A Game of Dons Read online

  Alice, Fee and Bianca leaned in and studied the picture.

  “She is beautiful,” Bianca said.

  “She’s not bad-looking,” Alice admitted. Though gorgeous was probably a more apt description for Deanna Kohl. She looked like one of those models you sometimes see flashing by on your Instagram feed. Bella Hadid or Gigi Hadid or some other Hadid.

  “Does she model?” asked Fee, but when Alice shot her a look, she quickly shut up.

  “She used to model,” said Virgil. “Before she became a police academy instructor.”

  “I’ve been to police academy,” said Alice. “How come I’ve never seen her there?”

  “She left after two years. Which is why I hadn’t seen her in such a long time.”

  “So where has she been?”

  “No idea,” said Virgil, “and that’s the truth,” he added when the others gave him a look of skepticism. “And she won’t tell me, either.”

  “So who is this guy? And why did she kill him?” asked Bianca, sipping from a cup of chamomile tea. Alice felt that she should probably have poured them a brandy, like Virgil.

  “I’m not completely clear on that, either,” said Virgil, scratching his scalp.

  “Virgil!” cried Alice. “You mean you helped this woman bury a body and you don’t even know who the victim is or why she killed him?”

  “Pretty much,” Virgil admitted sheepishly.

  “You know what you’ve done?” said Fee, looking as appalled as Alice was feeling. “You’ve been aiding and abetting… something. Or is it aiding and accessorizing?”

  “I’ll bet it’s aiding and abetting,” said Alice. “That sounds about right.”

  “Whatever it is I did, I need your help,” said Virgil ruefully.

  “Sorry, Virgil,” said Bianca. “But we can’t be a party to this—can we, girls?”

  Alice and Fee were both quiet. “I don’t get it,” said Alice, turning to Virgil.

  “Yeah, I don’t get it either,” said Fee. “You’re a cop, Virgil. How could you do this?”

  “I love Reece very much,” said Alice, “but if one day he comes home and tells me ‘Honey, I just killed a woman and could you please bury her for me so no one finds out?’ the first thing I’ll do is call my dad and turn him in. I’m not going to be one of those women who harbor a vicious killer. I’m sorry but that’s just a big no-no in my book.”

  “Like Ashley Judd in High Crimes!” Fee said. “We saw that just the other night.”

  “There’s something you’re not telling us, isn’t there, Virgil?” said Alice.

  Virgil gnawed on the knuckle of his index finger for a moment, then nodded.

  “There’s more?” asked Alice, now seriously shocked. She’d thought she knew Virgil through and through, and now he was aiding and abetting killers and possibly accessorizing?

  “The thing is…” Virgil began, then stopped and gnawed the knuckle of his middle finger. His ears had turned a bright scarlet and he looked like a hamster harboring a dark secret.

  “Just tell us, Virgil,” said Bianca. “You’ll feel so much better if you confide in a friend.”

  Alice didn’t know if Virgil would feel better or worse if he told them, but Bianca was right about one thing: Virgil better come clean if he expected them to help him.

  “I owe Deanna,” he said finally. “In fact I owe her big time.”

  “Owe her how?” asked Fee.

  It was back to the knuckle-biting thing. Alice finally couldn’t watch it anymore and slapped the cop’s hand away. “Just tell us already!”

  “She once saved me from a hazing gone wrong,” he said quietly.

  Chapter 11

  “Hazing? What are you talking about?” asked Fee.

  Virgil seemed reluctant to talk, so Fee’s mother poured him another finger of brandy. He quickly gulped it down, then launched into his story. “It was my first month at police academy. Some of the other recruits were a little... rough-and-tumble type of fellas. And they must have thought I made the perfect subject for some of their, um, roughhousing experiments. So one night they put a caterpillar in my bed.”

  Silence reigned for a moment, then Fee said, “You helped a woman cover up a murder because she saved you from a caterpillar?”

  “No, no, no,” he hastened to say. “The caterpillar was just the start. The next night, I guess because they enjoyed my shrieks so much, and possibly the dancing around in my underwear, they put a giant spider in my bed.”

