Touchy and Feely (Sissy Sawyer Mysteries) Read online

  ‘That’s a beautiful name, Serenity. Beautiful name for a beautiful girl.’

  ‘Oh, please,’ said Serenity.

  ‘I’m sorry, Serenity. But I’m a salesman by nature. That means that if something impresses me, I say so. If you took me to see the Mona Lisa, I wouldn’t just stand in front of it with my mouth hanging open. That’s not me. I don’t believe that we should repress our natural responses. I think it’s like some kind of illness. You have a beautiful name, don’t you, you can’t argue with that, I mean your parents thought of it, not you, but as it turns out you grew up to suit it, and if you think I’m being cheesy by saying so, then please accept my apology, but all I did was make a truthful honest comment.’

  Serenity said nothing but sat back on the couch. She patted the cushion and Feely sat down next to her.

  ‘Incredible,’ said Robert, looking around the room. ‘Landed on your feet, then, Feely? New clothes! Look at you! Looks like you’ve taken a shower, too.’

  ‘Feely’s a very special person,’ said Serenity.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Robert. ‘That’s for sure.’

  ‘So, you’re headed north, too?’

  ‘I’m not really headed anywhere, to tell you the truth. But north is as good a direction as any, don’t you think?’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘Well, with respect, you don’t really understand what the hell I’m talking about. It’s only twelve days to Christmas and here I am, driving around Connecticut in a snowstorm, not really headed anywhere.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Robert,’ said Serenity. ‘What you’re doing and where you’re headed, that’s not my business. Added to that, I don’t majorly care.’

  ‘Sure,’ said Robert. ‘I understand. Why should I expect you to care? If we all went around caring what everybody else was doing, shit, we wouldn’t have the time to care for ourselves, would we?’

  ‘I’m not interested,’ Serenity retorted. ‘I only let you in because Feely wanted to let you in, but if you’ve warmed up now, you’re more than welcome to leave.’

  Robert came away from the fire and hunkered down beside the couch, so close that Feely could smell the Jack Daniel’s on his breath, and the cigarette smoke on his coat, and his pungent socks.

  ‘People complain about racial prejudice, you know that? Blacks complain about it, Hispanics complain about it, Koreans complain about it. But do you know who suffers the most racial prejudice of all? The white middle-class white-collar male, that’s who suffers more than anybody else. You invited Feely into your home, right? Look at him. He’s Cuban. He’s young and he’s poor and he’s good-looking. He’s like a lost dog, so you feel sorry for him.

  ‘For all you know, Feely’s a crack addict, or he’s suffering from HIV. The chances are, both. But you don’t think about that. All you think is how cute he looks and how funny he talks. But me? One look at me and your hackles go up. White middle-class male. Ignore the fact that I’m statistically likely to be honest, and responsible, and caring, and church-going. Ignore the fact that I’m also a human being.

  ‘You don’t care that I’m driving around in a snowstorm twelve days before Christmas, with noplace to go? Why should you? I’m a white middle-class white-collar male, and I can look after myself, right, plus every other workshy bastard who’s living on welfare. I don’t need anybody’s sympathy. I don’t need a warm fire and anybody’s love, even when it’s twenty-five degrees below and all my friends have turned their backs on me and I can’t even afford a bed-and-breakfast.’

  He stood up. ‘I screwed up, OK? I know I screwed up. But does that mean that I have to lose my two little girls, and my house, and my car, and all my possessions? I didn’t do anything, except I had carnal relations with another woman! That’s all I did! I cheated on my wife! That’s all! I would have got more respect if I had cut her head off!’

  Serenity said, ‘OK. I didn’t know. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Well, like you said, it isn’t your affair.’

  Robert went back to the fireplace and chafed his hands together. ‘I guess my blood’s started circulating again . . . if young Feely doesn’t want to come with me, I’d better hit the bricks. I’ve got miles to go before I sleep . . . many very necessary things to do.’

  ‘How about a drink?’ asked Serenity.

  ‘No, thanks. I reach this particular level of drunkenness when I drive like an angel. Any more and I start to get a little dangerous.’

  ‘OK,’ said Serenity.

