Death of an Ordinary Guy Page 5

  He crossed the room quickly and turned off the telly, cutting off the actor in mid-sentence. He blushed, as though normal human activity was a sin under the circumstances. Mumbling that he had needed to distract his mind from the murder, he picked up the evening’s newspaper and his jacket from a chair and motioned me to it. He dumped the items on the floor near the couch, seemingly oblivious to the small table near my chair, and sat down.

  “I suppose we’re all right. Though it was a hell of a shock.” He glanced at the staircase leading to the upper floor.

  I nodded, wondering how many more times in this investigation I’d hear that phrase.

  “I was dumfounded, of course, when Steve came up to us at the dole. We’d just about gotten over that—the shock and joy of his resurrection, I guess you could call it—only to find him like this at the bonfire. Kris —” He shook his head.

  I could only guess at his wife’s emotions. I had been there, and it had jolted me. Kris had known him. What she—and Ramona—were suffering was more than grief on hearing of a death. I stared at the used mugs on the table and wondered how Derek had forced Kris to drink anything. She had been hysterical at the bonfire before Karol had given her a sedative.

  “She was in a pretty dreadful way,” Derek continued, as though reading my mind, “but those tablets from your police surgeon… Thank her again for me, won’t you? It’s been a hell of an evening, and tomorrow’s not going to be much better. Kris will be awake, and the memory…”

  I nodded, knowing the grief that would settle on Kris. The sudden loss of anyone is hard to accept. Still harder to accept is murder. There’s no easy way to deal with grief.

  I was wondering what Graham would say about it when Derek added, “We’d only known Friday evening that Steve was in the village. We invited him over after the dole.” He paused to see if I knew about the dole. When I asked no question, Derek continued. “We got on so well together, and there was thirty years to catch up on… Well, it was natural that we asked him to bed down here.”

  “And that was…” I nudged, waiting to see if I would get the same answer as Arthur’s.

  “Saturday. We had two days with him.” Derek’s voice broke, and he reached for his handkerchief.

  I let him wipe his eyes before I said, “I understand Pedersen was both your and Mrs. Halford’s friend. You had no idea he was coming, then?”

  Derek shook his head. He muttered that they had known Steve when they had all attended university in America, but they had no idea he had scheduled a visit to the U.K. “We thought he had been killed in Viet Nam during America’s war. That’s what makes this so devilishly hard. We just got him back, you see, and lost him again.”

  Only this time there’s no mistaking his death. “And you hadn’t seen him or heard from him for—what did you say?—thirty years? A very long time. I can well imagine your shock at his reappearance.”

  “Just walked up to Kris after the crutch bit of the dole. Just said hello, as if we’d just parted yesterday. Hell of a hello,” Derek said bitterly. “What if Kris had keeled over from a stroke?”

  “Why had he kept quiet all these years? Lose your address?”

  “He explained that,” Derek said, stuffing the handkerchief into his jeans pocket before grabbing a photograph from the end table and handing it to me. “That’s Steve.” He stopped suddenly, as though he was aware that I’d seen Steve Sunday afternoon. “Anyway, he said that he’d landed in Nha Trang in 1965 and was captured three months later. Years later we discovered he’d been listed MIA, but at the time he thought of himself a POW. He got back to America in 1973.”

  “That’s an eight year-hole in his life.”

  “When he returned he was hospitalized.”

  “Wounded?”

  “Mentally. Spiritually. Emotionally. However you want to put it. Aphasia.”

  “It’s hard losing your memory.”

  “Harder getting it back,” Derek corrected sharply. “Easier in some ways than having your leg hacked off, so you won’t be confined to crutches or stared at the rest of your life as a handicapped —” He stared at the photo, then at me. I was watching him as he rubbed his left thigh, and remembered his slight limp as I had followed him from the door to the sofa. “I’m sorry. Sometimes this damned leg hurts like hell.”

  “Recent injury?”

