Swan Dive - Jeremiah Healy (12 page)

I had a quick lunch at a waterside clam shack and
called my answering service from a pay phone. I had a message from
somebody named Hector Rodriguez, who declined to leave his number but
said he would call back. No message from Murphy, which I didn’t
find surprising. No message from Nancy either, which I did find
disappointing. I hung up, got back in the car, and drove to
Marblehead.

Felicia Arnold’s receptionist smiled up at me.

"Yes?"

"My name’s John Cuddy. I was here last
Friday."

“
Yes?"

“
I believe Ms. Arnold wants to see me."

"She didn’t—"

“
It’s about Mr. Marsh. Roy Marsh."

"Oh." She seemed more confused than upset.
"I’m sorry Ms. Arnold isn’t available."

"Look, I’m not trying to make your job any
harder than it has to be, but Mr. Marsh was murdered and I really
think Ms. Arnold will want to talk to me. Can you call her
somewhere?"

The receptionist started to say, "She said . . .
," then motioned me to a chair. "Please have a seat while I
try to reach her."

She dialed too many numbers for an inside line, which
relieved me. I had no desire to dance Paulie the Pugilist around the
Kurdistan rug.

The receptionist hung up. She stood and beckoned me
to her, then turned and led me ten steps toward the conference room.
"Ms. Arnold wants to see you at home."

She pointed through the picture window to an
understated but perfectly positioned villa across the harbor on
Marblehead Neck. "It’s that one."

I thought about the view Arnold’s own office would
have as well. “She can watch her house from here or her desk."

"She says it gives
her something to work for." The woman suddenly blushed and asked
me to excuse her.

* * *

There was a Mercedes sports coupe, top down, in the
driveway. A fieldstone path led around to the back of the house and a
large in-ground swimming pool. Felicia Arnold lay stretched out on
one of two chaise lounges that had never sported a Zayre’s price
tag. She wore a European-style string bikini and Porsche sunglasses,
which she tilted down ever so slightly as I approached her. On the
cocktail table next to her was a portable telephone and two
bottom-of-the-glass water rings.

"Mr. Cuddy. Good timing. The afternoon was just
growing tiresome."

"Last night not enough for you?"

She slid the glasses back into place. "Was it
for you?"

"Plenty." I sat down on the other chair.
The surface was slick, sweaty. Up close, her legs appeared waxy
smooth, no varicose veins or blemishes of any kind. She had striking
muscle definition, even in her upper arms and shoulders. "The
police said you directed them to me."

“
My duty as an officer of the court."

"You don’t seem too crushed by your client’s
death."

"Perhaps I’m not the sentimental type."

"Maybe—"

"What the hell do you want!"

I stood up and turned to the voice. Paul Troller,
coming out of the house. He wore a leopardskin bikini bottom with a
desk-job spare bulging over the front and a lot of baby oil catching
the sunlight. Even so, I pegged him as a light heavyweight. There
were two tall drinks in his hands, and a match for Arnold’s
sunglasses rode up above his hairline.

"I said—"

"I heard you, Paulie. This your house or hers?"

Troller thought about throwing the glasses, but
instead set them down near the pool’s edge, clinking them a little
and sloshing some booze in his rage. He started to stride manfully
over to us.

Arnold said, "Paul, I don’t want any trouble."

"He has no right barging in here."

"He’s not ‘barging in,' Paul. I asked Mr.
Cuddy to come over."

"You . . . asked him?"

"That’s right. And I would like to confer with
him privately now."

"Felicia, my God, he’s wanted for a murder."

"Two murders," I said.

Troller’s eyes seemed to have the same problem with
light as Marsh’s had. He looked at me as if he needed just one more
little push.

Arnold saw it too. "Paul, please. Leave us
alone."

Troller just about bit it back. "Give me your
car keys."

"No."

He looked down at her, but behind the glasses I
couldn’t read her eyes.

"Felicia, you drove me over here, remember?"

"Like it was only an hour ago, Paul. It’s a
beautiful day. Why don’t you jog home?"

She had the same control over her voice that she did
over her body. I couldn’t say the same for Troller, whose lips were
as blue and shivering as a five-year-old’s after a day in the surf.
He turned and choked out, "See you tomorrow at the office,"
before stomping back into the house.

I sat down again. "You ever hear of the National
Labor Relations Board?"

She smiled. "Paul’s position isn’t exactly
unionized."

And my next line was supposed to be "And what
exactly is Paul’s position?" but instead I said, "You and
Paulie there are among the few people who knew Marsh and I had mixed
it up."

"And therefore?"

"Somebody who knew that set me up to look like
his killer."

"Oh, John—"

"I prefer ‘Mr. Cuddy.' "

She took her glasses all the way off and stared at
me.

"Why?"

"Maybe I’m not crazy about the way you treat
people you call by their first names."

“
You are a bit different, aren’t you?"

"Let’s talk about Marsh instead."

"Why bother? He’s dead, so the divorce case is
over."

"The murder case isn’t."

“
Oh, a lot of people could have known about you and
Marsh. His girlfriend the nurse, his friends--"

“
Assuming he had any--"

"——the police, Christides, Hanna . . ."
Arnold stopped.

"Because Marsh had no will, Hanna gets
everything, doesn’t she?"

"Roy was rather stupid in a lot of ways, Mr.
Cuddy."

"Tell me about them."

"Look, anyone who lives on the coast up here
tends to hear stories."

"What kind of stories?"

"About fishermen whose insurance rates have gone
so high they can’t pay the premiums. But the banks that lent them
the money to buy the boats won’t let them leave the docks without
full coverage. The real estate developers are bidding wharf space so
high God herself couldn’t keep up with it. So one night, one dark,
rainy night, the lobsterman brings in a few bales instead of a few
pots and clears in five hours what it’d take him five years to earn
legitimately."

