Liked Leastly Suspects: A Mike Dodge Mystery

I might have halfway enjoyed it if somebody I actually knew had died.

In some cultures, you’d have called it a wake. Everybody’d come out in their Sunday finest, pack the parlor tight enough everybody’d barbecue if one cigar spark went awry, crack the top drawer whiskey, lift a few or maybe a few dozen to the deceased with a generous sidecar of Joyce or Yeats, and hope the schmuck had reached St. Peter’s before the guard on duty or Satan got a chance to check his rap sheet.

In fact, the only thing I actually know about wakes is that the term supposedly derived from the lead in the pewter mugs once used to toast the departed. The resulting lead poisoning caused a sleep-like state that looked like death until the mourner woke up a few days later. A classy way to duck the formalities.

I wasn’t getting out of this that easy. I was Sarah’s plus-one, and she’d promised we’d blow out after BBQ meatballs and sheet cake, but I knew she was a lying liar who wasn’t about to leave the family Tupperware to the mercies of strangers. No pewter in Ronnie McHargue’s manse – just red plastic cups a la Toby Keith -- but from Ronnie’s general decor, I might could sneak a few paint chips and spend the evening in peace at the Promptcare.

In fairness, nobody was calling this a wake – here in the flyover, we send the kids for Walmart chicken, and stock enough dollar store soda to give the next in line a diabetic coma. Nobody was really was even calling this a “celebration of life,” except Ronnie, whose dying wishes were to cremate his ass and commemorate him with carbs and mayonnaise and Pyrex.

From what Sarah’d shared, her former boss likely had relished assigning homework for the bereaved. That hadn’t popped up in the hired preacher’s rehash of Ronnie’s obit, nor in the looping DVD Russell & Coyle Memorial Home had cobbled from 73 years of photos of Ronnie taunting siblings, mood-killing holidays, and tolerating familial shutterbugs. But on the ride to the eternal picnic, Sarah gave me the literal lowdown on her years under the former Assistant Director of Underwriting Services. No James Joyce at this potluck, though I suspected half the friends and family had a playfully racist anecdote tucked in their hip pocket.

I was through about a half-log of summer sausage, twice my RDA of Ruffles, and a bracing hit of “Dr. Tepper.” I’d learned about the art of RV septic maintenance, the science of COVID transmission, the yet-unclaimed $63 million lotto ticket from the FastFill on Main, the Breakfast Cereal Complex’ conspiracy to push the multicultural family up our collective nostrils, the exonerating truth behind slavery and the untold valor of the January 6 desk-poopers, and an outside-the-box perspective on the national political scene. I launched a frenzied manhunt for Sarah, Tupperware be damned.

Per my request not to leave me unattended, she’d vanished. Before I considered the crawl space under Ronnie’s porch, I peeked into a converted guest room off the first floor hallway and suspended the manhunt. Two walls were lined floor-to-ceiling with bookshelves, and the shelves were packed with hardbacks. I entered cautiously; added eight-foot shelves flanked the doorway. I suspended the manhunt and began to survey the spines.

“Yeah, you better not screw with those,” a voice issued from a recliner facing dead Ronnie’s backyard window. A short, thin young guy emerged above the chairback. “He alphabetized the whole thing, and he’d really give you shit if you messed things up.”

I glanced at the selection next to the scarred doorjamb – Willa Cather, Raymond Carver, Cervantes, Raymond Chandler, Paddy Chayefsky, Roald Dahl, Nelson DeMille. “Wow. He certainly was eclect-, read a lot of different kinds of stuff.”

“He WAS eclectic,” the kid grinned, and nodded toward the kitchen. “You looking for some refuge, too?”

“Actually, my wife.”

“I’m Ron’s son, Mason,” he said, offering me the coronavirus fist-bump. “I’m a triple-dipped black sheep to most of the family – hate sports, got a degree, and ‘opted’ for gay. You must be like five cousins removed.”

