Mausoleum

by Justin Scott

“Sure.”

  “Did the cops ask you about the key?”

  His smile got ragged. “Yeah. Among other things. Sons of bitches.”

  “Wha’d you tell them?”

  “Said I didn’t notice if it was in the shed.” He reached for the Kaboda’s throttle. Before he could drown me out I asked, “Did they believe you?”

  He looked annoyed, pissed off, and maybe a little scared. “I’m still here,” he said, revved the machine, whirled it on a dime and roared away, spitting grass. I walked to the maintenance shed, found the key hanging on a hook with keys for the cemetery’s backhoe and the pickup truck, and one marked, “McKay Memorial,” and another marked, “Front Gate,” which they locked at night, forcing the amorously inclined to climb the fence, which reduced traffic to a volume that could be ignored.

  Back at Brian’s mausoleum, I made sure, again, that neither troopers nor anyone else for that matter, was watching, pulled on disposable latex gloves, unlocked the door, stepped inside and closed it behind me. I found myself in a pleasant space larger than I had imagined. It was about the size of the guest room in my house on Main Street.

  Some of Brian’s blood had been swabbed off the marble—for lab samples, I supposed, and to expose two gouges in the floor for photographs. Dark fingerprinting dust lay everywhere. I saw no prints on the dust, though I did find a forgotten photo marker, a yellow card they had placed beside a piece of evidence to ID a picture.

  It looked like someone had bashed the floor twice with a ball-peen hammer. The bashes marked where the bullets had exited Brian’s head, which suggested he had been flat on his back on the floor when those shots were fired. A dent in the bronze door had probably been made by the bullet that had passed through him, the first shot, the one in the back that had killed him. The dent was deep. The cops would have the slug, along with the two that had pocked the floor, which meant they would know what I could only guess: that the weapon had been heavy enough to throw him on his face, judging by the dent in the door, which meant the shooter had turned him over to shoot him in the forehead. Why bother? Two shots in the back of the head would have the same effect.

  What I had not seen, peering over Trooper Moody’s shoulder at the body Sunday, was the marble throne. It was tucked in the alcove behind the door, situated in such a way, I discovered when I took a seat, that the not-yet-dead owner could enjoy views of his stained-glass skylight and his marble floor. As I had said to Rick Bowland the colored stream from the stained glass would make an enchanting bed on which companions could cherish each other. My mind wandered to such a companion smiling in the light. Not surprisingly, considering this was a crime scene, I recognized the face of an adventurous peace officer I had once known well.

  The throne also afforded a view of four wide drawers in the back wall. Two were at floor level, two above in a second tier. I un-throned myself to pull on one of the lacquered bronze handles and a massively heavy crypt rolled out, gliding easily on ball bearings and steel rails. It was empty, lined with dark steel, and big enough to hold a corpse and the coffin it came in. Or a live person with a gun.

  All four were empty. All had been dusted inside with white power for finger prints. Otherwise, they were clean as a whistle, not surprising as the crime scene guys would have vacuumed them for fibers and hair. Again I saw no prints.

  I sat in the throne again. Had anyone hidden in there, he had worn gloves like mine. I imagined being Brian sitting on my throne, contemplating immortal privilege in my private final resting place when suddenly a crypt slid open. I imagined someone stepping out with a gun—no, sitting up with a gun. Someone I knew or didn’t wouldn’t matter. I imagined jumping off the throne to open the door. I imagined realizing that the door was my last sight on earth.

  ***

  When by lunch the next day, the cops still hadn’t solved the murder of Brian Grose, I dialed Major Crime Squad Detective-Lieutenant Marian Boyce’s cell, punched in my call-back number and said, when my phone rang a moment later, “I see your vehicle still prowling the town.”

  She said, “I see you got lucky.”

  “News to me.”

  “The woman—or should I say, girl—whose baby blue Mustang is sitting in your driveway?”

  “No, no, no. It didn’t come with a girl. I have to replace the Olds. Pink rents me different cars to test drive to see what I like.”

