by David Daniel
“Am I right?”
“Seems we ought to do something.”
“Besides talk.”
But I didn’t see it happen. I was mopping up egg yolk with a crust of rye toast when Rodrigo came over. “Sorry,” he said, “I didn’t want to break my rhythm.” He sank into the seat opposite me, blotting his shiny face on the hem of his apron. “In this racket, lose your groove and you’re toast, no pun intended. You wind up with egg on your shoes, pissed-off waitresses, and thirty customers who won’t be back.”
“I hate when that happens.”
“You’re all dressed up. How can I help you, my friend?”
In my work you took your information where you found it. I told him I was headed for a funeral and explained what I was doing here. He was nodding before I finished. “I can tell you how it looks from back there.” He hooked a thumb toward the griddle. “The guy the cops arrested is as good as guilty—but it doesn’t rest there. Mood around town is turning ugly. You heard it just now. And that was mild. Some of the talk, you’ve got people ready to go over there to the carnival with ball bats. And the thing is, what makes it sort of surreal—how often is a woman with a z on the end of her name going to be the center of sympathy?” I asked a few more questions, probing him about anything specific he might have overheard about the killing, but he didn’t have a thing. With a new round of short order slips starting to dangle from the carousel over the grill, he rose and went back to work. I left a sizable tip: whatever the opposite of hush money was.
As I got to the car, my cell phone rang.
“Mr. Rasmussen?” said a hesitant-sounding female voice. “This is Nicky.”
I drew a blank.
“Nicole. Mr. Rasmussen … it’s Pop. He’s sick.”
What I got from her was that he’d had a “stomach attack,” which I took to mean his ulcer had started to bleed. An ambulance had come for him. She and Moses Maxwell were at All Saints now, waiting to learn more. He was conscious when they admitted him, but he was obviously in pain. I looked at my watch. “Do you want me to come over?”
“I don’t think there’s anything you can do. No visitors allowed right now. I just wanted to let you know. Say a prayer for him if you can. And … something else. Um … we’re gonna have a meeting tonight at the hotel, at nine o’clock. Mr. Rasmussen, some of the people here are scared and … nervous. I know I shouldn’t be troubling you with our problems, but I was wondering … Mr. Maxwell and I were wondering. Do you think you could come, too?”
“Are you expecting trouble?”
“With Pop in the hospital, I guess I don’t know what’s going to happen. I just thought … maybe you could talk to us?”
Wonderful. I should have followed up on that leadership award. I had absolutely nothing to tell them, zero, and yet I’d heard how awkward it had been for Nicole to ask. “I’ll come and listen,” I said, “and if I’ve got two cents to add, I’ll toss them into the pot. Nine o’clock. If there’s any news about Pop, call me.”
She promised.
24
Death always wends its way to the graveyard, which was where I found myself sitting at a little before 11:00 A.M., a magnetic FUNERAL sign stuck to my hood. I watched people get out of the cars in the line ahead of me and, following the efficient guidance of the undertakers, file toward a freshly dug grave with Flora Nuñez’s flower-draped casket poised over it in a sling. The drizzle had cleared for the time being, but I buttoned my forty-dollar raincoat and followed the flow. I felt like one of those freelance mourners who still operate in old New Orleans, bringing up the rear at the funerals of strangers, for that’s what Flora Nuñez and I were to each other: strangers, whose journeys had intersected only on the final leg of hers.
She evidently had made friends in her few years in the city, though; about twenty cars with their headlights on had trekked out from Nuestra Señora del Carmen for the burial, which had inevitably forced the thought: How many carloads would come to mine? I abandoned speculation and drew in among the people clustering at the grave as the priest began some final remarks.
The sleuth in me was ever curious. My ex-mother-in-law had once remarked that if I had brought that kind of attention and focus to bear on the stock pages of the Wall Street Journal, I’d be a wealthy man. I judged myself to be that anyway, I told her; after all, I was married to her daughter.
