The sweet golden parachute

CHAPTER 18

When the call came it was just past three in the morning and Des was finally getting somewhere in the studio. Not on her dreadful damned self-portrait. Hell no. Tonight, she’d thrown herself headlong into a portrait of Pete Mosher. This was her life’s mission, after all-illuminating the victims she encountered on the job. Them, not herself. Sometimes, the job had a way of bringing that realization home to her with startling clarity. Because she was feeling it again. Wielding her stub of graphite stick like a sword as she slashed away at the drawing pad, all of her energy and passion harnessed in pursuit of the only goal that was worth going after.

The truth.

What was Pete Mosher’s truth? Why had this bright, handsome bastard son of great wealth, a multimillionaire in his own right, dissolved into someone who picked through other peoples’ garbage? Why could he find no peace? As she stared at the crime-scene Polaroids of Pete that she’d clipped to her easel, Des kept thinking that he already seemed at one with the forest floor. At long last, Peter Ashton Mosher had found his peace. But he hadn’t exited peacefully. Somebody-make that two somebodys-had been determined to get even, get rich, get what? Was this about the money, or was there more to it?

And so Des drew. A few hours back, Mitch had called to say goodnight and to tell her that Mark Widdifield had withdrawn the last five thousand dollars in his checking account that day. Supposedly, he wanted to run off to St. Kitts with Danielle. Mitch had gotten this from Danielle, who he felt was in way over her head with her troubled brother-in-law. Which Des could be-lieve. But she wasn’t so sure whether Mark was as interested in Danielle as he claimed to be. Could be Mark was just playing Danielle-using her as a convenient cover for his cash withdrawal. True, he did appear to be a helpless soul in the midst of a genuine midlife meltdown. Yet he was also an intelligent, creative man who was still legally married to Claudia and therefore had a vested interest in the family’s financial affairs. How deep into this murder might Mark be? What had he gotten himself into? What had Mitch gotten himself into? Des wondered, because there had been an edge in his voice on the phone. There was something the doughboy wasn’t sharing with her. To do with what? That statutory rape business he’d dropped on her at lunch? She had her concerns. Mitch had a great big heart but he was a product of the MGM golden age. He had no idea just how far real people could go to get what they wanted. And his phone voice had sounded so strange that, well, she could have sworn someone else had been there with him. Which had to be her imagination.

Didn’t it?

She drew, feeling Pete’s madness and his sadness as Al Green cried about his own pain on the stereo. She was barefoot, clad only in the ancient, tattered West Point T-shirt that was almost long enough to cover her tattoo. The big fire in the studio fireplace kept her warm, as did The Balvenie twenty-one-year-old single malt scotch on the stand next to her. She’d set one spot beam on the drawing pad. Lit some candles. Beyond the studio, her house lay in darkness.

Des drew, feeling weightless on the balls of her feet. Dancing like Ali danced back when he was still Cassius slaying the mighty Liston. She floated like a butterfly and stung like a bee, the tendons popping in her arm, her skin tingling. There was her and there was the page. Nothing else. She hadn’t felt this connected in weeks. And she owed it all to the Can Man. Des would give the man his props. She would find out who killed him. She would.

She paused now to catch her breath and sip some scotch. Step back and take in the entirety of the page. Step back and…

Bounce right off of Bella, who was standing right there behind her in the candlelight, scowling at her. Bella Tillis could be a bit of a jolt at 3 A.M. in her quilted pink bathrobe, hair net and plush, oversized bear-claw slippers.

“Sorry if I woke you, girl,” Des gulped. “My music too loud?”

“No, it’s all of that stomping around. Are you drawing or doing the polka?”

“If you’re going to unleash the inner beast, you’ve got to use your whole body.”

“And does your whole body have to be nine-tenths naked?”

Des looked down at herself, frowning. “I’m dressed.”

“You are not. That T-shirt has so many holes in it your twins are staring right at me. You’re not staging a nutty are you?”

“Everything’s cool, Bella. I’m just feeling the-”

“Wait one second.” Bella shook a stubby finger at her. “You’re stewed, aren’t you? How much have you had to drink?”

“Half of that.” Des nodded toward the scotch on the stand.

“Half of that bottle?”

“No, half of the glass. Which I fully intend to finish.”

“Did you have any dinner?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Come, I’ll make you a sandwich. And, for pity’s sake, will you throw something on? You look like a porn star.”

