Say No to Murder Page 3

  This woman nodded affirmatively.

  Annie and Ansen, I thought then; names for a cute little couple with button noses, not these Germanic giants.

  “Mrs. Reich,” Geof was saying sadly, “I’m Geof Bushfield with the Port Frederick police department.” He opened his wallet to prove it. She glanced at his ID. When she looked up again, the expression in her navy blue eyes had changed. “And this is, uh, Ms. Jennifer Cain.” Perhaps he thought it best to let her think, for the moment, that I was also a cop. “Could we come in, Mrs. Reich?”

  “No,” she said, but not unpleasantly. Just firm. And who among us could have moved this woman if she chose not to budge? “Tell me.”

  “It’s your husband.” Geof looked her full in the face. “He drove his truck into a crowd of spectators at the ground-breaking ceremonies at Liberty Harbor this afternoon. No one else was hurt, but your husband’s truck went off the end of the pier into the bay. He’s dead. I’m sorry.”

  She looked at me for the first time, as if I might fill in some sort of blank.

  “He was distraught over the death of your son, Mrs. Reich,” I said, trying not to stammer. “That’s why it happened, that’s why he did it. He was crazy with grief.”

  The steady, navy blue eyes traveled back to Geof, then returned to me. “Ansen, crazy with grief?” said the Widow Reich. “Don’t make me laugh.”

  chapter

  4

  She let us in then, closing the door behind us as decisively as I suspected she did everything else in life. Her home smelted strongly of Clorox. The rooms held normal amounts of furniture, but they were pieces built for a race of giants, so the house had an overstuffed air about it. I began to get that panicky flutter at the bottom of my stomach that comes with claustrophobia.

  “In there.” She pointed us into a family room. I expected lightning to flash from her extended finger. My Lord, the woman was majestic. “I’ll bring iced tea.”

  “I guess we’re having iced tea,” Geof whispered down the back of my neck. “I wonder if I’m having mine with sugar or without.”

  “She’ll let you know,” I whispered back.

  The family room was misnamed. There was nothing there to indicate a family had ever inhabited it—no pictures of the father, the mother, the son or any other person. No games, no clutter, no stereo, radio or television. Just more of that big furniture, and a single shelf that ran around all four walls of the room. The shelf had evidently been constructed for the sole purpose of displaying an impressive collection of beer steins, the sculptured kind with the silver lids that crack down on the bridge of your nose if you drink too exuberantly. Perhaps the Reichs had drunk beer out of different mugs each evening, sitting in the huge armchairs, facing each other, talking about their days. My mind veered off onto one of its fantasies: what a splendid place to have a drunken brawl, I thought . . . so many beer mugs to hurl, so few things to break.

  I sank into one of the armchairs, feeling like Goldilocks having found Papa Bear’s chair.

  Geof perched on the front edge of the couch as if he were afraid he’d fall in and never be seen again. He threw me the same look that Hansel must have thrown Gretel about the time they got an idea of what the big oven was for.

  “If this is hysterical,” I said to him, “I would like to see her when she’s calm.”

  “Maybe goddesses don’t grieve.” It seemed his thoughts were running along the same mythological track as mine.

  “Are you kidding? Don’t you remember what Demeter did when Pluto kidnapped Persephone?”

  “No.” He grinned at me. “Would we have a record of it at the station?”

  I reached over to give his wrist an affectionate pat just as she walked back into the family room. Those clear navy eyes watched my hand snake back into my lap. I felt as guilty as a child whose mother has caught it playing doctor. Don’t be absurd, I told myself, she’s only a bereaved woman, not an avenging Valkyrie. Nevertheless, I crossed my legs at the ankles, sat up straighter and clasped my hands primly in my lap. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Geof surreptitiously rub the toe of his right shoe against the back of his left trouser leg. I suppressed a smile.

  She extended a wooden tray to me.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  Geof took a sip of the iced tea she handed to him. “Urn,” he murmured, not looking at me. “Nice and sweet.”

