The Coal Black Asphalt Tomb: A Berger and Mitry Mystery (Berger and Mitry Mysteries) (3 page)

“Oh, this isn’t getting us
anywhere
,” Glynis fumed.

“Perhaps you’d like to take a look at this,” Mitch said, offering Glynis the framed black-and-white photograph that could usually be found on Sheila’s living room mantel. It was an old photograph of a gawky young girl standing in front of this very Congregational Church with a shovel in her hands and a proud expression on her face.

“Okay, what am I looking at?” Glynis demanded.

“This was taken on Arbor Day, 1931,” Mitch explained. “That was the day Sheila personally planted these three trees. It was her prize for winning the Center School essay contest on ‘Why I Love Trees.’”

“Sheila
planted
them?” Glynis gasped in disbelief. “Why didn’t she tell me?”

“She didn’t feel she had to. She thought it was up to you to do your homework. A bit perverse on her part, I’ll grant you. But Sheila’s getting to be kind of stubborn.”

“Sheila’s always been stubborn.”

“Can’t you accommodate her?”

“How, Mitch? Tell me how.”

Mitch told her how. Glynis looked at him in astonishment, then gave him a wink and started her way back over to Sheila, who remained padlocked to one of her beloved trees. The news cameras moved in closer.

“Sheila, how would you like to plant the new trees?” Glynis offered.

“
What
new trees?” Sheila demanded, scowling at her.

“The three new trees we’ll put in as substitutes for these when we finish the project. You could plant them if you’d like to. Just as you planted these.”

“Don’t you talk down to me, Glynis.”

“You’ve known me my whole life. Have I ever talked down to you?”

Sheila preferred not to answer that. “What kind of trees?”

“I can’t speak for the tree commission,” Glynis replied. “But it seems to me we should be able to plant whatever kind you want.”

“I want copper beeches,” Sheila stated firmly. “No itty-bitty saplings either. Good-sized ones.”

“Then I’ll propose that we install good-sized copper beeches. Would you like that, Sheila?”

Sheila Enman stuck out her chin and responded, “I’ll think it over.”

*   *   *

“Boyfriend, have you ever thought about going into politics?”

They were lolling in his bathtub sipping Chianti while the pancetta and onion caramelized on low heat in his cast iron skillet and
Workingman’s Dead
played on the stereo. The master sergeant’s slender right ankle was hoisted up on his left shoulder so that he could massage her hamstring, which had been troubling her lately.

“Why are you asking?”

“Because you handled that situation with Sheila Enman this morning like a pro. First you invented a crisis for the news cameras…”

“I thought you looked mighty delectable on Channel Three, by the way.”

“All you could see of me on Channel Three was my booty.”

“Like I said, I thought you looked extremely delectable.”

“
Then
you helped solve the crisis. Face it, you’re a natural politician.”

“Am not. I was just trying to mollify the old girl. She’s deeply invested in this place emotionally. Glynis doesn’t seem to get that.”

“She’s a bit focused,” Des acknowledged. “You could help her out.”

“How?”

“By serving on a commission. She’s desperate for young voices. Did you know that the average age of Dorset’s commissioners is seventy-three?”

“Des, I’m a journalist. We don’t do things like serve on commissions.”

“What
do
you do?”

“Sit back and criticize the people who do. Besides, I already work at the food pantry. I deliver groceries. I drive folks to their doctor appointments. And those town government meetings are
excruciatingly
slow. If I want to be that bored for that many hours I’ll sit through a Terrence Malick film.” He set down his wine glass and reached for a fresh toothpick, popping it into the corner of his mouth.

She peered at him critically. “Okay, what’s with this toothpick deal?”

“Actually, it’s not a ‘toothpick’ at all. That’s the beauty of it. It’s a Stim-U-Dent plaque remover. Cleans between my teeth
and
gently invigorates my gums while also giving me a certain Cagney-esque jauntiness. It’s a win-win, don’t you think?”

“What I think is that you’re going to swallow it and I’ll have to rush you to Shoreline Clinic. What brought this on?”

“I went to the dentist when I was in the city last week, remember? When he got done examining me I asked him if I had any cavities. Know what he said? He said, ‘At your age cavities are no longer your biggest concern.’ Then he told me my gums are receding and if I don’t start taking better care of them all of my teeth will fall out. I mean, God, what’s up with that?”

