Purgatory Chasm: A Mystery Page 4

  I shook my head. Dumb. Always looking for ways to outsmart myself. I punched 911 fast, before I could think of any other ideas.

  * * *

  A lot of the little towns up here don’t have their own police departments, so I was probably waiting for a state trooper. Figured I had a few minutes—the troopers have a lot of ground to cover.

  Phigg’s car was unlocked. Its interior stank. A quick search found nothing good: a damp beach towel with a surfer on it, random magazines, cereal and cracker boxes, a jug of generic laundry detergent, half a twelve-pack of Sam’s Club Diet Cola.

  In the trunk, yard-sale crap: a box of old Gourmet magazines, a snorkel, three mismatched golf clubs, a Hefty bag half full of aluminum cans, a pair of wading boots. Tander Phigg, sole heir of Phigg Paper Products, Incorporated, had been prowling roadside ditches for returnables to earn a nickel a pop.

  I shook my head at that, slammed the trunk, went into the shack. Breathed through my mouth while I did a light search on Phigg’s suitcase. I went through his wallet first and found a ten-spot, three singles, a driver’s license that expired last year, and a dozen coupons. That was it.

  Didn’t want to mess up the suitcase, so I probed with gentle hands around the sides. I found something right away, slid it out. An address book, worn black leather. That made sense for a guy Phigg’s age—you could convince him to use a cell phone, but you’d never get him to part with the hard copy.

  I slipped the book in my pocket, then thought about the cops coming. I untied my right work boot, slipped the book into it, retied.

  The address book made me think of Phigg’s cell. I spotted a bulge in his left front pants pocket, patted. It was his phone all right.

  I stared at the body. Getting the phone wasn’t going to be easy. Phigg was hanging too high for me to get a hand up to the pocket, then down for the phone. I’d need to climb on something, and it’d have to be one of the milk crates.

  While I balanced the info against the risk, I thought I heard something over the river-burble. I stilled, focused, definitely heard it—wide tires on a dirt road. The cops were here. I was glad I wasn’t standing on a milk crate with one hand in Phigg’s pocket.

  As I stepped outside I tried to look horrified, then tried to look surprised at the copper-over-green Dodge Charger the New Hampshire Staties had been buying lately. I noticed the Charger was parked in the only spot where it blocked both Phigg’s car and my van. Smart cop.

  I started toward the Charger. A deep voice said, “Stay right there, please.”

  I stopped.

  The door opened. A man unfolded, putting on a tan Smokey the Bear hat as he rose.

  And rose. He was huge. Half a head taller than me, and I’m six-one. His shoulders were half again as broad as mine, and mine aren’t small. His forest-green shirt tapered to a waist two inches smaller than mine, and I’m not fat.

  He had deep-set eyes, blue. High cheekbones, acne scars from teen years I bet he wanted to forget. Take Abe Lincoln, shave the beard, add thirty pounds of chest and shoulders—you’d have this trooper.

  He looked at me maybe five seconds. I wasn’t sure how, but he made me feel small in every way.

  He said, “You the caller?”

  I nodded.

  “What happened to your head?”

  I fingered the purple lump I’d forgotten about. “Banged it on a Dumpster yesterday.” I turned my head to let him see it wasn’t a fresh wound.

  He keyed a lapel mic on his shirt, talked code on his radio. Then he said, “Show me.” As he passed I read the name board pinned to his shirt: MCCORD.

  Inside, McCord looked around with that unsurprisable nonexpression cops have. He faced the body. “You make sure he’s dead?” he said.

  “He’s dead.”

  McCord turned and looked at me with a little more interest. He turned back to Phigg, pulled on a pair of purple rubber gloves, and ran a hand up Phigg’s pant leg. Looking for a pulse at the back of the knee, I guessed.

  McCord said, “He’s dead,” took notebook and pen from his shirt pocket, wrote. He stepped back and cocked his head the same way Phigg’s was twisted. “Huh.”

  “What?”

