Mausoleum

by Justin Scott

  “Priscilla Adams, Georgia Bowland, and Cynthia Little. All married to Cemetery Association Trustees.”

  Which put me face to face with a downside of playing detective in my hometown. If I were investigating Brian Grose’s murder in, say, Greenwich or Bedford, or Washington Depot I could knock on strangers’ doors to ask the “lady of the house” how well she knew the deceased. The lady of the house, in turn, could tell me to get lost, or tell me she didn’t, but her neighbor Sally did, or break down in tears on my shoulder and list her dead lover’s best qualities. Out of such moments, cases are made, facts assembled. If an angry husband burst into the room and threatened to rip my lungs out, it wouldn’t be personal.

  But asking intimate questions in Newbury meant prying into the private lives of women I had known for years, smiled at in the Drover, nodded to in Steve’s Liquor Locker, flirted with at dinner parties, and would have to look in the eye for years to come. As for their husbands, it would be hard to remain friends, much less do business together. All that would be the easy part.

  The hard part would be causing pain and upset for people I cared about. I feared for Georgia Bowland, but I also liked her and admired the hope that kept her going. While I hoped that she would someday find peace or at least see Rick as more than her caretaker. I liked Priscilla Adams who was lovely to look at, and the kind of joke-cracking mother to her children we all wished we had had; I also admired how she deflected Banker Dan’s prickliness without ever allowing him to bully her. Cynthia Little I did not know as well; Wes had brought her home from college. But I knew that voracious look, had been its target once or twice, and had always harbored the dumb thought in the back of my mind: one of these days, who knew.

  On the other hand, investigating Brian’s murder in my own town gave me one clear advantage over a professional snoop who did not live in Newbury. Neither Brooklyn PI Hector Ramirez nor wannabe Big Al Vetere could ask a grande dame of Main Street, “Aunt Connie, what are you doing tomorrow night? What do you say we invite the gossiply-seduced for cocktails?”

  Connie had fallen silent. Now her eyes tracked back from the middle distance and for a grim second I wondered if she was still with me. “Benjamin,” she said. “I certainly don’t know all that much about such things, but what makes you so sure they were seduced? Perhaps they were the seducers.”

  “And passed Brian around?”

  “Doesn’t it strike you that the gentleman would have made a conveniently unimpaired assignee? Not married, no jealous wife, living alone in an enormous empty house hidden in the woods—if the gossip is true.”

  “Possible,” I conceded.

  “Contrariwise,” she conceded back at me, “whether or not Mr. Grose was the seducer, the distinction would mean little to a jealous, suspicious husband, would it?”

  “From the husband’s point of view, you’re right. It would be as upsetting, or enraging, one way or another. But there is another way to look at it.”

  “The husband might be understanding. He might even be relieved. Who knows the strains in a marriage?”

  “That is not what I mean.”

  “What do you mean, Benjamin?”

  “If Brian Grose was the active seducer of all three women, it could mean that Brian Grose laid a lot of groundwork, shall we say, to get that damned mausoleum into the cemetery.”

  “‘Laid,’“ Connie said, with all the warmth of a February Nor’easter,” is not the first word I would have chosen.”

  My cell phone had the kindness to ring in my shirt pocket and I said, “I’m sorry. I have to answer this.” Young Henry the Translator and I had missed earlier when one of us was out of range. I walked into Connie’s kitchen and said, “Hello, Henry. What’s up?”

  “Tony? Remember Tony?”

  “Picking tomatoes in New Milford.”

  “I just got a call from Tony. He thinks he saw Charlie’s car on Route 7.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  That stretched Henry’s English and I asked, “Which way was he heading?”

  “Up.”

  “North?”

  “Like to Newbury.”

  There was a lot territory between New Milford and Newbury and a lot of turnoffs.

  I said a fast good bye to Connie, “Are we on for drinks tomorrow?”

  “It’s short notice for Saturday night. Surely they have plans.”

  “We’ll make it six. If they’re going out to dinner, they can stop on the way. Shall I call them?”

