THE VILLAGE WENT INTO deep, heartfelt mourning over the death of its long-time resident trooper.
Flags were flown at half-staff at town hall and the fire house and the barber shop. Voices at the market were hushed. Tears were shed, hugs exchanged. Tal Bliss, Mitch discovered, had been one of those rare individuals who virtually everyone seemed to look up to. He was a big brother, a father figure, a friend. Above all, he was one of their own.
And everyone had a story to tell about him.
Dennis shared his when Mitch stopped by the hardware store to pick up two quarts of oil for the truck: Back when Dennis had been something of a wild child, Tal had pulled him over one night at three in the morning. Both Dennis and his high-school girlfriend were high on pot-and holding. Instead of busting them, Tal Bliss had escorted them home, confiscated the dope and never said a word about it to their parents. “He knew we were good kids,” Dennis recalled fondly. “He just wanted to make sure we didn’t screw up big-time.”
This, according to Dennis, was Tal Bliss. Not the deranged killer who had taken three lives before he took his own.
The gun he had used on himself turned out to be the same one that had killed Torry Mordarski, Niles Seymour and Tuck Weems. And he had owned a pair of size-twelve Timberland hiking boots that were an exact match for a shoe print that had been found at the Torry Mordarski murder scene. These were proven facts. But beyond that, no one really understood why Bliss had done what he did. All that he’d left behind in the way of explanation was his two-line handwritten suicide note. Everything else died with him. No one knew anything-except that when Lieutenant Mitry had begun to close in on him, Tal Bliss had chosen to take his own life rather than face the music.
A Lieutenant Gianfrido had been put in charge of wrapping up the investigation. Lieutenant Mitry had been placed on paid administrative leave, pending the results of an Internal Affairs investigation to determine whether she had violated correct procedure. The lieutenant took a lot of heat from her own people in the Hartford Courant. Unnamed sources high up in the state police questioned whether she’d been “too eager.” They so much as implied that Tal Bliss would still be alive if she’d waited to question him in official surroundings. Included other officers in the interrogation. Apparently, no one else knew she was meeting with Bliss.
The Courant also dug into her background. This was how Mitch learned that Desiree Mitry was the daughter of Deputy Superintendent Buck Mitry, the highest ranking black officer in the history of the state of Connecticut. Mitch wondered why she hadn’t mentioned this to him. He wondered why she felt it was important not to.
He wondered how she must be feeling.
He wanted to call her up and ask her. But he didn’t. He felt quite certain that he was the last person in the world she’d feel like hearing from right now. He had pointed her in the direction of Bliss. Still, her plight troubled him deeply. The woman’s career was in serious jeopardy. Virtually everyone in Dorset felt she was a cold, heartless glory seeker. And Mitch felt more than a little responsible.
He also found himself thinking about her morning, noon and night.
The tabloid press invaded Big Sister in full battle dress again. The islanders were besieged. Couldn’t leave. Couldn’t answer their phones. Not that they had anything to say to the media. All they wanted them to do was go away. The whole village did. The minister of the Congregational Church spoke for the entire village when he said, “Dorset is a family, and we believe in keeping our troubles within the family.”
As it happened, the only card-carrying member of the working press who had any genuine access to the story was Mitch himself. When he’d first discovered Niles Seymour’s body, Mitch had had zero interest in writing about it. He’d just wanted to forget. But the Tal Bliss suicide changed how he felt. Possibly it was the reaction of the villagers-their homegrown hero’s spectacular fall from grace had left them profoundly confused and shaken, their image of themselves and their serene little world utterly shattered. Mitch likened it to one of those cases when a couple of teenaged kids in a small, stable bible-belt community suddenly show up at school one day with AK-47s and begin wiping out their classmates. People want to know why. They take long looks at themselves in the mirror, wondering whether such shockingly monstrous behavior is inside of them, too.
Mitch noticed it when he went to the grocery store. He could see the self-doubt in their eyes, hear the fear in their voices. He found this response disturbing and fascinating. So when the Sunday magazine editor phoned him, at Lacy’s suggestion, to see if he’d like to do a piece, Mitch reversed himself and said yes.
