Fishermen's Court

by Andrew Wolfendon

  . . . . .

  I watch from a behind a row of dripping beach-plum bushes as the men approach the rusty old Quonset-hut-style building with the peeling, painted sign, “Musqasset Public Works.” There’s a walk-in door to the right of a large garage door. Trooper Dan—if it really is him—looks around, then jiggles his hand on the knob for several seconds, using either a badly cut key or a lock pick. The two men go inside.

  There seems to be only one window on the building—to the left of the garage door. I want to sneak up and peek in, but, of course, that would be imprudent. I decide to creep around to the rear of the barn and see if there’s any way to look in from the back.

  Untrimmed foliage presses in on both sides of the barn. (The maintenance building, as always, is the one place in town that never gets maintained.) I need to be careful, as I pick my way through the wet bramble, not to jostle any branches that might scrape or brush against the sheet-metal wall, giving me away.

  I’m halfway to the rear of the building when a shockingly loud buzzer alarm goes off, making me literally jump off the ground. I spin about in panic, expecting to be gang-tackled, but then I realize the sound is not a burglar alarm but the building’s ancient motorized garage door. The sheet metal walls are further amplifying the crazily loud, oil-thirsty, metallic grinding sound.

  I dash back through the brush till I’m near the front of the building again. The unbelievably loud garage door is still on its glacial upward journey. I wait for it to finish. Finally, blessed silence reigns. The door is open wide. I listen for sounds of the men inside. Nothing.

  I wait a minute longer. Still no sounds. The men must be in there—where else could they have gone? From deep within the structure I can hear the slow, steady drip of water from a leaky roof onto a plastic tarp. But all else seems still.

  Maybe the place has an inner room the men have entered. I slink up to the building and crane my neck around the garage-door frame, taking in a small section of the interior. I gradually increase my angle till I’m able to look fully into the open space. No signs of life.

  I do see a pickup truck, parked beside a huge pile of road sand in the middle of a dirt floor. Arrayed around the perimeter of the room is the typical assortment of landscaping tools and snow removal equipment you’d expect to find in any small-town New England maintenance garage. I spot an area in the far left corner of the room that’s set up like an office, with a desk, an old computer, and some file cabinets. Deserted.

  Where could the men have gone? I saw them enter—and they just opened the garage door.

  Dare I risk stepping inside? If the men are staying this quiet, they probably know I followed them and are hiding in the shadows, waiting for me.

  I still have the blackjack in my pocket. I take it out and swing it around a few times. Emboldened, I enter the large, open space, keeping my weapon in constant motion.

  Still no sign of humans.

  I’m about to shout, “Come out and show yourselves”—that one works about as well as “Come back, thief”—but some vestigial trace of intelligence keeps my lips sealed.

  I slink around the pickup truck and sand pile. No one’s lurking on the other side. Plenty of hiding spots around the room’s perimeter, though, in amongst the plow attachments and road signs. I notice a lopper hanging on the wall, along with some other pruning tools. Instantly my throat goes dry and my feet gain weight.

  I take a few steps closer to the “office” area. That’s when my eyes catch sight of a back door—a small one sheathed in galvanized tin. Leading to where? It’s all wild woods out behind the barn, I think. Is that where the men went? Out back?

  As I tiptoe closer to the door, I see its lever-style handle turn clockwise. Fuck!

  I dive for cover behind the desk. The back door opens and then closes again, and I hear the sound of feet striding purposefully through the garage.

  A few muffled words are exchanged, then that monstrously loud grinding sound hammers down again, making me jump halfway out of my skin. The garage door is closing!

  As the big door slowly comes down, daylight is eclipsed and the room is plunged into blackness. Beautiful. Now I’m locked in here with Davy Grey and company. I walked right into their trap. Somehow I’ve pivoted back to being prey again.

  A minute passes in the dark. Two. Three.

  Not a peep from anywhere.

  Is it possible they didn’t see me follow them inside and they’ve simply gone away, closing the garage door behind them on their way out? Is the pickup truck still there? I’m debating whether to chance a peek with my flashlight app when my phone rings, shattering the silence.

  Shit! I bolt toward where I think the back door is, about fifteen feet away. My hand fumbles sightlessly for the door handle and snags it first try. I thrust the door open and dive through it into the daylight, slamming the door behind me with bone-crushing force.

  I hit the ground rolling, in a patch of grassy gravel, and then spring to my feet, already in a full run. I see I’m in a little penned-in area with a propane tank, some gasoline cans, and some rusted engine parts. I think I hear running feet behind me. I hurdle the four-foot-high chain-link fence cleanly and plunge into the wet growth beyond it.

  I plummet through the brush, snapping branches and scratching my hands and face on thorny blackberry bushes as I go. My phone’s still ringing, but I ignore it.

  I run, run, run through the wild woods.

  It takes me several long, hushed stops to conclude no one is pursuing me.

  . . . . .

  After recovering Danny’s slicker from where I stashed it, I creep up on Jeannie’s house from the rear. I’ve taken the woodland route to her place so as to avoid attention.

