The Coal Black Asphalt Tomb: A Berger and Mitry Mystery (Berger and Mitry Mysteries) (22 page)

Everyone in the newsroom with the exception of Des stared at him in dumfounded amazement.

“Not a lot of
Easy Rider
fans here, huh? Why am I not surprised?” He poured himself another stiff jolt of the stuff. “Wow, this would remove that stubborn old varnish from my dining table in no time. I wonder what it’s doing to the lining of my stomach. Check that, no I don’t. Anyone else care to join me?” On their stony silence he said, “You keep this in your bottom desk drawer, am I right, Mr. Shaver? Sure I am. I knew that. But the gun’s a bit of a surprise. Then again, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised—considering the condition I found Bart in less than fifteen minutes after he called me.”

“He called
you
?” Glynis spoke up.

Des said, “As I mentioned, Bart placed two calls shortly before he died. One was to his Uncle Buzzy. The other was to Mitch.”

“Correct.” Mitch gulped down his second shot of rye, aware of Des’s gaze on him. “He asked me to meet him at the old Cahoon cemetery. The one that’s right next to your house at the top of Johnny Cake Hill, Congressman.”

The congressman said nothing to that. Just stared at him.

“But why did he call
you
?” Glynis wondered.

“Bart was doing a favor for me—speaking to someone on my behalf. I’ve just spoken to that someone and he confirmed that he did indeed talk to Bart shortly before Bart called me.”

“Who were you speaking with?” Bob Paffin asked hoarsely.

“Young Henry, the head groundskeeper at the country club. I just love Dorset, don’t you? Where else but hee-yah would a guy who’s seventy-eight years old be called
Young
Henry? Nice fellow. Serves one heck of a bottle of Coca-Cola, too. A glass bottle, not plastic. Glass makes all of the difference.” He glanced over at Des and said, “How am I doing so far, thin person?”

She smiled at him with her pale green eyes. “You’re doing just fine.”

“Thanks, don’t mind if I do.” He tossed back some more Old Overholt. “Did I remember to offer you a drink?”

“Thanks, but I’m on the clock right now. Mitch, what’s in that envelope?”

“What, this? It’s an eight-by-ten glossy of a wedding photo that ran in
The Gazette
back in 1969.”

Buzzy Shaver stirred for the first time since Mitch had walked in. “Where’d you get that?” he demanded.

“From your files. Bart loaned it to me.”

“He had no right to do that.”

“And yet he did. How about that?” Mitch removed the photo from the envelope and set it on a desk for the others to look at. They crowded around him—all except for Buzzy, who sat stubbornly at his desk, gun in hand. “This will be a real trip down memory lane for you, Mr. and Mrs. Paffin. It’s your wedding photo. You were married in the old rose garden at the club. You had to pull some strings because the garden was already booked for the date you wanted, but Chase Fairchild’s father was president of the club and he made it happen. It must have been a lovely event. And yet you don’t seem to have very fond memories of the old rose garden, Mrs. Paffin. When I asked you a perfectly innocent question about it yesterday you got downright snappish. I couldn’t imagine why. It got me to wondering, so I dropped by here and had a chat with Bart. Sure enough,
The Gazette
still had the photos of your big day. There’s the two of you.…” Mitch tapped the photo with his index finger. “That’s Chase Fairchild. That’s you, Mrs. Fairchild. There’s our future congressman, Luke Cahoon, with Noelle. There are Old Henry’s roses. And, if you look closely, you’ll notice the low wrought-iron spiked fence that used to enclose the garden. Or ‘properly’ enclose it, as you described it, Mrs. Paffin. It was removed after the fire of ’92 destroyed the—”

“Pull over a sec,” Des said. “Did you say
spiked
fence?”

“I did. I most certainly did.”

She snatched the photo from the desk and had a closer look. “Keep talking.”

“According to the ME, Lance Paffin suffered a fatal wound to the back of his skull from a tapered, spike-like object of some kind. Any number of objects could have made such a wound. My money was on a square-headed nail. My own cottage is full of them.”

Congressman Cahoon shot a glare at Des. Mitch could only guess why.

“I wouldn’t have given much consideration to the spiked fence around Old Henry’s garden if Mrs. Paffin hadn’t reacted the way that she did. When I asked Bart what might have happened to the fence he said he didn’t know. But he did have a pretty good idea who would.”

“Young Henry?” Des asked.

