The Cure

by Athol Dickson

  “Ya ever change out one of these?” asked Dylan.

  Riley said, “I replaced the kitchen faucet once.” He remembered Hope coming home with the faucet from the hardware store, and the box sitting untouched on the floor for at least a month, and him finally shamed into installing it when he saw her under the sink trying to do it herself, and him forgetting to turn the water off, although the valves were right there in plain sight, and water going everywhere and Hope laughing and him getting mad instead of laughing with her.

  “Maybe we can figure this out between the two of us, ya think?” said Dylan.

  Riley wondered if the man was talking about plumbing. He thought, if I could figure it out, do you think you’d be standing here? But he ended up handing tools to the lobsterman and watching silently as Hope’s lover worked quickly and efficiently, and in less than fifteen minutes the old tank was drained and ready to move without a word spoken between them about Hope.

  Riley could not help but ask, “So, things are bad in town?”

  “Guess ya haven’t been back long enough to see all the closed-up shops.”

  Riley had not noticed. “How come they’re closing?”

  “Lotta reasons. Bowditch shut down their engineerin’ school, for one, so that cut back on the students in town. And they opened a new indoor mall over near Rockland. Lotta folks drivin’ over there now for their shoppin’. And the last year or so we’ve had these street people showing up for some reason. Not that many at first, but lately it seems like they’re everywhere. Scarin’ people off, I’m tellin’ ya.”

  “There must be something you can do.”

  “We could fix up town real nice like they did in Cambridge. New sidewalks and streetlights and a gazebo in the park, maybe build a pleasure-boat marina in the harbor. Stuff like that brings in the tourists and antique shops and whatnot. But there’s no money for it, ‘specially with all these businesses closin’.”

  “They can’t blame Hope for that.”

  “They do anyway. You oughta hear the abuse she has ta take at town-hall meetin’s.”

  As the two of them shifted the old tank out of the way and jockeyed the new one into position, Riley thought about this man here in Hope’s house—Riley no longer thought of it as his house—coming in without knocking and installing water heaters and calling his daughter by her pet name. He thought about Hope, so much more beautiful than his intoxicated versions of her, Hope, shrinking at the supper table. He imagined her shrinking at the town-hall meetings. In his new sobriety, Riley felt the heavy burden of reality pressing down on him, driving out illusions. He longed to offer comfort, but he had no right. He had been untrue to Hope and unfaithful to Bree, first with alcohol, then with his own shrunken interior images of them. His stolen temperance left no inner space to cower with an imitation family, but his drunken past left no place for him in their world of flesh and blood. How Riley longed to comfort them! If only he could do that, surely he could find relief from the relentless weight of shameful memories.

  In that instant he heard his daughter scream. Without a thought for Dylan on the other end he dropped the water heater and charged up the stairs two at a time. The kitchen was empty. He ran through it to find Bree and Hope standing in the living room, their eyes on the television set.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked them, breathless.

  They did not look his way. He asked a second time, and Hope waved a hand at him as if demanding silence. She then pointed at the television. Dylan appeared behind him, nursing his left hand. “Man,” he said, “ya almost crushed my fingers.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Will you two please be quiet?” said Hope.

  Riley and Dylan moved closer to the television. On the screen a female reporter faced the camera, saying, “Police are asking anyone with information about her whereabouts to come forward.”

  Dylan said, “Hey, that’s Willa’s shelter!”

  Hope and Bree both said, “Shhhhh!”

  The scene on the television cut to a tight shot of the back window of a white automobile. Someone peered out from the dark interior of the car. The man’s face was hidden in the shadows beyond the tinted glass, but his silhouette revealed bushy long hair and a long beard. Riley knew who it was.

  The reporter’s voice-over said, “Police say it’s likely the suspect is in the Portland, Maine, area, since Willa Newdale’s car was discovered abandoned in a poverty-stricken neighborhood of that city. The chief of Dublin’s small police department revealed that they had the man in custody yesterday, but released him for lack of evidence. He gave police the name Stanley Livingston, which they believe is probably an alias. Reliable sources have informed us that the police here in Dublin failed to obtain the usual arrest photographs of the suspect, so this video footage may well be the only image available.”

