by Nero Blanc
No mention of police involvement, either. Which didn’t seem right. In fact, it was downright disturbing. Weren’t the police always on hand to call press conferences and such? Assuage the public’s fears. Assure them the department was doing its “level best”? Shouldn’t there be a homicide detective spouting a theory or a battery of media “personalities” milking the moment? Or what about an interview with the town constable, or photos of the pair that had unearthed the body—even a description of the house and property? Didn’t anyone care?
The cane jabbed the useless papers. It was lucky the hour was so advanced, and the residents of the home and their “caregivers” (another odious term!) retired into either sleeping or wakeful silence. It was easier to think without all the foolish bustle of daylight hours. The constant interruptions. The chirpy, saccharine chat. The pleading recommendations to join the rest of the old-timers at their silly games.
This time it was a foot that slashed at the newspapers, sending them sliding across the floor accompanied by a clump of grayish fluff that the nurse’s aide referred to as an inconsequential “dust bunny” but which earlier generations had condemned with the decidedly more censorious “sluts’ wool.”
Another tirade attacked the aged brain. You “minded your p’s and q’s” back in those rigorous times! You “toed the line.” You didn’t “lollygag”; you didn’t “cooter around.” No, indeed. Instead you did your “level best” to be “whole-footed” and conscientious.
At least, some people did.
A final grim sigh broke the pervading silence. It was time to send that Graham girl another hint. She needed direction, needed to recognize the seriousness of the situation.
The arthritic fingers began to move across the gridded paper, creating clues in a surprisingly facile hand.
Exposed was 1-Down …
CHAPTER 14
Rosco drove his aged and beloved red Jeep along the narrow and winding road that led to Taneysville. The city of Newcastle and its outskirts were long past, as were the wealthier suburbs with their homes and schools and shopping complexes. What lay before and around the car was either wooded or cultivated land, and the rare home and barn glimpsed through countless trees or across a naked stretch of recently harvested field.
Rosco noted that what houses he saw were simple affairs: two slim stories, a couple of dormer windows, maybe a porch, maybe an outbuilding with a stack of split logs to warm the residents in winter. Several of the dwellings appeared to have newer windows—the type with storm protection built in. Other homeowners had nailed up plastic sheeting to keep out the bitter New England winds. The route to Taneysville was not lined with the edifices of the rich and famous.
All of which made him curious about the man, Gordon, on whose property the skeletal remains had been found. Why had he chosen Taneysville for an obviously expensive second home? Why Taneysville, rather than one of the tonier hamlets in the Berkshires; a place where the Boston and New York newspapers could be purchased on Sunday mornings—along with fresh-baked bagels and high-priced jams and jellies, Dijon mustard, and cold-press olive oil: the lifeblood of non-natives.
If Taneysville gets a black eye, Rosco thought, remembering Belle’s comment from the previous evening, so does Milt Hoffmeyer. Which would mean that Gordon’s name wouldn’t be spared either.
May Hoffmeyer opened her door the moment Rosco stepped from his Jeep. “Young Milt phoned,” she called out. “I’ve been watching for you—and your Jeep.” Then she hesitated. “You are Mr. Polycrates, aren’t you?”
Rosco approached the porch on which she stood. “I am.” He smiled.
“Milt Senior tells me I’m too trusting … Doesn’t want me taking strangers into the house. I don’t know what he imagines could happen to an old lady like me. And way out here! The next thing you know he’ll be telling me to lock the door even when I’m home—”
A sudden gust of blown leaves interrupted her. They rose from the lawn and neighboring woods, swirling and taking flight like a flock of small brown birds while the sun momentarily appeared then vanished again into the slate gray air. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say that was a snow sky.”
Rosco glanced upward. “I don’t think so … Too early. Too warm.”
“Oh, that’s for sure. But I’ve heard they’ve already had a few dustings up in Vermont. We’re never far behind … Please do come in, Mr. Polycrates.”
“Rosco’s just fine, Mrs. Hoffmeyer.”
