Lamentation

by Joe Clifford

  It wasn’t yet eleven o’clock. I had no work for the foreseeable future, which meant I finally had the chance to do all the shit I’d been complaining about not having the time to do. Only, I couldn’t think of a damned thing.

  I didn’t feel like going back to my shithole apartment and being alone, watching the same DVDs I’d already seen half a dozen times and drinking beer until it was time for a nap, so I called up Charlie, even though I knew there wasn’t a chance in hell he’d be out of bed yet. For Charlie, Friday nights meant tying one on in order to forget another soul-sucking week working for the phone company. He’d be passed out till three, at least. He didn’t pick up. I headed there anyway.

  I’d known Charlie since elementary school, and when I’d come back from Concord for the weekends, I’d often stay at his house, which he inherited from his mother after she’d died of cancer his senior year. I didn’t understand how he could still live there. Even if the bank hadn’t swooped in and snatched our house, I doubted I could’ve stayed long. It felt weird roaming the same rooms where people you cared about, but who now were gone, had once called your name.

  A split-level on over an acre and a half of land, Charlie’s place was before the foothills in the low-lying plains that stretched for miles, countryside awash in a sea of white and spired evergreens. His mom’s old red Subaru was still parked in front of the garage, tires deflated, shell coated in grime and tree sap. Flowerbeds, long left untended, were now overrun with brush and bramble, buried beneath fallen limbs from the storm.

  I rapped on the aluminum frame of the screen door. Doorbell hadn’t worked in years. No answer. I pounded with the ball of my fist. When Charlie crashed, he crashed hard.

  I knew he was home. His repair van was parked drunkenly beside the grounded riding mower that he’d given up on fixing. Last night he’d asked me to stop by the Dubliner, the pub along East Main where he played in a dart league, the primary social activity in his life. I might’ve done so had it not been for Chris. Probably not, though. I didn’t have much patience for the bar scene any more. I preferred to drink my beer alone, without being subjected to the inane banter of idiots. The girls who went to the Dubliner kept getting younger and easier, which sounds good on the surface, except that I didn’t give a damn about singing competitions or vampires, and it got depressing after a while, pretty heads full of rocks.

  Even when I’d pick up a girl, winning was still losing. After a regrettable night of pissing away money on some dopey girl I didn’t even like, I’d wake up in a hungover fog, having forgotten who was in my bed. When I’d roll over and see that it wasn’t Jenny, my heart would break all over again.

  “What time is it?” Charlie asked, shielding his eyes from the harsh morning glare.

  “Almost eleven.”

  “Jesus Christ. I was sleeping.”

  “Try waking at a normal hour.”

  His head looked like it’d been trampled by the business end of a harvester, deep pillow marks grooved into his puffy face, the kind you get from passing out and remaining in the same position for hours. He whisked me inside and then shut the door, sealing us in musty darkness.

  Charlie hadn’t redecorated since his mom died, and the house retained that old-lady feel, all décor left over from the 1970s—paisley print sofas and wagon-wheel coffee tables, shitty paintings that you could buy for a quarter at any garage sale up here, because at one time or another every retiree in New Hampshire tries their hand at painting. The spice rack that hung by the sink housed herbs that had to be at least thirty years old. Don’t know why he needed spices. Charlie didn’t cook.

  Charlie scratched his naked, pink belly, which slung over his gray sweats like a jumbo canned ham, before retying the drawstring, as if that would make a difference. He’d started to inherit that classic drunkard’s face, where the head seems to swell a bit, pulling back roots at the temple, nose blossoming, complexion permanently rosy, entire visage swollen like a bad allergic reaction. Charlie used to be a good-looking guy, but he was seriously slipping.

  Still not fully awake, Charlie dragged his bare feet to the cupboards, swatting aside bags of chips and packages of cookies, other junk foods, searching for the coffee tin. “Where were you last night?”

  I sat at the kitchen table and lit a cigarette. “Had to pick up my brother from the police station.”

