Murder in the Hearse Degree (10 page)

I got to the Middleton Tavern sometime after one o’clock. Mike wasn’t there. I was able to snag an outdoor table. I ordered a coffee. “Black, strong, dirty. . . .”

The couple at the table next to me were arguing. It was impossible not to listen in. She said he didn’t pay enough attention to her needs and he said he didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. It was a nearly perfect argument. They eventually left and were replaced by an elderly couple. She was wearing a straw hat and a string of pearls and a pair of sun goggles. He was in a plaid shirt and was gripping a transistor radio. A wire ran from the radio to a little earplug in his right ear. Once they were seated they proceeded to freeze in place like a pair of George Segal sculptures. They may still be there, for all I know.

The sun was high and hot. The restaurant was doing a brisk Sunday business. I rolled up my sleeves and ordered a second cup of coffee and then a third, and then decided I’d better have something to nibble on to take the edge off the jitters. I ordered a plate of calamari. I do love those briny rubber bands. I was ploinking on the salsa when Mike Gellman showed up. The sun was directly behind his head, sending out a brilliant corona. I had to shade my eyes with my hand to see him. Mike wore the sun well. He was one of those tall strapping blond types, a boyish mop on top and a smile that could seduce a nun. I’ve been told that I’ve got one of those, too, but I’d never use it so irresponsibly. Mike was wearing white slacks, a navy blue tennis shirt and sunglasses. He was smiling a smile that was patently false. I scuttled about in my bag of facial expressions and came up with one myself. Off to a false start. In track meets they make you go back and start again.

“Sorry I’m late. Things are a little nuts right now.” Mike swung one leg over the chair and lowered into it as if he were riding a pneumatic. The old cowboy still had it. He reached across the table and tried to break my fingers. “How goes it, Sewell?”

“You know. This way, that way.”

“Long time, huh? I take it you’re still burying people for a living?”

“Yes, sir, I am. Planted one this very morning, in fact. Makes a man feel alive, you know what I mean?”

Of course he didn’t. I was talking through my hat. He gave me another of his false smiles.

“I understand you’re having a little trouble at work these days,” I said.
Always hit them where it hurts
. I got those marching orders once in a fortune cookie.

Mike darkened for an instant. “It’s all bullshit. Don’t believe everything you hear. Accusations are the easy part. Someone’s just trying to throw dirt on me. It’s not going to stick.”

“Hey, in my line of work throwing dirt’s all a part of the game.”

I don’t think Mike even heard me. “I’ll be fine,” he said brusquely. Our waitress came over. She was blonde. She was cute. She was young. She was aware of all these things.

Mike asked me what I was drinking.

I raised my mug. “Primordial sludge.”

“Can I talk you into a drink?”

“You can’t. But you go right ahead.”

Mike ordered a Corona. “And a lime with that?” he added. He didn’t need to ask. They always bring limes with Coronas. But it gave Gellman a chance to flash his piano keys at the waitress. She answered Mike’s big grin with one of her own then skipped off to do his bidding. Mike was watching her as she left.

“The older we get the cuter they get,” I sawed.

“Brother, you can say that again.” Mike reached his arms over his head and stretched, as if to show me how long and lanky he was. “But hey, we’re not dead yet.”

I wasn’t exactly sure what he meant by that but I didn’t ask. Mike’s arms were invading the space of the elderly couple, though they still didn’t budge. It would have served him right if the woman in the sun goggles had suddenly taken a nip at his fingers.

Mike brought his arms down on the table. He leaned forward into my space and slid his sunglasses up onto his head. He looked tired. The eyes were somewhat glassy. Lack of sleep.

“Okay, Sewell, let’s have it. You were a real crap head on the phone last night.”

“I guess I was,” I said. “I apologize for that. I was between a bad hamburger and a pickled egg. I really shouldn’t pick up the phone when the bile is rising.”

“I know what this is all about. You and I have only one thing in common.”

“Is it our nascent charm?”

“It’s my wife.”

I corrected him. “She wasn’t your wife when we had her in common, Mike. Gargantuan distinction.”

“I mean now. I know you’ve been seeing Libby.”

“I guess you got the report from Uncle Owen.”

“Leave Owen out of this. I’m talking about Libby. She’s probably been going on and on about what a schmuck I’ve been lately.”

