The Hot Pink Farmhouse Read online

  “She’s crazy!” Jay erupted. “Why would I do that? I’d have to be some kind of a pervert!”

  Des took off her hat and twirled it in her fingers for a moment. “Are you?”

  Jay went back to loading the cart with logs. “You’ve got a lot of nerve asking me that.”

  “Okay, then I’ll ask you something else: Why don’t you pull this stuff when her husband’s around?”

  “How would I know when he is or isn’t around?”

  “You look through their windows, that’s how.”

  “You know, I don’t think this is fair at all,” he protested angrily. “From the second you came over here you’ve made up your mind that I’m in the wrong. You don’t care what I have to say.”

  Young Ricky came out the front door of the house now, dribbling a basketball. His black eye had faded to a sickly shade of yellow. “Hey, trooper,” he called to her, waving.

  “How’s it going, Ricky?” she called back.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” Jay demanded as the boy started down the driveway.

  “Nowhere,” Ricky replied, sticking out his pugnacious, bully-boy chin. Clearly, it was a defensive pose that came from dealing with his father. “Just over to Trevor’s.”

  “Well, don’t you stay there for dinner,” Jay ordered, jabbing at the air with his finger. “She’s always feeding you, and I don’t like it. Understand?”

  Ricky said he did, and kept on going down the driveway. Jay grabbed up his chain saw and headed into his vast three-car garage with it. Des followed him. There was one car parked in there, a Ford Explorer. A tractor mower sat in the space next to it, alongside the boys’ bicycles. The rest of the garage was used for storing trash barrels and tools and empty beer cans. Lots and lots of beer cans. As Jay hung the chain saw up on a hook on the wall, Des hit the button that lowered the automatic garage doors behind them.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.

  “Giving you some free advice,” Des replied pleasantly, as the doors slammed tightly shut. The overhead light stayed on. Otherwise, they would have been standing in the dark. “For your own good—I think you should let this thing go. You’re heading down a slippery slope.”

  “So are you, honey,” he warned her, his eyes flicking over to the closed doors.

  “I’m telling you straight up, Mr. Welmers. No good is going to come out of this.”

  “And I’m telling you—mind your own damned business.”

  “Sir, this is my business. You’re driving good people out of Dorset.”

  “That’s not my problem,” he said with a shrug. “I have my rights.”

  “So do other people,” Des countered. “Your son Ricky, for instance.”

  “What about Ricky?”

  “Where did he get that black eye, Mr. Welmers?”

  “He gets in fights. I told you.”

  “I know you did. I just didn’t happen to believe you.”

  “That’s your problem, not mine.”

  “Okay, I’m schooled to you now,” Des said, nodding her head at him. “In your choice little corner of the world, it’s never your problem. You do whatever you feel like doing, and if somebody else objects, that’s their problem. You’re not going to cut Mrs. Beddoe any slack, are you? No matter how I put it to you, you just won’t let her up. Does that about cover it?”

  Jay raised his chin at her, his nostrils flaring. “Not totally, no. I’d be a lot happier with a resident trooper who isn’t looking to stir up trouble. Maybe you don’t fit in here yourself, young lady. Have you thought of that?”

  “Not really,” Des said, raising an eyebrow at him. “But I sure am standing here wishing you’d elaborate on it.”

  “Okay, now you’re getting all touchy,” he said, with a faint smirk on his face. “Right away, you think this is about race.”

  “Don’t kid me, Mr. Welmers. I’ve been black all my life. And it’s always about race.” She moved in closer to him. “You think I’d be more at home in the projects, is that it?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “I wish you would,” she said, shoving him in the chest with her hand.

  “Hey, you can’t lay hands on me that way!”

  Des shoved him again, rougher this time. “What’s the matter, don’t you like colored folks touching you?”

  “Cut that out, lady!”

  “Say it, Mr. Welmers.” She shoved him again, right up against the garage wall. Her face was only inches from his now. “Say what you really mean. Or aren’t you man enough?”

  “I’m man enough to tell you to leave people like us alone!” he roared back at her.

