The Man Who Swore He'd Never Go Home Again

Book : Stewart Hoag Mysteries

by David Handler

Genres: Mystery; Paranormal Cozy Mysteries; Cozy Mystery

Synopsis

In this case from early in Stewart Hoag’s career, the newly successful writer revisits his hometown to investigate the murder of a beloved librarian.

Stewart “Hoagy” Hoag always swore that he would never return to Oakmont, Connecticut, the small mill town where his family lived for generations. He certainly has no desire to interrupt his high life as the newest great American novelist to revisit the town that hates his family and will only bring back memories of his unhappy childhood. But when his childhood sweetheart phones to say that her mother, Mary McKenna, the librarian who inspired Hoagy’s dream to be a writer, has died, Hoagy knows he has to return for her funeral. Especially when Maggie adds that her mother didn’t die of natural causes.

Who would want to murder a beloved mill town librarian? Determined to pay his respects to one of the few people in his hometown he truly cared for, Hoagy hops in his Jaguar and heads to Oakmont with his new girlfriend Merilee and even newer basset hound puppy Lulu in tow. The town where his family’s brass mill once thrived is now a toxic, lead-poisoned ghost town filled with illegal drugs, broken families, violence, bitterness, and resentment. Hoagy is surprised to discover former classmate and bullying target, Pete Schlosski, has become the State Police Resident Trooper. But while Pete seems to have forgiven his past tormentors, he doesn’t have any ideas as to which of them might be a killer. Hoagy, on the other hand, has learned plenty about the art of investigation from hours spent in the library, and his four-month-old puppy shows a surprising knack for tracking down clues…

Readers will be delighted to return to where it all began and experience Lulu’s very first case in this charming installment of the Edgar Award-nominated Stewart Hoag series.

 

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Release date: March 18, 2025

Publisher: Mysterious Press

Print pages: 360

Sample

CHAPTER ONE

It was a crisp, clear October night and I was strolling down Commerce Street in Greenwich Village for dinner at the Blue Mill with a college chum of mine, Ezra Spooner, who’d become a tax attorney. My tax attorney, believe it or not. Ezra had warned me that he had serious, grown-up business to discuss with me about opening something called an individual retirement account, which was not a subject I’d thought would be high on my priority list at the age of 28. Or, like, ever. But my life had undergone a radical financial upsurge in recent months.

This was thirteen years ago—1982, if you’re keeping track at home—and to be honest I wasn’t so much strolling down Commerce Street as I was walking on air. When my first novel, Our Family Enterprise, had been published in June, the New York Times Book Review had hailed me as “the first major new literary voice of the 1980s.” It had been sitting atop every major bestseller list for sixteen straight weeks. Paramount had purchased the film rights for a jaw-dropping six figures. I’d signed a huge contract for my next book. And I’d become a major celebrity. My face had been plastered on the cover of Time magazine. I’d made smooth, witty appearances on Good Morning America and The Tonight Show. Undertaken a 25-city promotional tour. I’d even been flown to London, where I’d not only given television and print interviews but also purchased a fabulous new wardrobe at Strickland and Sons, Savile Row, which had prompted Gentleman’s Quarterly to give me an eight-page photo spread gushing that I embodied “the looks and style of a Hollywood leading man from the golden age of the Thirties.”

There was no getting around it. My life was every aspiring writer’s wildest fantasy come true.

And I was just getting warmed up.

The Blue Mill was my favorite restaurant in New York City. It had opened in the early 1940s, and whenever I walked in the door, its vintage décor gave me an inkling of what life in the Village must have been like in those days. The menus were handwritten on individual chalkboards parked beside each wooden booth. The waiters were career professionals who knew their regular customers such as me by name. No less than three of them beamed at me when Ezra and I walked in, shook my hand and admired my new barley tweed suit, which I wore with a navy blue shirt and yellow knit tie. I was freshly shaven and gave off the faint, elegant scent of the Floris No. 89 talc powder that I’d discovered in London.

As Ezra and I were being led to our booth he paused to say hello to another of his clients, a top-drawer actor’s agent who was finishing up dinner with a woman in a cream-colored cashmere turtleneck sweater who happened to be the hottest, classiest young actress in New York, Merilee Nash. Merilee was six feet tall and utterly gorgeous, with long, shimmering golden hair combed back from a high forehead and mesmerizing green eyes.

I couldn’t stop staring into those green eyes.

Merilee couldn’t stop staring right back into my blue ones. “You’re Stewart Hoag,” she said in a husky voice.

“Yes, I know.”

“I loved your novel.”

“Thank you. Not that my opinion counts for much, but you’re not too terrible at the acting thing. Might want to consider doing it for a living.”

