“I did. And you?”
“Very much so,” she said. “Nice cane you got there. What horror movie set did you get that from?”
“From Felix Tinios’s long-departed uncle.” I held it up. “See the wolf head? I’m told it can scare off vampires, or zombies, or bookies.”
“I’m sure.”
“According to Felix, it also has a secret inside.”
“Probably a vial of brandy.”
“Probably,” I said. “How goes your work?”
“Oh, it goes well,” she said. “I’m getting ready for the 11:00 A.M. press conference, and I’m trying to get a follow-up piece for the Chronicle’s website done before then.” She picked up her coffee and gave a slow glance around the place. “You’re making progress.”
“Not enough.”
“Enough for me to have a good sleep, refresh myself,” she said. A little sip and she said, “Thanks.”
“No thanks necessary.”
“I came in, pretty wired up, scared … and I woke up feeling a hundred percent better. I’d feel a hundred and ten percent if I had time to slip into the shower.”
“We could save time if I volunteered to wash your back.”
A sly smile. “Knowing you, you’d feel compelled to wash my front as well.”
“Never leave a job half-done,” I said.
“Hah.”
She went back to her keyboard and I said, “Hey, if you’re up and running, can you do me a favor? What’s the number for the Tyler Historical Society?”
“Hold on,” and her fingers went tap-tap-tap and she gave me the number. “Who do you want to call over there?”
“Whoever answers the phone, or whoever runs the joint.”
“I thought you knew who—”
Her cell phone rang, and she picked it up. “What?” she said. “For real? Thanks for the heads-up.”
She clicked off, shut down her laptop, got up, and said, “Sorry, Lewis. For some reason the assistant attorney general has taken over the press conference, and he’s moved it up fifteen minutes.”
“Why would he do that?”
Paula gathered up her knapsack, coat, and put her laptop into a carry-on bag. “Because by starting the press conference earlier, he’s pointing out that he’s running the show, that’s why.”
A knock on the door caught our attention. Paula said, “Is your secret lover Greta returning from shopping or something?”
“Let’s find out,” I said, thinking it better not be the genealogical couple from the other day. I didn’t have the patience. I went to the door, opened it up, and there was Felix Tinios, standing on my granite doorstep. He nodded in our direction, stood there rather stiff and formally, with his jacket over his left arm, although it didn’t seem that warm.
“Lewis … and the ever-charming Paula Quinn,” he said, brown eyes twinkling. “Have I interrupted anything?”
“Just me leaving, Felix,” Paula said. “Hey, you do anything illegal lately?”
Felix just smiled a bit. “Depends on your definition of illegal, I guess, and since you’re a journalist, and not a lawyer, why don’t we just leave it at that.”
“I guess so,” she said, and she turned for a kiss goodbye before starting up my rough dirt driveway. I watched her slim form go up to the parking lot that belonged to the Lafayette House from across the street, and Felix said, “Paula … reasonably attractive, reasonably smart … but you’re a man of the world, Lewis. What more do you see in her?”
“More than you can imagine, Felix. Come on in. Up for a cup of coffee?”
He grimaced as he came in. “What you call coffee … not at the moment, thanks. But I was hoping you could do me a favor.”
I closed the door and followed him into my cluttered living room. Felix was moving slow, hesitant.
“What do you need?” I said.
He turned and dropped his jacket from his left arm. A bloody bandage made of paper napkins and kept in place by gray duct tape covered his forearm.
“I’ve been shot,” he said.
CHAPTER SIX
On the couch, now,” I said.
He went to the couch. “Turn around. Lay down. Legs up,” I instructed.
Felix settled in and rested his wounded arm on his chest, then he raised his legs over the far armrest. I had lots of questions to ask and no time to ask them. I went upstairs as fast as I could—not fast enough, not fast enough, my mind was screaming at me—and from the bedroom closet, I tugged out a thick black zippered bag. Back downstairs I pulled a chair and the coffee table close to the couch, and opened the bag.