Mitch nodded. “Young Henry, who is Dorset through and through. The man looks out for his neighbors and never throws a thing away. He maintains the Cahoon cemetery free of charge, you know. Some of the earliest brownstone gravestones up there have started to crumble. He was particularly concerned about a cluster of children’s gravestones from way back in 1696. So he installed a protective fence around them. The very same fence that used to enclose Old Henry’s rose garden. My guess? If you examine the spikes in that fence with the wound in the back of Lance Paffin’s skull you’ll find a match. My guess? Lance Paffin died right there at the club that night.” He glanced over at Des and said, “Am I still doing okay?”

She smiled at him with her eyes again. “More than okay.”

“Are you sure I can’t offer you a drink?”

“Positive. Keep going.”

“Thanks, don’t mind if I do.” Mitch poured himself another jolt of Old Overholt, turning his attention back to Buzzy Shaver. “After Bart spoke to Young Henry he called and asked me to meet him up there. That’s why he called you, too. Bart was a good reporter. He didn’t know why I was so interested in locating that particular fence. But he did know how to put two and two together and he figured it must have something to do with Lance’s death. So he asked you about it, didn’t he, Mr. Shaver? You were the natural person for him to ask. You know everything there is to know about this town’s history. Unfortunately for Bart, you also know everything there is to know about what happened to Lance that night—because you took part in it. Poor Bart had no idea. And no way to know that when you drove up there you were planning to shoot him.”

Buzzy stared down at the revolver in his hand. “He was a nosy damned pest.”

“Nosy damned pests make the best reporters,” Mitch informed him. “They taught us that in journalism school.”

“Wouldn’t take no for an answer. Kept fighting me over that same stupid story about Bob’s driveway. The kid was a stubborn pain in the behind.”

“Stubborn pains in the behind make the best reporters. They taught us that in journalism school, too.”

“And then today he calls up and…” Buzzy trailed off, coughing wetly. “Tells me he has a pretty fair idea of how Lance died. Wants me to have a look up at the Cahoon cemetery before he goes public with it. So I headed up there.”

“And you shot him,” Des said quietly.

“I had to,” he insisted, gazing around the newsroom. “I love these people. And they still have a lot of good years left. All I’ve got is a few months. I did it for the old bunch. They’re like family to me.”

“Yeah, but Bart
was
family,” Mitch pointed out.

“And he was trying to destroy this newspaper,” Buzzy said angrily. “Every single goddamned day he’d start in on how we were no longer a ‘sustainable business model.’ I told him
The Gazette
isn’t a business—it’s an institution. And I’ll be damned if it disappears inside of some lousy computer on my watch.”

“He asked you to meet him at the cemetery,” Des said, nudging him along.

Buzzy nodded. “And he showed me that spiked fence. Told me he was positive it had something to do with Lance’s death. I said, ‘What do you know about Lance’s death?’ He said ‘Not as much as you do.’ I demanded to know what he meant by that. He said, ‘You know what really happened. That’s why you fought the regrading plan so hard. You and Bob both.’ I told him to leave it alone. ‘It’s ancient history,’ I said to him. ‘Let the dead stay dead.’ Do you know what that kid said to me? He said, ‘No, sir, this is one story you are
not
going to bury.’ He wouldn’t listen to me. Wouldn’t goddamned listen. Just started to walk away. So I stopped him,” Buzzy said, hefting the gun in his hand.

“Three shots to the back make for a very effective stopper,” Mitch acknowledged. “But you didn’t finish the job, Mr. Shaver. You also needed to kill Young Henry, who knows where that fence is, and you needed to kill me before I had a chance to show this photo to our resident trooper. But you’re not much of a pro at this murder thing, are you?” He drank down some more of Buzzy Shaver’s Old Overholt, smacking his lips with pleasure. He was actually starting to like the taste of the stuff. What was
that
about? “Master Sergeant, would you like to hear something totally whack?”

“You trying to tell me that what I’ve been listening to isn’t whack?”

“If they’d just called the police and said it was an accident they would have gotten away with it. Lance was a high-spirited, reckless sort. He got plastered, slipped and hit his head on the fence. Bam. It happens. Stuff like that happens. There would have been a lot of tut-tutting about rich kids who drink too much but absolutely no one would have gone to jail. They didn’t do that. They went all John Ford instead.”

Des frowned at him. “They went all what?”

“They circled the wagons to protect one of their own.”

“Who?”