In the small quadrant where Flora Nuñez was to be interred, laid out in neat rows beneath the spread of large maple trees were stones bearing family names representing a dozen or more ethnicities. Discrimination didn’t exist six feet down where dust mingled with dust and worms were the ultimate egalitarians.
Among the people at the fringes of the small crowd, I picked out Lucinda Colón, and after the brief ceremony ended, I moved over and said hello. She was teary, but she remembered me. I offered my condolences, and we made a minute’s worth of small talk. Perhaps it was just her grief, but she seemed a little unsteady, and I wondered if she was medicated. She turned to go. I took out the Polaroid I’d found in Flora Nuñez’s apartment. “Do you happen to remember when this was taken?” I asked.
She looked at it, and her brow clenched quizzically. “I’m sorry?”
I rephrased it, though I was convinced she’d understood the question the first time. “This is you and Ms. Nuñez, isn’t it?”
“We was in the same night class together, a paralegal class. Sometimes we used to go out after class. Just for a drink or food.”
“Are these other people from your class, also?”
She avoided my gaze, dabbing at her eyes with the corner of a lace handkerchief. “Yes, some, I think. I’m not sure,” she said quickly, and seemed nervous again. “But that has nothing to do with this sadness about my friend. The cause of this is Troy Pepper, and he is a son of a bitch for making us so sad. Now, I am going.” And she walked away steadily, despite her heels and the soft grass.
I put the Polaroid away and caught up with the priest. He was a youthful forty, with dark hair just starting to thread with gray and thick black eyebrows. He had delivered his funeral remarks in a fond, even exuberant way. I knew from the funeral program that he was Father Jose Marrero. I waited as he spoke with an older woman dressed in black, nodding thoughtfully as she spoke to him. When she went off, he saw me and offered his hand, which I took.
“I liked what you had to say today, Father,” I told him. “Too many times I get the feeling the clergy folk are talking about strangers. Your words were personal and heartfelt.”
He smiled gently. “I was fortunate that Flora often came to mass, so I got to know her. It’s sad that she died. You were a friend?”
“No, I never met her. But based on what I’ve been hearing about her, I’d like to have.” I explained who I was. His manner cooled a little, but he didn’t dismiss me.
“If you’re looking to learn anything that Flora might’ve confided in me, Mr. Rasmussen, naturally you will be disappointed.”
“I understand. I’m not going to ask you to betray confidences, but I wonder if you had any personal sense of what her relationship with Troy Pepper might have been?”
“He’s the one the police are holding?”
“Yes. He indicated to me that they were thinking of getting married. Did she say anything about that?”
“No, she didn’t.”
“Father, did Flora ever hint that she felt threatened by Troy Pepper? Or afraid?”
He seemed to consider the question, or whether to answer it; then he shook his head. “By answering what you’re asking me, Mr. Rasmussen, I might be aiding the person who took Flora’s life. Wouldn’t that be a betrayal of her?”
“Perhaps. Though you might also be allowing her to reach out and show mercy to a man whom she may have loved. That could be a charitable act, too, couldn’t it?”
He gave me a patient look. “She didn’t come often for pastoral counseling. Still, I did have a sense from our occasional conversations that there was someone she cared for.
I don’t know his name or anything else about him. Do you think it’s this man the police have arrested?”
I admitted I didn’t know. There was a lot about Flora Nuñez and Troy Pepper I didn’t know. A small jet passed overhead, descending: some kind of corporate flight, heading for Hanscom Field. I asked, “Did you have any sense of whether he was someone living here in the city or elsewhere?”
“No idea. But now that I think of it, I recall something she asked me, oh, eight or ten months ago, that got me wondering if she’d made some decision to seek a different life.” We were mostly alone now, the bulk of the mourners having returned to their cars and driven off. Colored leaves shimmered in the maple trees and made a soft rustling, like the bright, eager gossip of schoolgirls. “She asked about making sacrifices for love. And then she asked … this is what struck me—she asked what taking holy vows might be like.”
“Vows for becoming a nun?”
