The Hot Pink Farmhouse

by Unknown

  It was slow, painstaking physical work—donkey work. Mitch had always heard that copper was soft, and maybe it was as metals go. But this was nothing like trying to cut and fold paper. The flashing was stiff and resistant and its fresh-cut edges were razor-sharp. If he hadn’t put on a pair of Jim’s work gloves his hands would have been cut to shreds. Still, it was work that the old master couldn’t do anymore, and Mitch could, so he dived in, inspired by the heady realization that he was actually in Wendell Frye’s studio helping the great artist create a work of art. This was something he would be able to tell his grandchildren about someday: I once built a fountain with Wendell Frye.

  “What will you write, Big Mitch?” Hangtown asked as he fiddled with his plans at the workbench, deciding which blocks went where.

  “I don’t know yet,” Mitch replied, grunting from his exertions. “I’ll write the truth, as I see it.”

  “I was with him. I was with Jim when Moose died.”

  “There’s no chance you might have drifted off for a few minutes?”

  “Even if I had, it’s a good fifteen-twenty-minute walk to those rocks from the house, and the same back. Plus he had to wait there for her, unless he knew exactly when she was coming home. Then he had to hide the gun when he was done with it—which they have not found . . .” Hangtown fell silent a moment, absorbed by his work. “Maybe I closed my eyes for a second. But I wasn’t asleep in front of that fire for no forty-five minutes. I know that. And I ain’t senile. And that so-called evidence of theirs means nothing—not if Jim has himself a good lawyer.”

  Mitch agreed. It wouldn’t hold up for a second in court. Soave had to know that. So why had he taken Jim away? Did he think he might be able to squeeze a confession out of Jim once he had him in custody? “Jim did have a good reason for wanting to kill Takai,” he pointed out.

  “Plenty good,” Hangtown admitted. “Only, why would he go to such elaborate lengths to do her in? Why not just go upstairs to her bedroom and slash the greedy bitch’s throat while she sleeps? Think about that. It makes no sense.”

  The old man had a valid point, Mitch acknowledged, as he finished cutting out one of the pieces with the tin snips. Already his fingers were starting to ache, and he still had hours of work ahead of him.

  Hangtown’s bomber had gone out in the ashtray at his elbow. He relit it and toked on it, coughing. It was a phlegmy, rumbling cough that sounded not at all healthy. Actually, the more Mitch looked at Wendell Frye, the more he realized that the artist did not look good. His cheeks seemed more hollow than they had two days ago, and his complexion was positively gray.

  “Maybe . . . maybe this is my own sins catching up with me,” he said to Mitch, wheezing. “Someone getting even for the evil I’ve done.”

  Mitch sat back on his haunches, peering at Hangtown curiously. “Like who? For what?”

  “There’s a reason why I live like this, Big Mitch,” he said, his breathing growing more erratic. “Cut off from people. I’m hiding, don’t you understand?”

  “I’m afraid not,” Mitch said. “But I’d like to.”

  Hangtown paused for a swig of rye, struggling to compose himself. “I took my fists to Takai’s mother, Kiki, when I drank. Couldn’t help it. I was so angry in those days. I married her too soon, you see. Wasn’t ready. Was still grieving over Moose’s mother, Gentle Kate. But I didn’t know that then. How could I? Kate . . . Kate was the great love of my life. Big, strapping girl like Moose. Died when Moose was barely three. In 1972, it was.”

  Mitch went back to working the copper, wondering why Wendell Frye seemed to have such a sudden, powerful need to confess his sins. What was weighing on the old man’s conscience?

