Desperate Measures Page 3

“No.”

  “There you have it.”

  “There I have what?” she said.

  “The answer. Had you been on the committee, you would have discovered his … ah… predilections.”

  “By that you mean his penchant towards sexism?” she said.

  “That would be one,” I said.

  “You give me too much credit.”

  “Nothing more than you deserve.”

  “Are you trying to be nice to me?”

  “Not really. Credit where credit is due. Something along those lines.”

  “Sounds like you paid me a compliment.”

  “Close enough,” I said.

  “I didn’t think you liked me,” Mama said.

  “You’re my mother.”

  “Doesn’t mean you like me.”

  “We have a way of tolerating each other. Perhaps our difficulty lies in the truth that we are too much alike,” I said.

  “You’re like your father. You’re nothing like me.”

  “Distancing yourself?”

  “Establishing facts,” she surmised.

  “Well,” I said, and then my cell phone rang and interrupted our downward spiraling conversation about our relationship with one another.

  Saved by the bell, so to speak. Or maybe just delayed by the bell.

  “Clancy here,” I said after I looked at the phone to see if the name of the caller appeared. Caller unknown.

  “Clancy Evans?”

  “That would be me.”

  “Walters Clancy told me that I should call you,” the male voice said.

  “Okay.”

  “Can you talk?”

  “So far so good.”

  “I mean, is this a bad time?”

  I started to explain that anytime I was debating with my mother was a good time to call me, but I decided against it since she was still within earshot.

  “You can talk.”

  “I need you to solve a murder,” he said.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Simon Legrand.”

  “Who was killed?” I said.

  “My daughter, Melody.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” I said as sympathetically as I could to a stranger.

  “Will you help me?” he said.

  “I need to know a little more.”

  “I will pay you. Whatever your fee is,” he said.

  “That’s not the issue at present. I need more information,” I said.

  “Look, I need a good detective, a really good detective to help me find out why my daughter is dead.”

  “You mean find out who killed her?” I said.

  “I know who killed her. I need to know why.”

  “Who killed her?”

  “She killed herself, but I have to find the reason.”

  I paused a bit while I mulled this over.

  “Sometimes there are no reasons left lying around. Sometimes it’s counter-productive to find out why someone … does this,” I said.

  “I need someone like you to see if you can find a reason, or reasons. I have to know.”

  “I can’t promise that I will do this, but at least I will meet with you and we can talk further. Since my Uncle Walters recommended me to you, I owe you that much. Where are you calling from?”

  “Boston.”

  “Long way from here. You want me to meet you there?”

  “If that works for you,” he said.

  “I’ll make it work. How about tomorrow evening, say 7 o’clock, give or take. If I can get a flight out, I should be there in time for us to have a meal together. Does that work for you?”

  “Thank you. I’ll pick you up at the airport,” he said.

  “Come with Walters Clancy,” I said.

  “What if he can’t come?”

  “He’ll come. If you know him and he recommended me, and you tell him that I am coming to Boston to meet with you, then he’ll come. I’ll call you from the airport with my flight information. See you tomorrow evening.”

  “Again, Miss Evans, thank you for agreeing to do this.”

  “I didn’t agree to do anything except meet with you and hear more details. One step at a time. You understand?”

  “I understand.”

  I doubted that he understood.

  6

  It’s been my experience that trying to discover why people take their own lives is a fool’s errand. Even if they leave a note that explains all, it seldom answers the questions asked by the people who loved them in the wake of their tragic demise. Suicide is a complicated issue and clearly outside the purview of a private detective who tries to solve murder cases and other crimes against people. At least that’s my position on the matter, however right or wrong.

  I decided to have a face-to-face sit down with Simon Legrand only because Walters Clancy had told him to call me, and Walters wouldn’t have done that without a good reason. My uncle was a measured man and gave serious thought to most issues. The least I could do would be to go to Boston, eat some oysters, see Uncle Walters, and talk with Simon Legrand. The least I could do. Maybe the most, too.

  I booked a late afternoon flight out of Norfolk to Boston, arriving just in time to see my uncle standing at the end of the ramp holding a sign that read World’s Greatest Detective. I had called Simon Legrand to inform him of my arrival time, so I expected to be searching for him after entering the terminal at Logan.

  Uncle Walters and his sign were a good alternative. Serendipity as much as anything.

  “You’re a sight for these old eyes, Clancy girl,” Walters said as we hugged.

  “Missed you for some time now,” I said.

  “Good to have you in my city.”

  “I expected Simon Legrand to be waiting.”

  “Disappointed?” Uncle Walters said.

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “He’s meeting us at the Union Oyster House.”

  “Read my mind once again.”

  “That was easy. First place I ever took you when you first came here back in the late seventies. I doubt if you have changed much since then in your dining preferences.”

  “Added some things, but kept the great experiences for future endeavors. I can’t wait. It’s been too many years since I was here.”

  “You should come live here.”

  “Norfolk is home for the time being.”

  “And Clancyville?”