  Riley had to will himself not to edge toward the door. He awaited accusations with a pounding heart, but as the footage of him faded, no one seemed to recognize the silhouetted image of the man in the shadowy back seat of Bill Hightower’s Mercedes. Then on the screen came a face he knew from the shelter. The female reporter’s voice-over continued. “In a bizarre twist, it seems the suspect in Ms. Newdale’s disappearance is a local hero, at least to the homeless people of this small New England town.”

  The camera shifted to a man from the shelter, who said, “Uh, yeah, he healed me. I been a drunk as long as I can remember, but Stanley healed me, and a bunch of other people too.”

  The screen now showed a montage of homeless people gathered in small groups at various street corners and public places around Dublin. The woman spoke over the footage. “Officials estimate perhaps as many as one hundred homeless people have arrived here in tiny Dublin, Maine, drawn by spreading rumors of a cure for alcoholism. Molly Henderson is one such person.”

  A woman with wild hair, bad teeth, but clear and piercing eyes stared directly into the camera. “I come last August. Heard about it in Oklahoma and hitched all the way up here. Took a couple of weeks after I got here, but one day I just knew I was cured. That’s all. Just cured. And that was . . . maybe mid-October? You have to understand, I used to drink anything I could get, but now I’m working at the bowling alley and they got a bar but I ain’t had a drink since, I guess, more than a month? I lost everything to drinkin’ and now I never even think about it, except to count my blessings.”

  The reporter’s face filled the screen as she said, “We found over a dozen people in Dublin with similar stories. Some attribute their sobriety to Stanley Livingston, some don’t seem to have any idea how or why the urge to drink has vanished. All of them, however, claim they have been freed from a habit that had driven them, quite literally, to life in the gutter. This is Julia Armstrong, reporting for CNN from Dublin, Maine.”

  The television screen next showed five well-dressed people behind a large curved desk in a studio, three men and two woman. One of the women said, “Fascinating story. What do you think, Ken?”

  One of the men said, “Imagine if it’s true. A cure for alcoholism. Imagine what that would be worth.”

  “And apparently a homeless man has the secret,” said another man.

  The female moderator said, “Makes you think about panhandlers a little differently, doesn’t it?”

  Everybody laughed.

  The second woman said, “Seriously, what if one of the homeless people we pass on our way home tonight has the cure for alcoholism? What would that be worth?”

  “Millions,” said one of the men.

  “Billions,” said another.

  The first woman turned toward the camera. “Obviously we’ll be following this story very closely, but in other news tonight—”

  Hope hit the mute button.

  “Wow,” said Bree. “We’re on CNN.”

  Dylan said, “Do ya think that stuff about a cure for alcoholics could be true?”

  “Of course not,” said Hope. “How could it be true?”

  Riley, saying nothing, sl
ipped his right hand into the pocket of the corduroy trousers borrowed from his ex-wife’s lover. He wrapped his fingers around the folded slip of paper there. He had lost the note somehow, but he still had the paper with the formula. His mind drifted as the others spoke about the story—his story—and he thought about his hope to be a comfort to his ex-wife and daughter. He thought about Hope’s troubles as the mayor of Dublin. All those drunks, shutting down the town. All the citizens blaming Hope. Slowly, a plan began to form. When they were done talking Riley kept the hidden piece of paper firmly in his grasp all the way back down to the basement.

  Alone again with Dylan he said, “So, you’re a lawyer?”

  “Ayuh.” Dylan stooped to lift the water heater.

  “Do you know anything about patents?”

  “A little.”

  They set the tank in its proper place. Hope’s lover began working on the connections as Riley passed him tools. Riley had another question. “If someone wants to hire you, and they tell you something, you can’t tell it to anybody else, right?”

