Don't Explain: An Artie Deemer Mystery

by Dallas Murphy

  “Was it scary?”

  “Naa. Walk in the park.”

  “Well, I was scared. I thought you’d never come back.”

  “Did you pace?” I tried to picture it.

  She pulled my hat off because it was in the way and kissed me wetly. This was romance. Without the stalker business, we would have been free of cares and woe. For a while, anyway.

  I whispered in Crystal’s ear, “The old man said he killed Kempshall,” as we went up the steps.

  “He did?”

  “Yep, strangled him. With something.”

  I put the water on to boil and assembled the coffee gear, while Crystal examined Arno like she knew what she was doing. She sat him on the wicker couch and knelt to look clinically into his eyes. She cocked her head like Jellyroll, scrutinizing. “My name is Crystal, Mr. Self.”

  “You’re the pool player.”

  “Right.”

  “Ditn’t know they had lady pool players.”

  “We’d better get that raincoat off, Mr. Self. You’re too cold.”

  “I once saw Ralph Greenleaf play down in New Hampshire when I was a boy. Now could you give him a game?”

  “Nope, not him, not even with the added advantage of being alive.”

  Crystal went to work removing his foul weather gear. It must have been excruciating. After the first two layers, Arno was panting, and they gave up. Crystal cut off Arno’s sweater and his flannel shirt with a pair of shears. As they did that dreadful tugging and coaxing, Arno didn’t make a sound, but from time to time his eyes rolled back in his head. As the layers fell away and the end neared, we gathered around to see. Even Jellyroll gathered with us. He sat down and waited.

  All four of us gave little simultaneous groans, different in pitch and tone according to our wont. It made me think of a twisted doo-wop group. The skin around the break was purple and pulpy. It bulged in unnatural places. You could see sharp points pressing on the skin. If you touched it, even gently, it seemed to me, you would leave fingerprints in the flesh, a little more firmly and you would puncture it like something swollen by the gasses of putrescence.

  Crystal said, “There’s a lot of subcutaneous bleeding, but the skin’s not broken, and you don’t seem to be in shock, Mr. Self.”

  “Well, then I guess I better be runnin’ along.”

  “Right…This is a complicated break. I’m going to immobilize it, and we’ll get you to the hospital as soon as the storm ends.”

  Maybe the ministration by a beautiful woman had softened the craggy edges of his features somewhat.

  “I wish we had some real painkillers,” said Crystal to no one in particular.

  “Oh, the old man don’t take pain pills. He’s too tough,” Hawley said. I glanced at him. It wasn’t a joke, he wasn’t smiling.

  “Hell I don’t, boy.” Neither was Arno. “You get them, I’ll do the rest.”

  “Mare-o-wanna, Dad. That’s all I got.”

  “Does it work?”

  “Hell yes, it does.”

  “Go get it.”

  He rummaged through his layers to get to his shirt pocket, from which he withdrew a fat spliff and held it up beside his face. “I already got it.”

  “My son, the drug czar, the great shame and sadness of my life.” Was this a routine? “Have you met Dickie yet? Dickie is his partner in crime. Dickie.”

  Delighted, Hawley was lighting up under clouds of cloying smoke. “First one’s free, Dad. Then when you’re hooked, you’ll have to sell your soul to Dickie.” He handed it to the old man.

  Arno puffed away, then stared out, apparently waiting for some effect to hit.

  I looked at Crystal. Did she think it was a routine or was it real? I guess you can’t tell if you’re from away.

  Crystal went into the bedroom and came back with a pillowcase. She began to make a sling out of it. She did know what she was doing.

  “Psst,” said Hawley, flicking his head in an unsubtle high sign toward the door. He wanted to talk to me. I asked Crystal if she needed anything. She said she didn’t.

  Hawley Self and I stood under the eave of the roof; the rain that drummed on the porch touched only our boot toes.

  “Wind’s layin’ down some now,” he said. “But that was a mean little front. I appreciate you goin’…What’d the old man have to say? Did he talk on the way back?”

  “What?”

