The Hot Pink Farmhouse

by Unknown

Dirk shrugged his broad shoulders. “Certainly sounds that way.”

  “And you’re trying to tell us it wasn’t you?”

  Dirk looked Soave right in the eye, his gaze steady and unwavering. “I am.”

  “Do you actually expect us to believe you?”

  “I do,” Dirk said, refusing to be shaken from his story.

  Des found herself believing him. Even though it absolutely did not add up. Not at all. Because, damn it, they’d checked the inn’s registry. And they knew who else besides Dirk had been staying up on the third floor. And if it wasn’t Dirk who Moose was mixed up with, then, well, this case was getting more whacked by the minute.

  In fact, it made absolutely no sense at all.

  “Yo, this is just like old times,” Soave remarked as Des steered her cruiser down the Old Shore Road toward Smith Neck Cove. He rode shotgun. Tommy was running Dirk back to the inn. “You and me going out on a call together, huh?”

  “Don’t let Tommy hear you say that. He’ll think you miss me.”

  “I do miss you, Des. Geez, I thought I made that awful clear . . .” Now the man sounded hurt. He was still pouting over her stinging rebuke in the art academy lounge. “We worked good together. Our minds meshed. Plus you notice things quicker than I do.”

  “Only because I’m a woman.”

  “What’s that got to do with it?”

  “Women listen. Men are too busy strutting around, trying to impress people.”

  “I miss working with you, Des.”

  “Rico, you’re a day late and a dollar short,” she said to him coldly.

  He fell into troubled silence for a moment. “The thing is, I had my whole future to think of.”

  “Yeah, you made that pretty clear at the time.”

  “No, you don’t understand! Hear me out, will ya? I was under a ton of pressure from up above to stick with my boys.” He was referring to the Brass City crew—his brother, his uncle, the whole lot of them. “They watch out for me, Des. I need that. I need them. I’m nowhere on my own. And you . . .”

  “I was a lone wolf. Say no more.”

  “If I had it to do all over again, I would have protected you better. I owed you that. I realize it now.”

  Des kept her eyes on the road. “We all do what we have to do,” she said grudgingly.

  “I realize that, too. But tell me this—why do I still feel so lousy about it?”

  “You’re picking at your own scabs, Rico. I can’t help you.”

  He peered at her intently from across the seat. “You’re a hard woman, Des.”

  “I have to be. If you want soft, call Tammy.”

  “It’s Tawny!”

  Along with her family’s thriving art gallery, Greta Patterson had inherited a sprawling Cape Cod–style cottage out at the end of Smith Neck Cove. Its half-mile-long private driveway was flanked by vineyards. Going into the entry hall, where Greta greeted them, was practically like walking in the front door of an art museum. Paintings lined the walls from floor to ceiling. Landscapes, mostly, many of them by Wendell Frye’s father and grandfather. One of Hangtown’s own sculptures was featured prominently in the entryway, a tower comprised of old beauty-salon hair dryers, toasters, television sets and the front end of a 1957 T-Bird.

  Greta’s wide-bodied frame was covered in a caftan of purple silk lined with gold brocade. She wore a pair of black velvet lounging slippers on her feet and an extremely guarded expression on her square, blotchy face. Her mouth was freshly painted a garish red. In one hand she was clutching a long-stemmed goblet of red wine. She was drinking alone—her husband was nowhere to be seen. “May I offer you folks a taste of mine own merlot?” she asked them.

  “You folks produce your own wine here?” Soave asked her, awestruck, after they’d politely declined her offer.

  “Well, I’m getting there,” she replied huskily. “The vines are starting to yield grapes of genuine depth and subtlety.” She held her goblet up to the light, the better to admire its color. “There’s a cooperative winery in operation in Stonington that I belong to, although I am by no means a winemaker myself. I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”

  “Nothing to it,” Soave said, grinning at her. “You just got to be Italian—my grandfather used to make it in his bathtub.”

  Des, for her part, was thinking about how many times Greta had used the word I instead of we.

