The Hot Pink Farmhouse Page 5

  “I don’t want to expand. My goal in life is to get smarter, not bigger, and I . . . Why are you staring at me like I have three heads?”

  “Do you have any idea what would happen to our society if everyone were like you?” Takai demanded.

  “Yes, we’d all be a lot better off.”

  “Wrong! Upward mobility is the American dream. God, if everyone was happy with what they had, our economy would utterly collapse. We’d have breadlines.” Her cell phone rang now, cutting her off. “Yes, yes?” she barked into it. “Fine, not a problem. I’ll show them where to plant it . . . I know . . . I’ll be right there. Ten minutes.” She shut it off and turned back to Mitch, shaking her pretty head. “You have no idea how demanding these new power nesters can be. They want it all and they want it now. My God, they think nothing of spending fifty thousand on a trophy tree. A tree.”

  Mitch couldn’t tell if she was disgusted by this or awed. Possibly she was both. He also found himself wondering about her. With her looks, famous name and obvious ambition, Takai Frye could write her own ticket in New York, Los Angeles, anywhere. Why was she still here in sleepy little Dorset?

  Hangtown was making his way back down the ladder now, clutching a battered copper bucket in one hand. “Don’t let princess sell you a house, Big Mitch.”

  “He won’t,” Takai objected, pouting. “He’s decidedly un-American.”

  “I know, that’s why I like him.” Hangtown handed him the bucket. It was solid and heavy, and would fetch real money at an antique store. “That do the trick?”

  “Perfectly, but are you sure you can spare it?”

  “He has seven more just like it up there,” Moose said wearily, descending the ladder. “Father, you have to leave right now or you’ll be late.”

  “I guess that tour will have to wait, Big Mitch,” Hangtown said apologetically. “Hey, how about tonight? Can you come over for dinner?”

  “I’d like that very much.”

  “Outstanding! Bring a girl. You got a girl?”

  Takai let out a sharp laugh. “Of course he does, Father. Haven’t you heard?” Clearly she had.

  This was the downside of small-town life, Mitch reflected. Being talked about behind your back by people you didn’t even know. “As a matter of fact I do, but she’s tied up tonight.”

  “Too bad,” said Hangtown. “Come stag, then. Maybe you’ll get lucky.”

  “Father!” scolded Moose.

  A crusty old hippie appeared in the barn doorway now. He had a graying ponytail, a wisp of a beard, eyes that were bloodshot and suspicious, skin that was sunburned and leathery. Cords of muscle stuck out on his wrists. It was impossible to place his age. Mitch guessed he was somewhere between fifty and sixty-five. He wore a filthy denim jacket, torn jeans and oil-stained work boots. In a sheath on his belt he carried a large knife. “Let’s get it on, Chief,” he said to Hangtown in a rasping voice. “Else we won’t beat the rush-hour traffic over the bridge.”

  “Not you, too,” Hangtown said sourly. “Say hello to Mitch, Big Jim.”

  “How ya doing, man?” Jim Bolan, the ex-con, said guardedly.

  “You got our smokes, Big Jim?” Hangtown asked him.

  “In the truck,” Jim responded, shooing the old man out the door. “Let’s go, Chief. C’mon, c’mon . . .”

  And out the barn door they went, followed closely by Takai, who was in a hurry to see a man about a tree.

  Mitch was left there alone with Moose. “I don’t really have to come for dinner,” he said. “I don’t want to impose on you.”

  “No, not at all,” she said quickly. Now that it was just the two of them, she seemed a bit uncomfortable. “You’re invited. Please come.”

  Mitch stood there looking around at Wendell Frye’s workshop. “I’m having a little trouble believing that this is really happening.”

  “That’s a common misconception. My father’s not as reclusive as everyone thinks. He’s simply reached a point in his life where he believes that very few people are worth knowing. He’s eighty-three years old. He has no time left to waste. And he has an instinct about people. I call it his smell test. Most people fail it. You passed.”

  The two of them headed back outside. The old Land Rover was still parked in front of the historic hot pink house. The pickup truck and Porsche were gone. The Porsche was Takai’s, not that Mitch had doubted it for a moment.