  There was a long silence. Robert stayed by the fireplace, still rubbing his hands. Serenity looked at Feely and Feely looked from Robert to Serenity and back again, as if he were waiting for one of them to say something.

  ‘Adios, then,’ said Serenity.

  But Feely said, ‘Look—it’s snowing again.’

  Serenity and Robert both turned to look out of the window. Feely was right. The snow was coming down thick and heavy.

  ‘You can’t drive in this,’ said Feely. ‘It’s far too aleatory.’

  Robert went over to the window. ‘You’re right. It is pretty damned aleatory.’ He paused for a moment, and then he said, ‘Guess I’d better find myself a bed-and-breakfast. I don’t want to spend another night in the car.’

  ‘Oh, all right,’ said Serenity. ‘You can stay here until the snow eases up. But on two conditions.’

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘Condition one is, you go out and chop some more logs for the fire. Condition two is, when you’ve done that, you take a shower and change your clothes.’

  ‘Serenity, you’re a queen. I just hope that my daughters grow up to be like you.’

  ‘I’m an idiot. My parents would go Chucky if they knew.’

  Robert picked up the framed photograph of Serenity’s dad and mom. ‘I don’t know. They look like good people to me.’

  ‘Well, looks can be deceptive. They’re so dated, those two. My dad’s favorite song is “Voulez-Vous Coucher Avec Moi.”

  ‘Hey,’ said Robert. ‘Mine too.’

  The Laughing Tree

  ‘This is the guy,’ said Trooper MacCormack, showing Steve and Doreen into the interview room. ‘Denis Bodell, plumber’s assistant. He was a passenger in his boss’s van when they drove past the Mitchelson place at the time of the shooting.’

  Denis Bodell was sitting at the interview table with a cup of coffee and an empty box of Krispy Kreme donuts. He looked not much older than twenty or twenty-one. He had curly ginger hair and ginger eyebrows. He was wearing a green-and-red sweater and jeans with a sharp crease pressed into them.

  Steve approached him and Denis looked up with a small, hopeful smile.

  ‘Denis? My name’s Detective Wintergreen and this is Detective Rycerska. We’d like to thank you for coming in.’

  ‘Hey, you’re welcome. I saw it on the TV that you was appealing for witnesses, and I said to Mr Johnson, that’s me, I’m a witness, and Mr Johnson drove me right here, no stopping.’

  Steve dragged out a chair and sat down. ‘Mr Johnson, that’s your boss?’

  ‘That’s right. We was on our way to the Rheinhold place to thaw out some frozen pipes.’

  ‘And you were passing the old warehouse around the time that Mrs Mitchelson was shot?’

  ‘Eight twenty or thereabouts, that’s right.’

  ‘So tell us what you saw.’

  ‘I seen a van parked right opposite, next to a trailer. I never would have thought nothing of it, ’less I saw it on the TV and how you was appealing for witnesses.’

  ‘OK . . . you want to tell us what this van looked like?’

  Denis Bodell nodded, and nodded, and kept on nodding.

  ‘Go on, then,’ said Doreen, impatiently. ‘Tell us what it looked like.’

  ‘It was white, with a tree on the side of it.’

  ‘Did you recognize the model?’

  Denis shook his head. ‘I’m not too sure. Could have been a Savana.’

  ‘License plate?’

  ‘Didn’
t look. I mean there wasn’t any reason to.’

  ‘So what about this tree on the side of it? What did that look like?’

  ‘It was brown, and it was leaning over, like it was blowing in the wind. It had red leaves on it and some of the leaves were flying away, and it was laughing.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘There was like a face on it, if you understand what I mean, and the face was laughing.’

  ‘I see.’ Steve wrote down, laughing tree. ‘How about writing? Was there a company name on the van, anything like that?’

  ‘There was writing, but I couldn’t tell you for sure what it was.’

  ‘If you close your eyes, and really try to picture that van in your mind, can you give me any idea at all what that writing might have said? Was it a long word, or a short word? What letter did it start with?’

  Denis screwed his eyes tight shut. Steve and Doreen waited for over thirty seconds before he opened them again. ‘I think . . . double-yah.’

  ‘You think it started with a W?’

