged businessman in his button-down shirt and tailored slacks. The first thing little brother did was plead with everyone to put away their phones. They grudgingly complied. Then he approached Des, forcing an uneasy smile onto his face. “I appreciate you attending to this matter personally, Trooper Mitry.”

  “Actually, I’m responding to a neighbor’s complaint about your music.”

  “I apologize for that. Didn’t realize it was so loud. As you can see, there has been an unfortunate altercation of a physical nature. It is my hope that we can alleviate this situation with a minimum of public blowback.”

  “That all depends on what happened, Rondell. Where’s your brother?”

  “Tyrone doesn’t care for parties anymore. He’s been upstairs in the master suite all evening watching a movie with Jamella.”

  “Which movie?” Mitch inquired.

  “I’m not sure.” Rondell frowned at him. “Why do you ask?”

  “Well, was it an action picture or a chick flick or—?”

  “Excuse me, who are you?”

  “He’s with me,” Des said. “Mitch?…”

  “Sorry, my bad. Go ahead.”

  “Jamella happens to be seven months pregnant, as you know. She doesn’t care for parties either. And
Kinitra never hangs around with this sort. Nor do I.” Rondell glanced around at the crowd with keen-eyed disapproval. “I’ve been crunching numbers in my office. Kinitra’s been working on a new composition on her piano.”

  “If all of you hate parties what are these people doing here?”

  “Clarence invited them. It’s his party. My brother’s not even around, as you can see for yourself.”

  “It’s Tyrone’s house, Rondell. That makes it his party.”

  Rondell moved closer to her, lowering his voice. “Is there any way you can square this with the media?”

  “That’s not my concern right now. Just give me some breathing room, okay?” Des turned her attention back to Asia. “Tell me what happened.”

  “I was just…” Asia trailed off, fanning her face with her fingers to calm herself. Her nails were at least an inch long and painted purple and white. “I-I was dancing with Clarence. And that filthy old man, he came over to me and he-he…”

  “He bit her on the booty!” Clarence blurted out. “That crazy man got down on his hands and knees and he bit her like some kind of a-a animal. So I let him have it.”

  Des shook her head. “You’re telling me that big bad you punched out a seventy-two-year-old dementia patient?”

  “He attacked my girl,” Clarence said defensively. “He’s some kind of sex offender.”

  “He has a medical condition,” Mitch said.