Shadow of Death (10 page)
I
parked in front of the general store, opened all the windows a crack for Henry, and got out. A middle-aged couple were sitting on the bench in front with their heads together, drinking bottled water and studying a road map. Out-of-staters, I guessed, trying to figure out how they'd ended up at this place, or how to find their way out of it.
parked in front of the general store, opened all the windows a crack for Henry, and got out. A middle-aged couple were sitting on the bench in front with their heads together, drinking bottled water and studying a road map. Out-of-staters, I guessed, trying to figure out how they'd ended up at this place, or how to find their way out of it.
I looked around, and my eyes settled on the real estate office across the street. If anybody knew where an old house on a local pond was located, it should be a real estate person. How many houses and ponds could there be in a town the size of Southwick?
The office was located in a lovely old brick colonial. A bell dinged when I went through the front door and stepped into the empty reception area.
A minute later a slim fiftyish woman wearing tailored slacks and a red sweater appeared from around a corner. A pair of glasses was perched on top of her head. “Hi, there,” she said. “I'm Carol. Can I do something for you?” She was pretty and blond and had what I guessed was a New Jersey
accent. New York, maybe. Certainly not New Hampshire.
accent. New York, maybe. Certainly not New Hampshire.
I told her my name, and we shook hands. “I'm afraid I'm not in the market for real estate,” I said.
“You're not the only one,” she said. “You lost?”
“Well,” I said, “I wouldn't have said so. But I'm looking for a place, and I don't know where it is, so maybe I'm lost at that.”
She smiled. “Try me.”
I pulled out the two pictures of Albert's hunting camp and spread them on top of the unoccupied receptionist's desk. “Does this look familiar?”
She put her glasses on and peered at the pictures. Then she looked up at me and shrugged. “I don't recognize it. You think it's in Southwick?”
“It might be. I'm pretty sure it's somewhere around here.”
She touched the pond on one of the pictures. “Doesn't look like any of our ponds.”
“You have many ponds in Southwick?”
“Four,” she said, “not counting the millpond. One's the town pond with the swimming beach out past the cemetery. This isn't that one. Two of our ponds you can't get to except by hiking through the woods. No buildings on any of them.” She smiled up at me. “My husband's big on portaging canoes. He drags me to these places.”
“What about the fourth pond?” I said.
“Oh, a road goes all the way around that one. It's lined solid with cottages. I've sold a bunch of them, actually, mostly to folks from Connecticut and New York. Not recently, though.” She smiled. “You want motorboats, water skis, Finn Pond's your place. You can see”âshe pointed again at the pictureâ“this one is nothing like Finn Pond.”
“I guess it's not in Southwick, then,” I said.
“I'm sure it's not,” she said.
Well, that would've been too easy. “The place I'm looking for belongs to a man named Albert Stoddard,” I said. “Does that name ring a bell?”
“Does he live here in town?”
“No. His family's from here, though. This camp, it was in his family.”
Carol frowned. “Stoddard,” she mumbled. “Same name as that woman who's running for election in Massachusetts?”
“Yes,” I said. “Same name. She's running for the Senate.”
“I've seen her on TV,” said Carol. “A Democrat, right?”
“Yes. So what about Albert?”
“Nope.” She shook her head. “I don't recall any Stoddard family in town. But, hey. I don't know everybody. Let's try the phone book.”
“That's inspired,” I said.
She pulled out a rather thin phone book, flipped through it, and ran her finger down a page. Then she looked up at me and shrugged. “No Stoddards in Southwick or any of our adjoining towns.”
“I know my friend grew up here in Southwick,” I said. “I assume this camp is somewhere around here.”
“You should talk to Harris and Dub,” she said. “The Goff brothers. They run the auto shop down the street. Local characters. They know everybody and everything. There've been Goffs living in Southwick since the Pilgrims, practically.” She smiled. “Me, I've only been here twelve years. As far as the local folks are concerned, I'm still that brassy broad from Pennsylvania, and I guess I always will be.”
Pennsylvania. I would've sworn New Jersey. Northeastern Pennsylvania, no doubt.
I folded the pictures, stuffed them in my shirt pocket, and
started to thank Carol when the front door opened and the bell dinged and a young couple came in, followed by a lanky sixtyish woman wearing a flowered dress and sandals. They were all laughing about something.
started to thank Carol when the front door opened and the bell dinged and a young couple came in, followed by a lanky sixtyish woman wearing a flowered dress and sandals. They were all laughing about something.
“Helen,” said Carol, “got a minute?”
“Just about one,” said the woman. She had sharp blue eyes and a long iron-gray braid and a tanned, weathered face. “We need to make a phone call, check a couple things on the computer. What's up?”
“This is Mr. Coyne from Boston,” said Carol. “He's got a question.” To me she said, “Helen's lived in this neck of the woods all her life.”
Helen smiled and held out her hand. I shook it. She had a manly grip and a no-nonsense manner. “What's your question, Mr. Coyne?”
Her clients hovered behind her. I sensed she was hot on the track of a sale.
I took out the picture of Albert's camp with the pond in the background and spread it on the desk for Helen. “I'm looking for this place. I think it's around here somewhere. Carol says it's not in Southwick. Maybe in some nearby town?”
She put her hands flat on the desk and bent to look at it. She frowned, then looked up at me. “I don't recognize it. There are lots of ponds around here.”
“The camp belongs to a friend of mine named Albert Stoddard,” I said. “It was in his family. Albert grew up here in Southwick.”
Helen glanced back at her clients, then smiled quickly at me. “There was a Stoddard family in Southwick, oh, twenty-five, thirty years ago, as I recall. They moved away.”