  She sat in an armchair which was a twin to mine. It fit her just fine. “Now tell me from the beginning,” she said. “What has the damn fool done now?”

  I began to wonder if the fact that he was dead had sunk in upon her. But she could hardly miss the point as Geof painstakingly explained what happened at the pier. Annie Reich listened without interrupting, her hands lying still on the armrests, her mouth closed, her eyes wide and expressionless. I might have suspected she was asleep with her eyes open if it hadn’t been for the deepening crease between her eyes. She looked a bit put out.

  “Mrs. Reich,” Geof said, as he stumbled to a close without any comment from her. “Ms. Cain is the executive director of the Port Frederick Civic Foundation. She was present when your husband died, and she can tell you more about why we think he did it.”

  The large handsome head swiveled my way. The unblinking eyes fastened on me.

  “Your husband came to my office yesterday, Mrs. Reich,” I said, “He was angry at me and at our Foundation, because he thought we could have prevented your son’s death.”

  “Could you have?”

  “No.”

  “Why did he think that?”

  “You don’t know?” I shook my head to clear it. “No, of course you don’t, or you wouldn’t ask.” For the first time, a glimmer of humor crossed her broad face. Taking heart, I continued. “As I understand it, your son tried to call the suicide center for several hours before he finally, uh . . . He wasn’t able to get help from there, however, because they hadn’t paid their phone bill in three months and their service had been shut off that day.” That sounded so unbelievable even to me that I felt compelled to explain. “I know that sounds unconscionable, and perhaps it was, but the thing about volunteer organizations is that they are usually broke, and sometimes they run more on good intentions than good management. I’m afraid that was the case with the center . . . the left hand thought the right hand had paid the bill, but in effect, neither hand had written the check.” I paused, aware that I might have gotten a little carried away with my own figures of speech, Geof’s face wore a familiar bemused expression. I said quickly, “The Foundation is not permitted to fund organizations outside of town, so ordinarily the center wouldn’t come to us for help. My secretary works as a volunteer there, however, when she learned of their predicament, she called me to see if I could pay their bill out of my personal funds. I did that, but the service was not restored in time to help your son.”

  I took a breath.

  She waited.

  “S-so,” I stammered, “so . . . your husband got the idea it was all our fault, and nothing I could say seemed to convince him otherwise. When he came to our office, he made threats against Liberty Harbor, out of some misguided idea of revenge. I guess he knew how important that project is to the Foundation and to this town, and he thought that’s where he could hurt us the most. And that’s why he did what he did . . . out of grief, I suppose.”

  One large hand moved, on the armrest of her chair, as if in mild protest.

  “Phillip was not his son,” she said.

  Geof and I looked at each other in surprise.

  “He was my boy from my first marriage. He and my . . .”—she smiled—“late husband could not stand each other. You think Ansen killed himself out of grief over Philly? Hah!” Her smile broadened, as if what she’d said were actually funny. I felt a shiver cross my shoulders. “It was an accident, that’s all,’one of Ansen’s crazy jokes. He just wanted to scare you people for some crazy reason of his own.” She chuckled. “But he scared himself, I’ll bet . . . scared himself to d
eath!”

  We stared at her. Was this the limit of the woman’s emotional range? Was this macabre humor all she felt, this woman who’d lost a son and a husband in the span of a few short days? Suddenly, I was aware of exactly what had been bothering me since we’d entered her house. Where were the family and friends who should be here to comfort her in her bereavement for her son? There should have been the quiet talk and laughter of people who cared, and the comforting smell of food that kindly neighbors had brought over. Instead, her house was empty, silent, eerie. I felt an unkind and intense desire to prick that smooth white hide to see if warm blood—or tears—ran within her.

  “It was an accident,” she said with finality. “Would you like more iced tea?”

  “Iced, tea?” Again, I shook my head to clear it of the heaviness this woman and her overstuffed house induced. “No, thank you. Is there anything else you’d like to know, Mrs. Reich?”

