It occurred to me that I’d probably upset Alice more than her husband on my last visit—he’d seemed glad to get the burden off his mind—but I didn’t say that, either. See how much restraint I showed?
“It will just take a few minutes,” I lied. “But if I could see your husband alone…”
Alice did not seem pleased but let me (us) in. She screamed, “Meyer!” like before, and when he appeared, she simply turned and walked out of the house without speaking. I decided at that moment not to add “marriage counselor” to my business card.
I turned back toward our host, who was wearing what is so charmingly referred to these days as a “wife beater” and a pair of khaki shorts with too many pockets. He looked confused and tired. “Ms. Kerby,” he said. “I’m really not interested in telling you anything more.”
But it was Maxie’s reaction that really made the difference. The second he’d come to the door, she had dropped three feet in altitude, and was now up to her knees in living room carpet. Her eyes were wide and her mouth dropped open. I’m sure if a nose could register amazement, hers would have done that, too.
“Big Bob!” she croaked out. “I thought you were dead!”
I looked him in the face, with my suspicions corroborated. “You can drop the act, Mr. Benicio,” I said. “I know who you are.”
Big Bob Benicio offered me an iced tea, which I declined. “I don’t get it,” I said. “Why?”
“Why what?” Big Bob seemed genuinely incredulous.
“Why”—I waved my arm around the room—“this? Why did you become Meyer Wilson here in Levittown, Pennsylvania? What really happened back in Seaside Heights two years ago?”
He lowered himself into an overstuffed easy chair that most certainly would have reclined if he’d wanted it to, but didn’t now. “Everything I told you yesterday was true,” he said. “Except you have to substitute me for Wilson Meyers in every sentence. I was the one who was supposed to contact the buyers, and Wilson was the one who was working with someone else to provide the cocaine.”
Luther’s insistence that he specifically hadn’t killed Big Bob—not that he hadn’t killed anyone—had stuck with me. And the pieces had started to fall into place when I’d realized that “Meyer” was shorter than the Wilson Meyers I’d been told about. You can do a lot of things to make yourself look different, but you can’t change your height. I hadn’t planned on Maxie being able to make the trip, but when she recognized Big Bob, that had confirmed my suspicions.
It took a good deal of insistence to convince Big Bob that it was Luther Mason who had killed Wilson Meyer. He insisted it couldn’t be true even after I told him Luther had confessed—and that Luther had also tried to kill me. Big Bob continued to stare off every few seconds, shake his head, and say, “Luther.”
Maxie, still in shock, gaped at Big Bob and assessed what she saw. She giggled. “You lost almost all your hair,” she chortled.
“So, what happened?” I asked.
It seemed to wake Big Bob from his reverie. “Everything I told you. I waited for them to call, they didn’t, my buyers were going to come get me, and I bolted. Rode my hog for a while, about two hours or so west, and then I realized I was too noticeable on that thing, that the cops were probably coming for me, so I sold it to a guy in a used car lot in West Chester, swapped it for a car and ended up here.”
Big Bob stopped talking, and it took me a moment to realize he thought the story was finished. “But that wasn’t all there was to it, was it?” I asked. “I mean, why would the police be after you? How would they know to look for you?” I thought I knew the answer, but I wanted to hear him say it.
Instead, Big Bob started to cry. Maxie looked angrily at me. “What did you do to him?” she demanded.
I couldn’t say anything to her, so I patted Bob on the arm. “What’s the matter?” I asked.
“It…was my fault,” he sobbed. “What happened to Wilson…”
“Wilson Meyers was the body found in the sand at Seaside, wasn’t he?” I asked.
Big Bob nodded. “My fault. I should have known. I didn’t figure it out until I tried calling Wilson that night, and his cell phone never answered. First couple of times didn’t mean anything, but after a while, I realized he wasn’t ever going to answer. I knew he’d been scared. I figured something went wrong and they killed him.”