  “Did he tell you things?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like did he tell you he killed Kempshall?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  “By what means?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He said he strangled him.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “With pot warp.”

  “Pot warp, my ass. He didn’t strangle nobody.”

  “What’s pot warp?”

  “That’s the line you tie on to the lobster trap to pull it up with. Pot warp was not the murder weapon. Right here, this was the murder weapon—” Hawley had in his hand a beat-up canvas gym bag with broken handles. I had wondered why. He zipped it open with a flourish and pulled out a hatchet. “Here, this is what killed Kempshall, this right here.” Hawley hefted the thing to show me. “He was scum. He stole people’s lives. That’s why I killed him with a blow from this. You saw the bones, right? You tell me. Does this fit what you saw?”

  “…Yes.”

  “Well then, there you have it.”

  “Okay.” What did he want from me? We looked at each other for a while, the raindrops splashing off our toes. “Why are you telling me this, Hawley?”

  “Well, let’s just say something happens. You know, a thing we couldn’t even imagine at this point in time. The unexpected.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like maybe the bones turn up again. God knows where, but let’s say they do. Let’s say the cops or somebody comes up to you and wants to talk about the Kempshall killing.”

  “Why would they do that? I’m from away.”

  “I know you are, but we’re just saying here, okay? The cops ask you about the killing, like what you’ve heard about it. You might say, ‘Hawley Self told me he did it.’ ”

  “No, I wouldn’t.”

  “You wouldn’t?”

  “No, I promise.”

  Hawley looked disappointed. “What if I wanted you to?”

  “Oh. You want me to? Okay, then I will.”

  Hawley looked at me. “Anything, right, as long as it doesn’t fuck you up?”

  “Right. See, I think you have a beautiful place to live here, and I’d like to get to know it a little. I got a psycho on my dog’s ass. I don’t want stress, and I don’t want to cause stress. It’s stressful uncovering dark secrets of the past. I only did so by accident. As far as Kempshall’s murder is concerned, you can have it any way you want it. Let me ask you this, Hawley, out of curiosity. Did you dispose of the bones?”

  “…Yeah.”

  “After Crystal and I saw them, after the dogs got to them?”

  “Sure.”

  “What did you do with them?”

  “In the drink. Deep fucking six.”

  “So they’ll never be seen again, right?”

  “I shouldn’t think so.”

  “Then what difference does it make? The law isn’t going to do anything without a body. Sheriff Kelso said so. None of you need to confess yet.”

  “Kelso said that?”

  “Yep.”

  He blinked twice in a comic sort of way and said, “Then what the fuck is the problem?”

  “No problem,” I said.

  He produced and lit another spliff, as if in celebration. Under a cloud of smoke too thick to blow away in the diminished wind, he said, “We solved that matter. The bone matter. Then let’s turn to another matter. Let’s turn to the matter of this stalker. You think it’s those assholes in the black sportfisherman, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, it’s possible. There’s circumstantial evidence.” I did
n’t want to get into Ten Pins and the threatening bowling sheets. “They’re the only strangers around right now.”

  “So why don’t we have a word with them?”

  “Say what?”

  “Say like, ‘Get the fuck out of Cabot County with the next tide, or I hack your nuts offinto the bait sock.’ Something along them lines.”

  Frankly, that sounded good to me.

  “Hawley Self!” It was a woman’s voice.

  Hawley jumped at the sound of it—

  “Will you quit smoking that devil weed!”

  Hawley was pushing forty, but he jerked that spliff out of his mouth and hid it behind his back. “Mom!”

  She was standing on the rocky shore squinting up at us. Raindrops struck her face.

  “What are you doin’ here? You heard about the old man?”

  “Of course I did. I was up the east side with Edith. Don’t call him that.”

  “You mean you walked all the way over here?”

  “No, I got high on your weed and floated. Are you Mr. Deemer?”

  “Artie.”

  “How do you do, Artie? I’m Roxanne Self. Thank you for what you did out there,” she said in a clear, accentless voice.

  “You’re welcome. His arm is broken.”

  “Hey, what about me?” said Hawley. “I did it, too.”

