“I don’t think so. . . .”
“Parker Leedale says you do. Called him about it when I couldn’t reach you. Says he gave you a bunch of stuff in a metal box and he thinks, he thinks, it’s in there.”
“I remember the box,” McGuire said. “I’ll check it—”
“When you find it, can you get it to me tomorrow after lunch?” Hannaford interrupted. “I’d pick it up myself but I’m short of staff this week, see, and I’ve got a couple of deals to dose out near Orleans first thing in the morning. ’Course, if you can’t bring it, I’ll find some way of stopping by tomorrow, but . . .”
McGuire promised to deliver the survey.
“That’d be kind as hell of you,” the agent gushed. “Easy to find me. Just come east on Main Street, see, and hang a right on Commers Road till you hit Old Queen Anne Road. Turn left there and I’m ’bout a mile out.”
The musty smell tickled McGuire’s nostrils as he opened the door to Terry’s room. He retrieved the metal box from the bookshelf where he had placed it the evening before. Then, sitting on the edge of Terry’s bed, he popped open the lock with the small key.
Inside, tabs of the legal-sized preprinted file folders were marked “Mortgage,” “Deed,” “Insurance,” “Taxes,” “Maintenance” and “Miscellaneous.”
McGuire withdrew the file marked “Deed” and shook out some legal documents, among them a survey of Cora’s house dated ten years earlier showing its proximity to Miner’s Lane, the irregular shape of the property and the heavy woods bordering to the east and south. He set the survey aside and flipped idly through the remaining files, finding paper-clipped tax receipts, refrigerator and furnace warranties, property insurance policies. Behind them all, at the back of the box, was a large manila envelope which McGuire withdrew and emptied on the bed.
More than a dozen old newspaper clippings slid out, some faded to the colour of weak coffee, others the light hue of corn silk. He lifted one gently with his fingertips. “Godwin Leads Cougars to Title” shouted the headline above a photograph of a smiling Terry Godwin in full football regalia. Terry had quarterbacked his team to the Cape Cod Interscholastic League championship and thirty years later McGuire read the glowing reports of his cousin’s athletic abilities, the quotations from his teammates, the anticipation of an athletic scholarship for Terry from a major Ivy League college.
He set the clipping aside and examined another, this one reporting Terry’s twenty-eight-point game as centre for the Compton District High School basketball team. There were others: Terry Godwin’s performance at a state swim meet; his election as president of the CDHS student council; Terry Godwin presenting a cheque to the Compton United Appeal earned through a car wash conducted by a group of students, the entire event orchestrated by Terry Godwin.
Terry the hero. Terry the overachiever.
McGuire had never felt jealousy toward his cousin. Envy, perhaps, at having Cora for a mother and living amid the middle-class comfort of Compton. But never raw jealousy. He decided it was because he liked himself better than Terry. A simple distinction. But an important one.
He fanned through the newsprint chronicle of highlights in his cousin’s short life, expecting to discover the final chapter of the tale: the report of Terry Godwin’s death in Vietnam.
But it wasn’t there. Nor was the letter Cora received from Washington, confirming her son was MIA. That would be like Cora, McGuire told himself. Save and remember the good, discard and forget the bad.
It was the word “Death” in the last clipping, the one following all the tales of Terry’s exploits, that caught McGuire’s attention.
Compton Police Investigate Death of Widow
The body of 28-year-old Cynthia Anne Sanders was discovered at her Nickerson Drive home late Sunday morning. The woman was found in bed by a neighbour who investigated after discovering the front door open and the outdoor lights still on.
Compton police are refusing to speculate on the cause of death while they await the results of an autopsy. Foul play has not been ruled out, and officers have interviewed a Camden-area teenager seen doing yard work around the Sanders home in recent days.
Mrs. Sanders was described by neighbours as a quiet woman who kept to herself a good deal since the death of her husband, businessman James Sanders, in an auto accident two years ago.
No funeral arrangements have been announced at this time.
The news item was thirty years old.
