Body Language

by Michael Craft

  Pierce nodded. “Money always makes a good motive.”

  I leaned toward him. “And she seemed more than eager to tattle that Miriam Westerman was in the house at the time of the murder, which Miriam denies. Miriam might be lying—it wouldn’t surprise me—but on the other hand, Hazel might have lied in order to draw suspicion away from herself. Do you think there might be more to this?”

  “It’s worth looking into,” Pierce answered, lolling back in his chair.

  At that moment, for the first time during our discussion, I was struck with the feeling that Pierce was… looking at me, sort of drinking in the sight of me. And I realized that I may have been sending signals that invited him to do exactly that. I was sitting there in a pair of running shorts with my crotch at his eye level, and my mounting enthusiasm for a “Hazel theory” had nudged me steadily nearer the man. I had not intended to entice him with my body language, but he seemed to be responding to it. On his first visit to the house, Sheriff Douglas Pierce had proven himself gay-friendly. Was he also, perhaps, gay?

  He continued. “If nothing else, this new angle should buy me some time with the DA, and, right now, that’s precisely what we need.” He pulled a notepad from his jacket pocket and clicked a ballpoint over it.

  I stood and crossed to the desk, wanting to check some of my own notes—had Hazel wanted to get a look at them, too? I told Pierce, “I’ve got another idea for you, Doug. Thad’s father—here it is, Austin Reece—might he have had some motive to want Suzanne dead? You told me that she jilted him, that he left town in either anger or despair. Those are plausible motives.”

  “You’re right,” he said, finishing a note. Rising, he joined me at the desk. “Austin Reece is a long shot at best—I haven’t a clue as to where he went when he left Dumont—but there are ways to find out.”

  “There now.” I smiled. “You arrived this morning with three suspects, and you’re leaving with five. A productive meeting, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Yes,” he said, rubbing his neck, “but now I’m the one who has to sort this out.” Then he rested a hand on my shoulder. “The things I don’t do for friends.”

  It was a lighthearted comment, not quite a joke, but I knew that his underlying reason for saying it was to let me know that he did, in fact, think of me as a friend, not just another citizen involved with another case. And I was happy to hear it—not so much because of the special attention it implied that I would be accorded, but because I’d felt since our first meeting that Doug Pierce’s friendship was well worth nurturing. Conspicuously, I twisted my head to eye his hand on my shoulder. Then I looked him in the face and asked, “Do you know Glee Savage?”

  Laughing at this non sequitur, he flipped open his notebook and clicked his pen. “Of course,” he answered. “She’s a great gal. Do you suspect her, too?”

  “Hardly. But she paid a visit yesterday, telling me an intriguing tale about Suzanne’s high school days when she disappeared for a week and withdrew from the running for queen of a cotillion.”

  Pierce paused in thought. “I forgot all about that,” he said. “Suzanne was two years ahead of me in school, and the cotillion didn’t interest me anyway, but now that you mention it, I do recall that there was something of a stir back then. I was just a freshman—I never understood what it was about.”

  “Neither did Glee,” I told him, “but she certainly sniffed a story, and I presume she suspected an unwanted pregnancy.” I elaborated, telling Pierce about Suzanne’s mysterious ailment, the trip out of town, the timing with regard to Roe v. Wade.

  “Interesting,” said Pierce. “But so what? It’s water under the bridge.”

  “That’s just how I reacted. But then Glee informed me that Suzanne had been doing a lot of morgue research at the paper lately—Suzanne herself mentioned this. And according to Glee, the research focused on a brief period immediately after high school. She thinks that Suzanne had stumbled onto something that got her killed. She thinks the murder is related to the high school ‘ailment.’”

  Pierce shook his head. “Glee’s been reading too many potboilers. It sounds like a stretch to me.”

  “You’re probably right,” I told him, “but could you at least take a look at the police records from that period? See if there were any suspicious incidents that might relate to Suzanne’s brief disappearance.”

  “Okay,” he said, adding to the list on his pad. “Anything else?”

  I shrugged. “Nope. That ought to do it.”

  He crossed to the door and got his coat. “I’ve got to run.”

