Jonathan Nasaw - Twenty-Seven Bones

He left his Panama in the car-the brim was starting to uncurl from the repeated soaking-and ascended the steps wearily, wearing the hooded yellow SLPD slicker that made him feel like a school crossing guard. He crossed the colonnaded porch, pushed the ivory bell next to the French doors, behind which the curtains had been drawn, blocking his view of the interior. He heard chimes, counted to thirty, rang the bell again.

The doors opened outward. “Good evening, Agent…was it Pender?” Apgard himself. Loafers, white duck trousers, white T-shirt, white cardigan sweater-like a letter sweater, but without the letter. Golden blond hair tousled under his Dolphins cap. Body language, relaxed. Two, three stiff drinks’ worth of relaxed, Pender estimated.

From here on in, it would be an improvisation, a chess game. “Good evening, Mr. Apgard.” Pender stopped there. Apgard’s move. Would he invite him in? Try to get rid of him?

“All settled into the A-frame?” None of the above. Friendly approach, neutral tone, noted Pender. But his voice and stance were contradictory. Apgard had also taken a step forward, and was now standing in the doorway, barring the entrance both physically and symbolically.

“Yes, thank you. I haven’t been back since this rain started, though-I hope everything’s still dry.”

Apgard flipped a light switch just inside the door. Floodlights glared outside, illuminating the driving rain.

“Still coming down vertical,” he said, peering around Pender. “Should be okay. Something I can do for you?” Clipped sentences: Apgard wanted to hurry the conversation to a conclusion.

“Did you hear about the lime grove?” A promising opening, with limited permutations. There were only three answers, yes, no, and what the fuck you talkin’ ’bout, dude, none of which required thinking over. A hesitation would be a tell. One thousand one, one thousand two, one-

“The lime grove?”

A variation of what the fuck you talking about, but Apgard was two and a half beats behind. Might be a tell.

Lewis’s first impulse had been to deny any knowledge of the lime grove-then he remembered that Artie Felix, probably trying to ingratiate himself, had called a few hours ago with the news. We got him, Mr. Apgard: he’s a deadah. Which meant they’d swallowed the scenario whole. Until now.

“Oh, right,” he added hurriedly. “You mean about Shea being the Machete Man. Yes, Detective Felix called me this afternoon with the good word. In a manner of speaking. Not so good for that poor girl. I’m afraid I’ve been celebrating. Making rather merry, as Bob Cratchit would say.”

Making rather merry? thought Pender. Fucker’s turning into Hugh Grant right in front of my eyes. Let’s see how the charm holds up. “May I come in?”

“Now’s probably not the best time.”

Pender, sweetly oblivious: “I’m sorry-do you have company?”

“No, but-”

“Great-this won’t take but a minute.” And with a pivot and a pirouette, moving light on his toes like old Jackie Gleason-and awaaaayy we go-Pender edged sideways past Apgard, through the outflung double doors into the enclosed vestibule. “I’ll hang this up here, shall I?” Pender’s slicker was dripping on the hardwood floor of the vestibule. “Or will I be putting the maid out of work again?”

“I told you, this is not a good time for me,” said Lewis forcefully.”

“It’s not a good time for any of us.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

The vestibule wasn’t very large. Proxemically speaking, this was an intimate conversation. Pender lowered his voice to just above a whisper, bent his head to the shorter man. “I have reason to believe that it was not the Machete Man who killed your wife.”

One thousand one, one thousand two, one thous-

“Who, then?”

“How well do you know your nearest neighbors, the Epps?”

One thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three, one thousand four…

Endgame: the interview in the drawing room. Under the guise of brushing off the seat of his uncomfortable chair, Pender dragged it closer to Apgard’s silk wing chair and positioned it at a forty-five-degree angle.

“What can you tell me about the Epps?”

“They’ve been my tenants for six, seven years, something like that. I know they study bones, that they used to live in California, and that they spent the weekend in Puerto Rico at some kind of convention.”

“What do you know about Bennie?”

“The houseman? Not much. He’s Indonesian-from an island called Nias, I believe.”

“Think he’d know how to use a machete?”

“Bennie? He’s harmless.”

“How do you know that?”

“You get an impression of people.”

Apgard was starting to recover his composure, thought Pender. Time to make that bold move. “What would you say if I told you that a fingerprint matching the right index finger of one…”

Pender took his note out of the inside pocket of his sorry plaid sport jacket, opened it at random, as if consulting an entry.

“…Bennie Sukarto…”

He’d pulled the name out of the air. Sukarno and Suharto, the last two dictators of the country, were the only Indonesian surnames with which Pender was familiar. He was banking on the likelihood Apgard didn’t know Bennie’s real name either.

“…was found on the machete recovered in the lime grove?”

“I…Cheese-an’-bread, I-Wait a minute: are you saying that?”

Oh-ho, thought Pender. John Q. Citizen says right off how shocked and surprised he’d be to learn such a thing. Or wouldn’t be. One or the other-what John Q. doesn’t do at this point is shadow box with his interviewer, go back and parse the question. Have to play it careful now, though. Don’t let him suspect that you suspect him. Instead, involve him.

“We’re still waiting for confirmation from Interpol. Should have it by morning-then we’ll bring him in. What I’m trying to find out from you is, in your opinion, as someone who’s had dealings with them over an extended period of time, should we bring the Epps in, as well?”

“By all means,” said Apgard, after a pause so long Pender lost count of the one thousands. “Bring ’em all in. Strap the electrodes to their privates and get the truth out of ’em. Now if there’s nothing else…?”

“Nothing at present.” Pender rose. “Thanks for your time.”

Apgard remained seated. “You know the way out.”

From the drawing room, Lewis heard the front doors open and close. A car engine started up; tires crunched the wet gravel. Then quiet: the grandfather clock, the rain. He sagged in his chair. Doomed, was the word that came to mind. I’m fucking doomed. The reason he hadn’t gotten up to see Pender out was that he hadn’t trusted his legs. He was also a little nauseous-for a moment there, back in the vestibule when Pender first mentioned the Epps, he’d thought he was going to spew kalaloo, as they say on St. Luke.

One fingerprint. One careless little man, one lousy fingerprint, and my life is ruined. The last of the fucking Apgards. He looked around the drawing room. Satiny dark green wallpaper, gilt dado rail and cornices. Stately grandfather clock, bronze sun/moon pendulum ticking off the seconds. And over the fireplace-the old Danes couldn’t conceive of a house without a fireplace, even in the tropics-hung the ancestral portraits.

Don’t say hung. Don’t even think it. St. Luke still had the gallows. They’d done the Blue Valley boys one at a time. The Guv had described the proceedings in vivid detail when Lewis came home for spring break his second year in prep school. It was the hang-man’s first job in years. He’d botched the first one-the boy had strangled to death. Took him forever. Pissed and crapped and shot a load. Put the fear o’ God into the other ones, I’ll tell you that, me son, said the Guv.