High Season (25 page)

Something squirmed in a bag on the counter. Jamie reached in and pulled out a brown, struggling lobster. “Sea bugs,” she said, holding the lobster by its thorax. “I got you a big one. Two pounds.” The lobster waved its claws at Coffin.

“You're getting very sleepy . . . ,” Coffin said, stroking the lobster's spiny head with his fingertip. The lobster's antennae drooped. Its black bug-eyes grew dreamy.

“Plenty for the three of us,” Jamie said.

Coffin looked at Lola. “You staying?”

“That okay?” Lola said.

Coffin shrugged. “Of course.”

Jamie took the other lobster out of the bag. “Let's race them,” she said.

“Two bucks on the smaller one,” Lola said. “The big one seems kind of sluggish.”

“Frank hypnotized him,” Jamie said.

Coffin refilled his wineglass. “Don't tell the lobster racing commission.”

Jamie set the two lobsters down on the linoleum floor. “And they're off!” she said. The big lobster waved its antennae dreamily. The smaller one ambled slowly toward the living room.

“I came by to give you something,” Lola said. “Jamie forced me to drink wine.”

“See? I told you she was bossy.”

“Hey!” Jamie said.

Lola fished a single sheet of paper from her briefcase and handed
it to Coffin. “It's the cross-reference with your list of blue pickups. The one you asked Jeff to do.”

“Well,” Coffin said, reading. “You think you know people.”

Six of the forty-one pickup owners had criminal records. Three of them had Orleans addresses, one lived in Wellfleet, and two were in Provincetown.

“Surprises?” Jamie said.

“Eugene Kotowski served nine months for aggravated assault in 1987,” Coffin said, “and Duffy Plotz has an outstanding arrest warrant for stalking his ex-wife.”

Jamie looked over Coffin's shoulder. “Duffy Plotz, serial stalker. Who knew? The man's a vegetarian, for God's sake.”

“The good news is, we can hold him awhile on the outstanding warrant,” Coffin said.

“And Kotowski?” Lola said. “Did you know he had a record?”

Coffin scratched his head. “Well, no. Not exactly. But it doesn't surprise me.”

“Me either,” Lola said. “Not after the fish incident.”

“Oh, shit,” Jamie said, peering through the doorway into the living room. “I think there's a lobster under the couch.” She opened the kitchen closet, took out a frazzled broom. “If I'm not back in ten minutes, call Jacques Cousteau.”

Coffin leaned against the counter and sipped his wine. “Why do you suppose Louie would want to keep us away from REIC and the Moors project?”

“Does he?”

“Sure seems like it. He's got Boyle backing him up, too.”

“Does Louie dabble in real estate, maybe?”

“He does more than dabble. He owns a ton of rental properties, and some commercial stuff, too.”

“You're thinking he's involved in the Moors.”

“Even money,” Coffin said, glancing into the living room. Jamie
was on all fours with the broom, trying to shoo the lobster out from under the couch. “You should have seen him today. He's a wreck.”

“Afraid he's next on the people-to-whack list? Or afraid we'll find out something embarrassing about the Moors?”

“Either. Both. They want us to focus on Kotowski.”

Lola refilled their glasses. “Makes sense, I guess. Kotowski does have a motive to kill Serena.”

“But he went after Louie instead—with a fish. Not exactly murderous intent. Now Louie's pissed, and he wants Kotowski to go to jail.”

Lola frowned. “So what do we do?”

“They want me to talk to Kotowski—I'll talk to Kotowski. Then we'll figure out what's going on with the Moors.”

Jamie came in with the lobster and put it on the counter. “We'd better cook these guys before there's another jailbreak,” she said.

“Not me,” Lola said. “I can't stand putting them in the water. They flip around too much.”

Coffin took the lid off the lobster pot. The water was boiling wildly. He picked up the lobsters and dipped them in, head first.

“See?” he said, putting the lid back on the pot. “First you boil their little brains. It's more humane that way.”