  She led them into the living room, where there were more paintings, a well-stocked bar, a roaring fire. Also a gold-inlaid Browning twelve-gauge shotgun in an ornate glass case. Des’s eyes fell right on that.

  So did Soave’s. “Who’s the shooter?” he asked Greta.

  “I am. Colin hates guns.”

  “You hunt?”

  “No, never. I shoot for sport. Targets . . .”

  “Ever fire a Barrett fifty-caliber?”

  “That’s not sport. That’s a weapon of mass destruction.”

  “How is Colin feeling?” Des asked her.

  “Defiant, that’s how,” Greta replied. “He is not going to be railroaded out of his job by that woman. I say this not only as his wife but as his attorney—Colin Falconer is Dorset’s superintendent of schools and he intends to remain so.”

  “May we speak with him?”

  Greta padded over to the fireplace and poked at the fire. “What’s this all about? You were maddeningly vague on the phone.”

  “We need to speak with him, ma’am,” Soave said, his voice firm.

  “Well, he’s having a lie-down. Poor thing’s exhausted. But I’ll see if—” She broke off, glancing up at the doorway.

  Colin stood there in a red silk dressing gown, looking pale and unsteady. There were purple smudges under his eyes, and his hair was disheveled.

  “There’s my boy now,” Greta spoke up with motherly good cheer. “How are you, darling?”

  “I feel . . . like I’m dreaming,” Colin replied in a hollow, shaky voice. “I keep thinking I’ll . . . wake up and everything will be . . .” He let out a sudden strangled sob and slumped into an armchair, his head in his hands.

  Soave shuffled his feet uncomfortably. He did not deal well with emotionally overwrought men. This one also happened to be married to a woman who was easily twenty years his senior. Ozzie and Harriet they were not.

  “We’re sorry to bother you right now, Colin,” Des said. “But there are some questions we absolutely must ask you.”

  “Oh, God . . .” Colin moaned, his long bare legs stretched out before him. He had the skinniest, whitest legs Des had ever seen. She doubted that they had ever been exposed to sunlight. “I’m so confused.”

  “We’re all confused,” Greta said to him gently. “The whole damned world is full of confused people.”

  “We’re only concerned with the ones who kill other people,” Soave said.

  “Of course,” Colin said. “A-and you have a job to do. I understand.”

  Greta said, “I want you officers to understand that I am acting here as my husband’s attorney. If I feel any of your questions are inappropriate, I will step in . . . How about a brandy, darling? It might put some color back in your cheeks.”

  She poured Colin a generous slug from a decanter and brought it to him. He drank it down in one gulp, making a face at the taste. Clearly, he was no drinker.

  Des and Soave took seats on the sofa. Greta sat in the armchair next to Colin’s, watching him protectively.

  “Colin, how long were you and Moose Frye lovers?” Des asked.

  Colin immediately glanced over at his wife, whose face registered no surprise. Either Greta knew all about them or she was a very good actress.

  “It’s . . . out in the open then?” he asked Des uncertainly.

  “We know it was you who she was visiting every night on the third floor of the Frederick House,” Soave said.

  “We’d been together for several months.” Colin’s eyes drifted over toward the fire. “I’ve just lost someone who was very dear to me, you see. Mary Susan
was my everything. And she always will be.”

  Again, Greta didn’t react—no outward emotional response at all to her husband’s declaration of undying love for another woman. A very cool customer, Des observed, turning her attention back to Colin. “At breakfast yesterday you complained to me about all the noise ‘they’ were making up there. How come?”

  “I was afraid you thought it might be me,” he answered guiltily. “I was just trying to be discreet.”

  “Not to mention clever,” Des pointed out.

  “We had to keep it a secret,” Colin explained. “I’m a married man. She was an employee of the school district. The board couldn’t find out. An ‘inappropriate’ relationship such as ours could have cost us our jobs.”

  “Not that it should,” Greta spoke up angrily in his defense. “Colin and I had separated, Moose was single. Why can’t two adults have a consensual sexual relationship anymore? What country are we living in?”