Des fetched a hoody, still seeing Pete’s long, gaunt face before her eyes. She washed the shiny graphite stick residue from her hands in the kitchen sink while Bella carved breast meat off of the remains of a roast chicken. Bella had visited a friend in New Haven yesterday and brought back a challah from a Jewish bakery. She cut four thick slices, then began slicing up cucumbers, tomatoes and radishes, her chubby hands working with rapid-fire precision.

“Now in the old days back on Nostrand Avenue,” she recalled, slathering the bread with mayonnaise, “you’d go with a generous schmear of schmaltz. Much tastier than mayo. On the down side, you used to keel over dead of a heart attack by age forty-eight. I’ll have milk with mine. Would you pour me a glass, please?”

Des poured each of them a glass and leaned against the fridge, sipping hers.

“I know what you’re afraid of, Desiree,” Bella informed her as she finished assembling their sandwiches.

“And we are now talking about?…”

“Marriage to our Jewish gentleman, of course. Why you won’t say yes.”

Des sighed inwardly. “Okay, what is it that I’m afraid of?”

Bella handed Des her sandwich. “At first, I thought it was that whole independence thing of yours. How you’re in charge of your own life, your own career, your own orgasms-”

“No, the big guy pretty much sees to those.”

“But that’s all bull. Want to know what really scares you?”

Des took a huge, starved bite of her sandwich. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast. “I’m just standing here waiting for you to tell me.”

“That you’re still in love with Brandon.”

Des put the sandwich down on the counter, her appetite instantly gone. “Bella, Brandon came this close to destroying me,” she said softly, her stomach knotting. “It took me so long to get over him, but I did.”

Bella glanced at Des’s discarded sandwich. “Are you sure about that?”

“I’m sure that I love Mitch.”

“And Mitch loves you. Brandon didn’t, you know. Brandon never loved you.” Bella said this with such cold certainty that it was like a hard smack in the face.

Des drew back from her, stunned. “How can you say that to me?”

“I can say it because it’s the truth. Brandon never loved you. If he had, he wouldn’t have broken your heart that way. Desiree, I saw what that man did to you. Trust me, people don’t do that to people who they love.”

Des’s mouth had gone dry, but she did not want to reach for her milk glass. Not the way her hands were shaking. “Girl, I am over Brandon, okay? I do not still love him.”

Bella shrugged her round shoulders. “If you say so.”

“You don’t believe me, do you?”

“I believe that you want to believe it. I just don’t think it’s true.”

Now was when the phone rang. Des reached for it at once. She was a first responder. Often took emergency calls in the night.

“I’m so sorry to awaken you, dear.” It was Poochie Vickers, sounding utterly cordial and gracious.

“Not a problem. I was still up doing some drawing. Don’t have any news for you, if that’s why you’re calling.”

“It’s not, dear. It’s about Tolly. I can’t seem to find him. The plain truth is he’s gone.”

It took Des thirty minutes to jump into a fresh uniform and drive up to Four Chimneys in the utter blackness of Dorset in the middle of the night, her headlight beams on high and her defroster blasting.

She found Dorset’s first lady seated at the kitchen table before a mug of coffee and a plate of chocolate biscotti. Poochie wore a bulky red turtleneck sweater, painter’s pants and an anxious expression. Bement was seated there with her, his long blond hair uncombed, broad shoulders hunched inside the wool shirt he had on over a T-shirt and sweatpants. The bruise under his left eye was turning a gaudy shade of yellow.

Bailey was helping himself to some kibble before he climbed up onto his window seat cushion and stretched out, groaning like an old man.

“Why don’t you walk me through it, Poochie?” Des suggested as she stood there drinking coffee and stamping the two blocks of ice formerly known as her feet. The kitchen was barely heated. “You said on the phone that you spent the evening with Claudia?”

“I did, yes.” Poochie swiped distractedly at some biscotti crumbs on the table. “Claude asked me over for dinner. The orderliness of cooking is something that calms her. She was terribly upset. Didn’t take my news about Peter at all well.” Poochie glanced over at her grandson, smiling faintly. “I’ve told Bement, too. He’s an adult now, and deserves to know.”

“I’m hearing you already had some ideas about Pete,” Des said to him.

“Sort of,” he grunted.

Poochie seemed taken by surprise. “How?”

“I overheard you and Grandpa talking once. I was hiding. You didn’t know I was there.”

“You don’t still do that, do you?” Poochie demanded. “Tiptoe around trying to catch people doing and saying awful things?”

“No, Nana.”

“Good, because there’s a nasty name for such people. They’re called congressmen.”

“How did Eric take the news?”

