Mausoleum

by Justin Scott

  Connie looked away. Her jaw started to work. I could see frail bone press thin skin. When she turned back to look at me her eyes were watery. “I can’t Ben. I would if I could, but I can’t remember.”

  I could have cheerfully shot myself at that moment. Or shoved a rusty knife into my chest. One of the ways I dealt with Connie’s increasing frailty was to pretend it wasn’t happening. I was so successful at it that I could actually walk into her house and ask something truly stupid while totally missing every quiet signal she was sending about her fear and dread.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that was what you meant.”

  “Obviously, I heard it from someone. I can’t remember whom. And I can’t remember what she said.”

  “So you heard from a woman?”

  That brought her back with a vengeance. She sat straighter than usual, which was very straight indeed and said, as crisply as a winter morning, “Well I certainly wouldn’t listen to such talk from a man—well, maybe from a gay man—well, you know what I mean. But I don’t think it matters, Ben. A name that would have led to a shooting, a murder for pity sake, would have stuck in my mind. Don’t you agree?”

  “Absolutely!” I lied to her and myself.

  Connie squinted through me like a dirty window. “Do not patronize me, young man!”

  “Sorry.”

  “Try some.”

  “Try some what?”

  “Names, you ninny. Try some names, and perhaps they’ll jog my memory.”

  I looked at her. She was perched on the edge of her chair, tea forgotten, the one cucumber sandwich I had persuaded her to try, half eaten. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  “You said it was important, for your sake. And it’s now become important to me, for the sake of my old brain.”

  I started at the head of Main and worked my way down the street. “Mary…”

  “No.”

  “Lori…”

  “No.”

  Betty.”

  “No.”

  “Sydney…”

  “No.”

  “Jeanne…”

  “No.”

  “Anne Marie.”

  “No.”

  “Priscilla…”

  “…Maybe.”

  Priscilla Adams, pugnacious Dan’s wife. Maybe that’s why he was so prickly, of late. Priscilla was a very nice looking blonde with the kind of glossy, straight hair pharmaceutical fortunes have been spent trying to replicate for ordinary mortals. But married to the sort of man who would not think twice about punching the interloper in the nose. On the other hand, love and sex make people brave, as well as silly. “Maybe?” I coaxed.

  Connie nodded slowly. “Yes, I think so—Benjamin, this goes no further than this room.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Unless of course Dan was the one who shot him.”

  “Of course.”

  “I’m not positive. And when we’re talking about angry husbands shooting, accuracy becomes paramount. More names, please.”

  “Lorraine.”

  “Oh yes.”

  “Lorraine? Lorraine Renner?”

  “Definitely! I heard an earful.”

  “Do you recall any details?”

  “Nothing true.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It was just silly gossip. You know, Ben, there are people who can’t imagine a man and woman in the same room without ascribing all sorts of…activities.”

  “Wait. Let me get clear on this. The rumor was that Lorraine had a thing going—” Connie’s eye fell bleakly on mine. “—an assignation, but there was none?”

  “I recall every detail. It was claptrap. More names, Ben. Quickly, now, you’ve got me cooking.”

  We went down the rest of Main Street with no more hits, so I started tossing names at random. “Cindy.”

  “Cynthia. Cynthia Little.”

  Wes Little’s wife. Another blonde. Not as pretty as Dan’s wife; but I had seen the occasional predatory gleam in her hazel eyes that suggested a voraciousness that could make up for a lot in the looks department. We talked about Cynthia for a moment. Connie remembered no details, but neither did she remember disbelieving the gossip linking Cynthia Little to Brian Grose. “More names.”

  “Helen…”

  “…No.”

  “Georgia.”

  “Yes!”

  “Georgia Bowland?” A honey blonde.

  “I think yes.”

  “Oh, God,” I said, thinking, Poor Rick. And poor fragile Georgia.

  “Do not leap to conclusions,” said Connie.

  “I’m trying not to.”