“That’s the thing. She didn’t say she wanted to take orders or anything, but she did seem curious, especially about wearing the habit. Where one got the costume, what the various parts of clothing meant. When I tried to open her up about it, she told me it was just something she wondered about.”
We had come to a deeply polished black Marquis. Father Marrero turned and shook my hand. “I wish you well. Each in our own way, we’re all searching for answers.”
“One more thing. Do you know if she was in church Sunday morning?”
He thought a moment, then shook his head, the thick brows coming together. “Not then, no.”
I watched the Marquis move slowly toward the cemetery exit, the trees and sky mirrored in its sheen. As I headed for my car, I noticed that one other vehicle remained, a maroon Chevy. It had drawn farther around the loop road and was parked, partially obscured by a line of tombstones. It wasn’t on the way to my car, but I turned and went toward it. Before I could get there, the driver started up and drove off, but I recognized him as Paul Duross.
25
One of the maxims I’d heard Phoebe use—Lincoln this time—was that a lie stands on one leg, the truth on two. There seemed to be a lot of wobbling going on, and, if not outright lies, at least half-truths that had me scratching my head in confusion. Like why was Frank Droney overseeing the case? Was it really about political careers? Had Flora Nuñez loved Troy Pepper or feared him? Was there another man in her life? Was Pepper a killer or simply a man incapable of convincing anyone otherwise? I hadn’t forgotten what Ms. Parigian had said about the quiet ones. I set the questions aside and drove over to All Saints Hospital. Roland Cote was walking across the visitors’ lot as I was getting out of the car. Seeing me, he came my way, frowning. “What are you doing here, Rasmussen?”
“My bank account’s on life support. I visit when I can.” I nodded toward the entrance. “I’m going to try to visit Warren Sonders. You heard he landed here?”
“I was just up there. He blew out an ulcer. Stress’ll do that. He should’ve just gotten out of town and left Pepper to face his punishment alone.”
I wasn’t going to mix it up with him, but as I started past, I thought of something. “I saw Patrolman Duross at the victim’s funeral earlier. Was he hoping the real killer would return to the scene of the crime?”
Like any cop, Cote was much happier asking questions than answering them, and adept at bleeding the emotion out of his reactions. He showed nothing.
“Then it must’ve been for the purest of reasons—like you coming over to wish Sonders well.”
He gave it a quarter inch of grin.
I bought some flowers in the lobby shop and took an elevator upstairs. A male nurse at the nurses’ station had me identify myself, then called down to intensive care and directed me there. A middle-aged woman with the manner of friendly reassurance you wanted in a place like that met me. She had a little glass-enclosed office with views of the patient rooms. “He’s resting comfortably now,” she said in response to my question. “We’ve got him on antibiotics and some other things.”
“What’s the outlook?”
“It’s a peptic ulcer that perforated. With abdominal bleeding, we don’t take any chances, but at least it didn’t bleed into the peritoneum. That would be real serious. For now, he’s stable and his signs are good. He’s known of it for some time, I think, but he hasn’t been very careful about treating it. He reminds me of someone in the comic strips. You know, stubborn but likable.”
“Popeye?”
“Crankshaft. You know that one? You can go in and sit if you like. If he wants water, it’s okay for him to have it.”
With the blinds drawn, the room was dim and cool. Sonders lay asleep, tethered with IV tubes and sensor wires. In repose, his face was a wrinkled, half-deflated balloon. He had lost his color since I’d seen him last; there was little contrast between his hair and his skin and the pillowcase. I set the flowers on the windowsill and moved across the rubber tile on soft feet and took a chair by the bed. Pop didn’t stir except for the rise and fall of his breathing. In the semidarkness, with the delicate sounds of the machinery, I felt as if I were on vigil in a submarine. I half-closed my eyes, settling into the rhythms of the place.
