Vulgar Boatman (5 page)

“Don’t get your hopes up, Joanie.”

“Just the same, thanks.” She reached up on tiptoe to kiss me. As she did, she leaned her body against mine, confirming my observation that the sheer robe was all she had on. I moved my mouth away from hers, giving her my cheek to kiss. She stood back from me, an odd smile on her face.

“You don’t wanna comfort the grieving mother?” she said.

“Cut it out,” I said harshly.

“Yeah. Shit. Dumb old broad. I’m sorry.”

“C’mon, Joanie. Buddy’s okay.”

She pushed me toward the door. “Go. Before I do something stupid.”

I went.

My first stop was not on the list Tom Baron gave me. I pulled into the lot beside the Windsor Harbor police headquarters and skipped over the puddles to the door. A different cop was behind the glass wall. I asked for the chief and gave him my name, and he got on the intercom. A minute later Harry Cusick came out.

He grinned at me and extended his hand. “I thought I might be seeing you again,” he said.

“I just wanted you to know that I’m going to be around town today, and to ask you to keep me informed on the Buddy Baron situation.”

“Gonna play a little cops and robbers, huh?”

I smiled and shrugged. “You might call it that.”

“We’re just a small-town police force, Mr. Coyne,” he said. “But we’re pretty good at what we do.”

“I have no doubt,” I said. “I don’t really expect to accomplish anything, to tell you the truth. Maybe it’ll make Tom and Joanie Baron feel a little better.” I shrugged apologetically.

“It’s a funny thing about lawyers,” said Cusick. “They’re always telling the cops how to do their job. But when you take a look at who screws things up, more times than not it’s the lawyers.”

“Readily granted. I’ll try to stay out of your way.”

“That,” he said, “is more than I have any right to expect. Look, why not check in with me in the afternoon. We can compare notes.”

“You’re willing to do that?”

“Sure. We’re all after the same thing here, aren’t we?”

“Probably not. But we’re in the same ballpark. If you can tell me how to find—” I pulled out Tom’s note and scanned it “—ah, Computer City, I’ll be on my way.”

“Bob Pritchard has neither seen nor heard from Buddy Baron,” said Cusick.

I nodded. “Sure. You’ve been there already.”

“Of course.”

He gave me the directions and I jogged through the rain to my car.

Computer City occupied a corner of a recently refurbished brick building in what passed for downtown Windsor Harbor.

The walls of the large room were lined with multitiered desks, on which were displayed several different models of home computers. Chairs in front of each one invited the potential customer to sit and peck at the keyboard. One of the chairs was occupied by a bearded young man, who glanced up at me.

“You don’t wanna buy a computer,” he declared.

“That is one helluva sales pitch,” I said.

He grinned. “Gets ’em every time.”

“I’m looking for Bob Pritchard.”

“How come?”

“I want to talk about Buddy Baron.”

“See?”

“Huh?”

“I was right. You don’t want to buy a computer. I can tell instantly who’s a customer and who’s getting in out of the rain. Save myself a lot of time that way. I’m Pritchard. Pull up a chair.”

I did. I glanced at the screen of the computer monitor. It was covered with columns and rows of figures. He hit a few keys, and the columns and rows moved. “Spread sheet,” he said. “You wanna keep your books up to date, just get one of these suckers. Everything on one little disk. No more file cabinets full of documents, no big ledgers, drawers crammed with scraps of paper. Neat and tidy.”

“I’m getting in out of the rain, remember? I’ve got a computer in my office. My secretary is a whiz at it. I don’t know diddly about it, myself. Don’t really want to.”

He nodded. “Lot of people, they get a certain age, they don’t like to deal with new technology. It scares them. Makes them feel old, outmoded.” He cocked his eyebrows at me.

I shrugged. “You’re probably a better salesman than I thought at first.”

He grinned. “So who’re you?”

“My name’s Coyne. Brady Coyne. I’m Tom Baron’s attorney.”

He nodded. “Ah.”

“I understand Buddy has missed work.”

“He was out yesterday. Hasn’t showed up today yet, either, as you can see.”

“And he didn’t call?”

“Nope.”

“Has he ever done this before? Not come to work, not called in?”

“Nope.”

“Am I boring you?”

“Nope.” He smiled again. “The police asked all these questions already.”

“Can you think of any questions they should’ve asked that they didn’t?”

