Chapter 13

“You burned it, ” I echoed. Alice in Wonderland had nothing on Alex in Provincetown. Things were getting curiouser and curiouser here, too. “Might one inquire why you burned it? Why you incinerated possible evidence! ” I ended in a squeak.

“Now you’re getting testy about it, too. It was our table. If we want to burn up our furniture who’s to say we can’t! ” Peter sounded a little testy himself.

“Alex, ” Wolf spoke reasonably. “We had no idea we were doing anything... questionable. Since we planned to close the inn earlier than usual this fall, we didn’t order extra firewood. The weather was so awful over the weekend, we kept a fire in the fireplace most of the time for the guests, and used up all the logs we had.”

Peter picked up the explanation. “Last night we felt so low and lost and alone...” He cocked his head and smiled mournfully, obviously appreciating the unplanned alliteration. “So low... so lost... so alone, we decided a wee nightcap and a fire might cheer us up. There were no logs, so Wolf just knocked the table apart and we enjoyed a little light and comfort in a dark, unfriendly world.”

I stood and walked to the guilty fireplace. I was annoyed—no, angry. I felt they were playing with me. Obviously, they knew I liked them. Maybe they thought they could charm me into being their white knight. Well, I had done that once, and my armor still had the dents to show for it. I wasn’t buying their damsels in distress act.

“I’m touched. You have that old table sitting around for years and you pick last night to burn it. Either you are truly babes in the woods or very clever killers. And right now, I’d have to toss a coin to make a choice! ”

“Alex! ” they chorused. Peter continued, “Of course we aren’t killers. How on earth were we to know Mitch would want that damned table? He’d be welcome to it. God knows it was worthless. And it was not old, my dear, we bought it about three weeks ago.”

“Three weeks? ” I was surprised. The rickety thing had looked like an antique to me. I walked to the window, as if the table were still there for me to re-evaluate. I came back and sat down.

“About, ” Wolf nodded. “We got a flyer in the mail from Wood’s Woods, that unfinished wood furniture shop in Orleans. The table was featured, on sale very cheap. I should have remembered my grandmother’s warning. Buy cheap, get cheap. Anyway, I took a drive up, and the one Wood had on display looked all right, so I bought one to use in the sun porch. I got it home and out of the carton to assemble it and damned if one leg wasn’t missing. On top of that, one of the screws to anchor the top broke off as I started to screw it in. Lewis found an old broom and cut the handle off for a makeshift leg.”

He turned to Peter. “Why don’t you make some coffee? ” Peter nodded and headed for the kitchen, with Pewter and, surprisingly, Fargo following hopefully. Wolf resumed. “We used it on the porch one night with a cookout for the guests and just left it there... forgot it, I guess. It rained overnight. When it got wet, it started to warp so fast you could practically see it curl! Lord, nothing’s gone right lately.”

It sounded almost too convenient to be true. “Did you call Wood’s Woods and complain? ” I asked.

“Yes.” From the kitchen.

“No.” From the couch.

“Keep the stories straight, boys.” I’d about had it with these two.

“Wolf, ” Peter called from the kitchen, sounding genuinely confused. “You were going to call and demand our money back.”

“I know. It got busy here, and every time I thought of calling, it was sometime I knew they would be closed. Finally, I decided just to wait till after the weekend when things calmed down. Ha-ha. So, no, I haven’t called. What difference does it make? ”

“It would be interesting, ” I answered sourly, “to know if anyone else bought one—or says they bought one—with a leg missing.”

“Oh. Oh, yes, of course.” Peter returned with three mugs, a carton of milk and a sugar bowl on a tray. The formality of service had certainly changed with Dear Boy’s departure. “You see, Alex, it’s things like this we need you for! I would never have thought of that. And I’ll bet Little Mitchie hasn’t either.”

I couldn’t help grinning. “Better not let him hear you call him that. Anyway, I’ll check Wood’s Woods. If another leg is missing, and a table leg turns up as the murder weapon, you’d be a little further off the hook. They found pine splinters in the wound, and if they match pieces of other tables, you’d be even further off the hook. Even though you are first-class top-notch assholes for burning that table! ”

They looked at the floor like chastened children, as perhaps they were. “Now, Wolf, where the hell were you Saturday night between eight and midnight? And tell the truth. One quibble and I’m out of here.”

“Okay. About seven-thirty I drove Peter down to the Crown and Anchor. I dropped him and his costume and makeup kit right at the door. No way could I find a place to park, and the parade was starting, so I drove home and walked back down just ahead of the rain. I stayed in the dressing room with Peter until he went on. Several people can confirm that.” Wolf paused and looked uneasy.

“That takes us to about nine o’clock. Then what? ” I urged. I didn’t want him to take time to think something up. I wanted to hear what was bothering him. “Then what? ”

He sighed and looked sadly at Peter. “I’m sorry, darling. I did something awful and I lied to you about it.”