McGuire read it a second and a third time before setting it aside and staring at the clipping as though waiting for it to come alive. Then he stood, turned away, looked back at the torn portion of newsprint and smiled coldly.
What did you know about this? he asked Cora silently. What did you know that might have been reason enough to kill you?
“Who?” Bob Morton replied.
McGuire spoke more slowly into the telephone receiver. “Sanders,” he said. “Cynthia Sanders. Lived out on Nickerson Drive.” He read the date from the news story.
“Thirty years ago?” the police officer said. “I wouldn’t even know where to look for something that old.”
“Give it a try.”
“You want to tell me what this is about?”
“It’s about trusting your instincts. It’s about making a connection that may or may not exist. It’s about a murder. Okay?”
Morton sounded annoyed. “Okay, I’ll look tomorrow. I’m just going off duty now. Tomorrow soon enough for you?”
McGuire said tomorrow would have to do.
He called Dr. Hayward’s office and hung up halfway through the answering machine’s recorded message. Then he went downstairs and sat in a far corner of the living room, watching the world grow dark and waiting.
An hour later he rose, slipped into his jacket, locked the door behind him and set off for a walk into town.
Chapter Eleven
The lights of the Town House Lounge and Café spilled out onto Main Street. McGuire entered the tavern and seated himself in the same spot as the previous night. The bar was crowded and noisy, the rumble of conversation punctuated by shouts and laughter from patrons gathered around the three dart boards at the rear. The television set above the bar was on but no one seemed to be paying attention to it.
“I had a good bowl of chowder and a cold Molson’s here last night,” McGuire said when the bartender placed a coaster in front of him.
“So?”
“I want the same thing again.”
Fifteen minutes later he was scooping the last of the chowder from the bowl and preparing to order another Molson’s when a hand gripped his shoulder from behind and a beery breath flooded the air around him.
“The hell you doin’ in here alone?”
McGuire turned to look into the slightly crossed eyes of Parker Leedale. The lawyer wore a heavy red sweatshirt and green cotton chinos. He gripped two darts in his free hand.
“Dinner,” McGuire answered, nodding at the empty bowl.
The explanation seemed to satisfy Leedale. “Come on back, join the guys,” he said, pointing toward the back of the room where Mike Gilroy and Blake Stevenson stood next to one of the dart boards, watching in silence. Gilroy raised an arm and waved at McGuire, who smiled tightly and nodded. “The ball game got rained out, so we started a darts tournament. Come on,” Leedale almost pleaded. “Have a beer with us. We got a booth at the back.” He seized the empty Molson’s bottle and held it to the light. “Jimmy!” he called to the bartender. “Another one of these on my tab, okay?”
Gilroy and Stevenson abandoned the darts game when Leedale and McGuire arrived at the booth. McGuire nodded to the other two men and slid in against the wall, Parker Leedale next to him. Mike Gilroy and Blake Stevenson settled themselves across from them, Stevenson on the outside to afford room for his massive bulk.
“I’m still two up on you guys,” Gilroy g
rinned at the others. He was noticeably sober compared with Leedale and Stevenson. “You owe me two bucks each.”
“Gotta be careful, talking about gambling in front of a police officer,” Leedale slurred, withdrawing two crumpled bills from his pocket and dropping them on the counter. Blake Stevenson peeled money from an alligator-skin wallet and spread the bills neatly in front of Gilroy without comment.
“So how’s the house look?” Leedale asked McGuire. “Everything copacetic?”
“Everything’s fine,” McGuire answered. The waiter arrived with McGuire’s Molson’s, a Scotch and soda for Stevenson, draft beer for Leedale and a mineral water for Gilroy.
“Designated driver,” Gilroy said, hoisting his drink as though proposing a toast.
“Designated horseshit,” Leedale grumbled. He took a long sip from his beer, staring over the rim at McGuire. “I remember you,” he said, “when we were kids, maybe eleven, twelve. You spent a couple of summers here with Terry. You stayed at the house, Cora’s house.”
McGuire nodded.
“We played some baseball, down at the park where Miner’s Lane runs into Mill Pond. Terry pitched, of course. I played second base usually. I think you were out in left field.”
