Hell Bent

by William G. Tapply

  She poured her tea from the silver pot into a cup, added milk and sugar, took a bite of her muffin, chewed and swallowed, sipped her tea. “How well did I know Gus Shaw?” She smiled. “I knew him pretty damn well, to tell you the truth.”

  “You worked with him every day.”

  “That, too.”

  “More than that, then?”

  She shrugged. “We were very good friends, Mr. Coyne.”

  “You were … what? Lovers?”

  “Technically, no, I guess not. We … I think we loved each other, but we didn’t … you know. We hadn’t got there yet. He had a lot of guilt about his wife and kids, and I didn’t feel too good about loving a married man myself. So we were holding back. Trying to do the right thing. It wasn’t easy. We had a lot of chemistry, Gus and I. We’d both been through a lot. We understood a lot about each other without having to talk about it. We found each other, like two survivors in a shipwreck, and we just hung on.” She shook her head, picked up her teacup, took a sip. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this. It’s none of anybody’s business.”

  “I’m a lawyer,” I said. “I’m discreet as hell.”

  She smiled. “Well, I’ve got nothing to hide, really. We were secretive because of Gus.”

  “He didn’t want his wife to know about you.”

  “He didn’t want there to be anything to know about,” she said. “We really were just friends. Except we loved each other.”

  “You said you’d both been through a lot,” I said.

  “Gus lost his hand over there,” she said. “I lost my husband.”

  “Jesus,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  “I hate that fucking war.” She narrowed her eyes at me, and I saw the passion in them. “There are victims everywhere. Not just American soldiers getting killed, the body bags you never see coming home in airplanes, but all the poor innocent Iraqis, the women and children and old people. And people like me and Gus, and Gus’s wife and kids and sister, and my dead husband’s parents and nieces and nephews, and his unborn children, and their children, and it goes on and on.”

  I found myself nodding.

  Jemma cocked her head and looked at me. “So Gus Shaw and I had all that in common. But don’t get me wrong. He was a helluva man, and I guess I would’ve loved him no matter what.”

  “But it was a secret.”

  “He wanted to do the right thing,” she said. “He wanted to be honorable. So, yeah, we were a secret, but we really had nothing to hide.” She dropped her chin and looked up at me. “I think it would be best all around if it remained a secret, don’t you?”

  I nodded. “Like I said, I’m very good at discretion. You went to his apartment, right?”

  She smiled. “How’d you know?”

  “The first time I went there with Gus, there were two empty mugs on his coffee table,” I said. “I figured somebody had been there.”

  “Probably one of the mugs was mine,” she said. “I went over there a lot. Anyway, he didn’t have a lot of friends.”

  “He told me he was in a support group.”

  She nodded. “He was. I doubt if any of the people in his group were his friends, though. You have a different kind of relationship with people in your group. It’s personal and intimate, almost more intense than friendship. You need to keep it compartmentalized. You couldn’t imagine having a—an intimate relationship with a member of your group. It would be like a conflict of interest, you know?”

  “You sound like you know this from personal experience,” I said.

  “Me? Sure. After Burt was killed, I was in a group for a while. But there was too much anger in it for me. Justifiable anger, but still, I began to realize it wasn’t good for me, so I got out.”

  “What about Gus’s group?” I said. “Did he talk about it?”

  Jemma shook her head. “Not really. He wouldn’t. Not about any of the members, anyway. It’s a rule. What happens in the group stays in the group. If you’re in a group, you don’t talk about it to outsiders. I had the feeling that lately—I mean, toward the end—he’d gotten turned off by it.”

  “Turned off how?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. It was like he stopped believing in what they did. Or maybe they started doing different things. Gus wasn’t very specific. Like I said, it was just a feeling I got.”

  “Did he ever mention a guy named Pete?”

  She shrugged. “Not that I remember. Who’s Pete?”