  “And the night after that a rat, then a piglet?” Alice suggested.

  “They were more creative than that. They put my underwear in the freezer and back in my closet when I went to take a shower so that when I tried to put them on I couldn’t.”

  “All very funny,” said Alice. “Not. Didn’t you report them to whoever was in charge?”

  “If I’d done that I would have broken the unbreakable bond that exists between all recruits,” Virgil explained.

  “Unbreakable bond!” Alice cried. “They were bullying you!”

  “All in good fun,” said Virgil. “Until…” He gulped.

  “Until what?” asked Fee gently.

  “Until they almost got me killed.”

  “What happened?” asked Fee’s mom.

  Virgil eyed his shot glass pointedly, and she got the message, pouring him another stiff one. After fortifying himself this way he continued his tale of woe. It wasn’t a song of fire and ice, in spite of the underwear incident, but there was still horror to be had.

  “They put the chopped-off head of a horse in my bed,” said Virgil quietly.

  “The bastards! They killed a horse?” Alice exclaimed. She loved all animals great and small, and couldn’t condone cruelty to the wonderful creatures in any way, shape or form.

  “They didn’t actually kill the horse,” said Virgil. “They stole the head from a local veterinarian. The horse had died on her operating table and—”

  “And the vet kept the head? That’s sick!”

  “Please let the man speak, Alice,” said Fee.

  “The horse belonged to a local man, who’d asked for the head to be removed and stuffed, so he could keep it as a memento to his beloved horse, which was a favorite. Only the other recruits stole it and the head landed in my bed instead of on the wall of the—”

  “Head collector,” Alice said, feeling this story was getting curiouser by the second.

  “—mobster.”

  “Mobster?” asked Fee.

  “Mobsters like to put horses in people’s beds,” said Alice. “Haven’t you ever seen The Godfather?” When Fee said she hadn’t, she said, “I’ll add it to our Netflix queue.”

  “The mobster didn’t put the head in my bed, though,” said Virgil, making his meaning perfectly clear. “The recruits did. All the mobster wanted was to hang the head of his horse on his living room wall as a token of affection.”

  “Strange way to show his affection,” said Fee. “As if I’d put Rick’s head on my wall if he died first. Weird.”

  “Mobsters are weird,” Alice said, as if she were the local expert on mobsters.

  “Anyway, the mobster—his name was Erhard Grabarski—was furious and sent his goons to retrieve the head and punish the people responsible for absconding with it. Of course when they burst into the dormitory what they saw was me, dancing another jig, squealing my head off while the jokers laughed their heads off, and the head of the horse was in my bed. And mobsters being mobsters, they figured I was the one who’d stolen the head. So they tucked me under their arm and waltzed me out of there posthaste.”

  “Didn’t you try to explain that you had nothing to do with the head-snatching?” asked Alice.

  “Yeah, you should have told them that you were as much a victim as the mobster,” said Fee.

  “They weren’t exactly listening to reason,” said Virgil, who’d turned a little white around the nostrils as he relived the memory of that night. “They simply dumped me in an unmarked van and
drove off, presumably to outfit me with a pair of concrete shoes and dump me in the East River.”

  “Would they dump you in the East River, though?” asked Alice.

  “Yeah, I would think they’d pick a river closer to home,” Fee added.

  “Will you let the man finish his story?” said Bianca, who was listening with rapt attention and even doing a little knuckle-biting of her own.

  “I really thought I was done for,” said Virgil. “But then suddenly they stopped the van, threw me out, and continued their journey without me. And when I stood staring after the disappearing taillights of the van, I noticed a sports car parked by the side of the road, a familiar figure leaning against it.”

  “Deanna Kohl,” said Fee.

  Virgil nodded. “She said she’d heard about what happened and had decided to pull some strings on my behalf. And before I knew it, she was driving me back to the academy. The boys who’d been yanking my chain were all thrown out of the program, and she kinda took me under her wing from then on. Made sure I passed the tests with flying colors and didn’t encounter any more horse’s heads or other weird things in my bed ever again.”