“I’ll do that,” Merilee said, her eyes remaining locked on mine. “The liver, bacon, and onions are exceptional tonight, but promise me you’ll order extra mashed potatoes to sop up every tasty bit.”

“I promise.”

“Do you keep your promises?"

“Always.”

Merilee and her dinner companion stopped by to say goodnight to us not long after Ezra and I had started in on our martinis. She wore a snug-fitting buckskin jacket over her turtleneck, even snugger-fitting faded jeans that did her mile-long legs absolutely no harm, and suede cowboy boots.

“It was a thrill to meet you,” she said to me. “I’m going straight home to write about you in my diary.”

“Do you really keep a diary?” I asked, getting lost in her green eyes again.

“No,” she confessed.

“So you just lied to me.”

“Yes.”

“Not exactly the ideal way to start a relationship, is it?”

She lowered her gaze so that she was looking at me through her eyelashes. I instantly felt myself shiver all over. “Is that what we’re doing?”

“I’m a writer, remember? I live in a fantasy world.”

“I envy you.” As she started away from our booth, she deftly slipped a piece of paper into my lap. I dared to dream it was her phone number.

And it was.

After dinner, Ezra asked me if I wanted to share a taxi uptown. I said I felt like walking a bit. As soon as we parted company I called her from a pay phone two doors down from the Cherry Lane Theatre, which was staging Sam Shepard’s True West starring John Malkovich and Gary Sinise.

The phone conversation was brief.

“Good tip on the extra mashed potatoes.”

“Where are you?”

“A pay phone on Commerce Street.”

“Oh, thank God. I’m a five-minute walk away on Charlton Street.” She gave me her street address. “Hurry, will you?”

It turned out that Merilee Nash lived in one of the precious, landmark Federal-style Charlton Street townhouses that had never been broken up into apartments. She was standing there waiting for me in the doorway at the top of the front steps, still wearing her cream-colored cashmere turtleneck and tight jeans.

“Did you buy this place when you struck gold in the Woody Allen movie?” I asked her. She’d won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.

“No, I grew up here. It’s my parents’ house. My father imports and exports minerals.”

“I suppose someone has to.”

“They’re away for the year in Buenos Aires, so I’m house-sitting, as it were.”

“So you’re a city kid?”

“Yeppers. Went to Brearley before they sent me off to Miss Porter’s School in Farmington to become a properly bred young lady. My mother went there. My grandmother went there. It’s a family tradition.”

“And are you a properly bred young lady?”

“Oh, heavens no. But I excel at fooling people.”

When I climbed the front steps and walked in the door, Merilee and I found ourselves staring at each other again. And staring.

“I’m so glad you’re tall,” she said. “That means I can wear heels.”

She waited until I closed the door before she impulsively kissed me. Passionately. I kissed her back. Passionately.

“Your perfume …” I gasped in between kisses. “It’s intoxicating.”

“It’s not perfume. It’s avocado oil soap.” She broke away, gazing at me. “If we’re not in bed 

 naked within two minutes, I’m going to consider this evening a complete failure.”

And that was how it all began between us, in case you’ve ever wondered. Not everyone’s definition of a traditional courtship, but looking back across the ups and downs of my past thirteen years with the great Merilee Nash, I can say with all honesty that absolutely nothing between us could possibly be described as traditional.

After three or four hours of truly remarkable wild monkey sex, she announced that we absolutely had to take a bubble bath, padded naked into the bathroom, and started filling the mammoth claw-footed tub.

“Your presence is requested in the master bathroom, young sir,” she called to me when it was full.

I joined her in the steaming hot tub, sighing contentedly. She turned off the hot and cold taps and settled herself at the other end of the tub with a contented sigh of her own, grinning at me as she rested her ankles on my shoulders. I kissed her toes one by one by one. She had ten. Still does. I kiss her toes whenever we take a bubble bath together. Some rituals are worth preserving.

“I don’t normally do this sort of thing,” she said, turning serious. “In fact, I’ve never done this sort of thing.”

“I know.”

“You do? How?”

“Because word travels fast in our circles. You’d have a reputation, and you don’t. You said you were house-sitting here. Where do you live when your folks aren’t in Buenos Aires?”

“Wherever my work takes me. Short-term rentals in the Hollywood Hills if I’m shooting a movie out there. Bozeman, Montana, if I’m on location. Chicago, if I’m doing experimental one-act plays with the Steppenwolf Company. A friend’s spare bedroom if I’m in a play here. I’m a vagabond. Back when I worked the old Keith-Orpheum circuit I lived out of a trunk. I’d do two shows a night and sleep on the midnight train to Ashtabula or whatever second-rate town our next stop was. I could pack that trunk so fast that they used to call me Ten-Minute Merilee.”