  “The necktie,” McCord said. “Dress up to kill yourself, okay. More likely with women than men, but I’ll buy it. Once he had his necktie all done up”—McCord pointed—“he didn’t have much tie left to work with, uh? But he made a sturdy knot that’s held up for a bunch of hours. Hard to do.”

  “Probably made the knot before he slipped it over that pipe,” I said. “Made it right in front of his chest, looking at it, then slipped it over.”

  “Still. You’re getting set to kill yourself, you’re balancing on milk crates. You’ve got to make a nice tight knot, a slipknot or a square knot, can’t tell from here. Then you’ve got to reach back over your head, tippy-toe on the crates, find the pipe, slip it over, snug it. Hard to do, uh?”

  “Sure.”

  McCord wrote in his notebook again. Without looking up he said, “Did you kill this man, sir?”

  “No.”

  “Know him?”

  “His name was Tander Phigg.”

  “Your name?”

  “Conway Sax.”

  “Did you kill him, sir?”

  “No.”

  “Did you touch anything in here?”

  “No.”

  “Touch anything?” Swept a long arm. “Go through his wallet, maybe?”

  “No.”

  “Did you kill him?”

  “No.”

  McCord pointed at the door. As we stepped from the shack he asked for my ID. I passed him my license. “I’m on parole in Mass.,” I said.

  “What for?”

  “Manslaughter.”

  “You don’t say.”

  McCord didn’t seem to rush, but in a half second he had my left wrist behind my back and was working his cuffs off his belt.

  I said, “My mistake. Should’ve told you first thing you pulled up.”

  “My mistake,” he said. “I should’ve done this right away.” As he spoke, McCord bent me over the Charger’s deck lid, kicked my feet out wide, started to feel around my pockets. He said, “So you’re on parole down there but messing around with dead bodies up here. Not good, uh?” He was businesslike, almost gentle. A man his size probably had to be: He could hurt you without trying.

  “My PO knows I’m outside the state,” I said. “I’m trying to get a job up here. He says as long as I live in Mass., I’m okay.”

  I could tell McCord was looking through my wallet. He said, “Shrewsbury to Rourke? Long commute, friend.” He tugged at the handcuffs, let me straighten. Told me to stay still, took my license, sat in the Charger, worked his radio and laptop awhile.

  I hoped they couldn’t get in touch right away with Luther Swale, my parole officer. He and Randall and I worked together a while back to help some people out. Luther and I have an arrangement where I get a longer leash than most parolees as long as I stay clean and invisible. If he got cold-called by a New Hampshire Statie, our deal would expire on the spot. For the most part, Luther’s a by-the-book grinder. He reluctantly gave me the long leash out of gratitude—his son had a hard time adjusting to post-Iraq life, and I guess I gave him a way to feel useful.

  I was lucky. After ten minutes McCord unfolded from the Charger, unhooked me, pointed at my stuff on the deck lid. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll move my car so you can clear out.”

  “Just like that?”

  “ISB won’t be here for three hours. They’ll call you when they need you.” He saw the question on my face. “Investigative Services Bureau.”

  “Detectives, in other words.”

  The left corner of his mouth moved an eighth of an inch. It might have been a smile. “People do like fancy titles, uh?” He folded into his car as I walked toward the van.

  I thought of something, stopped, turned. “How do you like the Charger?”

  “I prefer the Crown Vic. Almost as fa
st, rides better, more headroom.”

  “How about the other guys?”

  “Most of ’em like the Charger because it’s badass.”

  “You, you don’t need a car to make you feel badass.”

  McCord gave me the eighth-inch smile again and lit the Charger’s Hemi. “Have a nice day.”

  * * *

  Southbound, I called Luther Swale’s office number. Got voice mail, left a message. I called Randall. “Where the hell are you?” he said.

  “Headed for Framingham. You?”

  “I’m standing beside the new deck. You were supposed to oil this fancy ipe yesterday. I came by to see how it looked. Nada. Decided to do it myself. I just finished the second coat. It looks great.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “Got something important you can help me with. I’ll be there in forty-five minutes.”

  “Bring lunch.” Click.

  I looked at my watch. Jesus, it was past noon already. I’d been at Phigg’s shack a long time. I hit the gas.