  “What’d he do this time?”

  “Does it matter?” I rearranged the salt and pepper shakers, fingered the saucer he used for an ashtray. “Jenny and Aiden are moving to Rutland.”

  “Vermont? When?” Charlie filled a pot under the faucet.

  “Soon as Brody finds a house.”

  Charlie chuckled as he sifted coffee grounds. “I wouldn’t sweat it. That dipshit couldn’t find his own ass with both hands.”

  “Supposedly he’s got this manager’s gig waiting for him down there. Foreman position. Been in the works a while, I think.”

  “I’ll believe it when I see it.” Charlie flipped the switch. The rich smells of brewing coffee wafted over the small room. “Either way, you’ve got plenty of time.” He dug out the sugar, spooned some into a bowl. “Can’t buy a house overnight. Gotta get a loan. There’s a mortgage and pre-approval, realtors, banks, short sales, foreclosures, haggling on a price. It takes a long time, man. Fisher’s going through it right now, trying to sell his mother’s house.”

  “Fisher’s back?”

  “No. Still lives in Concord. Just up here helping with the sale. Taking forever.” Charlie leaned against the counter. “If they haven’t even started looking yet, could be a year or more.”

  “But it’s going to happen,” I said. “Eventually. Even if it’s a year or more, it’s still going to happen.”

  “This was your problem back in high school,” Charlie said. “You undersell yourself.”

  “We didn’t go to high school together.”

  “Like you weren’t back every weekend. Man, you never left this place.” Charlie winked. “But you should’ve.”

  “And gone where?”

  “You were the smartest guy I knew,” Charlie said. “You read actual books, took school serious, got good grades. And you were creative too. Remember that story you wrote? The one about your parents going on vacation and leaving you with your brother, and he locked you under the porch with nothing to eat but spiders?”

  “I was goofing around.”

  “It was funny as hell. You gave me that story up at the reservoir, and in the fall I passed it around to everyone in class. We busted our guts over it. You could’ve been an author or something. Nobody thought up shit like you did. You had talent. Could’ve gone to college, somewhere far from here. California or whatever.”

  “That isn’t how it works. You need parents to foot the bill. Or else be able to shoot a ball through a hoop.”

  “How would you know? You never even took the shot.” Charlie wrinkled his nose. “You’re sweating a joker like Brody? There are a million guys like Brody.” Charlie pointed at me. “There’s only one Jay Porter.”

  The coffee finished percolating, and Charlie filled two mugs. He set them down with the sugar in front of me, then grabbed a carton of milk from the fridge, sniffed it, decided it didn’t smell too bad, and joined me at the table. He swiped a cigarette from my pack and perched an elbow over the back of the chair, digging around his craw for whatever he had stuck in his molars.

  I dumped in some sugar and milk and stirred.

  “We both know why you came back,” Charlie said, scratching the thinning curls of his kinky hair. “Why you couldn’t leave. I don’t have any brothers or sisters, so feel free to tell me I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about.”

  “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”

  Charlie grinned. “The sooner you cut bait with your brother, the better your life is gonna get. Don’t get me wrong. I like the guy. He’s always been cool with me. He’s just, I’m sorry, man, a lost cause, dead weight.”

>   “Last night was the first time I’ve seen my brother in almost six months,” I said.

  “Ain’t no ‘almost.’ You know exactly when you seen him last.”

  It had been five months and thirteen days. But I knew that only because Chris had come by begging for money on his birthday, like junkies are entitled to get high on their birthdays. We’d had this huge fight, which ended with him screaming outside my window, “But it’s my birthday!”

  “I’d rather talk about Jenny right now,” I said.

  Charlie flashed a quizzical look. “I thought we were.”

  My cell buzzed on the table. A number I didn’t recognize. Normally, I wouldn’t take the call. But given recent developments, I held up a finger and answered.

  “I need it back.” It was a man’s voice, though not a very assured one. He sounded pretty young, in fact.