  ‘That’s right. Double-yah. In fact, I’d put ten dollars on it.’ Steve jotted down a few notes. Then he looked across at Denis and said, ‘Which way was the van parked? Was the front end facing the highway or was it facing away from the highway?’

  ‘It was facing away.’

  ‘And were its rear cargo doors open or closed?’

  ‘Open.’

  ‘One of them or both?’

  ‘I think one of them.’

  ‘And did you glimpse anything inside?’

  ‘No, sir. We was driving past, that’s all, and I only catched a quick flash.’

  ‘OK,’ said Steve. ‘If I were to ask you to draw the tree that you saw on the side of the van, do you think you could do that?’

  ‘I don’t think so. When it was art, the teacher used to make me wash her car.’

  ‘Well, maybe we can have a police artist draw it for you?’

  ‘Sure, that’s cool. I can do that.’

  Steve stood up. ‘All right, then, Denis, if you can wait here just a little longer. I want to thank you again for being so public-spirited.’

  Denis stood up, too, and primped up his curls. ‘Do we do the TV now?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘The TV. Like, me telling everybody what I seen and everything.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Denis. This isn’t going to be on TV.’

  Denis looked baffled, and Steve suddenly realized why he had pressed his jeans.

  ‘You thought this was going to be on TV?’

  ‘No. Well, yes.’

  Doreen said, ‘That isn’t the only reason you came in, is it? To be on TV? I mean, you really did see this van?’

  ‘Oh, sure I did. White, just like I said, with a laughing tree on the side of it. And a word beginning with double-yah.’

  Steve and Doreen left him in the interview room and went out in the corridor. Doreen said, ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I’m not sure. But it doesn’t sound like he’s making it up. When people make things up, they’re either very vague, or else they’re much too specific. He clearly saw the van and he clearly saw the tree, but he didn’t see the license plate and he couldn’t be sure about the lettering.’

  Trooper MacCormack came up. ‘I’ve, ah, talked to Lennie Johnson, Denis Bodell’s employer. According to him, Denis is reliable and honest, even if you can’t trust him to put on his pants the right way up. His words.’

  ‘OK, then,’ said Steve. ‘Let’s put out an APB for a white Savana-type van, carrying a brown logo of a laughing tree, and a word that might begin with W. Maybe we’ll catch this bastard before he uses some other poor sucker for target practice.’

  Echoes of Tragedy

  Sam drove so slowly that by the time they reached Cornwall Bridge, Sissy’s lower back was aching and she was beginning to wish that she hadn’t come. Snow was still falling, but only thinly now, and the snowplows had just been through, so the main roads were mostly clear. In spite of that, Sam drove at a steady 27 mph, and slowed down even more whenever he approached an intersection. ‘Never know . . . somebody might come whizzing out on skis, or a snowboard . . . happened to my younger brother Marlon. Crushed his pelvis, and he walked like a rocking-horse for the rest of his life.’

  Sissy said nothing but sat deeply huddled in the big black sable coat that she had inherited from her mother. It had a huge collar and it brushed the ground when she walked, although it hadn’t when she was younger, and taller. Her mother had worn it for the opening night of The Most Happy Fella in 1956, and it smelled like it.

  Sissy had once wondered if Sam might make a good companion for her sunset years. He was handsome, after all, and he had a ribald sense of humor. But as they crawled toward Canaan on Route 7 that afternoon, she knew that she could never stand to go anywhere with him, if this was how he normally traveled around.

  ‘Sam . . . do you think you could give it a little more gas?’ she asked him.

  ‘I don’t want to tempt fate, Sissy.’

  ‘I don’t want you to tempt it, just try to catch up with it.’

  Eventually, however, they drove into Canaan. They passed the yellow-painted Mitchelson house. Sissy recognized it from the TV news, although it looked smaller in real life. Two state police cruisers were parked outside, as well as a TV van, and the yard was still fenced off with tape.

  ‘Would you stop here, just for a moment?’ Sissy asked Sam.

  Sam drew up outside the old furniture warehouse. Sissy opened her door and climbed out, and stood in the snow for a minute. It was so quiet that she could hear the police radios squawking. The cards had told her to listen, but she wasn’t at all sure what she was supposed to be listening for. But she felt confident that she was supposed to be here, and that she had come to the right place.