At the sounds of movement I looked up. Pop was awake, gazing at me with an odd, unfocused gaze. As I stirred, he tried to pull away, but there wasn’t anyplace for him to go. “So you’re with them?” he croaked. He sounded as if someone had dumped a spade full of dirt into his throat. I got out of the chair and poured a cup of water from a plastic pitcher and offered it, but he ignored it and went on staring at me peculiarly. “You’re one of ’em, aren’t you?”
“Come again?”
“A cop, right? You’re a cop.”
I realized he was dazed, possibly from whatever they were pumping into him. “Drink this.” He took the flex-straw between his dried lips and sipped. I told him who I was and why I was there. Had to tell him more than once. He finally seemed to get it and relaxed a little, and I did, too. “How are you feeling, old timer?”
“More rested than I have in weeks.”
“Good.”
“I’m going to see if I can get them to move one of these beds into my motor home.”
“I think the deal is if you stay in the bed, you’ve got to do it here.”
He grunted. “That bull working the murder case—whatshisname?”
“Cote. I saw him. What did he want?”
“Probably thought he’d grill me one more time before I took the last chariot to glory.”
I drew the chair closer to the bed. “It’s not like that, though, right?”
“Him with the questions?”
“The other part.”
“An old sinner like me? I’ve got to hang on for spite. Actually, I was half asleep, and I think Cote gave up any idea I’d have answers. Sorry I didn’t recognize you for a minute there.” He arched his bushy eyebrows. “You here to grill me, too?”
“Only if you’re up to it.”
He rolled his head sideways on the pillow and sighed. But some of his color had returned. “Feature it, all these years working my butt to the bone, I finally get a break from the grind by blowing a gut gasket. How is everyone?”
“Concerned about you.”
“Mutual. I don’t suppose anyone told you when they’re gonna spring me?”
“I’m not in that loop. Nicole and Moses are walking point there.”
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to be here if that’s what the docs say I need. But I prefer my own machines and their big winking lights to these contraptions. That’s what keeps me going, not all these tubes and wires and …” He trailed off. “Why are you here?”
I told him I’d been to Flora Nuñez’s funeral. His eyes locked on mine with some of their familiar force for a moment before he sank back into his pillows with a grimace. “I’ve thought about her. I had Nicole send flowers. That can’t have been much fun for you. Any more than seeing Troy Pepper in the joint. He still there?”
“Nothing’s changed, but right now you don’t need to worry about any of it.”
“I’m determined as ever. We run now, they’re right about us. And Pepper is standing under the gallows, as good as hanged.”
I didn’t point out to him that Massachusetts didn’t have a death penalty. There was an electric chair around somewhere, but no one had fired it up in close to sixty years as far as I knew. Of course, no one had died of rabies in that state in that long, either, but it didn’t keep people from worrying about strange-acting skunks and raccoons. Or clowns, for that matter. “About the chat,” I said, “maybe it can keep for another time.”
“No. Now.”
Insisting that he make it brief, I asked him what he could tell me about Ray Embry. Pop shut his eyes and gave his gray-whiskered mouth a pucker. Words came slowly, and I got it that Embry had once been with a circus, one of the biggest, and had traveled with them all over the country and Canada. “Then he got involved with a young woman who ran off from home to travel with him. Well, someone worked up some sort of Mann Act rap against him. It never went nowhere, but it must’ve shook up the management, or wised them up, because he was out of a job the next season. When I met him, a few years later, he was a department store Santa Claus. Funny thing was, he used to be a damn good clown, had trained under some of the best. Good juggler, too. He did this bit with half a dozen flaming torches. He still practices it sometimes. Anyways, I hired him.”
“So what ax is he grinding?”
He craned a questioning look my way. I hadn’t gotten into my plans to meet with the crew that night. Pop said, “He’s like a ballplayer who’s sent down from the majors. Attitude out to here. When he came to work with us, he acted like he should run the whole shootin’ match. He’s smart enough. Hell, I was ready to make him a manager, but he … he rubs people wrong. Somewhere in there, though, is a decent guy. Or was once. But he’s meaned up over the years.”
The nurse came in and saw her patient was awake. “How are we doing this afternoon?” she crooned.