  “Need what back?” I asked.

  “I need it back,” he repeated, a little more desperately this time.

  Charlie eyed me from across the table.

  “I think you have the wrong—”

  “I dropped off a computer the other day. By mistake. But I want—I need to get it back.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Please,” the man begged. “I have money. I’ll pay you.” He sounded as if he was on the verge of tears.

  “How’d you get this number?” An incoming call was waiting. “Hold on,” I said, and switched over. “Hello?”

  “Jay. It’s me. Turley.”

  “Christ, Turley. What do you want now?”

  “We have a problem.”

  “Wrong,” I said. “You have a problem. I told you, I don’t know where this guy Pete is. I’m not doing your job for you.”

  “Jay, they found Pete Naginis’ body behind the Travel Center Truck Stop about an hour ago. His neck’s been broken. There’s an APB out for your brother.”

  “Hold on, Turley.”

  I switched over to the other line. It was dead.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Three squad cars, about half of Ashton’s entire fleet, were parked helters-kelter beside an ambulance with its rear doors flung open at the far end of the Travel Center lot where the semis regularly lined up and rested for the night. Currently, there were half a dozen tractor-trailers stacked up there, nose to bumper, drivers either still asleep in their cabs or else stocking up inside before heading back out on the trail.

  The sprawling facility had every accessory and accommodation for a trucker’s needs. Showers, laundry machines. There was a convenience store and a restaurant, the Peachtree, with the Maple Motor Inn a skip away, in case a driver needed more room to stretch out or whatever.

  We parked my Chevy in front the Peachtree. We couldn’t get much closer, what with the crime scene tape and gaggle of onlookers that had assembled. Walking toward the scene, Charlie, who’d insisted on coming along, cinched the furred hood of his parka tighter, as I tried to fathom what this would mean for my brother.

  The TC was right off the Turnpike, a busy thoroughfare for deliveries from southern New England up to Canada. It actually was a straighter shot than the I-93, and frequently less congested, making it the preferred route for many long-haul drivers. The Turnpike was barely within Ashton’s city limits, just clipping its northeastern tip. Given the TC’s scandalous reputation, there had been periodic squawking about shutting it down. But since so many local factories and mills had gone under in recent years, the Travel Center provided one of the few consistent revenue streams for the town, and so any chatter of closing it eventually died off. Most chose to ignore its existence. Out of sight, out of mind. The TC was Ashton’s dirty secret, a small town’s red-light district. Which was fine, as long as the riffraff remained out of sight. Who really gave a shit about a trucker getting a blow job from a toothless junkie? Live free or die, man. But a murder, even of a scumbag drug addict, was bound to incite an uproar.

  Plowed snow clustered around lampposts, towering twelve, fifteen feet high, like mammoth mounds of mashed potatoes. Earsplitting noise assaulted on all fronts as traffic flew past on the Turnpike, and countless industrial-sized laundry and dishwashing machines whirred and buzzed.

  Through the glut of cops, EMTs, reporters, and gawking rubberneckers, I spotted Sheriff Pat Sumner standing in the middle of the crime scene. A little old man, he’d been sheriff up here since before I was born. He tapped Turley, who turned and made his way toward us, pushing through the fracas, gleefully waving a hand over his head.

  “Charlie Finn,” Turley called out with a big goofy grin, like a nerd trying to sniff himself into a jock’s good graces. “Been a while. Where you been hiding?”

  Charlie thumbed over his shoulder. “I live five miles down the road. Same house I grew up in.”

  Turley’s face pinched and he squinched one eye, scratching his furry, Chia Pet head. “How come I never see you?”

  “I don’t know, Turley. Have you been looking?”

  “Good point, Charlie,” Turley said with a laugh. “Good point.”

  “What’s up?” I said.

