8
A chorus of ‘Happy Birthday’ rang out from the direction of the Fulcis’ table. I went over to join in with it, and we sang around a candlelit heap of cupcakes while the Fulcis smiled proudly at their mother, and Mrs Fulci beamed with love for all, and Dave Evans somehow found the strength to sing a couple of words while praying that no stray almonds had found their way into the cupcake mix. The candles were blown out, cupcakes were passsed around, and Mrs Fulci didn’t die. Jackie Garner prepared to leave, and took two cupcakes with him, one for his girlfriend and one for his mother. I made a mental note to ask him more about his mother’s health when the opportunity presented itself, then returned to the booth at the back where Marielle Vetters and Ernie Scollay were exchanging words. It looked like Marielle was trying to convince Ernie that they’d done the right thing by talking to me, and Ernie was reluctantly agreeing.
‘So: that’s our story,’ said Marielle Vetters. ‘What do you think?
‘You want something stronger than coffee now?’ I asked. ‘Because I do.’
Ernie Scollay consented to a small whisky, and Marielle accepted a glass of Cab Sauv. I had the same, although I barely sipped it. I just liked having it in my hand. There was also the fact that Ernie hadn’t relaxed for a single moment since he’d entered the bar. He may not have been much of a drinker, by his own admission, but now that the story was told he clearly felt that he’d earned a glass for his efforts. Some of the tension went out of his body with the first sip. He leaned back in the booth and tuned out of the conversation, his thoughts elsewhere, perhaps with his dead brother, standing beside Paul’s closed casket.
‘What do you want me to do?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know,’ said Marielle. ‘We felt that we had to tell you what happened: both of my parents mentioned you before their deaths.’
‘Why didn’t he come to me himself after his wife spoke of me?’ I said.
‘He told me that he didn’t think it would do any good, and Paul Scollay counseled him against it too. They were always frightened about the money. They were afraid that, if they came to you, then you’d report them to the police. But you were supposed to hear about what my father did, which was why he waited until the law could do nothing to him before he spoke to me of you. As for me, I guess I wanted you to advise us. We were afraid that man Brightwell might come back, but if what you say is true there’s no chance of that.’
My hand tightened involuntarily on my wine glass. Marielle was wrong. I had been warned not to kill Brightwell: he was supposed to be taken alive because there were those who believed that the entity that animated him, the dark spirit that kept his decaying body moving, would depart at the moment of his death and migrate to another form. Only the host body died: the infection remained. Frankly, I didn’t think there was enough whisky and wine in the world to make Ernie Scollay and Marielle Vetters happy to hear that. Anyway, it might not even be true. After all, who would be foolish enough to believe such a thing?
‘No, no chance,’ I said. Little chance. Perhaps.
‘How did you first come across him?’ said Marielle.
‘I encountered him in the course of a case a few years back. He was –’ I searched for the right word, but couldn’t find it, so I settled for ‘unusual.’
‘My father had served in Korea. He didn’t think anything could frighten him more than hordes of Chinese coming at him over the brow of a hill, but Brightwell did.’
‘He had that capacity. He terrified. He tortured. He murdered.’
‘No loss to the world, then.’
‘Precious little.’
‘How did he die?’
‘That doesn’t matter. It’s enough to know that he’s dead.’
Ernie Scollay came back to us from wherever his thoughts had taken him. He worried at the base of his tie, rubbing it between his fingers as though trying to remove a stain. Eventually, he said: ‘What would happen if the police found out about what Harlan and Paul did?’
Ah. There it was.
‘Are you still worried about the money, Mr Scollay?’
‘It’s a lot, at least for a man like me. I never had that much money in my life, and I sure don’t have it now. Could they make us pay it back?’
‘It’s possible. Look, let’s be straight with one another here: an act of theft was committed out there in the woods. The money wasn’t theirs to take, but you weren’t aware of the source of the money until Harlan Vetters confessed on his deathbed, right? Your brother never spoke of this to you, did he, Mr Scollay?’
