StoneDust

by Justin Scott

“What happened between ‘a little after eleven’ and two o’clock?”

  I knew, of course, Reg had died at the Fisks’, but that wasn’t the point. The point was to persuade Marian to exhume him to find how somebody had murdered him. “Only amateur guesses.”

  “Try me, Sherlock.”

  “Either he bought his dope, drove out to the bridge, snorted up, and died. Or—”

  “Bought it where?”

  “Almost three hours; he could have made it to Waterbury, and back. If he stepped on it.”

  “Or?”

  “Or he met somebody who killed him.”

  Marian said, “Or someone simply sold him bad dope. Or shared it with him, panicked, and ran.”

  “Did you see any evidence of that in the Blazer?”

  She squinted at me, as if looking through a dirty window.

  I asked, “What if someone killed him and faked the death to look like a hotload OD? Hotloads have been in the news. Maybe whoever killed him was betting the police would jump to the obvious conclusion.”

  The expression on the face of the officer in charge of that investigation suggested no help if I fell in the river again.

  “Let me ask you sometime,” she said. “You’ve been so busy speculating—not to mention establishing the innocence of your witnesses—have you had any time to consider the killer’s motive?”

  “No.”

  “No guesses? No leaps of the imagination? No dazzling intuition?”

  “None I can ‘corroborate.’”

  “No old standards, Ben? Spurned lover? Betrayed wife? Defrauded partner? Hmm?”

  “Marian, you’re having too much fun at my expense. I’ve brought you something potentially interesting, not to mention a possible boost to your career. I don’t expect you to fling your clothes off in gratitude. But a simple thank you—What are you doing?”

  “Unbuttoning my shirt, what does it look like?”

  “I get the impression we’re done talking.”

  “Would you help me with my bra?”

  “Your gun’s in the way.”

  “Do I have your attention now?”

  “Full attention.”

  “Then answer this: What’s the oldest cliché in criminal investigation?”

  “Follow the money.”

  “There’s your killer’s motive.”

  “Great. Who’s my killer?”

  Marian sat up and shook off my hands. “Your client.”

  Chapter 23

  “No way. Absolutely ridiculous. That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard.”

  “Excellent,” said Marian, reattaching the only one of her bra hooks I’d managed to unfumble. “That means I can count on a clear field. You won’t get in the way. And I won’t have to share the credit when I arrest her.”

  “You’re not serious.”

  “She’s the one, dummy. Don’t you get it?”

  “No, I don’t get it. Janey Hopkins had nothing against Reg.”

  “She was divorcing him.”

  “Yeah, but Reg wasn’t fighting her.”

  “Connecticut’s a shared-property state, Sherlock. House, cars, bank account, business, split fifty-fifty. Unless one party ODs. Then the surviving party gets it all.”

  “Yeah, but everything was mortgaged.”

  “All the more reason. If she can make the payments she doesn’t have to sell. If they were splitting equity they’d have to sell everything.”

  “Yeah, but without Reg the business…” My voice trailed off.

  “Yes?”

  “She’s decided to make a go of the septic business.”

  “Right!” Marian was flying—face flushed, eyes sparkling—flying a winner. She stopped buttoning her shirt, seized my wet head, pressed my face to her breasts for an instant. “Yes!”

  “Wait a minute. Wait a minute. If you’re right and Janey killed Reg so she could inherit everything instead of split fifty-fifty, how come she hired me to prove that he didn’t OD on heroin?”

  “Two possible answers to that very good question, Ben. One, she’s greedy and wants the insurance—along with everything else—like Kathleen Turner in Body Heat.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “Kathleen got away with it.”

  “In a movie.”

  “In real life, what did Mrs. Hopkins have to lose, trying to spook the insurance company? The bastards might think twice about going to court against a young widow and two children. Maybe between you bumbling around and her smart lawyer, she’d force a settlement.”

  “Yeah, but what if I bumbled into proving she killed him?”

  “She didn’t hire a pro, Ben. She didn’t go to the police. She hired a dumb amateur. All she was doing was blowing smoke.”

