The Sweet Golden Parachute Read online

  Over on the sofa, Stevie began to stir, blinking up at her, his pallor vaguely greenish, mullet damp and stringy. Actually, the two of them looked as if they needed to be hosed off and deloused.

  “Morning, guys!” she exclaimed brightly. “Had yourselves a real welcome home celebration, didn’t you?”

  Stevie staggered over to the kitchen sink and stuck his head under the cold water tap, somehow managing to overlook the dirty dishes and disgusting water. He wiped his face with the sleeve of his flannel shirt, took two cans of Miller out of the refrigerator and came back and flopped back down on the sofa, handing one to Donnie before he popped open his own and drank deeply from it. He belched hugely, then lit a cigarette, holding the cold can against his forehead.

  Donnie popped open his beer and drank deeply from it. And belched. And lit a cigarette. And held the cold can against his forehead.

  “What did we do now?” Stevie finally asked her, his voice raspy.

  “You tell me,” Des replied, standing there with her arms crossed.

  “Is the old man still here?” Donnie wondered, peering around nervously.

  “I didn’t see him, or his truck.”

  “Oh, yeah, he split,” Donnie recalled, scratching at his reddish beard.

  “When was that?”

  “Right after we got home,” Stevie replied, squinting at her.

  “And when was that?”

  “Lady, I ain’t no clock.”

  “You got to help us out here,” Donnie said, gulping his beer. “Because we got zero idea what you’re stepping on our nuts about.”

  “You didn’t show up for work this morning.”

  “So we’re a little late,” Stevie said. “We’ll get there.”

  Donnie stuck his chin out. “Yeah, since when is being late a crime?”

  “It’s not. But grand theft auto is.”

  They stared at her in blank silence.

  “Poochie Vickers’s Mercedes Gullwing is gone. Are you trying to tell me you don’t know anything about it?”

  “You’ve got the wrong guys, lady,” Stevie told her. “We didn’t have nothing to do with that. No way.”

  “Account for your time. Where have you two been?”

  “With Allison at the Yankee Doodle,” said Donnie. The Yankee Doodle, a fading motor court on the Boston Post Road, was Dorset’s designated hot sheet motel. “We stayed the night.”

  “All three of you? What did you, take turns?”

  Stevie smirked at her. “You want details?”

  “Now that you mention it, I really don’t.”

  “Allison will back us up,” he said. “Go ahead and ask her.”

  “Believe me, I will. Is she at home now?”

  “That’s where we dropped her.”

  “Can you remember what time that was? And don’t tell me you’re not a clock again or I will step on your nuts.”

  Stevie shrugged his narrow shoulders. “We left the Yankee Doodle before dawn. Ran her right home, then started for Four Chimneys. Figured we’d just crash there in the van for an hour or two before work. Right, Donnie?”

  Donnie nodded his cocker spaniel head. “But then we got the munchies so we came home to eat. Only we must have crashed.”

  “We didn’t get a whole lot of sleep last night,” Stevie explained. “Neither did Allison, if you know what I mean.”

  “Yeah, I’m hearing you, Stevie,” she said. “You’ve got the hugest johnson in Southern New England. She bounced, she hollered, she screamed for more. Does that about cover it?”

  His face tightened. “Lady, you’re just plain evil.”

  “Honey, if I were evil I’d be looking at the contents of that ashtray a lot closer. Know what I’m saying?”

  “Not really,” Donnie replied, frowning.

  “Shut up, Donnie.”

  “Your father was here when you got home?”

  “He was just leaving for work,” acknowledged Stevie, his tone considerably cooler since she’d made light of his johnson. “The old weasel’s demolishing a house on Whippoorwill. Had his truck all loaded up with stuff for the dump. He likes to make his dump runs when they first open, because when the guy on the gate’s halfasleep he’s not so particular. The old man’s always trying to lay off asbestos on him. Has no conscience when it comes to the ecology.”

  “So you think he was going straight there?”

  “Couldn’t do nothing else until he dumped his load.”

  During the summer, the Dorset landfill opened at 7:00 A.M. This time of year it didn’t open until eight o’clock. It was a fifteenminute drive there from here. Which meant that it was entirely possible the boys didn’t get home until after seventhirty.