I started to ask Helen if she'd heard anything about Albert
since then, or if she realized that it was his wife who was running for U.S. senator from Massachusetts, or if she had any suggestions for how I might locate his camp, but she had already turned to her clients and was ushering them into an office. At the doorway, she glanced back over her shoulder, gave me a quick shrug, went in, and closed the door behind her.
since then, or if she realized that it was his wife who was running for U.S. senator from Massachusetts, or if she had any suggestions for how I might locate his camp, but she had already turned to her clients and was ushering them into an office. At the doorway, she glanced back over her shoulder, gave me a quick shrug, went in, and closed the door behind her.
“Well, hm,” said Carol, “that was kind of rude.”
“No, that's all right,” I said. “She's busy.”
“Still ⦔ She shook her head. “Business has been awfully slow lately,” she said. “Me, I try to take the long view, but Helen worries. The fall's normally our best season, but that couple are the first hot clients either of us has had in about three weeks. I apologize for her. She's usually friendlier.”
“No problem,” I said. “You've been very nice.”
“Not very helpful, though.”
“I'll try the Goff brothers. Harry and Bub, was it?”
She smiled. “Harris. Harris and Dub. You'll find them, um, amusing. Don't be fooled. They both went to college.”
“I'll keep it in mind.” I lifted my hand. “Thanks for everything.”
I went back to the car and got in. Henry was snoozing on the backseat. He opened his eyes, yawned at me, then closed them again. Henry liked the car and didn't mind being left alone in it. He knew I'd always be back.
I could have walked to the Goff brothers' garage, but I liked to keep my car in sight when Henry was with me. It was a two-minute drive.
I parked out front by a pair of old gas pumps that were no longer in operation. Environmental laws have made the old-fashioned gas pumps obsolete, and only the wealthy multinational companies can afford to update them, so many
small family-owned gas stations have either shut down or been bought out.
small family-owned gas stations have either shut down or been bought out.
Good for the environment, bad for small business. It's the way of the modern world. Somehow, environmental laws never seem to cause big multinational corporations too much suffering.
The Goff brothers apparently had managed to stay in business without selling gas. The side lot was littered with vehicles. Many were quite old, and a large percentage of them were pickup trucks, although there was an interesting mixture of Ford Escorts, Volvos, several species of SUVs, and at least one Jaguar.
The garage itself was a peeling old white two-story clapboard structure, with an office area on the left side and two bays on the right. There were curtains in the upstairs windows. A Coke machine stood against the outside wall next to the office door. A sign over the bays said GOFF'S GARAGE. The doors to the bays were up, and from inside came loud rock music. A Dell Shannon song, if I wasn't mistaken.
I opened the office door. No one was there, so I went around to the bays. There were two lifts with cars on them, and under each car was a man digging and poking at the undersides of the engines. Both men had black beards streaked with gray and wore workboots and greasy overalls with raggedy T-shirts underneath. One had thinning gray hair. The other wore a backward Red Sox cap and rimless glasses. I guessed they were both in their early fifties.
I stood there for a minute, but neither of the men seemed to notice me.
“Excuse me?” I said.
The music was very loud, so I stepped inside, and in a louder voice I repeated, “Hello?”
The man with the cap and glasses craned his neck around and peered at me. Then he returned his attention to the engine he was working on.
“Sir?” I said. “You got a minute?”
“Hold your horses,” he mumbled without looking at me.
The man under the other car, the one with the thinning hair, turned to look at me. Then he went back to what he was doing.
A minute later the one with the glasses came over. He wiped his hands on the seat of his overalls. “You got a problem?” he said.
“Not with my car,” I said. “Carol over at the real estate office said you might be able to help me.”
He leaned around me and looked at my car. “Beemer, huh? How do you like it?”
“I like it a lot.”
“Folks think Beemers're yuppie cars,” he said. “You a yuppie?”
“I'm too old to be a yuppie.”
“They're good cars,” he said. “Don't listen to 'em.”
“I try not to.” I smiled. “My name's Brady Coyne,” I said. “From Boston.”
He looked at his greasy hand, shrugged, and held it out. A test, maybe.
I shook it without hesitation.
“Dub Goff,” he said. “That”âhe jerked his head toward the other manâ“that's my kid brother Harris. He's the one give me this name. Dub. Short for Dubber. How he said âbrother' when he was little, and I got stuck with it. Name's actually Lyndon. You had a name like Lyndon, you wouldn't mind so much being called Dub. So Carol sent you over, huh?”
I nodded. “She said you and your brother have lived around here for a long time.”
“Too long,” he said.
I took out the picture of Albert's camp. “Recognize this place?”
Dub Goff glanced at the picture, then turned his head and yelled, “Hey, Harris. Turn off that goddamn radio and come over here.”
A minute later the radio went off and Harris Goff was standing beside Dub wiping his fingers on a rag that looked dirtier than his hands. “Take a look at this,” said Dub.
Harris looked at the picture, then looked at Dub. “That's Stoddard's old camp, ain't it?”
“You're right,” I said. “Can you tell me how I can find it?”
“You a friend of Albert's?” said Harris.
I nodded.
“So how come you don't know where his camp is?”
“I'm actually more a friend of his wife,” I said.
“His wife, huh?” Harris looked at Dub. They exchanged grins.
“That's right,” I said.
“So you're not Albert's friend.”
“Sure,” I said. “I'm Albert's friend, too.”
“But you never been to his camp?” said Harris.
“No,” I said. “You guys know him, though, huh?”
“Albert?” said Dub. “He grew up here, we grew up here. Hard not to know him, whether you wanted to or not.”
“You saying you didn't want to know him?”
“Saying nothing like that,” said Dub. “Albert Stoddard didn't matter one way or another. He was younger than us. We didn't hang out together.”
“Have you seen him lately?”
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