  “Yes, Hawley, you did,” said Roxanne gently, sincerely. “And you did it good.”

  “Thanks, Mom.”

  TWENTY

  I didn’t know you knew first aid,” I said to Crystal when we were by ourselves out on the porch.

  “I don’t. Not really.”

  We leaned side by side against the railing. The underbellies of the black clouds in the eastern sky were tinted russet, but it was still dark in Dog Cove. I put my face close and breathed the scent of her hair from behind her ear. She knew first aid. There were so many things still to learn about her. “Say, would you be interested in a little carnal knowledge?”

  “Sure, but we have guests.”

  “Presumably they’ll leave.”

  “While I was fitting his sling, Arno told me he killed Compton Kempshall. He sort of whispered it in my ear. What are they doing? Who are they trying to protect?…You don’t care, you just want to satisfy your throbbing lust.”

  Was that so bad? “Hawley told me he killed Kempshall. He had the murder weapon to prove it.”

  “What? He carries it with him?”

  “A Cub Scout hatchet. He had it in that gym bag. He had it to prove his point. And if the sheriff investigates, Hawley wants me to say he did it.”

  “It’s fascinating, don’t you think?…You don’t, do you?”

  “It’s making me edgy, all these people confessing to murder.”

  “Under normal circumstances, yes, but this is an old murder. It’s not so real. Bones and bodies aren’t the same.” She was making certain wanton moves with her left hand. “Can’t you think of it as the vacation mystery?”

  “If you put it like that, I’ll agree to anything.”

  “These folks think you’re a hero. Are you aware of that?”

  “They do?”

  “They said so. Hawley said it was very bad out there. He said you stood up and stepped right onto the other boat. I’ve always imagined since I was a little girl what it would be like to have carnal knowledge with a hero.”

  Wow. If it hadn’t been raining, I might have suggested we avail ourselves of the privacy of the woods, roll around in a bed of ferns like our indigenous progenitors. I think Crystal felt it, too. I could see it in her eyes.

  “Did you really want to have carnal knowledge with heroes or were you just being facetious?”

  “No, it was a true fantasy. Now I will.”

  “Tell me about the fantasy. I mean about sex with heroes like me.”

  “No.”

  Then I saw Roxanne, apparently heading our way, hesitate on the other side of the French doors, not wanting to intrude. I invited her out. Her face was tired, drawn, and old, but it was also strong and elegant, like one of those black-and-white photographs of Depression women who hold the family together, Ma Joad types. She had narrow features and a tall forehead. Hatless, her hair was pure white and long. She moved lightly, despite her age and what must have been a tough slog on foot over the hill from the Crack in the middle of the storm.

  “I want to thank you again, dear,” she said to me.

  “I was glad to help, Ms. Self.”

  “Call me Roxanne.” She touched Crystal’s forearm. “And thank you, too, dear. You two are in love, aren’t you?”

  Crystal patted Roxanne’s hand and said yes, we were.

  “That’s good. I’m glad you’re here. The boathouse has been lonely for a long time.” It was all very maternal, familial, old-fashioned— until Roxanne said, “I’m told you found bones.”

  “Accidentally,” I mentioned. “We weren’t looking.”

  “Where?”

  Crystal pointed off to the top of the hill, obliterated now in low cloud and fog.

  “Out in the open?”

  Crystal told her about the dogs.

  “…Dwight is on his way over from the Crack,” she said distractedly. “He thinks we can cross the strait. We’ll be leaving you in peace soon.” She turned her back on the cove and leaned against the rail. “Clayton—Do you know how to get in touch with Clayton?”

  “I have his New York number, but I believe he’s still in California.”

  “California? He is? Oh, that’s wonderful!”

  What? Wonderful?

  “Why wonderful, Roxanne?” Crystal comes right out and asks. It’s one of the things I love about her.

  Hawley was standing in the threshold between the French front doors. “Are you telling it?”

  “I was about to.”

  “Can I listen?”

  She didn’t say yes and she didn’t say no. “He’s in California,” she said.

  “He is? No kiddin’? For sure?”