  “What I’m hearing you tell me,” she informed them, “is that you have no one to vouch for your whereabouts at the time when the Gullwing was taken.”

  “We can vouch for each other,” said Donnie, nervously licking at his lips with a rather brownish tongue. “We were together.”

  “You’ll have to do better than that, sunshine.”

  “But we didn’t do it.” Donnie was starting to get his whiny on again. “Why does everyone always blame us for everything?”

  “You bring that on yourselves. A man like Eric holds his hand out to you and you slap it away. Don’t show up. Don’t keep your word. Instead, I find you here passed out and smelling, well, not so good. Don’t you see how this looks? Like you did show up for work. Saw Poochie tottering down the driveway with her recyclables, got to talking about that shaweet Gullwing of hers and decided to rip her off. Beats shoveling manure all day.”

  “And we sure could use the bread,” Stevie acknowledged sourly. “For the sake of talking, let’s say we did jack it. Where’s it at now, lady? What’d we do with it, hunh?”

  “That’s the milliondollar question. If the Gullwing is returned today, intact, I’m willing to bet Poochie will say she loaned it to you and just plain forgot. The lady’s a bit nutty that way. Thinks the best of people. But you’ve got to get out in front of it right now. An investigator is busy working this case, as am I. Not that I don’t enjoy hanging with you two, inhaling your rich, musky scents.”

  “How come you keep talking about the way we smell?” wondered Donnie.

  “Wait for it—it’ll come to you. But first, take me to the Gullwing.”

  “For the fortieth time, lady, we don’t know nothing about it,” Stevie insisted. “We didn’t jack any car. We’re not about that stuff anymore. We’re workingmen.” He climbed to his feet unsteadily, reaching for his smokes. “And right now we’re splitting for work. That okay with you?”

  “More than okay. But there is one other thing…”

  “Now what is it?”

  “Don’t you dare leave town.”

  The Dorset Marina was situated in a horseshoeshaped cove at the mouth of the Connecticut River a halfmile upriver from the Peck’s Point Nature Preserve. As she drove there Des reached out to Allison Mapes, who answered her phone on the sixth ring, sounding even less with it than the Kershaw brothers had. After considerable prodding, Allison allowed that Stevie and Donnie had dropped her home from the Yankee Doodle some time around six in the morning, thereby confirming what Bement had told her. And the brothers as well—their version vaguely coincided with the truth, as far as it went. Which wasn’t very.

  The marina was still completely shut down for the winter, its floating docks pulled from the water. The yachts and power boats were in storage, the boatyard’s parking lot crammed with their shrinkwrapped hulls. More were stacked inside the immense storage shed, where some sanding and sawing was getting going. Des could hear the whine of power equipment through the open shed doors as she eased her cruiser over near the commercial promenade that wrapped its way around the marina. The touristoriented businesses—Tshirt and postcard shops, ice cream parlor, the galleries that sold regrettable seascapes and shell art—were shuttered from Thanksgiving through Easter. The Clam House, a familyoriented seafood resta
urant, stayed open year around, as did the Mucky Duck, a Britishstyle pub. Neither had opened yet for the day.

  The Mucky Duck was located in the ground floor of a whiteshingled twostory building. Upstairs were the offices of a yacht broker, a marine insurance agent and Mark Widdifield, noted local architect. Des parked in back next to a smart blue Morgan Plus 4 roadster and got out, making her way around front to the promenade. It was very quiet. She could hear the water lapping against the pilings, the thwack of her own footsteps on the boardwalk.

  Mark Widdifield’s office door was unlocked. She went in. Found herself in a small outer office. There was no secretary, nor a secretary’s desk. Just a sofa that was presently doubling as an unmade bed. A pair of suitcases lay open on the floor next to it, heaped with waddedup laundry. A coffeemaker sat halffull on the counter of the kitchenette along with an open box of Entenmann’s doughnuts. A doorway led into a big, bright office with windows facing the marina. There were drafting tables for two in there. One of the work stations also had a computer with a bigscreen monitor and an immense printer. Anchoring the center of the room was a work island heaped with books and documents and a pair of elaborate architectural models.