  “She called me a madman last night,” Colin said suddenly. “She was so worried about me.”

  “Because you’d swallowed the Valium?” Des asked him.

  He ducked his head, nodding. “My life’s totally out of control. I couldn’t take it anymore. And by ending it all—this was something I could control.” He smiled at Des faintly. “Strangely enough, after you rescued me I felt much better. I seem to be more in control of my emotional responses ever since I swallowed those pills. Greta wanted me to spend last night here . . .”

  “But he refused,” Greta spoke up.

  “I needed to be with Mary Susan.”

  “What did you two talk about last night?” Soave asked him.

  “Sheryl Crow,” Colin answered tonelessly.

  Soave frowned. “The singer? What for?”

  Colin fell back weakly against the seat cushion. “We talked about what we always talked about—ending it.”

  “And what did you decide?”

  “Not a thing. Except that we couldn’t live without each other.”

  “And she left your room at approximately five A.M.?”

  “Yes, that’s right. I dozed for a while, then showered and dressed and went down to breakfast. That’s when I first heard the news about Takai’s Porsche. But it wasn’t until I dropped by my office to clear out some personal effects that I found out Mary Susan h-hadn’t come to work.”

  “You knew about their affair?” Soave asked Greta.

  She reached for her wine, gripping the glass tightly. “I did.”

  “How did that go down with you?”

  “It hurt,” Greta replied, her eyes glittering at Soave. “I am a human being, after all. But I’m also an adult. I accepted it.”

  Des said, “Colin, I understand Babette Leanse has an issue with you involving another of your romances.”

  “I would hardly call that a romance,” Colin said, shifting uneasily.

  “Okay, what would you call it?”

  “Sick, filthy porn,” he said bitterly. “Vile, sadomasochistic perversion. It was . . .” Colin halted a moment to grab hold of himself. “It was curiosity more than anything else, at first. Someone to talk to. Then it became much, much more intense than that. In fact, there was such a ferocity to my relationship with Mary Susan that I began to fear I was using her to push away my growing feelings for my cyber partner.”

  “I realize I’m being personal here,” Des said, “but would you characterize yourself as bisexual?”

  Colin glanced over at Greta, who gave him a slight nod. “My wife and I have not had a conventional marriage by most people’s standards. Both in terms of our respective ages and our . . . inclinations. We have each gone our separate ways from time to time. Wherever those ways took us.”

  So maybe it hadn’t been her imagination, Des realized. Maybe Greta had been coming on to her yesterday at the gallery. “What can you tell us about your cyber partner, Colin?”

  “Why is that important?” Greta demanded, padding over to the bar to pour herself more wine.

  “Because we say it is,” Soave said. “Let us do our job, okay, counselor?”

  “It’s okay, I don’t mind. His online name is Cutter,” Colin revealed, and proceeded to provide them with the name of the Internet service he’d met him on. It was a brand-name-commercial provider, one of those that allow members to employ a half dozen or more different online identities.

  “And his real name?” Des asked him.

  “We’ve never exchanged names,” Colin said. “I know him only as Cutter.”

  “The two of you have never met face-to-face?”

  “That’s correct, trooper.”

  “Time-out here,” Soave broke in. “Are you telling us you’re sexually involved with some guy, and it may cost you your job, and you have no idea who the hell he is?”

  “I never wanted to know,” Colin explained, coloring slightly. “The not-knowing part is what makes it so liberating. You’re totally free to be yourself.”

  “Exactly what has he told you about himself?” Des asked.

  Colin shrugged his bony shoulders, sniffling. “He’s a long-haul trucker. Owns his own rig. Spends a lot of time on the road alone.”

  “And how did you two hook up?”

  “We met in a gay men’s chat group. One thing led to another.”

  “Which one of you initiated it?”

  “We both wanted it to happen. Each of us felt something was missing from our lives . . .” Colin trailed off into troubled silence. “We haven’t communicated since Attila the Hen found out about us. I haven’t dared.”