  “Not good, Jay.” Turley turned sideways, pointing to a line of skinny, bare birches at the back end of a blue brick building that was tagged with graffiti and cordoned off with yellow police tape. “Waitress went out for a smoke, found the body in the wastewater runoff. Ligature marks—that means he was strangled—face bashed in pretty good. Neck been broke.”

  “So, why are you looking for my brother?”

  Even Charlie seemed taken aback by my question. I recognized how ridiculous it sounded. Of course they’d be looking for him. But I also knew that Chris couldn’t have done this in a million years.

  “Um,” Turley stammered. “Just need to talk to him, is all.”

  “I don’t know where he is.”

  Eighteen wheels rumbled over the snow-packed asphalt, an endless parade of trucks downshifting, chugging, rumbling bellies of braking semis belching diesel fumes into the lot. Hard gusts raced over the peaks of Lamentation Mountain, swooping down brae to brow. Whipping through tightly crowded, manmade spaces, flecks of snow and tiny ice chips kicked up and stung exposed skin. I blew on my hands, red and raw.

  “You need to try to find him,” Turley said. “There’s a lot of pressure coming from on high.”

  “On high?” repeated Charlie. “What are you talking about? You got a police force of what, half a dozen?”

  “That’s the thing,” Turley said, inching closer, peering back at a man in a suit.

  Crisp overcoat, leather gloves, glistening shoes. The man stood talking to Sheriff Sumner and a deputy, Ollie Gibson, scribbling something down. It’s funny, when you spend your whole life in a small town, people who don’t belong stand out like ten-foot aliens belting show tunes.

  “Came up from the city,” Turley said. “Detective.”

  “Why is a Concord detective up here investigating a dead junkie behind a truck stop?” I asked.

  Turley shrugged.

  The detective briefly glanced my way. Aromas from the crappy fried food they served in the Peachtree drifted over, mixing with the cigarette smoke and diesel emissions; it smelled nauseous.

  I gestured toward the detective, who’d already returned to jotting notes. “Is he going to want to talk to me?”

  “Eventually, I guess,” Turley said. He looked me squarely in the eyes. “I’m granting you a courtesy.”

  “A courtesy?”

  “Yeah,” Turley said, testily. “A courtesy. A favor. Now do yourself a favor. Find Chris. Get him to come down on his own so we can straighten this out. I don’t know why they sent a detective all the way from Concord. But you’re right. It’s weird. The drug shit must really be getting folks riled up. Last thing Michael Lombardi’s campaign needs is a drug-related murder in his hometown.” Anticipating what I was about to say next, Turley quickly added, “No one is saying Chris is guilty of anything. But Naginis was killed. And your brother was heard making threats. It’s hardly a leap.” Turley l
ooked me dead on. “I know what you think of me, Jay. I’m not stupid. But I’m doing you a solid here. I hope you see that.” He thumbed back at the scene and the Concord detective. “That guy isn’t messing around. He’s treating this like a big deal investigation. I don’t think you want us finding your brother first.”

  “That was fucking weird,” Charlie said as we pulled away from the TC.

  I fiddled with the knob, trying to dial in some music, news, sports, car talk—anything to put noise between my racing thoughts and the ramifications. Nothing but static, frequencies jammed, signals lost almost immediately.

  “What did he mean by that last part?” Charlie asked. “‘You don’t want us finding him first’—what the hell?”

  “Turley’s watched too many cop shows, I think.”

  Charlie chuckled, but it wasn’t funny, and neither of us thought Turley had been blowing smoke. I considered Turley a self-aggrandizing jackass when it came to most things law enforcement, but this was for real. As much as I wanted to dismiss his warning as chest puffing, I couldn’t. Chris had really fucked up this time. I knew my brother didn’t kill Pete; he didn’t have that kind of violence in him. But what he could do was to seriously make a mess of things. He’d made a career of it. And this was a perfect shit-storm: the wrong thing said at the wrong time, heard by the wrong person, and aided by the worst possible circumstances. My brother had threatened to kill a dead man. I needed to find him before I was powerless to help him.