Chapter 20. I had let the animals out for their Monday morning patrol—I was getting entirely too used to saying animals in the plural—while I showered and donned my usual

I had let the animals out for their Monday morning patrol—I was getting entirely too used to saying animals in the plural—while I showered and donned my usual sweatshirt, jeans, crew socks and sneakers. I let them in, gave them dry food and fresh water. Then I sat down with my first cup of coffee and cigarette. If there is any better combination than those two things I haven’t found it yet. And I don’t need a lecture. This was number one and today I was counting. I would not exceed five, in all probability.

I finished the news portion of the paper and turned to the week-ahead horoscope for my morning’s intellectual touch. I looked at Leo and learned I would benefit from the generosity of friends but might have an unpleasant experience dining out. I looked at Sagittarius and was told that Fargo should be careful playing games and not to be judgmental in making new friends. “Okay, Fargo, we hope for a check, eat at home, stay away from Frisbees and be nice to Pewter.”

At that, Pewter began to run frantically between the back door and the front, yowling shrilly. Fargo looked at me in confusion: what was this? I didn’t know either. For an absurd second I wondered if Pewter was upset because I hadn’t read her horoscope. A car door slammed, and Fargo joined the racket, lustily, if late.

I looked out the door and did not recognize the car but shortly recognized its occupants. Wolf and Peter came in, laden with two bottles of Moë t champagne, Russian caviar, a dozen long-stem yellow roses and a dozen red, plus an enormous rawhide and a catnip toy. The reunion was unanimously joyous. Eventually I got the flowers into vases, while Peter made toast points and boiled a couple of eggs for the caviar and Wolf wrestled the shrink-wrap off the presents for the kiddies.

Finally, we got ourselves settled at the dining table. The champagne was cold and beautifully dry, the caviar the best I had ever tasted. Did drinking in the morning count if you had caviar with it? It didn’t seem as if it should. Peter and the Wolf were exultant at being out of jail and reunited with Pewter, who pretended she didn’t care.

“John Frost must have gotten the judge out of bed at six a.m., ” Peter told me. “We were in court at nine sharp and out in twenty minutes. But would you believe Mitch got the D.A. to make John promise to collect our passports and turn them over to the court. Does he think we have a Swiss bank account and a pied a terre on the Riviera? ”

I thought it mere petulance on Mitch’s part, but I just smiled. “Well, at least you’re back in your own home, and things look better all around.”

“Don’t count on that, ” Wolf said. “Guess who was waiting when we got home? ”

“Not Mitch! ” I couldn’t believe it. Hadn’t our conversation last night gotten through to him at all?

“Give the lady a silver dollar. I guess you noticed we’re driving a rental.” I shook my head; I hadn’t thought about it. “Well, we are. Mitch took our Explorer last week and now our old Nissan. He said Ben Fratos’s killer had got blood on the clutch of Harmon’s truck, and he—Mitch—wanted to make sure there was none transferred from the truck to our car. He won’t find any. I just hope he doesn’t put some there.”

“He won’t do that.” I put more caviar on my plate and reached for the little bowl of chopped eggs, trying to look casual, not greedy.

“I’m not sure of anything anymore, Alex. He really wants us for this.”

“It’s not really that he wants you two so much as he wants some body. And he can’t come up with anyone else who really makes sense. Except Bartles, and Mitch has a mental block there. I’m sure you didn’t do it, ” I added hastily. “But I can’t prove it yet. And Mitch is getting pressure from Anders, who’s getting it from the selectmen, who’re getting it all over town.”

“What about Righteous Brother Bartles? ” Peter asked.

“It’s a gray area.” I wasn’t about to go into details. “And Lewis never mentioned anything going on with Bartles to any of his buddies. The cops asked around.”

“Well, somebody did it and I’m getting damn sick of it looking like us.” Peter tossed off his remaining champagne and reached for the bottle in the ice bucket. He didn’t seem to care if he looked greedy.

“Yeah, I’m sure, ” I sighed. “I don’t suppose any of your guests had reason to want Lewis dead.” I made it a question.

They looked at each other and shook their heads. “I can’t think so.” Peter shrugged. “There were a couple of incidents. It must be three weeks ago now. Walter Harris was a guest and came to us saying he was missing a ring. He was sure it was taken off the bureau. We were asking what it looked like and when he’d last seen it, when Lewis came downstairs with the ring. Said he found it behind a bureau leg while cleaning. I just assumed Walter had missed it when he first looked. Now I think maybe Lewis conveniently found it when he heard us talking. But I doubt Walter killed him.”

“No. You said a couple of things...? ”

“Oh, back the end of September, a guest thought he was missing fifty dollars. We were very upset. Wolf offered to make it good. Then the guest got all flustered and said he wasn’t really sure, he’d been drunk the night before and may have given it to Lewis as a tip.” Wolf stretched. “Excuse me... my back. I don’t recommend the beds in that hotel.”

“Are you saying Lewis figured he deserved a tip and helped himself? ” I asked.