  She looked puzzled, as if that were an odd question. But she turned to Geof. “You’ll tell me where you take his body, I suppose.”

  “You tell us, Mrs. Reich.”

  Again, that puzzled expression. “I don’t know. Is there a funeral home that’s close by? That won’t charge me an arm and a leg?” Her allusion brought to my mind an image of her husband’s corpse, and was oddly distasteful; more than that, repellent.

  I said through gritted teeth, “The Harbor Lights Funeral Home is dependable.”

  “All right,” she said agreeably. “Why don’t you send him there?” For all the emotion she showed, she might have been having a pizza sent to a friend’s house. But then she seemed to sense for once that something more in the way of conversation might be appropriate. “We only moved here for this job, you see, from Springfield.”

  Well, that meant they had only been in town for a few weeks, which explained several things, including why I had not previously seen or heard of them.

  We seized the appropriate moment to say good-bye.

  In the car, Geof turned the key in the ignition, then suddenly smiled.

  “What?” I said.

  “I suppose there’s one thing that can be said in Reich’s favor.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’ll bet he didn’t beat his wife.”

  I was still laughing when we pulled away from the curb. I happened to glance back at the Reich house, in time to see a broad face disappear from the living room window. A curtain fell back into place.

  “Damn.” The laughter died in my throat. She’d probably seen me laughing; I felt insensitive and tactless.

  “What, hon?”

  “I need a vacation.”

  “Well, aren’t you the lucky one? We just happen to have an opening on our Saturday night cruise which leaves the fabulous Port Frederick Marina this very evening.”

  “Will I have to share a stateroom?” I leaned my head wearily against the headrest.

  “What do you expect with such late reservations?” We turned a corner, and Geof looked over at me. His expression had turned serious, probing. “Do you have any reservations about this weekend, Jenny?”

  “No.” I closed my eyes.

  “In that case,” he said more lightly, “you may have to share a bed, as well.”

  I replied to that provocative suggestion by falling asleep.

  chapter

  5

  We pulled away from the marina—not to be confused with Liberty Harbor which inhabited another bay—after the sun was well on its way to California for the night. We were aboard the Amy Denise, a forty-two-foot trawler that Ted Sullivan had lent us for the weekend. It wasn’t that Geof or I couldn’t afford boats, of our own; we both came from families whose trust funds provided sufficient income to purchase fleets for small South American countries. No, we had the boat for the night because, as Geof said when he brought home Ted’s invitation, “Over the years, I’ll bet Ted and I have exchanged just about everything with a motor or an engine. Cars, lawn mowers, motorcycles. Last winter, I lent him my snow blower, so now we get his boat.”

  “Nice going,” I’d replied, “do you think he’s got a week on a schooner he’d trade for a day with my Cuisinart?”

  Actually, I thought we were doing Ted the favor by taking his boat out for a good run to warm the winter out of her. As the whole town knew, the realtor had not been able to bring himself to use the Amy Denise since his wife for whom it was named had left him, as they say, for another. Local wisdom had it that the boat represented especially painful memories because Amy Denise had given it to Ted as an anniversary present.

  As I lounged on a bench beside Geof who had the helm on the bridge, I raised my vodka-and-tonic in a silent toast to our absent host.

  “It’s nice of Ted to let other people get some pleasure from his boat,” I said aloud, “even if he can’t. Or won’t. I wonder why he doesn’t just sell her, memories and all.”

  “Maybe he hopes Amy will come back aboard one day.” Geof shook his head; his thick shock of brown hair ruffled in the wind. “He’s more patient than I am.” He glanced back over his bare shoulder at me. “Maybe we should make him an offer, eh, mate?”

  Mate.

  I searched his face to see if he’d intended the double meaning, but the handsome features only looked tired, neutral. When I only smiled in reply, he turned back to the open sea.