“We’re becoming middle-aged, wow man. Get used to it.”

“I don’t want to get used to it. Do you know that rather powerful, goaty scent that a lot of the old men in Dorset give off?”

She nodded. “Only too well.”

“If I ever start to smell like that will you kindly shoot me?”

“It’ll be my pleasure.”

“Thank you. You’re very kind.” He went back to work on her hamstring, kneading the taut tendon, flexing her foot to stretch it out. “Feel any better?”

“A bit,” she acknowledged. “But I’m still not looking forward to tomorrow. Eating road dust from dawn until dusk is not what I want to be doing at this stage of my life.”

“What do you want to be doing?”

She lay there in silence for a moment. “I don’t know the answer to that. I used to, but now I don’t.”

Mitch studied her, frowning. Something had been eating at her for a while. He had a pretty good idea what, but he also knew that she’d only open up about it when she was good and ready to. That was her way. So he didn’t press her. Instead, he ditched his toothpick, leaned over and planted a kiss on her mouth.

Her eyes gleamed at him. “What was that for?”

“I was just remembering how lucky I am to have you in my life.”

“Right back at you, boyfriend.”

“Hmm … I think my onions are overheating.”

Now she was looking at him through her eyelashes. “Is that some kind of Jewish-boy dirty talk?”

“No, it’s our dinner starting to scorch,” he said, sniffing at the air. “I’d better check on it.”

“Be with you in a sec. I’m going to wash my hair.”

He dried off, put on a pair of sweatpants and his New York Giants hoodie and padded into the kitchen to take a spatula to the onions and pancetta before they burned. He hadn’t known for sure if Des would be joining him for dinner. But he was totally cool with their arrangement, which was loose, spontaneous and cautious. Even though they were deliriously happy together they were taking it a day at a time as their wounds slowly healed. Des was still getting over her brutal divorce from that cheating louse Brandon. And Mitch had barely survived losing his wife, Maisie, a Harvard-trained landscape architect, to ovarian cancer at the age of thirty. Both of them needed their own living spaces so they could do what they did in private to cope. Des got up before dawn and drew haunting, viscerally horrifying portraits of murder victims. Mitch? He often sat up all night long watching old movies, sometimes four or five of them at a stretch, losing himself in his comforting alternate universe where good was good, bad was bad and everything turned out like it was supposed to in the end. He and Des enjoyed the time they spent together and enjoyed the time they spent apart. They didn’t dwell on how unlikely a couple they were. And they for damned sure didn’t sweat small stuff like dinner. Mitch kept a few key ingredients on hand so he could put together a tasty meal at a moment’s notice. Tonight he would throw linguine into the skillet with the onions and pancetta, break a couple of farm-fresh organic eggs over it and toss it with a ton of grated aged Parmesan, chopped Italian parsley and fresh ground pepper. There was crusty bread, a bottle of Chianti Classico. What more did they need?

He set the table in the living room while Des showered. It was a drop-leaf table that he’d found discarded in one of his neighbor’s barns along with two moth-eaten overstuffed chairs and a loveseat. Clemmie was parked in one of the overstuffed chairs. Quirt was outside looking to bite the head off something small and furry.

Mitch was putting another log on the fire when there was a tap at his front door. “Come on in!” he called out.

It was Bitsy—and she wasn’t alone. Standing there in the doorway with her was a tall, lanky woman in her seventies named Helen Weidler. Helen was a highly efficient legal secretary who’d gone to work for the first selectwoman’s father, Chase Fairchild, way back when she was in her twenties. Worked for him until he retired, then stayed on when Glynis took over the practice. Helen was still at Fairchild & Fairchild, making sure things ran smoothly.

“How nice to see you again, Helen.” Mitch knew her because Glynis had handled the closing on his house, same as she’d handled Des’s. “Won’t you ladies come in?”

Bitsy made her way straight for the seed trays in Mitch’s bay window, the better to inspect his tiny green shoots. Helen hovered close to the door, wringing her hands and looking exceedingly tense. Her attire suggested she’d come straight from the office. She wore a matching dark gray sweater and slacks, a white blouse and polished black pumps. Helen’s hair was white and she wore it cropped in that severe light-bulb shaped cut that, for reasons beyond Mitch’s comprehension, was favored by many women of her age in Dorset. Helen had a long narrow face and a mouthful of rather prominent teeth. She’d never married, as far as Mitch knew.