  “Mother’s domain. Her home. Memories for me.”

  “So how’s your work?” Uncle Walters asked as we drove from the airport to Union Street in downtown Boston.

  “I keep busy.”

  “Not too busy, I hope. You take time for breathing and enjoying life?”

  “You taught me to think that way. There’s enough laziness in me to enjoy my down time. Life is good.”

  “It is, isn’t it?” Walters said.

  Simon Legrand was waiting on us in the Freedom Trail Room at the Union restaurant. Our table was just large enough for three and situated under a row of some artist’s depictions of some famous Boston landmarks. Tourists love this stuff, or so my uncle used to tell me. The tourists and I love this stuff.

  After I inhaled a bowl of the famous Oyster House Clam Chowder, I pigged out on a platter full of grilled sea scallops. Simon barely finished his French onion soup and ordered nothing else. Uncle Walters ate a platter of raw clams on the half-shell.

  “Thank you again for coming here to speak with me,” Simon said as he neared the end of his soup course.

  “I like seafood,” I said.

  “I noticed that,” Simon said.

  “Tell me about your daughter.”

  “Her death?”

  “You can start there, if you like. I prefer you tell me about her.”

  “Her mother and I divorced when Melody was about nine years old. We couldn’t agree on our parenting techniques,” Simon said before taking a sip of his coffee.

  Then I said, “Discipline issues?”

  “Yo
u could say that, but probably not what you are thinking. Her mother, Duchess Leigh Beauford Legrand, had designs on making Melody the next Miss America.”

  “Beginning at the age of nine.”

  “Precisely. She wanted her to be in every miss-whatever pageant, learn the ropes, train, develop, and win it all.”

  “In her mother’s footsteps?”

  “More like, do something her mother failed to do,” Simon said.

  “Her mother attempted the beauty queen climb?”

  “Runner-up twice in major pageants.”

  “Close, but no cigar,” I said.

  Simon smiled and said, “To turn a phrase. Close, but no roses might a more fitting metaphor.”

  “Sure. What were the two pageants that your wife finished second in?”

  “Estranged wife.”

  “Got that.”

  “Miss America and Miss World.”

  “Wow,” I said in a flat tone.

  “Yeah, she’s a looker. Still is. Walks in a room and heads turn. But her brains are for mush.”

  No animosity here. The Duchess likely called the shots and Simon couldn’t take it. Or refused to take it.

  “So you got out,” I said.

  “We argued, fought, yelled some, and I lost all the rounds. Melody was going to be a beauty queen come hell or high water.”

  “What did Melody say about this beauty pageant idea?”

  “I think she enjoyed it some, early on, you know. I think she liked the attention. She liked to play dress up and all. By the time she was sixteen, the notion was fading fast. She wasn’t the beauty her mother was. Her looks waned.”

  I pondered his statement that her looks waned at the age of sixteen. Most of us peak at the age of sixteen. Some few peak years later. I was in my forties and still had not peaked.

  Hard to imagine a downhill slide from sixteen.

  “Stunning to plain-Jane evolution,” I said.

  “Beautiful child who became the ugly ducking.”

  “And she wanted out when the revelation struck home?”

  “Not at first. She bought into her mother’s dream and it did not go away easily. Her mother kept telling her that she was gorgeous, and she wanted to believe her.”

  “Make-up hides a lot of sin,” I said.

  “Crudely put, but, yes, something like that. One day, about three years ago, she entered a contest for miss-something or other, I don’t remember what. She was cut from the final ten contestants for the first time ever. Usually she got into the ten finalists, despite her lack of looks and all. Her mother had a lot of pull with the pageant sponsors, the hierarchy. I also think some money exchanged hands under the table.”

  “Did Melody know any of this money stuff?”

  “Not that she ever told me. Maybe she found out.”

  “That would be hard to hear,” I said.

  “Motive for what she did?” Simon said.

  “People have done themselves in for less.”

  7

  “What do you think?” Uncle Walters said to me after Simon Legrand excused himself and left the restaurant.

  “I’ll ponder, do some initial checking, and let him know, just like I told him.”

  “That’s not what I asked you.”

  “I think parents do a piss-poor job of raising their kids now and then.”

  “Yeah. Me, too. Parental dreams get in the way of reality.”

  “Yeah. Where’d you meet this man?”

  “Worked on some projects with him related to the government. We’ve known each other through business for several years. Honest man, seems genuine. I’ve had no reason to mistrust him. He’s smart, does his homework, and our projects have made money.”

  “Everything you touch makes money. Fingers and thumbs are green for you.”

  “Don’t be crude, love. I work hard and, well, life has been kind to me.”

  “You’re a modest genius. You deserve everything you have,” I said.

  “I don’t know about that, but I appreciate the compliment.”

  “This type of investigation is out of my skill-set,” I confessed.

  “Clancy Evans, I don’t know anything that is out of your skill-set. You could do anything you wanted to do and yet you chose to be working in the criminal justice system.”

  “I’m hardly part of the system.”

