Next of Kin

By Edward C. Lynskey

On my second afternoon, Hurricane Charlene brewing out in the Atlantic slammed ashore. Away blew the beach volleyballs and bikini bimbos. Wrecking winds forced me and a bottle of sipping whiskey indoors. Stupid, this vacationing late August in Florida. A short while later, both swag lamps fizzed out. I fired up candles, split time losing at solitaire and bouncing a ping-pong ball off the bureau mirror. Slashing rain. Thrashing surf. Flashing lightning. Pounding at the door was manmade.

“Aye! Johnson, hear me? You there?”

Was I a jerk not to let in the proprietor? Almost ripped off its hinges, the door swatted open. "Hurry!" I hollered at him. The proprietor staggered inside. "Grab some door," I said. Together, we heaved beef, managed to close it. He caught a breath, then dropped the bombshell.

“Bad news, I'm afraid . . . a sheriff phoned me. Your cousin -- Brett, is it? -- shot out his brains.”

"Good grief,” I remember thinking.

An icy numbness seized my nerves, my thoughts raced. Focus, focus. Sheriff Pettigrew, I figured, had spotted my motel on the fridge. Brett would've posted his note there. Okay, slow it down. I had to be practical-minded. What now? As next of kin, I had arrangements to make. The sooner the better. Except my line was dead.

“Poles were flattened,” said the proprietor. “Even cell phones are knocked out. I'd lay low till dawn, then scoot up Highway One.” Edging out the door between gusts, he vanished into the soupy elements. I was left alone with a nasty little something to chew on. Brett and suicide? Why? Holed up for a long stormy night, I kept telling myself it flat out couldn't be. Our last telephone conversation played through my head in a continuous loop.

"Where are you bound?" Brett had asked. His voice sounded tired, strained.

"Down to Daytona Beach for a few days," I replied. "Why, what's up?"

"Nothing that won't keep," he said. "Go and have a good time."

"Just in case, let me give you the motel," I'd said. "Got a pencil handy?"

By a clear sunup, Hurricane Charlene had swept west to harry St. Petersburg and the Gulf. Fueled by caffeine and a white rage, I drove almost nonstop to Middleboro, Virginia, where Brett had resided. Straightaway, I parked myself in Pettigrew's office. We weren't strangers.

“You've my sympathy, Frank.” Pettigrew clasped hands behind his cueball head. “At first, I didn't believe it either.”

“Brett never owned a shotgun." I glared over at him. The oversized desk between us was a buffer.

Pettigrew got up, walked over to a locked storage cabinet, removed a shotgun. "Could be he recently bought it. Apparently, he'd a lot on his mine. Here, take a look."

"No clear prints were lifted, huh?" I broke open the double-barrel 12-gauge Fox, sighted down its dirty bores. "Explain that.”

“Simple enough. It lurched when fired,” he explained. “Even the partials were smudged.”

“Why was this serial number filed off?" I showed him a scratching by the triggerguard.

"It doesn't appear fresh." Pettigrew returned the weapon to the storage cabinet. "We believe a previous owner did it."

I wasn't done. "Brett would've left a suicide letter. He was a writer.”

Pettigrew fidgeted. “One might surface yet.”

“Yeah. A forgery.”

He swallowed. “Frank, bear in mind that I am the Sheriff.”

I reached for the doorknob. "Well Sheriff, my new priority is nailing Brett's killer."

“Hold up a second!” Pettigrew's outburst stirred my own anger. “The horse squires won't like your prying around.”

My squint traveled to his finger still pointed at me. “For you, it's all about the November elections.”

“Not true. Look, I'm headed home. Be smart. Do likewise,” he called after me.

I started out walking. Lingo's Music Store stood on the next street corner. Saturday mornings Brett and I had hung out there to meet school girls from exclusive Bishop Hill Academy. Brett was smooth enough to win more than his share of dates. He'd swing by the burn barrels behind the launderette afterward, fetching us Muscatel and raunchy tall tales like the night he . . .

A male voice broke into my reverie.

“You Johns'n? Frank Johns'n?”