  “What happened to the Fiat?” The Fiat was a slickly curvaceous, twenty-seven-year-old Spider 2000 racing green roadster my mother had left with the house.

  “Italy is sending a part. By sailboat.”

  “Since when does Chevalley rent cars? Wait! Chevalley’s renting you his customers’ cars?”

  “I don’t ask.”

  Chevalley Enterprises drew repair customers from far beyond the town lines thanks to an eight-bay garage built by my favorite cousin, Renny, who had been an automotive genius. It had a dozen skilled mechanics who were disinclined to disappoint their enormous boss, Pinkerton Chevalley. Renny’s widow Betty ran the office and shielded the public from her brother-in-law.

  “So what’s up?” Marian asked.

  “Do you have time for lunch?”

  “If it includes wine.”

  “Aren’t you on duty?”

  “I’m taking the afternoon off.”

  “In that case, I’ve got a Gascogne Rosé in the fridge.”

  “Lunch only. And not in your house.”

  “I’ll set a table downstairs.”

  “No.”

  “Yankee Drover?”

  “Half an hour.”

  I put on a tie and a linen jacket and walked the convenient short stumble between my front door and the Yankee Drover Inn with its excellent bar downstairs and decent restaurant up. In the dining room, I kissed various up-tilted cheeks of Main Street matrons, returned the smiles of some McMansion Moms (while marveling, not for the first time, how much prettier they were than their houses) shook hands with a jolly table full of Realtors and mortgage brokers, and a sterner one of bankers and lawyers, asked Anne Marie for a table in the window, which overlooked the tree-shaded lawns of Main Street, and ordered a bottle of Lasendal, a Spanish contribution to world peace.

  Marian Boyce came in briskly, looking gorgeous.

  For whatever reason, probably because I became friends with Aunt Connie at a very young age, I have always enjoyed and admired ambitious, intelligent women. For reasons I can’t fathom, I find heavily-armed ambitious, intelligent women even more attractive. Marian, whose father had been shot on the job down in Bridgeport, packed a minimum of two sidearms at all times, concealing them ingeniously. Gray, wide-set eyes and an expressive mouth were icing on a very delicious cake.

  I stood up. She extended a strong hand, then leaned in to brush cheeks. “Just because I won’t sneak off for lunch in your house doesn’t mean we can’t have a dark booth.”

  “I wanted to see your face in bright light.”

  “Checking out wrinkles?”

  “It looks like you left them in the car,” I said, surprised. Even kidding around she was never one for self doubt. Something seemed a little off today. “How are you?

  “Great,” she shot back. “How about you?”

  “Doing all right…How’s things at home?”

  “Not bad. Not bad at all.”

  “Good,” I lied.

  At home were a cheerful six-year old boy from her marriage to a state trooper that had not survived her remarkable career, and a pleasant Pratt and Whitney engineer who was good to the boy, and as good to her as a dull man could be. She did not appear to be losing any sleep over the problem, if it was a problem; and when she reported, proudly, that she was still top of her class in law school, which she was attending at night, I concluded that she had found a productive outlet for the sexual energy she used to expend so generously on me.

  “I have a question for you,” she said after we touched glasses. “Before my afternoon off begins.” />
  “About the late Mr. Grose?”

  “You ever meet him?”

  “Around town. At a couple of parties. And a P&Z hearing.”

  “What did you think?”

  “Type I used to know on the Street. Couldn’t be bothered to hide his conviction that superior money skills made him a superior person.”

  “So you didn’t like him?”

  “I’d have been surprised if we became friends. On the other hand, people change. He did bail out of California real estate to make a home in Newbury.”

  “Quite a change.”

  “Of course, once he got here he started throwing his weight around, more like a California condo macher than a country gent.”

  “Maybe he thought Connecticut had entered the 21st Century?”

  “Actually, I take that back. Brian was less macher than hyperactive. He did do the right thing after tangling with the Forest Association—you know about that?”