  “It sure is pink, isn’t it?” he said, gazing at the house.

  “Father likes to do the unexpected. That’s what passes for normal around here.”

  “How come I passed?” Mitch asked her.

  “I don’t know,” Moose replied. “And I probably know that man as well as anyone. The only thing I’ve ever been able to figure out is that he can’t stand anyone who’s selling something.”

  “But everyone is selling something, don’t you think?”

  “Yes, I do,” she said, turning her gaze on Mitch. There was a scrupulous absence of sexuality in her gaze, especially compared to her sister. Or maybe because of her sister. “What are you selling, Mitch?”

  CHAPTER 4

  It was the high schoolers in their Jeep Wranglers who were her biggest headache, Des had come to discover as she stood out there in the middle of Dorset Street with her orange reflector vest on, making her official presence felt.

  They were just so jacked up on their hormonal energy and deafening suburban hip-hop that the posted speed limit of twenty-five felt like a baby’s crawl. Most of them were doing forty when they hit the high school driveway and that was simply not acceptable, because both the high school and middle school were located directly behind Center School. Dozens of school buses were pulling in and out. Soccer moms in minivans were dropping their kids off. More kids were arriving on their bikes and . . . well, it was a major public safety situation.

  Speeding tickets? She’d tried that, but tickets didn’t mean a thing to these kids in Dorset. Their parents just paid the tickets for them, same as they paid for everything else. Out of sheer frustration, she’d resorted to this—standing in the damned street—holding some of the traffic up, waving some of it on through, trying to keep it under control and moving. Knowing full well that if the Deacon saw her out there like this he would have himself a stroke.

  Christ, all I need is a pair of white gloves and a whistle.

  In all honesty, becoming a resident trooper was a bigger adjustment than Des had anticipated. She hadn’t just changed jobs—she’d changed careers. She was in community relations now, not law enforcement. Her role was to be a liaison between the state police and this stable gold-coast community that was home to more millionaires per square mile than East Hampton. She handed out free trigger locks for handguns, signed off on fender benders, made sure the kids got home in one piece from their keggers on the beach. If a break-in went down, she picked up the new digital handheld radio that connected her to the Troop F barracks in Westbrook and they took over. Anything hot, Westbrook called Major Crime Squad Central District headquarters in Meriden, her old crew.

  Not that she’d had a single hot call yet. In fact, the only ongoing crime problem she’d encountered was a roving late-night gang of high-spirited local boys who liked to spray-paint erect penises on store windows and proudly sign their work—they called themselves the Mod Squad. Lately, they’d also taken to stealing things out of unlocked parked cars. The town fathers were not amused, and Des was under tremendous pressure from First Selectman Paffin to nail them. She was finding leads hard to come by. It was not easy building trust when she was still finding her own way—especially in a village with such a pigment-free population. Face it, Des saw only one face of color all day long—her own in the mirror. Not that anyone had acted unfriendly toward her. It was a very polite town. They respected the uniform. They respected order. It’s just that she was different. Plus she was a young single woman. She was not going to cultivate local relationships in her off-duty hours by hanging at the barbershop or the fire house swa
pping fish tales. No, she had to find a new way, a way that suited her.

  And fast.

  On this particular morning she was presenting DARE awards to a classroom full of Center School second graders. When she was done with traffic detail she unlocked the trunk of her cruiser, stowed her reflector vest and removed one kid-sized DARE baseball jacket and five stuffed animals—the Drug Abuse Resistance Education mascot was a fuzzy lion named Darren. Then she slammed the trunk shut and started up the bluestone path to the front doors.

  Center School was a beautiful old building of whitewashed brick and granite with a slate roof. There was no metal detector at its front doors. No bars on its windows, no gang markings on its walls. It was a throwback. Which, Des supposed, was why people had such strong feelings for and against it.