“Possibly. Or the guest was drunk and gave it to him, or spent it somewhere or lost it. Again, I doubt it would have ended in murder. Anyway, he hasn’t stayed at the inn since, if he’s been in town.”

“Maybe he came back to town, stayed somewhere else, got in a dust-up with Lewis and killed him, ” I suggested.

“Where would he have gotten a table leg, assuming that was the weapon? ” Peter inquired.

“Oh, just about anywhere.” I gestured around me grandly. “They seem to be popping up all over town. Even my Aunt Mae now has a spare.”

Wolf laughed and topped off my glass. “Have a little champagne, Alex. The caviar is getting to you.”

Peter and I giggled and we gave up any hope of serious talk. Eventually, they left with many thanks to Fargo and me for our hospitality toward Pewter. Wolf took Pewter in his arms and they walked toward the door. Fargo gave Pewter a farewell sniff, and she bopped him on the nose with her claws out. Fargo sat down looking dismayed, and I led him away by the collar before he could jump into my arms. It was Panalog time—and good stuff it was. My leg was healing nicely.

First aid complete, I realized I was getting a whopping headache. Champagne and caviar for breakfast might be terribly sophisticated, but obviously I wasn’t meant for it. Cool fresh air seemed a good idea but I didn’t think driving was, so we walked down the bay side. Of course, here came Toby, abbreviated legs churning through the sand, bright beady eyes alert with mischief. He had picked the wrong day. Having lost his playmate and been given a bloody nose by her as a final humiliation, Fargo was in no mood for small-dog antics. Poor Toby spent their entire meaningful moments with his head pushed into the sand and Fargo’s broad, heavy paw in the middle of his back. Finally Toby managed to free himself and stomp—if dachshunds can be said to stomp—off the field, whiskers puckered into a moue of disgust.

As my head cleared, I realized that while caviar made a delicious and unusual breakfast, it did not make a filling one. One of Joe’s pastrami sandwiches and some fries took care of the emptiness. Iced tea helped the sudden thirst. As Joe cleared my plates he asked, “Any news on the murder... murders? ”

“Not really. Peter and the Wolf are out on bail, which is overdue, as far as I’m concerned.”

“Yeah, most people I talk to can’t picture those two great ladies killing anybody. You don’t figure this for a hate crime, do you, Alex? ” His forehead creased in a frown.

I took a good-sized gulp of tea. “It’s hard to believe in Provincetown. Of course, anything is possible. But if that was true, why kill Ben Fratos? He wasn’t gay. Though he was sure easy to hate. Have you heard something? ”

“Oh, nothing about a hate crime. The majority say Ben saw something and tried to blackmail the killer, who then killed him, too. A few folks vote for Ben having killed the Schley fellow for his money, and one of Schley’s pals killed him in revenge. But that’s pretty far out. Of course, Harmon is still saying it’s something about drugs and cigarette boats and a Hollywood connection. But his story is now so confused, he can’t even remember how it goes.”

“God, poor Ben was sure popular, wasn’t he? Thief, blackmailer, murderer. Makes you scared to get killed around here for fear of what people will say! ” I laughed.

“Yeah. Say, how’s the wicked witch? Did you find her yet? I hear you’ve been patrolling the streets.”

“She was last seen circling over your house, coming in to land.”

“What the hell, I’m already married. What’s one more? ” Joe ended the conversation and went to wait on another customer. I felt better after eating and figured Fargo might, too. I took him out some sliced chicken and water, and then we walked home via the street. I didn’t think either of us was up to Toby.

The phone was ringing as I walked in the door. I almost let the machine pick up. I was working toward a nap and didn’t need irritation. But I picked it up and was glad I did. It was the bank’s decorator, calling from Boston.

She would be over on Friday, she said, for a 10 a.m. appointment with a Mr. Jared Mather to look at some carvings. Could she come to my house around 11: 30, or would that be too close to lunch? I said it was fine and suggested I take her to lunch afterwards. I thought that was what she was angling for, and sure enough, she became considerably more gracious. But I didn’t care. I wanted that photo of Fargo and the gull and/or the one of him with the squirrel used at the bank. Maybe buying lunch would make that happen.

Nap forgotten, I went into my office/studio and started looking at photos. I grouped them, shifted them, discarded some, but somehow my heart wasn’t in it. As I looked at photos of Fargo laughing, a cat smiling, a starling glowering, I thought of Jared Mather and didn’t know why—perhaps wondering how a man so blatantly miserable could carve birds in such obviously joyful flight.

I moved to the kitchen and a beer, sat down at the table and just let my thoughts drift. They moved, like a compass needle returning north, to Jared Mather. I saw him in his uniform, straight and military. I saw him relaxed and pleasant with Sonny and my mother. I saw him in jeans and T-shirt on his back porch that fateful Saturday I’d walked up his driveway. Always when I thought of Jared, it was in connection with his years as a policeman. I rarely thought of him in connection with his woodworking and carving skills.

I set the beer down carefully, back in its same little circle of wetness on the coaster. But Mather was a man who worked with wood. And wood meant splinters, chips, sawdust.