  “Yeah, but she’s thrown in the towel.”

  “So it didn’t work. What did it cost her? Couple of hundred bucks?”

  “I cleared nine hundred. Minus expenses.”

  “You’ve got some nerve. Anyhow, it costs her nine hundred bucks to take a shot at the insurance and—and this is a big ‘and’—by hiring you to clear Reg she throws off any suspicion.”

  “Even though I’m an amateur.”

  “She got her money’s worth in that regard—I doubt there’s anybody in Connecticut who hasn’t heard you’re asking questions about Reg Hopkins.” With that final insult, Marian picked up her notebook and started hopping rocks toward shore.

  “So when do you arrest her?”

  She paused daintily, on one foot on a slippery rock, and I thought, If there is a God, she will fall in.

  “I work a little more conservatively, Ben. I’m an orderly person. First I’ll find out if he was indeed murdered. If he was, I’ll gather evidence against my suspect—keeping an open mind on the subject of her possible innocence. Then I’ll arrest her.”

  “Where you going now?”

  “Get a shovel. Dig up your friend. If the M.E. finds evidence of homicide, I’ll turn Newbury upside down and shake.”

  “How long is this going to take?”

  Marian looked at her watch. “I hope I can get a court order this afternoon. Any luck, we’ll have him on a slab by dark. Otherwise, first thing in the morning. I doubt I’ll have any trouble persuading the M.E. that it’s in his interest to get right to work.”

  “Could you wait ten days?”

  “Of course not. Why?”

  “We’ve got a special primary in ten days.”

  “So?”

  “My friend Vicky’s in a tough fight for renomination. Turning Newbury upside down won’t make it any easier.”

  I didn’t have to explain why to Marian. She had her own political ambitions and a carefully thought out agenda to pursue when she retired from the state police. (In fact, it was quite possible that she and Vicky might one day compete for high office.)

  “That’s a shame,” she said.

  “Yeah, but—” There was still a chance she would slip off the rocks.

  “But what?”

  I had been about to say, “Yeah, but I already know that somebody at the Fisk party killed Reg.” But if I said that, I’d really bring hellfire down on Vicky. Because once Vicky learned the police were questioning the Fisks and their guests, she would feel honor-bound to step into a merciless spotlight.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Thanks for lunch. And thanks for the tip.” She stepped lightly ashore and scrambled up the bank, put on her shoes, called in on the radio, and fired up the Crown Victoria.

  “Hey Ben?” She waved, grinning happily.

  “Yeah?” I answered from the river, where I was wondering, Was she somehow right? Had Janey Hopkins put the use on me?

  “I love your picnic spot. After this blows over, what do you say we put that rock to better use?”

  “If you can stand it with an amateur.”

  “I’ll close my eyes and pretend you’re selling
houses.—Oh, and by the way, fella…”

  “Yeah?”

  “If you want to stay friends, don’t tell your client.”

  “Ex-client. She paid me off.”

  “And got her money’s worth. Bye.” The Crown Victoria tore up the dirt and disappeared in a dust cloud.

  I stuffed wrappers and napkins into the bag, retrieved the Pepsies, and ran to my car. I had thought it would be smart to share certain select suspicions to get Marian to reopen the case and re-examine Reg’s body. But my timing had proved as atrocious as my choice of confidante. Should have gone to Sergeant Bender, a choice I had rejected as too cautious. Too late. And now I had about two days to expose Reg’s killer—or killers—before Marian raided Newbury like Attila the Hun in an expansive mood.

  Chapter 24

  Who killed Reg Hopkins?

  Beautiful Susan? Fragile Georgia? Sherry of the roving eye? Fiery Michelle? Dark Ted? Buttoned-down-corporate, trying-too-hard Rick? Big Bill Carter? Boss Duane, the most successful of the men and Reg’s best friend?

  Or Janey Hopkins—my client—Reg’s about-to-be ex?

