Losers, Weepers Read online

  “Not at all,” I assured her quickly. “That’s part of the problem. We don’t have much news at all.” I quibbled a bit as I went on. “My brother, Lieutenant Peres, thought that you might have some background information on the family that would be helpful. I know Marie slightly, but otherwise we don’t really know any of them. Sonny would have come himself, of course, but he felt that perhaps it would be easier for you to talk to another woman, rather than a policeman marching up to your door in a uniform.” Not that Sonny often wore a uniform, but it sounded good.

  “Now isn’t that thoughtful.” She preened a bit, feeling special. “I don’t know what I can tell you. The three children—they all have their mother’s temperament, thank God. Frances was one of the kindest, nicest people you could ever meet. Now Reed, he was a cold, withdrawn man most of the time. Oh, once in a while he’d warm up, but mostly he just seemed to live for his work.”

  She closed her mouth firmly and leaned back in her chair as if she’d provided all the news she intended to.

  “Am I right that you worked for the Catlett family part-time until Frances died and then, full-time?”

  “Yes. Marie convinced me to. She had stayed with them quite a while after Frances died, but she wanted to get back to her own home, naturally. We all felt the children needed someone to be there for them. I mean, other than the day help, fine though they were,” she added.

  Mrs. Hengel frowned and continued. “God knows Reed was no help. He’d either call home in the late afternoon and say he was staying late at the office, or come home from work, have his dinner, go into his home office and work some more there for most of the evening. Weekends, he was always off on some social affair.”

  She shook her head and looked bemused. “I hardly saw him or talked to him. He even put my check on the kitchen table when I wasn’t around. I actually had the feeling he disliked my being in his house, and I’ve no idea why. My quarters were up on the third floor, so I certainly was no bother to him when I wasn’t working.”

  Simply because, like Everest, you were there, my dear. What would you have found downstairs if you got the midnight munchies and went to the kitchen, or thought you smelled smoke and went to check? Would you have found a lady of the evening tiptoeing out? Or maybe his best friend’s wife?

  I trolled a bit. “Did you ever see any signs that he abused Frances physically? How about the kids . . . physically, sexually?”

  She shook her head. “Depends on what you call abuse. I never saw any marks or anything on Frances, and she wasn’t afraid of him. And the kids only had the normal kind of cuts and bruises that all kids get. I certainly saw nothing that made me think he molested them. Frances would have figured that out, and wouldn’t have stood still for one minute. Now if you mean was he sarcastic and enjoyed being critical, that’s another ball of wax.”

  “Frances died in a car accident, didn’t she?” I asked.

  “That was what the police report said,” she answered shortly.

  “You mean there was some doubt?”

  “It was in the car wreck, all right, but I’ve never been all that sure it was an accident. I think that car was tampered with.”

  My eyebrows arched. “By whom?”

  “I’d rather not say,” she answered primly.

  “Mrs. Hengel,” I reminded her gently, “you have just accused someone of murder. You can’t just shrug that off like you don’t want to gossip about a neighbor who doesn’t starch her pillowcases.”

  “All right.” She sat up straight and looked me in the eye. “I’ve always thought it was Reed. So there.”

  “Why?”

  “Alex.” She cocked her head at me. “You keep reaching for your pocket. For heaven’s sake, smoke. There’s an ashtray right in front of you.”

  Guilty, but relieved, I lit a cigarette. “Go ahead.” I gestured. “Why would Reed have killed Frances?”

  “Because he couldn’t keep his zipper up.” She snapped the words out in a heartbeat.

  She looked embarrassed, and I smothered a grin. “So Reed was a womanizer,” I said. “Was Frances aware of it?”

  She nodded and continued. “After a while. You know, the wife is always the last to know. Some friend finally told her he had all but raped Margo Portman one night at a neighborhood party, when Dan Portman was out of town and Frances had taken the kids down to their place in Pennsylvania for a weekend. It was one of the few times I ever heard Frances raise her voice. I could hear them quarreling all the way from their bedroom up to mine.”