"Marsh wasn’t exactly your overwhelmed
fisherman."

"Everybody has pressure on them. Marsh gave me a
handsome retainer, Mr. Cuddy. In cash. Drugs? I didn’t ask. He
would have settled, and I . . .Christides would have gotten Hanna a
nice nest egg to start a new life. So instead you have to play El Cid
with Roy, and he looks for love in at least one wrong place and ends
up dead. Forever. If you just could have waited till he was over the
spouse-lock, nobody--"

"The spouse-lock?"

"Yes. It’s a term some pop psychologists throw
around. It means being fixated on the spouse you’re about to lose,
or already have lost through death or divorce."

I couldn’t avoid thinking about Beth as Arnold went
on.

"Roy didn’t care about Hanna in the loving
sense anymore. Maybe he never did. But he wasn’t about to let her
go. Not until he was finished with her. I was like that with my
husband. He died, out drinking with the boys and killed in a car
crash. I was twenty-one years old. Fortunately we hadn’t started a
family yet, and I damn well wasn’t interested in starting one
without him. He had a whole-life policy that saw me through law
school without any debts. That way I could start on my own, instead
of for some potbellied lecher who was the only lawyer interested in
hiring a ‘female associate’ back when I graduated. But I couldn’t
get my husband off my mind for months afterwards, even though it was
his fault that I was alone and without him."

I was still thinking about Beth when Arnold said,
"Are you all right?"

I said, "Yeah, fine."

"You look a bit weary. How about a drink?"

"No, thanks."

"Oh, come on. I’ll bet we have a lot in
common."

I looked at her a little too long. "No, I don’t
think so." I stood to go.

"At least bring me the drinks that Paul made."

I walked toward the pool edge. She said, "You
know, Paul really couldn’t have had anything to do with ‘setting
you up,' as you say."

I thought about Chris giving him an alibi, but said,
"And why’s that?"

"Well, for one thing, he’s too proud of his
boxing prowess. If it had been him, he would have made sure you had
seen him, so you’d know that he had beaten you."

I bent over and picked up the drinks. "Any other
reason?"

"Yes. I litigated a lot of criminal cases before
I gravitated to divorce practice. His attitude is all wrong. If he
had done it, he already would have tasted his revenge and acted smug,
not angry, toward you this afternoon."

I walked back, setting the glasses on her table. She
said, "I liked the way you handled yourself with Paul today."

“
Macho posturing."

She laughed, deep in her throat the way some older
women can. "Macho posturing can have its place. And charms."

Her left hand had been lying relaxed on her flat
stomach. Now the fingertips slowly began strumming near her navel.
The spider, mending a weak spot in the web.

"You know you ought to be more careful around
Paulie, Ms. Arnold. There’s no worse enemy than one you’ve
trained yourself."

"Really?"

"While you think you’re teaching him
everything he knows, he’s learning everything you know."

Her expression hardened. "Mr. Cuddy, I’ve kept
myself looking like this and feeling fine by learning a lot myself.
Over the years I watched plenty of women slide from bombshells into
craters. I do aerobics and Nautilus three times a week, and I can
recline-press as much as the average fifteen-year-old boy. When I
need your advice, I’ll ask for it."

I turned to go and went about ten steps before I
said, "Oh, one more thing."

She’d pulled off half of one of the drinks already.
"What is it?"

"How’d you happen to know Roy Marsh?"

"Oh," she said,
thumb and index dipping toward the slice of lime in her drink and
voice supremely casual, "He was my insurance agent."

* * *

From Marblehead I drove south, angling toward the
Marsh house. I wanted to have a talk with Sheilah Kelley, and I
remembered Chris mentioning she was off on Tuesdays. There was a car
in the driveway, but it wasn’t her little brown Toyota. The
brightly polished red Buick was at least ten years old. I pulled to
the curb three houses down and walked back up, ringing the bell in
front this time.

A burly older man in a lumberjack’s shirt yanked
open the door. He had bushy eyebrows, a longish crew cut, and
unfashionable muttonchop sideburns. He gave me a disgusted look and
said, "We don’t want any," as he swung the door closed.

I put my foot at the jamb and used the palm of my
hand to cushion the door’s arcing momentum. My greeter balled his
right into a fist and was setting himself when I heard Nurse
Sheilah’s voice from inside call, "Who is it, Dad?"

He yelled to her but kept his attention on me. "Just
some salesman who’s gonna need new teeth."

I shifted my rear leg for balance and reached for my
identification, saying, "Your daughter knows me, Mr. Kelley. I’m
a private investigator."

Sheilah came up behind him. Her eyes were bleary, her
nose so red it looked windburned. She said, "What do you want
now?"

Kelley wedged himself between her and me.

“
You’re the guy the cops wanted. The one who
killed Marsh and the hooker."

"Mr. Kelley, I didn’t kill them. But I was
involved, and I want to know why. Now we can stand here like this
till the leaves turn, or we can talk quietly inside. Your choice."

Kelley wanted to tty a punch, but his daughter slid
her hand inside his free arm and then tightened her fingers over his
bicep. "Dad, it’d be easier if we just let him in for a
while."

"We got a lot of packing to do yet. I wanna be
clear of here before the traffic starts."

"C’mon."

"I don’t wanna be sitting on four ninety-five
all day."

"Dad, please."

Kelley let go of the door and shook his daughter off
as I came in and followed them down into the sunken living room. It
looked disordered, but not as though somebody was packing. More like
somebody had only half straightened things after a wild party.