Summer People (17 page)

“I have talked with the victim’s wife. I believe she is the first wife.”

“I liked her a lot, but I could never see them as a couple. She was very sweet, dreadfully naive—but very sweet. I enjoyed her. But I hated the way the two men acted when we got together. They seemed to bring out the worst in each other; acted like adolescents.” She paused. “You know, I could never see them as a couple.”

“Why not?” asked Ray. He didn’t really want to get involved in gossip, but her comment begged a response.

“She was so dear, so innocent. And Robert was so sleazy. It was hard to understand. He was from a solid family, old money, good people. I just didn’t think she quite knew what was going on. They had babies right away, and we lost track of them. I’m surprised they were still together. There is a bit of a coincidence here, isn’t there?”

“I guess there is.” Ray thought about it for a moment and then getting up said, “Thank you for your time, Mrs. Bussey. And thank you for helping to clear my question about the explosives.”

“I am glad to help, Sheriff. If there is anything else, please call.” She escorted him to the door. He noticed that she was still standing there looking after him as he turned to get into his car.

Marc sat on the deck drinking coffee, his dog sleeping at his side. There had been no sunrise, just heavy gray clouds that took on a yellow-purple tint at the time there should have been a sunrise. The air was still and close. The lake, mirror-like, reflected the color of the sky. The leaves on the poplars, oaks, and maples that lined the lake, even at the top, were motionless. It was the stillness that often precedes a summer storm. Only the birds in their usual morning hubbub, a cacophony of calls and whistles, disturbed the quiet.

Marc heard the car approach through the woods. He poured some coffee into an extra cup and waited for Ray to come around the side of the cottage. “You look almost awake this morning,” he greeted.

“Well, I finally got some sleep. I’ve never had a week like this, never. Did you go fishing last night?”

“No, we went to a concert and came home and read. We saw you on the 11:00 news.”

“What did you think, or more importantly, what did Lisa think?”

“I thought you did fine. You’ll have to ask Lisa what she thought. You didn’t give any extra information, that’s for sure,” offered Marc.

“Just the facts. You have to be so damn careful you don’t say anything that will come back to haunt you later.”

“You were clear; you were articulate, and you looked good on camera. What more could you ask for?”

The screen door slammed, and Lisa joined them.

“We were just talking about Ray’s appearance on the news. He’s interested in your impression; I have already given him my unschooled opinion of how well he McLuhanized us viewers.”

Lisa pulled a chair up to the table as Marc filled a cup for her. Ray was struck by the fact that she was wearing glasses.

“Are we discussing media manipulation again?” she asked with a half smile and then stretched languorously.

“Serious question,” said Ray.

“You did fine. You seemed competent, and in control of the situation. I think that is exactly the image you want to project. And now that you’re dressing for success…”

“You ask a serious question,” said Ray, “and what do you get? Sarcasm.”

“Relax,” said Lisa with a smile, “you done good. And compared with the reporter and the local anchorman, you looked like the only real professional—they don’t seem to get majormarket talent up here.”

“It’s much better than it used to be,” said Marc. He continued, “You’re getting more TV time than you expected.”

“Too damn much,” said Ray. “It always gets busy in the summer, but never like this. We got a whole summer’s worth of death and destruction in a week. I hope this is the end of it, but you summer people just keep things hopping.”

“Something new?” asked Marc.

“No, just a complication of an old case. Remember that party we had to break up the other night? Did Marc tell you about it?” He looked at Lisa, and she nodded affirmatively. “One of the boys who apparently caused most of the destruction told the girl whose house they tore up that if she identified him, he and his friends would gang rape her. Her parents want her to name names, but she refuses to cooperate. She’s convinced that the guys are going to get her if she talks. Right now the parents are mad at me because we don’t know who the boys are….”

Marc interrupted, “I thought you caught a lot of the kids at the scene.”

“We did, those who were too drunk to run. The boys who did the real damage had cleared out before we got there. And if Mandy, that’s her name, would help, it would sure speed things up. But she is absolutely hysterical.”