  “Car accident. Not as life shattering as many.” He tapped the top of the photo’s frame. “Steve explained his aphasia. It was brought on by the trauma he’d gone through being POW. Though he appeared to be perfectly normal, he said he couldn’t remember much about that segment of his life. He said while in hospital he was like a mental vegetable—couldn’t speak or write. Like living inside a glass bottle, not making sense of anything.”

  “So that’s why he couldn’t contact you. What took him so long to locate you? Had he just been released when he arrived here?”

  Derek shook his head. “He was released in ’76 with a clean bill of health, a hearty handshake and a sincere ‘good luck’ from the physician.”

  “Even a criminal gets a new suit when he’s released,” I said, then regretted my joke. We could hear the clock ticking in the silence. Wood flooring in the hall popped as the house cooled. In reply, the fridge gurgled. Derek seemed oblivious to the sounds, having lived long with the nightly symphony. His eyes fastened again on the photo. “So when he returned home…” I suggested, feeling the tension in the room.

  “He learned from his mom that Kris and I had married the previous year. He smiled bravely, counted his blessings, took a deep breath, got married and started a business.”

  “Takes guts. What did he go into?”

  “Local, commercial deliveries. He owned a couple small jets and a fleet of vans. The smaller shipments from small companies who wanted stuff flown overnight. In Missouri, Illinois. Oh, I don’t know where all.”

  “And Steve came over here without his wife?”

  “Gail? Steve told us she had died a few years ago.”

  I slowly relinquished my study of the photo and looked at Derek. “He brought this with him, I take it?” When Derek nodded, I handed it back. “It’s a nice remembrance.”

  “We don’t need to remember right now. I’m near to shoving it into a drawer. I don’t think Kris—” His face reddened as he sought an explanation. I wanted to tell him I understood, that it’s sometimes more painful seeing the loved one daily and not being able to be with him. I let my elementary counseling slip by the wayside as Derek said, “In a month, perhaps, when all this is less painful, I’ll dig it out, but now…” He shrugged and practically slammed the photograph onto the cushion beside him. “At university we were inseparable—a Three Musketeers thing. Hard to say for a while who Kris loved more, but I finally decided it.” He took a deep breath. “There was a fourth to our party. Kris’ roommate. I was rather keen on her at the time. Thought of marriage.”

  “And did you marry her?” I said, attempting to get relationships correct.

  “No. My infatuation wore off, though I thought I was headed that way. We were a constant couple—an ‘item,’ as they say. Anyway, Kris naturally teamed up with Steve, didn’t she? They were planning to wed, but then he leaves for Viet Nam and is captured.”

  “Rough.”

  “She waited ten years for him, but never had a hopeful word. This is so hard on her, so unfair. After all this time.” His voice hardened as though all the injustice of the past and this terrible evening had conspired to wreck his wife’s life. “This dreadful affair coming on the shock and delight of recovering Steve. And of course, there was the perpetual row earlier tonight over the dole money. That’s expected, but it’s none the less stressful on the both of us.”

  “Perpetual row?” I asked, my mind racing back to Arthur’s scant information. “I was lead to believe it was a short little ceremony. Shouldn’t warrant stress or a row, I wouldn’t think.”

  “Well,” Derek sighed, “you don’t know much about Talbot Tanner. He mak
es a Sunday school picnic an ordeal.”

  I mentioned that I had heard a bit about Talbot.

  Derek shook his head. “What you haven’t heard is how hot and bothered he gets each year.”

  “From the dole?”

  “That and his renewed surge of patriotism, I guess you could call it. He walks around the village, cornering people, reminding them that we owe our present way of life to Guy Fawkes and the ensuing events. That we should put more emphasis on thanking our forebears than on the festivities. Says we’ve turned it into a carnival.”

  I wondered why he didn’t dress in some type of costume for the event, like a doom-declaring prophet in long robes. I was just about to ask when Derek said, “But he’s totally daft about the dole. He claims he, not me, is the rightful recipient of the Catchpool dole. He’ll yammer to anyone who gives him the least concerned look. Bit of a pain, but there you are. Something we endure. Unfortunately, if I want the dole, I have to keep a stiff upper and ignore Talbot’s rantings. Gets downright ugly at times.”