  “Invite them here. If it’s warm enough we’ll do it in the garden.”

  ***

  I jumped in my latest rental, and headed down 7, eyes peeled for a burnt orange Honda Integra with flame decals coming the other way.

  I drove ten miles, almost to the town line, just past a turnoff which offered a shortcut to Morris Mountain; and there I pulled over, thinking that Charlie would head for the nearest thing to home, the Kantors’ beef cow and goat cheese farm. It was also possible that he had heard by now that I was offering to get him a lawyer. I turned the car around, got out, and made myself visible by sitting on the trunk. If anyone wondered what I was watching with my Swarovski birding binoculars, I was watching birds.

  Late morning, after commuters and summer camp buses and before lunch, the road was not busy. A car or truck would come along every half a minute or so. On the unusually long straight where I had parked, I could identify an on-coming vehicle with plenty of time to wave it down. I could only hope he would stop as the piece of junk Pink had rented me couldn’t catch a monkey on a bicycle.

  And damned if something burnt orange didn’t come along.

  Head on in the glasses, it showed its sleeping crocodile snout. It was orange and it was moving fast. Its windows were tinted so I could not see enough of the driver to recognize Charlie. He didn’t recognize me either, or didn’t want to. He certainly didn’t stop, or even slow down when I waved. I thought I saw canards in front as it roared by, and definitely saw the fat single round exhaust and a spoiler in back. I jumped into the rental and floored it with little hope of catching up anytime soon.

  Standing on the accelerator, pounding the steering wheel, and yelling encouragement, I finally persuaded it past the speed limit. Two seconds later, a trillion-candlepower galaxy exploded in my mirrors. Under the galaxy, high beams flashing in syncopation, steamed a familiar, grim, gray profile.

  “Son. Of. A. Bitch!”

  Here I am trying to catch Charlie Cubrero’s warp speed Integra and Trooper Moody nails me for speeding. His sirens shrieked and shrilled like demented crows. I signaled right, slowed, and pulled over.

  Ollie passed me so fast his wind shook the car.

  The Crown Victoria whipped around a bend and out of sight. I floored the piece of junk again, fumbled my cell from my shirt pocket, and thumbed phone keys. Somewhere in the far, far ahead Newbury’s Resident State Trooper was about to get famous for pulling over a speeder who turned out to be an alleged Ecuadorian illegal immigrant gang leader wanted on suspicion of murder. Famous, or shot.

  I had no love for Ollie, but dislike had its natural limits. If Charlie was what the cops said he was, even Oliver Moody might be caught flatfooted by a speeder who extended license and registration from the muzzle of an AK-47.

  God knew if he would answer his cell phone while maneuvering at speed.

  “What?”

  The part of my brain that gets its hackles up at the mere sight of Trooper Moody wanted to ask if he was operating a handheld telephone while driving, which was illegal in Connecticut. The smarter part said, “The guy in that burnt orange Integra might come out shooting.”

  “I doubt that,” said Ollie.

  “Be sure,” I said. “He could be a fugitive.”

  “I’m damned sure, Sherlock. He’s a goddamned priest.”

  When I had finally squealed around a few more bends in the road; there was the cruiser, flashing red and blue and yellow a safe distance
behind the Integra. And there was Ollie, glowering down perplexedly at a slim, smiling fellow dressed head to toe all in black, except for the white collar on his short sleeved neckband clergy shirt.

  Chapter Ten

  He wasn’t carrying a Bible, but he should have been, smiling up beneficently at Trooper Moody who appeared to delivering a half-hearted sermon on the sins of speeding. Ollie interrupted himself to wave me along with a very stern arm. I stopped a respectful distance away and waited for the opportunity to ask him how a priest happened to driving a burnt orange ‘93 Integra with canards and spoiler.

