High Season (23 page)

“I'll have to speak with her attorney first.”

“Why?”

“Serena was . . . secretive.” Devon shook her head. “That's not quite the right word. Protective.”

“Protective of what?”

“Her clients. Her partners. Her projects. Her money.”

“Who were her partners in the Moors project?”

“I don't know.”

“Don't know, or won't tell me?”

Devon smiled for the first time. “Both.”

Coffin shifted on the leather couch, which made a soft farting sound as he moved. “Who's in charge of Real Estate Investment Consortium?”

Devon furrowed her blond, professionally shaped brows. “I don't know. Never heard of it.”

“Really? Serena had business cards with her name at the top and REIC at the bottom.”

“Serena had a lot going on. She didn't tell me everything.”

“If you say so.”

Devon's face softened. “Really. I don't think she trusted me to keep my mouth shut.”

“What about Serena's personal life?” Coffin asked. “Did she have a partner? Boyfriend? Girlfriend?”

Devon frowned. “Not in the way you mean,” she said. “Serena was completely . . . unsentimental. For her, all relationships were business relationships. She didn't have time for anything else.”

“So she never had sex? Is that what you're saying?”

“No—I mean that when she did have sex, it was usually motivated by business considerations, not romantic attachment.”

One way of closing the deal,
Coffin thought. “And her relationship with you? What was that like?”

“I worked for her—kept track of her appointments, answered her calls and her e-mail, that kind of thing.”

“You live here, is that right?”

“Yes. There's a small apartment downstairs—it came with the job.”

Coffin sat quietly and watched her cross and uncross her arms, then push a lank strand of hair behind her ear. Amazing how uncomfortable people got when you didn't talk.

Devon leaned forward, looked at the floor. “Sometimes we slept in the same bed. It wasn't really sexual, though—not after the first
couple of months. I think I was mostly . . . decorative.” She gestured at one of the big dune paintings. “I went with the sofa.”

“So what was in it for you?” Coffin said. “I mean, you're young—didn't you feel like you were missing something?”

“Look, Detective,” Devon said, her pale blue eyes meeting Coffin's, “sex is just sex—I could have that with just about anybody. What I had with Serena was security. Sorry if that's not enough for you.”

Coffin put his hands up halfway, palms out.
Don't shoot.
“Sorry,” he said. “I'm just trying to get a sense of who Serena was. No offense, okay?”

“Whatever,” Devon said, suddenly teary. She honked her nose into a cocktail napkin, folded it twice, and dabbed at her eyes.

“One more question,” Coffin said. “Don't take it the wrong way.”

Devon raised her eyebrows.

“Who inherits? Serena had a ton of money, right?”

Devon pressed her lips together into a grim little smile. “I don't know,” she said. “I never asked.”

 

Coffin let himself out, climbed into the Dodge—which bucked and coughed before thundering to life—and backed down the long, steep driveway. Serena's house was less than a mile from Coffin's neighborhood, but she might as well have lived in a different universe. There was no panoramic view from Coffin's house, no Motherwell prints artfully arranged. His windows all looked out at other people's houses, shingled in gray cedar, packed in tight.

 

When Coffin arrived at his office, Lola was sitting at his desk, leafing through a pile of curling fax paper. A list, he could see. He
picked up the cover note: It was from Hank Walters at the BMV, apologizing for the delay—their computers had been down for most of the morning.

“You're looking over my shoulder, Frank,” Lola said.

She'd changed out of her uniform. Coffin thought she looked like a young attorney in her pale silk blouse and dark slacks.

“Sorry,” Coffin said. He pulled up the orange plastic guest chair and sat down next to Lola. The list contained the year of manufacture, registration number, and name and address of the current owner for all the blue Chevy pickups registered on the outer Cape—a grand total of forty-one. Coffin slid his desk drawer open a couple of inches and picked out a green highlighter.

“Looks like there are nine blue Chevy pickups registered in Provincetown,” he said. “Five in Truro, and another twenty-seven in Wellfleet, Eastham, and Orleans.”

He found Tony's name right away and drew a bright transparent streak over it. “No surprises yet,” he said. He drew another streak over Kotowski's name.