  “What was the result of her confrontation?” I asked.

  She twisted her mouth with disgust. “Oh, typical man. He swore it was because somebody spiked his drinks and Margo came on to him, and he promised it would never happen again. I guess he was good—or at least careful—for a time. Of course, it finally started up again. Then Frances made her mistake.”

  “What do you mean?” I leaned forward.

  “I was upstairs in my quarters and I heard them start talking loud again. I could tell from the tone that they were arguing, though I couldn’t understand the words over the sound on my TV. I really didn’t want to hear, but soon they got even louder. Just plain yelling, and one of them—I’m sure it was Reed—threw something that broke. I’m not sure if he was aiming for Frances or not, but I guess he missed.”

  Mrs. Hengel pulled a tissue from her skirt pocket and blew her nose vigorously.

  Her voice was shaky as she continued. “Finally, I heard Frances say she’d had all she could take. She was going see her lawyer the next day. Then she was moving with the kids to their country place and he would never see them again. Oh, and she was going to take his last penny with her.”

  I lit another cigarette, number six for the day, I thought, and mentally said naughty Alex.

  Aloud I said, “Those were pretty strong words for her to use, even under the circumstances.”

  She tucked the tissue away and steadied her voice. “Well, yes, for Frances that was like somebody else using every swear word you can imagine. But she was just beside herself, I’m sure. I knew her from a child. I worked sometimes for her mother when I was a girl. Frances would never have denied him seeing his kids, and she would never have gouged him for money. She was just hurting and raving on a little bit. We all do that sometimes.”

  “Yes, we do.” I nodded. “But Reed must have believed her.”

  “I guess he did. I can’t prove it, of course, but I’d bet my last penny he went out in the middle of the night and did something to that van.”

  “How did the wreck occur? And where?” Surely not a fatality on Provincetown’s clogged, narrow streets.

  “The day after the fight, Frances was on the way to her lawyer’s up in Orleans. In fact, she had asked me to pick up Marvin at school in case she didn’t get back in time.” She sniffed, and the soggy tissue reappeared.

  “Down just this side of the traffic circle she supposedly lost control of the van and hit a tree. Frances was a good driver. She could handle a vehicle in any weather on any kind of road. The cops said she was going well over sixty. Maybe so, but she didn’t lose control of it in broad daylight on a dry road. By the time they got her to the hospital, she was gone.”

  Mrs. Hengel gulped and continued her sad tale. “The Eastham Police called the house, looking for Reed. All they would tell me was that there’d been an accident. I gave them his office number. He went to the hospital, I guess. I was never sure. I picked up Marvin. Soon the other kids came home. I had to tell them there’d been an accident. They could tell from me and the maid and the cook. We were all worried sick. It got later and later. Finally, Reed crawled in, about half in the bag, red-eyed and weepy. Right in front of the children he asked me, ‘Did you tell the kids their mother got killed?’ I damn near killed him.”

  I shook my head, speechless. All I could visualize was an accident happening to Mom when Sonny and I were children, Aunt Mae there and trying to keep us calm, and our father coming in drunk and
asking, “Mae, did you tell the kids Jeanne is dead?” It would have been the perfect scenario.

  I pulled myself back to reality and asked, “The police found nothing suspicious in the crash? Did you tell them about their fight?”

  “I told them. They said they would check the van again. They found nothing—if they looked. They just said she was going too fast for the road.”

  Mrs. Hengel looked pale and spent.

  I felt bad at bringing all this up again. The woman had obviously suffered, both for herself and for the children.

  “Just a couple more questions and I’ll move along. I know this is tiring. You stayed on several years after the, uh, accident?”