  “She pulled some strings—you mean she knew this mobster guy?”

  “I guess so,” said Virgil. “I never asked and she never told.”

  “Who exactly is this guy she killed, Virgil?” asked Fee now, suddenly something dawning on her.

  “No idea. She didn’t give me a name and I didn’t recognize him.”

  Fee pulled up something on her phone and showed it to Virgil. “Is this him?”

  Virgil squinted at the small screen, then his face lit up. “Yes! That’s the dead guy!”

  Fee frowned. “His name is Victor Grabarski. He’s Erhard Grabarski’s oldest son.”

  Chapter 12

  “So what’s this all about?” Rick wasn’t too happy. He had a piece to finish on the impact of climate change on the intergenerational dynamic in Middle America, and his editor Suggs Potter wasn’t too happy with reporters who didn’t meet their deadlines.

  Fee had called him for an urgent meeting at the bakery, and apparently Alice had called Reece, for he was also gracing them with his presence. Both he and Reece were staring at Virgil, who seemed to be the person this meeting was about.

  “Well, tell them, Virgil,” Alice encouraged the cop.

  “Yeah, what is it, Virgil?” asked Reece. “I have a role to prepare for so let’s keep it brief, shall we?”

  “And I have an article to finish,” said Rick, giving Reece a pointed look. A look that said: this isn’t all about you, pretty boy.

  Reece took up the gauntlet. “My movie, when it comes out in cinemas across the globe, will be seen by millions of people. How many people read your articles, Ricky?”

  “My articles are of profound importance to our cultural, historical and socio-political heritage,” said Rick. “Are you really saying another soulless remake of a tired old story is what the world needs right now?”

  “At least I have an audience.”

  “At least I have my integrity.”

  “At least—”

  “Boys, boys,” said Fee. “This may come as a surprise to you but we didn’t call this meeting so you could compare the size of your—”

  “Fee!” Alice exclaimed.

  “Ego! I was going to say ego!”

  “Sure you were.” She gestured to Virgil, who had been looking on with the air of a stuffed frog.

  The cop inserted a finger between collar and neck and pulled. “The thing is—I lost a dead body and I need you to help me find it.”

  There was a momentary silence, then Rick caught Reece’s eye and both men burst out laughing.

  “This is a joke, right?” said Reece.

  “Good one, Virgil,” said Rick. “Now please tell us what is really going on.”

  “He’s not joking, you guys,” said Alice. “Wait till you hear the story.”

  They waited, and Virgil told the story. It was a good story, as stories go. It had everything: suspense, mystery, violence, romance, action, and plenty of those twists and turns your critical contemporary audience looks for in a story. In fact it wasn’t too much to say that Virgil held his listeners spellbound and hanging on his every word.

  “So where did you leave the body?” asked Rick.

  “Did you already sell the movie rights?” was Reece’s question.

  “Have you told your mother?” asked a concerned Fee.

  “Have you told my dad?” Alice wanted to know.

  Virgil seemed to wilt slightly under this barrage of questions. “Um, in an old water well. What movie rights? No, and yes.”

  “You told my dad? What did he say?”

  Reece had taken out his phone. “We need to lock down those rights immediately, Virgil, buddy. I see a hit movie, with me playing the lead, of course. Part coming of age, part thriller, part love story. Let me talk to my agent and we’ll set up a meeting.”

  “A water well?” said Rick. “That’s a potential health hazard. Wait till the EPA hears about this. Where is this water well located, exactly?”

  “People, please, you’re confusing the poor boy,” spoke Bianca, who’d just walked in carrying a tray of refreshments. Rick could see Fee’s dad standing behind the door to the bakery’s inner sanctum, wiping his hands on his apron after a long day’s work. He nodded a greeting to Rick, then stepped back into the shadows. He clearly did not want to get involved in Virgil’s latest predicament.

