Mausoleum

by Justin Scott

  “Sure about that?”

  “Not a hundred percent,” I admitted.

  “If Angel didn’t kill him, why is Angel running? Not to mention murdering the bail bondsman?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, beyond running from ICE ‘cause he’s illegal.”

  “Illegals don’t ordinarily assassinate bail bondsmen and low-life swamp life like your cousin,” said Arnie. “No offense intended to your family. Answer us one thing. Why did you drag us out here to tell us what you don’t know?”

  “You are the only cops in this investigation who won’t be satisfied arresting the wrong guy.”

  “You’re going to swell our heads, Ben.”

  “It’s not saying much. ICE makes their bones deporting illegals, the more the merrier. Homeland Security turns attempts to get driver licenses and work permits into “identity theft” so it can appear to be actually doing something to justify its existence. And your bosses are paid by the Feds to go along, and are harassed if they don’t. We’re not talking about a high standard here.”

  “Why are we sitting on this fucking rock?”

  “I think the sniper maneuvered Al Vetere into luring me down there.”

  “Are you asking for police protection, Mr. P.I.?”

  “No. But it’s sobering enough to make me offer to pool resources to nail the bastard before he tries again. I’ve told you what I know. What can you tell me?”

  Arnie stood up. “Here’s my advice. I heard it from a guy in a bar I couldn’t see in the dark: Go online to Travelocity and book an open-ended ticket to Europe. We’ll call you when it’s safe to come home. You coming, Marian?”

  Marian said, “Oh yes,” stood up and followed him back across the stepping stones.

  I called, “How come a perfect crime shooter panicked and ran away without his cell phones, dough, wigs, and weapons?”

  Marian stopped so quickly she slipped on a wet rock and started to fall backwards into the water. Arnie caught her hand, gracefully and saved her. I felt a blaze of jealousy. I knew they weren’t lovers—didn’t even really like each other—but their interplay was so intimate I wanted to kill him.

  “What do you mean ‘perfect crime?’” she called across the water.

  “Gloves,” I called. “No prints in the crypts.” Then I took a not so wild guess and said, “No hairs, no fibers.”

  They re-crossed the water faster than competing messiahs.

  I said, “You must be asking yourselves the same thing. The shooter killed him like a pro. Boom in the back. Guarantee shots in the head. Then he panicked? Left all his stuff? Can’t be the same person.”

  “He split,” said Arnie. “Mission accomplished. Outta here.”

  “Only if he came the same way. Like a real pro. Parachute in. Scope out the situation. Kill the target and split. Didn’t happen that way.”

  “How do we know?”

  “The room full of man-on-the-run gear. Which means, by the way, since Grose had the guy in his house he knew he was on the run.”

  “Why did Grose have him in the house, Ben?”

  I almost blurted, Because Grose gave a stone killer a job.

  But I could tell by their suddenly smug faces they had figured that out long ago and that I was way, way behind. They quickly unsmugged and tried to change the subject by demanding what made me think they found no hairs and fibers in the crypt.

  “Logical guess.”

  They also wanted to know how I knew there were no prints in the crypts, either. Two guesses was too much to expect them to swallow so I said, “I saw nothing about fingerprints in the newspaper.” They accepted that because they had bigger fish to fry.

  ***

  I headed back to town, concerned that I could not remember a time in my life that I had lied so often. I’d been hanging out too much with the cops. And I knew they felt the same way about me. Though I still could not figure out why they were letting me as close as they were. Unless I had something they wanted.

  When I drove back inside cell phone coverage I got a beep for a message waiting. I didn’t know the number. I dialed it, thinking, Father Bobby. No one answered. When I got to Newbury I went to the cemetery,

  They still had yellow tape around the mausoleum. But this time I did not invade the space. I just stood there and tried to walk through Brian’s last morning on the planet. It was all over before ten when first Angel and then Sherman found him dead.