Wheeling, I confronted a burly, square-jawed man in a deputy sheriff's uniform. His eyes sparred with mine. Hugging his hip was a Glock 9mm and a nightstick.

“Who's inquiring?”

“Deputy Sheriff Lockwood.”

“I'm Frank Johnson.”

His lips curled away from yellow jagged teeth. “Some advice, Johns'n. Don't spit in the gutter, don't jaywalk, don't fart upwind. Any night inside my jail cell is pure torture. Ask any local riffraff.”

“Got it,” I said.

“Cause I keep my eyes clapped on you.”

Not wanting trouble, I tossed him a nod and started to mosey along.

His fingernail speared me between the shoulder blades. “Cause your mama's deep throat is the only thing good about you Johns'n trailer trash.”

Lunging, I yanked off his unguarded nightstick. Lockwood was slow to react. Using two hands, I shoved the nightstick's end into his midsection. It was like jabbing a granite wall. He didn't even clutch his belly. A second later, he grabbed for the Glock.

“I'm gonna hurt you big time,” he said.

Before Lockwood could unlimber the Glock, I whacked the baton across his wrist. It didn't faze him. Forgetting about the Glock, he shifted into a prizefighter's stance. Heavyweight, too. I righted my dukes. His right cross, sizzling out of nowhere, clipped me on the chin. Head snapping back, fireworks detonated behind my eyelids. His combination wasn't completed. A left hook pulverized my low intestines. Doubled over, I looked in both palms for my guts which had to be spilling out. A goon such as Lockwood, it dawned on me, could dispense and absorb unlimited pain.

My body refused to upright itself. Now I'd one option left before total annihilation. I charged Lockwood, tackled his knees. He toppled on his tailbone. Strings of spit flicked out as he writhed on the concrete. Acting on the advantage, I slapped the baton across his throat. Jaws convulsed and eyeballs protruded before he blacked out. I stumbled to my feet, peered around. No witnesses in sight, I lobbed the Glock down a storm sewer. If Lockwood didn't have a brain aneurysm, he'd survive.

Shuffling along an alley to Brett's bungalow, I fumbled in my pockets for the door keys.

Inside, I chattered from a gathering chill. The utility company had cut off the natural gas. Out back behind dormant beehives, I busted up cedar posts and in short order stoked a fire in the stove. My nerves switched off high alert. Lockwood would never admit I'd whipped his ass in a brawl. Payback was awful. So, raiding Brett's arsenal seemed sensible. After emptying the medicine cabinet, I snagged a cord to pop the back panel free. A pair of Browning 9mms dangled on a pegboard. Ammo was fresh. I dry fired each 9mm but the grips on one fit snug as a glove. I loaded it and put the other back.

After dragging a recliner to the furthest corner opposite the door, I adjusted the floor lamp and plunked down. In the week-old newspaper, I scanned the lead story. Speeding in a foreign sports car, a lady driver had lost control and nose-dived into a ravine. The charred remains, identified as Liza Raines', had been transported back to her parents in upstate New York.

My eyes next flitted down to a sludge lagoon story. Liza Raines, I thought. Local farmers raved about sludge as a cheap fertilizer yielding bumper crops. Hmmm, Liza Raines . Opposing them, the horse squires viewed sludge as poisoning their vast lands. Sure. Brett had introduced Lisa to me at Christmas. She was an arts administrator. Where had he stayed? At shadow. Close . . . but no, it was Yaddo.

While mulling this over, I sloshed bourbon into a tumbler, cherished its burn all the way downtown. A few more like that would work better than knockout drops. After poking the coals purring orange warmth, I ventured into Brett's bedroom. A fragrance off the quilt washed past me. Man, that was far too weird, far too intimate. More bourbon flushed that out of my head. Stretched out on the recliner, I fell into a ragged sleep, my first in forty-eight hours.

At some juncture in dreams, I was switching on the lamp, saying “hi” to Brett. His eyes looked like holes pissed in a snow bank. " I loved Liza. For that much, we died. We deserved a kinder fate." His apparition vaporized and once I awoke, Brett and Liza and murder seethed in my mind.