  “Yes, I couldn’t leave the children. Marie came up often to see them, but they needed someone full-time. But I tell you frankly, while I’m not in love with that made-up southern belle of Reed’s, I’m not sorry she gave me the pink slip, either. It was hard, being polite around her and Reed, and I don’t suppose she likes me any better than I like her. I’m getting older and so are the kids, and they’ll all just have to get along and live their lives as best they can. Frances ain’t coming back, and Reed ain’t going to change, and the kids ain’t gonna bow and curtsy to their step mama. Miss Belle o’ the Ball hasn’t figured all that out yet.”

  “I understand. Any ideas about this kidnapping?”

  She pursed her lips and gave her head a curt shake. “Nope. But I imagine the belle may be right about it being a trick. Reed was getting cheaper by the day. Spending all his money on the belle, I reckon. And while he may put on a good face, I can tell you he’s not thrilled at Zoe announcing she’s gay. He’s got a lot of clients who may think it reflects on him. Zoe may figure it’s a way to get some money and get back at him and just get out. I can tell you, those two boys won’t be there one day longer than they have to be.”

  “You think he’ll pay the ransom? He seems to be stalling.”

  “Eventually. You see, he also has quite a few gay clients he won’t want to look bad in front of, either.” She laughed. “You’ve heard about that rock and the hard place? He’s right there betwixt and between and it serves him right.” She stood.

  So did I, after a struggle. I thanked her and took my leave.

  Chapter 17

  I drove home in some sort of fog. I couldn’t get over Ellen saying she and Charlie accepted casual affairs as normal after being together a number of years. Charlie had been my close friend, yet she had never said a word to me about that aspect of her life. Did she think I would repeat it? No, she knew me better than that. Did she think I was that stiff-necked? God knows I had had enough affairs earlier in my own life. I just managed to have them pretty much one at a time. Did she think I would have been judgmental? Would I have been? Possibly, I had to admit. I know Ellen’s comments had not set well with me.

  And all this jazz about money problems. Why would Charlie make them up where they didn’t exist? Ellen was teetering on what people euphemistically called “quite comfortable.” Spelled r-i-c-h. Charlie apparently made good money at Tellman’s, and I’m sure she kicked in all she could reasonably be expected to. So if Ellen liked a little lace on the curtains, she was apparently happy to pay for it. What made Charlie so unhappy about that? I knew Charlie would never freeload, and I was virtually certain Ellen wouldn’t be bitchy about a few extra bucks spent in their mutual behalf. I couldn’t think of any couples I knew—gay or straight—where each person made the exact same money as the other.

  Cindy made more than I did. It had caused no problems about that for us, as far as I knew. And I thought I would. Cindy had teased me in the beginning that I brought some pre-Cindy assets to the relationship—already owning a house with a low mortgage rate, and the very reasonable rent Aunt Mae charged for the cottage we used as a sort of local getaway. Cindy had been gung ho on getting me set up with a SEP plan for retirement, and watched over it like a hawk. We both contributed to a household account. I don’t know. I wasn’t all that involved with our money, but things seemed fine. As Ellen had phrased it, “the bills got paid.” We were putting some away for our dotage. Once in a while we took a weekend in Boston or Maine. And we were thinking of a longer vacation next spring.

  Should I inquire regarding our mutual finances? I thought for a minute. Not on your life.

  I shut the door on money and moved on to Zoe’s situation. Which of course was also about money. I knew that Sonny had advised Reed, as I had, to tell the kidnappers that two hundred thousand dollars was the absolute maximum amount of cash he could raise. They, in turn, were sure to knock at least some amount off the million. Then it became simply a bargaining session.

  Say they all finally agreed on four hundred thousand. I knew Choate Ellis could have that in Reed’s hands in an hour. At least some of it would be marked bills, and I would bet the sum would also include some doctored bearer bonds that could be easily tracked as well.

  Then all that remained would be to set up a meeting time and point of exchange. If the kidnappers felt it too dangerous to bring Zoe along to the exchange, they could tell Reed when and possibly the general area where she would be released. Simple. Zoe is loose, and quite possibly the perps are not.