  Angel goes to Grose’s mausoleum. Why? To meet him or confront him. He knows he’s there. He’s living at Grose’s house. Grose says see you later, I’m going to the mausoleum. Angel does not know that Grose is going to be shot. He goes to meet Grose or confront him. Why not at home? Why in the mausoleum? Because he was going kill him in the mausoleum, and the shooter beat him to it. Kill him with what? Sherman saw no gun in his tight bicycle shorts. Why is Angel wearing bicycle shorts? Because that way he doesn’t look like an Ecuadorian laborer. He’s got a helmet on and sunglasses; and he looks like a guy on a bike, an ordinary “desirable inhabitant” of Newbury, riding his bicycle on a weekend instead of mowing his lawn.

  My cell rang. “Hello, Ben, it’s Father Bobby. Sorry I missed you before. Sorry about the other night.”

  “Have you spoken with Charlie?”

  “That’s why I’m calling. I think he’ll take you up on your offer.”

  “When?” I asked, fed up with vagueness.

  “I’ll still talking him into it.”

  “How long is that going to take?”

  “It’s close. He’s getting tired, Ben. It’s hard to run.”

  “I’ll meet you anywhere you want.”

  “Will you bring the lawyer?”

  “That depends on when and where. Obviously I can’t bring him if he’s in court. So you might want to consider bringing him to some safe spot, like my house, some place we can stash him until we get the lawyer to walk him into the cops.”

  “You’re saying, ‘we.’ I don’t want to be there.”

  “You don’t have to be. All Charlie needs is the lawyer. I’ll go along to put him at ease.”

  “I’ll get back to you.”

  “Do me a favor?”

  “What?”

  “Hang on to that cell so I can get a hold of you.”

  He hesitated. “All right. I’ll take a chance the cops don’t trace my calls.”

  “I’m not asking you to take a chance. Get another phone for your other business. Just keep this one for me and Charlie. Okay?”

  “You think I’m paranoid, don’t you?”

  “I’m not saying you don’t have reason to be. But I wish you had more of a sense of urgency. If you’re going help this kid, you gotta do it fast.”

  He said he understood.

  I said, “Good bye,” with little hope.

  There was only one place I could think to go, and that was Steve’s Liquor Locker.

  Steve had long since sold the store to Dave who did so well with it that he was going to buy a second store and, demonstrating faith in the power of Twelve Steps that few liquor store owners would, installed Tom Mealy as manager of the first, which was still called Steve’s, it being bad luck, apparently, to rename a booze shop. The place was empty when I walked in. Tom was down on the floor, stocking shelves.

  He grabbed my hand in both of his huge paws. “Ben, I gotta thank you for standing up for me the other night.”

  “I just had a feeling that Ollie wasn’t bullish on redemption.”

  “You can say that again. That man will see me as a drunk until the day I die.”

  “How’s the leg?”

  “Not bad. Didn’t break the skin. Wrenched the heck out of it.”

  “How’s Alison?”

  His face clouded just a little. “I don’t know, Ben. Some of her little friends are showing up dressed like hookers. I don’t know how I’d handle it if she did.”

  “You’ve got my sympathy,” I said,
thinking better thee than me. When she and her mother lived in the barn I used to worry what I would do when the first date appeared on a motorcycle.

  “Janet says she’s so busy with the horse and music and computers and her lessons she won’t have time for that shit, but I don’t know man. What can I get you?”

  “I want to ask you something, Tom. The night you rolled over? You got cut off?”

  “Son of a bitch cut me off.”

  “Deliberately?”

  “No, no, no, just some damned fool drunk comes passing me down the hill on the curve, weaving like a snake. The lights came up so fast behind me I thought it was Ollie—you know how cops charge up behind you—but then I saw him cross the double yellow to pass and I thought, Oh shit, the man’s drunk as a skunk. He whips across my nose, and if I hadn’t slammed on the brakes and turned away he’d a nailed me. So he keeps going and now I’m in deep shit, car’s all over the place, skidding, sliding. I’m standing on the brake, I’m spinning the steering wheel; and just when I think I’m okay, I hit the curbing—that hump they put alongside to keep the water from washing out the road?— and over she goes, bang, bang, bang. Slams into a rock and slides on the roof back into the road. First thing I thought was: hope no nine-yard cement truck runs into me. Thank God it was too late at night for that. Thank God I was wearing my belt. Thank God for air bags. My nose still hurts from them. They popped when I hit the rock.”