Peter turned dead white and clasped his hands to his mouth. I was hard put not to do the same. I really didn’t want to hear what I thought I was about to. I cleared my throat and somehow spoke evenly. “What did you do? ”

“I knew Peter was a nervous wreck. The dust-up with Lewis, his father’s watch, the bruise under his eye, having to pitch in with me and clean rooms when he should have been resting—all these things had left him exhausted and very shaky. I... I was almost certain he was going to blow the performance. I had visions of his voice failing him. I was afraid he’d forget lyrics. I could just see him tripping on that long skirt and ripping it. I envisioned a total disaster, with the whole audience whooping and laughing him off the stage. I couldn’t face it.” He paused and wiped his face with his handkerchief. “Just as the show started, I left. I saw you as I went out, Alex. You were sitting with Marc. I didn’t know you knew him.”

I didn’t bother to explain about how I met Marc. I didn’t know whether I was relieved by what Wolf had said or not. He was clever—they both were. I found myself wondering if this might be a little play produced solely for me. One of them could have run into Marc, and Marc could have casually mentioned sitting with me. It was almost too perfect as Wolf’s throwaway line.

Wolf turned toward Peter but couldn’t look him in the eye. “So you see, my dear, I not only had no faith in you, I left you to face your incipient disaster all on your own.”

I waited for Peter to become a blubbering mess or a blazing virago, but he fooled me. He took Wolf’s hand and spoke quietly. “I don’t blame you. You haven’t said a thing I hadn’t been thinking all that afternoon. It’s almost funny, all day I had been trying to think of a way to get you not to go. I didn’t want you to see me make an ass of myself, or faint, or exit sobbing or whatever it would have been. However, since I was such a triumph...” Now he was Peter again. “I confess I had Walter make a video of the whole thing. He promised to burn it if I blew up, but I didn’t, and now we can bore everybody silly for years making them all watch it. My love, you are forgiven.” As stars in a gay soap opera, these two were direct from Central Casting.

“A heartwarming scene, ” I said. “I’ll try again. Wolf, where were you? ”

Wolf flashed Peter a radiant and grateful smile, and turned toward me. “I was home, as I said. I walked home from the Crown, feeling pretty despondent. I tossed the two final logs on the fire and sat down. Pewter jumped up to console me. I just sat there, thinking. Things seemed to be coming apart, somehow. I guess I felt... old. Like I couldn’t really control things anymore. And that I had never really done anything with my life.”

He sipped some coffee and looked up with a rueful grin. “You know, at some point we all think we’re going to be President, or find the cure for cancer or discover Atlantis or whatever. It suddenly occurred to me that when Saint Peter asks me what I’ve done to pass through those pearly gates, I’ll answer, ‘Why, good sir, the towels were always fresh and sweet-smelling in my guesthouse.’ Somehow, it doesn’t have much of a ring to it.”

I laughed. “Better than saying they weren’t. We can’t all be Washington or Salk or Columbus. Somebody has to dump the ashtrays.” Against my better judgment, I couldn’t dislike these two. But that could be a serious mistake. “Did anyone besides Pewter witness these dark thoughts? ”

“Actually, yes.” He sighed. “I know, I should have told Mitch, but I was afraid he might let it slip and Peter would find out I skipped the performance.”

He indicated a chair beside the fireplace. “Sitting there daydreaming, I heard the back door open. I admit, my first thought was that Lewis had come back to put his sticky little hands on anything loose—the guests are lax as hell about locking doors. But it was one of the guests.” He nodded at me before I could interrupt. “I’ll give you his name and address. He asked me to cash a check for him, said he had spent more than he had realized. I cashed a fifty-dollar check for him, and we had a drink and talked for a while.”

Wolf stretched his legs and accidentally gave Pewter a little kick. He apologized with an ear-scratch and picked up his tale. “I glanced at the clock and was surprised to find it was nearly eleven. I explained to our guest that I had to leave and offered a ride, but he said he had gotten so relaxed, he’d just enjoy the fire for a bit and go to bed. So I left, found a place to park out on the wharf and walked over to get Peter.”

I felt at least partially relieved by Wolf’s explanation. I could check his stories about Marc and the houseguest, and if they were true, it pretty well accounted for his time between seven-thirty and midnight.

Of course he might have encountered Lewis upon arriving home, but I doubted he could have had a casual, coherent conversation with a houseguest if he had just minutes earlier bashed Lewis’s head in and stashed him behind a bush for later transport to the beach. Mitch said Lewis had possibly been killed as late as two a.m., but more likely earlier, so it looked as if Peter and Wolf were at least marginally in the clear.

“I say again, Wolf, I don’t think you two have anything to worry about. Since Lewis worked and lived here, you come into the spotlight. The fight and burning the table are negatives, but the watch is easily explained and the table is so dumb it almost has to be innocent. Give me your guest’s name and phone number... and Marc’s. Also, I’ll see what I can find out about table legs and the righteous Reverend Bartles. We’ll talk during the weekend.”