Lisa began, her voice forceful: “You guys don’t understand how vulnerable women feel. And the fact that these boys would threaten her makes me furious.”

“You don’t take something like that seriously. They were trying to scare her,” said Ray.

“No, you don’t, men don’t take something like that seriously,” said Lisa with anger in her voice. “But women always have to take it seriously. Women are always vulnerable to attack—and their attackers are not other women. From the time I was a little girl, I learned that I had to be careful in ways the boys didn’t. When I was in college I had two friends who were raped. One by a hockey player who thought anyone accepting a date with him was giving consent. The other girl was grabbed walking back to the house from the library—they never caught the guy. If you could see what those girls went through, you would understand my anger.”

“Lisa, I didn’t mean to suggest that threats of this type aren’t serious. And if it sounded like that, I’m sorry. What I meant was that these threats are just a ruse to keep her quiet. Teenage boys often get swept away with their own bravado and say things they don’t mean. On the other hand, I would never dismiss a threat like this—there are too many sick people out there. But I would like to get the boys and nail them to the wall for these threats and the damage they did to that house.”

Lisa softened, “You didn’t deserve that much anger from me—I’ve just seen too many women damaged. I understand why that girl is scared. I hope you really get those bastards.”

“We’ll get them,” said Ray, “it’s just gonna take more timethan I hoped it would. We are questioning some of the other kids who were at the party. Some are willing to give us the names of the boys who did most of the damage. These guys and their parents will be real unhappy before we’re done. If we can leave this discussion of youthful violence, I want to pick your brains.”

“Another discussion of cunning campaign tactics?” asked Lisa, attempting to lighten the conversation.”

“No, this has to do with coincidences, too many coincidences,” said Ray.

“Go ahead, give us your coincidences. We need something in addition to the coffee to get our brains going this morning,” offered Marc.

“Well, last night I stopped to see the ex-wife of Arthur Bussey. Several sticks of dynamite were found hidden in the engine compartment of what was left of his sailboat. I stopped to ask if she knew of anyone who might want to off her ex. It seems that he used the stuff for fishing.”

“I don’t understand,” said Lisa.

Ray looked over at Marc with a knowing smile. “Marc does, ask him to explain it.”

“This one I want to hear about,” said Lisa.

“It’s not much of a story. It happened when we were about sixteen or seventeen. Ray borrowed—he used to say liberated— some dynamite from his uncle’s farm. His uncle used dynamite to remove tree stumps.”

“I like the way you tell the story as if I did all the doing,” said Ray. “You were with me every step of the way.”

“Let me correct the story. We borrowed some dynamite— two sticks, because we had heard that it was a good way to see how many trout were in a hole.”

Lisa looked perplexed, “I’m not following.”

“Well, the idea is that you throw some weighted sticks of dynamite into a deep hole, and the trout are stunned by the concussion and float to the surface.”

“Did it work?”

“We didn’t have the facts straight,” continued Marc. “The explosion turned out to be a hell of a lot bigger than we had planned. Water, weeds, logs, and sand went flying every which way. It scared the hell out of us. And if there had been any trout in that hole, well, they were paté after the blast. And the blast cured us of any further experimentation.”

“That’s a great story. You’re lucky you didn’t get hurt or killed.”

Ray nodded in affirmation. “I think that we both recognized that; although I doubt if either of us mentioned it. But let me get back to the widow, I mean, the ex-wife of Arthur Bussey. She said something that was very interesting. I guess that I had been thinking about it, but her talking about it really made me consider it again.”

“What’s that?” asked Lisa.

“Well, she mentioned that she saw the drowning story— Robert Arden who drowned over on Loon Lake. She mentioned that her ex and Arden had been friends up here when they were in their teens. She also said that when they and the Ardens were young marrieds, they had spent time together.”

“So what’s so remarkable about that?” Lisa queried.

“Nothing, absolutely nothing. But it got me to thinking. We have our share of people getting hurt and killed here. And in the summer it’s much worse because the population more than doubles. Every summer we have two or three drownings, a number of deaths with cars and motorcycles, and an occasional murder— usually the murders involve locals. But this year the summer barely is started, and we’ve already had two murders, Hammer and Holden, a drowning, a traffic death, and someone killed by lightning.