  I shouldn’t have come here, I know; it’s far too risky. For me, for Jeannie. But I need a dry shelter to get my bearings and use the Internet, and I don’t know where else to go.

  It feels invasive to enter Jean’s house without her here. Of course, it used to be my house too, but it no longer carries my energy.

  After peering out the windows in all directions and closing the shades, the first thing I do is strip off my sopping-wet clothes and toss them into the dryer, then wrap a towel around my waist. Getting semi-naked in Jean’s house feels like a creepy thing to do, but I have no choice.

  I need to get my business done as quickly as possible and get out of here.

  For a minute I can’t remember where the dialup modem is, and then I find it on the desk in the living room. I peek out a couple of windows again—no signs of company yet—then plug the modem’s cable into my borrowed laptop.

  I’m about to try to get online when my phone rings again, flooding my nerves with adrenaline. Angie. I see it was her who called while I was in the town barn, too. It’s after eleven a.m.; I guess she’s up and semi-conscious by now. I tap the Answer icon, and the call seems to come through, then disconnects. Here we go again. Cell service is still frigged.

  I do need to talk to Angie, though, I realize. For reasons of my own. May as well do it now. Luckily, I have Jeannie’s landline at my disposal. I dial Angie’s number on it.

  I need to handle this call carefully. My sister is acting bristly about my questioning, and now I have an even more bristle-inducing question to ask her.

  “Jeannie?” croaks Angie; her first vocalization of the day. Her caller ID must be showing Jeannie’s number. “What’s up?”

  “No, it’s Finn.”

  “Finn? What are you—I’ve been trying your cell.” Yeah, thanks for that, sis. “Hey listen, did I call you last night? If so, forget it. It was nothing.” Ah, the Angie Saturday Morning Soft-Shoe: who did I drunk-dial last night and what did I say?

 
; “Ange, I need to ask you a question, and it might seem weird.”

  A beat passes. “Does this have to do with all that skeevy crap you’ve been poking into? I told you, no more help with that until you tell me why you’re so interested.”

  “Why do you care what my interest is?” I ask, flipping the question on her. “Why are you acting so touchy about this?”

  Silence. I can feel dark energy massing at the other end of the line.

  “Angie? Why?”

  She finally blurts out, “Because you and I both know this is not a random, innocent line of questioning!”

  Ah, there it is. On the table at last.

  “Well, clearly it’s not random to you,” I say. “You seem to have something on your mind. Why don’t you tell me what it is?”

  “No, no, no. I asked you first. Why are you poking into ancient history?”

  “Why do you care?”

  “Why the poking, Finn?”

  “Why the concern?”

  Mexican standoff. She emits a protracted sigh. “Just ask your damn question.”

  “When I left for California after my graduation...” Angie is three years younger than me. She was still living at home when I blew town for the West Coast. “Did the police ever come by and question Dad about anything?”

  She doesn’t answer right away. Her silence is a yes.

  “Like what?” she asks at last.

  “Like anything? Like a bottle of booze he might have bought with a credit card?”

  More silence.

  It was my father, you see, who bought that bottle of Glenmalloch for me before my graduation. I was a few months shy of twenty-one, and he knew the bottle was a gift for Miles, who was twenty-one at the time, so it was hardly a shocker that he would consent to buy for me.

  What is surprising is that the police questioned him about it. And that he never told me.

  “What did they ask him? What did he say?”

  Again I wait for an answer.

  “I really would like to know what this is about,” she says.

  “Angie, come on.”

  “Fine! They asked him if he bought some high-priced scotch, some Glen-whatever-the-bonnie-fuck. He said he did. They asked him where the bottle was. ‘It’s off being recycled into a dozen aspirin bottles,’ he said, ‘which was exactly what I needed by the time I finished the scotch.’”

  “Why would he say that?” I ask her.

  “Um, because he was being Dad?”

  “I mean, when did you ever know Dad to drink hundred-dollar-a-bottle scotch?”

  “How do you know it was hund—?

  “Because he bought that scotch for me, Ange.”

  She says nothing for a long count, then blows out a breath. “I know.”

  “Then why were you pretending you didn’t? And why did Dad lie to the police?”

  “For the obvious reason, I assume. You weren’t twenty-one yet. Buying for you was illegal.”

  “Uh-huh. Does that sound like Dad to you? Lying to the cops to protect himself from a minor misdemeanor charge no judge in the world would convict him on?”

  More silence from Angie.

  “Angie, does it? Does that sound like Dad?”

  “You weren’t here, Finn! That’s what happened and I don’t want to talk about it!”

  Angie hangs up. A moment later my intuition whispers another question—seemingly out of left field—that I want to ask her. But I know if I call her back now, she won’t pick up.

  Angie often responds better to texts than calls. I know my cell isn’t working for voice calls, but it might be working for texts. I type into the message box: One more question, then I’ll leave you alone: Did Edgar Goslin ever approach Dad? I hit Send. It seems to go through.

  While awaiting a reply, I make another circuit of Jeannie’s house, peeking out the shades. Coast still clear outside, as far as I can tell.