Possibly, it was his own way of looking in the mirror.
But first he wanted to make sure that Dolly was okay with it. He strolled down the gravel path to her house and found her having tea in the breakfast nook with Evan. In profile, their delicate features looked nearly identical. Both mother and son seemed defeated and downcast. Still, she greeted Mitch with a cheery smile and insisted that he join them for a cup. He did so, sliding into the nook next to Evan.
“We were just talking about poor Tal,” she told Mitch, her voice quavering with emotion. “What I keep thinking is if only I had known what was going on inside that mind of his. Perhaps I could have influenced him somehow. In a positive direction, I mean. Surely I could have prevented all of this from…” Dolly shook her head, gazing down into her teacup. “If only I had known.”
“But you didn’t know,” Mitch pointed out. “So you mustn’t beat yourself up. You’re not responsible for what he did.”
“He’s right, Mother.” Evan reached across the table for her hand. “You know he’s right.”
“I know that he’s not,” said Dolly, her porcelain-blue eyes puddling with tears. “I know that Tal Bliss killed three people because of me. I know that I shall have to carry this around for the rest of my life.” She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue and said it again. “If only I had known.”
“My paper wants me to write about it, Dolly. Seeing as how I do have a rather unusual point of view. And I’d like to do it. But I’ll tell them no if you aren’t comfortable with the idea. This wasn’t part of the deal when I signed the lease,” he added, smiling at her.
Dolly glanced across the table at Evan, her mouth tightening. “Why on earth would I object, Mitch? I think it’s a simply wonderful idea.”
“You do?”
“Absolutely. Because you’re not a tabloid gossip monger-you’re a clear-eyed and sympathetic individual. Someone we all trust. Please do it. It’s the only real chance we’ll have for a fair, honest portrait to come out.”
Mitch had not been expecting this response from her. He’d been positive that she would be much more interested in seeing the whole matter buried and forgotten. But he should have known better, he now realized. Because if there was one constant about his life on Big Sister it was that he really, truly did not understand these people. “Do you feel the same way, Evan?”
“I do,” Evan replied softly, running both of his hands through his wavy black hair. “And I must tell you that I’m feeling a bit responsible for what happened, too. I’m the one who saw Bliss parked out here that day. I’m the one who told you about it. I didn’t have to. I could have kept quiet.”
“Instead of kicking yourself,” Mitch said, “just be thankful he didn’t decide to handle the situation differently.”
Evan frowned at him curiously. “Like how?”
“By killing you so you couldn’t tell anyone, that’s how. He could have gone after you, Evan. And me. He could have killed me instead of just trying to scare me. We should both consider ourselves lucky to be alive. And leave it at that.”
And so Mitch Berger, the most influential film critic in America, found himself at work on a real-life story of sex, murder and suicide in a small New England town.
Lacy e-mailed him that evening to say: “Welcome to the fun-filled world of participatory journalism. This may be the start of a whole new you.”
To which Mitch replied: “It’s the same old me. The world’s getting weirder, though.”
Way weirder. When word got out about it, no less than seven A-list Hollywood producers, each of them anxious to curry Mitch’s critical favor, called his literary agent to find out if he was interested in signing a development deal.
Mitch politely declined.
A special memorial service was held for Tal Bliss at the white steepled congregational church. It was bright and airy inside the lovely church, with two stories of windows to let in the sunlight. It was crowded, too. The whole village seemed to be in attendance. The islanders certainly were. Red and Bitsy Peck were there. Bud and Mandy Havenhurst. Dolly, Evan and Jamie Devers. Mitch was there, too. The rest of the media were kept out by burly young state troopers.
Bud delivered a stirring eulogy about how he had looked up to Tal Bliss since they were little boys, and how he would always remember just how fair and decent Tal was. “This is the way I choose to remember my friend,” he said in a strained voice. “This is my right.” The red-bearded minister spoke at great length on how within each human being there is strength and there is weakness and that these two forces are constantly at war with each other. Tal Bliss, he concluded sadly, just happened to lose his war.
One elderly white-haired woman sat by herself on the aisle sobbing loudly throughout the ceremony. Mitch asked Bitsy who she was.