  “The water well thing was Deanna’s idea,” said Virgil, helping himself to a cruller. “And we didn’t actually dump the body in the well. We buried him next to it—just in case we ever needed to find him again. Or I should probably say I buried him. Deanna was too distraught, the poor woman.”

  Alice muttered something under her breath that Rick didn’t quite catch. He had a feeling she wasn’t a member of the Deanna fan club. Or at least not a paying member, like Virgil clearly was.

  “So what did Chief Whitehouse say when you told him what you’d done?” asked Reece, who’d put down his phone again. His agent would have to wait.

  “He wasn’t happy,” Virgil confessed.

  “Did he suspend you? Threaten to arrest you?” asked Rick.

  “Not exactly. He told me to tell you guys. He also told me not to mention this to anyone else. And he gave me a message for you, Rick. And for you, Reece.”

  “A message?” said Reece. “That’s very thoughtful of the Chief. Let’s hear it.”

  Virgil had taken out his copper’s notebook, wet his index finger and thumb, and flipped it open. He cleared his throat. “I want to get this right,” he explained.

  “Of course,” Rick agreed.

  “So there’s no room for misunderstanding.”

  “Very important,” Reece said, nodding.

  “The Chief wouldn’t want there to be any confusion about the meaning of—”

  “Just read the damn message, Virgil,” said Alice.

  “To Rick Dawson: if you dare print a word of Virgil’s story in that worthless rag of yours, I’ll arrest you and throw away the key. To Reece Hudson: if you dare mention any of this to your Hollywood good-for-nothing friends, I’ll arrest you and throw away the key. To all of you: if you so much as breathe a word about this to anyone, I’ll—”

  “Let me guess,” said Rick. “He’ll arrest us and throw away the key?”

  “How did you know?” asked Virgil.

  “Lucky guess.”

  “So what are we waiting for?” said Fee. “Let’s go and find that body.”

  “Not so fast,” said Rick. “First of all—what are we going to do once we find it? Do we really want to become accessories to a crime? And secondly—where is this Deanna person? It seems to me this is her mess. She should be the one cleaning it up, not us.”

  “I have no idea where she is,” said Virgil. “We—or rather I—buried the body and then she thanked me and we said a teary goodbye—more tears on my part tha
n on hers. It was only when I arrived home to wash up—I was pretty soiled at that point—that I discovered I’d lost my badge.”

  “You lost your badge? That’s not good, Virgil,” said Bianca.

  “No shit,” mumbled her daughter, earning her a scowl from her mother.

  “I figured I must have lost it burying the body so I went back to find it. Only when I got there the body was gone. Someone had dug it up again and taken it.”

  “I love this so much,” said Reece. “I’d register surprise at this point,” and he went ahead and registered surprise: his lips formed a perfect O and his eyebrows shot up.

  “I don’t think you’re right for the part of Virgil,” said Rick. “You don’t look anything like him.”

  “So what part do you see for me?” Reece asked earnestly.

  “The dead body?” Rick suggested.

  “Mh,” said Reece, giving this some thought.

  “So I tried to call Deanna but she didn’t pick up,” Virgil continued his story.

  “Maybe she stole the body,” said Alice, displaying a distinct dislike for Virgil’s flame.

  “No way,” said Virgil. “Why ask me to bury the body in the first place if she was going to dig it up later?”

  That sounded plausible, Rick had to concede.

  “Besides, it’s a lot of work to dig up a person. Or to transport him. And this guy is very heavy. We had a hard time carrying him into the backyard and we were two people.”

  “Tell me again why it’s important to find this Victor Grabarski person’s body?” asked Bianca, who sometimes was a little slow on the uptake.

  “Because if his dad finds out his oldest son is dead, Grabarski Senior won’t stop until Deanna is dead, too,” said Virgil.

  “And we don’t want that to happen, do we?” said Alice stoically.

  “And when he finds Virgil’s badge, conveniently located on the body…” said Rick.

  All eyes turned to Virgil, who’d turned a deathly white. “Then I’m a dead man, too,” the cop whispered.