  She went inside, her big leather belt creaking, and started down a corridor lined with class photographs and Halloween art projects. It had been a long time since she’d been inside a grammar school. It was the smells that struck her the most, those forgotten childhood smells of finger paint, glue and heavy-duty floor cleanser. The principal’s office, where she got directions to Miss Frye’s room, had a knee-high drinking fountain outside the door. It was a bright, sunny classroom filled with tiny desks for tiny, tiny people. A motto written in big blue letters stretched across the wall over the blackboard: A GOOD BOOK IS A GOOD FRIEND.

  Miss Frye’s second graders were scrubbed, alert and excited, although Des couldn’t help but notice that most of them still had their jackets on. Three big windows were thrown wide open and two fans were circulating fresh, chilly morning air throughout the entire room. Miss Frye herself wore only a dowdy cardigan sweater over a blue denim jumper. She was a strongly built farm girl with muscular flanks and a gentle, natural manner with the children. Des wondered if she was one of the Fryes.

  A photographer from the little shoreline weekly paper was already there, waiting to snap a picture of Des posed with the winners of the class’s DARE slogan contest. The five runners-up received Darrens. Ben Leanse, an unusually small boy with an unusually large, bulbous head, got the baseball jacket for his winning slogan: DRUGS ARE FOR SICK PEOPLE.

  Miss Frye had chosen the winners. Des was merely there to make the presentation. Mostly, it was a chance for her to interact with them in a setting they were familiar with. Young children needed to find out that police officers were people they could talk to. Plus Des was exceedingly aware that these sheltered, affluent small-town kids had spent very little time around anyone of color. She wanted them to realize that she was not an alien from a galaxy far, far away.

  So, after the photographer took off, she hung out, seated there on the edge of Miss Frye’s desk, twirling her big hat in her long, slender fingers.

  “Boys and girls, Trooper Mitry has been kind enough to give us a few minutes of her time this morning,” Miss Frye said, as they gaped at Des from their desks. “Can anyone tell us what a resident trooper does?”

  “Make busts,” the Leanse boy spoke up promptly. Poor little guy had a gurgly, adenoidal voice to go with his huge head. “Take down bad guys.”

  “Ohhh, pumpkin head . . .” a boy in the back row gurgled mockingly, drawing snickers. And an icy look from Miss Frye. “Pumpkin head . . .”

  “Sometimes I arrest people,” Des said. “What else do I do?”

  The other kids began to jump in now: “Gunfights and—”

  “Car chases!”

  “Break down doors and beat people up—”

  “Speeding tickets. My dad got one.”

  “My daddy’s pickup truck got broken into,” an angelic little blond girl spoke up. “The Mod Squad stole his nail gun and spray-painted a great big wienie on his windshield.” This drew more snickers. “You gonna catch ’em?”

  “We’re working on that real hard,” Des replied, pushing her horn-rimmed glasses up her nose. “Do you know what else I do? I help people. That’s my job. So if anyone ever has a problem, don’t be afraid to call me, okay?”

  “You ever kill anyone?” the Leanse boy piped up.

  “Ohh, pumpkin head . . .”

  “Ricky, stop that!” Miss Frye said sharply.

  “I never have, no,” Des responded, shifting so she could get herself a good look at the taunter in the back row. Ricky was a classic schoolyard-bully type—a fat, no-necked kid with a flattop crew cut and outthrust jaw. Also one helluva black eye. The last kid he’d tangled with had clearly gotten the best of him. “Most of us never have to fire our guns. It’s not like on television.”

  “How come a lady is a policeman?” asked the angelic blond girl.

  “Well, I was a lieutenant in the Army, first. After the cold war ended I decided to join the state police, just like my father.” The Deacon was deputy superintendent, the second-highest-ranking man in the entire state. And the highest-ranked black man in Connecticut history. “How about you, Ricky?” she asked, making eye contact with him. “Anything you’d like to ask me?”

  “Yeah,” he said, his brow furrowing. “Are you a nigger?”

  Miss Frye let out a gasp of pure horror. “Ricky Welmers, you just earned yourself another trip to the principal’s office!”

  “Wait, it’s okay,” Des interjected.

  “It is not okay!” she said firmly. “We have a zero-tolerance policy toward such language.”

  Ricky just sat there smirking. He wanted attention, and he was getting it.