“Was this before or after you went straight from Yale Drama School to playing Juliet in the New York Shakespeare Company’s production of Romeo and Juliet in Central Park?”

She gave me a saucy smile. “And where do you live when you’re not ravaging innocent young actresses?”

“The same cheap fifth-floor walk-up on West Ninety-Third Street where I’ve lived ever since I moved here from Cambridge six years ago. I spent three of those years writing my novel. Another year finding a publisher and rewriting it. And I’ve been on tour promoting it for months.”

“Our water’s getting lukewarm. I could add more hot water, or we could dry each other off and get back into bed.”

“I like your second idea better.”

After we’d toweled each other dry I held her in my arms and kissed her softly, then not so softly, which led to us diving into bed for another round of wild monkey sex. We slept for a while after that, happily exhausted.

When I awakened, she was delivering two mugs of steaming hot coffee, dressed in a red

 red flannel nightshirt and heavy wool socks. The house was cold. There was a fireplace in the bedroom but no firewood. We snuggled together in the nice warm bed, gulping our coffee, which was good and strong, the way I like it.

“It’s Stafford, by the way,” I said.

“What is?”

“My middle name.”

“Mine’s Gilbert. Old family name. So tell me, Stewart Stafford Hoag, how much do you love your apartment?”

“It’s freezing in the winter, boiling in the summer, and the skylights leak whenever it rains. There’s not much to love, aside from the fact that the rent’s two hundred and twenty-five bucks a month. Actually, I’ve been thinking about making a major upgrade. I can afford to now.”

“How long would it take you to move in here instead?”

“An hour. I don’t need much besides my clothes, my typewriter, my pin that certifies me as a charter member of the Soupy Sales Society, and my Ramones albums. They’re on vinyl. Do you have a turntable?”

“Father does, yes. But there are two things about me that I should warn you about.”

“Okay …”

“I’ve always wanted a vintage British ragtop. I must have one.”

“No problem. I know a British writer whose cousin was a Formula One race car mechanic over there until he moved here to service and sell British sports cars to rich Wall Streeters. His garage is in Scarsdale. I can take the Metro North up there tomorrow and drive back in something you’ll be crazy about.”

She blinked at me. “You could actually do that?”

“If I say I can do something, I can do it.”

“There’s a secure twenty-four-hour garage around the corner where I can keep it. I’ll pay the first month’s rent later today.”

“You said there are two things. What’s the other?”

“I’ve always, I mean always, wanted a basset hound. A classmate of mine at Miss Porter’s, Annie Richards, breeds them on her family’s farm outside of Rhinebeck. My puppy, Princess Flavia, is thirteen weeks old now and—”

“I take it Annie is a fan of Sir Anthony Hope’s The Prisoner of Zenda.”

“Good guess.”

“I never guess.”

“I’ll be able to pick her up in my new ragtop. I’ve already made an appointment with a vet in SoHo so she can get her rabies and distemper shots, tags, license, and so on. Would you mind living with a basset hound puppy?”

Living with a yappy, slobbering, non-housebroken puppy wasn’t exactly my idea of heaven, but I was so besotted by this gorgeous, gifted woman that there was absolutely no way I was saying no. “I don’t see that as a deal-breaker.”

“Good. And, just to set your mind at ease, I’m not sold on the name Princess Flavia. It seems a bit precious. We can decide on a new one.”

“So there’s a ‘we’?”

“Darling, there’s been a ‘we’ since we first set eyes on each other. I don’t have to tell you that, do I?”

I smiled at her. “No, you don’t.”

I put the clothes that I’d been wearing last evening back on and caught a cab uptown to start packing. After I’d put an old navy-blue turtleneck sweater on over a Sex Pistols T-shirt, torn jeans, and my Chuck Taylor All Stars black high-tops, I phoned my agent, Alberta Pryce, better known as the Silver Fox, to tell her I was moving in with someone.

“Well, this is exciting news, dear boy. I didn’t know you’ve been seeing someone.”

“I haven’t been.”

“How long have you known her?”

“Since last night.”

“Kind of sudden, isn’t it?”

“Doesn’t seem like it to us.”

“What’s this lucky young woman’s name?”

“Merilee.”

“Merilee … Merilee … Oh, God, don’t tell me you and Merilee Nash have collided like two taxicabs and fallen instantly in love.”

“Okay, I won’t.”

“Hoagy?”

“Yes, Alberta?”

“I’m unbelievably happy for you.”