  “That was our summer of sunshine, Big Mitch,” he recalled. “We had artists staying out in the cottages then. Some stayed for weeks on end, working the farm for their keep. We had picnics every afternoon in the meadows. We drank our wine and smoked our dope and screwed our blessed brains out. I was a lion in those days, with a huge appetite for the young lovelies. Kate was a good, loving woman. But I was bad to her. Because I wanted them all—every single one of those tender young barefoot girls. And I had ’em all.” Hangtown heaved a huge, pained sigh. “Selfish and cruel, I was. Thinking only of my own pleasures. Had me a Volkswagon bus in those days. I’d meet ’em at the academy, take ’em down to the beach in my bus—no conscience, no shame, no regrets. Not a one . . . Until one hot morning in August, middle of a heat wave it was, a slender little sculptress with shining black hair down to her bottom came drifting through. Crazy Daisy, we called her. I never even knew her real name, and that’s the truth. She’d hitchhiked all the way from Winnipeg just to be here. She was a homeless waif, no family. Barely sixteen. But a tremendous talent, very gifted. And the prettiest little thing you ever saw in a pair of tight bell-bottoms, my friend.” Hangtown fumbled for his Luckies and lit one, his hands trembling now. “Late one night Daisy asked me to pose for her. I obliged. It was a warm, humid night. Not a leaf was stirring. Naturally, I was nude. Naturally, we were soon in each others arms, right here in this barn, on a paint-splattered drop cloth, the sweat pouring off of us. And I roared like a lion. And then . . . then I heard another roar coming from that doorway right over there,” he recalled, shuddering violently. “It was Gentle Kate. She had herself a temper, my Kate. You did not want to make her mad . . .”

  “What happened here that night, Hangtown?” asked Mitch, his voice nearly a whisper.

  “Moose had awakened in the night. Couldn’t sleep. It was the heat. Kate gave her a cool sponge bath and got her back to bed. And then she came looking for me out here—thought I might want something to eat or drink. She found Crazy Daisy and me together in each other’s arms on the drop cloth, humping away . . . Kate let out a roar and grabbed the nearest thing she could find—a mallet—and she hurled it right at me. I-I ducked. Crazy Daisy didn’t. It hit her right between the eyes. Killed her dead on the spot.”

  Mitch had stopped working now. He was just sitting there, transfixed, his recorder taping the old man’s every word.

  “I murdered that girl!” Hangtown cried out, his voice choking with emotion. “Kate threw the mallet, but it was my doing. My pants I couldn’t keep on. My marriage I was trashing. A-and there’s more. Believe me, it gets even worse . . .”

  “Hangtown, are you sure you want to tell me all of this? I’m here as a member of the press, remember?”

  “There’s no point in holding back anymore,” he answered despondently. “Not with my Moose gone. What does it matter? What does any of it matter? Don’t you see, my life is over now!” He broke off, his barrel chest heaving. Tears were beginning to stream down his deeply lined face. “We . . . rolled her up in the drop cloth with her knapsack and the few pieces of clothing she had. Dug a hole up on the hill and buried her up there. No one else was staying here that weekend. It was just Daisy and us. I erected a cairn to mark the spot. It’s still there, not far from where they found the shotgun shell, in fact. It looks like something I did for a kick. But that’s Crazy Daisy’s marker . . . When folks asked us where she’d gone to, we told them she’d hitched a ride out of town early one morning, heading for New York. She’d been hoping to make her way down to Morocco on a freighter. She’d told a lot of people that. So no one doubted our story. And no one ever came looking for her. She had no one. And nothing—no driver’s license, no credit cards, no permanent address. She was just a drifter passing through. A lot of people passed through in those days. Not so many anymore. The world is not as kindly a place now.” Hangtown hung his head for a moment, his breathing ragged. It had to be Mitch’s imagination, but he could have sworn that Wendell Frye was actually growing older by the minute. “Within a couple of weeks she was forgotten by everyone,” he added hoarsely, stubbing out his cigarette. “Everyone except Gentle Kate and me.”

  “Whose idea was it to keep it from the police—yours or Kate’s?”

  “Mine, of course,” he answered bitterly. “All
mine. Because the guilt was all mine. My selfishness cost that poor girl her life. Yet Gentle Kate was her killer—or so the law would say. She was the mother of my child. I loved her. How could I make her pay for my sins? The answer is, I couldn’t. So we buried Crazy Daisy and we tried to move on. Except she couldn’t. The guilt weighed on her, heavier and heavier. She couldn’t sleep. Barely touched her food. Big Mitch, that strong healthy woman just wasted away right before my eyes. Within a few weeks she was merely a shell of herself. I kept telling her: ‘Yes, what we did was horrible. But you have to get on with your life. You have Moose to think of.’ But it was too much for her. Four months later, she was dead. It’s truly amazing just how quickly we can go when our will to live is g-gone.” He let out a wrenching, painful sob. By the woodstove, Sam stirred slightly, but drifted back to sleep. “And I killed her, my friend. Just as surely as if I’d taken a knife and buried it in her chest. I killed her and I left poor Moose motherless.” He paused now, swiping at his tears with the back of his gnarled hand. “Kiki tried to be a mother to her but those two never did hit it off.”

