High Season (2 page)

“I guess a lot of men struggle with the lust thing at some point in their lives,” she said, “but Ronnie's mellowed out in the last few years. He wasn't exactly Casanova to begin with.”

Coffin placed the two photos side by side and looked at them closely. “Does your husband sleep with men, Mrs. Merkin?”

“No! Good Lord. Just because a man likes to wear a dress every now and then doesn't make him queer.”

Coffin raised his eyebrows. “Did you two have an argument or anything last night, before he . . . ?”

She dabbed at her eyes again; the Kleenex was smeared with mascara. “I am too daggone tired out by all this business to fight about much of anything anymore, Detective. I'm not exactly jumping for joy, but I'm doing my best to deal with it, because I love my husband.”

Coffin slid the photos into the manila folder, along with his notes. “Mrs. Merkin,” he said, “odds are your husband will turn up in the next few days. We get one or two cases like this every year—it's easy for out-of-towners to get swept up in things around here—but we haven't permanently lost a husband yet.”

Mrs. Merkin looked him straight in the eye. “He's a good man, you know. He takes good care of me and our children. He's not some pervert—he's a good, steady, God-fearing man, except for this one thing.”

“Yes, ma'am,” Coffin said. “No one's suggesting otherwise.” He
waited a beat. “We'll ask around as discreetly as we can. He'll turn up.”

“Can I have my picture back? The one in the dress?”

“Maybe we'd better hold on to it for now, if this is how he's likely to appear. We'll keep it safe.”

Mrs. Merkin sighed. “It's his sisters' fault,” she said. “They used to dress him up like Tinker Bell when he was little.”

 

Later, briefing the night shift in the cramped squad room, Coffin handed out color Xeroxes of both photos of Ron Merkin. Jeff Skillings, Lola Winters, and Coffin's cousin Tony were full-time, year-round officers; four part-time summer cops were also present. Everyone chuckled at the picture of the big man in the blue dress.

“What's that on his head?” Tony said.

“I think it's a marmot,” said one of the summer cops.

“Please keep an eye out for this gentleman,” Coffin said. “His name is Ron Merkin. He didn't come home last night, and his wife would like him back.”

Skillings was grinning. “Ron Merkin?” he said. “Not the
Reverend
Ron Merkin?”

“That's right,” Coffin said. “Do
not
discuss Mr. Merkin's appearance in this photo with anyone outside the department, especially the news media. No matter how tempting it might be.”

Then Chief Boyle took over the meeting. He was small and red-faced and wore his hair combed over a speckled bald spot. Four months ago, Boyle had been deputy police chief in Ashtabula, Ohio. He was, according to the Ashtabula PD, an excellent administrator, scrupulously honest, a man who believed in doing things under budget and by the book. In a press release, Provincetown's Board of Selectmen had described him as “the perfect candidate.” He was the exact opposite of Coffin's uncle Rudy.

“For the past several years,” he began, eyebrows bristling, “the PPD has turned a blind eye to drug use and public indecency among the gay community.”

This was essentially true, Coffin knew. Police did not patrol the gay clubs hoping to bust ecstasy dealers, nor did they harass the men who frequented the darker shadows of the town beach at night. Coffin's uncle Rudy had believed that there was no percentage in pissing off the gay community, a stand with which the selectpersons, most of whom were merchants or bar owners or guest-house proprietors or owners of significant real estate or otherwise invested in the town's economic health, wholeheartedly agreed.

“Starting tonight,” Boyle continued, “that's going to change. Tonight, at 0230 hours, we will conduct a raid on Havemeyer's Wharf.”

Coffin groaned. His cousin Tony turned to one of the summer cops. “The dick dock,” he whispered loudly.

Boyle held up a warning forefinger. “Residents have complained. The situation has gotten out of control. I was hired to keep the peace and ensure public safety, and that's what I intend to do.”