“Ah, would you like a small... ah, is retainer the word? ” Peter asked delicately, as Wolf scribbled on a card. “Absolutely, ” I said. “A copy of the Judy, Judy, Judy tape for my very own.”

“You shall have it, my dear, the only duplicate copy.”

I left my car parked at Green Mansions, and Fargo and I walked the few hundred feet to the Wharf Rat Bar for the lunch I felt we so richly deserved. I took a seat at the bar and noted that the usual suspects had gathered around the front table. Fish had taken second place and the topic du jour was, of course, murder. The consensus held that Peter and/or the Wolf had done it. The more Harmon drank, the more certain he was that it had been Wolf he saw in the Explorer, that Wolf was the go-between in a drug ring and Lewis was blackmailing him. Others were betting on Peter, that he was jealous of Wolf making a play for Lewis. One or two still voted for the transient robber, but they were few.

I decided to have a little fun. After Joe had taken my luncheon order and brought me a Bud, he asked, as usual, what was new with Ptown’s favorite sleuth. I gave him a big wink and answered in a whisper that could have been heard in Wellfleet, “Harmon’s footprints were found on the beach this morning. You know what that means. Not only what you’re thinking, but also possibly firewood.”

“My God! ” Joe played along, and the silence at the front table became palpable. “Are they sure, Alex, really sure? ”

“Yep. The worn spot on the heel was a dead giveaway.” Out of the corner of my eye I could see Harmon lifting one battered boot and then the other while he and his cronies leaned as if in prayer, to examine the soles.

Harmon addressed his companions indignantly, “Well, even if I was there and who says I was, it don’t mean nothing. Just walking on a beach don’t mean nothing! And Mitch ought to know that. No more does picking up a little wood. That ain’t illegal. I’m going down there right now and tell him he ain’t got one thing on me. Not one.” He nearly ran from the bar. I smiled at the thought of the lengthy and many-faceted conversation he and Mitch would enjoy. Then the smile faded, as I realized that once in a while my humor took a dark, twisted turn that reminded me of my father. I had to watch that.

My reflections were short-lived. Just as I had taken Fargo’s hamburger and water out to him and returned to my fried clams, Ben Fratos came through the door with his usual swagger. He took a barstool a couple down from me, and we nodded to each other with mutual lack of enthusiasm. Why did Fratos always arrive in time to ruin my lunch?

I turned away from him slightly, but it didn’t work. He took a noisy swig of his beer and said, “Well, I understand you got yourself a case. Trying to clear Peter and the Wolf, are you? ”

“Not me. I didn’t even know they were cloudy.”

“They’re under a cloud. Blood all over their SUV, Wolf with no alibi, a table leg—probably the murder weapon—missing from their place, and even poor little faggy Peter having a fight with the vic. I’d say that’s cloudy.”

I knew that, as an ex-cop, Fratos was still friendly with one or two men on the force and that they would have passed along information on the case. But it made me mad he would be so irresponsible as to blab it all over the Rat—the equivalent of CNN, or better.

“Gee, Ben.” I smiled. “You seem to know an awful lot about the case. You get your info direct from the perp? ”

His reaction totally unnerved me. He slammed the beer bottle down on the bar and stood up, red in the face, muscles popping along his neck. “You fucking nosy dyke! You been following me? I’ll teach you to trail me around! ”

He swung at me. I ducked, and suddenly Joe was between us, arms around Fratos.

“Ben, you crazy or something? Alex was just riding you a little, and I gotta say you started it. Looks to me like you already had too much beer somewhere. This one’s on the house, but you better get on home and sleep it off. Get on now! ” Ben looked like he’d like nothing better than a fight, but finally turned and left.

“Jesus, Alex, I’m sorry. You okay? ” Joe patted my shoulder.

“Oh, yeah, he missed. But what on earth did I say? He knows I know he has contacts who’d tell him stuff about a case, especially a murder. Why would he get so upset? He had to know it was just a needle.”

“Well, for one thing he was half-drunk. For another, you’re not his favorite person.” Joe returned to his usual place behind the bar. “I don’t know why he blames you for that Keystone Kops act he pulled with that skylight, but he does. Has from the beginning. Anyway, you want me to reheat your lunch? ”

“Uh, no, thanks, Joe. I’ve kind of lost my appetite. Maybe Billie could wrap it up for me. I’ll have it later at home.”

He was back moments later. “Billie gave you a fresh salad and added some pecan pie for a little comfort, she says. And it’s on us, Alex. Billie says you should have punched him while I held him.”

“Thanks. Billie is a woman of great ideas.” I smiled as I took the package. “But I have a feeling it would take more punch than I’ve got to shut that mouth.”

And it did.