“She didn’t use that precise word. But yeah, now that you mention it I guess it’s fair to say she sullied your good name a little.”

Mike’s beer arrived. His face relaxed and he ran his little flirting game again with the waitress. She had brought two limes and a pot of coffee.

“My name is Hitchcock,” I said as she topped me off. “I’m the single one at this table.”

“I’d forgotten what a wise guy you are,” Mike said after the waitress moved off. He was thumbing his limes into the bottle. The look he was giving me, it’s possible that he’d have liked to have thumbed me into his bottle as well.

I pulled and fired. “Libby told me that you hit her.”

Anger flared in Mike’s eyes. He leaned forward on the table. “You want to keep your voice down?”

“Not particularly.”

“I did not hit her. That’s a lie.”

“It’s what she said.”

“I might have pushed her.”

“
Might
have?”

“Libby was upset. We were arguing. Hell, she was hitting
me
. She probably didn’t mention that part. I shoved her down onto the bed. It wasn’t very dramatic.”

“You make it sound downright banal.”

“I was there, Sewell. She’s blowing the whole thing out of proportion. Can’t you see she’s using you?”

“Oh? I missed that part.”

“For Christ’s sake, Sewell, she did it six years ago and she’s doing it again. She wants to get me angry. She’s using you to make me jealous. I think that’s pretty obvious.”

“I guess I’m denser than I thought, Mike.”

“I don’t mean to be insulting here, Sewell, but there’s a word for what Libby was doing with you back then.”

“Is the word ‘discerning’?”

“The word is slumming.”

“You know what, Mike. I think you
do
mean to be insulting.”

Mike folded his hands together on top of the table and took a long deep breath. “Look, I’m not here to refight an old battle. I’ve got nothing against you personally. I just want you to stay away from Libby. And from my kids.”

“Libby’s an old friend. My reading of the Constitution is that it affords me the right to spend time with an old friend. Do I have that wrong?”

“I don’t need any more problems now, okay? Just do me a favor.”

I picked up my coffee cup and blew on it. Some fifty feet off Mike’s shoulder a Rollerblader had just slammed into a lamppost and was holding on to it like a Bourbon Street drunk.

“Let’s try this. Did you know that Sophie was pregnant?”

“Sophie?”

“Yes. Sophie Potts. She was a nanny? She worked for you and—”

“I know who the hell she is.”

“Did you know she was pregnant?” I asked again.

“Of course I know. It’s in the coroner’s report.” He took a swig of his beer. “I think it’s time you started minding your own business.”

“Here’s something that wasn’t in the coroner’s report. Did you know that your wedding ring was found in Sophie’s jewelry box?”

Mike didn’t respond immediately. He put a hard look on me, though it didn’t exactly start my skull sizzling. Behind him the Rollerblader released the lamppost . . . and dropped out of sight.

“Who told you that?”

“I was there when Sophie’s mother found it.”

“I haven’t seen my wedding ring in months. I guess she stole it. Wouldn’t be the first time a nanny stole something. I thought I lost it at the gym.”

“What’s your take on Sophie anyway, Mike? You knew her. What do you think happened to her?”

“It’s like I told the police. She was depressed. You could tell that the moment you saw her. She got herself in trouble. Damn stupid kid jumped off a bridge, that’s what happened to her.”

I leaned forward and spoke in a loud whisper. “Uh . . . Mike, you might want to conserve some of that rampant sympathy of yours. It’s almost too much. Really.”

He picked up his bottle by the neck and pointed a finger at me. “I agreed to meet with you so that I could tell you to your face to stay away from my wife and my kids. I’m not discussing anything else with you.”

“Fine. You did that. Let me ask you one more question. Nice and direct. Did you sleep with Sophie and get her pregnant and then kill her?”

I drummed my fingers on the table and sat back triumphantly. Damn, now
there
is a concise way to put a question. Mike’s answer was a disappointment.

“You’re fucking nuts.”

“Come on, Mike, hombre to hombre. Were you niggling with the nanny?”

“I should fucking slug you.”

“You do and I won’t pay for that beer.”

Mike leaned in close. He spoke in such a low tone that from more than a foot away I doubt you’d have even seen his lips moving.