  “Me, too.” I laughed, glancing down at my Reeboks.

  He took a lingering look at me. Grinned. “You’d better put some pants on.”

  Late that afternoon, Neil was preparing for the drive down to Chicago. The week before, he had ridden up in my car, which would now stay in Dumont, so he was returning with Roxanne and Carl. Upstairs in our bedroom, zipping one of his bags, he told me, “I’ve been thinking about it, Mark—maybe it would be a good idea if I came back up here next weekend.”

  “New Year’s? I was planning a night on the town for us. Besides, I don’t want to renege on the ‘arrangement’ already—it’s my turn to visit you.”

  “I know that,” he said, hugging me in a loose embrace, “and I appreciate your determination to live up to our deal, but you’ve got a lot going on up here. You’re not settled into the house yet, and you take over the Register in three weeks.”

  “Not to mention,” I said, voicing the concern that he had kindly left unspoken, “it might look bad for me to leave town while Suzanne’s murder is unresolved.”

  “That, too,” he admitted, and we agreed that his offer made sense.

  Joey Quatrain had come over to the house that afternoon to visit Thad, who spent most of his time in his room, when he wasn’t out with friends. Joey was confused about who actually lived in the house now, and he was surprised to learn that Neil, Roxanne, and Carl were going home—he thought they were home. Bu the enjoyed the excitement of everyone packing, and he helped carry luggage downstairs, to be loaded in the car.

  It was a tight fit. Roxanne had never known the virtue of traveling light, and added to her and Carl’s things were Neil’s, plus an array of Christmas booty that needed to be hauled back. Hazel brought out a hamperload of snacks for the trip, which went onto the backseat with overflow from the trunk.

  At last we were all assembled in the driveway—even Thad deigned to make an appearance—when Neil remembered, “Oh, God, the wastebasket.” We had been shopping a few days before Christmas, when Neil found a wastebasket that would look good in the kitchen of the loft. “It’s still in the trunk of your car,” he told me.

  Eyeing the load in his own car, Carl Creighton asked, “Will it fit?”

  “I’ll carry it on my lap if I have to,” Neil answered. “It’s bulky, but not heavy.”

  Parker stepped forward, volunteering, “I’ll get it.” Joey added, “Me, too. I want to see Mark’s nice car.” So I thanked them, giving Parker the keys, and he and Joey walked together to the garage.

  “Parker’s a neat guy,” Neil told me. “I think you made the right choice.”

  “I think so, too—at least I hope so. You enjoyed your run together?”

  “Yeah. We had a good talk, mostly about you. He’s fast—and I don’t just mean fast ‘for his age’—he’s a well-trained runner.”

  Roxanne sidled into our conversation. “If that’s how he built those killer buns, I’m ordering a treadmill tomorrow!”

  We were laughing at this comment when Parker returned with Neil’s wastebasket. Roxanne asked Parker if his ears were burning.

  Before he could answer, Thad asked him, “What happened to Joey?”

  “He’s still in the car—hope you don’t mind, Mark. He loves it.”

  “Hell, I’m flattered.”

  And it was time for good-byes, accompanied by a round-robin of hugs and kisses and wishes for safe travel. “I’ll mi
ss you, kiddo,” I told Neil.

  He reminded me, “I’ll be back in four days. Now, behave yourself.” And everyone was in the car.

  Carl revved the engine, and Roxanne opened a window. “I’m still licensed to practice law in Wisconsin,” she told me. “If things heat up, I’ll happily defend you.” Though the crack was meant to be funny, no one found much humor in it, and the car drove away.

  It was barely four-thirty, and night had already fallen. Parker went to the garage to shag Joey out of my car while Thad, Hazel, and I went inside the house. We were hanging around the kitchen when Parker returned. Tossing me my keys, he told us, “Joey thought he’d better go home. He said to tell you good-bye, Thad.”

  The kid grunted his thanks.

