Death at Charity's Point (27 page)

Olanoff shrugged. Sousa showed his teeth. I stood up and limped over to my desk. “End of interview,” I said. “Good day, gentlemen.”

Olanoff leaned back into the sofa. “Look at it from our point of view, Mr. Coyne,” he said, his voice soothing. “You had plenty of reason to suspect that your girlfriend was actually Carla Steinholtz. Who you also knew was a fugitive. McDevitt tipped you off to that. But did you call us, or Shanley, like anybody—especially an attorney, for God’s sake—would do? No. What you did, Mr. Coyne, is you let her take you up to the top of that big rock so that Gresham could beat the shit out of you.” Olanoff spread his hands, as if in apology. “What are we supposed to think?”

“Think whatever you want. I told you what I know.”

“
Some
of what you know,” said Sousa.

“I’ve told you everything. Now I think you better leave.”

Olanoff smiled bleakly under that great nose. “We think you’re lying.”

I moved back so that I was standing in front of them. They both looked up at me from their seats on my sofa. “Gentlemen,” I said, my voice tense, “get the fuck out of my office. Just get out.”

Olanoff and Sousa nodded and stood up slowly. “Okay. Have it your way. But you better understand one thing.” Olanoff’s grin was harsh and completely mirthless. “You’ll be watched. We’re very patient. You’ll slip.”

They left without shaking my hand.

I returned to my chair behind my desk and lit a Winston. I noticed that my hands were steady. I picked up the pile of papers that lay before me. I had work to do.

By the end of July most of the stiffness had left my knee. I affected a cane now and then. Julie said it made me seem decadent—her word—like an effete English lord or a tragic war hero.

My poor, emaciated corpse of a body made me
feel
decadent, although I was able to chew real food. I felt about ready to tackle a steak, but hadn’t hit upon the proper occasion for such a celebration.

I called Gloria.

“I’ll cook it for you,” she said. “Here. In our home.”

“Your home,” I corrected her.

“Shall I invite the boys?”

“No. Don’t.”

We made a date for early August. Gloria had a very busy social calendar. I was to bring the wine.

I rediscovered the blissful elegance of coffee and Old Grand-Dad sipped from a mug or tumbler rather than sucked through a glass straw. I had never appreciated fully the sensual exhilaration of ice cubes clicking against teeth, or the powerful sense of control in being able to take one into your mouth and roll it from cheek to cheek with your tongue, then purse your lips and slide it back into the glass.

You learn a lot from having your mouth wired shut for a month. It would have been a challenge to argue a case, grunting “Uh-uh” and “Uh-huh” and scribbling terse notes to His—or Her—Honor.

Winstons tasted best of all, now that I could chew on the filter again.

In due course, Dr. Clapp, the Medical Examiner called me to confirm what I expected: The inquest into George Gresham’s death was going to be reopened. My testimony would be crucial. When I explained to him what Rina had told me—that George seemed to have stepped off the tip of Charity’s Point purposefully—Dr. Clapp said that testimony of that sort would not be admissible, even at an informal legal proceeding like an inquest. “You know what hearsay is,” he said to me in that patient tone of his that made me feel like a college freshman. I admitted that what Rina told me over the phone was definitely hearsay. “The significant fact here is that Miss Prescott—Miss Steinholtz, I should say—was present at Charity’s Point with Mr. Gresham, and that she apparently did strike him with what appears to be malicious intent, and that he did fall to his death. And the note, from what you’ve reported, was not a suicide note at all. It doesn’t add up to suicide. Murder, maybe. Accident, at least. In either case, a double-indemnity situation.”

“Have you been in touch with Jefferson Mutual?” I asked.

“Mr. Gresham’s life insurance company? No.” Dr. Clapp chuckled. “I thought I’d leave that pleasure up to you.”

So I called Parker Barrett and summarized for him all that had happened. He interjected a “Hmm” and an “I see” periodically as I talked.

“Anyway, the death was not a suicide,” I concluded. “No matter how you look at it.”

