The first time I heard Phoebe Kelly's name I told her that it had a happy sound. That had been in the Registry of Deeds office, where she worked. She laughed. At Cobblestones, Phoebe was sitting at a table over drinks with three other women as they chattered away beneath a hanging Tiffany lamp.
Monday Night Football
wasn't on yet; the big TVs were tuned to some kind of music awards show. Seeing me, Phoebe waved, and I joined them. “Alex, you know my coworkersâKathy, Janelle, Roxanne.”
We exchanged hellos. I'd met them all briefly before, in the busy office pool. There was a close-knit group of half a dozen or so who socialized together. Jennifer, the woman whose retirement dinner it had been, was gone. I saw no sign of the boss. On one of the TVs behind the horseshoe bar, a relic of the seventies glam rock scene was reading a teleprompter, trying to balance on six-inch platform soles and not put too many wrinkles in his latest face job as he presented a lifetime achievement prize to someone half his age. “I thought the music awards were on last month,” I said.
“And next month,” Kathy said, “and the one after that. Everybody gives them these days.”
“Yeah, you're up for one in the running-your-mouth category,” Roxanne gibed.
Kathy made a cat hiss and clawed the air. Even money said the boss had picked up the tab and beat a retreat for home, eager to escape the estrogen wars.
“Do you want the game?” Phoebe asked me. “We can get the bartender to switch channels.”
“I can wait till nine,” I said.
“I thought maybe you'd want the pregame stuff.”
“Jock foreplay,” Roxanne said. “Guys are wham bam in the bedroom, but they sure can delay pleasure when it comes to sports. You notice that?”
“The Super Bowl,” said Kathy, “my boyfriend starts watching the day before.”
“Same here, and believe me, it isn't because he's hoping to catch some witch flashing her titty.”
All eyes went to me, as if I were being asked for a rebuttal. I shrugged. “What can I say? It's the NFL Kama Sutra.”
Topics changed, and pretty soon one of the women asked, “Are you really working for that killer from the carnival?”
“Well, he's the suspect.”
“I guess it's a job, huh?” Kathy said sympathetically. “Boy, I don't envy you.”
“They should throw away the key.”
“Why don't we have the death penalty anymore?”
“Because it's âinhumane,'” Roxanne said and rolled her eyes.
“
Life
is inhumane,” said Janelle, speaking for the first time. “Our job is to make the best of it.” She was the spiritual one in the office, Phoebe had told me, always reading books by the guru of the month and going on meditation retreats. (“For her, going to âclub med' means sitting in a full lotus for six hours at a whack.”)
“Forget that. People like this guy they caught aren't human. I say fry him.”
When the others had left, Phoebe looked chagrined. “I didn't plan on that. I'd told them about our date last night, how nice it had been and
everything, and then ⦠that. They had a million questions. I mentioned you'd been hired. Was that okay?”
“I didn't take it personally. And I wasn't really planning to watch the game. I just wasn't man enough to admit it publicly.”
She took my hand. “Is it tough on you, though? Working for a lawyer who wants to get that guy out of jail?”
“Let me put it in perspective. At the Registry of Deeds, you charge a filing fee, right? When someone closes on a property?”
“Sure. A hundred seventy-five dollars. To record the deed. The state requires it.”
I nodded. “And some of the people are going to run into difficulty at some pointâmaybe for reasons they can't helpâand when they miss payments, the bank can foreclose.”
“Well, yeah, but that's the system.”
“Yep. Like the right to representation and a fair trial. No?”
She nodded slowly. “I guess.”
“Anyway,” I said, “he won't be getting out on bail. But enough shop talk. We're both off the clock. How about dessert?”
“You go ahead, I'm stuffed.”
I ordered Black Forest cake, which came in a piece the size of a cuckoo clock, and the waitress was savvy enough to bring two forks, though Phoebe resisted until there was only one bite left on the plate. “Waste not, want not,” she said and speared it. “Appearing soon on a panty line near you.”