“Mike Dodge. My wife Sarah used to work for your dad.”

Mason turned the recliner slightly, and flopped back in. “Dad was a dick, least ‘til he got COVID. We thought he was going to die at first – he was in the hospital for two weeks, and had these recurring respiratory issues. Turns out he was one of those long-haul chronic cases.

“He’d always liked to read, but Grandpop didn’t care for that kinda thing – afraid it could lead to, you know, a me. But after he isolated, Dad started ordering everything he could get his hands on, near-mint in the original jackets. He had a healthy chunk of change between his pension and investments and some online consulting. I think the time away from this wonderful crowd and all the reading was good for him. He even texted and then called his queer son last year for the first time in two decades. Pneumonia finally got him, COVID complication.”

“Sorry,” I said, for which part I didn’t quite know. “Well, I’d love to check out the collection, but I want to find some refuge myself, in my sweatpants in front of the TV. Later.”

“Hey, do me a solid? Shut the door?” Mason restored the recliner. “I want some alone time.”

Out in the hall, I collided with an antsy Cousin Rena (Jello au Pretzel, OG antisemitism). “You know Sarah Dodge, right? You seen her anywhere?”

“She’s in the kitchen looking for YOU,” Rena cackled. “Thought maybe you’d cut out on her.”

Didn’t realize that was an option.

“I really have to, you know…” she grimaced.

“Go with God,” I murmured.

Dreading the wrath, I hung out with a few of the outlier kids in the living room, scooping on the Marvel Cinematic Universe. When I reached the kitchen, I squeezed around a portly trio debating catfish cheese versus blood bait and reached Sarah’s side and braced.

“Get the fudging (sic) car going,” she whispered urgently. “I left my coat in the fudging (sic) bedroom.”

“Everybody?” barked a raspy masculine voice I recognized as Ronnie’s sister Kathi (cream cheese salsa dip, bum kidney). “Ronnie’s lawyer’s got some kind of announcement. Hey, Janice, shut it!”

Janice (sweet-and-sour meatballs, cupcake shop Lotto fantasy) shut it, and a stocky dude just a little too dapper for a Dr. Tepper wake nudged his way to the table.

“Hi, I’m Orin Connell with Connell and Truscott, representing the McHargue estate. Adjunct to Mr. McHargue’s final will and testament and against advice of counsel, my client ‘requested’ I read the following statement regarding disposition of certain assets. I urged Mr. McHargue to record a video message, but he ‘didn’t feel up to it.’ This declaration does not reflect counsel’s views.”

“Leave the coat,” I grunted.

Connell puffed his cheeks as he unfolded McHargue’s Manifesto. “Here goes, then: ‘Although one or more of you here likely killed me, there is SOME good news. Somebody is about to get VERY lucky’…

“Hold up,” I said.

**

Keith’s July Fricasee Fauci cookout started the ball rolling. It was 90 degrees out, but I was worked up like the rest of you, what with Cousin John getting furloughed and the Blowhard in Chief ranting about the governor’s shutdowns and Chinese terrorism. About a week later, I couldn’t smell the asphalt plant on Stonebrook or taste my coffee. Then I got the fever and chest pains, and next thing you know, I’m at St. Mark’s on a ventilator. You all bullied your way past the nurses with the kids and the baby and Aunt Flora, a 92-year-old woman, for God’s sake. When they asked you to mask up, you threatened Dr. Imperial, who was trying to save my butt and who by the way is Filipino, not Chinese, like that mattered. While I was hooked to a machine, Flora kicked the bucket from that aquarium cleaner COVID cure Kathi talked her into taking, Keith’s girl Dana miscarried and wound up in a room down the hall, and John got probation for punching some older-than-Moses Walmart greeter.