  I sighed. It had been a harrowing Christmas for everyone, an inauspicious prelude to my new career in Dumont. I could easily have slipped into a depression at that moment, but I willed my spirits back up, determined to conquer the postholiday icks. “Hey,” I told everyone, “let me take you out to dinner.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Manning,” Hazel said, “but that would be inappropriate.” Turning her back to me, she began rinsing something in the sink, telling me over her shoulder, “I’ll be cooking for myself and for anyone else who remains.”

  Thad said, “I’m eating here with Hazel,” and left the room.

  “I’ll go, Mark,” Parker told me. “With pleasure, of course. What time?”

  “Early, okay? How about six?”

  “Sounds great. Where are we headed?”

  “There’s that nice place on First Avenue near the Register’s offices.”

  Hazel informed me, “That’s the First Avenue Grill.”

  Parker winced. “I’ll bet they don’t go by their initials.”

  He and I shared a vigorous laugh while Hazel ground up something in the garbage disposal—it sounded like forks.

  At one minute before six, Parker and I walked through the doorway of the First Avenue Grill. The handsome dining room occupied a converted storefront on the town’s main street, and its contemporary furnishings gave the place a surprisingly urban look—though its white linen tablecloths, sturdy nurse-uniformed waitresses, and fish-free menu told me I’d traveled some million miles from Bistro Zaza.

  When I’d called an hour earlier, the hostess assured me that I wouldn’t need a reservation, and, indeed, the dinner crowd was sparse that night. Though it was Monday, it felt like Sunday, and most people were probably at home eating leftovers or ordering pizza, keeping the next morning’s work demons at bay for a few more hours. The hostess already knew me (I’d lunched there with Barret Logan on the day I drove up to negotiate the buyout), so she seated Parker and me at a comfortably large table in a prime location between a window and the fireplace. Handing us menus, she told me, “I’m so sorry about your cousin, Mr. Manning. We’ll all miss Suzanne terribly. Have the funeral arrangements been announced?”

  “No, not yet,” I told her, thanking her for her concern. Then we ordered a cocktail—vodka for me, Scotch for Parker—and she left the table.

  “If you don’t mind my asking,” said Parker, “what about Suzanne’s funeral?”

  “It’s up in the air,” I answered. “The Quatrain family has belonged to one of the town’s Catholic parishes for generations, and even though Suzanne split with the church years ago, the good father is itching to put on a show. Ditto for Fem-Snach. It’s sort of an all-purpose group, mainly political but also quasi-religious (if you think of paganism as a religion), and Miriam Westerman wants to officiate at Suzanne’s burial. Suzanne’s will left no indication of her desires, so Elliot Coop, the old family attorney, thinks the decision should rest with the family. But who is ‘family’? There never was a husband, and Suzanne is survived only by a minor son, a handicapped brother, and me, her cousin and executor. So it’s a mess.”

  The hostess returned with our drinks, lighting a candle at the table. We asked for some time before ordering, and she left us.

  Parker raised his glass to me. “To the future, Mark. Good luck to both of us.”

  I returned his toast, and we drank, but my mind didn’t spring to the future. I was still absorbed in the past. I told Parker, “All this business about the funeral. It strikes me that the emerging history of my roots in Dumont seems highlighted by… death.”

  Parker gulped. “What do you mean?”

  “Christmas night, you and I sat up talking in the den. I told you about my childhood visit to Dumont. Remember, the whole reason for that trip was that my mother needed to visit her sister, Edna Quatrain, in California. Aunt Edna had lung cancer, and she died that next spring.”

  “People die, Mark. And that was a long time ago.”

  Leaning closer, I told him, “But it’s almost as if that was the start of a ‘trend,’ the first of many dominoes that would fall. Consider: My older cousin, Mark Quatrain, died in Vietnam just a few years after my visit, and his mother, my aunt Peggy, died the same year he did. My own mother died when I was in college, and Uncle Edwin attended the funeral. It had been more than ten years since I first met him, and I would never see him again. I inherited the house when he died three years ago. And when I finally moved up to the house last week, Suzanne was killed there.”

  I rested my case, as if there were some great mystery of interconnectedness linking these events.

  Again Parker said, “People die, Mark.” He patted his hand on the table, stopping just short of touching mine. “It’s the natural order of things. Sickness, old age, warfare—these are forces that lead inexorably and naturally toward death. Each loss, while surely sad, is nothing ominous.”