Breakfast was corn flakes with 2% skim milk and diced prunes. Spooning from the bowel, I rummaged through the recliner's cushions for the 9mm. Going to stash the handgun in my waistband, I instead dumped it in the breadbox. Blue bars were flashing in the yard. Sheriff Pettigrew was making a house call.

He tramped to the porch, his Masonic ring rapped on the door. The snap-brim hat was slanted to his eyebrows businesslike.

“Johnson!” he bellowed from the top of his lungs.

I opened the door. “Sorry sheriff. I was on the crapper.”

“You inviting me inside? I'm dying out here.”

“If you have a search warrant, be my guest. Otherwise, no” came my reply.

His irked expression tickled me to no end. “Did you tangle with my deputy yesterday afternoon? Deputy Lockwood.”

“Lockwood . . . well, no I don't think so.”

“Yeah, I bet. You can pick up your cousin's remains from Reverend Caldwell. He's in an urn.”

A new anger gripped me. “You tell me this now. Why was he cremated?”

“Because," said Pettigrew, "Brett left written instructions with Caldwell to do so."

"Yeah, fine. Here's a lady's phone number at the FBI," I said. "She might be able raise the serial number off that shotgun."

"If this gets you off my case, consider it a done deal," said Pettigrew. "In fact, I'll trot it to over Quantico myself."

As Pettigrew rushed off for his morning doughnuts, I went into the kitchen to put on some more coffee. It was a good chaser for the bourbon also I helped myself to. At nine o'clock, I dialed the Operator to connect me with Yaddo located somewhere in New York. For future reference, I was informed Yaddo lay between the Saratoga Racetrack and Northway Interstate.

A high-pitched voice crackled in my ear. “Yaddo Artist Colony. Miss Preston speaking.”

My speech became clipped. “Halloo. This is Mr. Mortimer Hines at Random House Publishers. May I speak to Ms. Liza Raines?”

“Liza Raines? Gosh, I'm sorry, Mr. Hines, she's no longer employed at Yaddo.”

I acted on the hunch which was that everybody had a computer and was a writer. “Oh, dearie me. I've such fabulous news concerning her debut romance, April's Brightest Blush . Might you have on file a current address, Miss Preston?”

“Do we? Perhaps. Let me see . . . um . . . why, yes, we do. Try Saint Michael's Farms in Middleboro, Virginia. But no telephone number. Sorry, Mr. Hines.”

“Indeed Miss Preston, you've already been an extraordinary help.”

"My pleasure," she said before ringing off.

Replacing the receiver, I stared off into limbo for a moment. I knew only one other person well in Middleboro and gave him a buzz. Mike Peyton, a local farrier, while shoeing his wealthy clients' horses spoke little but heard plenty. He was a good source.

“Yep, I know Liza. Or rather I did.” His laugh was bitter.

“I read in the newspaper that she died last week in an auto accident.”

“Shoot, auto accident my pecker.”

“Dammit,” I said. “If there's more, Mike, why are they stonewalling me?”

“Don't break a guitar string. Her employer was hitting on Liza. Old Man Pentergast's fat wallet and silver tongue didn't wow her. That maligned his ego . . .”

“And pissed off, he rigged Liza's murder like a smashup,” I finished the thought. “Suspicious, Brett kicked ass to expose Pendergast but time ran out. Brett's death was fixed to look like a suicide.”

“Brett was like a brother to me,” said Mike. “Right as rain his suicide was faked by Pendergast. Just you up and try to prove murder. This is Middleboro, see?”

“This bigshot Pendergast engineers a double homicide, then gets off scot free. Slick.” I almost whistled. "Except now I've entered the picture."

“You're outgunned,” said Mike. “If it's any help, I got your back.”

“Much obliged.” I was grateful for the first words of support since arriving in Middleboro.

* * *

By early afternoon, I was driving past those green barbered links where pampered sons dallied until the old squires kicked the bucket. In the interim, golf was their opium. Soon it would be their turn to trample little schmucks like Brett, Liza, Mike, and me. That's the way it was. I jounced over the railroad tracks, knocking the bile from my throat.