  A young trooper came across the road. ‘You can’t park here, folks. Crime scene. You’ll have to move on.’

  ‘This is where that young woman was shot, isn’t it?’

  ‘Just move on, please.’

  Sissy turned slowly around. Completeness, she thought, although she didn’t know why. Completeness, like a happy family.

  The trooper said, ‘Ma’am . . . I don’t want to have to book you.’

  ‘Of course not, I’m sorry.’

  But as she climbed back into Sam’s boxy old Jeep, she shivered, and it wasn’t just the north-west wind, blowing off the snow. She turned her head and looked back toward the rough piece of ground next to the New England Dairies trailer, and she could almost sense that there was somebody there. Somebody who felt very lonely, and disaffected. Somebody who felt that the world had turned its back.

  ‘Something wrong?’ asked Sam, as they pulled away from the side of the road and drove toward the town center.

  ‘I don’t know . . . I had the strangest feeling. It was like when a bad card comes up.’

  ‘Where do you want to go now?’

  ‘Let’s just keep on heading north. I’ve got that quivering again.’

  Sam pulled a face. ‘I hate to say this, Sissy, but this is just about the wildest wild goose chase I’ve ever been on. You and I should be sitting in front of the fire with blankets over our knees, sipping some of that coffee of yours, the one that’s half coffee and mostly vodka.’

  ‘Oh come on, Sam. Stop talking like a geriatric.’

  ‘Why not? I am a geriatric.’

  Sissy said, ‘Did you ever look at me and think, “I wouldn’t mind getting into the sack with Sissy, and having carnal relations”?’

  ‘Sissy . . . that’s not the kind of question a woman like you should be asking a fellow like me!’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Well . . . even if I ever did think about you improperly, and I’m not saying that I ever do, I hope I’d be gentleman enough to keep my improper ideas to myself.’

  ‘What’s improper? We’re both single, aren’t we?’

  ‘Sure. But that isn’t the point.’

  �
��That’s precisely the point. So why don’t you answer the question?’

  They were approaching Union Station. The snow was whirling off the top of the station tower like a long white scarf. As they came closer, Sissy thought she heard somebody whisper ‘Tea-leaves.’

  ‘Stop,’ she said, as they passed close to Chesney’s Diner.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I can hear voices.’

  Sam listened, and then he frowned at her. ‘I don’t hear nothing.’

  ‘They’re very indistinct.’

  ‘I got my hearing-aid turned up.’

  Sissy closed her eyes tight and inclined her head toward the diner. ‘Whoever it was . . . they’re not here now. They’ve gone. But they were talking here before.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s like an echo. Like when somebody’s hammering, very far away, on a snowy afternoon, and they stop hammering, but you can still hear it.’

  ‘Can you hear what they’re saying?’

  ‘Not too clearly. “Tea-leaves,” I think.’ She listened again. ‘And “horoscopes,” I definitely heard “horoscopes.” And somebody talking about crying.’

  Sam turned up his hearing-aid until it whistled with feedback. ‘I still don’t hear nothing.’

  Sissy said, ‘It must be a conversation that somebody had here earlier. It’s like their words are still here, waiting for me to hear them.’

  ‘You’re sure you’re not imagining it? Who else talks about tea-leaves and horoscopes, except for you?’

  ‘Sam . . . I can hear it. That’s why the cards sent me here. They want me to listen, so that I can understand what’s going on.’

  She climbed down from the Jeep and stood in the parking lot, her head lowered and both hands cupped over her ears. A man walking in a bobbly ski-hat stopped and stared at her. Maybe Sam was right, and all that she could hear was the wind blowing, and the rattle of plastic sheeting around the half-restored station. But she was sure that she picked up the words ‘playing-cards’ and ‘tragedy.’

  Tragedy, there it was again; and it wasn’t the wind. Then, north.

  She lifted her head. The wind made her eyes water, but she didn’t move for almost a minute. North, she could feel it. She had never in her life felt so certain about one of her intuitions. It couldn’t have been clearer if it had been written in the snow.