 

To the local environmentalists, Conwell Marsh was not a marsh at all—it was a fragile wetland, vital to the preservation of Provincetown's unique ecology. To the homeowners who lived along its murky periphery, it was a foul smelling, mosquito-infested swamp. To its owner, Louie Silva, it was a potential gold mine: five acres of undeveloped land, just blocks from the center of town, which he had bought for almost nothing back in the eighties. All it required was filling, and the end result would be fifty new luxury condo units, each selling for a minimum of $600,000, which meant the
whole project would gross well over $30,000,000. There were obstacles, of course—threats of litigation from the Mass EPA, a zoning board that was, for largely political reasons, reluctant to issue the necessary permits—but Louie Silva was a man who understood that the wheels of government sometimes needed to be greased; it was an unfortunate but inevitable part of the cost of doing business.

He climbed into his silver Mercedes and set his briefcase beside him on the passenger seat. The briefcase contained three fat manila envelopes: The slimmest envelope held $50,000 for the president of the zoning board; the middle envelope contained $100,000 for the administrator of the Mass EPA, who happened to be in town for the weekend with his boyfriend. The third envelope was oversized and stuffed with even more money—$250,000. It would go to a man named Lawrence Cooperman, an associate justice on the Massachusetts Land Court, the state judicial body that held jurisdiction over most legal matters pertaining to real estate. The first two were small-time—the Conwell development was just one piece of the puzzle—but the Cooperman deal was very, very big indeed.

He backed the Mercedes out onto Bradford Street and accelerated smoothly up the hill, heading toward Herring Cove. He would meet the gay EPA administrator there, then pop over to the zoning president's house later in the evening. Cooperman was paranoid: They'd arranged to meet on a secluded road in the woods near Wellfleet. Louie turned on the CD player, and Sinatra's voice came braying out of the Mercedes's top-of-the-line stereo system—that silly song about the little old ant who thought he could move a rubber-tree plant. Silva hummed along. At the end of Bradford Street, he turned right onto Route 6, past the Moors, the long span of the stone breakwater in his rearview mirror. And then a man's face was in the mirror, too, rising slowly up like a ghost from the
backseat, and Silva, startled, swerved and almost lost control of the car, veering perilously close to the sandy embankment that sloped into the green, brackish waters of Bufflehead Pond.

“How's it going, Louie?” said the man in the backseat.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” said Silva. “You scared the living shit out of me.” He felt something cold and hard against his neck.

“Just drive, you little pus bag.”

 

For a long time they didn't talk. They cracked the lobsters' shells, dipped the delicate flesh in melted butter. They ate and drank wine and licked the butter from their fingers. They picked at the salad and sucked the last bits of meat from the lobsters' spindly legs. They opened another bottle of wine.

“So what is it with the seafood thing?” Lola said, licking melted butter from her index finger. “I mean, I like fish and lobster as much as anybody, but it's practically all you eat, right, Frank? This from a guy who hates boats.”

Coffin laughed. “I figure I'd better eat them before they eat me.” He finished his wine and refilled his glass. “It's weird,” he said. “All hell can break loose, but give me a lobster and a bottle of wine and I'm totally happy.”

“Don't forget the two beautiful women,” Jamie said.

Lola stretched, arching her back. Coffin caught himself staring at the curve of her breasts.

“Every white boy's fantasy,” Lola said.

“Not to mention a damn fine avocado.” Coffin speared the last, soft slice from the salad bowl.

“And a warm late-summer evening,” Jamie said. “And Chet Baker on the record player.”

“Exactly,” Coffin said. “But shouldn't I feel guilty? Isn't it wrong to be happy when people are getting crucified?”

Jamie speared a romaine leaf with her fork and ate it. “Lest I forget you were raised Catholic,” she said.

“I mean, I know Merkin was no prize, and Serena Hench was greedy and ruthless, but does that make it better somehow?” Coffin said. “And what about Duarte? He was just trying to get by.”

“Well, he
was
building those horrible condos,” Jamie said. “That makes him kind of evil, if you ask me.”

“Then it's okay that I'm sitting here drinking wine among beautiful women and lobsters? Because maybe the victims had it coming?”