  “A friend of Gus’s. Or an acquaintance, anyway. The time I met Gus here, this Pete was with him. I think he might be in the group. He’s somebody I’d like to talk to, that’s all.”

  “You want to talk to everybody, huh?” she said.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know what else to do.”

  She smiled. “You don’t seem very well organized.”

  “I’m looking for information anywhere I can find it.”

  “And I’m not helping very much,” said Jemma Jones.

  “You never know what’s going to be helpful,” I said. “I didn’t get to know him very well, but Gus seemed like an angry man to me.”

  “Sure,” she said. “He was angry. That’s normal, isn’t it? How could he not be angry? You’d worry about him if he wasn’t angry.”

  “Did you have any sense that his group was helping him?”

  “I don’t know, to tell you the truth. Gus was very up and down. Moody as hell. Like I said, recently he seemed to be kind of turned off by it. Groups don’t always help, you know. Sometimes they do more harm than good.” Jemma reached across the table and gripped my wrist. “Your turn, Mr. Lawyer. What’s this all about, anyway?”

  “This?”

  “This conversation,” she said. “These questions. Why does a lawyer need to talk to everybody who might’ve known a man who killed himself? What’re you after?”

  “I’m trying to figure out if Gus really did kill himself,” I said.

  She looked at me. “You don’t think he did?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I have no opinion. I just want to know.”

  “But I thought …”

  “The police have concluded that he did,” I said. “All of the forensic evidence points to it.”

  Jemma was frowning. “If he didn’t …”

  “Right,” I said. “It means he was murdered.”

  She shook her head. “Jesus.”

  “So I’m wondering if you have any ideas about who could have done such a thing.”

  “No,” she said. “I don’t. No ideas.”

  “Gus had no enemies?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. I can’t think of anybody.”

  I watched her face, looking for the lie, or the evasion, or just the hint of doubt.

  Her eyes held mine steadily.

  I finished the last bite of my muffin. “If anything occurs to you,” I said, “you have my card. Will you call me?”

  “Sure,” she said. “Of course. I loved Gus Shaw. If somebody murdered him, I want to know it. I don’t like thinking he did it because I yelled at him.” She looked at her wristwatch. “I really should be getting back. Phil is barely competent.”

  “Tell me how you and Gus found each other,” I said.

  “You mean why I gave him a job?”

  I nodded.

  “One of the people in his group called me,” she said. “Said there was a new guy, used to be a photographer, needed a job. This person who called me, he’d been in my group. It was kind of a code that we helped each other if we could. So I said sure, I could always use somebody who understood cameras and photography. When he told me it was Gus Shaw, I was really interested. I was familiar with his work. Gus was a pro. I figured he could do some workshops, bring some business into the store.”

  “Who was this person?” I said. “The one who called you?”

  Jemma shook her head. “I can’t tell you that.”

  “That’s part of the code?” I said. “Keeping your identities secret
?”

  She shrugged. “It’s a very private, personal thing, being in a support group. That’s the only way it can work.”

  “Sure,” I said. “I guess I understand.” I fished a twenty-dollar bill from my wallet and left it on the table. Then I stood up. “I’ll walk you back to your shop,” I said.

  Jemma stood up and smiled. “Thank you.”

  When we got there, she turned and held out her hand. “I enjoyed talking with you,” she said.

  I took her hand. “Me, too.”

  “I had this thought,” she said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Well,” she said, “if somebody did murder Gus, and if you’re going around questioning people, second-guessing what the police said, aren’t you worried that the murderer will go after you?”

  “Are you suggesting that I shouldn’t rock the boat?”

  “Just—be careful, that’s all.”

  I nodded and smiled. “I already thought of that.”

  THIRTEEN

  I’d noticed a liquor store on the corner diagonally across the street from the camera shop. After I said good-bye to Jemma Jones, I crossed Main Street and went in.

  A gray-haired woman was paying for two bottles of white wine at the counter. The clerk seemed to be the only employee there.