“When Tree was a boy he had a goldfish he called Roscoe—because of those bug-eyes, I suppose.”
Rosco couldn’t quite make the bug-eye/Roscoe connection. He simply said, “Tree?”
“Young Milt.”
“Ahh … Because of his height, I take it?”
May let out a laugh and closed the door behind Rosco. “No, no, everyone makes that mistake. Young Milt didn’t get his nickname of Tree for that reason at all—though he certainly did grow into it … You see, back when he was born, my husband decided to avoid confusion by calling himself Milt One, our son Milt Two, and of course the baby—Milt Three. Well, the poor little guy couldn’t pronounce ‘three,’ so he became ‘Tree’ around Taneysville.”
“He didn’t mention that.”
May laughed again. “Oh, no, I guess he wouldn’t … Now that he’s on his way to Washington, D.C., he’s no longer going to be our little Tree, is he?”
“There is the slight matter of the election,” Rosco said, figuring May was astute enough to see he was teasing. “A famous man once said, ‘It ain’t over till it’s over.’”
“I’m not worried about that in the least. I feel it in my bones. He’s going to win. ’Course, he probably won’t take Taneysville … Most folks around here are registered with the other party.”
Rosco said nothing. He wasn’t here to discuss politics. At least, he hoped he wasn’t.
“It was good of you to see me, Mrs. Hoffmeyer—”
“Call me May …” She led the way across the living room through mismatched and cozy furniture that looked as if it belonged in a display on home style through the decades: two ornate late-Victorian side chairs thrown together with an Arts and Crafts bench sitting between a couple of blond end tables, one of which held a sleek fifties-styled chrome and porcelain lamp. The couch was straight sixties, the fabric a nautical motif in steely blues and maroons. It didn’t have a speck of dirt or a stain upon it. Neither did any other surface. May was clearly a thorough housekeeper.
She chose the couch’s center and gestured for Rosco to take a large, overstuffed easy chair—which he guessed to be Milt Sr.’s favorite spot as it was surrounded by a magazine rack and a basket containing a number of library books. A pouch for reading glasses was clipped to the chair’s arm.
“… If Tree says ‘Jump,’ I jump,” she added. “I guess I’m what you’d call a doting grandmother. I was a doting ma for him, too … But I’m sure you know that story.” She leaned back—slightly. It was the gesture of a woman attempting to appear relaxed and unconcerned. “Fire away.” She frowned. “Well, maybe that’s the wrong word … seeing as how we’re discussing a murder …”
Rosco removed a small notebook and pen from his wind-breaker. “Do you mind if I take a few notes?”
“Not at all. Tree wants to get to the bottom of this. So do I; so does his grandfather. Tree told us he was worried that the incumbent might try to use the situation to his advantage … which would be a downright shame. We’ve got a nice little village here, Rosco. Nice people. Good people—for the most part. It would be sad if the rest of the world sees us as something we’re not.”
Rosco nodded. “What I’m trying to do is get a sense of the community. You said ‘good people—for the most part.’ Can you be more specific?”
Instead of responding directly to the question, May shook her head, her lips tight with unhappiness. “A terrible thing isn’t it, murder?”
“It is.”
“And here, of all places … No one’s stoppe
d talking about it …”
“Can you tell me what people are saying?”
Again, the quick frown, but deeper this time and longer lasting. “I don’t hold with speaking for others. And I’m plumb against any kind of gossip … But I guess I can say I don’t know why anyone was surprised to learn that the young woman had been murdered… After all, it’s only logical. If she’d died of natural causes and there’d been nothing suspicious about her death, then she would have been given a proper funeral and buried in a proper cemetery … instead of the Quigleys’ old vegetable patch.”
“That’s a very good point, Mrs. Hoffmeyer.”
“May.”
“May.” Rosco smiled again. “A very good point.” He jotted words in his notebook while May appeared duly proud.