Coffin ran his finger down the rest of the list, stopped, went back. Plotz—there it was. Dunbar Plotz, of Provincetown.
Duffy
Plotz.

Coffin drew a bright green circle around Plotz's name and leaned back in his chair.

“Plotz,” Lola said. “What an idiot.”

Coffin shook his head. “The man's a vegetarian, for God's sake. He does yoga. Shouldn't he be free of aggression?”

“Vegetarians are always in a bad mood,” Lola said. “It's an amino acid thing.”

Coffin shrugged. “I guess I pissed him off, out at the dump.”

“Maybe he's the killer,” Lola said. “Maybe he thinks you're getting too close.” She guffawed and put a hand over her mouth.

Coffin shot her a look. “Very funny.”

“Sorry.”

“It's too impetuous, anyway, trying to flatten a police detective. It's out of character for our guy.”

“What's out of character is you still being alive.”

“On the other hand, you can't eliminate Plotz altogether. He's not exactly the sanest guy in the world if he's going around trying to run over people.”

“What about Kotowski? Shouldn't we take a look at him? He's kind of a loon, right?”

Coffin stood up and turned out his desk lamp. “He's a total loon, but I'm pretty much the only person in town he's
not
mad at. No reason he'd come after me.”

Lola cleared her throat. “For the murders, I mean.”

Coffin frowned. “Why? Because he smacked Louie around with a fish?”

“Well, duh. I mean, if anyone in this town's got an axe to grind, it's Kotowski.”

Coffin steered Lola out of the office and pulled the door shut behind them. “Kotowski's all show,” he said. His voice echoed in the stairwell. “You know the joke about how many old Province-townians it takes to change a lightbulb?”

“No,” Lola said. “Tell me.”

“Twenty. One to put in the new lightbulb, three to do an environmental impact study, five to hold a protest vigil in support of the old lightbulb, three to do a nude performance art piece called ‘Changing the Lightbulb,' and eight to throw a lightbulb-changing theme party.”

“Did you just make that up?” Lola said, following Coffin up the narrow metal stairs.

“The point is, there are lots of wackos in Provincetown. Lots of
vocal
wackos. Kotowski's just the most visible.”

Lola paused at the landing. “He's a friend of yours, right?”

“I've known him for thirty years, almost,” Coffin said.

“I guess what I'm saying is—”

“That he seems like kind of an obvious suspect.”

“Well, yeah.”

“And you think he might be crazy enough to start killing people.”

“Well, yeah.”

“I don't think so.”

“So you think he's rational.”

“I didn't say rational. I just don't think he's irrational
enough
. Besides, he's got a stone-cold alibi for one of the killings.”

“He does? I thought he was a hermit, almost. Which one?”

“Jason Duarte.”

“Okay. What's this great alibi?”

“He was with me. We were at his house, playing chess. I saw the fire from his deck.”

“Oh. Sorry, Frank.”

“Forget it. How busy are you right now?”

“I was just about to clock out.”

“Put your uniform back on, and I'll grab us a squad car. Let's go pay Mr. Plotz a visit.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

C
offin knocked on the door of Plotz's apartment, but no one answered. He did a palms-up shrug at Lola, who was waiting in a borrowed squad car. A gray armada of clouds steamed across the sky. The harbor was green and choppy.

“Mind hanging around a little?” Coffin said, climbing back into the car.

“Sure, why not,” Lola said. “We can pretend we're cops on a stakeout.”

Lola pulled around the corner onto Bradford. She parked at the Pilgrim Market, nose out, within view of Plotz's back windows.

Coffin smoked a cigarette. Lola waved at the smoke, gave him a look, rolled down the windows. After a while, a beige Toyota sedan puttered down the hill on Bradford, swung into Duck Lane, and parked. Lola waited until Plotz had climbed most of the way up the stairs before she stuck the patrol car into drive and pulled into Duck Lane, stopping at the foot of Plotz's stairs. Both Coffin and Lola climbed out.

“Hey, Duffy,” Coffin said. “We need to talk.”