  I said, “Wow.”

  Tom shrugged. “Funny thing is when I used to drink, never wore a seat belt. Cracked up so many cars, never got hurt, much. But you’re so loose—God looks out for drunks, right?”

  “Sounds to me like that night He was looking out for the sober.”

  “You can say that again.”

  “So it was the curb that got you?”

  “Skidding’s okay as long as you don’t hit a tree or another vehicle. But when those wheels stop sliding all of a sudden against the curb you’ve got nowhere to go but over. Especially in a truck or a SUV. I’m buying a little car when I get the insurance. Something that won’t turn over.”

  I drove down to Frenchtown to Chevalley Enterprises. Pink, Betty informed me, had gone out to ‘clear his head.’ I found him in the White Birch, which was busy with the late afternoon crowd. That long-haired, heavy-set patrons had left two stools empty on either side of him indicated that my cousin was judged to be in a testy mood.

  “Remember when Gerard Botsford got killed?”

  “Poor old bastard. That was a bitch.”

  “You brought the wreck in?”

  “Who else?”

  “What did it look like?”

  “What would you look like if you rolled over three or four times down hill at forty?” The gentleman nearest to Pink’s left got off his stool and carried his beer to a distant corner.

  “Cops inspect it?”

  “Looked it over.”

  “Quickie because he was old?”

  “No, the troopers looked it over pretty careful.”

  “What did they find?”

  “Found a car that rolled over three times.”

  “What was it? Something tall? Land Rover?”

  “You kidding? Those rich old Yankees don’t waste money on cars. Just a Chevy Blazer.”

  “Did they find any sign of another vehicle?”

  “Found a little green paint on the fender from something that hit him. Miss Botsford said it was news to her. But he’d been out all day. They figured he got dinged in a parking lot.”

  I called to Wide Greg who was recommending his parking lot to two fellows who had begun shouting at each other. “Couple of more, Greg?” The weather had been so beautiful for so long that it had reached the point it was kind of nice to sit in a loud, dark bar.

  “Pink, can I ask you something?”

  “What have you been doing so far?”

  “I don’t want to screw up your contract with the cops.” Chevalley Enterprises held an exclusive towing contract for recovering wrecks, partly because they got there fast and did a good job, partly because competing bidders tended to have terrible things happen to their tires. “Okay? Don’t answer if you don’t want to.”

  “I never do anything I don’t want to. What are you asking?”

  “Did anybody else ask you about Old Man Botsford’s Blazer? Recently? Maybe asked, and told you to keep it under your hat?”

  Pink ruminated for a while. Then he tugged his greasy Chevalley Enterprises cap off his head, turned it over, and peered inside. “I’ll be damned.”

  “What?”

  “You know how when you stick your ear in a seashell you hear the ocean?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well when you look inside this hat you see a lady with a fine butt.”

  I never liked the word butt. Or ass for that matter. Call me old-fashioned. Call me prissy. But just this once, it didn’t seem right to tell Pink to leave my friend’s anatomy out of it. So all I said was, “Thank you.”

  We clinked bottles and my cell rang. I put it to one ear and a finger in the other.

  “This is Father Bobby. Charlie Cubrero is ready to turn himself in.”

  “Fantastic! Great! Thank you. I’ll take him to my lawyer’s office and we’ll proceed from there. Where is he?”

  “We’ll meet you in Newbury.”

  “Perfect. My lawyer’s office is above the General Store. There’s a stair on the outside, but I’ll be waiting right out front.”

  “Hold on,” said Father Bobby.

  I heard rapid Spanish. “No, Ben. He’s afraid to do that. There’s a trooper stationed in Newbury.”

  “Resident state trooper Moody, the one you talked out of the speeding ticket.” I saw Pink’s eyebrows rise. Nobody talked Ollie out of a speeding ticket.