“Now that,” said Pritchard, “is a good question. The cops did not ask me that question. And the answer is, yes, there are a few questions I’d expect someone to ask.”

“Like?”

“Like, had Buddy really kicked cocaine.”

“Has he?”

“Yes. I’m sure of it. And I should know.”

“You’ve been there,” I said.

“Yes. I’ve been there and back.”

“Is that why you hired Buddy?”

Pritchard made a wry face. “No. I didn’t know that when I hired him. If I had known that, I would have thought twice. Bad risk. Drug addicts are always bad risks. No, I hired Buddy because Tom Baron asked me to, and you don’t say no to Tom Baron too easily in this town. Not that he twisted my arm. Still, you like to get along with old Tom. Anyway, when Buddy found out what I’d been through, he started to open up to me. We talked about it a lot. He’s a surprisingly strong kid. Tough-minded, I mean. He messed up, but he cares about himself. He’s been straight for a long time. More than a year clean. A long time for an addict. He’s been through the worst times. There is a time, you know, and it comes about nine months after rehab, when you don’t think you can take it any longer, when you feel like giving up. People go one of three ways then.”

“What ways?”

“You either go back to the drugs or you push through it. Those who push through it, many of them, they get pretty mystical about it. They go up on the mountain. They see burning bushes. The skies open up. They hear voices.”

“They get born again, you mean?”

“All kinds of born again. Born again Christian, born again Buddhist, born again Existentialist, for God’s sake. Same thing happened to me, in a way.”

Pritchard grinned at me, and I returned his smile a bit uncomfortably.

“Yep,” he said. “A born again cynic. That’s me. It’s a theology that works good for me.”

I nodded. “That’s two. You said there were three ways someone could go. What’s the third?”

Pritchard scratched his beard. “The third way is, you kill yourself.”

“Buddy…?”

Pritchard shook his head. “Not Buddy. I don’t think so.”

“He’s been missing for about thirty-six hours now.”

“Something might’ve happened to him. But he didn’t kill himself.”

“The police mentioned to me that when Buddy was arrested, he refused to cooperate with them. Has he—?”

“No. I didn’t ask, and he didn’t say. I don’t know who supplied him. It’s not a question I would ever ask.”

“Do you have any thoughts?”

He ran his forefinger over his mustache. “Specifically, no. But I’ll tell you this, and it’s no secret. It had to be local. Somebody in this town. And I’ll tell you something else, if you promise not to press me for details.”

“Okay,” I said.

“It’s this. Whoever was supplying Buddy is still in business.”

“Selling coke to kids?”

“Crack, now,” he said. “Cocaine for smoking. Evil stuff. Addictive as hell. Someone’s wholesaling crack to kids, so they can retail it to their friends.”

“Mr. Pritchard,” I said. “A teenage girl was killed night before last. A teenage boy is missing. If there’s something you know…”

He held up his hand. “There isn’t. Believe me. I just know the scene in general. I know what’s going on. If I knew who it was, I would tell the cops. I’d tell them in a minute. No problem. But I don’t. All I know is, Buddy isn’t involved in it.”

I nodded. “Any other questions I should’ve asked?”

“One.”

“What?”

“Would Buddy kill Alice Sylvester?”

“How would you answer that, if I’d had the wit to ask it?”

“I’d say no. But I’d say he might’ve had reason to be pissed off at her.”

“Then I’d ask what that reason was.”

“And I’d tell you that she wasn’t the Miss America candidate that everyone is making her out to be. And, no, I would not elaborate on that.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“No.”

“Slandering the dead?”

He shrugged.

“There’s one other question that occurs to me,” I said.

“Go ahead.”

“Can you think of anybody who’d want to hurt Buddy?”

“Sure.”

“Will you tell me who?”

“I don’t know who. But if you can find the person who set him up in business two years ago, you’d have a good candidate.”

I nodded. “I suppose I would.”

“Assuming,” he said, “that something happened to Buddy.”

“Yes.”

“Which,” he said, “isn’t a bad assumption.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” I said.

I
HAD A CUP
of coffee at a dowdy little hole-in-the-wall restaurant a few doors down from Computer City and used the pay phone to make an appointment with Dr. Larsen at the high school. The place was empty. I sat by myself at a table by the window and watched it rain until it was time to go.