  “Must be worth a fair amount,” I said, “for you to put up with an annual whine like that. I think I’d be rather tempted to chuck it. Can’t stand conflict in my life.”

  “Well, I think it’s worth the few days of grief. £300 may not be a king’s ransom, but it’s very nice.”

  “Very nice,” I agreed. “So Talbot thinks—”

  “The man’s a lunatic!” Derek snapped. “He side-stepped normality years ago. Claims some type of relation to me, but of course he’s never bothered to bring forth any evidence of this fantastic yarn. Instead, he continues to gripe and complain that it should be him up there every November third. Honestly, the man wants mental care, the way he talks on about it. I don’t mind so much for myself, but I’m concerned about my wife. She hates any kind of emotional outburst in public, and that’s Talbot’s forte. The man’s totally round the twist.”

  “Not violent, is he?” I said, wondering about this new development. Villages aren’t as peaceful and cozy as they appear. They hold all the human emotions harbored in cities.

  Derek snorted and leaned forward, his hands on his knees. “Who’s to say, if Talbot gets angry enough? We’ve seen the occasional temper tantrum, heard the string of vulgarities, but usually Talbot’s an easy-going chap.”

  “Except around November third,” I reiterated, wondering if a full moon made it worse.

  “He seems to have it in for me personally. And for Arthur, though Arthur’s as innocent of the dole’s regulations as I am. We just show up, do our bit, and I collect the money. Yet Talbot looks at the both of us like it’s some huge conspiracy against him. I tell, you, Sergeant, I wouldn’t be surprised if some Mischief Night or Guy Fawkes Night I fall into a trap that Talbot’s laid for me. He’s a queer one.”

  Maybe Pedersen wandered into some trap Talbot laid for you. I made the suggestion to Derek. “Since he was a close friend of yours, would Pedersen have felt some kind of honor or duty to protect you from Talbot? I assume he was in the village long enough to hear Talbot’s usual ravings.”

  Derek considered the question for a few moments. “I suppose so, though I don’t recall Steve overhearing the row. Most recent one was after dinner tonight. Outside the pub.”

  I nodded. No wonder I hadn’t heard it. “Do you know where Steve was?”

  “Can’t recall off-hand. You see, Steve’s war experience scarred him. He has—” He colored. “He had a real fear of sudden noises. They evidently pushed him back into that war mode. We never saw that, but I don’t doubt his word. Why lie about it?”

  “Why, indeed. Plenty of men have that affliction, unfortunately. It’s a common occurrence of war. I believe it used to be known as ‘shell shock’ in the first world war.”

  “Must be awful, knowing anytime you could lose your equilibrium.”

  “I’ve heard it takes some of them like that—a fragrance, a scene, a sudden noise—just waiting to trigger a memory and reaction that’s become ingrained.”

  “Steve and Talbot were going to check the torch and lanterns for firecrackers.” Derek’s voice had been rising during his explanation. He paused, looking at me, not saying that the obvious place—the bonfire—was under my jurisdiction and shouldn’t have needed checking. He continued in a lower voice. “If Talbot started that stupidity about the dole, and Steve heard some firecrackers exploding from kid’s play…” Derek glanced at me, as though we were thinking the same thing.

  “I know,” I said, standing up. “I wonder if Pedersen could have snapped, and Talbot had to kill him in self-defense.”

  SIX

  “Is that how you made sergeant grade?”

  The question, though a joke, came from the sober lips of my friend, Margo Lynch. She was a constable, ten years my junior, and was learning from me as I was from Graham. Though I was certain Margo was getting shortchanged.

  We sat on a bench outside the pub, half-filled glasses in our hands, expounding on the world in general and the murder case in particular. I shivered as I took a drink.

  “Never mind the smart remarks,” I said. “What happened to your rose-colored glasses? You’re supposed to wear them when you look at me.”

  “I take them off at sunset.”

  “Great. I thought you wanted the benefit of my experience.”

  “I do, Bren! I marvel at you.”