Reverend Caldwell was expecting me. His parsonage was a brick rambler just inside the red clay district. A white-bearded man in a wheelchair was leaning to trim chrysanthemums along the front walkway. Both his legs, I observed getting out of Brett's car, terminated at mid-thigh.

“Reverend? We chatted over the phone,” I said.

As we shook hands, his in a goatskin glove, he asked, “Johnson, right? First off, haven't you ever seen a gimp?”

“Sure, I mean I watch reruns of Ironsides ,” I said to cover my embarrassment.

“ Ironsides ?” He laughed while pawing through a sack. A brass urn materialized in his hands.

“Tell me about Brett's last wishes.” Intrigued by its lightness, I resisted the temptation to shake the urn.

“Two or so weeks ago, Brett sought my counsel on cremation. For whatever reason, it appealed to him, and from a Christian standpoint, I entertained no objections. He wrote his burial instructions, had them notarized, left them with me.”

“Strange. Describe his mood. Did he seem depressed?”

“Can't say for certain since I'd just met him. He told me he hadn't written anything in months.”

“Is that what drove him to suicide?” I asked.

Reverend Caldwell rescued a hairy spider landing on his lap to release on a nearby pumpkin. “Brett Johnson was a serious young gentleman who in a dire moment committed a tragic error in judgment. That's it, really.”

“Pretty much what I figured.”

“Mr. Johnson, you be careful.” Several meanings swept through my brain as I regarded Reverend Caldwell whom Brett had befriended and trusted.

Enroute to Middleboro, I saw Lockwood canter up from behind to bleep his siren. My hand snaked around the 9mm as I braked to pull off to the shoulder. From the rearview, I saw a painful hitch in his stride and the neck brace. The standard-issue .38 on his belt contributed to his wounded pride.

“Lo, Deputy Sheriff Lockwood,” I said.

Boots planted wide apart, a few inches from my window, he leaned in. “Shut up,” he said. “Follow me. The Sheriff needs a word with you.”

“Lead on.” I cranked the engine, allowed him to swerve by, his siren wailing.

Metal scraping linoleum, Sheriff Pettigrew shoved his chair away as Lockwood escorted me into his office. A half-played game of Chinese Checkers on a desk corner disappeared under a jacket.

“Results are back from the FBI lab,” Pettigrew said. “For the serial number off Brett's shotgun.”

“Brett never owned a shotgun,” I reminded him.

Pettigrew dropped a manila folder on his desktop. “The firearm wasn't registered to Brett.”

“That torpedoes your suicide theory,” I said.

"No, the suicide stands as far as this department is concerned," said Sheriff Pettigrew. "It remains a closed case."

"What are you saying, Sheriff?" Pettigrew had a prickly knack of getting under my skin.

Petigrew held up a hand. "As I was saying unless, of course, somebody brings solid physical evidence to contrary." He lead Lockwood by the elbow into the hallway. “Excuse me. Deputy Lockwood and I need a private word. You sit tight on your thumbs.”

"Right," said Lockwood.

With the folder left unattended on purpose, my estimate of Pettigrew bumped up a notch. The shotgun, I read from the computer printout, had been part of a late gamekeeper's estate sale. The gamekeeper had lodged and worked on St. Michael's Farms.

That night I stayed up late watching Susan Cabot starring in Wasp Woman on Brett's ancient Philco TV with the rabbit ears fashioned from coat hangars. Miss Cabot sure packed a wasp waist and was a lot like Liza Raines in that way. Ah, to stay young and pretty forever. Ah, to bring Pendergast down. Ah, what the devil? The bourbon bottle was nigh empty before my lids dropped freighted with sleep. The dreams from the night before didn't replay.

* * *

The next morning Mike, who lived a few miles past Reverend Caldwell, agreed to rendezvous with me in the Safeway parking lot. I arrived ten minutes early and ogled rich ladies with the cannonball asses. Some of us never grew up. Mike chuffed up beside me in a rat truck, a welder machine mounted to the bed and a heavy-duty vise secured to the tailgate. His salt-and-pepper beard left me to wonder how long men could bust their humps before keeling over. Tucking a red plaid shirt into soiled jeans frayed at the cuffs, he nodded in my direction.