“Is the bullet still in you?”
“No,” he said. “Looked like a clean hit before I bandaged it up … with what I had on hand.”
“Why didn’t you go to any ER in the area?”
He shifted his arm, frowned. “You know the rules, son. Anything that appears to be a gunshot is reported to the authorities. Need I say more?”
“Nope,” I said. “Hold still.”
I went to the kitchen and took out a plastic bottle of hydrogen peroxide from the refrigerator. I gave my hands a good wash, dried them off with a paper towel, went back to Felix. From the interior of the first aid kit, I tugged out a pair of latex gloves, slipped them on, and took out some sterile bandages, still in their paper packages.
Felix eyed me and said, “You look pretty prepped for a magazine writer.”
“You know the rules, papa,” I said, taking out a pair of stainless-steel shears. “In these troubled times, it’s nice to have things in reserve, just in case. Hold tight. You need a stick to bite on?”
“Just do it.”
I slipped the shears underneath the gray tape and started clipping. Felix’s face tightened but he didn’t say a word. I got the tape cut in half and then tugged away the tape and the paper napkins. Blood oozed and bubbled up from a wound at the side of Felix’s wrist.
I tore open the gauze bandages and gently wiped away the blood so I could see the open wound. About two inches in length, a half-inch in width, and bleeding like hell. I dabbed and dabbed, and then soaked another bandage with the hydrogen peroxide.
“Going to hurt,” I said.
“Gee, you think so?”
I gave the wound as gentle a wipe as I could, and Felix’s arm jerked a bit, but he stayed still. One more wipe and I said, “It’s going to need stitches.”
“I know.”
“I really don’t want to stitch you up,” I said. “The wound’s pretty jagged. Somebody with a hell of a lot more skills than me would have to give it a good cleaning and trimming to make sure the stitches work.”
“That’s all right,” Felix said. “I have somebody … on call. Just my bad luck he’s out of town today. But he’ll be back tomorrow. Just wrap it up, the best you can. I’ll get it fixed and stitched tomorrow.”
“All right, then.”
In my kit was a small bottle of distilled water, which I cracked open and used to irrigate the wound. Then I patted everything dry, folded over a piece of gauze, placed it into the jagged opening. I did my best to pull the wound together with butterfly bandages, and then put another gauze bandage over that, taped it up, wrapped the area with a length of gauze, and taped the whole thing in place.
“Sloppy and amateur,” I said, “but it’ll keep you in one piece until you see your doc.”
He nodded, gently put his wounded forearm on his chest. “Thanks.”
“No thanks necessary,” I said. “But how about a pain pill? I’ve got some Percocet upstairs from my surgery that I’d be happy to share.”
A violent shake of Felix’s head. “No, not at all, I wouldn’t dare use that stuff. I like to think I’m tough, but I’m not taking something that’ll end up with me injecting street stuff between my toes. Nope, Extra-Strength Tylenol or something like that.”
I found the pills and a tall glass of water for him; he swallowed the first and sipped the second as I cleaned up the joint. I sat across from him
and said, “I thought I told you to play nice.”
“Yeah, you always say that, and the other people decide not to play nice. So what’s a boy to do?”
“Tell me the story,” I said.
“From where?”
“The beginning.”
“Once upon a time there was the Big Bang, and—”
I gently kicked the side of the couch. “Bad jokes about cosmology belong to me. Cut it out, or I’ll tell everyone you were crying when I was bandaging you up.”
“Hah, like anyone would believe you.” He took another sip of water and said, “I got a lead on a car that was in the area of Maggie’s place the night she got murdered.”
“How?”
“Because …”
“Because you haven’t told me that part of the story yet,” I said. “You said that a Toyota Corolla with Massachusetts license plates was seen leaving Maggie’s place during the time frame when she was murdered.”
“I did.”
“Was it you or someone in your employ?”