  We were mates of a sort, and had been ever since tragedy had brought us together a half year ago. He was twice married and divorced; at thirty, I was single by choice and circumstance. The attraction between us had been immediate and compelling, and we had not hesitated to live together in that never-never land, for which there is no name, between dating and marriage. We were the odd couple: the former bad boy from a good family and the girl from a good family that had gone bad. My background was well known around town. His was not, partly because his family had moved away the year he’d graduated from high school, four years before me—and partly because when he returned to his hometown to fulfill his teenage dream of being a cop, he had not encouraged people to connect the tall, serious policeman with the wild kid of fifteen years earlier, Most of his former juvenile-delinquent buddies had long since drifted away to lesser fates; only a few old pals, like Ted Sullivan, were still around to connect the cop with Bushware, Inc., plumbing and hardware supply companies in the Northeast. So he remained fairly anonymous. Until he began dating me. Now we were a delicious source of local gossip.

  “Geof?”

  Again, a turn of his head. And this time, a quick, warm smile. “Jenny?”

  I leaned back against the rail that was wet with cool ocean spray. “Nothing,” I said.

  Together, we stared into the silent darkness ahead. Behind and to the sides of us, lights flickered cozily on the shore. It was like our relationship, I thought; the safety of conventionality lay all around us, winking and beckoning like an old friend of the family with whom we might feel comfortable—while ahead lay territory that held more risk by virtue of being less well charted. Though not noticeably successful at it, Geof liked being married. But I had no family model upon which to base any hope for marital bliss. And while I certainly had faith in him as a person, I wasn’t sure I’d bet the rent on his prospects as a husband. Still, we could not drift forever, like teenagers, in that foggy, foolish world of not-quite-committed. It was fish-or-cut-bait time, and I was scared. I didn’t want to lose him.

  And yet . . .

  A stomach rumbled.

  “Was that yours or mine?” he asked.

  “Yours.” I laughed. Leave it to the human body to pull the mind back down to ground level. Or sea level, as it were. I said, “I’ll go below and start dinner. I can take a hint.”

  He had us securely anchored in a quiet cove by the time I had dinner on the table across from the galley. It had not taken much searching to find Amy Sullivan’s cache of plastic plates, rust-proof pans, washable placemats and paper napkins. They were immaculate and neatly stacked in the cupboards, as if Amy had just left fo
r home, instead of having left home entirely. It had been a standing joke among Ted’s friends that he and Amy Denise would retire on this boat in another few years, thus living out Ted’s teenage dream of retiring when he reached Jack Benny’s age. But while Ted dreamed of the South Seas, Amy had stood in this galley, peeling carrots and dreaming of her lover. Maybe she was in Tahiti with him now; that would be an ironic and unkind twist of fate. But I smiled, thinking it wasn’t likely. Above her sink a small wooden plaque read, “A boat is a hole in the water into which you pour money.” On the refrigerator, a magnet said, “Frankly, I’d rather drive.” And, stitched onto a teatowel was the motto, “If the Good Lord had meant man to swim, He’d have furnished fins.” Wherever Amy was, it wasn’t on a boat! I felt sorry for Ted, and I didn’t admire the cowardly way she left him; but part of me was cheered by the sheer audacity of her departure. If sweet, neat little Amy Denise, that archetypal housewife, could up and leave with a lover, there was hope for other conventional, predictable people. Feeling optimistic, I hollered up the ladder for Geof to come to supper.

  Twenty gluttonous minutes later, he said, “There’s butter on your chin. No, don’t wipe it off. It’s sexy.” He leered. “I’ll lick it off later.”

  “Actually, it’s margarine.”

  “Oh.” He handed me a napkin. “Not so sexy.”

  We were having lobsters, as planned, as well as steamed clams, although steamers always reminded me of my father. And that always left a bitter aftertaste that had nothing to do with clams. It took me a year to be able to eat clams again after my father, in his amiable way, ran three generations of Cain Clams into bankruptcy during my junior year in college. Even now, it was hard to choke them down over the memory of the employees he put out of work, and the memory of my mother and younger sister whose familial guilt nearly destroyed them. I was made of tougher—or less sensitive—stuff, I guess. The shame merely drove me into work of a charitable nature. And away from clams.