“How soon? How near?”
“Shut up, you. I've got a black-and-blue on my ass where that crazy clown pinched me. Maybe
he
should be in jail.”
Afterward, we sat in my car in the parking lot, sharing tidbits about our respective days. “That really freaked me out last night, Alex. Seeing that woman. I mean, being there and ⦠I just never ⦔ She pushed down the door lock.
“It was upsetting,” I agreed. “Are you okay now?”
She snuggled into the curve of my arm. “It set all kinds of things running through my head. Who was she? How did she get herself in a situation where that could happen? And the weird, silly stuff, too. How my mother always used to tell us to be sure we were wearing clean underwear
and nylons, because you never know ⦠Not that it matters, I suppose. The clean underwear. I don't guess there's a sign in the morgue that says, âYour failure to plan ahead is not our responsibility.'”
“I've never seen one.”
“And then I got remembering Todd and how he had just phoned me from the airport and said he was on his way home, a drive he'd made so many times, and then ⦠It was probably the one in a thousand cases where wearing a seat belt might've cost a life instead of saving one. If he'd been able to get himself outâthough the doctor said the heart attack probably had taken him before he even hit the tree.” She broke off. In the reflected gleam of the vapor lamps, her eyes were suddenly very bright. I turned my face into her hair and stroked her shoulder.
She had told me about it on our first dateâjust to let me know, she said. Wanting me to see where she'd been and what she came with. The one other man she'd dated and had begun to like, she had not told right away. They'd dated a handful of times, and then she'd told him. “In two flips of a fish's fin, he was history. I never heard from him again. Maybe he thought I was a black widow.” So she'd learned she needed to be right up front about her marriage. When I called her a second time, she sounded surprised, and then explained. Maybe as some show of good faith, I'd told her about Lauren, and that had led to telling about how I'd come to lose my police jobâwhich reminded me why I tended to avoid going into any of it. It was like digging in the ground and reaching to pull up a small root only to discover it was part of a whole underground network of roots that resisted being tugged up but then came, spreading out, stirring up even the ground beneath your feet, which had seemed so solid just a moment before.
Phoebe cleared her throat and went on. “We'd had this life plan. After we both got through college, I'd work, and Todd would study and take the examsâthose endless examsâand he'd become an actuary and get a really good job. And we did. We were real penny-saved-penny-earned types. Our house here was a starter. The plan called for Concord or Lincoln, and a family ⦔ She shook her head slowly and blinked, and several tears overflowed. I brushed her cheek with my thumb. “It didn't work out the way it was supposed to. But mostly ⦔ She cleared her
throat again and drew back to look at me. “Mostly, you know what last night has had me thinking, Alex? About us.”
“You and me?”
“How we're pretty different. Oh, you're really hardworking too, I don't mean that.”
“Let's not be
too
hasty.”
“I was thinking that we're both really dedicated to our jobs, but your work involves you sometimes with bad things that happen, and with the ⦠wellâ”
“The bad people who do them?”
“I was thinking that, yeah.”
“My job can be dull as dirt. Most of the time, in fact. Don't tell Atlantic Casualty Insurance I said that, but it is. The people are the thing that makes it worthwhile. The rest is just ⦠work.”
She dabbed at her eyes again. “Well, I'm trying to keep the blinders off and see that all those other plans and dreams were only thatâplans. That other lives, other dreams are possible. I've just got to get to where I believe it.”
Her cell phone began to sing Beethoven's Fifth. She answered and listened. “I'm with Alex,” she said, giving me a glance. One of her girlfriends, I gathered. She had the phone programmed to play different songs for different friends. I don't think I'd been with her yet when someone wasn't calling. “Yes,” Phoebe said. And “Okay.” And “Yes. Okay. I'll call you soon.”
Outside, we made plans to see each other on Thursday, three nights away. “The moon will be full that night,” she said. “The corn moon. You know about that? The full moon closest to the autumnal equinox is the harvest moon, but if that moon occurs in October, the September moon is called the corn moon. I think I got that right.”