  “You’ll make sergeant quicker than I did, Margo, if you avoid my bruises and mimic my laurels.”

  “Will I know which is which?”

  I glared at her, in no mood for humor. The hours were slipping away and I still had to talk with Graham before I slipped into my nightgown. I finished my beer before saying, “Why am I laying my theories before you, then?”

  “So you’ll hear them, find holes in them, and fix them before you recite them to Graham, who will, we both know, fillet you like a piece of cod and roast you for good measure if they aren’t reasonable.”

  She stared at me, her dark eyes serious in the light from the pub’s windows. She had a good figure and a good mind, and really had no need of my tutelage, but it was great to have a friend. Confiding in Margo was like writing in my diary.

  I sagged against the wall of the pub, a medieval relic that seemed to lean eastward. Probably to catch the first warmth of the rising sun, I thought, wondering how much colder the courtyard would be in January with the flagstones buried in snow and the roof gutters fringed in ice. The quadrant smelled of mold and dead leaves but I envisioned it in Christmas, perhaps enlivened with pine boughs and twittering birds. Now it was merely dark and dead, as though waiting for the winter solstice to resurrect it. I scuffed the toe of my shoe along the bench’s base, barely aware of the cold stone at my back, deaf to the sounds around me as I mentally rehearsed my explanation. Margo drained her glass, set it down with a thud, and said, “Couple of the tourists want to leave. Can’t say as I blame them. They’re scared. Think it’s some kind of strange village ritual, picking out a foreigner to sacrifice, or something. The Vic put a fast stop to that little idea. Probably scared them into staying.”

  I turned my head toward her, suddenly back in the present at the sound of Graham’s nickname. ‘The Vicar’ or ‘The Vic’ had been born out of ridicule, as mine had been, but had now faded into our jargon, its reason and origin nearly forgotten. In spite of my unease at my upcoming chat with Graham, I smiled.

  “I can believe that. He is forceful.”

  “Wonder what he was like in the pulpit?” Margo asked it like most women ask ‘Wonder what he’s like in bed?’

  “Probably hasn’t changed much. He’s still Graham. Personalities don’t change, even with a new set of clothes.”

  “He wasn’t defrocked or anything, was he?”

  I listened to a dog bark and watched a light go off in a house down the lane before I shrugged my shoulders.

  “Well,” Margo said, stretching, “it’s a mess-up, this whole thing. Talked to the proprietors of the gift shop?”

  I
set down my glass and leaned forward, more out of habit than in trying to see across the car park. When I shook my head, Margo said, “They’re nervous business will fall off.”

  “Because there’s been a murder?”

  “Sure. What do you want, Brenna—a dozen? Even one’s bad for sales when the tourists get cold feet and leave. And I can’t see a gift shop having that large of a profit margin. They have to sell a hell of a lot of post cards to pay the electric.” She shook her head and stretched again. “Bad all around. So, what do you have for Graham?”

  I told her, practicing the confident tone I didn’t feel.

  “And then, Talbot tried to cover up the killing by stringing up the body? Seems like a lot of trouble. Why not just plead self-defense?”

  Margo’s skeptical look didn’t perturb me. I was glad to have something on which to work, a challenge on which to focus my brain. “So you think it’s Talbot? When did he do it? And if not him, the killer?”

  “Time schedule’s pretty tight,” I agreed. That was like saying Pedersen had stopped breathing. “We’ve got the Guy sitting out in plain sight from Thursday till time of the bonfire on Sunday. It sits there through the dole Friday, when villagers and tourists walked by it; it sits there through Mischief Night Saturday. Granted, the effigy isn’t under lock and key or constant surveillance, but there are enough people strolling around the area during those three days to make a substitution difficult, in my opinion.”

  “But one was made,” Margo gently reminded me.

  “So, what do you think?” I said, challenging her.

  “I think Graham will be happier with your success rate of zero firecrackers at the bonfire.”

  “Great.”

  “You can bring that up if things get a trifle warm. Remind him that the moronic element might have thought up something stupendous in the humor line, only your presence and vigilance—”