Des joined them now, wearing the dove gray four-ply cashmere robe Mitch had bought her in Paris.

“Oh, dear, we’re interrupting your evening,” Bitsy said fretfully.

“Not at all,” Mitch assured them.

“As long as you don’t mind seeing me out of uniform,” Des agreed as she settled into an overstuffed chair, curling her long legs beneath her

Helen remained anchored by the doorway, glancing around the room. Mitch’s desk was an old mahogany door he’d scored at the dump and set atop a pair of sawhorses. His coffee table was an old rowboat with a storm window over it. There were books and DVDs heaped everywhere. Clutter was a constant presence in his life. “So this is where you live,” she observed. “It’s very cozy and charming. Mind you, I’ve always believed that the ambiance of a home is a reflection of the people who live in it, as opposed to the furniture or the artwork.” She cleared her throat. “I apologize for barging in this way.”

“Not to worry,” he said. “Bitsy and I are practically like family. And so are you, Helen. I would never have survived the closing on this place if it hadn’t been for you. Chances are I’d still be hyperventilating in the parking lot outside out of the bank. You’re the one who came out and dragged me inside to sign the mortgage papers. Do you remember what you told me?”

She frowned at him. “Why no, I don’t.”

“You said, ‘Grow a pair, will you?’ Those words meant a lot to me, Helen. Please have a seat here by the fire. Can I pour you ladies some wine?”

“You talked me into it,” Bitsy said brightly.

“I’m not much of a drinker.” Helen perched hesitantly on the edge of the sofa next to Bitsy. “But do you have any Scotch?”

“A very nice Balvenie. How do you take it?”

Helen blinked at him. “In a glass.”

He went into the kitchen and turned off their dinner. Fetched the bottle of single malt Scotch from the cupboard and poured Helen a generous jolt. Then filled a glass with Chianti for Bitsy and returned to the living room.

Helen swallowed her entire glass of Scotch in one gulp, shuddering. “Thank you, Mitch. I needed that. Warms you right down to your toes, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, it does. Would you care for another?”

“I believe I would.”

He refilled it for her. This time she took only a small sip, her hand trembling as she clutched the glass.

Mitch picked up Clemmie and sat down in the chair she’d occupied, settling her in his lap. He sipped his wine. He waited in patient silence.

“Please don’t tell her I’ve come here,” Helen finally blurted out.

“By ‘her’ do you mean Glynis?”

Helen nodded. “I have to tell you something very, very important. If Glynis digs up Dorset Street tomorrow morning this town will be torn to pieces and no one will ever be able to put it back together again. Do you understand me? No one.”

“Have you spoken to Glynis about this?” Des asked her calmly.

Helen looked down into her glass. “I can’t speak to her about it.”

“Why not?”

Helen didn’t respond, just sat there in tight-lipped silence.

“Why can’t Glynis tear up Dorset Street?” Des pressed her.

“Because some things…” Helen took another small sip of her Scotch, gazing into the fire. “Some things are better off left as they are. I was hoping and praying that it wouldn’t come to this, you know. That Bob Paffin would win the recount. That Glynis wouldn’t be able to push through her plan. Why does she have to be so darned good at what she does? Why couldn’t she just be another ineffectual dodo bird like Bob Paffin?” Helen looked at Des imploringly. “
Please
make sure that they don’t dig up Dorset Street tomorrow morning.”

Des glanced helplessly over at Mitch.

He cleared his throat and dove in. “Why can’t they dig it up?”

“It’s needed regrading for years and years. Haven’t you folks ever wondered why the work was never done? Why they just kept resurfacing it?”

“I figured that Bob didn’t want to spend the money,” Des said. “He was Mr. Small Government.”

“A total cheapskate,” Helen acknowledged with a curled lip. “But that’s not the real reason.”

“Helen, what are you trying to tell us?” Des wondered. “Is something
buried
underneath the pavement?”

Helen didn’t answer her. Just stared into the fire, her jaw muscles tightening.

“Do you know what this is about?” Mitch asked Bitsy.

“I know that Helen’s not kidding around,” Bitsy replied. “She means what she says. And there’s good reason to believe her. I’ve been hearing about this ever since I was a little girl.”