The Girl Who Ran Off With Daddy (28 page)

Lulu started yapping at us from the brush about twenty feet away.

“What’s she doing on us now?” Slawski muttered irritably. This was him getting competitive.

I borrowed the flashlight and went to investigate. “What would you say to a hatchet, Lieutenant?”

It was a kindling hatchet, maybe fifteen inches long, made of heavy-duty tempered steel. Common make and model. Well used. And covered with blood. Lulu had found it lying in the bushes a few feet off the road.

“Now don’t let her be touching it!” cautioned Slawski.

“Don’t worry, Trooper. She won’t.”

He narrowed his eyes at her, then glanced back at Klaus. “Who trained her anyway?” he asked resentfully.

“She’s a keen huntress. It’s in her blood. Plus she’s had a lot of experience.” Too damned much.

“Okay, that explains it,” said Slawski, nodding. “Klaus is only just out of the academy. A rookie.”

“He might pick up a thing or two if she took him under her wing. I can ask her for you, if you’d like.”

“I’m warning you, man.” Slawski’s voice turned low and menacing. “I ain’t in the mood for none of your piffle right now.”

“I’m sorry, Trooper. Truly I am. Sometimes it’s the only way I can deal with it.”

“With what?” he demanded.

“With that,” I said quietly, glancing back at Ruth. Or what had been Ruth.

“Oh.” Slawski hesitated, softening. “Yeah, I be down to that.”

We heard a car coming toward us now. Got back onto the road to wave it down. But it wasn’t the ambulance. It was a Ford Tempo rental car. Barry and Marco climbed out of it. Both wore lightweight ski jackets and semi-glazed expressions.

“Good evening, gentlemen!” Barry called to us, cheerily and thickly. Until he caught sight of his ex-wife lying there. He let out a yelp—a strangled, awful yelp—then hiccoughed and went stumbling into the darkness to be sick.

Marco Paolo, the former bouncer, stood his ground, his eyes fixed on her, his rugged features revealing nothing. He did not seem particularly upset. Or surprised.

Slawski had a rain slicker in the trunk of his car. He used it to cover Ruth. “Mr. Paolo, I’m sorry you gentlemen had to encounter the victim in this particular manner,” he stated, retreating into cop-speak. “We only recently arrived at the scene ourselves. Emergency medical services personnel are presently en route. I was just about to contact Lieutenant Munger and apprise him of the situation.”

“He’s here,” Marco said.

“He’s what?” said Very.

“He’s up at the house,” Marco said. “Or at least he was a half hour ago. Showed up two seconds after we got here from the city. He was practically here waiting for us.”

Barry returned, swiping at his mouth with a hankie, his eyes averted from Ruth. “I told him we had to run out for groceries and things first,” he explained hoarsely. “Before the stores closed for the night.”

“Kind of early for that, isn’t it?” said Very, turning suspicious.

“Not for liquor it isn’t, Lieutenant,” I informed him. “The stores close at eight in Connecticut.” I glanced at Grandfather’s Rolex. It was nearly eight now.

“And us without a thing in the house to drink,” Barry added. “Quite honestly, the thought of spending an entire evening sober discussing Thor’s murder with someone named Chick Munger was simply too horrifying to … to …” He shuddered. Slowly, his eyes returned to Ruth. “Aw, Ruthie,” he moaned. “What did they do to you, Ruthie?”

“Why’d the both of you go?” Very asked Marco.

“We wanted to be alone together for a few minutes, okay?” Marco answered defiantly, placing a meaty arm around his distraught lover. “We stopped off at the Black Seal for a drink.” Again with the Black Seal. “To psych ourselves up for the questioning. This whole thing has been such a drag.”

“And getting to be more of one by the hour,” I put in.

The ambulance pulled up behind Barry’s rental car, followed by a pair of troopers in cruisers. Slawski went over to fill them in. Very and I remained with Barry and Marco.

“How long were you two there?” Very asked Marco.

“Oh, who the fuck knows?” Marco snarled. The anger was always simmering just below the surface with this one. “Ask the bartender there. Go ahead and ask him. Go look in the trunk. There’s liquor and groceries in there. Go ahead and fucking
look.
Ask the clerks. They’ll remember us. Go on!”

“Christ,
we
didn’t do this, Lieutenant,” Barry protested. “We had nothing against Ruth. You have to believe me.”

“I don’t have to do anything, Mr. Feingold,” Very pointed out politely.