“Unusual,” said Marc, “but not statistically improbable.”

“Yes, but there is something unusual. The last four were all in their forties. They were all summer people, and they all spent time up here when they were kids.”

“It’s an interesting coincidence,” said Marc. “And given our age, gender and so forth,” he flicked his finger back and forth pointing at Ray and then himself, “a rather frightening coincidence. But it’s not like you have four murders. It is not like someone was out there knocking off forty-something fudgies.”

“That’s true,” Ray responded. “Only one of the four was murder. But….”

“What are you implying?” probed Lisa.

“I’m not sure I’m implying anything yet. But I was struck by the coincidences. We had one murder, right? Then we had someone die as the result of lightning hitting his boat—pretty hard to arrange, right? But look at the last two. A guy drives off the road in the rain, and another fellow falls out of his canoe and drowns.”

“What about the last two?” asked Marc. “I don’t see what you are getting at.”

“Let me give you this scenario. Let’s say someone wanted to kill a number of people. Using a gun, like the first murder, is highly effective and not particularly imaginative. Now take Roger Grimstock, the fellow who drove off the road. Let’s say someone wanted him dead. They could have run him off the road knowing that the chances of him getting killed were pretty good. There’s no other place in the county where the sides of the road are steeper, and it’s about the only place where there aren’t adequate barriers.”

“I haven’t heard you say you have evidence to support this kind of speculation,” said Marc.

“Wait, there’s more. Grimstock was drinking at the Last Chance the night he died, he drank there every night during the summer. Jack Grochoski—he’s the bartender, owns the place— told me that the night of the accident Grimstock got a phone call. Jack says that’s the first phone call Grimstock’s gotten since his wife left him years ago.”

“Interesting,” opined Marc, “but it hardly proves anything.”

“And there’s one more interesting fact. The accident took place way over on Ely Road—that’s not on the way to the Grimstock cottage.

“But Ray, you have to admit that none of this is particularly unusual. There are, no doubt, perfectly logical explanations for these events,” said Marc, “and if you could only question the late Mr. Grimstock, I’m sure your suspicions….”

“Perhaps, but there is also the Arden drowning that has some strange circumstances. A guy buys an expensive canoe. His wife says she doesn’t think he’s been canoeing since he was a kid. And when does he decide to go for a paddle, in the middle of the night when the wind is up and the lake is rougher than hell. It seems damn strange, that’s all.”

“I think I’ve got it.” said Lisa. “A humanist interested in helping to control the over-supply of middle-aged, white males is doing some selective harvesting? Perhaps we just have a Darwinist trying to improve the quality of the breeding stock by eliminating some of the old bucks.”

“Careful, love,” said Marc, “you are getting too close to home. If your theory is correct, Ray and I could be next.”

“I am sure no one could feel that way about you or Ray. There’s always a need to protect rare vintages.”

“Here’s another possibility. Someone is trying to do something about the glass ceiling.”

“You’re a real wit, aren’t you?” said Ray. “I bring a complicated problem to a couple of old friends with the expectation that they will help me think it through, and what do I get—some smartassed….”

“Hold on Ray,” said Lisa. “I’ll be serious and talk this through with you. You’ve got four dead guys, all white, middle-aged, middle class, and college educated. What else would you want to know about them?”

“I would want to know if they had criminal records, their sources of income, net worth, whether they were involved in any civil actions, who they owed money to…”

“Mutual acquaintances, if any,” interjected Lisa. “That’s a good one,” said Marc. “Did they know one another?”

“Based on what Mrs. Bussey told me,” said Ray, “Arthur Bussey knew Robert Arden when they were in their teens and early twenties. And they came from families who had cottages in the area. Given that they are about the same age, it’s quite possible that they were all acquainted.”

“Did they go to the same colleges?” asked Lisa.

Marc offered, “Randy Holden went to Michigan; he was there at the same time I was.”