Plotz stared at Coffin for a long second. “Are you going to assault me again?” he said.

“Assault is one of the things I'd like to talk to you about. Mind if we come in? You know how people gossip in this town.”

“Out here's fine,” Plotz said. “Safer that way. People can gossip all they want.”

“Where's your truck, Duffy? The blue Chevy.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“According to the BMV, you own a blue 1993 Chevy pickup. I'd like to take a look at it.”

“I changed my mind,” Plotz said, pushing his front door open. “I don't want to talk to you after all.”

“Arrest him,” Coffin said. Lola started up the stairs, moving fast. She took them in three loose-limbed bounds and got a boot inside the crooked door before Plotz could slam it.

“You can't come in here,” Plotz said, backing toward his kitchen. The apartment was long and narrow, like the cabin of a sailboat. “You don't have a warrant.” He lunged for the coatrack and picked up an umbrella, which he brandished like a sword.

“Oh, for God's sake,” Lola said, grabbing the umbrella and twisting it out of Plotz's hand. She hooked the umbrella's handle behind Plotz's neck and yanked it down and sideways, forcing the recycling engineer off balance. He stumbled, and Lola kicked his feet out from under him. Plotz fell heavily, grunting as his shoulder hit the floor. Lola rolled Plotz onto his belly and, with a knee in his back, snapped handcuffs onto his wrists.

Tears welled up in Plotz's eyes. “
Fuck,
” he said. “That
hurt
.”

“All you had to do was show us the truck,” Coffin said. “Now you're going to jail.”

“Hey, Frank,” Lola said, wiping her hands on her uniform pants. She tipped her head toward Plotz's bookshelf. “Check it out.”

There were at least a dozen photographs on top of the small
bookshelf, crowded together, some in frames, some leaning or lying flat on their backs. They were all pictures of Jamie—Jamie loading grocery bags into her car, Jamie on her front porch, Jamie at yoga class—grainy black-and-whites, mostly taken with a telephoto lens. A scatter of razor blades lay among them. One of the photos—Jamie in silhouette, shot through the window of Coffin's house—had been cut into jagged strips.

 

“I'm not answering any questions,” Plotz said as Lola stuffed him into the back of the squad car.

“Fine,” Coffin said.

“Not without my lawyer,” Plotz said.

“Okay.”

Lola started the engine.

“So what am I being charged with?”

“Right now? Assaulting Officer Winters with an umbrella.”

Lola steered the car onto Commercial Street. The clouds had moved on, and the harbor glinted in the afternoon sun. A big whale-watch boat was rounding the breakwater, nosing toward MacMillan Wharf, engines rumbling. After dark, the same boat would head back out to the Atlantic, taking several hundred men, a DJ, and a great deal of liquor on an all-night dance cruise.

“Look, I'm sorry about the umbrella thing,” Plotz said. “I felt threatened. It was just instinct.”

“Bad instinct,” Coffin said. “What about last night, in the cemetery? Did you feel threatened then, too?”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

Coffin turned around and looked at Plotz through the wire mesh separating the front and rear seats. “You really suck at lying, Duffy. I'd be embarrassed, if I was you.”

“Whatever,” Plotz said. “I'm not answering any questions.”

________

 

“We're fucked,” said Louie Silva. Louie was pale; the rims of his eyes were pink, as though he hadn't slept. His hair, which had always been jet black, was suddenly flecked with gray. “We are officially one hundred percent fucked up the ass.”

Brandon Phipps raised a finger. “What Mr. Silva means is that the business climate shows signs of deteriorating.”

They were in Louie's office, on the third floor of Town Hall. Louie sat in an antique office chair behind a big oak desk. Phipps and Boyle sat on the leather sofa. Coffin stood near the windows, watching a green sailboat as it tacked slowly across the harbor.

“Is that what you mean, Louie?” Coffin said.

“Yeah,” Louie said. “We're fucked.”

“Who is we, exactly?”

“Mr. Silva is referring to the business community in general,” Phipps said.

Coffin leaned toward Louie. “Can you talk while he drinks water? I mean, I'd be impressed if you could do that.”