Authors: William G. Tapply
“Were you two a part of this?”
“What do you mean?” said Brenda.
“I mean, when I came here the first time, you seemed genuinely concerned for your husband. You said you didn’t know what could’ve happened to him, and I believed you. And you,” I said, turning to Melanie, “when I went to the office that time it was the same. But now I see you here, ready to flee the country with these two guys, obviously partners.”
“It wasn’t like that,” said Brenda. “I had no idea what was happening. Until a couple of days ago, that is.”
“When Derek showed up.”
“Yes. He said he was hiding. In his own house, for Pete’s sake. Even then, I really didn’t understand. Until this morning.”
“Same here,” Melanie said. “Oh, Arthur had me dress up in that dumb wig and pretend to be Brenda. He said it was a practical joke. You think I knew how American Investments made its money? I was a secretary. They never told me anything. All I know is that Arthur liked to buy me things. We had some fun. This trip we were supposed to be going on—a holiday, that’s all.” She rattled the pills in the palm of her hand. “So Brenda and I are going on a holiday anyway. After you take your pills.”
“It’s really not necessary,” I said. “I think it’s neat, what you’re doing. A tidy sort of justice. You don’t have to give me sleeping pills.”
She handed them to me. “Swallow them.”
I popped them into my mouth, tucked them into my cheek, and made a big show of swallowing. Brenda and Melanie smiled at me. “Now,” said Brenda, “swallow the pills, please.”
I started to protest, but the tablets had begun to dissolve in my mouth, and their bitterness activated my salivary glands. I had an urgent impulse to swallow, which I finally obeyed. I felt the pills slide down.
I leaned back in my. chair. We all had some more cocoa. Brenda and Melanie kept watching me. I started to tell them about what had happened to Les Katz. I found myself repeating the phrase, “Les was a good guy. A good guy.” I forgot what I was going to say next.
“You might want to curl up on the sofa,” said Melanie, extending her hand toward me. I reached for it. My arm felt heavy and limp. It seemed miles long. I saw her smile, a beautiful, kind smile. An angel, I thought. Then her face split into two faces, and each of them split again, as if I were looking into a trick mirror. All of her faces were smiling as they receded into a fuzzy gray. …
It was dark when I woke up the first time. Early, I thought vaguely. My thoughts were clouds, and when I tried to focus on one of them, it dissolved into an opaque wisp. I seemed to keep waking up early. My clock radio. Soon it would click on. No. Something else. I let the clouds billow in. I’d just roll over until the radio went on.
The next time I awakened, sharp lights flashed in my brain. My head hurt, a dull, persistent ache behind my eyes. I needed aspirin. Bad hangover. What had I drunk?
It came back to me then, not all at once, but in disconnected images. Arthur Concannon gazing in wonderment at the blood that dripped from his hand onto the snow. The awful stink of that septic tank. Vincent Tremali’s shrewd, immoral face. Derek Hayden’s awkwardly sprawled body. The thwang of a rifle shot.
I was lying on a sofa in the Hayden living room where, I assumed, Melanie Walther and Brenda Hayden had deposited me. I was entangled in the crocheted afghan they had spread over me.
The house was dark and empty. I knew without looking that it was late. Somewhere a clock tick-tocked. A tree branch scratched against a windowpane.
I sat up to test my equilibrium. In that position, my head hurt a little more. But I was not dizzy.
It was 3:25
A.M.
by the luminous dial of my wristwatch. Melanie and Brenda were long gone. They were in Nassau, now, sharing a suitcase full of cash. The more I thought about it, the better I liked it. Vincent Tremali’s filthy money was being enjoyed by two lovely women who had, by virtue of working for and living with a pair of scumbags like Arthur Concannon and Derek Hayden, truly deserved it.
I fumbled in the darkness until I found a light switch. Then I went into the kitchen. The woodstove was cold and dead.
I tried three drawers before I found a flashlight. I recovered my boots, which Melanie and Brenda had thoughtfully removed for me, pulled them on, humped into my camouflage jumpsuit, and went outside.
The night was moonless, the air palpably moist. Snow as fine and hard as birdshot came angling down on a sharp northeasterly wind.
I bowed my head into the wind and trudged across the yard through the snow. Already the old tracks had been filled in and smoothed over.