  Ollie stomped back to his cruiser. Instead of writing out a ticket, he drove off, fast enough to lay some rubber. He passed me, stone faced and roared toward Newbury. I jumped out and hurried back to the Integra. The priest stopped climbing into the car and watched me walking toward him. The beneficent smile he had used to talk Ollie out of a ticket must have cost him, because he was shaking with rage. Before I could speak, he said, “That cop pulled me over because I’m Latino.”

  His accent was Eastern Seaboard vanilla. Though up close, he looked as Ecuadorian as Charlie and Henry and Tony.

  “I don’t know if he could see you’re Latino through the smoked glass.”

  “Yeah, well he thinks the car is Latino.”

  I said, “I’m surprised you’re surprised.”

  I saw an explosion of fire in his eyes and had the novel impression that I was as close as I had ever been to being punched out by a priest. “How do you mean that?” he asked.

  “You’re driving a low-riding, burnt-orange-colored automobile with flame decals on the sides and slipstream-management devices usually found on craft that take off from military airfields. The vehicle is old but immaculate. And it’s a Acura Integra, a type of car driven by nine out of ten Latino young gentlemen.”

  “Do you think they can afford Mercedes?”

  “Actually, now that you mention it, I’ve just started to see young, prosperous Latino gentlemen driving newer BMWs. Only when their passengers look like bodyguards do I jump to the conclusion that they are drug dealers.”

  “You’re just like that cop. What are you saying? A hard-working young man can’t own a car he likes? He can’t enjoy a small indulgence even when he’s sending most of his money home and helping relatives get here to find work?”

  “I didn’t—”

  “While living six to a room?”

  “I didn’t—”

  “Driving a hot car is the only way a hard-working young immigrant gets to be a boy. Guys like you go off to college, you extend your boyhood into your twenties. These kids have to be men at fourteen. They have to work.”

  I said, “First of all, Father, it’s clear you went to college, too. Second, what are you mad at me for? I didn’t stop you for speeding, the cop did.”

  “I wasn’t speeding.”

  “I don’t know what they call speeding back at the seminary, Father, but you passed me doing seventy. But I gotta say I would love to hear you preach sometime because you must have been pretty darned convincing to talk Trooper Moody out of the ticket.”

  The priest gave me a thin smile. “Hey, don’t mind me, man. I just get so wired up the way they treat people. I lead an outreach program for immigrants. I hear terrible stories.” Suddenly his smile was as bright as his eyes had been fiery. “I’m Father Bobby,” he said, extending his hand. “Who are you?”

  “Ben Abbott.”

  Father Bobby looked my age or younger. His skin was smooth and dark, his hair was cut short. While his casual summer rig, including the well-worn New Balances on his feet, appeared designed to make both him and the people around him comfortable, he had the charisma of a man who could be counted on to lead. A nasty, wide, flat scar on his right forearm hinted that he, like the Savior, had known pain, if not violence.

  “Wha’d you stop for, Ben?”

  “A guy I know is driving a car like yours. I thought it might have been his.”

  “I wondered what you doing with the binoculars.”

  I watched his face and said, “His name is Charlie Cubrero.”

  “Did you see that despicable press conference?” he shot back at me. “They’ve practically ordered the cops to shoot to kill like he’s John Dillinger in a Latino body.”

  The Dillinger reference sounded so odd, so out of place and time in the mouth of an Ecuadorian priest, that I said, “Do you mind me asking? Where did you learn English?”

  “La Salle Military Academy.”

  “La Salle? I know La Salle.” La Salle used to be a Catholic military boys school on Long Island that catered to wealthy South American families. Some famous dictators had gone there. It had closed some years back. “I played you in soccer when I was at Stony Brook.” Connie had urged my parents to ship me off to the boarding school for my senior year. It would supposedly make it easier to get into Annapolis, but Connie told me privately, bluntly, it was to keep me out of trouble. I was hanging with the wrong crowd, my Chevalley cousins; though in fact whatever trouble we got into I had usually led the way.

  “Your coaches were monks. I’ll never forget the sight of monks running in long robes to break up a fight before the whole field joined the brawl.”