Maxie looked confused. “But the police said it was Big Bob. They said there were fingerprints and dental records that proved it.” I resolved to point out to her—as soon as we were out of earshot—that Big Bob sitting there in front of her was proof that he was alive. Then again, she was sitting there in front of me. Everything’s relative.
“Because you were the FBI informant?” I asked Big Bob. “That’s why you think it was your fault?”
Maxie actually sat down on nothing, eyes wide, and gasped.
Big Bob nodded. “I didn’t want to deal drugs to anybody.”
Maxie wasn’t looking at anyone in particular when she said, “I forgot. He had a brother who died of an overdose.”
“I got in touch with a guy I knew, a cop, who used to come into the grill where I worked. You know, the cops came by a lot to get free food, and we gave it to them,” Big Bob said. “I liked him, and I told him about this great big drug deal, tried to get him to stop it. He brought in the FBI.”
“But nobody knew Luther Mason was involved,” I said. “They only knew about you and Wilson.”
Big Bob shook his head and mouthed “Luther” again, and then he sucked in his bottom lip and nodded. “I didn’t give them Wilson’s name. I don’t know how they found out about him. I told them I wouldn’t inform on my friends, my riding partners,” he said. “I’d only give them the buyers. They’d have to take it or leave it.”
“They took it,” Maxie said.
“You told them about the buyers and when the deal was supposed to go down. Did they make arrests?” I asked.
Big Bob shrugged. “No idea. Like I told you, once it got that late and I figured everybody was after me, I chucked my cell phone in the ocean and rode away. But the FBI found me, a couple of months after I got here. They were perfectly happy to leave me here, since I couldn’t help them on the drug bust anymore. Made me change my name so the third guy—Luther, you’re saying—couldn’t find me. They called me again when the bones were found. Said they were going to put it out that it was me in the ground there, maybe smoke out the killer, because he’d know it wasn’t me. But you were the only one who came out, and I didn’t tell them that. I don’t want to move again, and everybody here knows me as Meyer Wilson.”
“Why that name?” It didn’t seem to fit—why provide a trail to follow with such an obvious clue?
“I guess I felt I owed it to him,” Big Bob said. “I felt guilty about a lot of stuff. About informing to the cops. About running away. About Maxie…”
Maxie stared at him.
“Maxie?” I asked.
“I hit her once. Never been able to live with that memory. Now she’s gone, I hear, and I’ll never get to tell her I’m sorry.” Big Bob’s head dropped.
Maxie’s voice was very faint. “I forgive you,” she whispered.
The front door opened, and Alice marched back in. She took up a stance in the living room, hands on hips, face twisted into a defiant expression.
Before she could utter a sound, I stood up, shook Big Bob’s hand and said, “Thanks for the help, Wilson. I promise I won’t be bothering you again.”
That took the wind out of Alice’s sails. She sputtered a little, dropped her hands and opened the front door for me to walk out.
As I was walking to the car, I heard Big Bob call out from inside, “Say hello to your mom!”
Maxie floated behind me and passed through the driver’s side door to take her position in the passenger’s seat. She even unlocked the driver’s door from the inside for me before I could use the key.
I settled into the seat. “What tipped you off?” Maxie aske
d. “How’d you know Wilson was really Big Bob?”
“He said your mother was an older woman and too small and frail to handle prison,” I told her as I started the car and lowered the window. “Wilson never met your mother, but Big Bob would know what she looked like.”
Maxie closed her eyes as if she was about to take a nap, and made a contented sound. “I’m so glad he’s not dead,” she said.
“I think I am, too,” I told her.
Thirty-four
“She was devastated when she heard what happened to you, but in the two years since, she’s managed to pull herself together,” I told Paul.
Maxie and I had agreed not to tell anyone—anyone—about finding Big Bob. Let him remain Meyer Wilson. He didn’t need the police and the FBI reentering his life. He didn’t need to hear from Rocco and Little Bob, and they didn’t need to know their pal had been informing, if not specifically on them, at least to the police, most of whom they didn’t trust. It was a secret only Maxie and I would keep. So it was time to concentrate on Paul.