  Crystal and I watched them blankly. Why was that such good news, Clayton in California? Hawley ducked back in to tell his father that Clayton was in California.

  Roxanne looked at us. “There’s been another murder in town,” she said. “One of the pilgrims or a tourist. They don’t know yet. Teddy Kelso thinks it’s a psychopath. The man was murdered the same way as the young woman was. His head was split down the middle…”

  “Maybe you’d better tell us, Roxanne,” suggested Crystal.

  Hawley returned and stood against the outside wall like a little boy trying not to be noticed.

  “Back that night—the night of the fire—Clayton Kempshall knocked on our door. He was about ten. We lived over on the other side of the island. It was blowing a gale of wind and cold that night. The kind of wind and cold that kills. We didn’t expect visitors. He must have been out there a long time, knocking, but we didn’t hear him because of the wind. We might not have seen him at all, except we began to notice a pale glare at first, like ice in the sea from a long distance off, then a flickering light, and that brought us to the door. There stood little Clayton on the step. He had on white pajamas—they were soaked in blood from top to hem.”

  Crystal gasped.

  “Yes. And he had his Cub Scout hatchet in his hand.”

  Oh Jesus, it dawned on me. She meant to connect murders— the old one and the new ones—

  His face pale and drawn, Arno appeared in the doorway, just stood there, head bowed listening, remembering.

  “We warmed him, comforted him,” Roxanne continued. “Pretty soon, we became aware he didn’t know how he came to be running the island in a winter storm in blood-soaked pajamas. Like he was out of his head with fever. He seemed to know about the fire, but he didn’t know where his father was. He didn’t remember. Took a day and a half before the Castle burned itself out.

  “Police came, experts, and poked around in the ashes. We were sure they’d find his father’s corpse. But we never questioned
Clayton about the bloody pajamas, we just stayed with him and waited for him to tell us. But the experts found nothing. They said if there was remains in the ruins, they’d have found them. Even now I don’t know for certain what happened in the Castle that night. Did Clayton kill his father with that little boy’s hatchet and drag his corpse through the storm all the way up there—?”

  We looked up the hill; it seemed to be scudding along with the windblown clouds. We tried to imagine the scene that night. Gale wind and rain like last night, only cold, December. Clayton dragging the freshly killed corpse of his father over the rocks, through the undergrowth, brains running out on his pajamas. How could you forget a trip like that? But of course maybe the opposite is true.

  “The police came and questioned Clayton. They were very suspicious. They suspected that Compton Kempshall faked it all so he could disappear. He was under investigation for all sorts of frauds and crimes. They thought Kempshall burned the Castle himself. But Clayton didn’t seem to know anything.

  “Arno and me, we’d made a decision. We discussed it, before the police came. We decided not to tell anybody about the bloody pajamas or the hatchet, if Clayton didn’t tell them himself. I don’t know if that was a good decision or bad, we only wanted it to be best for him. If he didn’t remember then, maybe he’d never remember ever. I don’t know about that, I mean, whether the mind can work that way. But the fact was that boy did not remember. We burned the bloody pajamas.” She fell silent.

  “Are you saying you think Clayton killed those people in Micmac?” Crystal asked.

  She didn’t respond immediately. She looked down at the boards beneath our feet. “I think I hear Dwight’s boat coming.”

  Crystal and I listened. We heard nothing.

  “I believe you met Eunice and Lois?” said Roxanne.

  “Yes,” said Crystal.

  “Lois said she saw Clayton.”

  “Here?”

  “Lois said she saw him out in a little boat off the north end. Lois is a dear. I love her. But she’s…subject to fits. So that’s why we’d be ever so grateful if you could get in touch with Clayton in California. Just to be sure.”

  “I bet Shelly could track him down,” said Crystal.

  “Shelly?”

  “Jellyroll’s agent.” Jellyroll sat listening to the whole thing. When we looked at him, his tail thumped the deck. “I’ll call right now. All agents get up with the crack of dawn.” I called him. He was up. He said he’d get right on it. I told him thanks for sending Sid. Sid seemed perfect for the job.