  “Before my time,” Father Bobby said, looking me up and down. “I think you’re a few years older.”

  “Do you know Charlie Cubrero?”

  “You think every Latino knows every other Latino?”

  “I think you are Ecuadorian. And so is he.”

  “Do you think every Ecuadorian knows every other Ecuadorian?”

  “Do you think there are two cars like this one in the state of Connecticut?”

  He said nothing.

  I said, “And since immigrants seeking work tend to follow routes blazed by family and friends, isn’t it likely that two Ecuadorians in one small state would be acquainted.”

  We looked at each other for awhile, looked away, looked back.

  I said, “You want to get some coffee?”

  “What for?”

  “Confession.”

  “Are you a Catholic?”

  “No.”

  Father Bobby looked down and scuffed the grass with his sneaker. After a while he said, so softly I could hardly hear him, “Charlie stashed his car with me for safekeeping. Mine’s in the shop today, so I borrowed it. Thank God that trooper didn’t ask me for the registration.”

  “Where’s Charlie?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I didn’t believe him. But if he was protecting Charlie, why would he trust me? I said, “The cops and Immigration are after him. I’m neither.”

  “Charlie was already hiding out before they started looking for him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know the whole story.” He looked up and down Route 7, looked me up and down again. “He ran from a gang war back in Ecuador. He’s been living here working hard, saving to bring his sister to America. Somehow they caught up with him. Some enemy spotted him. I don’t know. But they’re trying to kill him. That’s why he’s hiding.”

  “Are you saying he was already hiding when Brian Grose was murdered?”

  “The white man? Yes. He was already hiding.”

  “Are the cops right? Is he a gangbanger?”

  “Absolutely not. He’s just a slum kid who got caught in a cross fire. You know, you stand up for a friend one day and suddenly you’re in it.”

  “Could you get a message to him?”

  “What message?”

  “Tell him that I am convinced he did not kill Brian Grose. Tell him I will get him lawyers in Newbury. Tell him I will find out who killed Brian Grose so he won’t be charged.”

  “Let’s assume for a moment I could pass your message. I doubt he’d come in on your word.”

  “It’s worth a try. Sooner or later, he’s going to fall into a federal man-eating machine. He’ll be better off with us. Wil
l you help me?”

  Instead of answering yes or no, the priest went off on another tear. “They’re putting the pressure on illegals. They’ve got a new tactic: scaring them. People say the United States can’t deport twelve million illegals. But they don’t have to. If they deport enough of them, others will go back voluntarily because they don’t want to live in these conditions.”

  “At this moment, Charlie’s problems are a lot bigger than being illegal.”

  “Many people are counting on me,” said the priest. “I have to be extra cautious. If I were jailed, many more people than I alone would suffer. So if I am going to help you help Charlie, you have to protect me.”

  “How? Name it, I’ll do it.”

  He scuffed the ground again and looked away, shaking his head the way you do when you know something’s not a good idea, but you’re worried you have to do it because not doing it might be worse. Finally he turned back to me. “You have to keep my name out of it. Tell no one that I am helping you. Tell no one you even met me. No one.”

  “All right.”

  “Particularly no one at St. Peter’s.”

  “I don’t know anyone at St. Peter’s. I don’t even know where St. Peter’s is.”

  “My parish in Bridgeport. The parish supports my outreach program program—but the parish should not suffer for it. The Federal authorities are itching to criminalize Christian sanctuary. Give me your word that you will never do anything to call attention to the fact that I am helping you help Charlie Cubrero.”

  “I give you my word I will do nothing to put you or your parish in danger.”

  “That could include lying if you are asked about me.”

  “I will lie to protect you.”

  “It is a crime to lie to federal agents. You could be charged, prosecuted.”

  “It’s a hard crime to prove.”

  He looked me deep in the eyes. I had no trouble returning his gaze. I had told him the truth. I would lie to protect him from the consequences of helping me. He smiled, “Lying is a sin, too.”

  “I was taught to take lying very seriously. But I’m not religious.”