To the Manor Dead (13 page)

The police were making
little headway with Esmerelda Pillow’s murder, in spite of questioning people at every marina from Newburgh to Albany. They had determined that she was decapitated by a chainsaw. Not surprisingly, there were marks of a struggle on her body—it was hard to imagine Esmerelda going gently. They hadn’t been able to establish where the crime happened—if she had been knocked out on land and then decapitated out on a boat, if the whole thing had happened on a boat, or if she had been decapitated on land and then transported out to the river to be dumped.

I was sitting at my dining table reading all this in the
Daily Freeman
. Josie was over in the kitchen putting away the dishes. The banging and clanging was working on my nerves. Josie had been living with me for over a week now. She was pretty unobtrusive, but I was having a hard time adjusting. After leaving the Asshole I treasured my solitude, my messiness, my non-meals, my odd hours. With Josie around I felt like I had to set an example.

Just like I had to with my clients.

When my marriage was rotting like overripe fruit and every minute spent with the Asshole felt like an assault on my heart and soul, I still had to sit there and listen to my clients complain about their shitty bosses and undermining mothers and offer them my best advice, even though I felt like bursting into tears or screaming at them to shut the fuck up. It was a strain. In my new life there wasn’t supposed to be any more of that. Janet was finally let out of her cage, finally free to not be in control all the time, not be so mature and well-adjusted, not to have to set an example. And now here I was, a goddamn surrogate mother.

“Josie, I like to read my morning paper in peace and quiet.”

“I’m sorry, Janet.”

“And please stop
apologizing
for everything. If I say something like I want to read the morning paper in peace and quiet, just stop what you’re doing, or maybe say ‘message received’ or ‘I get ya,’ but you have nothing to apologize for. You’re trying to be helpful, which I appreciate, but now is not the time.”

She looked at me and nodded and went into her room. Sputnik followed. Which annoyed me a lot more than the banging and clanging. Fickle little mutt, he’d have been a dish at a Korean buffet if it wasn’t for me.

In case you couldn’t tell, I was not having a good morning.

Reading conjecture about Esmerelda’s last moments didn’t help, although there was a fascination at the gruesome details. There must have been
a lot
of blood. And what did it feel like to saw someone’s head off? Did the saw just buzz through, or did it take some effort? And it was definitely overkill. Someone who just wanted her out of the way wouldn’t go to all that trouble when a nice clean bullet would do the job. This was a crime of passion. Intense passion.

The phone rang.

“Hello?”

“Janet, it’s Franny Van Kirk. Do you think this Esmerelda Pillow business could be connected to Daphne in any way?”

“I think there’s a good chance they’re connected. According to Becky Livingston, Esmerelda Pillow was Daphne’s dealer. She would hand-deliver the heroin to her.”

“Rebecca Livingston is not what I would call a reliable source.”

“No, but I think she’s right on this. I met Pillow. She was upset about Daphne’s death for some reason, and I think it was more than just the loss of a good customer. She seemed to take the death personally and to want to avenge it in some way.”

“And … ?”

“And that’s as far as my thinking has gotten.”

“No further progress on Daphne?”

“No, not really. There are quite a few people who are glad she’s dead, but that doesn’t make them murderers. Do you want your money back?”

“No.”

“How’s Ethel?”

Franny lowered her voice. “She’s on the phone with her brother at all hours, pow-wowing about something, it’s very hush-hush. I do my best to eavesdrop, although it’s so difficult nowadays with these damn cell phones. I do keep hearing the names Livingston and Hammer.”

“Nothing specific?”

“Not that I can gather. But it’s awfully suspicious. And Ethel is burning through money, and not wisely. Women who are five-foot-two and weigh 160 pounds should not wear Dolce and Gabbana cocktail dresses.”

“I’m surprised it fits.”

“What makes you think it does?”

“Well, let me know if you hear anything useful.”

“Ditto.”

Josie appeared, looking neat and clean.

“I’m taking the bus down to Kingston to meet with my social worker.”

“I hope it goes well.”

“She’s looking for a foster home for me.”

“Has she made any progress?”

“I’ll find out today. She thinks I should move out of the area. To get away from my stepfather.”

“And how do you feel about that?”

An enormous sadness came into her eyes for a moment, and then she willed it down. Brave kid.

“It’s okay,” she said.

“And what about going back to school?”

“My social worker thinks I should have a place to live first.”

“I think she’s right.”

“She wants me to start learning computer skills. They have special courses.”

“That’s a terrific idea. It will give you a head start. I have a computer, but I almost never turn it on. You’re welcome to use it.”

“Thanks.”

“Josie, can I ask you something?”