  “I mean, do not forget that I am merely repeating gossip. Not eyewitness accounts.”

  Maybe so, I thought, but her discerning ear had put no credence in the gossip about Lorraine Renner.

  “More names,” Connie demanded.

  We ran through dozens, but produced no more hits, and I could see that she was growing tired. “Thank you, Connie. Thank you for your help.”

  “I must say, this has been rather fun. I mean gossip mongering is terrible, ordinarily. But there is nothing like a good cause to expiate guilt. Do you see the pattern? If three constitute a pattern?”

  “Sure. Priscilla, Georgia and Cindy. All three of the possibly-seduced are married to Cemetery Association Trustees.”

  “Any one of whom could be an angry husband.”

  “Keeping in mind that all we know is gossip.”

  Connie smiled. “Shall we dub the possibly-seduced the ‘gossiply-seduced’?

  “But, seriously, Benjamin, why would such a husband want to hire a detective to solve the murder he committed?”

  “He’d have no choice in the matter if the other two wanted it. At least he could console himself that a part-time detective would just get in the way of the police. Might even think he could pump me to keep abreast of their investigation in time to run for it.”

  ***

  The Board of Trustees of Newbury’s Village Cemetery Association met in Grace Botsford’s dining room. She lived in a large old saltbox, a beautifully kept gem of weathered shingles, twelve-over-twelve windows, and pale-green shutters. It stood half-smothered by a garden of roses on the edge of Newbury’s central Borough, where the original settlement had clustered around Newbury Road, which we now call Main Street.

  Rick Bowland introduced me formally to ten people I had known my whole life. Then he told them, “Ben is going to make an effort to find the murderer quickly to demonstrate to the court that the Village Cemetery Association took charge and did the right thing.”

  “That is absurd,” Grace protested. “Let the police handle it. Why waste our money?”

  “He won’t charge a lot, will you Ben?”

  I gave that the non-committal mumble it deserved.

  Grace looked at the others, all men, most younger than she, and said, quietly and firmly, like the businesswoman she was, “I understand your strategy. But it will backfire. It will make us look like an entrenched faction so out of touch and mistrustful of the police that we conduct our own investigation led by a real estate broker. No offense, Ben, but that has been your primary occupation since you were released from the penitentiary.”

  That gratuitous shiv in the ribs really surprised me. And everyone else in the room, judging by their expressions. They all knew I had done time for Wall Street crime—falling in, enthusiastically, with the wrong crowd and then refusing to rat them out—but it tended not to come up in conversations where my face was present. I had never thought of Grace Botsford as a nasty person, so I figured she was extremely upset with the young ones who wanted to hire me and probably feeling a bit outnumbered since her father had passed on.

  Before an embarrassed or voyeuristic silence could lock down the meeting, I said, “Actually, Grace, I’m running almost fifty-fifty, lately, half houses, half investigations. And, as Rick says, I am qual
ified. Even licensed.” (I had resisted getting a license to avoid the risk of losing it. But clients liked labels, and I liked clients because the income I earned as a private investigator allowed me to sell houses I admired and decline to list ugly ones I did not.)

  “But,” I added, turning to the others, “Grace raises an excellent point. The State Police have a good record of solving murders. They’re well-trained and well-equipped, if a little understaffed. Plus, as Connecticut doesn’t have all that many murders outside of the cities, the occasional upscale country killing gives them something to sink their teeth into. You can count on their enthusiasm. So I think you should listen to Grace.”

  Grace said, “Thank you, Ben.”

  Rick Bowland said, “Ben, you want to excuse us a minute while we hash this out?”

  “I’ll be on the porch, for a while. Then I’m going home. The cat wants a drink and I’m hungry.”

