The Coal Black Asphalt Tomb: A Berger and Mitry Mystery (Berger and Mitry Mysteries) (7 page)

“Did she have running lights?”

“No, she didn’t. But that never stopped Lance. Not when the moon was bright. This was a man who could land a fighter jet on the deck of an aircraft carrier.” He gazed out the window at the river for a moment, lost in his memories. “We never knew what happened—whether he lost his balance and fell overboard or what. The only thing I can tell you for certain is that I’ve never, ever forgiven myself. If I’d gone with him he’d still be alive today.”

“You don’t know that, dear,” Delia said soothingly.

“The Connecticut River was still swollen from the spring rains,” he went on. “The Coast Guard figured its current must have washed him out to sea. They combed the North Shore of Long Island and Fishers Island for days, but there was no sign of Lance. And that was that, aside from the nasty whispering, of course.”

“What kind of nasty whispering, Bob?”

“Awful stuff. Reprehensible, really. Some folks around Dorset actually believed he’d staged his own disappearance so he could get out of fulfilling his military service. That he was, in fact, sipping tall drinks on an island in the Bahamas with some gorgeous, leggy babe. Garbage. It was slanderous garbage. I said so at the time to anyone who mentioned it. Offered to punch a few noses, too. My brother considered it an honor to serve his country. Besides, he
loved
that damned boat. He could never, ever have wrecked her on purpose.” Bob let out a slow sigh. “Seven years later he was declared legally dead, and a tombstone bearing his name was placed in our family plot in Duck River Cemetery. That’s the whole sad story. Or at least I thought it was until you rang our doorbell. Now I don’t know a damned thing. Des, what in the name of hell would my brother’s body be doing
underneath
Dorset Street?”

Des paused to put on her kid gloves. “With all due respect,” she said carefully, “I get the impression that there’s some sort of a legend surrounding Lance’s death. And not the one you just mentioned.”

‘They’re called
legends
for a reason,” Delia informed her icily. “Because they’re baloney.”

“Baloney,” Bob echoed angrily.

“Again, with all due respect, if you folks can shed any new light on this situation it would be greatly appreciated. If, say, something happened that you failed to mention to the authorities at the time—for whatever reason. We sure could use the help now.”

Bob and Delia Paffin both stared at her in stunned disbelief. Outside, a squadron of geese flew low over the house, honking loudly. After that it fell silent in the study.

“Let’s speak plainly here, Des,” Bob said, struggling to maintain his composure. “I know that you and I haven’t always seen eye to eye on certain matters. And maybe some of that has been my fault. I’m kind of set in my ways. The voters in town might even go so far as to say I’m an old fool. Fifty-one percent of them would anyhow. But I want you to promise me something. Will you do that for me?”

“If I can, Bob.”

“I want you to find out what in the hell really happened to my brother.”

Des shoved her heavy horn-rimmed glasses up her nose and said, “Count on it.”

C
HAPTER
4

“O
KAY,
I
GIVE UP—HOW
did you know that it was a
who
buried under Dorset Street?”

“Simple,” Mitch said into his cell phone, gasping slightly. He was groping around up in his cramped attic crawl space above the kitchen for Maisie’s portfolio. Shortly before she died Mitch’s wife had designed an incredible bluestone patio for a garden on West Twelfth Street. “Because of the way Helen was behaving last night. If it had been a
what
—like, say, a chest full of gold doubloons—she’d have been excited. She wasn’t. She was frightened.”

“Rundle’s asked me to take the lead on the investigation for now.”

“Oh, yeah? Why’s that?”

“Because all three of our Major Crime Squad units are tied up with priority cases.”

“Do you think that’s the real reason?”

“You know as much as I do. Will you do me a favor? Talk to Helen again. See if she’ll tell you why she was so frightened.”

“Does this mean you’re deputizing me?”

“Baby, you know that only happens in westerns and bad vigilante movies.”

“You say that as if there’s such a thing as a good vigilante movie. I mean, let’s face it, you’ve got your
Death Wish
franchise, your
Billy Jack
…”

“This is strictly unofficial, okay?”

“Well, do we at least get to synchronize our watches?”

“Mitch…”

“Righto. Flextime it is. Not to worry, boss. I am on the case.”