  * * *

  The oil on the deck did look great. It was dry to the touch, but we didn’t want to scuff it up before it cured, so Randall and I sat at a card table in the kitchen and ate meatball subs.

  The kitchen had been our first project. We’d blown out a wall to make the whole first floor seem bigger, stripped three layers of linoleum, redone the hardwood, painted the cabinets, and finished it all off with granite countertops the color of jade.

  I split a meatball, gave half to each cat, filled Randall in. I started with the night Phigg buttonholed me at a Barnburner meeting and told me he needed help.

  Randall was a good listener. Hungry, too. He worked through his sub, chips, and Snapple, nodded once in a while, kept quiet until I finished. Then he said, “Don’t think too long, just give me your gut feeling. Did Tander Phigg kill himself?”

  I ate a salt-and-vinegar chip. “No.”

  “Are you saying that because the state cop pointed out the awkwardness of the necktie?”

  “Partly,” I said, and ate another chip while I asked myself why it felt wrong. “Phigg was all front.” I explained the not-really-timber-frame house. Randall looked a question at me.

  “Point is, he worked hard to fake it,” I said. “Hung on to his cell phone when he was broke, kept a suitcase full of preppy clothes even when he was picking up cans in ditches. Faked it pretty good for a long time. A lot of Barnburners were whispering he was low on dough, but nobody had any idea how bad it’d gotten.”

  “So?”

  “It doesn’t fit with the way I found him,” I said. “That miserable little shack, you should’ve seen it. Two milk crates and a sleeping bag. A three-hundred-dollar car full of saltines and Price Chopper coupons.”

  Randall helped himself to a couple of chips. “And you think if Phigg decided to kill himself, he wouldn’t draw attention to his situation.”

  “He would’ve done the opposite,” I said. “Would’ve ditched the car, saved pennies until he could check into a nice hotel, something like that.” I shoved him the rest of my chips, balled up the sub wrappers, rose, threw them away.

  “Pretty thin gruel,” Randall said.

  “There’s more.” I told him about following Phigg, watching his meeting with the woman in the silver Jetta.

  “Well,” he said, “that ought to give the cops something to chase down.” Long pause. “You told them, right?”

  Longer pause.

  “Conway,” Randall said. “For crying out loud. Why would you hold back on something like that?”

  I said nothing.

  “So you could nose around, that’s why,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “What now?”

  “I need to call some Barnburners, get the telephone chain going for the memorial.”

  “What about me?”

  I leaned on the countertop. “You going to help me out with this?”

  Long pause.

  “It’s either that or start another expensive project around here,” he finally said. “Either way, your money burns while I have fun.”

  I leaned over, pulled Phigg’s address book from my boot, tossed it on the card table. “Have some fun with that.”

  * * *

  Randall set my laptop on the card table and began working his way through the address book. I didn’t know why he needed the PC—it’d be easier just to thumb through. But I’d learned that when you gave him a task, he was going to by God do it his way. If you tried to point him in a direction, he muled up.

  I stepped to the front porch. My first call was to Mary Giarusso, the Barnburners’ nerve center. She lives a couple blocks north of me, feeds my cats when I’m gone. She’s a gossip hound—folks call her Switchboard Mary behind her back. Her head just about hit her kitchen ceiling when I broke the news. I asked if she could call a few Barnburners to spread the word and set up a memorial. Could she? I asked if she would do a little digging, see if Phigg ever talked about his family. Would she? I told her not to sprain her finger dialing. She didn’t hear, had clicked off already.

  I squinted at the sky. Storm clouds. I hoped the rain wouldn’t hurt the deck’s fresh oil.

  Inside, Randall had set up a spreadsheet on my laptop and was entering info. I stood behind him, saw the address book open to the Bs.

  “You AA types are a pain in the ass,” Randall said. “It’s mostly first names and last initials. Ed A., Ginny B.”

  “You start with the Ps? Family?”

  He said nothing, but clicked on the spreadsheet’s P tab. The only name was Trey. Next to the name was a weird phone number, must be outside the U.S., and a Gmail address.

