Richard Russo - Everybody's Fool

“Yeah?”

“You’d make a good cop.”

“What I been saying.”

“What else was in the log?”

She went out and came back in with it. “You want everything?”

“Just the meaty parts.”

“All in all, a wild night. The mayor’s wife went AWOL again. We found her, though.”

“Where this time?”

“Longmeadow Estates.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, why?”

“That’s where Becka and I used to live.” He remembered coming out of the condo in the morning and seeing her loitering across the street, anxious for him to leave for work so she and Becka could have coffee. He’d told her many times that she didn’t have to wait outside, to just ring the bell whenever, but the next morning she’d be there again, patiently awaiting access to her best friend. Possibly her only friend. For some reason Becka had refused to accept the conventional wisdom that Alice Moynihan was increasingly untethered from reality, preferring to believe that she was just odd, overly sensitive, like a psychic, to things other people never even noticed. Was it possible that Becka had paid her a visit last night as well? Why else would she return to Longmeadow Estates after so long? “What was she doing out there?”

“Talking on her phone.”

“Bless her heart. Okay, what else?”

“Mrs. Gaghan called again. Said her son went out drinking at the White Horse last night and never came home.”

“That would be Spinmatics Joe?”

“One and the same.”

“What’d you tell her?”

“Not what I wanted to. Also, there was an A and B over at Hattie’s an hour ago. Guess who?”

Dougie knew immediately, and a second later so did Raymer. “Roy Purdy.”

“Except this time it wasn’t the ex-wife he beat up. It was her mother.”

“Ruth, right?”

“Messed her up pretty bad.”

“Is he in custody?”

She shook her head. “Slipped out in the confusion when the ambulance got there. Apparently he got injured in the scuffle himself.”

“With an officer?”

“No, your old friend Sully showed up in the nick of time. Brained him with a skillet.”

“Good,” Raymer said, surprised for perhaps the first time in his life to think of his old nemesis with straightforward affection. Something was nagging at him, though, having to do with their adventure out at Hilldale that hadn’t seemed right. Not important right now, of course. “I’m pretty sure it was Purdy who keyed Jerome’s car, by the way. I saw him in the vicinity. When we pick him up, have the arresting officer check his keys for red paint in the grooves.”

“He can’t have got far. He doesn’t have a vehicle after yesterday.”

“Yeah, but there’s a woman at the Arms he’s tight with. Cora something. Make sure she didn’t loan him her car. Put out an APB on it if she did. Where are we with animal control?”

“Justin just called. He’s going through the place again this morning with four or five other AC guys. They figure the snake’s long gone, though.”

“Have they removed the other reptiles? And the rodents?”

She nodded. “Good luck renting that unit.”

“No sign of our William Smith?”

“According to Miller, a white cargo van drove by after midnight, going real slow. The driver must’ve seen the crime tape, because then he hauled ass.”

“Miller didn’t pursue?”

“He said you’d ordered him to surveil the building. His word, ‘surveil.’ ”

“Did you know he’s got a crush on you?” Raymer said, immediately feeling guilty about betraying the dope’s confidence. “He’s working up the courage to ask you out.”

“Miller.” Clearly, she was mortified.

“Go easy on him,” Raymer suggested, though secretly buoyed by her reaction. “Anyway, when they’re sure there’s no snake, you can start letting people back in. Is the mayor in his office?”

“No, at home.”

“Do we have any departmental stationery?”

She looked at him like he was crazy. “Of course.”

“Bring me a sheet. And an envelope,” he called after her when she went to fetch it. She returned with the envelope and two large sheets. She obviously had no idea how short this letter was going to be. “What’s today’s date?” he asked. When she told him, he thanked her and said that would be all for the moment. He printed the date at the top right of the page and started at the left margin with Dear Gus. Which was wrong, of course, so he wadded the page up and trashed it. Once more, Charice had been right. She’d probably considered bringing him three sheets. Again he wrote the date and then a new salutation, Dear Mayor Moynihan. Next, the body: I quit. And finally: Sincerely, Douglas Raymer. He folded the page into thirds, paused, then unfolded it and added Chief of Police after his name, smiling as he did so at the thought of Miss Beryl. He had produced possibly the world’s smallest rhetorical triangle, but it pleased him to note that all three sides were represented: a clear subject, a specific audience, the identity of the speaker established not once but twice. Nothing to do now but deliver it.

When he stood up, though, he saw that Charice hadn’t left the room but had circled around and was reading over his shoulder. Unless he was mistaken, her eyes were tearing up.

—

INSTEAD OF GOING directly to the Moynihans’ house on Upper Main, Raymer took the department SUV and drove on impulse out to the White Horse Tavern. Except for the battered old sedan that belonged to the woman who tended bar and lived in the apartment on the second floor, the lot was empty. He parked next to the reeking Dumpster and walked the perimeter, looking for what, exactly, he couldn’t say. Maybe some indication of an altercation. Spinmatics Joe was a bigot and an idiot and a loudmouth, so it was possible that when leaving the bar he’d insulted someone who’d stomped him unconscious and dragged him into the tall weeds. No sign of that, nor did he seem to be in the Dumpster, though Raymer’s examination there was on the cursory side, his stomach heaving at the stench.

Oh, well, he figured, getting back in the car, it had been a thought. Dougie’s? His own? Hard to say. He just sat there for a minute scratching his palm, which was still itching ferociously. It felt good to scratch the staple, but as soon as he stopped, the itch redoubled. Heading back into town, he hadn’t gone more than a quarter mile before he saw the dark, violent skid marks that ran onto the gravel shoulder. Pulling over, he backtracked along the blacktop until he found a shard of thick, foggy glass on the shoulder that he held up for a better view. From a reflector, was his guess. He used the jagged edge on the staple: ecstasy, followed by even worse itching. In the weeds nearby he found several more shards, one of them crusted with something rust colored. He sniffed it, then returned to the SUV for an evidence bag that he slipped this into. There was a Bic pen on the dash, so he took its top off and used the long, plastic tooth to dig at the staple. From where he stood he could make out what he hadn’t noticed before, the section of tall weeds that had been flattened and a trail leading off into the woods.

He was contemplating all this when a car with a bad muffler pulled up behind his own, then Officer Miller got out. “Chief?” he called, as if Raymer’s identity were in doubt. “What’re you doing?”

“I was about to ask you the same thing.”

“Heading home. I just finished up my double,” he added, in case his boss meant to question his right to go off duty.

“Feel like a walk in the woods?”

“Uh, Chief?” he said, pointing at Raymer’s hand. “You’re bleeding.”