  She nodded.

  “Though not, from what I hear, with the Cemetery Association—you know about that?”

  She nodded, again. Of course. And she had probably spoken with some if not all the trustees, including the possible gossiples.

  I said, “I found it hard to believe he had retired. He was high energy. And very smooth—getting himself invited into the Cemetery Association, which is not usually open to outsiders.”

  “Who is it open to? Just old families?”

  “And committed volunteers. You know, people who serve on commissions and join Rotary, but not the same year they arrive. Somehow, he charmed the old crowd. Though I must say, Gerard Botsford was no fool. He must have seen something solid in Brian to invite him onto the board.”

  “So maybe you could have become friends?”

  “I don’t think so. Not after railroading that mausoleum into the burying ground. Plus,” I said, shifting what had become an interview (cop talk for interrogation) toward an issue I considered more important, “I thought that pressing charges against the cemetery groundsman for backing into his Audi was harsh.”

  “It wasn’t your bashed-in Audi. Or your punch in the eye.”

  “Does that make Donny Butler a suspect?”

  “Stupid question.” She opened her menu and perused.

  “Even though you know that a fracas like that doesn’t usually escalate to shooting somebody months later in cold blood?”

  “Prisons are full of people who didn’t usually do what they were convicted for doing.”

  “Does Donny have an alibi?” I asked, afraid that poor Donny had wound up in a jam he wouldn’t understand until they threw away the key. I knew that he could be hot-tempered with a couple of beers in him and that he owned some guns. And if I really pushed it I could imagine him shooting Grose in the middle of an argument. But I found it harder to imagine Donny shooting Grose in the back. Not to mention pumping a double coup de grâce into the man’s head.

  “Does he?”

  Marian was gauging my reaction.

  I repeated, “Does he?”

  “Your friend has a fairly decent alibi.”

  “How decent?”

  “Fairly.”

  “So who shot Mr. Grose?”

  “Who do you think?”

  “Well he pissed off everyone in the Cemetery Association. But I don’t see any of them shooting him for it. In fact, I can’t see any of them even owning a handgun.”

  “How about a rifle?”

  “Inside the mausoleum? I doubt it. It’s big on the outside, but kind of cramped inside. Besides, would he have turned his back on a guy with a rifle?”

  “You think he got shot in the back?”

  “If that wasn’t an exit wound in his chest, you should be looking for the owner of a cannon.”

  “Two head shots,” she said, still gauging.

  “I can’t imagine shooting a guy in the back after two head shots. Anyway, to answer your question, I don’t know of anyone in town mad enough to shoot him. Including—especially—the guy with the ‘fairly decent’ alibi.”

  “So why did the Cemetery Association hire you?”

  “I tried to talk them out of it,” I said, telling myself that was more a fib than a lie. I did try to talk them out of it, but only to maneuver them into meeting my price.

  “Not hard enough.”

  “They’re running scared. I even told them you would nail the killer any second.”

  “I hope not to disappoint you.”

  “Got a suspect?”

  “Yes.”

  “Does this suspect have a name?”

  “Not before I have cuffs on him. What’s for lunch?”

  “BLT salad. Or the smoked wild Sockeye salmon.”

  She looked at the menu, again. “I don’t see Sockeye.”

  “It’s in my refrigerator.”

  “No way, Jose.”

  “Smoked it myself. Applewood. That fell off Scooter’s tree when he wasn’t looking.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Can’t hurt to ask. So when are you cuffing this suspect?”

  “Soon as we find him.”

  “Funny time to take the afternoon off.”

  “I’m learning to delegate.”

  I looked at her closely. Something was definitely off kilter. I was usually the one who asked questions, hoping she would toss me a crumb of a crumb in exchange for a crumb or two. Now she was asking questions. The change did not make either of us comfortable. I said, “Let me make a wild guess.”

  “About what?”

  “Your suspect.”

  “What about him?”