“Why, that’s old Sheila Enman,” Bitsy replied, gazing over at her fondly. “Gracious, she must be pushing a hundred and thirty by now. She ran the volunteer ambulance corps for years and years. And before that, she taught English over at the high school. Tal was her pet. He’s been keeping an eye on her for the past few years, poor dear.”
Later that afternoon, Mitch jumped into his truck and headed up Route 156 into the farm country, where the air smelled not of the sea but of moist, freshly turned earth and cow manure. The corn was getting up now, and the dogwoods and lilacs were in full bloom. Hawks circled slowly overhead, searching for prey. Sheila Enman lived on Dunn’s Cove in an old mill house that was built right out over the Eight Mile River at the base of a twenty-foot waterfall.
“My great-granddaddy built it,” the old woman explained as they stood on her front porch watching the white water race over the polished rocks and directly under them. “I’ve lived here since I was a little girl. Back then, we generated our own electricity-for this place and a dozen others down river. There were no paved roads here. We raised most of our own food. And I went to a one-room schoolhouse, grades one through eight. But those days are gone. Too damned bad, you ask me. People were happier back then. Look around you, Mr. Berger. No one’s happy now. Got too little time and too damned many credit cards.”
Sheila Enman was the kind of hard-nosed character who was known around the village as a cranky Yankee. Mitch liked her right away. She was feisty. She was opinionated. She was totally no-bull. Her blue eyes were clear and alert, her hair a snowy white. She wore a ragged old yellow cardigan, dark blue slacks, ventilated orthopedic shoes and reading glasses on a chain around her neck. Her age didn’t seem to have slowed her mind down one bit. Just her stooped, big-boned body-she needed a cane to get around.
“It’s my bad hip,” she sniffed. “Doctors keep saying they want to give me a new one, but that just seems so wasteful, don’t you think? I’ll be ninety years old next month. Someone younger would get a lot more mileage out of it. But enough about that-it’s really not a very interesting story. Now how can I help you? You said on the phone you’re living in Dolly’s old caretaker cottage…?”
“That’s right,” said Mitch, pulling his eyes away from the waterfall, which he found positively hypnotic. “And I’m writing an article about what happened. I’d like to know more about Tal Bliss. I understand you two were close.”
“Knew him his whole life,” she confirmed, her eyes misting over.
“What sort of a kid was he? Can you describe him for me?”
“I can do you one better than that, Mr. Berger. I can show you.”
“Do you mind if I tape our conversation?” Mitch had brought along the microcassette recorder that he used for the interviews he occasionally did with directors and stars.
“Hell, no. I got nothing to be ashamed of. Take a seat, stay awhile.”
There were two rockers out on the porch. He sat in one while she hobbled inside, her cane thumping on the wooden flooring. He set the recorder on the table between the two rockers and flicked it on. She came thumping back a moment later, balancing a tray on one arm. There was a plate of homemade oatmeal cookies on it, two glasses of milk and an old, slim high school yearbook.
“Can I help you with that?” Mitch offered, climbing to his feet.
“You stay right where you are,” she commanded him. “I don’t keep doing things for myself I’ll end up in a wheelchair over at Essex Meadows, sitting in a puddle of my own urine and not even minding.” She managed to set the tray down without spilling any of the milk. She sat in the rocker next to him with a heavy grunt. She opened the yearbook.
Mitch sampled a cookie. It was chewy. It was good. It was very good.
“Don’t be bashful, son,” Sheila said, urging another one on him.
The front page of the yearbook proudly noted that the Dorset Fighting Pilgrims were the 1967 Shoreline Champs, although it did not say of what. “There is pleasure in doing,” was the senior class motto. Sheila began leafing her way through page after page of group photographs, her hands knobby and misshapen. They were photos of neat, well-groomed teenaged girls and sturdy, shorthaired boys, all of them smiling, all of them white. It was a Wonder Bread world that bore no resemblance whatsoever to the roiling, multicultural city that Mitch had grown up in. It was a world as alien to him as Sheila’s rural childhood of dirt roads and one-room schoolhouses.