“Eric was fine with it,” Poochie answered. “I swear, if it’s not about his animals or his crops, Eric couldn’t care less. But Claude was very angry with me. I tried to explain to her that the secrecy wasn’t my doing. I’d merely been honoring Father’s dying wish.”

“Did she accept that?”

“Eventually,” Poochie said slowly. “Claude’s not a secure person. She needs a good deal of reassurance, and Mark’s not around to provide it anymore.”

“Mr. Tolliver was working in the rose garden yesterday afternoon when I left with Lieutenant Tedone and Sergeant Snipes, is that right?”

“It is. After you’d gone, I called Eric, and he and Danielle met me at Claude’s.” Poochie glanced fondly at her old dog. “Bailey and I strolled over there together.”

“Did you encounter Mr. Tolliver in the rose garden?”

“I saw tools and a tarp. I did not see him. I assumed he was in the shed or somewhere. But really, my mind wasn’t on Tolly. I was thinking about how I was going to tell my children about Peter.”

“Of course.”

“Afterward, Claude asked me to dinner, as I mentioned. She’s exceedingly self-conscious about cooking in front of me, so I moseyed back here while she was preparing it.”

“By now it was what time?”

Poochie sipped her coffee. “I don’t know, some time after six. It was quite dark out. Tolly’s bedroom door was closed, and his light was off. He often likes to nap before dinner. I didn’t wish to wake him, so I left a note here on the table instructing him to join me over at Claude’s. But it was just us two girls. And an absolutely vile duck breast swimming in a tureen of something pale green. It makes me ulp just to think about it.” She reached for a biscotti, nibbling at it. “I got back here by around ten. His door was still closed. I tapped on it to ask if he’d like me to fix him something, but there was no answer. I figured he’d just overdone it in the rose garden and needed his rest, so I went to my own room and got into bed. Ordinarily, I sleep like a field hand. Tonight, I couldn’t seem to relax. I just felt a tremendous sense of unease. Finally, at around two, I got up and knocked on Tolly’s door again. That’s when I discovered he was gone.”

Des wondered if there was anything here for her. It was entirely possible that the old photographer had simply decided it was time to move on. He did float around, according to his sheet. Then again, taking off right on the heels of Pete’s murder could not be considered a wise travel plan. It was the act of a man who was either foolish or desperate. She’d checked with the trooper posted at the foot of the drive. At no point in the past twenty-four hours had Guy Tolliver left the premises. Not by way of the front drive anyhow. So wherever he’d gone, he’d been careful about it. “How about you?” she asked Bement. “Were you with Justine last evening?”

“I wasn’t up for any company. Had some things on my mind.”

Bement lit a cigarette, dragging deeply on it. “I came straight home after we closed the shop. Well, not straight home. I stopped off at the liquor store to pick up some brews, got here around six. Had to show some trooper my damned ID to get in.”

“Your mother requested that,” Des explained. “Otherwise, you’d have media people swarming around right outside your door.”

“The Kershaw brothers were leaving right when I was stopped there at Checkpoint Charlie. Probably just as well, too. If I’d run into those turds farther up the drive I might have had a few more things to say to them. I’m not real happy about them hanging around here.”

“You need to do a better job of managing your temper,” Des said, her eyes on his scraped knuckles.

“That’s what Teeny keeps telling me. I can’t change how I feel.”

“You can change how you respond.”

“When I got here Nana was about ready to head back over to Mom’s for dinner. I just jumped in the shower and stretched out and watched some hoops on TV. Drank my six. Heated up some leftovers.”

“Did you encounter Mr. Tolliver at any time during the evening?”

“I didn’t. But I stayed mostly in my room. And I crashed early, maybe ten-thirty.” Bement got up and refilled his mug from the electric coffeemaker on the counter. “Next thing I know, Nana’s waking me up and asking me to look around for him.”

“And did you?”

“Absolutely. Tolly’s an old guy. I thought maybe he had a heart attack or something. I’ve searched this place from top to bottom. I even looked in the north wing, which is closed off. The man’s not here, believe me.”

“Did you check around outside?”

“With a flashlight. There aren’t any floodlights in the rose garden. Those tools are still out there, collecting frost. He didn’t put them away. I looked around in the shed. Nothing. That’s when Nana called you.”

Poochie’s bright blue eyes moistened. “I’m terribly concerned. I can’t believe he’d just up and leave me this way. Not so much as a note.”