  I figured I had to consider Janey, because she was Sergeant Marian’s prime suspect, and Marian was a professional and probably smarter than I. I couldn’t deny she’d hit upon a dandy motive. Janey could have opted for widowhood, with a one hundred percent inheritance, instead of the financial wreckage of a fifty percent divorce settlement. She could have slipped a hotload to Reg—who then had the bad manners to snort the poison in the Fisk kitchen. It could have happened that way.

  I preferred my theory: that the guilty of the Jacuzzi gang had tricked the innocent into dumping Reg’s body. Long on suspects and short on motive, I still believed I’d been hustled in Connie’s library. And I had my doubts that Reg had just happened to end up at the Fisk party.

  But time was running out if I was going to protect Vicky.

  So I concluded, in the course of a long night, that I had to put full faith in what I thought I knew and all my energy in what I didn’t know.

  I made lists. Lists and more lists. I’d have liked to have run my lists past Connie’s keen eye. But I was skating on legal ice too thin to risk involving her.

  I listed what I didn’t know, in what seemed a likely order of precedence: I didn’t know the killer or killers; didn’t know their motive; didn’t know how they had forced the hotload on Reg—though that was Marian’s bailiwick; didn’t know if Reg was gay; and if he was gay, didn’t know if being gay had anything to do with his murder.

  Taking the bleak view, I didn’t know much. On the bright side, I knew more than Ms. Major Case Squad. But she’d catch up fast, once she got a new autopsy. Still, I knew about the Fisk party and Marian didn’t. Yet.

  Under the gun, feeling the pressure, I did what many a stressedout Newburian had done over the years: I went out to lunch at the Newbury Country Club, a pleasant duffer’s course spread across an abandoned dairy farm. I wasn’t a member, but my dad had been president, and I was greeted warmly by the manager.

  “Georgia Bowland here yet?”

  “Haven’t seen her.”

  “Did she remember to make a lunch reservation?” I put enough weight on “remember” to hint that for reasons we both knew, Georgia could be on occasion forgetful.

  Henry, good club manager that he was, consulted his book with an expression that covered responses ranging from “I wasn’t aware Georgia was forgetful” to “Only yesterday the barmaids trundled her home in a wheelbarrow.”

  “Nooooo, I don’t see it.”

  “Can you squeeze us in, Henry?”

  “No problem.”

  “Tell her I’ll be in the bar,” I asked him, and headed that way feeling a little skeezy. I told myself I didn’t have time to be nice. I’d struck out, essentially, with the guys, and I couldn’t mine Michelle for any more information either. That left the other women: Sherry and Susan, and Georgia Bowland, the Jacuzzi gang’s weak sister.

  The clubhouse was simple, built after World War II when knotty pine had seemed a lively break with tradition. The dining room had a dance floor and a lot of windows that cast a cheerful light on the tables set for lunch, while the bar, reflecting a time when people took drinking seriously, was long, dark, and private. On a summer weekday like today, Grandma could enjoy her martini undisturbed by the little ones. Several grandmothers were doing just that, in the company of some grandpas. Everyone looked tanned and healthy and quite happily retired, and I couldn’t help but think that, with God’s blessing, here in thirty years would settle the innocent among my suspects.

  I said hello to everybody, accepted a drink from Scooter’s granddad, and joined in, while I watched for Georgia. Conversation swirled around the morning’s eighteen on drought-baked fairways, exploits of grandchildren in the swimming pool, Vicky McLachlan’s dwindling chances of renomination. The death of Reg Hopkins got me some looks. Marian was right, everyone knew I’d been asking questions. To my surprise, in this crowd, Reg gossip had developed more staying power than the Fisk party, which no one mentioned—possibly because they preferred fond memories of their own escapades.

  I explained that my yellowing bruises looked worse than they were, received congratulations for putting up a good fight, and firm advice to lock my doors and get a gun.

  “What happened to your dad’s collection?”

  “Locked in the safe.” I explained about Alison and her friends. All agreed that guns and kids were a deadly mix, and the conversation drifted toward a weekend tournament that Duane Fisk was expected to dominate. That stirred memories of team play with Reg Hopkins, more sad shakes of gray heads, and a hasty retreat to the weather forecast and the vague possibility of rain.