“That whole bunch is in here somewhere,” the old woman murmured absently. “All except for Redfield, who graduated two years ahead of Dolly. The ambassador and Mrs. Peck tried to enroll her at Miss Porter’s up in Farmington. She didn’t care for it, though. Came back home after one year. Girl’s not happy if she strays too far from the nest. Neither is Bud. They’re two of a kind that way… Ahhh, here they are,” she exclaimed, handing the open book over to Mitch.
There they were, all right, frozen in time for their senior class pictures. There was Dolly Peck, just as Mitch had imagined her-a slender, pretty girl with a nice smile. There was Bud Havenhurst, with his thrusting jaw and air of WASP superiority. And broad-shouldered Tal Bliss, wearing the same crewcut he went to his grave with. And Tuck Weems, who sported slicked-back hair and a somewhat mocking grin. They were all there, alongside thumbnail profiles of their campus accomplishments, complete with inside jokes:
Dolores Sedgewick Peck (Dolly)… “Oh sure!” Prom Queen. Senior class vice president. Varsity field hockey. Civics club. “You’re not going to beleeeve this…!” Most Gullible. Peanuttiest. Pet Peeve: Dislikes grouchy people.
Kinsley Twining Havenhurst (Bud)… “Hey, boy!” Prom King. Senior class president. “Guys, who put the mouse in my briefcase?” Chess club. Debating society. Varsity tennis. Most Likely To Succeed. “Seriously, guys…” Yale bound.
Talmadge Huffman Bliss (Tal)… “Help you across the street, ma’am?” Dudley Do-Right. Never seen without Tuck. Co-captain, basketball varsity. All Shoreline, junior and senior years. Most Courteous. Eagle scout. Vietnam bound.
Tucker Adair Weems (Tuck)… “What are YOU looking at?” Dudley Do-Wrong. Never seen without Tal. Captain, baseball varsity. Co-captain, basketball varsity. All Shoreline, junior and senior years. Best Excuse Maker. “Who said you could sit on my GTO?” Vietnam bound.
Mitch helped himself to another cookie and a sip of milk. “I hadn’t realized that Tal Bliss and Tuck Weems were such close friends,” he observed, leafing his way through the yearbook to the varsity basketball team. There they stood, shoulder to shoulder with their teammates in their Pilgrims jerseys, looking strapping and confident.
“Oh, sure, those two were like Mutt and Jeff when they were growing up,” Sheila recalled, rocking back and forth in her chair. “Two sides of the same coin-one good, one bad. Although Tuck wasn’t really, truly bad. Just wild. Had a troubled home life. Alcoholic mother, abusive father. He hated them both. Loved his fast cars and his nasty reputation.” She gazed out at the waterfall for a moment. “The girls went crazy over Tuck. Why, he could charm them right out of their knickers without so much as a wink. Poor Tal, he was always the shy one.”
“Did the two of them stay good friends through the years?”
“Yessir, they did,” Sheila replied, nodding. “Never did let Dolly come between them.”
Mitch gazed at the old woman intently. “What about Dolly?”
“Now that one is an interesting story,” she replied, munching on a cookie. “You see, from day one Dolly’s socially correct beau was always Bud Havenhurst.” Sheila’s voice dripped with scorn at the mention of his name. “Her folks liked Bud. Bud was the ‘right’ sort. Decent and upstanding. You ask me, he was about as thrilling as a bowl of my warm tapioca pudding-”
“Wait, you make your own tapioca pudding?”
“Been known to,” she said, her eyes twinkling at him with amusement. “Why, do you like tapioca, Mr. Berger?”
“Like isn’t a strong enough word for it,” replied Mitch, who was drooling just at the thought of it. “But I interrupted you. You were telling me about Bud.”
“A weasel from the word go,” she stated firmly. “I never have trusted him with my personal affairs-and I don’t care where he went to law school. Young Dolly, she liked him well enough. But she was mad for Tuck Weems. Crazy in love. Tuck was everything Bud wasn’t. He was the son of hired help. He was rude. He was greasy. He was Dolly’s walk on the wild side.”
“And how did Tuck feel about her?”