  “Broad strokes. You are very much a part of the system. You’re good at what you do.”

  “I can find the bad guys, but this … well, I don’t know if he can handle what I dig up on Melody. Truth is, I may find some junk, but it still may not answer his questions.”

  “He may have to settle for that,” Walters said.

  We arrived at Uncle Walters’ home just outside of the Boston city limits. It was a high rise condo. His suite of rooms was on the top floor. Walters owned the entire condo but rented out the first four floors. I could have survived for years on his income from this little arrangement of his. In fact, come to think of it, this may be from where my stipend comes. Walters has always been generous with me and with Scott, my brother. Walters’ generosity allows me to be and do what I think is necessary in my line of work. Many of my clients cannot pay me. Some call that pro bono. I would call it desperate living if it were not for my generous uncle.

  Uncle Walters’ generosity also permitted me to resign from the Norfolk Police Department so I could be a private detective. It also stopped me from being fired by the Norfolk Police Department for insubordination. I have this penchant for saying what I think. My so-called superiors were not delighted with that characteristic. Then again, neither are the criminals I go after in my detective work.

  “Your room and the bath,” he said as he switched on the light and pointed.

  “It’s larger than my entire apartment.”

  “You need a map?”

  “I’ll find my way,” I said.

  “Come and go as you please. I have meetings tomorrow for most of the day. We can do supper whenever I get home. I’ll cook, if you like.”

  “If we are to eat edible food, then you’ll have to cook or we can go back to the Union Oyster House,” I said.

  “Boston has other restaurants which are quite good.”

  “Your pleasure,” I said.

  “Where do you intend to start?” Uncle Walters said as he headed away from my suite to his bar.

  “Probably with the boyfriend, Lenny, I think that was the name Legrand said. Lenny Johnstone. He would have a different perspective from the father’s.”

  “As good as any place, I would imagine.”

  “Where would you begin?” I said to him.

  He poured a Scotch over a couple of ice cubes. He raised the bottle and his eyebrows in my direction. I shook my head.

  “Probably the mother, Duchess,” he said and took a swallow.

  “I’d probably need that Scotch, too, if I were beginning with her.”

  8

  I rented a small compact and drove into the city to find the dead girl’s boyfriend. I called Rogers and she quickly found that Lenny Johnstone lived in an apartment on Fayette Street. Uncle Walters gave me a map of the city so I could find my way there and back again. I also had Rogers send along a visual map to my phone just in case.

  Fayette Street was one block over from Tremont if you followed Church Street, but you couldn’t get to Fayette from Tremont because Church Street was one way. The one way was not the way I needed to go, so I drove up Charles Street and made a left onto Fayette. Country girl finding her way in the big city. Paper maps and cell phones are handy things.

  Lenny had a small apartment near the end of Fayette where it connects to Bay Street.

  By the time I navigated the one way streets of Boston, I decided that I probably could have walked from Uncle Walters’ high rise in the area of Waltham. He built his condo in the community of Piety Corner. He used to tell me that he moved to Piety Corner because it might be as close to that particular virtue as he would ever get in th
is life.

  A tall, unshaven and generally unkempt young man opened the door after I knocked several times. Classical music was blaring from his quarters. Wagner.

  He gestured for me to enter his abode. Heavy brass crescendoed as I crossed the threshold.

  “Who did you say you were?” he yelled at me.

  I turned a couple of times, found the source of the loud music, walked over to it and hit the off switch.

  “I don’t like to yell or be yelled at,” I said.

  “Yeah, whatever. Now who are you?”

  “My name is Clancy and I’m a private detective.”

  “What do you want with me?”

  My keen detective skills informed me that he was higher than Walters’ high rise. He was drifting somewhere in the low lying clouds around Boston.

  “Tell me what you can about Melody Legrand,” I said.

  “Melody Mace,” he said as he floated over to a sofa covered with magazines, books, two or three old pizza boxes, and a dirty looking throw. “She’s not with me anymore.”

  “What happened?”

  “Left me alone.”

  “Tell me about it,” I said.

  “Not so much to tell, but I can show you,” he said and picked up a remote, pushed a button and a black and white grainy video appeared on the television screen. There was no sound, only the image of a girl pouring something over her body. The girl on the screen then took a small lighter, lit it and immediately became inflamed with fire. After a few seconds, the girl pulled a pistol from her pocket with her right hand and shot herself in the head. She fell down but still in view of the camera recording the whole ghastly scene. The body continued to burn. Lenny hit the pause button and the fiery image froze on the screen. One way to stop some violence.

  “You watch that a lot?”

  “Yeah, like every day, several times a day. She’s gone. I can’t believe she would leave me like that.”

  “Poor you,” I said.

  “Yeah, whatever,” he said and put his head into his hands which were resting on his knees.

  “She on drugs?”

  “Some, but nothing that would make her do that.”

  “Did she leave you a note?”

  “Not that I have found.”

  “You two have a fight before she did that?”

  “Not that I recall. We argued some, but nothing ex…tra …nary,” he said, struggling to say the long word.