  “Ricky, what’s the worst thing anyone’s ever called you?” Des asked, strolling down the aisle toward him.

  He stuck his chin out at her in defiant silence.

  “C’mon, you can tell us,” Des prodded him. “What was it—Fatso, Lardo, Piggy, Miss Piggy . . .?” This drew snickers from the other kids, which Ricky did not like. “Words hurt, Ricky. If you hurt someone, they’re liable to hurt you back. Is that what you want?”

  “I can take it,” he snarled at her.

  “And if the other guy’s got a gun? Then what do you do?”

  Ricky stared up her, his eyes cold with hate. It wasn’t racially specific, she felt. It was authority in general he was angry at. She wondered why.

  Now the classroom door opened and a high school girl came in to tell Des she was needed in the superintendent’s office.

  Something in the girl’s voice caused Miss Frye to say, “I’ll show Trooper Mitry the way, Ashley. Will you please stay here with the class until I return?”

  They started down the school hallway together, moving briskly. Des, who had learned never to waste an opportunity, immediately went to work: “Ever think about adopting a kitten for your classroom, Miss Frye? It makes a wonderful science project.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not possible. I’ve got several students with allergies.”

  “How about you yourself?” Des pressed her. When it came to placing a healthy neutered kitten she was ruthless. “Do you have a cat?”

  “We have a dog.”

  “They get along fine. Don’t believe the cartoons. I’ve got some Polaroids right here if you’d care to—”

  “No, don’t!” Miss Frye pleaded. “Don’t show them to me. I’m a terrible soft touch.”

  “Oh, good, we’ll get along just fine.” Des smiled at her as they strode down the corridor, the teacher matching her stride for stride, which most women couldn’t do. “Do you always keep the windows in your room open?”

  “I do,” she responded. “We’ve got a mold problem in the ductwork, and the old wiring is inadequate for air conditioners. They were supposed to upgrade it over the summer, but if they end up tearing the school down, then that would just be a waste of money—and so they did nothing.”

  “It’s a sweet old school,” Des said. “Seems a shame to level it.”

  “I couldn’t agree more. It has its problems, but nothing that can’t be fixed. Superintendent Falconer has tried to tell Mrs. Leanse—she’s our school board president.”

  “Ben’s mother?”

  “That’s rig
ht. But you know it’s very hard to argue with a parent who feels his or her child’s health is endangered. They want to do the best they can for their children. They’ve spent hundreds of hours working the phones, licking envelopes, packing the school board meetings. They even raised twenty-five thousand dollars of private funds to produce a ten-minute video that went out to every voter in town. All I keep thinking is, if you really care that much about the school, twenty-five thousand would buy us a lot of plumbing repairs. Or computers. Or a security system. Besides, the reality is that it’s not the size of the building that matters. It’s the size of the class and the caliber of the teacher and . . .” She glanced at Des apologetically. “I’ll shut up now. You asked me a perfectly innocent question about mold and you’re getting an entire lecture.”

  “I’m getting insight. I need that.”

  They pushed open the double doors at the end of the hall and started out onto the playground behind the school. The superintendent’s office was in the middle school, a twenty-year-old flat-roofed brick building that was located across an expanse of blacktop.

  “You handled the children very well,” Miss Frye said, leading Des past the swings and monkey bars.

  “I was thinking I could have been a little less confrontational with Ricky.”

  “Not at all. You were straight with him. He needs to be talked to that way. They all do. I’m sorry about his language. His older brother, Ronnie, was a handful, too. He’s over at the high school now. Ronnie was just incredibly disruptive. Him they put on Ritalin, and he did better, but the mother was around then. Jay’s raising the boys alone now, and he has his own problems. It’s a real shame, because they’re both very bright. Ronnie’s probably the brightest student in our entire system. His IQ tested exceptionally high. But he’s bored and he’s angry, so he self-medicates.”

  “He’s a garbagehead?”

  “They caught him inhaling a computer keyboard cleaner out behind the Science Building last year.”

  “What was it, Duster Two?”

  “That’s it. He and two other boys. All three of them were suspended.”