  “Ayuh, ‘less there’s intention to commit a crime.”

  “But except for that, lawyers can’t talk about their client’s secrets, right?”

  “Be awful hard to give fair representation if we couldn’t keep a confidence.”

  Five more minutes passed with Riley thinking hard. He had Hightower’s hundred dollars in his pocket, and another couple of hundred he had earned working as Henry’s stock boy. It might be enough for a start, especially since Dylan wasn’t making any money lobstering. But what if things went wrong? Things always went wrong.

  One moment Riley thought he ought to try, in the next he recognized his plan for the pathetic delusion it must surely be. He wavered between the preposterous and the possible as Hope’s lover finished the job, packed his tools, and headed for the stairs. Riley sensed if he didn’t do it then and there, he would never find the courage later. In five more seconds they would be with Hope and Bree again and it would be too late.

  Of course it was nothing but an idiotic fantasy, the usual stuff of drunks and dreamers. Yet underneath an overpass had he not dreamed of miracles in Maine? And had he not lifted Brice on his back and begun a journey that had led him to the cure?

  Then again, Brice was dead. Things always went wrong.

  Climbing the stairs behind Dylan, longing to save Hope as he had once longed to save Brice, Riley wavered. He was terrified of unknown consequences and terrified of missing that one chance. Hope’s lover put his hand on the basement door. It was Riley Keep’s last chance.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  WHEN THE REPORTER ON THE TELEVISION SAID, “The chief of Dublin’s small police department revealed that they had the man in custody yesterday, but released him . . .” Chief Steven Novak stopped chewing. Staring at the indistinct image of the man in the car, he crushed the sandwich in his fist and listened with a growing sense of futility as the reporter continued. “. . . the police here in Dublin failed to obtain the usual arrest photographs of the suspect.” At that, Chief Novak threw the remains of his Italian at the television with a curse, splattering the screen with dressing, lettuce, and salami. The woman had as good as told the entire country he was nothing but a bumpkin fooled by an alcoholic bum. Good for writing parking tickets, maybe, but not up to serious police work. The chief cursed again, more loudly.

  Agnes Miller opened his office door. “You okay?”

  He scowled at his assistant. “No, I ain’t okay! Tell Dave to get in here!”

  Moments later, as the chief picked up a tomato slice from the floor, a lanky man with thinning wheat-colored hair entered the office. Dave Henson had been on the Boston force for twenty years, retired with a pension, married a girl half his age and moved to Dublin. He worked part time as Dublin’s only police detective. The rest of the time, he mostly fished or hunted anything in season. His bushy moustache had always annoyed Steve Novak. A serious police officer did not wear a moustache, especially one that hid his lower lip. The chief looked at him. “I just heard ‘em say we failed to get a photograph of that fella. Heard ‘em say it on the national news! How’d they find that out?”

  “I got no idea, Chief.”

  Steve tried to speak calmly. “It’s one thing not to fire Billy for messin’ up the memory or whatever he did with the camera. I understand the technology’s kinda new and all, and everyone makes mistakes. But I want ya to find out who told the press about it, because I am absolutely gonna fire that person over that!”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay what?”

  “Okay, I’ll try to find out who spilled the beans so you can fire ‘em.”

  “We can’t have people givin’ information to the press!”

  “I agree.”

  The chief sat in the chair behind his desk, somewhat mollified. “What’re ya doin’ right now?”

  “Still processing the drug store evidence.”

  “It’s been two days! How long ya gonna drag that out?”

  Henson’s cheeks turned red. “There’s nearly thirty suspects, Steve.”

  The chief sighed. “I know it. And I don’t mean to be so hard on ya. It’s just, I really need a hand on this Willa thing. We’re lookin’ like a bunch of idiots here.”

  “Well, I should be done by eight. Sally and the kids are doin’ somethin’ at church tonight anyways, so I could put a couple of hours towards it if you’ll approve the overtime.”