  I looked at their selection of bourbons while the woman finished her transaction. When she left, I went over to the clerk.

  “Find what you’re looking for?” he said. He wore a short-sleeve red shirt with PATRIOT SPIRITS and MIKE embossed over the pocket.

  I showed Mike my business card. “I hope you can answer a couple of questions for me.”

  He frowned at my card, then looked up at me. “You’re a lawyer?”

  I nodded. “Do you know Gus Shaw?”

  “Gus Shaw.” He looked up at the ceiling, then shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Used to work in the camera shop across the street?”

  He shrugged.

  “He lost a hand in Iraq,” I said. “Big guy, red beard.”

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “I might’ve seen him around, but I don’t know him. Not a regular customer. I know all my regulars.” He hesitated. “Wait a minute. That the guy who committed suicide last week?”

  “That’s him,” I said.

  “There was a thing in the paper about that. It said he had post-traumatic stress syndrome.”

  “It’s a disorder,” I said. “Not a syndrome.”

  Mike shrugged. “Sure. Whatever.”

  “Were you working here that day? A week ago yesterday it was. Friday.”

  He nodded. “I work here every day except Sunday. I own the place.”

  “I’m wondering if Gus Shaw came in, made a purchase.”

  “Not that I remember.”

  “You have records, right?”

  “Sure. Every bottle that goes out of here has to be recorded. If they pay with a credit card, we got their name, too. But—”

  “Check for me, would you?”

  “Look, Mr.”—he glanced at the card I’d given him—”Mr. Coyne. Lawyer or whatever, I don’t see why I should let you look at my business records.”

  “I don’t want to look at them,” I said. “I want you to look at them.”

  He shrugged. “Why?”

  “You’d be doing Gus’s family a great kindness.”

  “It makes a difference if he was in here buying booze?”

  “To the family it does, yes.”

  Mike shook his head. “I don’t know …”

  “I just want to know if he bought a pint of Early Times bourbon. It would’ve been sometime around noon on Friday, a week ago yesterday.”

  “You said you were a lawyer, right?”

  I nodded.

  “So say I did sell him a pint of Early Times,” he said. “Would I be liable or something? For what he did to himself, I mean?”

  “No. Certainly not.”

  “You’re not trying to get me in trouble here?”

  “I’m just trying to learn the truth,” I said. “Hoping you can help.”

  “I was brought up not to trust lawyers, you know what I mean?” He looked at me for a moment, then shrugged. “Ah, what the hell. It’ll just take a minute. It’s all on the computer.”

  Mike’s computer was next to his cash register. He pecked at some keys and frowned at the screen and made some notes on a yellow legal pad, and a few minutes later he looked up at me. “I sold two pints of Early Times that day,” he said. “One at two thirty-five in the afternoon, the other at five past six. Both cash. I’m sorry. I don’t remember who bought them. It might’ve been Mr. Shaw, I don’t know. I got another clerk, came on at noon that day, and we’ve got three of us here from five to closing on Fridays. We sell a lot of beer on Fridays, you know? Gotta keep the coolers stocked and the customers happy.”

  The times were off. Two thirty and six o’clock didn’t fit with what I knew of Gus’s activities that day. Jemma said that he walked out of the camera store around noon. I guessed that if he bought a bottle that day, it would’ve been right after that, on his way home, not two and a half hours later. And he was at his apartment writing his e-mail to Claudia before six, when the second bottle was sold.

  On the other hand, if somebody could place Gus at Patriot Spirits in Concord center at six o’clock that day, it would call all of the forensic evidence and inferences into question.

  “I’d appreciate it if you’d do me a favor,” I said to Mike. “Check with those other two guys, ask them if they remember seeing Gus Shaw that day. Big guy, red beard, missing his right hand. Bought a pint of Early Times.”

  “He should be easy to remember,” said Mike.