  A reply text from Ange comes through in screaming caps: YOU OBVIOUSLY KNOW THE FUCKING ANSWER SO WHY ARE YOU ASKING ME?!!!

  The truth is, I didn’t know, but now I do. Edgar Goslin did talk to my dad. Holy crap. So Goslin does know something that connects me to the accident. But how? And what did he say to my father?

  My cell phone pings another text message.

  Two emojis. Two dead fish. And an exclamation point.

  In the “from” space at the top of the screen I see a mishmash of numbers that don’t even look like a phone number. And then, once again, the message disappears from the screen as if it had never arrived.

  Chapter 24

  I’m wearing dry clothes again and pacing Jeannie’s floor like a tin shark in a shooting gallery. My brain is overheating, trying to synthesize all the information I’ve been bombarded with—about my father, Goslin, Angie, and the twisted tale of the scotch bottle—and make sense of it. It’s all interconnected. But I can’t see the invisible thread stitching it together.

  I need to keep moving, keep pushing forward. Like a real shark, not a tin one. That’s all I can do. That means trying to talk to Goslin, as I was planning to do earlier. In fact, my exchange with Angie has doubled my incentive to find out what he knows.

  Turning my attention to my borrowed laptop, I attempt to go online, using Jeannie’s pre-Cambrian dialup service. It’s like traveling back in time to hear the phone modem kick to life and do that scratchy-sounding “handshake” that was the soundtrack of the nineties.

  I grow a full beard waiting for the linkup to happen. And then... hallelujah, connected at last. The web browser creaks open. I navigate to Sure Search, a top-rated people-finding and background search site. It lets me do a trial search for Edgar Goslin of Wentworth, Massachusetts. The site tells me it has located some information on Goslin, but, of course, it won’t part with that info till I cough up sixteen magical digits and an expiration date. I choose the Premium Passkey membership, pay the fee, and wait to see what pops up.

  And wait. And wait.

  A webpage appears, piecemeal—“Search Results for Edgar Goslin.”

  In the “Contact Info” section, I spot what I’m looking for: Goslin’s phone number. I hope it’s current. Under “Known Associates,” I see a couple of other Goslins. I also see a Sam Kubiak, a John Woodcock, a Frank Torrissi, a Gary Abelsen, a Theo Abelsen, and a Priscilla Begley. The Gary Abelsen connection snares my attention. Does this mean Goslin and Moneybags Abelsen associated with one another after the accident, or is the software linking their names simply because they’ve appeared in the same news articles?

  As a duly authorized Premium Passkey holder—yes sir, that’s me—I’m entitled to search as many people as I want (for thirty days). I decide to look up Abelsen. I find his current address listed as a place called Neighbors Village, which turns out to be a high-end assisted living program. I call the place on Jean’s landline and ask to speak to him. I expect to be given the runaround due to HIPAA regulations, but I easily find out he’s living in the Memory Care unit. Gary Abelsen is an Alzheimer’s patient. Another dead end.

  Time to try calling Goslin. Of course, if he is involved in all this, he’s not going to just blurt out the truth to me. I need an angle. Wish I had Miles to bounce ideas off.

  So what do I know about Goslin anyway? Precious freaking little. From what Miles and I have been able to gather, though, he seems like a real charmer. My instinct says he’ll react aggressively to any approach that even hints of prying or pressuring. Maybe, though, if I massage his ego and offer him something of value...

  I quickly compose a talking script and pick up the phone. Not wanting Jeannie’s l
andline to be identified, I key in the “block caller ID” code, then dial the number Sure Search provided.

  Goslin’s voicemail picks up. His “greeting” is a gruff “Goslin, leave a message,” with no attempt to sound even remotely civil.

  I’ve prepped myself in case of voicemail: “Hello, Mr. Goslin, sir, I’m calling on behalf of a group of… ‘investors’ who would be grateful for the opportunity to speak with you confidentially.” I’m giving it the John Malkovitch treatment; genteel but quietly deadly. “We understand you may have certain information regarding an incident that took place in 1999, information that has eluded the police. We have reason to believe this information might be valuable to us, and we may be willing to compensate you generously for it. Please call us back at your earliest convenience, sir. Ask for a Mr. Slade.”

  I don’t want to leave Jeannie’s number as the callback. I need to keep her out of this. I can’t leave my cell number, either. My cell isn’t working correctly—but also, if Goslin is involved in this, he might recognize my cell number. I have a work number that forwards to my cell, so I leave that as the callback. Then I quickly take the steps to have all calls to the work number forwarded to Jeannie’s landline instead.

  Barely a minute passes before Jeannie’s phone rings.

  “Hello?” I answer neutrally. It might for Jeannie, after all.

  A woman’s voice—seasoned by ten thousand packs of Winstons—replies in a “Nawthshaw” Massachusetts accent, “Lemme talk to this Mr. ‘Slade.’” She pronounces it “Swade” and says it in quotes as if she knows it’s fake.

  “Speaking, Madam.”

  “Yeah, so what do you need to talk to Edgar about?”