  “You don’t like him. You don’t think he’s the guy.”

  “You’re dreaming, Ben.”

  “I’ve never seen you doubtful before. It’s a shocker. Like discovering that Superman can’t fly.”

  Her smile got a little tight. Something else I had never seen before. Normally Marian smiled like she meant to or didn’t smile at all.

  “What’s his name?”

  “You know I can’t tell you that until we go public.”

  “So why lunch? Other than the pleasure of our company.”

  “I thought maybe you might have some take on Grose. Different than everyone else’s.”

  “Which is?”

  “What we just said. Unpleasant rich outsider with no respect for traditional values.”

  “People don’t get murdered for that.”

  “I know.”

  “Happen to interview my cousin Sherman?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “I can’t find him. I was wondering if maybe you were looking to interview him and he got scared.”

  “He has no reason to be. Arnie talked to him Sunday.”

  “No reason? You’re telling me Arnie didn’t bring up his parole?”

  “I am not going to discuss interview ethics with you, Ben. But I will tell you that your cousin Sherman has never struck me as a killer…Even though prisons are full of people who didn’t usually do what they were convicted for doing,” she added with a smile that said that she was a pro who regarded me as a vaguely-amusing amateur.

  “Who do you like better than your suspect? Sherman or Donny?”

  She shook her head.

  “How soon before an arrest?”

  “I don’t know, Ben. He’s hiding and he’s good at it.”

  I sat up straight. “A bad guy? A genuine bad guy?” Instead of three “gossiple” husbands who were friends of mine, or a thief who was a cousin, or a grave digger whom I had always liked.

  “As opposed to what?”

  “A pissed-off, disgruntled whatever. You say he’s good at it, like he’s some kind of a pro. Doesn’t that make the shooting a professional job?”

  “No. I don’t mean it was a hit.”

  I said, “When the Navy trained me for ONI, no one passed Assassination 101 before he mastered double head shots.”
/>   She said, “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.

  I said, “And since nobody heard a shot, maybe a silencer?”

  She said, “This was a bad idea.”

  “Did he leave any prints or was he too slick?”

  “I’m outta here.” She started to stand.

  I said, “Back to the menu…And I’m sticking with the BLT salad. Though the mushroom omelet is excellent.”

  “Thank you, Ben.” She settled down, reached across the table and clasped my hand.

  I said, “That feels wonderful,” which it did—an electric tingle like champagne bubbles on the tongue—wonderful enough to seriously consider slinging her over my shoulder and carrying her upstairs to the Yankee Drover’s famously romantic B&B room, the Organza Suite, in hopes of getting her clothes off before she located a pistol. But even though I thought I saw a look in her eye that said she wouldn’t hunt too hard, and even though it seemed reasonable to wonder if she too was considering a second chance for us, I had to say, “Wonderful, but…”

  “But, what?”

  “But I’m afraid we have company.”

  Out the window we could see her wiry, little partner Arnie Bender alight from an unmarked State Police Crown Victoria. Behind it was a “company car,” a dinky Ford Focus with government plates and two suits inside who looked like some kind of low-rent Feds. Immigration, I guessed, or DEA bureaucrats. Across the street Oliver Moody sat in his cruiser, expressionless as a coyote counting house cats.

  “Oh shit,” said Marian. “Ben, I gotta go. I’m really sorry.”

  I watched from the window as she hurried down the Drover’s front walk and shook hands all around. Then everybody piled into the cars and drove off quickly, while I wondered what in hell was going on.

  ***

  I was halfway through my BLT salad when Dan Adams rose from the bankers’ and lawyers’ table and walked across the restaurant to mine. At the meeting at Grace’s house Dan had been strongly in favor of hiring me. I motioned to Marian’s chair and invited him to sit.

  “Your date left early.” He looked nervous and his nervousness made him more than usually combative. In high school basketball, Dan had always been the kid that the Newbury Colonials could count on to foul out.

  “That was no date, that was a peace officer.”