  Mark was seated there, XActo knife in hand, fashioning Foamcore walls for one of the models.

  “Excuse me, I need to have a word with you, Mr. Widdifield.”

  “Some other time,” he said distractedly. “I’m really quite busy.”

  “I’m afraid it can’t wait, sir. Someone stole your motherinlaw’s Gullwing out of her garage this morning. Do you know anything about it?”

  Mark didn’t respond for a long moment. Just continued to measure out another piece of wall. “Such as?…”

  “Such as who took it?”

  He sat back in his swivel chair, regarding Des with an air of profound defeat. Claudia’s husband was around fifty and very likely had once been quite handsome in a dashing sort of way. These days, he merely looked dissolute, flabby and sad. His strong jaw was melting into a puddle of chins and jowls. The upturned skijump nose was blotchy. He needed a haircut. He needed a shave. Mostly, he needed to do something about the lost little boy look in his eyes. “Haven’t got a clue who might have taken it,” he told her, sitting there with his feet up. He was dressed in a yellow Izod shirt that hugged his swollen gut, worn chinos and broken down Bass Weejun loafers. His bare arms seemed uncommonly thin and pale to her. “Why, do I look like a car thief to you?”

  “Not at all. The investigating detective asked me to touch all of the bases. This is me touching them.”

  “Did Claudia accuse me of taking it?”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Well, somebody put a bug in your ear. Otherwise you wouldn’t have dragged yourself down here.”

  “I’m told you’ve been making noises about teaching her some kind of a lesson.”

  “You got that from Danielle, didn’t you?” he said, blushing at the mention of his sisterinlaw’s name. Something was going on between them. “That was nothing more than barstool talk. I’m all hot air, as Claudia will be only too happy to confirm.”

  “Where were you earlier this morning, Mr. Widdifield?”

  “Right here. I haven’t been out.”

  “Can anyone vouch for you?”

  “There’s no one to vouch for me,” he confessed, gazing mournfully across the room at the computer work station. “I had to let Phillip go. There was no money to pay him.” He turned his attention back to Des. “You may tell your detective that we’ve spoken. Now if you don’t mind…”

  Des stayed right where she was, studying those models on the work island before him. One appeared to be an apartment house built around a central courtyard, the other a detailed replica of a tworoom apartment, complete with furniture, kitchen appliances and even little models of people—four people, to be exact. “What’s this you’re working on?” she asked him curiously.

  “It’s the holy grail, Trooper. The greatest unsolved mystery of modern American architecture. There isn’t an architect worth his salt who hasn’t tried to solve it. I’m the one who is going to succeed.” He gazed at the replica of the tworoom apartment, warming to her slightly. “You see, this is the apartment at 328 Chauncey Street.”

  “Which should mean something to me because?…”

  “Why, because Ralph and Alice Kramden lived here, of course. Surely you’ve seen The Honeymooners.”

  In fact, Mitch had recently made her watch Norton’s sleepwalking episode, which he considered one of the four or five funniest halfhours in the history of television. Des had found the show overwhelmingly bleak and depressing. Just another one of those things that made her wonder if men were, in fact, mutant beings.

  “It would not be an exaggeration to label it as a tenement, actually.” Mark pointed out. “It’s supposed to be located in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn. The problem is the show’s creators took artistic license—Chauncey Street isn’t in Bensonhurst. It’s in Bushwick. So we really can’t say for sure where we are, which makes the truth that much more elusive.” He swung the tworoom model around to face her. “The camera is always pointed toward the fire escape, remember? Anchoring the center of the room is this round wooden table and four chairs.” He’d built little replicas, right down to the checkered tablecloth. “We have the icebox here on our right, next to the old stove and sink. Straight ahead is the window overlooking the airshaft. To the left of the window is the hall door. Next to it is the dresser where Ralph always deposits his lunch pail when he comes home.” Mark demonstrated by moving one of the little figure people around the apartment. “Next to the dresser is the doorway into the mythical bedroom, which we never, ever see. Nor do we ever see the wall behind the camera—which presumably faces Chauncey Street. My objective is to ascertain in a systematic, architecturally grounded fashion precisely what the Kramdens’ bedroom would have looked like. Where the closet was. Which way the window would have faced. Was the toilet out in the hall or did the Kramdens have their own? Where was their bathtub? We don’t know these things, do we?”