“My employ.”
“Doing what?”
“Working a surveillance for me. Another house up the road. Nice family with a college-age daughter, commuting to UNH. One of her professors is harassing her—not enough to get the university’s attention, but enough to get Mom and Dad’s attention. Sometimes he stops by unannounced, leaves gifts in the mailbox. She’s afraid that if she makes too much of a stink, it’ll impact her grades.”
“And your contractor?”
“Was working surveillance on the house in question, which was quiet. No love-struck professor with receding hairline and glasses approaching. But one house over, where Maggie lived, he did see a Toyota race out, nearly clip a tree, and head off toward the interstate, about the time when the police said Maggie was murdered.”
“I see. And you traced the license plate and what did you find?”
“A not-so-nice man named Pepe, who leads a gang of not-so-merry men in and around Lowell and Lawrence. We met up in one of those three-story tenements that used to be called Irish battleships before the latest round of immigration.”
“Okay, then, what next?”
Felix shrugged. “Had a chilly conversation that eventually went full Arctic.”
“Did they take your silver?”
“Not sure.”
“Did they kill Maggie?”
“Well, see, that’s where it got interesting, right from the start. I asked them about that and I half-expected some brave talk, tough talk, crap like that. You know, ‘Yo bro, the bitch gave us grief, so we capped her.’ But no go. In fact, they used an excuse I’ve used on occasion, when I was much younger and much faster.”
“And what excuse was that?”
“The one that goes, ‘Sorry, officer, he was dead when I got there.’”
“Really?”
“That’s right. Pepe and friends said that Maggie was already dead when they went into her place. They were looking for a quick score, thinking antique places like that must have a lot of cash and jewelry lying around. So they parked halfway up her driveway, went into the barn, and … found dead Maggie in her chair, bone, blood, hair, and brain splattered on the wall behind her, papers and books all over the floor. Pepe claimed his guys saw the scene and got the hell out.”
“Do you believe him?”
“Well …”
“Felix, do you think he was telling the truth?”
He thought for a moment. “I think he was leaning more toward the truth. He said something like, ‘What, we gonna smoke a grandma and for what?’ Plus, the way my guy saw that Toyota drive out of Maggie’s place, it was like they were spooked and needed to get the hell out.”
I refilled his water glass and made my way back, and he saw the cane and said, “How’s Uncle Paulie’s cane treating you?”
“Just fine. I’m waiting to scare little kids off with the wolf’s head.”
“Do you want me to show you what—”
“I can figure it out,” I said. “Now, tell me the interesting part of the story, the one that ends with you getting shot in your forearm.”
Felix took a long swallow, put the glass down on the coffee table. “No, wasn’t that interesting. I kept on asking about my great-grandfather’s silver, coming at them from different approaches, and then Pepe’s buddies got angry. Then they got really angry, and it deteriorated from there.”
“Why so angry?”
“Kids nowadays …”
A pause. I said, “Go on.”
“Are you sure?”
“Felix …”
“Kids nowadays, not only don’t they respect their elders, they also don’t respect much of anything. Institutions, ways of doing business, past agreements and such. What I saw was one of Pepe’s gang start raising a fuss, and I knew what was going on. The guy was making a play, wanting to show Pepe that he was tougher than tough, that he wouldn’t allow anybody to ‘dis his jefe,’ or something like that.”
“Spun out of control then?”
“Well, after I shot the guy making the play.” Another pause. “I had to make an example, to all of them.”
“I guess they didn’t appreciate the lesson.”
“Not hardly. No more talking but some more gunplay … and here I am.”
I just nodded. “What next, then?”
“Short term, I’d like relax here for a bit until the Tylenol kicks in. Long term, I’m going back to Pepe and company to get a final and clear answer on my great-grandfather’s silver.”
“You know, the Tyler cops might be interested in talking to Pepe’s boys.”
“They didn’t have anything to do with her murder.”