“This is a small town, Sewell. Rumors travel fast. Have you got that? I’ve got a public profile here. If I find out that there’s a goddamn whispering campaign going on about me, I’m going to know exactly who to blame. I don’t need this kind of shit flying around in the papers, do you understand? Just back off of it.”

Mike slid his sunglasses back down onto his face. He skidded his chair back and stood up. I braced but he didn’t reach down and drag me up by the collar. The sun wasn’t so much making a halo this time as it was setting his yellow hair ablaze. He pulled a few bills from his wallet and dropped them onto the table. I looked up at him sadly.

“Is this good-bye?”

Without a word Mike turned to leave. As he did he nearly collided with a man who had just stepped over to the table. The man was wearing one of those Australian cowboy hats, the cockeyed ones with the folded brim. He was also wearing a gigantic shit-eating grin.

“Hello, mate.” He had whipped out a slender notebook and was fetching a pen from behind his ear. “Nick Fallon.
The Daily Cannon
. I’d like a quote from you concerning the Stanley Arena situation. I understand a grand jury is being considered to—”

“Fuck off.”

Gellman pushed past the reporter and stormed off down the sidewalk. We watched him until he had disappeared around the corner at the end of the block, then the reporter turned to me, his pen still poised above the notebook.

“Not much of a quote then, was it?”

 

There was a festival of some sort taking place at the harbor. The
Pride of Baltimore II
was moored at one of the piers. A Coast Guard ship was tied up aft of it. Or maybe fore. I’m more nautically challenged than I care to admit. Tours were being given on both ships. On a small stage on the pier a bearded fellow with a mandolin was singing a song about mermaids to an audience of about a hundred folding chairs. I wandered over to a large white tent. Under the tent were displays about the Chesapeake Bay region, about crabbing and oystering, ecology, the history of the bay. I plunked down some money to save the bay and was given a bumper sticker to add to my collection. I don’t put these on my car. I don’t happen to think you should distract people while they’re driving. I’m saving them up for my casket. God’s truth.

I strolled along the piers. There was a little platform set up for people who wanted to try their hand at oyster tonging. A teenage girl was all giggles and elbows as she attempted to move a pile of oyster shells from Point A to Point B using the tongs. I passed a kid who was sitting lotus style against a pylon wearing a T-shirt that read Zen Bastard. He was plunking on a calimba. I gave him a dollar and he did a little run on the calimba. It sounded like the notes accompanying “Tah da!” Which in a way it was, for just then an idea struck me. I tossed in an extra buck. Soft-touch Sewell.

I found a pay phone. No one had yet been able to tell me which caterer Sophie had worked with before Libby and Mike hired her. I called information and got a list of local caterers and their phone numbers. The pay phone was kind of fritzy—a quarter doesn’t buy what it used to—but I phoned the numbers anyway. I got no live bodies, just machines. I left messages, asking anyone who had worked with Sophie Potts over the summer to please give me a call. I left my home number.

I strolled over to the Naval Academy campus and up the street toward the officers’ residences. The lawns were neat as a pin. What a surprise. I crossed into a large quad and stopped at a gazebo. A male and female cadet were standing in front of a camera on a tripod, reading from a cue card. My guess was that it was some sort of promotional video.
Do you just love crisp white uniforms? Does the term “shore leave” send tingles up your spine?
The Naval Academy chapel was right in front of me. I thought about going inside and maybe picking up a John Paul Jones souvenir for Pete, but a wedding was in the process of breaking up and the front stairs were clogged with guests. A professional photographer was going spastic with organization. Most of the guests were trailing off toward a large canopy tent that was set up at the far end of the quad.

I crossed the quad and looked out past the track-and-field facility to the river beyond. A portion of the Naval Academy Bridge was visible. Technically, I was standing at a spot where, with a full moon and a good pair of eyes, a person might have been able to see Sophie Potts going over the side of the bridge to her death. I peered over at the bridge. By some theories of relativity I’ve heard, every single moment of existence in the entire universe plays out all at once—one huge flash—forever and ever, simultaneously. By those workings, Sophie was pitching toward the water this very instant, over and over and over. But I couldn’t see it. No falling body. No splash. Nobody hurrying away. There was nothing but cars crossing back and forth over the bridge.