“Usually was,” agreed McGuire.
“Now there was a loss,” Blake Stevenson said, shaking his head. “If Terry Godwin had lived, he would be one of the great success stories of this area by now.”
“Probably been a politician,” Mike Gilroy offered. “Would’ve gone into politics for sure.”
“How well did you know him?” McGuire asked.
“He was my quarterback,” Stevenson declared, shifting his weight and crossing his legs. “In high school. I was a guard. Varsity team.”
“Hell of an athlete,” Gilroy said, nodding.
“Shit, everybody knew Terry,” Leedale almost sneered. “BMOC.”
“Mister everything,” Gilroy agreed.
“Terry Godwin,” Stevenson proclaimed in a voice meant to be the final word on the topic, “was perhaps the best all-around student and athlete produced by CDHS.”
“Who?” McGuire asked.
“Compton District High School,” Leedale explained. “We all went there. These guys, Ellie, June. We’re still close.”
“Hear you might be selling your aunt’s house,” Mike Gilroy said.
McGuire nodded.
“Sam Hannaford get to you about the survey he needed?” Parker Leedale asked.
Another nod.
“You sticking around until the place is sold?” Gilroy asked.
McGuire swept the eyes of all three men with his gaze. Poke ’em with a stick, Ollie had said. See who yelps the loudest. Instead of answering Gilroy, McGuire said, “Did Terry know a woman named Sanders?”
“Who?” Parker Leedale asked.
McGuire winced and sat back out of range of Leedale’s sour breath. “Sanders. She died about thirty years ago. It looked like murder and the police talked to somebody who did gardening around her house, maybe Terry. . . .”
“No, no, it was Sonny Tate,” blurted Stevenson.
“The woman over on Nickerson’s Neck,” Mike Gilroy said almost at the same instant.
“Oh, shit, her,” Parker Leedale said. He stared down at the table, a small smile frozen in place.
“How do you know about her?” Gilroy asked.
“Cora told me,” McGuire lied. “She left something for me to read about the murder.” He looked across at Stevenson. “Who’d you mention just now? Somebody named Tate?”
“Sonny,” Mike Gilroy said. “He killed her.”
“What happened to him?” McGuire asked.
Gilroy shrugged.
“Jesus Christ,” Parker Leedale said, his grin wider now. “Sonny Tate. Haven’t thought about him in years.”
“He got away with murder,” Blake Stevenson said solemnly.
“What, he was acquitted at a trial?” McGuire said.
Mike Gilroy shook his head. “There was no trial.” He shrugged his shoulders. “He just got away with it.”
“But Terry Godwin wasn’t involved,” added Blake Stevenson.
“Wasn’t even a suspect,” added Gilroy.
“Sonny Tate,” mumbled Parker Leedale. “Now there was a guy.”
McGuire drained his glass of beer. “So tell me about him,” he said. “Who’s Sonny Tate? And how’d he get away with murder if you guys all know about it?”
“Sonny Tate played on the high school football team with Terry and Blake,” Gilroy explained. “He and Terry, they were kind of alike. But different. They were both naturals but Terry was more intense, driven. Sonny, he was out for laughs.” He smiled, almost in embarrassment.
The others, Stevenson and Leedale, sat back as though hearing a favourite story being told for the hundredth time.
“Those guys, your cousin and Sonny, they had it made,” Gilroy went on. “They had everything. Looks, brains, sense of humour . . . You’d think they’d be close buddies, but they weren’t. Weren’t close at all. They moved in different circles.”
“Sonny coulda been a better football player than Terry Godwin,” Leedale grumbled. “If he’d wanted to. Sonny Tate,” he said, leaning toward McGuire as though planning a conspiracy, “could also have banged every broad in town between the age of twelve and seventy-five if he’d wanted to.” He raised his eyebrows and nodded. “It’s true. And that’s not all.” He leered at McGuire.
“You going to tell me the rest?” McGuire asked. “About him and the Sanders woman?”