  “I appreciate it. You’ve got my card. Give me a call anytime. It’s for a good cause.”

  I held out my hand to him, and he shook it. “Joey’ll be in this afternoon. The other one, Danny, I’ll give him a call. I’ll get ahold of you if we come up with something.”

  I stepped out onto the sidewalk. The sun was bright, and it was warming the late-October air and setting fire to the orange and scarlet foliage on the big maples and oaks that lined the village green. Another gorgeous autumn day in Concord, Massachusetts, and judging by the traffic on Main Street and the clusters of camera-toting folks strolling on the sidewalks and milling around on the green, it was peak tourist season.

  I headed for my car, which I’d left in the big municipal lot off Main. I thought of calling Alex, just to say hello, tell her I was glad she was spending the weekend at my house even if we were doing different things in different places much of the time. She had some research to do at the Boston Public Library, and she wanted to walk around the South End and get a flavor of the neighborhoods where a couple of her fictional characters lived. We’d agreed to meet back at my house around suppertime.

  It all felt familiar and comfortable. Weekends together, but going our own ways, doing our own things. Our old habit from seven years ago, and we’d slipped right back into it.

  I decided not to call Alex. All I wanted to tell her was that sleeping with her was a lot of fun and I looked forward to doing it again.

  Gordon Cahill, the best PI in Boston, once told me that when he wanted to talk to somebody, he never made an appointment or called ahead of time. “If they’ve got something to hide,” he said, “you’re just giving them time to find a place to hide it.”

  I was driving down Monument Street to the old colonial where Herb and Beth Croyden, Gus Shaw’s erstwhile landlords, lived. It was a little after noon, and maybe I’d catch them having lunch. I’d be interrupting, and I’d apologize, but if they invited me to join them, I wouldn’t refuse, no matter how insincere their invitation might be.

  It wasn’t that I suspected the Croydens of anything. At this point, I didn’t suspect anybody of anything, which was just another way of suspecting everybody of everything.

  A gravel driveway led up to a barn beside the house. I guessed t
he house had been standing right there on the morning of April 19, 1775, when the Minutemen repelled the British lobsterbacks at the rude bridge, which was less than a mile down the street. Now, after two centuries of floods, the third or fourth replica of the bridge spanned the Concord River in the same place as the original, and the statue of the Minuteman with his plow and his musket stood guard over it.

  The Croyden house looked authentically colonial to me. It had three giant square chimneys—one in the middle and one on each end—a granite foundation, an oaken front door, many small panes in the windows, and shutters that looked sturdy enough to repel arrows, if not musket balls. It would take the outstretched arms of two full-grown men to embrace the trunks of the twin maple trees that framed the front walk.

  The barn looked like it might have been standing there for over two hundred years, too. The carriage house where Gus had lived was not visible behind the thick screen of hemlocks beyond the house.

  I pulled up beside a green Range Rover in front of the barn. When I turned off the ignition and opened the car door, I heard the roar of an engine coming from beyond the house, and when I stepped out, a lawn tractor came chugging around the corner. Herb Croyden, wearing bib overalls and a gray sweatshirt, was driving, and his golden retriever—Gracie was her name, I remembered—was bounding along beside him.

  Herb waved, disengaged the blades of the machine, drove over to where I was standing, and turned off his tractor.

  Gracie came to me and dropped a slimy tennis ball at my feet. I picked it up and threw it across the lawn. She went galloping after it.

  “She won’t let you alone now,” said Herb. “You’ve made a friend for life, I’m afraid. She’ll want to play ball with you all afternoon.” He got off his mower and held out his hand. “Mr. Coyne, right?”

  I shook his hand. “Yes. We met the night Gus …”

  He nodded. “Of course. I remember. It’s good to see you. You haven’t met Beth, have you? My wife?”

  “No. I’d like to.”

  “She’s around back planting bulbs,” he said. “I let her do all the bending and kneeling in our family. I drive the machines.”