“Of course we didn’t know it was a girl until your medical specialist in Newcastle figured it out. It’s interesting, isn’t it? We all jumped to the conclusion that the body just had to belong to a man.” She looked toward a bay window. Another troubled expression crossed her face. “Why do you think that is?”
“Maybe we don’t like to think that this type of crime could be perpetrated on a woman.”
“I guess that’s it …” May sighed while Rosco glanced at his notes and reread the sketchy information he’d picked up from Al Lever and Abe Jones.
“Apparently it’s going to take Dr. Jones three to four weeks before he can determine anything very specific with regards to when the victim might have died … Now, I’m sure you’ve given this a good deal of thought over the last few days, May, but can you think of anyone, anyone at all, who may have gone missing? And we could be looking back as far as fifty years. Maybe longer.”
“No one in this village ever disappeared.” The voice was assertive, even a trifle aggressive. “Because, if that had been the case, I guarantee, we’d still be talking about it … I guarantee it.”
Rosco tried a new tack. “Can you tell me anything about the Quigleys?”
May didn’t respond for a moment. Rosco could tell she was struggling with her rule of not trading in gossip or speculating on the motives of others.
“I guess I could say they were unusual. Kept to themselves. They weren’t what you’d call unfriendly … but they sure weren’t neighborly. They’d look down on the church every single Sunday, but they never stepped in, not once, to my recollection. It upset Milt something fierce; but I say let people get their religion where they can.”
“And the Quigleys had no children, from what I understand?”
“Nary a one … Which was hard; a farm needs plenty of extra hands.” She paused, thinking. “They did have a young man working for them once. It was a long time ago, maybe in the sixties … kind of a chunky kid with odd hair; that’s what makes me think it was back in the sixties or seventies. He was from Newcastle, as I recall, inner city … I got the impression it was part of a plan to help troubled youth … I also got the impression that Mrs. Quigley liked him a heck of a lot better than her husband did … But that was just my observation.” Again, May hesitated. “I’m sorry to say the community wasn’t very friendly to the poor child … I wasn’t, I can tell you that, and it’s not something I’m proud of. I mean, I didn’t have reason to see the young fellow that often because Quigley kept him pretty tightly reined … But still … I guess I was just nervous on account of his being different, maybe even dangerous. Boys in big cities grow up so fast, and if they’re running around with the wrong crowd, well—”
“You wouldn’t recall his name?”
“No … I’m not sure I ever knew it … All I can tell you was that he had really white skin—kind of unusual in a boy, though I suppose that’s what comes of living in an apartment complex—and very blond hair. A real towhead.” Her mouth turned downward in self-criticism. “We should have reached out … the church should have reached out … I mean if he was a young man in trouble … That’s what churches are for, aren’t they?” She paused again. “Maybe Lonnie Tucker knew the boy’s name. They must have been about the same age … And Lonnie did his share of raising Cain when he was a teenager.”
Rosco noted the information and said, “The Quigleys never took in another boy for the summer?”
“No … but like I said, Hiram didn’t seem to cotton to him. It’s hard mixing city folk and country folk. He stuck with hiring local kids from then on.”
“You’ve lived here your entire life then, I take it?”
May gave a light laugh. “Oh, no. Only since I married Milt. But that’s nearly sixty years now. I’m from Rhode Island originally … I’d planned to go off to college after finishing with the Hobson School. I worked summers as a chambermaid at an inn in Narragansett. Worked there since I was fourteen … I don’t know what brought Milt out there. He’s not a seaside sort of person … But he plain swept me off my feet. I was sixteen at the time. Milt was older, of course. I’m happy to say that Taneysville’s been my home ever since.” She smiled—beamed almost.
“So all of your relatives are in Rhode Island?”
The smile flattened. “The Hobson School was an orphanage. It’s all closed up now.”
“I’m sorry … ‘Tree’ didn’t tell me that your parents were … He didn’t give me any of that background.”
“It’s not something young people tend to remember about their grands. And since Tree’s father and mother are gone as well, it’s a subject we didn’t dwell on when we raised him. Besides, the three of us made as loving a group as you’ll find anywhere. We just didn’t have the extended part of a family—as they say nowadays.”