And now he was steering his high-riding Studey truck back up to Sheila Enman’s house, where he’d arranged to run into Bitsy and her friend Helen Weidler while Helen was on her lunch break from the law offices of Fairchild & Fairchild. Helen had been one of Sheila’s prize pupils back when Sheila taught English at the high school. The two had remained lifelong friends.

Bitsy’s minivan was already parked there when Mitch pulled up at the red mill house that faced the roaring waterfall. He didn’t knock on Sheila’s door. No point in knocking. Sheila wouldn’t hear it over the roar of the waterfall. Since the mill house was built right out over the racing water its first floor tended to get a bit sloshy when the heavy rains came. This had happened twice so far since Mitch had known her. So Sheila had no rugs or upholstered furniture downstairs. Just bare wood flooring and tables and chairs that were practically Shaker in their simplicity. In the kitchen, Helen’s stove, refrigerator and washer-dryer were parked on four-inch risers. So was the furnace in her mudroom.

Mitch found the three ladies setting the pine kitchen table with good china, silver and linen napkins.
Ironed
linen napkins. Lunch was a stack of sandwiches made from Sheila’s awesome homemade deviled ham on slices of her equally awesome Pullman white bread. There was also potato salad and a bowl of her bread-and-butter pickles if anyone was interested. Mitch was very interested.

“I see that Desiree has talked you out of that dumb toothpick,” the ancient schoolteacher said to him in lieu of hello.

“Not at all, Sheila. I’ve simply changed my mind.”

Sheila let out a bray of a laugh. “Of course you have.”

Bitsy greeted him with a warm smile. Helen hung back, saying nothing, still extremely ill at ease.

“Have a seat and dig in,” Sheila commanded them.

They had a seat and dug in.

As Mitch wolfed down what he hoped would be the first of many deviled ham sandwiches he reflected on the unexpected turn his life had taken since he’d moved to Dorset. Who would have thought that he’d be engineering a secret powwow with three older ladies like this? As he took a sip of milk Mitch realized something even more amazing. Seated here in Sheila Enman’s kitchen with the waterfall roaring outside he was somewhere he’d never been before—ground zero of a genuine Dorset gossip mill. He was
at the table
. He savored the significance of this moment before he reached for another half sandwich and said, “Helen, did you know that Lance Paffin was buried down there? Was that why you came to my house last night?”

Helen chewed quietly on a bite of her sandwich, swallowing it. “So they’ve found him.”

“They haven’t made a positive identification, but they believe it’s Lance. They’re keeping a tight lid on it, so please don’t mention this to anyone, okay?”

“Whatever is said at my table stays at my table,” Sheila assured him.

Bitsy nodded in agreement. “Where was he, Mitch?”

“Right in front of the Congo church.”

“Well, that figures,” Helen murmured.

“It does? Why’s that?”

“Mitch, I came here because Bitsy thought it would be a good idea.” Helen’s eyes were fastened on her plate. “But I’ve said too much already.”

Sheila let out another laugh. “You are one heck of a tactful person, Helen. I’m not, so I guess that leaves it up to me. Mitch, I can guarantee you that your lady friend will be hearing all about what a war hero Lance was. Which I’m not knocking. If a man serves his country he has a right to be saluted. But there was more to Lance Paffin than that. Much more.”

Mitch speared a pickle slice from the bowl. “Such as?…”

“Such as that he was the meanest, most vile user of women that it has ever been my misfortune to encounter,” Sheila replied. “He wanted them all. And he had them all. Lance Paffin was a predator who had no conscience when it came to women. None. The man was
detested
in Dorset. Believe me, there were dozens of husbands, boyfriends, fathers and sons who would have gladly done him in.”

“Helen, how did you know he was down there?” Mitch asked.

“I’ve … heard things over the years,” she answered reluctantly. “There’s the Missy Lay legend, for one. Not that anyone ever believed a word Missy said. She was an old, old spinster who lived right across Dorset Street from the church. My mother was town nurse back then and got to know her pretty well.”

“Goodness, I haven’t thought about Missy Lay in years,” Sheila said with a twinkle in her eye. “The high school kids used to call her Miss Laid. She was a complete loon.”

“Missy was
different
,” Helen allowed. “My mother told me she used to consume eight fluid ounces of her own urine every single day. Missy believed that it promoted good health.”