“It'll be nice. I'll turn off my phone if you turn off yours.”
“Deal.”
“No interruptions, it'll be just us and the corn moon.”
As if to seal a bargain, I kissed her. Her mouth tasted of coconut and chocolate. I tried to make the kiss linger awhile. She drew back first, her eyes finding mine. “Be patient with me, Alex. I'm trying.”
I squeezed her hand. “There isn't any rush. You be patient with me. I'm trying, too.”
I walked her to her car and watched her drive off; then I went back on the clock.
There were about thirty people gathered by the gleam of a kerosene lantern outside Pop Sonders's motor home. Some had set up folding lawn chairs and canvas camp stools, but most stood, their cigarettes glowing here and there in the mild dark. Nicole was perched on the step of a nearby trailer with a notebook and pencil. Seeing me, she waved hello. Pop introduced me to several of the nearer people, and I said hi again to Penny Bergfors, Red Fogarty, and Tito Alvarez, whom I had met that morning. Pop hadn't heard anything more from the city, so he wasn't optimistic that the show was going to be allowed to reopen anytime soon. He said he had sent home some of his people who lived in the area. The others would stay, on salary. Even so, the group seemed restless as he addressed them.
Most of the talk focused on practical issues that didn't much concern me, but he gave them opportunity to weigh in, too, and the exercise increased my admiration of Sonders. They were a motley crew for sure, ranging in age from about eighteen on up to forty and more, with men far outnumbering women, but he gave everyone who cared to a chance to speak. Their language was a kind of American plain-speak, flavored with slang and profanity, and undercurrents of the shared knowledge that
they were all part of a group that excluded me, an awareness I couldn't miss in the occasional glances I gotânot hostile, exactly, but curious and excluding. When the meeting had about run its course, someone said, “What's the story on the dog?”
“Speedo's just fine, Pete,” Nicole said.
“You think it was done on purpose?”
“Kind of hard to shoot a greyhound if you're not aiming to,” Sonders said. “But let's give it the benefit of the doubt and say it was bad aim. Kids are kids. But just so's we're clear, let's keep our eyes peeled and our noses clean. I don't want nobody hurt, or any incidents that put us in trouble with the law.”
“Seems like we're already there, ain't we?”
Sonders used it as his segue. He waved me over. “This here is Alex Rasmussen, the investigator who's working with the attorney. You'll see him around. Some of you already talked to him. If he's got questions, give him what he needs.”
“What if
we
got questions?” The voice came from the shadows, and then the speaker stepped into the glow of the lantern.
“Well?” Pop said.
He was the large bald man whom I had seen watching me that morning. “What the hell do we need with some gumshoe? Aren't the cops enough? Christ, the way they were clanking around here last night you'd think it was a goddamn brass band.”
“The cops have Troy Pepper in jail and are convinced he's their man,” said Pop. “I don't see any incentive for them to change that.”
“Well, goddammit, if Pepper did it, screw him. Let him rot there. As for this bird, I'd prefer our meetings be like usual, without no outsiders hanging around.”
I looked at Pop. “I can fade.”
He ignored it. “Anybody else?”
When no one spoke up, he said, “All right, we're done here. Go on, then, and everyone get some shut-eye. I'll let you all know soon as I hear anything.”
When the carnies had drifted off to their living quarters, Pop waved Nicole and me into his motor home and motioned me to have a seat. Nicole sat at the computer. He grabbed his corncob pipe and took the
patched recliner. “It ain't personal,” he said. “Or widespread. Every group's got its resident grump.”
“Who is he?”
“Ray Embry. He's our funnyman.”
“Rogo the Klown?”
“That's him.”
“No wonder I was laughing so hard on the inside.”
“Really he can be very funny,” Nicole said earnestly. “When he's in a good mood, he can have you in stitches.”