  The only problem was, at this point, nobody knew when Reed was speaking to the kidnappers, or what he said to them. If he were speaking to them at all. Once the prepaid cell phones had got into the act, the calls were pretty untraceable. I found myself fearful that Reed had stalled so stubbornly for so long that the captors had by now simply killed Zoe—or worse, left her tied up someplace remote, where she would starve before she was found—and disappeared in disgust.

  I pulled in the driveway and was not thrilled to see Harmon perched on the back steps. I was tired, mentally and physically. It seemed months since I had accomplished anything even vaguely productive. And I really just wanted to sit quietly and think. Or maybe just sulk. I did not feel up to hearing chapter three thousand and six of Harmon’s personal encyclopedia of Ptown drug trades.

  “Hiya, Harmon. I’ll be right with you. Just let me get the animals out. Want a beer? You look hot.”

  “Sounds good,” he answered and then explained, “I was in the sun, picking your ripe tomatoes and peppers before the squirrels got at ’em. I know you been busy with other things. I put them on the shelf in the garage.” I thanked him, told him to be sure and take some later for himself and went in the house.

  Fargo, Wells and I exchanged happy greetings before they remembered they were mad at me for leaving them all day. Then they went out and turned their attentions to Harmon, to let me know I was an unimportant blip on their busy radar.

  I got Harmon’s beer out of the fridge and concocted what I deemed a well-deserved bourbon Old Fashioned for myself. Back outside I handed Harmon a paper bag to hold his produce later, motioned him around the side of the house to the tables and chairs, and made a fuss over the fur balls, who had once again decided to love me.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “Sonny’s in court, trying to get those home invasion kids who pistol-whipped that couple tried as adults.”

  “Yeah? I hope he succeeds. They may be young in years, but they’re aged in meanness. Now, what else is on your agenda?”

  “I stopped by his office a while ago. I got two important leads to give him in the Zoe case, and he ain’t there. But now you’re here.”

  “So I am.” I laughed and sipped my drink. Already things looked better. “Okay, go ahead, what news have you got? We could use something juicy at this point. Clues have about dried up.”

  “This may be the most important,” he stated firmly. “I saw them two women that was dealing drugs with that guy in the blue SUV out on the wharf a while back.” He halted and sat back, as if he had completed some important news bulletin. Film at eleven, I supposed.

  Finally the penny dropped. “Oh, you mean the women in the van.”

  “That’s right.” His face grew dramatically solemn. “You see, I repaired
Ms. Hatcher’s driveway gates right after lunch. Then I stopped by the bank to cash her check. Much as I hate to say it, as I went in, they was walking across the main floor with none other than Choate Ellis. Ellis, with all them fancy security guards watching everybody else, walkin’ with drug dealers and patting one of them on the arm and telling her he was glad they had managed to account for most of their money. Choate Ellis of all the stuck-up people. I couldn’t hardly believe it. I almost turned around and said something right then and there, but I didn’t want to put them on the alert so they might disappear before Sonny could get to them.”

  I managed not to laugh. I could just see the expression on Choate Ellis’s face if Harmon had accused him of drug dealing in the lobby of his own bank.

  “Good thinking. What did the women look like?” I asked the question not from any real interest, but Harmon did try so hard to corral drug dealers, I figured the least I could do was react positively to his attempts.

  “Oh, they was definitely from the New York connection. Tall, too skinny for my taste, dark hair all cough-ured. They was wearing pants, but they looked like they were expensive, maybe tailor-made. I don’t think they were even from Filene’s.”

  This time I laughed aloud. “Nice going, Harmon, nobody could beat your observations.”

  He grinned like a shy boy, head down. “Well, a cute description is very important, Sonny says, so I try. Oh, by the way, Ellis called the one whose arm he was patting Bessie or maybe Betsy.”