Jamie patted Coffin's arm. “My shrink would say it's okay not to feel terrible about not feeling terrible.”

“Finish your wine and then go talk to Kotowski,” Lola said. “You'll feel better if you pretend you're doing something useful.”

“What,” Coffin said, “no dessert?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

C
offin waited in Jamie's Volvo, thirty yards from Kotowski's house, the harbor to his left, the breakwater and the salt marsh straight ahead. He'd been waiting almost an hour, watching the late-evening sky fade from magenta to black. Kotowski's house was still dark, his truck still gone. The stars glittered like broken glass in a parking lot. The harbor pulsed against the beach. A gull flew low, past Coffin's windshield, startling him a little.

Coffin was about to give up and go home when Kotowski pulled up and parked in the narrow yard. Kotowski got out of his truck, strode across the yard to his front door, unlocked it, and went inside.

Coffin waited until lights went on inside the house, then climbed out of the Volvo. He knocked on Kotowski's door.

“Who the fuck is it?” Kotowski yelled.

“Where the hell have you been?” Coffin said. “I've been waiting out here for a freaking hour.”

The door swung open. Kotowski stood inside, grinning. “I was at Billy's, if it's any business of yours. You could have called.”

“You shot your phone in 1982,” Coffin said.

Kotowski waved Coffin in. They walked down a short flight of steps into the cavernous living room.

“Since when do you lock your door?” Coffin said.

“Since the real estate cabal and their goons started showing up at all hours and letting themselves in.”

“What, no booby trap?”

“Thought about it. Figured I'd probably get you by mistake.”

“Probably.”

“Beer?” Kotowski opened his battered fridge and peered in. The smell of something rotten drifted out. “I've got Rolling Rock.”

“Of course.”

“I assume that the slightly charred piece-of-shit Dodge in front of my house belongs to you,” Kotowski said once they'd unscrewed their beers and settled into the dusty armchairs.

Coffin nodded. “It does.”

“Do you plan to remove it, eventually?”

“I do.”

Kotowski sipped his beer. “And would you be the son of a bitch that stole my bicycle?”

“I am.”

“The brakes don't work, you know.”

“I know. I almost crashed into a UPS truck on Commercial Street.”

“It's not chess night,” Kotowski said. He stood and approached the half-finished painting on his big, paint-spattered easel. He folded his arms and squinted at it. “To what do I owe the honor of this visitation? Your shitheel cousin send you down here to bust my balls?”

“Bingo. They like you for two of the murders.”

“I told you this would happen. You've become a tool of the real estate junta. You arrest me on false pretenses, they take my house.”

“You never told me you had a record,” Coffin said.

“Wasn't any of your business,” Kotowski said. He pointed at the painting with his chin. “Brand-new. How do you like it?”

The painting was a self-portrait—gigantic Kotowski, naked, bearded, and splashed with gore, biting the head off of a much smaller figure holding a paintbrush and palette. Small dune-and-sunset paintings were hung in the background. The soon-to-be headless man's legs spasmed awkwardly. The paintbrush fell from his hand.

“Deeply disturbing,” Coffin said. “What do you call it?”

“I don't know yet. It's a parody of Goya's
Saturn Devouring One of His Sons
. Any ideas?”

“
Self-Portrait with Snack? Art Imitates Lunch
?”

Kotowski blew a loud raspberry. “You'll have to try a little harder than that.”

“I'll devote every waking moment to it,” Coffin said.

Kotowski gazed raptly at the painting, rubbing his stubbly chin. “It needs more blood, don't you think? I mean, blood should be spraying out of the guy, right?”

“Definitely.”

“Huh,” Kotowski said. “Like you know anything.” He turned from the painting, walked into the kitchen, and rummaged in the fridge. He came back with two more beers. He handed one to Coffin and flopped down into his armchair. “I don't see what my fifteen-year-old assault conviction has to do with serial murders in Provincetown,” he said.

“In practice, nothing. In theory, it's starting to look like you have a pattern of attacking people.”

“Two in fifteen years isn't much of a pattern.”

“It's two more than most people have.”

“They were both completely justified. Not that you're interested.”