Just then there was a soft knock and the door opened and a thin old black man wearing a gray suit coat and a porkpie hat came in. He handed Pop a brown envelope, then turned and saw me. He looked to be about Pop's age, or even more, but he had an erect, dignified bearing. He lifted off his hat. “Sorry, I didn't know they was company”
“Alex Rasmussen,” Pop said, “this piece of work here is my spiritual advisor, Moses Maxwell.”
“Delighted to make your acquaintance, Mr. Rasmussen.” The old man's fingers had a brittle, bony feel when we shook hands, but his smile put warm creases in the freckled skin around his eyes. Under the suit coat he had on a maroon V-neck sweater over a pale blue shirt and a tie, clothes that appeared well worn but neat. A little soul patch of whiskers sprouted beneath his lower lip.
Nicole said, “Pop, I just wanted to say something else about Ray, so Mr. Rasmussen knows. He really is a good clown. Or anyway he was. He used to work in a big circus.”
Pop rolled his head toward her. “She's sensitive. Overly. When the little paper clip icon comes up on the computer screen with suggestions, she feels bad ignoring him:”
“He's got those expressive eyes,” Nicole said in her own defense.
“Nicky he's a paper clip, for God's sake. And not even a
real
one.”
“I know that.”
“But thanks for your input. Your testimonial for Rogo the Klown is noted.”
She blushed, smiling. “You're welcome.”
She printed the page she'd been working on and put the sheet into a
manila folder. “There's the notes, Pop. I'll be on my way now Gânight, Mr. Maxwell. G'night, Mr. Rasmussen. See you in the morning, Pop.”
“Don't let the bedbugs bite.” Pop tapped her lightly on the arm with the folder, and she went out.
Maxwell took the vacated seat to form the third point of a triangle. Pop said he wasn't kidding about Maxwell being his advisor and that we could talk candidly. I caught them up to date on my doings, including speaking with the murder victim's friend and attending the bail hearing. “The court sees Pepper as a risk to skip. Do either of you see that?”
Pop Sonders shook his head. “His life belongings are in that trailer parked back there, and there's no way he'd get that out of here. Anyway, no, I don't think he'd even try.” He explained again the close-knit community, and having seen tonight's meeting, I was inclined to agree.
I said, “The police detail last nightâwhat time did it start?”
“Started at five for a six-hour detail.”
“You paid for it?”
“Yep, my dime. City requires it, but I'd do it even if they didn't.”
“I understand you got Fred Meecham's name from one of the detail cops. Do you remember which one?”
“The one who was in on the bust with those dicks from homicide.”
“Officer Duross was his name,” the black man said quietly, emphasizing the first syllable. “Paul Duross.”
“Moses does the
New York Times
crossword puzzle every day” said Sonders, as if it explained everything.
I looked at him, recalling something. “
The
Moses Maxwell?”
“Well now, that all depends.”
“You played with the Count Basie band.”
The old man looked impressed. “Shoot, you got you some ears on you, Mr. Rasmussen.”
“If they were a few years longer, I'd tell you I filled them with your sound at the old Commodore Ballroom, but that'd be more wishful than truthful. I do have you on a record somewhere at home. But not with Basie.”
“My quintet, probâly. Count needed another piano player like Valentino needed lady friends. 'Sides, he had that smooth sound. When I
played, I had this left hand that liked to sneak away and boogie-woogie. The record must be a seventy-eightâit
feels
that long ago.”
“It's an LP, and you've got Oscar Santos on tenor and Stanley Reade on bass,” I said, hauling out the lineup from memory the way you could name the infield of a ball team from twenty years ago if you didn't stop to try. Which I did with the other musicians and couldn't grab handles.
“Kenny James on skins and Scott Kendall, vocals,” said the old man. He looked at Sonders. “Gen'leman's definitely got him some memory.”
“Of course, I could never remember my wedding anniversary” I said. “You still play?”
“You still married?”
I grinned. “Got it.”