The odor of the septic tank insulted the sweet country air. By the beam of the flashlight, I found the snow-shrouded lumps, the bodies of Arthur Concannon and Derek Hayden. They had not moved. Not one centimeter. Seeing them was an affirmation. I had imagined nothing. They were dead. And I was alive. I felt exultant. I had the urge to cry. I sensed no conflict in this.
I turned and walked slowly back to the house. I shucked off my boots, crawled out of the jumpsuit, lay on the sofa, and pulled the afghan over me.
Sleep came instantly.
B
ECCA HELD UP A
tarnished silver bowl. “Wedding present,” she said. “We got four of these.” She wrapped it in newspaper and deposited it in a cardboard box. “Les said the only thing they were good for was wedding presents, and that we should save them for when we were invited to weddings.”
“You’re really leaving, then,” I said.
“I am really leaving. There’s a little private school outside Philadelphia that needs an English teacher. Anyway, I’ve got to get away from here.”
She climbed back up onto the stool and peered into a cabinet. She was wearing a baggy sweatshirt and baggy jeans with an orange bandanna around her hair. “Besides,” she said without turning around, “you’re not available, remember?”
I said nothing.
She handed down a china teapot to me. “Wrap this in a newspaper and stick it in the box, will you?”
I took the teapot in both hands. “Will you be okay?”
“I think so,” she said. “Have they left you alone yet?”
“Finally. I think.”
When I woke up from my drug-aided sleep in the Hayden farmhouse the morning after Arthur Concannon and Derek Hayden were killed, I phoned Detective Horowitz of the State Police. That initiated several days of off-and-on interrogation. Horowitz was candid with me. I was a suspect. He even recited Miranda to me, and I congratulated him on getting it right. I exercised my right to secure counsel and called Zerk Garrett, who expressed unbounded glee at the prospect of defending me in a criminal proceeding.
Ballistics confirmed that the Smith and Wesson .38 revolver licensed to me had fired the bullets that were extracted from Derek Hayden’s chest. The absence of fingerprints on the rifle that had probably been used to kill Arthur Concannon (the bullet that passed entirely through his neck was never recovered) was attributed to my foresight in wiping the weapon clean.
Horowitz frowned frequently when I tried to explain what had happened. When I asked him what he thought my motive was, he said, “You tell me,” as if he expected me to. He asked difficult questions. Zerk encouraged me to answer them. So what was I doing at the Hayden place with my car parked on a side road a mile and a half away? Why did I bring my weapon? Why did I wait almost twenty-four hours before reporting what I had allegedly seen? How well did I know Brenda Hayden? What exactly was my relationship with Melanie Walther? What was my connection with Vincent Tremali? What was in that suitcase?
Over and over again. When Horowitz got exasperated with me, a guy named Brescia took his place. Brescia had a soft voice and a polite manner. He was very persistent.
Zerk sat there through it all, one leg hooked over the other, grinning.
At my insistence, Horowitz talked with Sharon Bell. He remained skeptical, although I noted that his line of questioning moved in some new directions.
It wasn’t until Melanie Walther and Brenda Hayden flew into Logan and were greeted by a pair of burly state troopers that Horowitz and Brescia began to soften.
“They confirm your version of the shootings,” Horowitz told me, popping his Bazooka. “Of course, they claim to know nothing about a suitcase full of money.”
“I never said it was full of money,” I said. “I didn’t actually see what was in it.”
“The women say they never heard of Tremali except on television. No suitcase full of anything, as far as they’re concerned.”
I shrugged. “I’ve only tried to tell you what I saw.”
Horowitz grinned. “It’s doubtful that Tremali is going to report a theft. It’s doubtful that Miz Walther or Mrs. Hayden are going to claim a suitcase full of money on their ten-forties. Nassau banks do not communicate with the IRS. These broads may just get away with it.”
“What about the shootings, then?” I asked.
“They tell it your way. Walther admits she shot Concannon. She saved your life. Hayden confirms it exactly. I’m not inclined to prosecute.”
“Good,” I said. I loved it. The two women were going to pull it off.
“Or you either,” said Horowitz. “As much as I’d enjoy it, I guess we haven’t got a case against you.”
Zerk feigned disappointment. “My big chance,” he moaned. “I was gonna finally make it. The black F. Lee Bailey. They woulda written my biography.”