“And did it?” Mitch asked.

“Well, she lived to be a hundred and three.” Helen leaned forward over the table, blushing slightly. “There was also some talk about those fudge brownies that Missy put out for the kids on Halloween.”

Bitsy stared at her. “Wait, you don’t mean…”

“I do,” Helen said. “I most certainly do.”

Sheila got up and made her way over to the stove with her walker to put the kettle on. “Which explains why no one ever believed anything Missy said.”

“What did she say about the night that Lance Paffin disappeared?” Mitch asked.

Helen patted her mouth with her ironed linen napkin before she replied, “Dorset Street had been all dug up. It was a dirt road, and closed to through traffic. No one drove in or out unless they lived in the historic district. So it was very, very quiet outside of Missy’s house that night. And Missy, who had terrible insomnia, swore to my mother that she heard men with shovels digging out in the road in the middle of the night. Also that she saw Lance’s white Mustang parked there in the moonlight. She told my mother all about it the next morning. Told anyone who’d listen to her after Lance was reported missing. But everyone ignored her because they thought she was potty.”

“You believe she really witnessed something, don’t you?”

Helen nodded her head. “Because of something I heard for myself at the office one day. Or I should say overheard.”

“When was this?”

“About twenty years ago. The last time that Dorset Street was being worked on.”

“And what did you…”

“My employer, Mr. Fairchild, was speaking to First Selectman Paffin on the telephone. And I heard him say, ‘Not to worry, Bob, all they’re doing is resurfacing. They won’t go down far enough to find anything.’” Helen paused, shaking her head. “I tell you, it made my blood turn cold.”

“So you think Chase Fairchild and Bob Paffin knew that Lance was down there?”

“I don’t think it. I know it.”

Mitch sat there taking this in while Sheila filled a tea ball with multiple spoonfuls of Earl Gray and poured boiling water into her battered silver teapot. Bitsy got up and cleared their empty plates from the table.

“There’s fresh-baked cookies in the bread box,” Sheila said.

“What a good idea.” Mitch fetched them, studying Helen curiously. “Did you tell anyone about this at the time?”

“No, of course not.”

“Why not?”

“Why not?” Helen gazed out the kitchen window at the waterfall. “Because Mr. Fairchild would have fired me, that’s why not. The day he took me on he told me, ‘Helen, from now on you are my confidential secretary. That means anything you see or hear in this office is confidential. If you ever break this confidence I will see to it that you never work in a law office again. Do you understand?’ Believe me, I understood. And I kept my mouth shut. Had to. It was a high-paying job and my situation was bad enough already. I was not exactly the daintiest, loveliest young thing in Dorset. I was a horse-faced goony bird who hadn’t been on a date with a man in ten years.”

“Don’t talk nonsense,” Sheila barked at her. “You were a beautiful girl. You had a lovely smile and you were always impeccably groomed. So many of the other girls weren’t. And these girls who I see around the village now, my goodness, they’re just plain greasy.” She turned a frosty gaze on Mitch. “I blame those Hollywood actresses of yours.”

“Sheila, are you going to start in on Mila Kunis again?”

“Tell me, does that young woman
ever
wash her hair?”

“I really have no idea. But I’ll try to find out if you’d like.”

Sheila glared at him. “Are you
humoring
me?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“The truth is…” Helen shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “I didn’t want to go through the rest of my life being mentioned in the same breath as Missy Lay. Everyone calling me a loon behind my back. Besides, no one would have believed me anyway.”

“Yet you’ve decided to speak up now. How come?”

“Because I don’t care what people think of me anymore,” she answered defiantly.

“That’s the single best thing about getting on in years,” Sheila said, nodding her head sagely.

“Helen, what about Buzzy Shaver? Did he know, too?”

She frowned at him. “What makes you ask that?”

“He bitterly opposed this regrading project in the pages of
The Gazette
.”

“That’s because Bob did,” Bitsy sniffed. “Buzzy is Bob’s toady.”

“He also tried to gum up the works this morning.”

Bitsy’s eyes gleamed at him. “Really? Do tell.”

“He defied the parking ban and left his Volvo parked overnight in front of the library. Des had to call him at 6
AM
to get him move it. She said he was really rude to her.”