  “No, I suppose not.”

  “When I’m done with this project we will. I’ve written away to the Brooklyn Department of Buildings. I’m reaching out to architectural historians, archivists. I’ll determine, once and for all, the exact age and design of the actual buildings that were on Chauncey Street at that time.”

  “So they’ve all been torn down?”

  He frowned at her. “I’m afraid I’m not following you.”

  “If any of the apartment houses are still standing, you could go check them out. Knock on some doors, take photographs. That way you wouldn’t have to guess what was where. You’d be laying your own two eyes on it.”

  Mark Widdifield looked at her with an unbelievably hurt expression on his face. She’d crossed over a line, apparently. Thrown a bucket of ice cold reality all over his little pipe dream. Because none of this was real. The man was strictly hiding in his room playing with dolls. Mark Widdifield was exceedingly fragile, she now realized.

  “You damned women are so negative,” he snapped.

  “No, we’re not. I’m certainly not.”

  “Yes, you are. I can see the disapproval in your eyes.”

  “Sir, you’re seeing what you want to see.”

  “From time to time, a man needs to set sail for distant shores. Why can’t you see that?”

  Des didn’t respond. He wasn’t really talking to her.

  He got up now and shambled into the kitchenette to pour himself coffee. He went over to the windows with it and stared out at the water. “I’m in a bit of a slump right now,” he said hopelessly. “No one likes my ideas. Quite simply, I’ve lost it.”

  “That renovation you did on your cottage is lovely.”

  “Thank you, but that was mostly Claudia’s doing. She’s thrown me out, you know. Tired of my selfpity is what she told me. In Claudia’s world, if you pause for one second to take stock of your life, then you’re a l
eper. And she wants you far, far away.”

  “Have you folks thought about counseling?”

  Mark let out a short laugh. “She won’t hear of it. The idea of sharing her private fears with another human being is abhorrent to Claudia. She’s pathologically desperate for her mother’s approval, in case you haven’t noticed. The sad thing is that she doesn’t understand Poochie. Never has. The old girl’s strength comes from her simple, uncomplicated love of life. Poochie Vickers is the single happiest person I’ve ever met. All she’s ever wanted is for Claudia to be happy. But Claudia doesn’t enjoy life. I honestly can’t remember the last time I saw her laugh. And that’s a terrible thing, Trooper.”

  “Her mother’s extreme behavior lately has Claudia worried. She’s looking to gain power of attorney over the family finances.”

  “The old girl’s had some lapses,” Mark acknowledged cautiously.

  “Is Claudia prone to extreme behavior herself?”

  “Not in my experience. Claudia isn’t wired that way. Why are you… Hold on, are you wondering if she stole the Gullwing herself just to prove how irresponsible Poochie is?” Mark tugged at his ear thoughtfully. “Boy, that’s an interesting notion.”

  “What do you think, Mr. Widdifield?”

  “I think,” he replied slowly, “that I really don’t want to get caught in the middle of this.”

  “But you are in the middle. You’re a member of the family.”

  Mark made his way back over to his little models and sat down. “Trooper, I am in no mood to say anything nice about Claudia. I harbor so much anger toward that woman that I can hardly stand it. However, I do believe she’s genuinely worried about Poochie. It’s just that there’s heavy family baggage here. Eric has always been Poochie’s favorite. The old girl dotes on him. Claudia takes more after the Ambassador. Very big into proper decorum. She never shucked her panties and went skinnydipping on a hot summer day. Never picked up some guy in a bar somewhere and screwed herself silly.” Mark grinned impishly at such an unlikely thought, showing Des a glimpse at the sly charm he’d once possessed. “If you want my opinion, this power of attorney business is about Claudia trying to prove to Poochie that she, not Eric, is the one who really cares. And she does care, whether Poochie knows it or not.”