Des turned it over in her head. Her guess was that Guy Tolliver had cleared out yesterday under the cover of dusk, which would give him a solid twelve-hour head start by the time daylight hit. Someone-a partner-could have picked him up out on Route 156. Or, for that matter, a taxi could have. It played. The trooper at the foot of the drive could be avoided by hiking through the woods and coming out a half-mile up the road. Tolly was no kid, but he was plenty mobile. She could phone the three area cab companies. Show his picture around at the train stations in Old Say-brook and New London. Also the car rental agencies. Someone might have seen him. It played, all right. But it didn’t answer the question that kept nagging at her: Why on earth would Guy Tolliver murder Pete Mosher?

“Bement, when you looked around the house for him, did you notice anything missing?”

Bement’s eyes widened. “You mean like a painting or something?”

“Tolly would never do that to me,” Poochie said heatedly. “How dare you even suggest it?”

“I’m not suggesting anything, Poochie. But when you call a trooper, you get a trooper asking the kind of questions I have to ask.”

“Didn’t notice anything missing.” Bement thumbed his jaw reflectively. “But I was looking for him. Besides, I’m not even sure I’d be able to tell.”

“Let’s go have a look, shall we?”

The lamps were already lit in the parlor. Des stood in the middle of the cluttered room scanning Poochie’s breathtaking collection. The Picasso and Toulouse-Lautrec drawings were still there.

So was the Giacometti. The Magritte, Mondrian, Leger-all of it was intact. There were no blank spaces on the walls. No empty frames.

“You see?” Poochie said defiantly. “Tolly would never take anything of mine. Besides, there would be no point in it, would there?”

“Why not?” Des asked, glancing at her curiously.

Poochie didn’t seem to hear her. Her mind was elsewhere now. Somewhere that bothered her greatly. “He wouldn’t leave me this way,” she sobbed, wringing her hands. “Go look in his bedroom if you don’t believe me.”

Tolly’s bedroom was more Des’s idea of a luxury suite, complete with dressing room and private bath. There was a seating area with a pair of leather club chairs set before a fireplace. A huge walnut desk. An antique four-poster canopy bed, its covers neatly folded. It hadn’t been slept in. His clothes were still hanging in the dressing room. Tolly was quite fastidious about his wardrobe. His suits, sports jackets and slacks were all pressed and ready to wear, his shoes evenly spaced on the floor, all of them stuffed with shoe trees. Des pulled open the drawers of the built-in dresser one by one. She found cashmere sweaters and fine dress shirts by the dozen, silk scarves, socks, underwear.

“Look in the top drawer.” Poochie’s voice quavered slightly.

Des found a slim jewelry box filled with cuff links made of silver and of gold. There were jeweled rings and tie pins, a gold Rolex dress watch. Des also discovered Guy Tolliver’s passport in the drawer, along with his checkbook from Citibank in New York. His account carried a balance of $843.67, assuming his records were up to date. His last check, in the amount of $125, had been written in January to Salon Fodera.

All of these things Guy Tolliver had left behind.

She flicked on the bathroom light. He’d left his toiletry items behind, too. Razor and cologne, toothbrush, hairbrush. She opened the medicine chest. Very little was in there besides Band-Aids and aspirin.

“Is Mr. Tolliver currently taking any prescription medications?”

“He is not. His health is perfect.”

Des followed Poochie back into the bedroom to the walnut desk. Inside its deep drawers she found stacks of old slick magazines individually bagged in plastic for safekeeping, file folders full of contact sheets, metal strong boxes stuffed with negatives, scrapbooks, journals.

“You’re looking at the work of Tolly’s lifetime,” Poochie informed her quietly. “He’d never leave it behind. I swear he wouldn’t.”

Des nodded in agreement, all the while thinking: Not unless he had to.

“Maybe he just split for a day or two, Nana,” Bement said gently. “He could be visiting old friends in the city or whatever.”

Poochie smiled at her grandson fondly. “Bement, I know you’re trying to make me feel better, and it’s very sweet of you, but something’s happened to Tolly. That’s why I awoke in the night. I feel it.”

“Does he usually carry a lot of cash on him?” Des asked.

“Hardly any, why?”

“How about credit cards?”

“We use mine.”

“I don’t mean to pry but did you issue him cards of his own for your accounts? Because if he’s using them, we can trace his whereabouts.”

Poochie considered this carefully. “You’re demanding my account numbers, is that it?”

“I’m not demanding anything, Poochie. It might prove helpful, that’s all.”

“Very well,” she conceded. “But I won’t freeze my accounts. Tolly may need a hotel room or a hot meal. I won’t deny him that.”

“Then that’s how we’ll handle it. Have you got a recent snapshot of him?”

