“Well, that certainly sounds like truth, justice and the American way.”

“I appreciate that I’m a little tetchy about all this. I’m not sure how much of it I set in motion by letting myself be used so shabbily by the toads.”

“I wondered if you might be feeling that way. But as soon as you got the picture of what the toads were probably really doing, you backed off. You’re clean, Don. Anyway, that must be why the boyfriend hired you. He sees you as potentially more friend than foe.”

“Yes, or he sees me as an annoying troublemaker who might be turned into a useful troublemaker. I’m not sure what any of these people are up to. There remains the mystery of Fields’ and Bud Radziwill’s origins. Who were – or who are – these guys anyway? Plus, Fields has now disappeared.”

“He ran away? That looks bad, no?”

“I’m sure the police have an opinion. The boyfriend, Bill Moore, claims not to know where Fields is. It’s going to be hard to clear the guy unless I can find him. So I may be spending a lot of time in Great Barrington over the next days. Or elsewhere.”

“Just don’t you get shot, okay? Or arrested. I don’t know about the cops over there, but I’ve heard the Berkshire County DA is a hard case, inflexible and mean. Don’t get caught in his gun sights if you can avoid it. Metaphorically speaking, is what I think I mean.”

“Timothy, I always think of the Berkshires as so benign. All those pretty fields and hills, and Verdi and James Taylor, and Mark Morris swooping around waving his love handles. I’ve always loved the place. I hope I don’t come back from Massachusetts disillusioned.”

“Yeah, or with your ass in a sling.”

“Or my head on a platter.”

“Or your nose out of joint.”

“Or my testicles undescended.”

“I’d help you find them.”

“You always do.”

Being on the phone with Timmy Callahan always cheered me up. But the good cheer didn’t last, as was to be expected.

Chapter Seven

I arrived in Great Barrington an hour before my meeting with Bill Moore, so I drove on down to Sheffield to get a look at the crime scene. With the help of MapQuest – I ignored its routing through Bolivia – I found the Sturdivant-Gaudios house, a grand, white, maple-shaded Victorian, with neat lawns and tall stands of late-summer cosmos and phlox, and yellow crime-scene tape running from tree to tree around much of the property. Except for the police presence and the three TV news trucks parked out front, the place was so sweetly, anachronistically placid, I half expected Edith Wharton and Henry James to come strolling down the sidewalk together, James discoursing on the rosebushes at the house next door, Mrs. Wharton leading her two tiny Pekingese and smoking a doobie.

I parked across the street and got out just as a gaggle of reporters and camera crews emerged from behind the house and spread out quickly toward their cars and news vans. Crossing the street, I ducked under the police tape and walked up the driveway where the reporters had been. I could see the pool fenced off beyond the three-car garage and, I thought, the infamous hot tub. There were two Beemers, one convertible and one sedan, in the open garage, the American well-to-do doing their bit to help Bavaria.

I was about to turn back to the front of the house when the back door opened and Steven Gaudios came out followed by a uniformed state trooper. Gaudios recognized me and strode over looking gaunt and agitated.

“Well, Donald, you’re a little late, aren’t you, to be of any help to us whatsoever? A fat lot of good you did for us, protecting us from that lunatic! We told you he was dangerous, and you didn’t believe us, and now look what has happened!”

I said, “Steven, I’m very sorry about Jim.”

“Sorry? What is sorry? Sorry would be if you had protected Jim, the way you were supposed to, against that insane Barry Fields!”

“I wasn’t hired to protect anybody, Steven. I was hired to check into Fields’ background.”

“Who are you?” the cop said, suddenly interested in me as more than an intruder.

I introduced myself, and he told me he was Trooper Joe Toomey, the detective assigned to the case. I gave him a quick rundown on my brief employment by Sturdivant and Gaudios. I said I had parted ways with the couple the day before on account of a disagreement over whether or not it was fair for them to be investigating Barry Fields. I thought, Let’s just get this out in the open now, in the event Gaudios had neglected to mention it. For the moment, I did not bring up the toads’ eccentric lending practices, though all of their clients might now be considered potential suspects in Sturdivant’s murder.

“We should talk,” the cop said and gave me his card. “What are you doing over here now?” He was fiftyish and clear-eyed, pint-sized and lean, and had a half-moon-shaped scar on one clean-shaven cheek.

I said, “I’ve been hired by Bill Moore, Barry Fields’ fiancé, to help clear Fields. Moore feels certain Fields did not shoot anybody last night.” I watched Toomey to see if he’d flinch when I used the term fiancé – he did not – and I watched Gaudios, knowing he would be outraged that I was now helping the man he thought had killed his… spouse? No, for family reasons, Sturdivant had said, he and Gaudios had not married when so many long-term Massachusetts gay couples had.

On cue, and understandably, Gaudios began sputtering and intermittently weeping. “How can you do this! How can you do this! Barry even shot What-Not. You’re a traitor, Donald. How can you do this to us! It’s all just… unreal! I keep thinking it’s all a nightmare and I’ll wake up and it will all go away and Jim will be back in my life, where he belongs.”

Gaudios went on for another minute, flushed and hysterical, while the cop and I stood helplessly. When Gaudios wound down, I said, “Steven, I know you believe Barry shot Jim, but there’s no real evidence of that, is there?” I hoped Detective Toomey might jump in here and add something – anything – to the little I knew, but he just watched me and said nothing.

Gaudios said, “Of course it was Barry. Barry attacked Jim in Guido’s yesterday and threatened to kill him, and he was arrested. He was arrested, and the judge let him go! I hold that damn rotten judge responsible, too!”

“What was the argument in Guido’s about?” I asked. “They were arguing and Barry hit Jim, but what set all that off?”

Gaudios started to speak, then waited. He was collecting his thoughts. He said, “It was about you, among other things.”

“Oh?”

“Thanks to your ineptitude, Barry found out that Jim had asked you to investigate Barry. He was upset about that and blamed Jim.” There was no mention of Fields’ anger over the Bill Moore loan, which it appeared Gaudios had neglected to mention to the police.

The cop had been taking all this in with interest. He looked my way and said, “Mr. Gaudios tells me that Barry Fields has an unknown past. That you checked him out and learned that he has no verifiable existence earlier than six years ago. We’re doing our own checking, but is that what you came up with, Mr. Strachey?”

“It is.”

“And now Fields seems to have vanished into the Neverland he came out of.”

“He’s gone, I’m told, yes. But he could have run off because he’s your prime suspect following yesterday’s altercation in the grocery store, and he has no alibi for last night. He’s innocent, but he panicked and fled. This happens.”

“It does,” Toomey said, “but guilty people run away too. That happens even more often. I suppose you’ll be trying to locate Fields, like me. If you find him, it is your obligation to bring him in or to notify me or other investigating officers as to his whereabouts. Are you clear about that?”

“I know the law,” I said. “My intention here is to do what’s right.”