Nothing like almost choking to death on your own ignorance for a wake-up call. I have a ton of regrets in this life. Your ignorant, hateful little jabs and “advice” and bullying pushed me and my only son apart. I can only imagine what he put up with – I remember what you used to call me for loving books and going off to college, the way you used to beat me black and blue if you saw a hint of weakness. I’ve loaned you money and my couch and a kidney, and a shedful of crap you never returned, co-signed my way out of a credit rating, bailed you out and got you towed when you got a load on.

When I went back to St. Mark’s with my lungs still on the fritz, I got into it with this guy in an N-95 in the waiting room. That self-righteous pussy SOB symbolized the COVID conspiracy crowd, the snowflakes who shut down the Millington Tap and put DeFino’s Pizza out of business and got Keith laid off and took away the toilet paper, and I lost it. I’d been knock knock knocking at Death’s door not two months earlier, and I was STILL drinking the chloroquine Kool-Aid. So I plop down next to the guy and lay into him, getting more pissed every time he squirmed around trying not to catch the creeping death. Then the nurse calls him up to do some paperwork on his wife, who as it happens flatlined the night before. But this poor guy simply told me to “crack a book every once in a while.” Which is just what I did. Once I got shed of you choice people, I started thinking about why you think the toxic shit you think and how I let you infect me.

I finally got cabin fever a week back and hobbled down to the FastFill to get some Krispy Kremes, a bottle of Wild Turkey, and a MegaBucks ticket for Tuesday’s drawing. Imagine my surprise when they call the numbers on the 9 o’clock news. I knew I was on borrowed time, so I told Mason he was going to be a millionaire. He told me what I could do with my ticket, which seemed appropriate. Instead, here’s what we’re going to do. That library down the hall? That’s where you’ll find the missing ticket. Your winning numbers are 7, 22, 20, 6, and 25. And while you’re clawing and scratching over each other, crack a book or two. Good luck!”

“Now, we’re having fun,” I told Sarah. At least until Kathi moved faster than I’d seen all afternoon, elbowed a horde of treasure seekers out of her way, yanked open the “library” door, and passed out next to Mason McHargue’s body.

**

“So we got the sole heir to the McHargue MegaBucks fortune dead in a houseful of homophobes, alphas, rollers, and rednecks,” Curtis summarized. “What would your Agatha Christie say about that?”

I gave Det. Mead a two-word guess. “Aggie would not say that. But, yes, we seem to be. Me, anyway — you’re just a guest.”

“Twice removed.” I nonetheless got privileges for containing the unruly mob until 5-0 arrived – easy given its lack of vim, vigor, and cartilage. I scanned the room fresh now. The recliner was turned away from the window. A Solo cup half full of flat Mountain Rain sat next to a heavy metal vase on a table under the window.

“Don’t touch that shit,” Curtis grunted with precognitive preemptivity.

“Hey,” I protested feebly. I sidled well around where Mason had bled out under the door-side shelves, simultaneously reappraising Chandler’s The Long Goodbye. I’d had the original with dustcover for years, but it had met a bad end in the move to Illinois.

“Nothing disturbed by the window, but the chair is turned — Mason set it right while we were talking earlier. You think Mason knew the killer, got into an argument, and it escalated?”

“Old man McHargue may have been an avid librarian, but a neatnik he was not. See this dust void on the shelf? Looks like where the scissors were before they wound up in the victim. Seems to back it being an opportunity crime. Your collection this huge?”

I shrugged. “But I started when I was a geek teenager — books were far more accessible than girls.” I paused, and looked back to the Cather-Dahl shelf. When Curtis checked to see if I was still breathing, I launched in.

“When Altered States came out my junior year at Indiana State, I got up the nerve to ask out Cindy Borchert, hot little blond who thought I was ‘funny.’ Movie itself was a trip — sensory deprivation, psychotropic drugs, William Hurt turns into an ape. Thing is, Paddy Chayefsky was so upset by the director’s script changes, he used an alias for the credits. The novel WAS better. And for all his critical acclaim, Altered States is Chayefsky’s only novel. Now it’s missing.”

“The lottery ticket was in the book?”