“Couldn’t be bothered with her,” Sheila replied. “Not when most every other girl in town would do whatever he asked, if you understand what I’m saying. A few married women, too, or so it was said. Dolly just wasn’t his type. Too proper. But Dolly would not take no for an answer. This was a girl who was used to getting her way. She chased after him shamelessly. And made Bud insane with jealousy. Some said Tuck went to Vietnam just to get away from that girl. Not me, though. It was to get away from his folks.” Sheila broke off, her face darkening. “After they died, he became much more sullen and withdrawn. The war may have had a little something to do with that, too. And the drugs. He used them heavily, I’m told. Lived up at the lake. Went his own way. Dolly, she settled down with Bud. And eventually she talked Tuck into coming back to work out on Big Sister, which folks in town thought was real kind of her. And maybe Tuck did have some feelings for her after all. Tal did mention to me that Tuck was none too happy about the way Niles Seymour was treating her.”
“I wouldn’t expect Tal was too pleased about it either.”
Sheila eyed Mitch shrewdly. “You’re right, of course. A crying shame if you ask me. That poor man could have made some nice girl a good husband. He would have been a fine father. He just loved kids to death. But no, he just hung on and waited for Dolly. And waited and waited.”
“She’s a pretty special lady.”
Sheila glanced at him in surprise. “Do you really think so?”
“Don’t you?”
“Don’t take my word for anything, Mr. Berger. I’m just a buggy old woman. But do take a good look at the evil that has happened around that woman. Look at how many lives have been ruined. Ask yourself how that happens. Ask yourself why.”
“I’ve been asking myself a lot of things lately,” Mitch confessed. “What I don’t seem to have are many answers.”
Mitch did have a theory of sorts-that the resident trooper had flown into a jealous rage when he found out that Niles Seymour was two-timing his beloved Dolly with Torry. Possibly, he had confronted Seymour over it. Possibly, a fight had broken out that led to Bliss using a gun on him. Possibly, Bliss had then eliminated Torry so she wouldn’t start asking questions around town. This would explain why Seymour was buried on Big Sister Island while she was murdered at the Laurel Brook Reservoir in Meriden. Bliss may have lured her there with the promise of a message from Seymour. Then, to cover his tracks, he had made it look like the two of them had run away together-the Dear John letter, airline reservations and so on. That much added up.
But the murder of Tuck Weems did not. Mitch hadn’t the slightest idea why Tal Bliss had lured his best friend down to the beach in the rain and shot him. No one did.
“I still can’t believe Tal did it,” Sheila spoke up suddenly. “I guess I can’t accept it either, because he was such a good, caring man. He drove me to church every Sunday. Picked up my groceries for me. Fixed things around the place. Never asked if they needed doing. Just did them. He was also, and I don’t mean this in a negative way, not very imaginative. He was more what you’d a call a point A to point B sort of a fellow. I think that’s why he enjoyed spending so much time in the kitchen. He had his instructions all laid out in front of him and as long as he followed them, step by step, something good would come out of it. Something that would make other people happy. What I mean to say is…” Sheila paused, considering her next words carefully. “I don’t believe Tal could have dreamt this whole scheme up all by himself.”
“Are you suggesting that he and Tuck might have been in on it together”
Sheila beat a hasty retreat. “Oh, I wouldn’t know about that. And I am not one to speculate about the dead. It’s just that Tal got to be like family to me. I like to think I knew him. And one thing he would never do was court trouble. Or run from it, either. If he did wrong, he’d take his punishment like a man.”
Mitch leaned forward in his rocker now, studying her. “You don’t believe he committed suicide either. You think someone shot him and made it look like a suicide.”
Sheila Enman didn’t respond to this. Just let it slide on by, rocking back and forth on her porch in front of the waterfall.
“Mrs. Enman, Tuck Weems was already dead and gone when Tal Bliss shot himself. If it wasn’t suicide, if Tal was murdered, then that means a third person was in on it with them. Someone who’s still walking around. Who, Mrs. Enman?”
She didn’t seem to be hearing Mitch anymore. She was lost in her grief.
“Mrs. Enman?!”
“Mercy,” she finally said in a reedy, faraway voice. “Who will shovel my driveway for me now?”