  “People . . . like . . . us.” Des smiled at him, her huge wraparound smile, the one that could light up Giants Stadium. “Thank you so much for that, Mr. Welmers. That was just lovely.” Now she removed her hat, placing it carefully on the hood of the Explorer, whirled and punched Jay Welmers in the nose—a strong right that came all the way up from her hip. She could feel the cartilage crunch under her fist. He let out a strangled, high-pitched sob as the blood began to spurt out of his nostrils, but he stayed on his feet. Until she punched him in the stomach, putting her full weight behind it. Now he fell to his knees and threw up, instantly filling the garage with the smell of his sour, beery vomit.

  “You can’t do this,” he groaned at her in feeble protest. “I’ll file charges against you. I’ll sue you.”

  “I can’t wait,” Des responded, putting her hat back on her head. “I’m just dying to tell my side to the newspapers. People will really want to entrust their life’s savings to a man who peeps through windows at little girls.”

  “What . . . do you . . . want?” he gasped, breathing in and out through his mouth.

  “I want you to leave the Beddoes alone. If I hear about you bothering them again, if you so much as blink at Phoebe, I swear I will break both of your legs.”

  “You can’t threaten me this way. It’s against the law.”

  “Understand something, Mr. Welmers. I am the law. This is my town. And you will live by my rules. Am I making myself clear?”

  He nodded, ducking his head in defeat.

  “Good answer.”

  She left him there on the garage floor in his own vomit and went back over to the Beddoes’ to tell Felicity that Jay Welmers would not be bothering her anymore.

  Then Des got back in her cruiser and headed out, taking no pleasure in what she’d just done. But it needed doing, so she’d done it. That was the job. It was not a pretty job. It was not a pretty world. She knew this. Nonetheless, she felt quite certain that she would never share the details of this particular incident with Mitch. He would not believe she was capable of such behavior. She adored that about him. And she wanted him to keep on believing it.

  It was a lovely fantasy.

  Ricky was waiting for her at the stone pillars that marked the entrance to Somerset Ridge, his basketball tucked under one arm. She pulled over and lowered her passenger side window. “Hey, Ricky, you got game?”

  He had something on his mind, was what he had. He got in next to her and sat there squirming in anxious silence for a moment before he said, “Remember I told you how they were planning some serious antics?”

  “Ronnie and his boys? Sure, I do.”

  “It’s gonna happen real soon.”

  “Any idea where?”

  Ricky knew where. And when he told her she was shaken—it was probably her single worst nightmare.

  But she did not let her face show this. She merely nodded and said, “That’s not antics. That’s prime-time trouble.”

  “I know that. I—I’m scared.”

  “Don’t be. You did the right thing, telling me. Everything will be okay, little man. You’ve got my word on that. Where are you headed now?”

  “Home.”

  “Want a ride?”

  “Naw, I can walk.” He started to get out.

  “Oh, hey, I’d take it slow with your da
d for a while, if I were you.”

  Ricky frowned at her. “Why?”

  Des smiled and said, “He just ate something that didn’t agree with him.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Bella Tillis’s mud-splattered Jeep Wrangler, with its personalized CATS22 license plate, was parked outside his carriage house when Mitch got home, his head spinning and his limbs aching from exhaustion. Des’s trooper mobile was there, too, snugged up next to an unmarked police cruiser.

  Des was in his kitchen hard at work on her fragrant concoction of black-eyed peas, ham hocks and rice. A cornbread was cooling on the windowsill, and a mountain of freshly washed collard greens was draining in the sink. Des had on a black turtleneck and jeans. She looked exceedingly uptight and, when she laid eyes on Mitch, way pissed. Not only was he a half hour late but he was filthy and stank of oxyacetylene.

  “I’m incredibly sorry,” he apologized. “I just couldn’t leave the old guy. He was all alone and his work is all he has.” Mitch ran a grimy hand through his hair, still seeing copper rectangles before his eyes. “I’ll hop right in the shower.”

  “Please do,” she said tautly. “And hurry.”