  “Where did you meet Kiki?”

  “At Greta’s gallery. By then, three years had gone by. All I’d done was work. I buried myself in it. Kiki had come up from New York for my new show. I was instantly smitten. She was gorgeous, very elegant and sophisticated. I married her and brought her home, but Moose was already a confirmed tomboy by then, and she had no use for this perfumed New Yorker in high heels. After we had Takai, I tried to change my wicked ways. No more artists in residence. No more picnics. No more tender lovelies. I even sold my VW bus. I tried, Mitch. God, how I tried. But all that did was bring out my anger, which I took out on poor Kiki until she could stand no more. Eventually, she left me.”

  “Takai holds you responsible for her suicide.”

  “I’m guilty,” he conceded. “I killed them both—first Kate, then Kiki. And now . . . now I’ve killed Moose, too.”

  “What do you mean? How did you kill her?”

  “This is a burial ground,” the old man said in a hollow, faraway voice. “A curse hangs over this entire place. And over me. That’s why I can’t have people around. I’m not fit to be around them. So I smoke my smoke and drink my drink. I work and I work. But I never forget. Not ever.” He turned his intense blue-eyed gaze on Mitch. “That is my curse, don’t you see?”

  “What did you mean when you said you killed Moose, too?”

  “No, you don’t see,” growled Hangtown, ignoring Mitch’s question once again. Barely hearing him at all. “You’re too young. Your comprehension is limited by what you can understand. The real truth is what lies just beyond—it’s what you can’t grasp.”

  Mitch stared at the great artist, perplexed. “Hangtown, who else knows about Crazy Daisy?”

  “Jim does. I told Jim because he could understand what it means—he doesn’t belong around people either. Not since ’Nam. I’ve never told Greta. Never told the girls. My God, I couldn’t tell Moose. That would have destroyed her love for me.”

  Still, Mitch found himself wondering: What if. What if Moose had found out? What if Jim told her? Could this have had something to do with her death?

  Mitch’s eyes fell on the little tape machine that was recording every word of Hangtown’s gut-wrenching confession. He’d held this in for thirty years. Now the whole world was going to know. “Why are you telling me this?” he finally asked him. “Why now?”

  “Because it’s all over,” the old man answered tonelessly.

  “What is?”

  Hangtown sat there slumped at the workbench, looking mournful and defeated. The spark of life seemed to have gone right out of him.

  “Hangtown, who killed Moose?”

  No answer.

  Mitch tried it again, louder. “Hangtown, who killed Moose?!”

  At last the old master shook himself and gazed down at Mitch. He seemed very distant from him now. He seemed to be somewhere else entirely. “Don’t you get it, Big Mitch? The past did.”

  CHAPTER 10

  She was on her way to Mitch’s house to start dinner when the call came through from Felicity Beddoe—it seemed the lady was having trouble again with her next-door neighbor, Jay Welmers.

  The late-afternoon sunlight was slanting low through the trees by the time she pulled into Somerset Ridge, its rays casting long shadows on the wide, leaf-blown Chemlawns. The folks at one place were busy putting up their Halloween decorations. The orange-and-black bunting had a rough time competing for attention with all of those red ribbons and green ribbons tied around every other tree. Personally, Des was tired of looking at them. Could not wait for the school bond vote to be over and done with.

  Felicity Beddoe answered her door casually clad in slacks and a sweater. Her manner was no calmer than it had been before. The lady looked as if she’d snap like a breadstick if you laid a finger on her. Plus her face had broken out in hives. A pair of reading glasses was nestled in her short blond hair, and her kitchen table was heaped with folders and printouts.

  “Thank you for coming, trooper,” she said edgily. “I am so sorry to bother you again.”