“Any idea what she was doing out here in the dark?” I asked them.

“No idea,” Barry replied.

“None,” echoed Marco.

Slawski strode briskly back to us. “They’ll take over from here. C’mon, we’ll walk the rest of the way.”

We pretty much had to—Ruth was blocking the road. Marco grabbed the booze from their trunk to take along and we five started up the road toward the house. Lulu kept her nose to the ground, snarfling vigilantly. Klaus stayed behind in Slawski’s cruiser. Possibly the officer needed a nap.

We walked in silence. I was thinking about how solid Barry and Marco’s alibi was. And about how solid it wasn’t. Because they could have gone out shopping exactly like they said yet still have attacked Ruth
after
they got back. It wouldn’t have taken very long to hack her to death. Especially for someone as big and strong as Marco. Especially if Barry helped him. Their “return” just now could have been a complete ruse. Strictly for our benefit.

They could have done it. Sure they could have.

I didn’t know what Very and Slawski were thinking, but I suspected they were thinking the same thing.

There were floodlights on outside the house. Munger’s unmarked cruiser was parked out front. Barry’s bug-eyed Sprite occupied the garage. Very stopped to lay a hand on its bright yellow hood. He gave Slawski one brief shake of his head. The engine was cold. We went inside.

Munger was in the living room slurping from a container of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee and talking to Arvin, who was sitting on the sofa wringing his hands. The lead investigator was not at all happy to see me there in the doorway. Or Slawski either. Romaine Very he just sort of sniffed at.

“I guess you’ll be the hotshot from New York,” he growled.

Mr. Serenity smiled and stuck out his hand.

Munger shook it grudgingly. “Dunno what you hope to accomplish vis-à-vis being here, Very, but you may as well hang around long as you’re here. Spot Ruth Feingold on your way in?”

“We did,” I affirmed, my eyes on Arvin, who was staring at the expression of utter horror on Barry’s face. Neither Barry nor Marco would make eye contact with the kid.

“Where is she?” asked Munger, glancing impatiently at his watch. “We oughta get started.”

Slowly, Arvin rose to his feet, teetering slightly. His face was ashen. “She’s dead, isn’t she?” he whispered.

“Yes, Arvin,” I said. “She’s dead.”

“
What?!
” Munger erupted. “She
can’t
be dead! She just went out for a walk! To stretch her l-legs after the l-long car ride …” He was starting to sputter, his career, his pension, his life passing before his eyes—one of which, the left, was busy sending out an SOS. “She said she had sciatica,” he added miserably.

“When did she go out?” asked Very.

“Geez, I dunno. Few minutes after seven maybe.” Munger hung his head and ran his hands through his rather limp hair. “Oh, geez.”

“And you, Arvin?” asked Slawski. “Where were you while she was out?”

“Now you just hold it right there, superstar,” Munger warned, pointing a trembly finger up at the towering resident trooper. “If there’s questions to be asked, I’ll ask ’em. This is my investigation.”

“And you’re doing one hell of a job, Lieutenant,” I observed. “One of your prime suspects just got chopped up with a hatchet out there while you were sitting in here drinking coffee.”

“Don’t push me, Hoag!” he spat angrily.

“Someone ought to,” I shot back.

That sent Arvin running out of the room. I heard footsteps on the stairs, going down to the basement.

“Drinks, anyone?” offered Barry, slipping nimbly into the role of urbane host. A bit forced. And more than a bit Noël Cowardish. But it worked for him.

Not that anyone answered him. He motioned to Marco, who went off to the kitchen to fix both of them something stiff.

“Where was Arvin?” Slawski asked stubbornly.

“In his room,” Munger answered, reaching for his coffee.

“It’s downstairs,” said Barry. “I converted the basement into a guest room.”

“Is there an outside door down there?” I asked him.

“Of course,” he replied. “Why?”

“I’m with you, dude,” Very interjected, hopping aboard my train of thought. “The kid could have gone out after his mom and done her and the lieutenant here wouldn’t have seen or heard a thing.”

“But that’s impossible!” cried Barry, his voice cracking with emotion. “Arvin loves Ruth. And she loves—loved him. There was a bond between them. A special bond.”

I stiffened. The hair on the back of my neck was standing up all of a sudden, the way it does whenever I hear Jeff Healey’s guitar solo on
Confidence Man.
But I wasn’t hearing any music right now. No, that’s not what was happening. It had just fallen into place for me was what was happening. It had all become clear. Just like that.