She nodded.

“Your leg. Were you born that way?”

“I broke my leg playing.”

“And it didn’t heal right?”

She paused. “My mother didn’t take me to the hospital for three days. She was very busy, she was working, my father had left her, she was very sad.”

“You should talk to the social worker about getting special shoes to even out your legs. It’ll lessen your chances of developing arthritis.”

She nodded.

Neither one of us said anything. Our relationship felt so tentative. And the truth was I wanted to keep it tentative. I could feel Josie’s need pulsing across the room at me.

I kept up my invisible shield.

I got a call
later that morning from a guy up in Tannersville who said he had some stuff he wanted to sell: he sounded youngish and hippish, said his stuff was sixties and seventies, so I was interested. My customers didn’t want fuddyduddy-frillywilly-cutesywutsy crap. And I got a lot of calls from people trying to clear out a dead aunt’s house, which usually turned out to be a musty mausoleum reeking of mothballs, talc, and ancient body odors, and jammed with Depression glass, freaky little figurines, Victorian furniture, and third-rate landscapes. That stuff set my teeth on edge.

But this lead sounded promising, so I got in my car and headed west out of the village—Tannersville was up in the mountains. The day was still and humid, with a low gray cloud cover that was flat as a table. I slipped Charlotte Gainsbourg into my CD player as I drove—her moody monotone went well with the weather. I decided to take one of my favorite roads, the Platte Clove Road, a seasonal track that started in West Sawyerville and snaked up the eastern escarpment of the Catskills. The scenery was spectacular as it wound its way up the Plattekill Gorge, but the road was poorly maintained, with no guardrail and a
loooooong
drop down into the gorge. It was also pretty narrow, so that if a car approached from the other direction, both cars had to slow to a crawl and ease by each other.

I left the village and headed west. It was nice to have something to take my mind off Daphne’s murder. After all, buying and selling was what I was supposed to be doing with my life. I was just starting up the mountain road, with rock face on my right and the gorge on my left, when a hulking SUV appeared in my rearview mirror. The windshield was tinted at the top so I had a hard time making out the driver, but he looked big and impatient. Well, if that porker in his pigmobile thought I was going to race up
this
road he had another thing coming.

As I wound up the mountain, he kept getting closer and closer until he was tailgating me. I slowed way down and eased over to let him pass. He stayed right on me.

I was starting to get a bad vibe.

Just then he gave my right-rear fender a
smack!
—pushing me toward the edge.

Holy shit!

Sweat started pouring out of me.

He smacked me again.

I looked down into the gorge—it was
steep
and a long way down, my car would just keep

plunging

plunging

plunging

until it crumpled into the Plattekill.

I hit the accelerator hard and took off—putting some daylight between me and the motherfucker. Within seconds I was hauling ass around a tight curve, praying that no one was coming from the other side.

The SUV roared up behind me.

He rammed me hard from the left, forcing me into the mountainside. There was a terrible crunch and crush. I spun the wheels out, away from the rock face.

He rammed me again, kept pushing me along the rock, sparks boiling off my front end.

I jammed into reverse—a sickening clang and clunk from the engine.

The SUV pulled back about twenty feet.

Pray he’s done with me.

Then it roared forward and nailed me like a bullet—SMACK! My head whiplashed, my teeth quaked, my front end crumpled into the rock.

As the sonofabitch peeled past me he tossed out a manila envelope. I got a quick look at him—it was Hammer’s henchman Marcus.

I stumbled out of the car, stood there gulping air.

It took me a minute or so, but I realized I was still in one piece.

That’s when I started to get pissed.

Amazingly, my trusty Camry
started. I drove it down the mountain to Zack’s. He was off creating earth art, but I knew where he kept his spare key. I let myself into the cabin and headed for the television. There was a DVD in that manila envelope and I slipped it into his player.

An empty room, black and white, shot from above. It took me a second to realize that it was Vince Hammer’s safe room. Then the hidden door swung open and an ordinary looking woman of around forty ducked in and closed the door behind her. My first thought was that I really had to do something about my posture—I looked like the Hunchback of Notre Dame’s long-lost sister. Then again, I was skulking around—who stands up straight when they’re skulking? I watched as I looked longingly at the half-played solitaire game. Tragic. More than anything, I looked like one of those sleazy reality-show contestants who are caught by a hidden camera trying to undermine one of their competitors.

There it all was: me photographing the entries in the date book, and salivating over the cash.

I turned off the DVD. And sat there. I really didn’t appreciate Vince Hammer’s little delivery method. If he’d hoped to scare me off, he’d been wrong. I’ve got this thing about bullies.

They bug me.