Snake Eater by William G. Tapply Page A

photographs. All of them were creased and smudged and dog-eared, as if somebody had carried them around in his hip pocket for a while. I recognized none of the faces. None of the names meant anything to me.
    Friends of Daniel? Distant cousins? War buddies? Agent Orange victims? Debtors or creditors?
    Enemies?
    I couldn’t recall seeing any of the faces at Daniel’s funeral party. The photos showed six adult white males, all in some stage of middle age. None was particularly distinctive.
    I read the addresses. The two on the index cards were in western Massachusetts, as were two on the backs of photos. Two were in Rhode Island, one in New Hampshire, and one in New York.
    I sat there at my table, puffing a cigarette and gazing out onto the dark harbor.
    On Monday I called Cammie and read the eight names and addresses to her. None of them was familiar to her. None of them was anybody who had been invited to the party. As far as she could recall, Daniel had never mentioned any of them to her.
    “Well,” I said, “they were somebody to Daniel. They were in with his insurance papers.”
    “Insurance?”
    “Which may or may not mean a damn thing.”
    “What are you going to do?”
    “I don’t know. Talk to these people, I guess.”
    “You think…?”
    “That I’ve got a list of possible murderers? One of them did it? Maybe.”
    “Wow,” she breathed.
    “So I’ll check them out.”
    “Maybe Brian or Roscoe or Vinnie might recognize them. They’ve known Daniel a lot longer than me.”
    “Sure,” I said. “These could be names from the war. I’ll give those guys a call.”
    “Hang on,” she said. “I’ll get their numbers.”
    She came back onto the line a minute later. She read Brian Sweeney’s contact telephone number in Vermont to me. Pollard and Colletti shared the same phone in Turner’s Falls, Massachusetts. “Let me know what you find out,” she said.
    “You can count on it.”
    “You better be careful, Brady.”
    “Believe me,” I said, “I know how to be careful. Discreet and careful. That’s me.”

12
    T HE NUMBER CAMMIE HAD given me for Brian Sweeney was, I remembered, a general store in East Corinth, Vermont. Most likely the general store. Gas pumps out front, spinning rods and aluminum lawn chairs and pyramids of maple syrup cans in the window, a wheel of Vermont cheddar and a cracker barrel next to the wood stove, ammunition and knives under the glass counter, cases of beer and sacks of dried beans and bait tanks out back. On the map, East Corinth appeared to be little more than an intersection on the back road from Bradford to Barre, which weren’t exactly major metropolitan areas themselves.
    “General stow-ah,” said the guy who answered the phone when I called Monday morning. “Ed he-ah.”
    Ed sounded like one of those disillusioned New Jersey dentists who chuck it all and flee to northern New England to pursue their dream of the simple honest country life and end up finding it complicated by leaky roofs, dried-up wells, mud seasons, blackflies, endless winters, suspicious natives, and hard-hearted bankers. More disillusionment.
    Generally after a few years they end up practicing rural dentistry.
    “I’m trying to get ahold of Brian Sweeney,” I told Ed.
    “Ain’t he-ah just now,” said Ed. “Generally comes by lat-ah in the afternoon. I can give him your name.”
    Ed, I decided, had a poor ear for the significant differences between the Down East Maine inflections—which Hollywood television productions never get right anyway—and those of small-town Vermont.
    “My name is Brady Coyne,” I said. I spelled it for Ed, and gave him both my office and home numbers. “I’m in Boston. Tell Sweeney to call collect. I’ll be at one place or the other.”
    “Brian’ll be by lat-ah,” repeated Ed. “He’ll want to tell me about the hunting. It’s bird season up here now. Pa’tridge, woodcock. Brian’s got himself a pair of nice Springers. Hunts all day, don’t