When I tried to pay him for his services, he muttered something about
Gideon
v.
Wainwright
and said he felt an ethical obligation to perform pro bono work now and then. “For certain destitute clients, you understand,” he added.
I reminded him that I was familiar with the
Gideon
decision. I had tutored him on it before he took his bar exam.
Becca climbed down from the stool. “That’s about it, I guess,” she said. “The movers’ll be here in the morning. Thanks for your help. For all of it.”
“Just doing my job.”
“Your job.” She grinned slyly. “Does that normally include sleeping with the wives of your deceased clients?”
“Oh, sure. Absolutely. That’s one of the main parts of the job.”
“Well, I hope Les paid you enough.”
“I have been handsomely rewarded.”
“What exactly was your fee for this?”
“Ten bucks.”
She smirked. “Okay, so you won’t tell me.”
“My fees,” I proclaimed huffily, “are a private matter. Between me and my clients.”
“Ten dollars!” She laughed. “You know, I wouldn’t put it past you. Or Les. Les was as tight with a dollar as you are generous.”
“Shows how well you knew him,” I said. “Or me.”
“So,” she said. She held out her hand.
I took it. We shook formally. “Be well, Becca.”
“I will miss you, Brady Coyne.”
Irv Barth was happy. His estranged wife, Edna, was happy. Edna’s attorney was happy.
I, therefore, was happy.
How does a couple, married twenty-two years and hellbent on divorce, agree on the custody of what they love the most, when they both want to keep all of it?
It’s hard enough with kids. It can be even harder, I’ve learned, with vacation homes and luxury yachts and golden retrievers. But it’s pure hell when the dispute involves a priceless collection of American Indian artifacts that the couple, both archaeologists, have gathered over the course of a quarter century of expeditions. They were a team. They coauthored books.
As Julie said, the foundations of their marriage had been a shaky structure of flaked and chipped flint and obsidian. And it had collapsed underneath them.
The solution was fairly obvious, once we all got past the greed. I found a small museum in Palo Alto that was willing to turn over an entire room to the collection. It would be the Barth Collection, housed in the Barth Room.
Irv and Edna would reap a tidy tax write-off. They could visit their arrowheads and pottery shards whenever they wanted. They could add to the collection. Each would deliver an annual address at the museum—Irv in October, Edna in May—for which they would be paid handsome honorariums.
It worked out well. Only a reconciliation would have been better.
So I leaned back in my desk chair, laced my hands behind my head, and swiveled around to gaze westward over the tops of the Copley Square buildings at the pink late-winter afternoon sky. Somewhere beyond the rooftops and chimneys there was a snow-covered meadow. My mind’s eye saw it clearly. The black serpentine shape that wound through it was the shell of ice that had frozen and thawed a dozen times during the winter over the deep-running brook that flowed under it. Native brook trout were finning drowsily in its currents. Pussy willows along the banks were feeling their sap begin to rise.
So was I. Spring was imminent.
I became aware of a buzz. I twirled around and picked up the phone. “Hi, Julie.”
“You daydreaming again?”
“I was deep in thought. Arcane points of law.”
“I bet. I’ve been buzzing you for about ten minutes.”
“Surely you exaggerate.”
“Gloria is on the line.”
“Thank you.” I pushed the button. “Hi, hon,” I said.
“What’s with the music?”
“Huh?”
“While I sat here on hold,” said Gloria, “cobwebs forming on me, I was forced to listen to the Ray Conniff Singers perform a medley from
The Sound of Music.
You must remember how much I hate Julie Andrews.”
“That music is a new feature designed for the listening enjoyment of the clients of my busy legal practice.”
“I would have expected Buddy Holly or Chuck Berry. The Beach Boys, at the very least.”
“Our music was selected on the basis of exhaustive research. The Ray Conniff Singers make people receptive to paying hideous fees to lawyers. What’s up?”
“Last time you were here you left your gloves.”
“And you suspect a Freudian accident.”
“I suspect you continue to be scatterbrained.”
“That was over a month ago.”
“Billy’s been wearing them,” she said. “Want ’em back?”
“Billy can have them.” I paused, “Is that why you called?”
“That’s it. I’ve been meaning to. Keep forgetting.”