Leedale looked at the others. Mike Gilroy was turning his glass of mineral water in circles. Blake Stevenson was staring across the room as though lost in thought. “Should we tell him about it?” Leedale asked them. “Should we?”
“Hey, I’m asking you to,” McGuire snapped, and Leedale shifted his body a few inches away from McGuire.
Mike Gilroy ignored McGuire’s outburst. He leaned across the table and said in a low voice, “Sonny Tate killed that Sanders woman thirty years ago when he was eighteen years old and every kid in town knew it. They knew it.”
“He got away with it,” Leedale said, staring into McGuire’s eyes. “The guy got away with murder.” He grinned and shook his head in wonder. “The son of a bitch got away with murder.”
“Way it looks to us, anyway,” Gilroy commented, sitting back in the booth and shrugging his shoulders.
“You want to hear about it because you’re a cop, right?” Leedale asked McGuire.
“Not anymore,” McGuire said. “I’m not a cop anymore.”
“Then why are you so interested in this thing?” Mike Gilroy asked. “If Cora had some proof or something, why not take it over to the cops, over to that guy. Morton? That his name?”
“Morton hasn’t had a lot of experience handling murders,” McGuire replied. “I have. Besides, there are other things involved.”
“Like what?” Leedale asked.
“Tell me how this Tate guy got away with murder,” McGuire said, looking across the table at Gilroy.
Mike Gilroy shrugged and nodded his head. “Sonny Tate wasn’t from the best part of town. He lived over near Harwich. Father drove a truck, I think, when he was alive, and his mother worked in a diner. He had two sisters. One was kind of nice, the other was a bit wild. And he wasn’t great looking. Not like Terry Godwin. Terry was almost pretty, wasn’t he? Tall, slim, fair-haired. Sonny had thick, curly, black hair, kind of a square face, built like a fire hydrant. Strong, really strong. And Sonny had . . .” Gilroy looked for the word on the ceiling of the bar.
“Charm,” Leedale offered.
“Charisma,” Stevenson suggested.
“Yeah, that’s close to it, I guess,” Gilroy said, nodding at Stevenson. “Charisma. Never had a pot to piss in but old Sonny always had somethi
ng going, you know? He was like a gypsy. Heard he wound up living like one, too.”
“Even looked a little gypsy,” Leedale said. “Dark, kind of swarthy.”
“Sonny was always a step ahead of everybody else, you know?” Gilroy resumed. “Terry Godwin, he could score on the football field and in the back seats of cars, I guess. But Terry wasn’t the guy everybody followed. Like, if there was some kind of new music or fashion or hip saying—”
“Hip?” Leedale exploded in derisive laughter. “When the hell was the last time you heard that word? Hip?”
“Let him tell the story,” McGuire ordered, and Leedale said, “Sure, what the hell,” and slouched back in the booth again.
“You gotta remember that everybody loved the guy,” Gilroy said with awe. “Terry Godwin, I mean, he was our buddy and everything, but he let things go to his head a little. You know, he had his own circle of friends, his own clique, hell, we were in it, we were all close and hung around him, just like any high school hero. But not Sonny. Sonny’s family really had to struggle. I think it made him a little humble.”
“Never cut anybody else’s grass, Sonny didn’t,” Leedale added. He drained his glass of beer and waved the bartender over for another. “He was no bird dog. Terry, he’d be after every cute little snatch he saw. Not Sonny.”
“Kind of guy didn’t want to make enemies,” Gilroy said. “Which doesn’t mean he avoided trouble.”
“He could handle himself in a fight,” Blake Stevenson offered.
“Saw him clean up three punks from Boston down by the lighthouse one night. Watched the whole thing, start to finish,” Parker Leedale boasted. “They just pushed him too far. Sonny threw one guy over the railing, knocked another one senseless. Third guy crawled under his truck trying to get away from Sonny. Remember that?” Leedale asked Blake Stevenson. “You were there. Remember that?”
Stevenson said he remembered.
“He sounds like the stuff of legend,” McGuire said. He had finished his Molson’s and felt like another. Before he could order, Gilroy resumed his story.
Gypsy Sins Page 10