The dick dock poked into the harbor like a crooked finger, warted along its length with rickety cottages. It was one of Provincetown's busiest late-night trysting places; during the peak summer months, on warm nights, dozens of gay men gathered on the beach beneath the spindly pier, where many indulged in anonymous sex, paired off or in groups. Even a year or two ago, Coffin could not have imagined the residents of those cottages objecting; in the “old” days, people had rented there precisely because they wanted to be part of the scene. Now that the Havemeyer cottages had all been condoized and were selling for ten times Coffin's annual salary, the new, wealthy residents were apparently not amused by the dick dock's nocturnal mating ritual.

Boyle waved a handful of plastic handcuffs. “Everyone make
sure you've got plenty of twisties. Make sure you wear gloves. Watch out for needles, in the sand and in pockets. And be aware that drug possession counts on this one: If they're holding, they're busted.”

Coffin raised his hand.

“What is it, Coffin?”

“Tomorrow's women-only hot tub night at the Spinnaker Inn,” he said. “Are we planning to raid them, too?”

Boyle's brows bristled and twitched. “We're talking about public indecency, Coffin,” he said. “Lewd conduct. You can't just go down to the beach and do the funky monkey anytime you want. No particular group of people in this town is above the law. No matter what your uncle the shakedown artist thought.”

“Good for us, sir,” said Jeff Skillings, face completely deadpan. Skillings had been on the force for fifteen years and had lived openly with his partner, Mark, a manager at Fishermen's Bank, for five.

“What's that, Skillings?” Boyle said.

“Stamping out indecency and all, sir—it's about time.”

One of the summer cops squirmed in his seat. “Uh, Chief?” he said, raising his hand.

“What is it, Pinsky?”

“What's the policy on using force—like, if somebody resists arrest? Just nightsticks? Or can we take the tasers along, just in case?”

“Too bad we don't have bullwhips,” Skillings said, still straight-faced.

The summer cops nodded. Coffin laughed.

“You got something else to say, Coffin?”

“Just laughing, Chief,” Coffin said.

“Well, stop it.”

Coffin's shift was over; when he got home, he would make a couple of calls. News of the impending raid would travel fast.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

W
hat Valley View Nursing Home had a view of, mostly, was the town cemetery, its lush grass and lichened tombstones, some of them over two centuries old, carved death's heads and epitaphs half scoured away by rain and blowing sand and salt air. Coffin's grandparents and great-grandparents were buried there. Not his father, of course. His father had been lost at sea.

At first, Coffin's mother had made sour jokes about the graveyard's proximity:
At least they won't have far to take me; they can roll me over there in a wheelbarrow.
In the past few months, though, she had lost interest in anything outside her room; she was too busy jerking the staff around, Coffin thought, too thoroughly amused with torturing those sturdy Cape Cod ladies, with their baggy scrubs and determined smiles.

Her door was open. She was sitting up beside the bed. A female aide with muscular forearms was trying to spoon-feed her something from a plastic cup. Mashed potatoes? Tapioca?

“Come on now, Sarah,” the aide said, making a little yummy sound. “Just try a bite.”

Like a movie star,
Coffin's father had always said, when he'd had a couple of drinks and was feeling affectionate. She had been, too, even through her sixties. Coffin thought she was still beautiful, though the Alzheimer's had aged her, given her a tight-lipped, furtive look. Her ancestors were Portuguese; they had come from the Azores in the 1840s, picked up and brought home to Cape Cod by Yankee whaling ships in need of good sailors, which the Azoreans, living as they did on tiny islands in the middle of the Atlantic, most decidedly were. She had their dark eyes and olive skin. Her hair kept its jet-black gloss until she was almost seventy but had, in the last year, turned the dull gray of galvanized steel.

“Get that slop away from me,” she said. “How many times do I have to tell you fat bitches?”

“Hi, Ma,” Coffin said from the doorway.

She looked up, eyes cunning and bright as a crow's.

“Who the hell are
you
?” she said. Alzheimer's had made her foul-mouthed, irascible. Sometimes she cracked Coffin up; sometimes he wanted to slap her, tell her to snap out of it, be her old self again. Her old self, the doctors assured him, was gone forever.

“It's me, Ma. Frankie.”

“Frankie's dead,” she said, turning away as if the subject were closed.