  “I told you to bother me,” Des reminded her. “Is this about Phoebe?”

  Felicity gave her a brief nod. “I couldn’t stay at the office after she phoned me with the news. She’s at soccer practice right now. I felt it would be better if I spoke to you alone.”

  “Okay,” Des said easily. “What did he do this time?”

  “That man has cut a huge branch off one of the sycamores in between our houses. He’s been out there with a chain saw all afternoon.”

  “Is it his tree, Mrs. Beddoe?”

  “Technically, it is,” Felicity conceded. “He’s within his legal rights. I called over at town hall to find out.”

  “So . . . ?”

  “So he can now see directly into Phoebe’s bedroom window from the second floor of his place,” she said angrily. “He no longer has to tiptoe around in the dark to spy on her—he can do so from the comfort of his own home!”

  “You’re sure about this?”

  “Come look for yourself if you don’t believe me,” Felicity insisted, leading Des out the French doors onto the bluestone terrace.

  When the developers had cleared the land for Somerset Ridge they’d wisely left a stand of four gnarly old sycamores as a natural divider between the two houses. By hacking off a lower limb from the rearmost tree, Jay Welmers had cleared himself a bird’s-eye view of the back of the Beddoes’s house from several of his upstairs windows. Felicity was right, no question.

  “Tell that girl to draw her curtains,” Des said, as they stood there listening to the harsh whine of his chain saw. He was still busy over there somewhere cutting the branch up into pieces.

  “Twenty-four hours a day?” Felicity demanded, her cheeks mottling. “Look, you may as well know this—I’ve contacted a realtor today. We’re putting our place on the market. I can’t take this anymore.”

  “If that’s the case, why did you call me?”

  “Because I-I . . .” She was unable to say the words aloud. All she could do was wave her hands helplessly in the air.

  “What does your husband say about this?” Des asked gently.

  “Richard still doesn’t know about it,” she confessed.

  “And is that loaded gun still in his nightstand drawer?”

  “Yes,” Felicity said faintly. “What I thought I’d tell him was . . . I thought that I’d like to live closer to work. Mystic or Stonington.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t do this, Mrs. Beddoe. You can’t let fear rule your life.”

  “But I’m not comfortable here anymore,” Felicity said, shooting a nervous glance over Des’s shoulder at Jay Welmers’s house. “You can understand that, can’t you?”

  “I totally can. But if you leave, he wins.”

  “Let him,” she snapped. “I’ll still have my husband in one piece.”

  “You need to stay. If you
leave, it means that I’ve failed, and I don’t handle failure well.”

  Felicity Beddoe said nothing in response. Just stood there wringing her hands, utterly distraught.

  “Look, why don’t you give me another chance before you pack up the moving van? Just one more chance, okay?”

  “If you’d like,” Felicity allowed, her voice lacking conviction. “Go ahead.”

  Des followed the sound of the chain saw. She found Jay Welmers out in front of his garage in the driveway, cutting the sycamore up into logs and loading them into a garden cart. The big, flabby financial planner—make that onetime financial planner—was not used to such demanding physical exertion. His red face was flushed a dangerous shade of purple, and he was positively drenched with sweat. His bulging gut stuck wetly to the front of his pink polo shirt, and his shirttail had worked itself loose from his tartan slacks, revealing a whole lot of fat white booty crack when he bent over. Most unappealing. His rottweiler, Dino, was chained to the post of the front porch just as before, barking at Des madly. The boys were nowhere to be seen.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Welmers,” she said, tipping her hat at him politely.

  “It’s my tree,” he declared without so much as looking at her. “It’s on my side of the property line. I can do what I please.”

  “I thought you wanted to be neighborly.”

  “I do,” he grunted, heaving a heavy log into the cart.

  “That being the case, it seems to me you could have mentioned something about this to Mrs. Beddoe before you did it.”

  Jay paused to swipe at his purple face with a sopping-wet hankerchief. “She won’t speak to me. Hangs up as soon as she hears my voice. You call that neighborly? You call that fitting in? Besides, what business is it of hers if I want to prune one of my trees?”

  “She thinks you did it so that you can see through Phoebe’s bedroom window.”