Then I got busy. I had two large suitcases and two garment bags. I’d amassed a hell of a lot more of a wardrobe than I’d realized, but I could leave my spring and summer wardrobe behind for now. I’d continue paying rent for the time being. After all, I had my huge collection of books and childhood memorabilia here. My suits, blazers, slacks, trench coat, and shearling coat filled the garment bags. I filled the two suitcases with dress shirts, sweaters, jeans, and some of my shoes. But there was still a lot left that I would need. Clearly, this was going to take two trips.

I put on my 1933 Werber A-2 flight jacket and horsed the suitcases and garment bags down the five flights of stairs. Caught a cab on West End and directed him to my new home on Charlton Street.

I unlocked the door with my very own key and heard Merilee making noises upstairs.

“Honey, I’m home!” I called out, as I made my way up the narrow stairs with my garment bags.

“I’m up here,” she called back. “In my old room.”

I huffed and puffed and went up one more flight from the master bedroom, where I found Merilee busy making closet space and clearing out drawers. She was wearing an old flannel shirt and jeans and had her waist-length golden hair tied up in a bun.

“These old houses have such small closets that I thought we’d put your things in here, since this will be your office.” She helped me hang my garment bags in the closet. “You can keep your typewriter here. This will be your space. The master bedroom will be our space. Does that make sense?”

“Perfect sense.” I went back downstairs and returned with my suitcases.

“I’ve called the phone company and they’re going to install a second line for you. You can have

 your own phone in here and the kitchen phone will have both lines on it.”

“I should warn you that the phone company isn’t exactly known as a rapid response team. It may take them weeks.”

“As soon as I gave the installation person my name, he assured me it would be done this afternoon.”

I grinned at her. “Sometimes I forget who I’m talking to.”

She threw herself into my arms and kissed me. “Did I tell you how much I missed you while you were gone?”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Well, I did.”

“Prepare yourself, because I have to make another trip.”

She tilted her head, inspecting me with her mesmerizing green eyes. “This is the first time I’ve seen you dressed in jeans and an old sweater. And I love your antique motorcycle jacket.”

“Flight jacket, actually. I bought it in Provincetown the summer before my junior year at Harvard. And just in case you thought I was pulling your leg …” I turned back the collar to show her the pin that identified me as a charter member of the Soupy Sales Society.

“I never thought you were pulling my leg. But you’re welcome to any time you want, handsome.”

Except for right now, because someone was pounding on the front door downstairs.

“Ah, that must be our firewood delivery,” she said. “I haven’t made a fire yet this season and was completely out.”

She hurried downstairs to let the firewood men in while I dumped the contents of my suitcases on her bed so that I could make my second trip up to West Ninety-third Street. As I made my way downstairs, empty bags in hand, one husky, bearded young guy was depositing a stack of wood next to the fireplace in the master bedroom while the other was making a larger stack in the living room.

“Whatever’s left can go down in the cellar,” Merilee instructed him.

“Will do, Miss Nash,” he assured her.

“Off I go,” I called to her as I started for the front door.

“Wait a sec …” She joined me in the entry hall. “Do you want to go out for dinner tonight or just snuggle in front of the fire, eat bread and cheese, drink wine, and kiss ourselves silly? Which reminds me, what’s your favorite kind of wine? I hope it’s red, because I can’t stand white unless it’s of the bubbly variety and even that has to be dry, dry, dry…” She peered at me. “You look poleaxed. Am I overwhelming you?”

“Nooo, I just didn’t realize you were such a juggernaut.”

“I’m not usually like this. But it’s been ages and ages since I’ve been this madly in love. In fact, I’m not sure I ever have been.”

I stroked her face. “That makes two of us, blondie. And it’s Chianti Classico.”

“Good answer.”

I carried my empty bags out the door and caught a cab back to my place. On my return trip I threw open my dresser drawers and dumped my flannel shirts, T-shirts, socks, boxer shorts, ties, and cuff links into one of the suitcases and carefully nestled in a selection of a dozen albums that I can’t live without. I stowed some more shoes in my Il Bisonte weekend bag along with my shaving kit. I fastened my solid steel 1958 Olympia portable

into its carrying case. That left only what I needed from my desk, which I tucked into my battered soft leather briefcase along with Waiting for Winter, the collection of John O’Hara short stories and novellas that I read every few years just to remind myself what good writing is.

Then I stood there in the middle of my tiny living room, took a deep breath and allowed the insanity of what was happening to sink in. Merilee and I had known each other for less than twenty-four hours. Possibly the way we felt about each other right now would burn itself out in a matter of days, and I’d be dying to get far, far away from her, no matter how gorgeous, gifted, sharp-witted, ...