‘No,’ he answered, and I believed him. ‘My brother wasn’t above doing some poaching, when it suited him, and I know that he used to smuggle liquor and tobacco too, once upon a time. I got used to him having money in his pocket one day and none the next, but I chose not to ask him how he came by whatever he had.’
Marielle looked at him in surprise.
‘Paul was a smuggler?’
Ernie shifted awkwardly in his seat. ‘I’m not saying he was a master criminal or nothing, but he wasn’t above engaging in illegalities.’
It was a wonderful turn of phrase. I was starting to like Ernie Scollay more and more.
‘Did my father know about Paul’s smuggling?’ asked Marielle.
‘I guess so. He had eyes in his head.’
‘But he didn’t—?’
‘Oh, no, no. Not Harlan.’ Scollay caught my eye, and a corner of his mouth rose mischievously, making him look decades younger. ‘Not that I know of, anyway.’
‘It’s an evening of revelations,’ I said. ‘As far as the money is concerned, any potential criminal action died when those men died. A civil action, well, that’s another matter. If you were to go to the police and tell them what you know, and someone came forward with proof of ownership of that money as a consequence, then it’s possible that an attempt could be made to seek restitution from the estates of the deceased men. I’d have to seek advice on that, though. I’m just speculating for now.’
‘And if we remain silent?’ said Marielle.
‘Then that plane stays where it is until someone else discovers it, assuming that ever happens. Who knows about it? Just you two?’
Marielle shook her head. ‘No, my brother was there when my father told his story. He knows most of what I do.’
‘Most’: that was an interesting choice of word.
‘Why “most”?’
‘Grady is a troubled man. He’s had problems with alcohol and drugs. My father’s dying hit him hard. They’d always fought, and even on my father’s deathbed they struggled to make up. I think Grady felt angry at my dad, and guilty for what he’d put my dad through by acting like a douche for most of his life. He found it difficult to be in the same room as him. The story my father told, he told to us over the space of two days. Sometimes he’d fall asleep, or lose his concentration. He’d become anxious or frustrated, and we’d have to calm him down and let him rest, but he always came back to the tale. But by then Grady wouldn’t always be around. He was hooking up with old buddies, reliving his youth. It wasn’t quite a party for him, but sometimes it sure seemed that way. In the end, he wasn’t even there when my father finally passed away. One of my dad’s friends had to go drag him from a bar before the body went cold.’
‘Can you trust him to keep his mouth shut?’
Her shoulders sagged. ‘I couldn’t even trust him to stay sober for the funeral.’
‘You have to make the possible consequences of loose talk clear to him. Did your father leave much in his will?’
‘Hardly anything at all: the house, a little money in the bank. Most of his savings –’ she paused at the word, smiled resignedly, and continued – ‘went to caring for my mother.’
‘Who gets the house?’
‘Everything was split evenly between us. Even with all of Grady’s problems, my father didn’t want to be seen to favor one child over another. I’m trying to secure a bank loan to buy out Grady’s half of the house. He doesn’t want to live up in the County again, and he certainly doesn’t want to be tied to Falls End. There aren’t enough bars for him, and his exes are mostly married, or overweight, or gone to Texas. The novelty of being back in Falls End wore off about the same time that my dad died.’
‘Do you want me to speak to your brother?’
‘No. I imagine you can be quite persuasive, but it’s better if I talk him around myself. We get on okay, Grady and I. His beef was with our father, not with me.’
‘Well, make sure he understands that, if he talks, the house itself may be at risk, and in that case nobody will get anything. And you, Mr Scollay? Did your brother bequeath you anything when he died?’
‘Just his truck, and even then he still owed payments on it. He was only ever renting his house. Money went through my brother’s fingers like sand. I’m just glad that he held onto enough of that forest cash to make fighting his sickness easier for him, but it was all pretty much spent by the time he died. I guess that’s as it should be. That money was tainted from the moment they found it, and I’m glad I don’t have to worry about any of it now. In conclusion, I got no interest in anybody else hearing about that plane in the woods. In an ideal world, you’d forget we ever told you anything at all.’