“Whoever Lance was fighting with when he smacked his head on the spiked fence.”

“Before you say another word, young fellow, I’d like to remind you that this gun holds six bullets.” Buzzy raised it and pointed it right at Mitch. “I fired three. That means I’ve still got three.”

Mitch’s mouth suddenly went dry. He really, really didn’t like having guns pointed at him—especially when they weren’t loaded with movie blanks. He was a total wuss that way.

“I could shoot both you and the resident trooper right here and now before the major crime folks arrive. That’ll nip this thing right in the bud.”

“I’m afraid it won’t, Mr. Shaver,” Des responded in a voice that Mitch found remarkably calm. Not that it surprised him. His ladylove’s coolness in the face of danger never surprised him. Ice water. She had ice water in her veins. “Lieutenant Snipes and Sergeant Tedone already know everything that I know. Besides, Mitch and I aren’t standing right next to you the way Bart was. We must be a good ten feet away.”

Mitch gauged the distance with his eyes. “More like twelve feet.”

She shook her head. “Looks like ten to me.”

“Twelve. Want me to pace it off?”

“Not necessary.”

“It’ll only take a sec. Are you sure?”

“Quite sure.” She turned back to Buzzy. “You’re elderly and a bit on the shaky side. I’m young and fast on the draw. I also have way more firepower than you do. This is a SIG-Sauer P229 .40 caliber semiautomatic weapon that I’m carrying. Since I happen to be the one who’s armed you’ll shoot me first. I’m betting my life it won’t be a kill shot. I doubt you’ll even hit me at all from where you’re sitting. Even if you do I’ll still shoot that Ruger right out of your hand and that will be the end of it. So do yourself a favor and drop it, Mr. Shaver, okay? Drop your damned gun
now
!”

C
HAPTER
15

“T
IME OUT, WHAT IF
his first shot hits
me
?”

“It won’t,” Des assured Mitch, her eyes never leaving Buzzy’s raised gun. “I’m the one who’s armed, remember?”

“Yeah, but he might aim at you and hit me instead. He’s old and shaky, remember?”

“Mitch, that’s not going to happen,” she said, really, really hoping her voice sounded steady and calm. Because she wasn’t feeling steady or calm. She was genuinely terrified that this wheezing wretch of an old man was going to shoot the man she loved.

“But how can you be so sure?” Mitch’s own voice sounding a bit thick. He’d downed, what, three doubles in less than thirty minutes? Not like him at all. He was trying to numb his grief. And yet, somehow, he was still managing to fit all of the pieces together in a way that made an amazing amount of sense. Des didn’t know how he did it. Whether it was because of the thousands of movie plots he had tucked away in his size-genius brain or if he was just remarkably intuitive. But her wow man had a gift, no getting around it.

“I do this for a living, okay?” she said to him patiently. “And I need for you to shut up a second. And Mr. Shaver, I need for you to give it up. There is no way you’re going to take out both of us before I blow a big hole through your gun hand.”

“You’ll have to kill me, too, Buzzy,” Glynis warned him. “I won’t watch you murder two people and keep quiet. I’m an officer of the court. I’ve taken an oath to uphold the law, and I will. So will Congressman Cahoon.” On Luke Cahoon’s rather startled look she said, “Won’t you, Congressman?”

Luke Cahoon gazed at Dorset’s first selectwoman reflectively. “I don’t believe I want to find out the answer to that question. Buzzy, mind if I have a drink of your rotgut?”

“
Now
it’s turning into a party,” Mitch exclaimed happily.

“Help yourself, Luke.” Buzzy fished another shot glass from the bottom desk drawer with his left hand, his right still clutching the Ruger. “And pour me one while you’re at it.”

Luke Cahoon filled both shot glasses and held Buzzy’s out to him. When Buzzy reached for it the congressman snatched the Ruger from his other hand.

“Luke, what are you doing?”

“The right thing.” He held it out to Des by its short barrel. “The sane thing.”

She took it from him, pocketing it. “Thank you, Congressman.”

“Don’t thank me,” he said coldly. “I didn’t do it for you.”

Buzzy glowered at Luke, his chest rising and falling with great difficulty. Every breath he took sounded like a wet, torn bellows.

“We’ve gotten off of the subject here,” Glynis stated firmly, her eyes locking on to Beryl’s. “
You
were there that night, Mother. All of you were there. And you can’t keep this a secret any longer. So why don’t you just tell us what really happened to Lance?”