  Before he could get there, little round Bella appeared in the kitchen doorway, blocking his path. “Hello, tattela!”

  “Hi, Aunt Bella,” he responded warmly, kissing her on the cheek.

  “I didn’t realize that you and Mr. Berger were related,” a booming baritone voice spoke up from behind her.

  “We’re not, Buck,” Bella explained. “We just feel like we ought to be.”

  Mitch was not prepared for just how huge Buck Mitry was. The deputy superintendent of the Connecticut State Police—the man whom Des and everyone in law enforcement called the Deacon—was at least six feet four, powerfully built and ramrod-straight. His hand, when Mitch shook it, was as big as a family-sized pizza. Mitch’s own hand disappeared in it. The Deacon wore a somber dark gray suit and he had not gotten comfortable—he still had his jacket and tie on.

  “I’m really sorry I’m late, sir,” Mitch said, swallowing. Sir? Where did that come from? Mitch knew perfectly well where—Des’s father instantly made him feel like a pimply, horny sixteen-year-old with a condom in his wallet and not a thing on his mind but how to get his precious daughter naked. “You must think I’m the rudest person in the world.”

  The Deacon towered there in the doorway, his gaze steely and intimidating. Clint Eastwood had nothing on this man. “It’s perfectly understandable, Mr. Berger,” he responded. “I’ve spent my entire career never being in charge of my own schedule. Take your shower. Take your time. We’ll be here.”

  “Thanks for being so understanding,” Mitch said, smiling at him. “I’ll be right out.”

  He hopped in a steaming hot shower, his mind still reeling from everything that Hangtown had told him. What had the old man meant by “the past”? Had he been referring to Crazy Daisy? Was her death connected with Moose’s? How? Should he be telling Des about this? Should he save it for his story? Or should he not even put it in his story at all? Because if Hangtown was, in fact, an accessory to a thirty-year-old murder, he could go to jail. And Mitch’s story would be sending him there. Did he really want to do that? What was his responsibility here? What was right?

  Dazed and confused, Mitch changed into clean khakis and a blue oxford-cloth button-down shirt. His guests were busy watching the local Connecticut news on television. Mitch rejoined them just in time to see Soave holding forth for the cameras on his good strong case against Jim Bolan: “We have credible physical evidence that places him at the scene,” the muscle-bound little lieutenant crowed. “This is an individual who has vast experience with long-range firearms, a revenge motive and no convincing way to account for his whereabouts at the time of the shooting.”

  Bella shook a blunt finger at the TV and blustered, “That little man has bupkes. If he really had anything on this Bolan, he would have charged him. I want you to know that the public sees right through this type of thing, Buck.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” growled the Deacon, who seemed displeased by Soave’s performance.

  Mitch went foraging in the refrigerator for a beer. Couldn’t find any.

  “Did you leave it out in the truck?” Des asked him.

  Mitch frowned at her. “I thought you were going to get the beer.”

  “No, no. I asked you to.”

  The Deacon was looming in the kitchen doorway now, watching them intently.

  “Whatever,” Mitch said easily, even though he was positive she’d said she would take care of it. “I’ll go get some right now.”

  “Not on my account,” the Deacon said. “I’m not a big drinker.”

  “Nor am I,” Bella chimed in.

  “Got to have a glass of beer with your Hoppin’ John, Daddy,” Des insisted. “I’ll go get it. You guys hang. Take a ride with me, Bella.”

  “I’d rather hang with them,” Bella said.

  “And I’d rather look like Halle Berry,” Des shot back. “Come on, girl.”

  And with that the two women were out the door, leaving Mitch certain that Des had purposely forgotten the beer so that he and the Deacon could spend some time alone together.

  The Deacon immediately began to pace Mitch’s small living room. He seemed caged and restless. Briefly, Mitch wondered if Des’s towering, commanding father was as uncomfortable about this as he was. “I’ve been sitting at a desk all day, Mr. Berger,” he said suddenly. “Mind if we stretch our legs?”

  “Not at all,” Mitch said. “Provided you start calling me Mitch.”

  “Very well . . . Mitch.”