  I said, “Trey was under the Ps?”

  “Yup. A son, I’m guessing.”

  “Why?”

  Randall pointed at the e-mail address: tp3_72@gmail.com. He said, “Tander Phigg the Third? Born in ’seventy-two, maybe? Known as ‘Trey’?”

  “That’s either a good guess or a pile of horseshit.”

  “That narrows it down,” he said. “Also, your pal Phigg isn’t—wasn’t—a big Internet guy. This is the only e-mail address I saw when I skimmed the book.”

  “So?”

  “So this Trey was pretty special to Tander.”

  “Before you enter any more names and numbers, you want to Google him?”

  Randall’s shoulders tightened. “I’ll enter everything first,” he said. “Then I’ll Google.”

  His task, his way.

  I said, “I’m headed back to Rourke. Want to talk to the guy at Motorenwerk.”

  “The garage where you got cold-cocked? Are you nuts?”

  For starters, I was supposed to be the cold-cocker, not the cold-cockee. Pride. But I couldn’t tell Randall that. He’s Mister Pragmatic. “I need to figure this deal out,” I said. “What’s going on with Phigg’s car, whether he’s entitled to money back, all that.”

  “Then let me come along,” he said, and waved at the address book. “We can do this later.”

  “I’ll go alone.”

  Long look. “Is that smart?”

  “I’ll bring my tire iron.”

  “Somewhat smarter.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I parked across from Motorenwerk at 5:15 as the rain, which had been trying like hell all day, finally started. Thunder closed from the southeast as I looked at the shop. The garage doors were closed. Through the office’s plate-glass window I saw Josh. He was counter-leaning, finger-drumming. An Audi A6 Avant sat outside the office. It looked like Ollie had left for the day, and Josh was stuck waiting for the Audi’s owner to show.

  For me, it was a good setup. I wanted to talk to Josh without Ollie around. Wanted to surprise him, fluster him. I decided to wait for the Audi owner, then bust in.

  I looked around the interior of my F-150, which I’d picked up on the way. The glass-shop guy had said the glue for the new windows was set up already, rain wouldn’t be a problem. So far, there were no leaks.

  I eased the truck backward tw
enty yards, moving out of Josh’s sight line. Rain picked up, thunder waded in. I ran the AC to keep the windows clear, waited, thought. What was Josh doing here? He could be earning more anywhere else, and it had to be killing Ollie to keep him on the payroll.

  At quarter of six, the thunder and lightning peaked. At the end of Mechanic Street, a bolt hit not twenty yards from the Dumpster I’d puked in yesterday. I half jumped in my seat, smelled ozone, felt neck hairs rise.

  A minivan pulled up. The man who hopped from the passenger side wore a suit, had a briefcase but no raincoat. He hunched, waved thanks to the minivan’s driver as it turned and left, ducked inside.

  I stepped from my truck and stood in pouring rain next to the office door. After two minutes the customer stepped out. I startled him. He recovered, nodded, hopped in his car. I waited near the door where Josh couldn’t see me. I was trying to time my entry—wanted him relaxed, but didn’t want to give him a chance to lock up. I was ready to push my way in if I heard keys jingle.

  In maybe three minutes I stepped into the office, hoping to intimidate the hell out of Josh.

  He wasn’t behind the counter.

  Shit.

  I stepped into the garage. Heard noise near the back, walked along the wall. Tried to keep it quiet, but my shoes squished.

  Josh stepped around a corner, walking with purpose. He held a good-size rubber mallet, raised and ready. His eyes were narrowed, his mouth open a little. His teeth were slightly apart, and I saw the pink of his tongue-tip between them. If I hadn’t known better I would’ve thought he was looking forward to beating the bejesus out of an intruder.

  This wasn’t working out the way I’d pictured it.

  Josh saw it was me. I made a whoa-now gesture with both hands. He stood four feet away, mallet poised.

  “Really coming down out there,” I said.

  “The hell’d you come from?” He breathed hard through his nostrils. Did I read disappointment in his eyes? Had he hoped I was some meth-head burglar he could cream?