  “Oh, there’s no problem with that. Just go give the shelter another look-see, will ya? I keep thinkin’ we must of missed somethin’ over there.”

  Henson left the office. Chief Novak stared at the wall opposite his deck, turning things over in his mind. He stood. He put on his jacket and cap. Fifteen minutes later he was parking his new Ford Explorer in front of Bill Hightower’s house.

  Hightower lived in Dublin’s largest historic home, built nearly two hundred years before by one of the tycoons who transformed the town from a minor fishing village into a major building center for the three-masted sailing ships of that era. The ship building days were long gone, and in Steve Novak’s opinion it was a sorry situation indeed when lawyers and bankers were the last ones left who could afford the upkeep on a foursquare Federal mansion built with the good old-fashioned sweat of an honest workman’s brow, especially when the township couldn’t even afford to fix the dent in his Explorer’s fender.

  The black December sky sent a light snow flurry down on the chief as he opened the cast iron gate beside the curb and followed the brick walkway to Hightower’s front door. The snowflakes were small and icy, nearly like sleet. On the covered portico he wiped the back of his neck and pressed the doorbell and stamped his feet, staring at the Christmas tree alight with primary colors in a nearby window.

  Hightower answered the door himself. The man looked brittle and bloodless in the porch light. He invited Steve in and escorted him across a tall entry hall and through an ornate cased opening to the front room on the left—a parlor, Steve supposed they used to call it. The two tall men sat on facing settees before a flickering fireplace. Four red stockings dangled from the mantel, the Hightowers’ names carefully embroidered on them in golden thread. William, Betty, Sam, and Sarah. Steve had stockings hanging from his mantel too, but the names were crudely applied with glitter stuck in Elmer’s glue. Bing Crosby sang carols in another room deeper in the house. Steve refused the offer of a drink. He knew Hightower was a teetotaler, and did not care for virgin eggnog or hot apple cider or whatever poor excuse for a proper highball the man might have in mind.

  Hightower said, “Blowing up a little out there, is it?”

  “Well, I guess prob’ly. Supposed to get five or six inches, what I heard.”

  “First real good one this year.”

  “Ayuh.”

  “You still have that shelter closed, I guess?”

  “It’s a crime scene.”

  “I wish you’d hurry up and clear it. Henry’s got them sleeping in the sanctu
ary.”

  “Bringin’ in the sheaves.” Steve smiled.

  “It’s not funny. All those filthy vagrants on our pews, on the floor, must be Fifty or sixty of them, stinking up the sanctuary.”

  “Speaking of vagrants, I’m here about the one ya picked up from the station the other day.”

  “I see.” A lawyer’s noncommittal response.

  “Henry tells me ya let him off at his place and then drove away with the fella in your back seat.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Where’d ya drop him?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  Steve stared at the stick figure of a man for a full five seconds before answering. “He’s a person of interest in an ongoin’ investigation.”

  “The riot at Henry’s store?”

  “I ain’t gonna say, Bill. Just answer the question, will ya?”

  Hightower turned toward the dancing fire. He spoke as if to himself. “You already know I’m aware of his arrest with the others at the store, so it can’t be that.”

  “Bill, why don’t ya just gimme an answer?”

  “It’s the Newdale woman’s disappearance.”

  “Where’d ya drop him off, Bill?”

  “You think she was kidnapped. Or murdered.”

  “Bill.”

  Hightower rose and used a poker to stir new life into the fire. “We’ve had a riot, and now maybe a murder. Twenty percent of my clients have gone out of business in the last eighteen months. Are you aware of that? Twenty percent.”

  “That’s a lot.”

  The thin gray man jabbed the logs, sending sparks swirling up into the chimney. “I don’t need the business. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m worried about all those poor people out of work, and with winter on us . . . our neighbors are in trouble, Steven. What are you going to do about it?”

  “I’m not in charge of that. I’m just a policeman. Now, where’d ya drop that fella off?”

  “If someone doesn’t do something soon, you’ll have nothing left to police.”