I rammed the column gearshift into first, crept over to him. "Hi Mike. Long time no see. Hop in."

“You formulated a plan?” Mike was chewing on a tangle of beard.

I gawked straight ahead. The road past town limits looped between rock walls stacked by masons, pastures beyond rolling up to forested foothills. “Show up on Pendergast's doorstep” was my response.

“Then what?”

Still staring at the double yellow lines, I rubbed my cheek before admitting, “Make it up as we go.”

“Pendergast's lane begins by that catalpa on your right.” Mike extended a crooked finger where to enter.

We blitzed through the unattended gatehouse, but the surveillance cameras eliminated any element of surprise. I stomped the accelerator, we moved faster. Thoroughbreds grazed and ignored our rattletrap incursion.

Emerging in front of several brick buildings, I drove to The Big House, making an educated guess that Pendergast dwelled therein.

“Yep. Right choice,” said Mike.

Hearts pumping after skidding to a stop underneath a magnolia, we scrambled past the garage sheltering a Jag as well as a vintage Ferrari and Porsch. Not a single blade of grass was out of place on Pendergast's lawn. A croquet court waited for leisure after Earl Grey tea.

At the twin doors, I jabbed the button. A housemaid in a pink apron answered, a puzzled scowl deepening as she scrutinized us through the screen.

“We've business with Pendergast.” I ripped at the screen door. She gasped as we pushed past her, running.

Mike followed at my heels down the corridor as I busted through a glass door into what I pegged as the rich man's library. Pendergast in a paisley dinner jacket bolted up from behind the mahogany desk.

“Who are you?” he demanded. “What the devil do you mean by barging into my private residence like raving madmen? I'll have you both arrested."

“Not so fast.” I mashed down on his thin shoulders. “First, I need some straight answers on two people." I shoved a pair of fingers under his nose. "Then we can call the Sheriff.” Back ramrod straight, Pendergast didn't cower.

“Like I have a choice in the matter.” Pendergast swiveled his jade eyes first at me, then over at Mike now slumped in the doorway smiling.

“Liza Raines. Brett Johnson. Do those names ring a bell?”

“Certainly. Liza Raines was my accountant,” he replied. “The gentleman you mention, I believe, is a local author though we've never been introduced.”

“He was a local author until you whacked him, then fixed it like a suicide.” My flinty voice projected with authority in the high-ceilinged room.

“I fear you are mistaken.” Pendergast waggled his head back and forth. “I wouldn't know this gentleman from Adam if he strolled in here this very second.”

“You're a liar,” I accused him. “You used a Fox shotgun, a pump 12-gauge. Tracing the serial number, the cops learned it was registered to your gamekeeper.”

“A shotgun? Belonging to Cecil?” Pendergast directed his incredulous stare at Mike. “Mr. Peyton, I paid you $300 to clean out Cecil's log cabin, dispose of his belongings.”

“And I hauled it away. Primarily junk.” No longer smiling, Mike edged back a step. “An out-of-state dealer bought the firearms. I never set eyes on the lot again.”

Pendergast leveled his gaze at me. “Naturally, I'm devastated by Liza's wreck. But there's something else I just recalled. Upset, Liza confided in me late last week she thought someone was stalking her.”

“If Liza was being hassled, why didn't she call the cops?” asked Mike.

“Because you were Brett's so-called friend,” I growled at him. My fist clinching the 9mm drew up and aimed at Mike. “Brett and Liza were in love. Insanely jealous, you killed them both. Rigging Liza's accident was easy, but staging Brett's suicide took a little more creativity. Sure, I can put it together now.”

“No,” side Mike. “No. Pendergast wanted Liza. Just the way I told you. He killed them both.”

Pendergast's laugh was mocking. “Me? Wanted Liza? You deluded fool. I was born gay and proud of it, too.”

Catching Pendergast's eye, I jerked my head toward the telephone. “Go ahead. Now call the Sheriff.”