He was completely right side up now, and also somehow seemed more solid than he had been before. Less transparent. Almost more like a living man, but not really. He leaned forward from his perch on my bedroom dresser and listened with the intensity he usually paid to my recounts of interviews related to investigations.
“I was afraid the news would hurt Julia,” he said with great concern. “She was so fragile. But she’s doing better now?”
“Yes. She’s…I don’t know if I should tell you this part…” I was especially proud of that touch, which I had practiced three times in the car on the way home with Maxie. She knew she wouldn’t be allowed to see the actual performance, so she insisted on being there for the dress rehearsal.
“It’s all right,” Paul said, as I’d anticipated. “I want to know.”
“She’s met another man,” I told him, feigning concern over his reaction. “She doesn’t know if it’s going to be serious yet, but she has hopes. She says, though, that he couldn’t ever replace you.”
Paul sat back, which put his shoulder blades through the wall but kept most of his head in the room. It’s disconcerting when he stops realizing how he looks. “Do you think she’s happy?” he asked quietly.
I hadn’t seen that one coming, but I had prepared for a similar question. “Well, I don’t think she’ll ever be completely over you, but I think she can still lead a happy life,” I said. “She’s a very…resilient woman.” There were other words I could have used, but the idea here was to make Paul feel better.
“I really appreciate your doing this for me, Alison,” he said after a moment’s reflection. Then he seemed to rally; he sat up straighter and his voice took on a less hushed tone. “And I’m very impressed. Without any help from me, you found a woman who’d seemed to have vanished.”
“She just couldn’t face anything after what happened to you,” I told him, mentally crossing my fingers behind my back. “She needed time to recover.”
“So did I, I guess. Did you give her the ring?” he asked.
I produced the box from my tote bag. “I thought it would be cruel to tell her about that. Do you want it back?” I held it out to him.
Paul considered, then shook his head. “Hang onto it,” he said. “I don’t think I’ll be needing it anytime soon.”
Before we could get too maudlin, I decided to go downstairs and check on my guests, all of whom were leaving in another hour or so. Their luggage was all stacked up in the foyer already. I breezed through the game room (Don Petrone gave me a dapper nod, playing pool by himself and still wearing his blazer—the man had no sweat glands), the library (Mrs. Fischer and Mrs. Spassky were engrossed in what looked like a very serious game of chess), the front room (nobody there) and the den (Francie, still raving about her experience with the ghost to Albert, who was beaming with his wife’s bravery and the story they’d be dining out on for weeks) and got a good number of thank-yous and a few genuine embraces as everyone prepared to board the Senior Plus van that would be showing up in the driveway very soon.
So I made it to the kitchen without having to fix anything or help anyone. And that’s why I was throwing out the broccoli I’d bought at Veg Out—now sadly wilted and quite useless, serving as a reminder of my first meeting with Luther, not to mention my awful nutritional program and inability to take decisive culinary action—when The Swine informed me that he’d also be leaving, the next day.
I don’t think I even turned around to face him; it had been so obviously coming that I felt like I’d already had this conversation with him. And perhaps I had.
“Given up on the Robin Hood ‘take from the rich, invest for the poor’ plan?” I asked. I took a carton of lemonade out of the refrigerator, which now contained a half gallon of milk for cereal, a few eggs, a bag of baby carrots and four chocolate yogurts. I think the dairy compartment had some cheese, and there was a package of hot dogs in the meat section. And this, dear reader, was an improvement from the usual. Pity me.
“Not at all,” The Swine responded. “I’m still going to do that; I think it’s my calling. But, you’ll recall, you told me you need me out of here tomorrow to accommodate the guests you have coming in. And I need to get back to California and take care of the things I had going on there.” Like Amee, for example. I wondered what he was telling her.
“So you’re going to be setting up a Wall Street business from Los Angeles?” I asked.
“Mission Beach, actually,” he said. “It’s near San Diego.”
San Diego. Of course. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with Lucy Simone, would it? She lives near San Diego.”