“In my room. I’ll get my purse as well.” Poochie strode out the door and down the hall.

Bement remained there with Des. “You think he killed Pete, don’t you?”

“They don’t pay me to think. I’m just taking it all in.” She shoved her heavy horn-rimmed glasses up her nose, studying him. “That idea you were pitching about how he’d be back in a day or two. Where did that come from?”

Bement shot a quick glance at the hallway door, lowering his voice. “Tolly has it good here, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t jumped the reservation. Just before Christmas, he told Nana he was spending the night in New York with one of his old Park Avenue lady friends. Next afternoon, he shows up back here totally trashed and stinking of cheap aftershave. He couldn’t get out of bed for two days. Told Nana he had the flu, but I knew better. Some young Puerto Rican guy kept calling him night after night.”

“What was his name?

“He never said. Just called himself a ‘friend.’ Tolly told me he did not want to talk to him. I made sure I answered the phone for the next couple of weeks, until he stopped phoning. Nana never found out.”

“Why were you so willing to cover for him?”

“I like the old guy. I think he’s cool.”

“Your mom thinks he’s nothing more than a con man.”

“Maybe she’s right. But he makes Nana happy. And that’s worth something, isn’t it?”

Poochie returned now clutching her wallet and a color photo of her and Tolly clowning by the swimming pool on a bright summer day. They’d swapped hats. Her straw number fit too high and tight on his head. His porkpie flopped way down over her eyes and ears.

“Nothing is missing from my own jewelry box. I assumed you’d wish to know.” Poochie opened her wallet and jotted down her credit card numbers on the lined yellow pad on the desk, then tore off the sheet and handed it to her. “You’ll file a missing persons report?”

“Mr. Tolliver hasn’t been gone long enough, Poochie. There’s also no concrete reason to believe he’s missing, as opposed to simply gone.”

“He’s not gone. Why won’t you believe me?”

“I’m hearing what you’re saying. But we had a murder here yesterday, and his disappearance does raise some serious questions.”

Poochie’s nostrils flared. “You intend to arrest him, is that it?”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, okay? I’m going to leave you folks now. I’ll be back in touch.”

“When?” Poochie’s hand gripped Des’s arm tightly. “When will I hear from you?”

“Soon. We’ll get to the bottom of this, I promise.”

As they started down the grand marble staircase, Des could see the sun rising through the east-facing windows, bathing the entry hall in an orange glow. With the arrival of daylight, a thorough, professional search of Four Chimneys was called for. She was particularly interested in the rose garden.

“Thank you for not treating me like a crazy old lady,” Poochie said as Des headed for the kitchen door.

“I don’t think you’re any such thing. I’m going to look around a bit before I leave, if you don’t mind.”

Bailey padded his way over to the kitchen door to be let out. Poochie obliged, venturing out into the courtyard with him while Des passed through the wrought-iron gate into the walled rose garden.

The day was dawning clear and frosty. The bare, dormant winter garden was blanketed by hoarfrost, the icy brick path slick underfoot.

Bailey tagged along with her, his nose to the frozen ground.

The rose garden scene was as Bement had described it. A heap of thorny branches laid out on a green canvas tarp. A battered old garden stool, a pair of loppers, pruners, work gloves, a small saw. All of it was finely dusted with frost. In a matter of minutes, that frost would thaw into dew. Right now, it looked like something Van Gogh might have painted.

There was another gate here, an open one that led down brick steps and out into several untamed acres of meadow. Across the meadow, alongside the bank of the Connecticut River, a broad swath of swamp maples shielded the lower reaches of the property from the prying eyes of boaters.

Bailey ambled his way slowly through this gate, snuffling at the ground. Then, suddenly, he started barking excitedly and tore his way across the frosty meadow like a young pup.

“Bailey, you come back here!” Poochie hollered after him from the courtyard. “Leave those squirrels alone, you bad boy! Bailey?…”

The old dog ignored her-galloped all the way across the meadow and into the swamp maples, barking and barking.

“Bailey, come back here, you senile old thing!”

But Bailey wouldn’t come back. Or stop barking.

Des, who’d taken basic K-9 training at the academy, thought she knew why. And it had nothing to do with senility. She wasted no time dashing her way across the meadow after him. The dog came out of the woods to greet her, his tail wagging furiously.

“Show me what you’ve got boy,” she encouraged him, breathing heavily.

He took off down a muddy path that snaked into the woods. She followed him, stepping carefully, until she reached a small clearing among the trees.

Here was where old Bailey had found Tolly.