I remembered Mather talking to both Lewis and Fratos before each was killed. Maybe a few hours before their respective deaths, possibly only a few minutes.

It seemed strange that Mather would have been talking to either of them at all. Mather was obvious in his disapproval of Lewis. That had been easy to see all along, and his “Well done, soldier, ” speech to me had underscored it. Yet just a few minutes after that speech, I had seen them talking together at the head of the alley. Certainly, their voices had not been raised in any confrontation, nor were they whispering, they were just... normal.

And Fratos. I could visualize Fratos walking into the Rat and heading for the stool next to Mather. Mather gave him a ferocious glare, and he veered off. Then I saw them on the street. Tension. How did I know? Heads forward, voices low, urgent, not wanting to be heard. Fratos was leaning toward Mather, pressing a point. Mather looked tight, nodded, said a word or two.

The unthinkable thought floated up unasked—could Mather be the killer?

He had the possible weapon and the opportunity. But was he a killer? He disliked gays but had never used his official position to mistreat them. Fratos had been a fellow officer, but Mather didn’t like him, and didn’t support his try for more money. Mather seemed a man of high morals and the guts to live up to them.

But what if he’d had sex with Lewis and Lewis threatened to go public? And what if Fratos knew it and tried some form of blackmail?

I couldn’t believe Jared would let two innocent men be convicted. By serving as advisor to Mitch, he would be kept abreast of the workings of the case and could promote his skinhead theory. Anders would support that—it was close enough to his own solution, and the investigation would simply wither into “unsolved.”

Assuming they were innocent, neither Peter and Wolf nor—to a lesser degree—Rev. Bartles would consider it a happy ending. They would never be free of suspicion, even though they were never tried. But it would probably be about the best Mather could arrange. It would be like it had been in the old eighteenth-century Scottish courts: a verdict of innocent, guilty or “not proven.”

I knew I could never, ever convince Mitch of my new theory. I needed to get a good look at that table leg in Aunt Mae’s kitchen, and I needed to do it without her knowledge. She would be terrified and horrified if I simply walked in, explained my thoughts and crawled under the table with a flashlight. I’d have to think of a way.

I drained the beer and stared out the window for a while. Then I went into the office and dug around until I found the card with the phone number of the Mekong Mariott or wherever Sonny was staying these days, and sat down to make the call. “Fargo, the time has come to call the Mounties. I am not easy about all this. I think it’s time we update Sonny.”

Hearing Sonny’s name, Fargo looked hopefully at the door. “Not yet, angel dog, but probably soon.”

After various recorded messages, menus and instructions I reached their room and Paula picked up. “Helloo-o-o.”

“Hi, Paula, it’s Alex. I hope I didn’t catch you at a bad time.”

There was a momentary pause, just long enough to tell me she had to stop and think who I was. Gee, I loved this girl. Then she began to gush.

“Not a bad time at all! I’ve just been to the spa and had a massage. Don’t you just love them! So-o-o relaxing; stress just melts away. I may take a swim before dinner, just to stay loose. Although I need my hair done. And I’ve got to have my nails done, but they’ll take me anytime. And I want to check this little boutique that the masseuse recommended. But I’ll fit it in somehow! ” She sighed with the enormity of it all, and I spoke quickly before she pressed the “play” button again.

“Is Sonny by chance around? ”

“Oh, dear, no. He’s out with Dave, golfing or riding... canoeing. Shall I have him call you? ”

Dave? Who the hell was Dave? “Yes, would you, please? ” “Absolutely. And you have a good afternoon, now, honey.” She giggled. “I’m just getting too Southron! ”

I said “Um” and we both hung up.

Sonny didn’t call until after six and sounded as if he might have had a drink or two. My opening words were, “Who’s Dave? I thought you were down there with Paula.”

“Just a guy I met. We’ve been having some fun together.”

“Working my side of the street? ” I laughed. “Paula’s apparently about to make you turn gay. She’d have me in a nunnery in a snap. But at least the hotel seems to meet with her approval... sounds like the Boston Sheraton to me.”

“It is. That’s the whole idea—you travel a thousand miles and you stay in a hotel just like the one two blocks from your office.” I heard ice cubes rattle.

“I hope, for the sake of your evening together, she’s not hearing this. Anyway, things are perking right along here in the old village. We’ve had another murder.”

“Another one! No kidding? ”

“Sonny, ” I answered sharply. “Ben Fratos was killed. I didn’t like him either, but you sound like a kid who’s just been given a three-pound Milky Way.”

“Sorry. It’s just that a second murder gives me a perfect... Well, never mind. Fill me in a little here.”

I did so, and at the end of it Sonny definitely thought it time to come home. Much as it pained him, duty called.

“I’ll get there as soon as I can. That may not be easy. Knoxville is not the airline capital of the world. But I’ll get there.”

I’m not sure who was happier—Sonny saying the words, or me hearing them. Then he had to go and spoil it all.

“Oh, and Alex, you’ve done a great job for your clients. You have also helped the police with their inquiries. Now get the hell out of it. It could be turning dangerous now. You hear me? Leave it alone.”