I continued to look away from him so I wouldn’t see the sly little bad-boy grin (Smile Number Thirty-Six). “Not specifically,” Steven said, and he sounded even a little embarrassed trying to sell that one to me. “But I do find her interesting, and I imagine we’ll be seeing each other once I get out there.”
“Because you’ll be living together?”
He let out his breath and made it sound like it was my fault. “I never could put one over on you, Alison.”
“Yeah, you could. At least once. What are you telling your daughter?” I asked.
“Melissa?”
“Do you have other daughters I don’t know about? Yes, Melissa. She’s gotten used to having you around and acting like a daddy. What have you told her?”
“I, um, figured I’d talk to you first,” he said. He shifted his weight from one foot to the other, like a third-grade boy who’s been caught with a comic book stuck inside his arithmetic text.
“You mean, you figured you’d get me to tell her for you. Not this time, Steven. Do your own dirty work.” I poured myself a glass of lemonade and didn’t offer him one. That’d teach him.
He stood up straighter, as if called to attention. “I had no intention of slinking out of here without talking to Melissa,” he said. And he turned on the heel of his overpriced running shoe and left the kitchen with an air of moral superiority.
“Just one thing,” I said before he hit the door. He stopped and turned to face me. “Just tell me, once before you go, the real truth. Why did you come here in the first place?”
Steven’s face betrayed his thought process: First he looked like he wanted to be sly and tell me once again how he’d just wanted to see his wife—sorry, ex-wife—and daughter. Then his mouth dropped a little, and he said, “It was about the TV footage.”
I had no idea for a second what he was talking about. “The tape from Down the Shore that they shot here in April?” I asked. What the hell could that have to do with him?
He nodded. “I have a buddy who knows a guy who heard about this crazy show set in a haunted house. But the cops wouldn’t release the footage, and this guy thought it was a shame that the public wasn’t being allowed to see…”
“He thought you could sell it for a lot of money,” I corrected him.
Steven hung his head. “Yeah. And I figured
if I came and just asked about it, you’d stonewall me. So I came to visit—I really did want to see Lissie—and along the way, well, it was obvious something was going on in this house.”
“I told you, it’s a marketing ploy.”
“Now who’s lying?” he asked. He didn’t give me time to answer. “Anyway, I think it’s probably best not to release the footage. I don’t want Melissa to have to deal with that kind of exposure.”
“Do you actually mean that?” I asked.
“Alison. How could you even ask me such a thing?” Shaking his head, The Swine turned and walked out of the room.
It’s how he manages to live with himself. Which, thankfully, was something I didn’t have to do anymore.
The bowling machine was broken, so Little Bob was giving me his full attention. But even after having been told the story three times, he still shook his head in disbelief. “You sure?” he asked. “Luther really killed Big Bob?” The idea just didn’t make any sense to him; you could see it in his eyes.
I would have put my hand on his shoulder if I could, but I’d have needed a step stool just to make an attempt. “I know, Little Bob,” I told him. “He had me fooled, too.”
Earlier, under stress (I had brought Jeannie with me), Lieutenant McElone had confirmed what I already knew about the drug bust gone sour two years earlier. Luther had murdered Wilson Meyers and stolen the drugs. Big Bob was the FBI informant (a detail I was keeping from the bikers in the bar), and the police had known he was alive, even that he was in Pennsylvania. They figured as long as he was safe, there was no reason to publicize the fact that he was alive, so the county’s medical examiner had been “persuaded” to issue a report saying the bones found under the boardwalk were those of Big Bob Benicio. They’d hoped putting out the wrong information would make the killer do something stupid, and it worked. He’d hired me.
But I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone for fear of endangering Big Bob even to this day. The drug buyers had never been found, and the Feds, although keeping an eye on the investigation into Big Bob’s “death,” had not wanted to make—and I apologize in advance—a federal case out of it. But now Luther was finding out just how much trouble he was in, and just how long he could expect to be in jail. Now he’d be charged with Wilson Meyers’s murder, not Big Bob’s. But nobody here had to know that.
Haunted Guest House Mystery 03-Old Haunts Page 27