But how to prove it? How indeed?

Lulu gazed up at me expectantly, sensing a major breakthrough. I shook my head at her. Timing is everything, which is something she has yet to learn. That and how to do her own tax returns.

“Maybe we should keep an eye on him,” said Very, glancing at the hallway. “In case he decides to split or who knows what.”

“That boy won’t go anywhere,” insisted Barry. “He’s harmless.”

I gave Lulu a brief nod. She went downstairs after him. If his door was open she would keep him company. If his door was closed she would stand guard outside it and start yapping if he went anywhere.

Munger watched her go, then turned his flickering glare on me. “What I want to know,” he said harshly, attempting to seize back the offensive, “is where
you
was when it went down.”

“With us,” Very answered.

“He’s been with us for the past two hours,” added Slawski.

“Sorry to disappoint you, Lieutenant,” I said. “I truly am.

Munger grimaced and climbed dejectedly to his feet. He started to pace the carpet, hands knotted behind his back, his knuckles white, his eye twitching furiously.

Marco returned from the kitchen with two scotches. He handed Barry one and stood there next to him, sipping his own, his face flushed with fever in the bright living room lights. He seemed frightened to me. Genuinely so.

“You didn’t hear anything outside?” I asked Munger.

He stopped pacing. “Like what?” he demanded, clearly not enjoying this role reversal.

“A car pulling up, a scream, anything?” Me, I was loving it.

Munger shook his head. “Nah, I had the TV on. That show,
Hard Copy,
is on at half-past seven. Wanted to see if they had anything.”

I tugged at my ear. “I get it. So while you were busy watching yourself on the tube Ruth was busy getting herself hacked to death. Nice work, Lieutenant. What’s your secret? Or don’t you share it with amateurs.”

“Who you talking to, huh?!” Munger screamed at me, quivering with rage. “Who the fuck you think you’re talking to, punk?
Huh?!
” And then the man, well, the man just plain lost it.

Charged me from halfway across the room and knocked me to the rug with a textbook Pop Warner league tackle. The two of us landed with a thud, him right on top of me, throwing cupcake punches.

I sure was glad Lulu wasn’t in the room to see it.

“I’m tired of you pushing me, Hoag!” Munger gasped, his breath sour on my face. “You’re pushing me, pushing me,
pushing
me!”

Me, I kept my cool. I just wished someone—anyone—would get him the fuck off me.

Slawski obliged. He lifted Munger up by the scruff of the neck, one-handed, and tossed the lieutenant into a chair like he was an overnight bag. I decided right then I never wanted to find out just how strong Slawski was.

Barry and Marco just stood there with their drinks, transfixed. They reminded me of those mannequins in their apartment.

“Cut the man some slack,” the resident trooper ordered me angrily. “He knows his job. Can’t help it if this went down on his watch. Could have happened to anyone.”

Munger slumped there trying to catch his breath, a curiously pained and bitter expression on his narrow face. Clearly, he was not happy that Slawski was standing up for him. Because this meant that Slawski was a better man than he was, and I don’t believe he was prepared to admit that to himself. “Where’d it go down?” he asked after a moment, his voice thin and quiet.

“Down the road,” Slawski replied.

“You can’t miss it,” added Very.

“Fine.” He shot me a cold, hard last look. Then he stormed out.

“Whoa, dude,” exclaimed Very, shaking his head at me. “I thought
I
didn’t like you. But he
really
doesn’t like you.”

“You’ve got that all wrong, Lieutenant,” I said, straightening my clothing. “The man’s crazy about me. He’s just having a hard time dealing with his feelings.”

“Uh-huh,” said Slawski.

“Clethra must be told.”

“Not yet.”

“But he
has
to notify her of her mother’s death, dude,” Very said.

“It’s my official responsibility to notify her,” Slawski said.

“Not yet.”

The three of us were choking down cheeseburgers, spiral fries and chocolate shakes at the Hallmark, a venerated local drive-in situated on the Shore Road down near the beach. They made their own ice cream, all kinds of flavors, though I still couldn’t get them to make licorice for me. There were picnic tables around back. We were seated at one of them under the floodlights, the marsh grass out in the darkness smelling somewhat yeasty from that day’s rain. Munger was still at the murder scene. A trooper in uniform was baby-sitting Barry, Marco and Arvin. Slawski’s mission was to notify Clethra. I had persuaded him to stop and talk it over first.