Windsor Harbor High School was just outside the center of town. A long curving drive ascended a slope to the sprawling flat-roofed brick building. I parked near what looked like the front entrance. Three boys were standing under the overhang smoking cigarettes. When I got out of my car they hastily cupped the butts in their hands.

The principal’s office was just inside the door. A white-haired woman was sorting papers behind a chest-high counter. I gave her my name and told her I had a nine-thirty appointment with Dr. Larsen. This seemed to fluster her, and she consulted with another woman who was seated at a desk, typing. She, in turn, jerked her head at a third woman, who was talking into a telephone. Finally the white-haired woman came back, smiling triumphantly, and beckoned me to follow her.

I went around the counter, weaved among some desks, and was ushered into an office. My guide cleared her throat and mumbled, “Ah, Dr. Larsen…”

A woman was working at a computer terminal, her back to us. She turned and smiled. “Yes?”

She was, I guessed, thirty. She had long blond hair, worn loose around her shoulders. She had elegant cheekbones, a dimple in her chin, and when she stood up I observed that her aquamarine knit dress complemented both her eyes and her figure.

I had for some reason assumed that Dr. Larsen would be gray, overweight, and male.

“I’m Brady Coyne,” I said. “I have an appointment.”

Her smile faded instantly. To the white-haired woman, who hovered uncertainly by my elbow, she said, “Thank you, Emma,” and Emma scurried away, closing the door behind her.

Dr. Larsen gestured at a chair and said, “Won’t you sit down?”

I sat, and she sat beside me. “Dr. Larsen—” I began.

“Let me be candid with you, Mr. Coyne. Somebody from Tom Baron’s organization called me this morning. I have been instructed to cooperate with you. I don’t mind cooperating. I would have cooperated in any case. But I don’t like being instructed. Bullied. The students and staff at my school are very upset about what happened. This is a new experience for all of us. I am trying to help everybody deal with this reality. But I do not want policemen and private investigators prowling around in my school, asking questions and disrupting things. And, for heaven’s sake, don’t call me ‘doctor.’ My name is Ingrid. I was hired because I have a doctorate in education, and the school board thinks it’s classy for me to be called ‘doctor.’ I do not happen to agree.”

“Well, then, Ms. Larsen—”

“Ingrid will be fine.” She permitted herself a small smile.

“Okay. Ingrid, then. I’m not a cop and I’m not a private eye. I’m an attorney. I’m not investigating anything. I’m trying to find Buddy Baron. Tom Baron says you might be able to help.”

“Well I certainly haven’t seen Buddy lately.”

“But you knew him.”

“I knew him. He graduated last June, after a fashion.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Buddy earned a bunch of phantom graduation credits from a drug rehabilitation place in Pennsylvania last spring. I always liked the boy, and I know he had lots of academic potential. But except for computers, he had no interest in school. His record reflected that. One of my jobs is to be sure that a Windsor Harbor High School diploma means something. Under normal circumstances, Buddy Baron would have been required to return here for a semester before he could have qualified. Certain individuals thought these were not ordinary circumstances.” She shrugged. “I’m a public servant. So I made an exception of Buddy. He graduated.”

“Look,” I said. “I don’t want to snoop around or anything. I’m just trying to get a line on Buddy. He’s been missing since the girl was killed. She was his girl friend.”

She peered at me. Three parallel vertical lines were permanently etched between her eyes. Ingrid Larsen, I guessed, frowned a lot. “How do you expect me to help you, Mr. Coyne?”

“Brady is fine. I don’t really know. Tom Baron said you might be able to.”

“Tom Baron is not a magic word in this office.”

“I understand. I didn’t mean—”

“You’re his attorney, right?”

“Right.”

She nodded, as if that proved something.

“Look,” I said. “I’m sure that a pretty young woman has to be tough as nails to get to be principal of a high school. You don’t look right for the job. Maybe a guidance counselor, health ed teacher. But not a principal. I reckon your authority gets challenged all the time. Overtly, covertly. And I bet you stand up to it. You’re tough. Why are you smiling?”

She shook her head, grinning now. “Keep going.”

I shrugged. “I imagine you take real pride in standing up to the Tom Barons of this world, and I’m sure you resent the hell out of all the local power brokers who try to tell you how to run your shop. Small town like Windsor Harbor, everyone’s attended a school one time or another, everyone knows how to run one. What’ve you got, a plumber for chairman of the school board?”