  “Charlie’s afraid if he sees him he’ll arrest him before you get upstairs to the lawyer—he’s scared, Ben.”

  “Do you want to come to my house? You can pull in the drive and come in the kitchen door.”

  The priest hesitated. “Hold on.” I listened to more Spanish.

  “Okay, here’s where he wants to meet. There’s a cemetery where he used to work? You know this place?”

  “I know it.”

  “He says there’s a mausoleum in it? Oh, of course, where the white man was shot,”

  “I know it.”

  “Charlie wants to meet there. By the mausoleum.”

  “You won’t be able to drive in,” I said. “The gates are locked at seven.”

  Father Bobby said, “Why don’t we just meet at the gates?”

  “Fine.”

  “Hold on.”

  I held on.

  “No. He says the cops will spot us at the gates.”

  “Yeah, well the cops could spot you climbing the fence, too,” I said.

  “Charlie knows a safe place to climb—One more thing, Ben. Remember what I said, I’m going to hand him to you and split. Once you have him you are on your own.”

  “I’ll do it anyway you want, Father. But I gotta tell you, you should take the credit for talking him in, make some friends with cops who could help you next time you need friends.”

  “Absolutely not. Under no circumstances do I want to talk to the cops.”

  He hung up. I looked at the phone and said, “Later, Pink. Gotta meet a guy. Thanks for everything.”

  “Hey, want me to ride along?” asked Pink.

  “Why?”

  “You look a little worried.”

  “No, no, no. Just thinking.” I was thinking the obvious. If Gerard Botsford, who controlled a hundred and sixty-two acres of open land, was deliberately run off the road, then Brian Grose, who wanted to get rich developing those acres, was the man with the motive. It would certainly explain why he kept a stone killer around the house, which made Grose the real villain, and wheelman Angel his instrument. How they had hooked up, God knew. Could have started with Angel mowing h
is lawn, or a recreational pharmaceuticals purchase. Had they had a falling out? Grose had a consistent record of those. Had Angel extended his stone killerism to Grose. Had he killed him or had he found him dead? I didn’t know. But I knew one thing for sure: Now the instrument is running around loose, scared, angry, murderous. And in deep, deep trouble—until Charlie Cubrero was arrested.

  Just as Sherman Chevalley assumed the cops would blame illegal immigrant Angel, Angel could assume that the cops would blame illegal immigrant Charlie Cubrero if he could make poor Charlie his fall guy. Charlie caught meant end of case. I wondered if it was Angel who sent poor fat Al to the Kantor farm, hoping he’d get shot in the ICE raid he’d somehow caught wind of.

  I had to sympathize with Father Bobby. Paranoia was catching. Had Angel somehow snookered the priest into setting up Charlie?

  “I may take you up on that later, Pink.”

  “On what?”

  “Riding along with me.”

  First things first.

  First get Charlie safely booked with a lawyer.

  Then go Angel hunting.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  I couldn’t find Tim to come with me to hand Charlie over to the cops. I called Vicky. She said he was over in Hartford at a Connecticut Bar Association meeting. “Actually, I’m on my own for dinner.”

  “I’d love to,” I said. “I can’t.”

  “Heavy date?”

  “No, just wrapping up a job—when you talk to him, tell him we’re ready to make our move. He’ll know what I mean. In fact, Vicky, do me favor? When you talk to Tim, ask him if he’d call Ira Roth to cover, if he can’t get here in two hours.”

  I got to the cemetery before Donny Butler locked the gate.

  “Did a priest go in?”

  “Nope.” Donny looked away. Stand-offishness was emanating from him like a Klingon force field.

  “You got a problem, Donny?”

  “I hear you’re my new boss. Mr. President.”

  “Donny, for crissakes you’ve known me since I was born.”

  “Planning any changes?”

  “Yes, I’m trying to get the trustees to up your salary to half a million dollars a year. If they don’t go along I’m hoping you’ll stay on anyhow. Did you see a priest?”