  “There was nothing ‘natural’ about Suzanne’s death,” I pointed out.

  “Yes”—he nodded—“she’s the tragic exception in the litany you’ve recited, but her murder does not imply some doomful conspiracy of death within your family.” He eyed me squarely, grinning. “Wouldn’t such a view be a tad irrational?”

  I smiled. He’d caught me flirting with the illogical, bemoaning the bugbears of fate, and I was glad to be chastened for it. “Thanks for the reminder,” I told him, lifting my glass to sip my drink.

  In a much lighter tone, I mused, “Something happened at my mother’s funeral that intrigued me for years—and this does relate to my early visit to Dumont.”

  Parker leaned back in his chair. “I’d be happy to hear about it,” he told me, drinking some of his Scotch.

  “As I’ve mentioned, Mom died while I was in college, victim of the same cigarettes—the same brand, in fact—that had killed her sister eleven years before. Ours was a small family, so the funeral was little more than a discreet memorial service. Preoccupied with my own loss, I hadn’t realized that Uncle Edwin might attend, but he did, and he seemed as surprised to see me as I was to see him. Not that he wouldn’t expect to see me at my own mother’s funeral, but he was unprepared to see me as a man. ‘My God, Mark,’ he said as we embraced, ‘you’d have no way of knowing, but you’ve grown into the very image of your father.’ Then he repeated something he’d told me during my boyhood visit to Dumont: ‘You’re such a special young man, not at all like the others.’ And he kissed me. Right on the lips.”

  Parker’s jaw dropped. I expected him to comment on the kiss, but instead he asked, “What ‘others’ was your uncle talking about?”

  “I assumed he meant his own children.”

  Parker seemed baffled by this. “What did he mean when he said that you were different from them?”

  I leaned forward to explain something that I thought should already be obvious. “Parker, the man kissed me on the mouth. I wasn’t a little kid anymore, but a junior in college. He said that I wasn’t like the others because he sensed that I was gay—long before I myself figured it out. And I wondered, standing near my mother’s grave, if he was gay.”

  “Was he?”

  At that moment, I was distracted by the distinguished figure of Barret Logan entering the restaurant. The Regist
er’s retiring publisher saw me as well and headed straight for our table. Parker and I stood. He offered condolences on Suzanne’s death, wished Parker and me a belated merry Christmas, and took off his coat. Since I’d previously had lunch with Logan at the First Avenue Grill, I quipped, “Do you take all your meals here, Barret?”

  “In fact, I do,” he answered with a laugh. “Or at least it seems so. I’ve been a widower for some years now, and there’s no appeal in cooking for myself. Besides, this is easily the best place in town.” He wore a dark business suit that night, which struck me as a bit overdressed (Parker and I were dressed nicely, but casually). I wondered if Logan was always attired this way, or if tonight he had spiffed for his outing to “the best place in town.”

  I asked if he would care to join Parker and me for dinner. He thought about it, but not for long, and readily agreed. The hostess whisked away his coat and brought him a place setting; they both understood that he didn’t need a menu. “Would you like a drink, Mr. Logan?” she asked. “Yes, please,” he answered. “Lillet.” The woman went away to fetch it, a French apéritif. I was surprised that they had it, up here in the hinterlands, and I suspected that it was laid in at Logan’s request.

  Our small talk quickly returned to the murder, and I mentioned the irony of circumstances that had pegged me as a prime suspect. I was relieved to note from Logan’s tone that he harbored no such suspicions himself. “The investigation is in good hands with Douglas Pierce,” he assured me. “He’s a dedicated professional. What’s more, he has a genuine hunger that justice be served.”

  “I’ve already learned that,” I told Logan. “We’ve come up with a handful of potential suspects, and I’m sure the investigation is grinding away, even as we speak. He’s an impressive guy.” We all paused as Logan’s Lillet was delivered. Exchanging a silent toast, we drank. Then I told Logan, “I was also impressed with one of your staff. Glee Savage visited me yesterday.”