He raised his hands and twiddled long fingers that were bent like crabapple twigs. “Arthritis. I push a pencil now”
“And remembers stuff,” said Pop.
Maxwell admitted that he was an unofficial historian for the show “Emphasis on âunofficial.' And that âspiritual advisor' riff you got to take loosely.” He drew a pewter flask from his coat pocket and held it up. “I brought the spirits. You, sir? Brandy?” He didn't offer it to Pop. I figured it would keep the Black Forest cake company in my stomach. He filled the pewter cap, and I took it. He lifted the flask. “To the Count.”
It wasn't five-star, or French, but the heat warmed all the way down.
“I'll leave you two to bullyrag awhile,” Pop said. “I want to walk a quick rounds, make sure there's no lingering grudges among the crew”
“He works hard,” I said when Sonders had gone.
“Basie used to say, âThey don't pay me for playing.' The bread was for the travelin', sittin' on the bus for long miles, the hotels and lost suitcases and bad food. He always said the playing was a gas, he did that for free. Pop's like that with the show. Shoot, he'd give that part away But the hassles, the cash worries ⦠and this shuckin' and jivin' with city hall? Nuh-uh.”
“That envelope you slipped himâcash?”
“He asked me to go withdraw some from the bank. He's got expenses mountin' up. Pop's drink these days is
ant
-acid, case you noticed. And this here, too.” He leaned and slid open the top drawer of
the desk and took out a small plastic pharmacy bottle, which he handed me. It was Prilosec, prescribed for peptic ulcers. He put the bottle back and shut the drawer. “And now this poor dead girl being found here ⦠that sure ain't any too cool.”
“You say âfound' hereânot killed here?”
“Did I?”
“What's your take on that?”
“Well, I've never had much truck with Mr. Pepper, one way or another. He tends to blow solo. But he always did his job. I hope he didn't do it, for his sake and Pop's, but I'm gonna reserve judgment till I know more.”
It seemed like good policy. After a pause, he said, “This your hometown, Mr. Rasmussen?”
“It's home, though I've gotten away once or twice. Compliments of Uncle Sam.”
“Touring with the band is how I come to see this city for the first time. We had a gig in a hotel downtown, but we couldn't flop there on account of ⦠you know. We ended up at a place called the Venice.”
“Jim Crow died hard,” I said.
“Didn't he though? Some white folks didn't like it much, either, but it took a lot of people of both colors to do something about it. Still does, just more colors now Anyway in spite of that, this town's always had a certain vibe to it that I like. There were some good rooms to play too. The Hi-Hat was one, the Moulin Rouge, the Laurier Club. I heard Billie Holiday played her last date here 'fore she got sick and passed. I remember I got me a pearl gray Borsalino here one time. Used to be a good hatter's over on Middlesex Street.”
“There used to be a dozen of them. And millinery shops, too.”
“Ha, there's a word no one knows anymore. A crossword puzzle word. In a way, a carnival is in tune with this kind of town. Like you seem to be, too. A private op who actually drives out and asks questions and doesn't just set poking keys?”
It had taken me a while, but I realized that in his oblique, courteous way Maxwell was checking me out. I smiled. “You've got me confused with a âsecurity consultant.' No, I'm old enough to take that the way you
mean it. I've got two fedoras sitting on cedar blocks in my coat closet, waiting for the season. And I'm going to give this job the best I've got.”
When he'd poured me another little nip, I asked him how long he'd known Pop Sonders.
“I knew his daddy so we go back. But traveling with the show? Six, seven years. When my wife died, and it got boring sitting around an apartment in St. Pete watching
Wheel of Fortune
, I decided. So when the show came south one winter, I asked could I tag along. That spiritual advisor line's a good one, but truth is, Pop can't drink anymore, account of his stomach. What I do to earn my keep is to have an eye on small expenses, things like that.”
Pop returned and declared things were quiet. Moses Maxwell said he reckoned he would turn in. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Rasmussen.”