  He left a note for Des on the kitchen counter, grabbed his flashlight and jacket and they headed out, the Deacon pausing to fetch his topcoat out of his car.

  “I understand you used to be a baseball player,” Mitch spoke up as he led them down the path to the beach. The man’s stern silence was making him incredibly nervous.

  “That’s correct,” the Deacon affirmed, striding along with his shoulders back, chin up. “I was in the Pirates’ organization before I joined the state police.”

  “There’s a former player mixed up in this murder case,” Mitch said. “The victim’s sister, Takai, used to be married to a catcher named Dirk Doughty.”

  “Sure, I remember Doughty from his American Legion days,” the Deacon said. “Best young player to come out of this area since Jeff Bagwell. The Tigers thought he was going to be the next Johnny Bench. Never happened, though—just like it never happened for me,” he added without regret.

  “How do you deal with that?” Mitch asked. “The disappointment, I mean.”

  “You turn the page, Mitch. Same way you do when you bury a loved one, as Desiree told me you’ve had to do.”

  “You move on,” Mitch acknowledged. He hadn’t particularly wanted to talk about Maisie, but at least they were talking. “You must.”

  “Absolutely. What’s Doughty doing with himself?”

  “Teaching baseball to kids. He’s a private coach.”

  “That’s not moving on,” the Deacon said with flinty disapproval.

  They had reached the island’s rocky little beach now. The tide was moving in. Rain was expected overnight, but right now the stars were out, a gibbous moon low over Fisher’s Island. They started along the water’s edge, heading east. The Deacon seemed terribly out of place in his topcoat and shiny dress shoes. Mitch found himself remembering the gang of topcoated young slackers striding the beach in Fellini’s I Vitelloni, which inspired Barry Levinson’s vastly inferior Diner.

  “Lovely spot you picked here, Mitch.”

  “It picked me. And I feel very lucky.”

  “What are those lights out there?” he asked, gazing at a boat that was making its way back toward the mainland. “Lobstermen?”

  “That’s the Plum Island workboat. They take the workmen out every morning at seven-thirty. Bring them back home right around now.” Mitch found he was starting to puff
for air. The Deacon had the same long, tireless stride as his daughter. “I was going to get you a birthday gift, but Des said not to.”

  “My daughter knows me pretty well. And I thought I knew her. But lately, she’s been thoroughly confounding me. Mind if I ask you your advice, Mitch?”

  “Not at all.”

  “This art thing that she’s pursuing . . . Do you think it’s something she’ll stay with?”

  “I really don’t know the answer to that. You can never tell with artists.”

  “So you believe she is an artist.”

  “Oh, definitely. She’s very, very gifted, Mr. Mitry. She can go as far as she wants, if she has the desire and the dedication.”

  “Will that make her happy?”

  “Well, artists aren’t happy people, as a rule.”

  The Deacon walked along the rocks in thoughtful silence for a moment, considering this. “And why is that?”

  Mitch glanced over at him, frowning. It was just beginning to dawn upon him how little the Deacon understood about his daughter’s new life. Art was something totally outside the realm of his personal experience. “Artists are people who live up inside their own heads,” Mitch answered slowly. “They’re trying to make some sense out of this spiky little pinball that’s careening around up there, driving them to that blank canvas. In other words, there’s something inside of Des that’s trying to come out, and she doesn’t necessarily know what it is or even what it means, because she’s not in control of it. She simply has to surrender herself to it, wherever it takes her. And that can be pretty scary. It would be safer and saner to never go there, but then she wouldn’t be fulfilling her destiny.”

  “So you believe in destiny?”

  “Why do you ask me that?”

  “Trying to figure out what you believe in.”

  “I believe it’s a sin to waste a gift. And she has one. Right now, she’s trying to figure out how best to use it. Which she will—she’s a very smart person, Mr. Mitry.”

  “From where I stand, resident trooper is the road to nowhere.”

  “I’m sure she has misgivings,” Mitch conceded. “Like with this murder investigation—she wants to be in charge, and she isn’t, and that’s tearing her apart.”