  “You used the word ‘ferocity’ to describe your relationship with the victim,” Soave said to him. “Had things changed between you two in recent days?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean,” Colin replied.

  “Was she putting any pressure on you? Making any demands?”

  Colin shook his head at Soave, bewildered. “Such as . . . ?”

  “Did you get her pregnant?” Soave wanted to know. “And don’t lie to me—the medical examiner will know the truth soon enough.”

  “I wasn’t going to lie to you,” Colin said indignantly. “And I resent your supposition that I would.”

  “As do I, Lieutenant,” Greta said to him coldly from the fireplace, where she was poking at the logs. “Colin is being candid and cooperative. You have no cause to speak to him that way.”

  “You haven’t answered my question,” Soave persisted, undeterred.

  “Mary Susan said nothing to me about any pregnancy,” Colin answered. “If she had, I would have been thrilled. Children are my life. I love children. I loved her, can’t you understand that?”

  “Had you two discussed marriage?” Des asked him.

  Colin glanced furtively at his wife. “It was something we’d talked about.”

  “And . . . ?”

  “That was never going to happen,” Greta responded, with an edge of authority to her voice. “I will not be alone. Not now. Not after so many years.” She sat back down and took a sip of her wine, smacking her bright-red lips. “If you don’t mind my saying so, you officers are missing the big picture here when it comes to Colin.”

  “Which is what?” Soave wondered.

  “That there is a calculated, willful effort by this school board president to oust him from his job,” Greta replied. “It all comes down to this damned pissing match over Center School.”

  “We can renovate it for one-third the cost of a new school,” Colin explained. “I have a good, sound plan.”

  “But Babette and her little hand-picked followers on the board won’t hear of it,” Greta said, her voice rising. “They need their new school. Hell, they’ve practically turned it into a holy crusade. And when they couldn’t win Colin over to their side, Babette got down and dirty. This whole ugly business about Melanie suing the school district—that has Babette’s fingerprints all over it.”

  “I believe she’s put Melanie up to it,” Colin said. “Because if Melanie tru
ly did have a problem with my behavior, she would have told me. Okay, so it was inappropriate for me to use my office computer. An error in judgment on my part. I concede that. But do you actually throw a person away for that?”

  “The real error you made,” Greta spoke angrily, “was giving Babette something she could use against you.”

  “What do you think the school board will do about you?” Des asked Colin.

  “I am under a doctor’s care,” he replied softly, wringing his pale hands in his lap. “When the doctor feels I’m ready, I’ll return to work. It is my hope that they’ll let me.”

  “And if they don’t?”

  “Then we intend to sue them for violating Colin’s civil rights,” Greta said. “His doctor will certify that Colin is suffering from clinical depression, which happens to qualify as a disability, thereby entitling him to legal protection from just exactly this type of callous, discriminatory firing. Trust me, the board will not want to open up this can of worms—not unless they’re prepared to face a drawn-out court battle and a multimillion-dollar settlement. But if that’s how they choose to proceed, so be it. We will make them very, very sorry.”

  Des looked at Colin and said, “Is that what you want?”

  The superintendent let out a long, pained sigh. “I want my life back. I love those kids.”

  “And they love you,” Greta said. “And they don’t need any new thirty-four-million-dollar school.”

  Soave studied Greta in thoughtful silence for a moment, smoothing his see-through mustache. “Your husband claims he was alone in his room at the Frederick House after the victim left. Where were you at the time of the murder?”

  Des glanced over at him, smiling faintly. His mind was working the same way as hers. She’d trained him well.

  “I was here,” Greta answered. “Asleep in bed.”

  “Alone?” Soave asked.

  “Quite alone,” Greta said, nodding her silver head. “There’s not a big market out there for sixty-three-year-old bull dykes who look like they just rolled in from the Roller Derby circuit.”

  “Please don’t talk about yourself that way,” Colin objected.

  “Tell us a little more about Melanie Zide,” Soave went on. “What’s her situation? What’s she like?”