Barrett was a good sport. “We’ll wait for the verdict, of course,” he said. “We’ll honor the decision of the inquest, naturally. But from what you’ve told me, I think Mrs. Gresham can begin to think about what she’ll do with another million dollars.”

Less ten percent, I thought. My cut. “I’ll share the news with her,” I said.

It’s more than a six-hour drive from Boston to Florence’s “cottage” in Bar Harbor, Maine, most of it along the unbearably monotonous Maine turnpike, which cuts straight and flat northward across the sandy summer landscape. Scrub pine, pin oak, occasional glimpses of rural poverty, and that endless flatness.

Heat mirages shimmered on the highway and evaporated as I neared them. The miles burned away, too, and for once I found myself in no hurry to get there. I stopped at a Howard Johnson’s outside of Portland for coffee, and lingered there longer than I needed to, trying to sort out my thoughts. I had been putting Florence off since I had what she and I had tacitly agreed to call my “little accident” atop Charity’s Point. By the time I had limped out of the hospital, she had moved to her summer digs, and when I talked to her on the phone long distance, as I had several times, I simply reassured her that I’d fill her in when I could get up there.

I contemplated withholding my knowledge of Win from her, at least for a while. But I knew I couldn’t do that. I had no right. My attorney’s ethics wouldn’t permit it. And, anyway, Florence couldn’t be fooled.

I found her tending the big pots of geraniums that she had lined up along the low brick wall that surrounded the big terrace attached to the back of her house. Her hair was bound up in a big orange kerchief, and she wore baggy jeans and a white sleeveless blouse bearing several smudges on the front. When I greeted her she blew a wisp of hair up off her forehead and said, “Well, you don’t look any the worse for wear.”

“You’re looking pretty good yourself,” I said.

“For a decrepit old hag,” she said. She turned to John, who was standing deferentially to the side. “Build one of your mint juleps for Mr. Coyne, please,” she said. She cocked her head to measure the angle of the sun. “Seems to have passed over the yardarm. You might as well bring me one, too.”

John nodded and disappeared. I sat in a white wicker chair and studied the ocean. Florence returned her attention to her flowers. “You have to pinch out the old blossoms,” she said without turning to me. “Remove the dead heads so the new ones will come in. Otherwise the plant will make seeds, not flowers. Take out the old blooms and it’ll keep making new ones. All it wants to do is to reproduce itself.”

“You ought to wear gloves when you work,” I said.

“You ought to mind your business, Brady Coyne,” she retorted. “Besides, I like the geranium smell on my fingers. It’s not a delicate, perfumy fragrance. Not subtle at all. But it’s strong and alive, and I like it.”

When John brought out the drinks Florence took a seat beside me. She lifted her glass and held it to me.

“Your health, Brady.”

“And yours, Florence.”

We sipped. Florence placed her glass on the table between us and turned to look at me.

“I’m prepared to hear what it is you have been trying to avoid telling me,” she said.

“Now, Florence. I haven’t…”

“I can take it. Just tell me.”

So I told her. I told her that George may have jumped, but that the official verdict would probably not be suicide. I told her that the one-million-dollar insurance settlement would be forthcoming.

And I downed my drink, took a deep breath, and I told her about Win. I told her everything I knew about Win.

When I had finished I watched her face. She gazed out over the ocean for several minutes. Then she turned to look at me. Tears glistened in her eyes.

“I knew all that,” she said. “I just knew it.”

“Yes, I guess you did.”

“Those postcards.”

“Yes. And do you remember the address book you found in George’s room? That mysterious list of numbers? Those numbers were post office boxes and zip codes. Places where Win could be reached. He and George were in touch with each other the whole time. One of those zip codes matched the one of your postcard from Ketchikan, Alaska. Another was for Pittsburg, New Hampshire. When I studied those numbers I was able to see a zip code in them. And I remembered that George had a zip code directory in his room. The rest was easy.”

“And you didn’t think you could do detective work,” she said, smiling.