Coffin sighed. “I'm the only one who isn't dead, Ma.”

The aide gave him a little frown. “We've decided we don't want to eat,” she said. “We refused our breakfast and our lunch.”

“Who the hell is
we,
fatso?” Coffin's mother said.

Coffin leaned against the door frame. “Any sore throat or upset stomach?”

“We don't seem to be having any physical problems, no,” the aide said.

“So what's up with this not eating deal, Ma?”

“None of your stinking beeswax.” The eyes again, hard as glass.

“You have to eat, Ma.”

“I don't have to do a goddamn thing except sit here in this shit hole till I croak.”

Coffin sat on the side of the bed. “Okay, fine. Don't eat. It just means I'll get your money that much sooner.”

She looked away. “If I had any money, would I be stuck in a dump like this? And what makes you think I'd leave anything to a wet fart like you?”

“I've got power of attorney, Ma. Remember? Over your whole estate. The only way I don't get your money is if you outlive me.” In truth, her modest savings had evaporated by the end of her second year at Valley View. Now well into her third, she was living on Medicare and Social Security and whatever Coffin could spare after paying alimony and the mortgage on the Baltimore row house still occupied by his ex-wife. The only thing of value Coffin's mother still owned was the house in which he lived. Sooner or later, that, too, would have to be sold—the property taxes were already straining Coffin's meager checking account. He had decided not to tell her; it was the kind of news that would leave her agitated, withdrawn. Until she forgot it. What was the point?

“You little turd,” she said, picking up the remote control and turning on the TV. “I never liked you, you know.” She changed channels rapidly, stopping when the television was tuned to
Wheel of Fortune
.

The aide shrugged and stood up. “We'll try again later. I guess we'll eat when we're hungry enough.” She left the room.

Coffin's mother smiled wickedly.
Like the Grinch,
he thought.

“Vanna's getting as fat as chubbo there,” she said, tilting her head toward the door. “And all that plastic surgery—she looks like some kind of puppet.”

“She looks pretty good to me, Ma,” Coffin said.

She shot him a foxy look. Her eyes were bright and empty. “Anything with tits looks good to you. You're just like
him.
”

“Who's him?”

“Your father's sister's husband, you moron. He'll fuck anything that walks.”

Coffin considered this: could philandering be added to the list of his uncle Rudy's moral failings? It seemed more likely than not. “He's not so young anymore, Ma.”

“He was here the other night,” Coffin's mother said, staring at the TV.

“Rudy's in Key West. You know that.”

She glared at him. “He was
here
. Sitting right where you are. Moron.”

“Mom—”

“He says he's got something for you,” his mother said, raising the remote and flipping rapidly through the channels.

“What?”

“Can't you see I'm trying to watch the goddamn television? Dumb-ass.”

 

At the desk, Coffin asked to see the visitor's log.

“What exactly are we looking for?” the nurse said, a note of suspicion in her voice.

Questions from family members are not encouraged,
Coffin thought. She was young and plump. Her name tag said
NATALIE
.

“I'm just curious if anyone's been to see my mother in the past few days. Any men.”

She flipped through the logbook. “He wants to know if Mom's got a boyfriend,” she said, as if Coffin weren't standing there. “Mr. Kotowski last Tuesday. Mrs. Campo day before yesterday. Other than that, just you.”

“No Rudy Santos?”

“Nope.”

“Any chance somebody could get in without signing the log?”

“No, sir. Not here at Valley View. We run a tight ship.”

Coffin thanked her and went out to the parking lot. He drove a sagging Dodge sedan that was still registered to his mother. The fenders were lacy with rust; the door seals leaked; the interior smelled like low tide. He would have junked it in a minute, but he couldn't afford to replace it. He sat in the Dodge, smoked a cigarette, and listened to a talk show on WOMR, the local all-volunteer FM station, about discrimination against transgendered persons within the gay/lesbian community. Apparently it was rampant.

He thought about the night Rudy had called his apartment in Baltimore, after his breakdown. Coffin had been collecting disability, but it was about to run out. His wife had left him.