  I sat in a fine old wicker chair, enjoying the perfume of ancient Louise Odiers and Reine des Violettes that Gerard Botsford had devoted half his life to. I had taken my best shot. I would either not get the job, or I would get it at the pay rate I wanted. Pretty soon I heard raised voices through the thin walls. It sounded like half were on Grace’s side, half on Rick Bowland’s. As it got noisier I heard Grace say, “Dan Adams, you tried to depose my father back in the nineties. He didn’t let you then, and I won’t let you now.”

  Instead of letting that water continue over the dam, Dan shouted back, “Your father drove my father out of this Association. I was just trying to get a little for him.”

  Grace was cold as ice. “If you don’t think that our responsibility to the dead and Newbury’s future is more important than an old feud over who runs things, let me remind you that your father tried to drive me out of my position.”

  “Jesus Christ, Grace, you were a twenty-year old college kid.”

  “Do not swear in my house.”

  “You didn’t deserve to be treasurer.”

  “Dan, you were not yet three years old at the time. I do think you are complaining about things you do not understand. The board would not have gone along if they did not believe that I deserved the job.”

  All this time, Rick kept saying, louder and louder, “We have to appear to make the effort. We have to show we’re rightfully in charge.” Eventually he came out and got me, and I went in; and Grace, who had two red anger dots on her cheekbones said, speaking formally for the secretary taking notes, “The trustees of the Cemetery Association have voted to hire you, Ben Abbott, to investigate the murder of Brian Grose that occurred on Cemetery Association property.”

  I said, “I’ll give you a cut rate of a hundred and fifty dollars an hour.”

  “Ben!” chorused an abruptly unanimous board of trustees.

  I turned to the recording secretary and whispered, “Jeannie? Would you please put down your pen and cover your ears?” Jeannie looked at Grace. She had been the office manager/assistant/receptionist at the Botsford Agency since insurance was invented. Grace nodded, and Jeannie put down her pen and covered her ears.

  I said, “You have to appear to pay me decently. Otherwise it won’t look like much of an effort. Just between us, I won’t keep such close track of every hour. Besides, this will all be moot the second the cops nail the killer, and all you will owe me for is an hour of time for attending this meeting.” I raised a hand to quell howls of protest. “My first conversation earlier today with Rick and Dan and Wes was on the house.”

  Dan said, “Wait a minute. Nobody charges for the first conversation.”

  “Architects do,” I said. “So do some lawyers. And if you ask Pinkerton Chevalley why your car’s making that clunking noise, Pink’s reply will cost you.”

  Rick Bowland offered to drive me home. I said I’d rather walk. It was maybe five minutes from Grace’s place on the edge of the borough to mine on Main Street.

  “So I’ll walk you home.”

  “What about your car?” I had had enough cemetery chatter for one evening. Also, to do a proper job for them, I had to get out of their mind-set and into my own.

  “I’ll get my car later.”

  The old Borough has sidewalks, uprooted by aggressive maples, and narrowed by hedges. The houses are smaller and mostly lived in by long-time residents whose kids have grown up and moved away because they couldn’t afford to buy in their home town with new house prices going nuts year after year. There was no traffic on the side streets.

  “So what do you want to talk about?” I asked Rick.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re walking me home. I’m relieved you didn’t offer to carry my books.”

  “Huh?”

  “What’s up, Rick?”

  “I was just wondering if you have any idea who killed Brian.”

  “I doubt he interrupted a burglar.”

  “Meaning he knew the guy? The guy who killed him?”

  Curious, wondering was he toying with me, I asked, “What makes you think that?”

  “They were alone in the mausoleum.”

  “Not necessarily. There was room for several people.” The list, which I kept to myself, would include Donny Butler, Sherman Chevalley, or a blonde’s husband who was also a Village Cemetery Association trustee like Dan Adams or Wes Little. Or you, Rick Bowland.

  Rick stepped off the sidewalk where a hedge leaned close and called from the street, “What do the cops think?”

  That was a good question; almost as good as: Why did you or Dan or Wes fight so hard to hire me to investigate? Was one of you really hoping a half-assed amateur would throw dust in the cops’ eyes?