Florence was silent for a long time. When she spoke, her voice was soft, and her eyes still lingered on the ocean’s horizon.

“What will you do with your windfall, Brady?”

“The insurance money? Oh, the boys will be off to college soon. That’ll take a big chunk of it. And they say the trout fishing in New Zealand is out of this world. I think I’ll try to sneak away in September.”

She turned to face me, and I saw some of the old snap in her blue eyes. “Before you go, you have some work to do.”

“I do?”

“Yes. There’s the matter of my will. I seem to have a dilemma. My only heir is now dead. But a previously dead heir turns out to be alive. On the other hand, he is a fugitive from justice, as they say. Now. Should he ever be captured, he’ll need the very best legal defense available.” She squinted at me. “That must be provided for. However, he doesn’t seem to be the most logical candidate to manage the Gresham estate. Or, I guess, to inherit it. That leaves us with a problem.”

She touched a little button under the table and John appeared. “Another drink, madam?”

“Yes.”

“How will you want to handle it?” I asked her after John left.

“I don’t know. I want to give it some thought. I want you to give it some thought, too. Give me some options. Not today, and not tomorrow. Later in the summer, after I’ve had a chance to digest all of this. You plan to come up and spend four or five days. Bring lots of pencils and those big pads of yellow paper. While you’re at it, you might as well bring a friend with you.”

“A friend?”

“We certainly won’t want to work all the time,” said Florence coyly. “Thank you,” she said, as John appeared.

I took my fresh drink from John and sipped deeply. “I’ll bring the pencils and paper, and I’ll do the research,” I said. “I don’t know about the friend.”

And I stood up and carried my mint julep out onto the lawn so that Florence wouldn’t argue with me.

Frank Paradise had a new scheme, something which he said would “revolutionize the word-processing industry.” I was booked on a flight to Washington for the second week in August.

Jenny DeVincent’s husband settled for generous visitation rights to the litter of labs, with a special provision for the duck-hunting season. His lawyer and I finalized that agreement over fresh bluefish fillets at Legal Seafood’s in Chestnut Hill. Mine was delicious. But it still wasn’t steak.

Julie requested a two-week leave in September for her honeymoon trip to London. I gave her four weeks—the same four weeks I would be in New Zealand. “We’ll just close down the damn office.” I said when she began to protest. “If we’re lucky, we’ll lose a few of the more boring clients while we’re gone.”

At The Ruggles School, Bartley Elliott took the month of July to vacation in Canada. Alexander Binh stayed on to supervise the summer maintenance crew. Warren Baker was coaching an American Legion team. I took Billy to one of the games. Warren greeted me warmly and clapped Billy on the shoulder. “We’re winning more than we’re losing,” he said. “Nice bunch of kids here.”

Jenny Wolcott resigned from the school. She was taking a fellowship to study for her doctorate in Athens. I was sorry I hadn’t had the chance to wish her well.

The police decided not to prosecute Cap Spender. His parents came for him at the end of the term. They loaded all of his stuff into their big station wagon and drove him home to Pennsylvania. They already had him enrolled in a Main Line prep school, a little closer to home.

I treated Charlie McDevitt to dinner, to repay him for all he’d done for me. We hit the spaghetti special at the Howard Johnson’s on the Fresh Pond rotary in Cambridge. All you could eat for a buck ninety-nine. Charlie swore he’d get me for that.

I picked a cloudless night to drive to North Cove Beach. I wanted to watch the moon rise from a place high above the world. I had to climb Charity’s Point one last time. To vent my folly, as Rina might have said.

Turn the page to continue reading from the Brady Coyne Mysteries

G
UILLAUME LUNDI MUTTERED, “MERDE.”
An eight and a five. With a sigh, he crooked his forefinger and beckoned to the dealer. A black queen slid across the green felt table.

Lundi leaned back and rolled his shoulders up along the sides of his neck as his cards and the ten-dollar chip were raked away. He was tired. He wanted only to sleep. And if he had to gamble, he would have preferred roulette, where he could play at nearly fifty-fifty odds.