  Georgia wandered in, looking quite pretty and very stylish. She was no heart-stopping beauty like Rita Long, but she shared an eye for Henri Bendel clothes that announced New York Woman Lost in Hick Town. Her honey-colored hair had been cut shoulder-length by an expensive genius, her makeup was restrained, her jewelry a few quiet pieces. While there was truth in Aunt Connie’s prediction that alcohol would wither her good looks, she looked, at one o’clock on a summer day, like she had a ways to go before that happened.

  She also looked puzzled. “Henry said you were expecting me?”

  “I must have confused him. I thought I saw your car in the lot. Thought you and Rick might want to have lunch.”

  “Rick’s at work.” And then, before I had to maneuver her any more, she said, “We can have lunch.”

  “Great. Drink first?”

  “Ummm. Okay. Sure. Why not?” I signaled a bartender and walked Georgia away from the crowd, trailed by a grandfatherly chortle: “Hey, Ben caught a cutie. Wait’ll I tell Rick.”

  Georgia proved a capital hand at clubhouse banter. “And I’ll tell you-know-who about the new lifeguard.”

  This occasioned roars of laughter and a genuinely chagrined expression on the face of the chortler.

  “You hit that nail on the head.”

  Georgia laughed. “I shouldn’t have said it, but oh God, yesterday he was all over her. How are you, Ben? That was a neat party before it got so heavy.”

  “Ended well, that’s the main thing. What would you like?”

  “What are you having?”

  “Well, I had a martini with Mr. MacKay. I could do another.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Straight up?”

  “Absolutely.”

  I ordered Burnett’s martinis, dry, with olives.

  The club’s oversized cocktail glass boasted the capacity of a swimming hole. Etched into the side were a florid “NCC” and, below the rim, a fill line which the bartenders cheerfully submerged. I had emptied most of my first in a geranium pot, but from here on I was on my own.

  “What are you doing here? You’re not a member, are you?”

  “My dad was. Cheers.”

  “Cheers…Ummm. My dad used to say, ‘That’
s like jumping into a cool pond.’”

  We sipped our respective cool ponds for a while.

  “How’d you end up flacking for Steve La France?”

  “Michelle talked me into it.”

  “I guess PR for Steve means keeping his foot out of his mouth.”

  Georgia smiled. “He says what people want to hear. But he is a little ahead of the curve.”

  “Exactly like his old man. Frank La France used to haunt town meetings like the ghost of Andrew Jackson. ‘What this country needs is more guns and dogs.’ Drove my dad nuts on the school budgets. Of course, back then, people still believed their kids were getting their money’s worth, so when old Guns and Dogs finally ran out of steam they’d vote the budget and everyone was basically content enough to re-elect my father.”

  “Steve’s no Guns and Dogs. He’s doing an excellent job of playing his one big advantage: The voters are terrified of taxes. He’s a publicist’s dream—a clear position on a single issue.”

  I nodded affably. We both understood that public relations demanded public loyalty to the client. We drank some more, comfortable with the world we shared beyond the town line.

  “Dr. Greenan told me that Guns and Dogs is rounding up new voters.”

  Georgia shrugged.

  “Small pond?” I commiserated.

  “Beats no pond. I guess.” She brightened. “I convinced him to challenge Vicky to a debate. It’s win-win for Steve. She’ll lose if she refuses. And lose worse if she accepts.”

  “Whatever happened to the ‘Stomp for Steve’ fundraiser?”

  “We’ll do that for the regular election, after he beats Vicky.”

  “Did you do political campaigns when you worked?”

  “I was hired on at the end of the last Bush campaign.”

  “That must have been a grim one.”

  Georgia grew animated describing an atmosphere that resembled the last hours of the czar’s entourage with the revolutionaries in hot pursuit. I ordered another round.

  “Thanks. Cheers. They were so isolated. I got into huge fights with people who wouldn’t tell them what was happening. PR works two ways: Sure you spew it out, but dammit Ben, you’ve got to listen, too. They were clinging to surveys that meant nothing. All you had to do was look at the crowds’ faces. Or talk to anybody in a diner.”