  I said, “Beats me. But I would guess that they are looking for witnesses who might have seen Brian go inside with someone. Or seen someone go inside who wasn’t Brian.”

  “How would he get in without a key?”

  “Maybe Brian lent him a key. Maybe he picked the lock. Maybe they went in together.”

  “But the cemetery was full of people for the tour and setting up the tour.”

  “You can be sure the cops will be talking to them.”

  Which was why I wanted to talk to Sherman as soon as I found him.

  Rick said, “You should talk to Donny Butler. He might have seen something. He’s there all the time.”

  “Since Brian Grose pressed charges against Donny for creaming his Audi and punching his eye, you can bet the cops are grilling the hell out of Donny.”

  “Donny wouldn’t shoot Brian.”

  “Probably not.”

  “Who do you suppose Brian would take into the mausoleum?”

  “Someone he wanted to show off to, or someone he wanted to do some work on it—fix something; or install something. He already hooked up audio. Maybe he wanted running water or a barbeque or high def video. Maybe it was just someone he wanted to get laid with.”

  “What?”

  “Private. Quiet. Cool stone under a beautiful skylight.”

  “It’s weird to joke about it, Ben.”

  “I am not joking.

  “The man is dead, Ben. Murdered.”

  “I am aware.”

  I wondered why he was so clawing so hard for the moral high ground. On the other hand, I had forgotten how buttoned down a fellow Rick Bowland really was. He had worked for IBM since college, and he actually sounded shocked by the concept of two adults sneaking off to a cemetery.

  “Are you really suggesting Brian Grose took a woman into his mausoleum?”

  “Could have took a guy. Could have took a dog. Who knows?”

  “But—”

  “Rick, one more dumb question and I will charge the Cemetery Association an hour of my time for this walk home.”

  “Sorry, Ben. I just was trying to get a leg up on what’s going on.”

  “Turn on your radio in the morning. You’ll hear the cops have solved it.”

  Except they didn’t. Not by morning. Not even
by lunch.

  I telephoned Sherman Chevalley’s cell phone for the fourth time. He was still not answering.

  I walked to the cemetery. The grounds smelled of sweet, cut grass. I traced a distant diesel whine and roar up the slope to Donny Butler maneuvering among headstones on a Kaboda riding mower. Brian Grose’s mausoleum was cordoned with yellow crime scene tape. I made sure that neither Trooper Moody nor Major Crime Squad cops were watching, slipped under it and tried the battered bronze door. Locked. I spotted the Kaboda pounding down a distant slope and I ran a broken field of headstones to cut it off at its next turn. Donny Butler saw me coming, idled back the engine and waited.

  “You got a key to Brian’s mausoleum?”

  “The cops taped it.”

  “I noticed.”

  A wide stick-it-to-the-man grin crinkled his wrinkles. “Last time I looked, there was a key in the maintenance shed.”

  “Shed locked?”

  “Not by me.”

  “Thanks, Donny.” I started down the slope, then turned back before he could rev the machine. “Hey, Donny?”

  “What?”

  “The other day you told Ollie you didn’t have a key.”

  “I didn’t have one on me.”

  “But there was a key in the shed?”

  “I didn’t notice.”

  “But there’s one there now?”

  “Maybe Grace got a new one cut at Mike’s.”

  As in Mike’s Hardware, sacred ground for those who found Home Depot too far away or too big and were not adverse to taking out second mortgages to pay Mike’s prices.

  “Would I be wrong in guessing that you told Ollie you didn’t have a key so you could watch the Chevalleys wreck Brian’s door?”

  “Could be.”

  “How many keys were there?”

  “I don’t know. One at Grace’s office. The one in the shed. Plus how many with the asshole.”

  “Was the shed locked on Sunday?”

  “No. I kept running back for stuff. You know, helping everybody set up. Besides, who was going to steal a mower in front of all those people?”

  “Hey, Donny, could I ask you something?”