“Still …”
“Good lord,” Felix said. “I can’t believe you didn’t make Eagle Scout back in the day, Lewis. Okay, once I’m satisfied with the status of my antique silver, then I’ll make sure Pepe’s boys make an appearance at the Tyler police station.”
“Sometimes you’re so civic-minded, it helps restore just a bit of my faith in humanity.”
“Just a bit?” Felix asked.
“No need to get ahead of ourselves.”
Felix napped for an hour and I offered him lunch before he left, but he declined. “I just want to get to my home turf and collapse. See if I can convince a nurse or two to come over and ooh and aah over my latest wound.”
“Based on past experience, I doubt that’ll be a problem.”
“You never know,” he said. “How are you set for dinner?”
“Fine.”
I walked him to my door and he stepped out, took a look at my house and the scraggly yard and rocks. “I know this joint has a lot of historical significance for you and all that, but don’t you get tired of these old boards?”
“Not for a moment.”
“Damn thing almost burned down around your ears some months ago.”
“True, but the rebuilding’s almost finished.”
“Yeah, that it is,” he said. “Just keep on watching out for arsonists and tourists.”
And just then, there was a shout up at the top of my driveway, as a man and a woman began to come my way.
“So who are they?” Felix said. “Arsonists or tourists?”
“Worse,” I said. “Amateur historians.”
Felix took his time walking up the driveway past the couple from Albany, Dave and Marjorie Hudson, and I really hoped that seeing an injured Felix Tinios come their way might turn the couple around so they would decide to beat a retreat back up to the Lafayette House’s parking lot, but maybe that fresh bullet wound had weakened Felix’s superpowers, such that they kept on coming.
Having been spotted in my open door, I also thought that going back in, locking the door, and ignoring any knocks would be in bad form, so I tried to paste on a reasonably blank face as they approached.
The husband-and-wife team had on the same clothes as before, including the tweed cap for him and the brightly colored knit cap for her, and Dave
Hudson still had a bulging file folder under his arm.
“Mr. Cole, so glad to see you again!” he called out, and I just nodded politely and waited in my doorway. His wife, Marjorie, kept quiet as they both approached.
“Please, I’m really not up for a visit today,” I said.
Hudson nodded politely. “I know, I know, but I assure you, we won’t take too much of your time.”
“I appreciate that, Mr. Hudson, but I’m not in a mood or a position to host visitors, so …” I started going back into my house, and he came up the steps, surprising me.
“Look, Mr. Cole, my wife and I have driven a long way here from Albany, to do genealogical research, and I don’t think you appreciate the time and effort we’ve spent on this.”
“I do appreciate that, Mr. Hudson, and I hate to be rude and flippant, but that’s not my problem. You didn’t write, call, or email me ahead of time to tell me that you were coming. If you had done that, I could have explained my situation, and we could have set up a mutually agreeable time for you and your wife to visit.”
His wife came up behind him and I said, “As it is, and I hate to repeat myself, but I’ve just come out of the hospital. I find it exhausting just to stand up for a while. I also get exhausted just being awake. In fact, I get exhausted from talking about being exhausted. I’m not in the mood nor condition to receive visitors. Please. Give me some time and space, and I’d be happy to let you in and have you look around.”
He said, “Mr. Cole … if I may, all you have to do is go into your house, have a seat on your couch, and we’ll be as quick and as quiet as we can. You’ll hardly notice we’re there.”
“While you’re doing what?”
“Taking photos. Measurements. Recording what this place was like back when my grandfather was stationed here during the Korean War.”
I took a breath, trying to keep my temper in place. “Really, I’m trying not to be rude here, but this place—my home!—is not the same place as it was when your grandfather was here. It’s changed, it’s been built, expanded, some parts torn down, and just last year, a good chunk was burned down in an arson. I did my best rebuilding it with old lumber and timber from the nineteenth century, so I don’t see what you’d gain.”
Hard Aground Page 5