Rosco tapped his pen on his pad of paper. “If you were me, Mrs. Hoffmeyer … if you were going to start asking questions about our mysterious skeleton, where would you start?”
“Not the way you’re doing it.”
Rosco raised his eyebrows in surprise.
“I’m not saying I mind your brand of snooping … but a lot of folks around here might resent it. Some might even get downright mad—”
“Those would be the characters who you suggested were less than—”
May raised her hand. “Outsiders aren’t popular in Taneysville. You go poking around someone like John Stark and you’ll find yourself juggling a hiveful of grouchy wasps. And John’s not the only one—”
“Stark would be—?”
But May wasn’t finished. “And then there are the Bazinnes … you don’t want to tangle with them—” She interrupted her own speech by leaping to her feet. “Oh, my goodness, I can’t believe I’ve been so rude. Can I get you a cup of tea? Coffee? I should have asked the moment you walked in. I don’t know what’s gotten into me.”
“Nothing, thank you. I’m fine.”
“The coffee’s fresh ground. Milt does it up nice at the store. And I have a pound cake. Made from scratch. Nine eggs … the old-fashioned way … Tree likes to tease me about cholesterol—”
“Thanks, May, but I’m okay.”
“You sure I can’t get you some cake?”
Rosco made a show of patting his stomach. “It’s not that I wouldn’t love some, but I’d notice it the next time I put on my running shoes.”
“You young people. So health conscious. Just like Amanda Mott … she’s big on hiking. In my day, women felt lucky to be able to drive somewhere. Long walks were something we avoided if we possibly could. Of course, we wore a different style of shoe back then—”
“Amanda’s the EMT who helped unearth the remains, correct?”
“That’s right … I’d had my hopes she and Tree would hit it off … They just looked so good together. Both tall, you know, and so, well, so vibrant and handsome—happy, too … Well, that’s an old story. Water over the dam, as they say …” May returned to her perch on the sofa.
“Could we go back to John Stark for a moment … and the Bazinnes?”
May’s shoulders hunched forward as she skirted part of the question. “John’s the senior warden of Trinity Church. Has been for years. Anyone can tell
you that … It was John who—” She pursed her lips.
Rosco looked at her. “It was John who what?”
“Well, let’s just say that he and Milt are oil and water, salt and sugar … Milt’s on the vestry at Trinity, too. Junior warden … It was John who kept making a lot of noise about stopping that construction up at Quigleys’. He was convinced it was doing structural damage to the church.”
Rosco penned in a few notes although he realized that May Hoffmeyer had intended to say something quite different. “And the Bazinnes?”
She drew a breath and leaned back into the couch. “Never mind what I said about them. Frank Bazinne’s seen hard times, that’s all. The whole family has. Besides, we can’t all be blessed with sunny dispositions.”
Rosco didn’t respond and May hurried ahead with a compelling: “Milt and I would do anything in the world to help Tree out. Anything … But like I said, that poor dead girl never came from around here—”
“Meaning that the murderer couldn’t have been a local either … That’s the police’s theory, too.”
“Which brings us right back to what Tree is so upset about: outsiders making Taneysville look bad. Like that man Gordon … an outsider, hiring outsiders … I probably shouldn’t be saying this, but it does make you wonder.” She frowned slightly. Rosco kept silent. “They say Mr. Gordon owns a company that makes magnets … I don’t know why there’s so much money in that. But there must be, or he wouldn’t be so high-handed.” She stood. “Now, are you sure I can’t fix you some cake?”
CHAPTER 15
After all was said and done, Rosco had succumbed to May’s offer. He’d not only eaten one but two pieces of pound food cake, then washed it all down with coffee that had been liberally laced with heavy cream. “Tree” Hoffmeyer was correct in his assessment: his grandmother didn’t know from “fat content,” “cholesterol count,” or “dietary restrictions”—and the cake had tasted especially good because of this blithe disregard for modern health rules.