“Nope,” I laughed, a little sadly. “Why would the killer take the book instead of just the ticket? And why risk getting rid of it in a packed house? Maybe because it had been altered itself? Pull out Chandler through Dahl.”

Shaking his head, Curtis bent and gently removed a seven-volume section of fiction. After a moment, he displayed the short red streaks on The Long Goodbye and Kiss, Kiss.

“The killer bolted after stabbing Mason, but snuck back to make sure no evidence got left behind,” I suggested. “Mason managed to crawl to the door, but couldn’t reach the knob. Then he spotted the titles in front of his eyes, and decided to leave us a clue. He uses the discarded scissors to alter Altered States. Even if the killer could have just taken the edited dustcover, the coverless book would have stood out like a sore thumb, and anything Mason scratched on the wrapper would have made an impression on the cover.”

“And just what would we find on that cover?”

“One letter. I think the killer was in a tight spot, and ducked in here to talk things out to, I dunno, they should be on the smartphone log. Mason was in the chair by the window, so the murderer couldn’t see him. Then Mason threatens to expose everything, and gets harpooned for it. Here’s the hitch — Mason was estranged from his dad, and probably didn’t know his killer’s name. So, Pat Sajak, you got it yet?”

“Lemme buy a vowel,” Curtis muttered.

**

“Killer had a problem,” Curtis noted after quieting a rogue contingent outraged over “the police state” and the infringement of their inalienable right to rip Ronnie’s library to the studs. “Mason McHargue left behind an incriminating piece of evidence that had to be destroyed or removed. Now, the book jacket with McHargue’s dying, uh, communication, could be ripped up, flushed down the toilet, whatever. The book was another story. The killer was trapped on the scene. That leaves throwing it in the garbage, which would only buy time, or hiding it. Uh, Mr. Dodge, who was that tree guy you told me about?”

“G.K. Chesterton,” I chimed in. “And it was about hiding a tree in the forest. The killer had a ginormous forest. Grab a book about the same size from any shelf, slip Altered States into its jacket, and place the original book somewhere nobody would question. Ronnie was pretty fussy about his books, so Detective Mead searched for the only book without a dustcover.”

“Rosemary’s Baby, next to the toilet,” Curtis said, displaying Ira Levin’s horror classic. He removed the dustcover -- I could make out Chayevsky’s name on the spine, and a single jagged letter half-carved into the cover.

“‘E.’ Since Mason knew WHO you were but not your name, he used the dust cover to identify the only thing he knew, what he overhead you confess. Even if we don’t find that book cover, Detective Mead can get an audit of your firm. Bet your partner would love to know just how many E-states you’ve ‘altered,’ Mr. Connell.”   

**

“Why didn’t you figure out which book Ron hid the ticket in while you were at it?” Sarah complained as we pulled from the curb.

“Let the family have at it,” I said. “It should take a month before any of that brain trust figures it out.”

“Figures what out?”

“I wondered why he’d include the winning lotto number in his little manifesto. It was superfluous information. Unless it was part of Ronnie’s revenge. First three numbers were 7, 22, and 20. You can pick your own numbers in the lotto, but when they’re announced, they’re given in numerical sequence. So why’d he give them in that order? You remember the paper had that article about Cousin Keith’s loud, middle-finger anti-Fauci yard party, about the cops having to break it up? July 22, 2020 – the day Ron McHargue blamed for his eventual death.”

“What about the other numbers?”

“Six and 25? A farewell to his toxic family. What’s the sixth letter of the alphabet?”

“‘F.’ Oh.” Sarah dinked with the vents. “You remembered that number? You can’t remember to close the garage door half the time.”

“I’m a good listener. Plus, it’s the same number engraved on the bottom of a vase in Ronnie’s library. Urn, actually. The one I’m guessing Mason snuck into the house. The one with Ronnie’s ashes and a cremated IOU for $63 million. Meatballs made me thirsty – what do you say to a shake?”