Purgatory Chasm: A Mystery

by Steve Ulfelder

  But something wouldn’t click. I sighed. The more I chased it, the greasier it would be. Had to wait until it came to me. So I headed for Motorenwerk.

  * * *

  But had a stop to make first.

  I slowed when I saw the mailbox embedded in the steel rims, pulled slowly down the dirt road to minimize bumps and dust. The sun was just rising behind me, and as I rolled into the Beets’ clearing I noticed that for the first time, the goddamn dog behind the main house wasn’t howling and going nuts.

  I looked to my left.

  Black Escalade, Quebec plates. All four tires and wheels were off, the SUV sitting on half-assed jack stands of cinder blocks and wood. Best of all, the rear portion of the roof had been hacksawed off to turn the thing into a huge four-door pickup truck.

  For all I knew, the dog out back wasn’t howling because he’d finally been fed a decent meal.

  I backed out. Didn’t feel as bad as I’d thought I would.

  Heroin.

  * * *

  As I passed Dot’s Place in Rourke, a block and a half from Mechanic Street, the thing I’d forgotten, the piece that prevented everything from clicking into place, hit me. It hit hard, the way those things always do. Hard enough so that I pulled over in front of a real-estate storefront with yellowing poster board in its window, the poster board covered with edges-curling snapshots of homes that would never sell.

  I called my house. Waited, three rings, glanced at my Seiko, not yet seven o’clock, four rings, come on, don’t let it go to voice mail.…

  “Yes?”

  “Trey?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s Conway. Get Patty Marx. Hurry.”

  She’d slept on the family room couch, basically our prisoner though nobody said so, Randall and I nervous over what she’d do if we sent her away. It took Trey forty-five seconds to wake her and get her to the phone, me staring at my watch, clicking possibilities.

  “’Lo,” she finally said.

  “You researched Josh Whipple,” I said. “The Utica killing happened when he was seventeen, and next thing you told us a Vermont newspaper profiled him.”

  “The tragic orphan. Right. So?”

  “Where in Vermont?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What paper? What town?”

  “Jesus, I don’t know. Want me to look it up?”

  “Yes.”

  I waited some more as the laptop was fired up, the folder and Word document found, the link followed. What had Josh said at Purgatory Chasm? I’ll tell Fred you said hello! I’d assumed it was bullshit talk, that Josh had somehow learned Fred was missing and was shooting me a little fuck-you-very-much look.

  Could it have been more than that? As I listened to Patty walk back to the phone, my belly prepped me for the worst, the way it always does.

  “Brattleboro Reformer,” she said.

  It was the town I didn’t want to hear. But knew I would.

  “Brattleboro Reformer,” she said again. “Got it? You there?”

  “Have Trey put Randall on.”

  “You’re welcome,” Patty said. I heard grousing.

  Trey got back on the line. “Isn’t Randall with you, Conway?” he said.

  “What?”

  “He left shortly after you did. He said he was backing you up. I assumed you had arranged it.”

  Jesus Christ, that was a bad move. If I was right, and my belly told me I was, Fred was with Josh—and could lead him right to the house. And Josh had every reason to believe there was at least seventy-five grand there.

  “Listen up, Trey,” I said, keeping my voice calm. I needed him steady. “Wake everybody now and get the hell out of that house.”

  “But—”

  “Now, Trey. Pile in cars, pajamas and all, and drive to a police station, okay? Wait for me to call with an all clear. Now.”

  Spun my truck around, buried the throttle, dialed Randall. “I know you followed me,” I said when he picked up. “Bad move. Worry about it later. Right now, let’s make tracks for Framingham.”

  “Why?”

  “Josh can find my house.”

  “How?”

  I looked at my speedometer. Eighty-six and climbing.

  “How, Conway?”

  “I think Fred’s working with him.”

  “Oh, Jeez—”

  I clicked off and drove.

  Brattleboro Fucking Vermont. A hippy-dippy town, bums welcome. Hell, in the summer the whole town common turned into a big homeless camp, Panhandling Central.

  Fred spent summers there for fifteen years at least. Somewhere along the way, he must have met Josh Whipple. Must have spewed hate about his son, the big NASCAR driver who never did a goddamn thing for him. The son who didn’t even offer him a lift when they saw each other at a toll booth.

  Before Fred took off, Charlene had heard those mystery phone calls.

  When he took off, we assumed he’d gone on a bender.

  Maybe he had.

  But maybe he’d visited Josh and pitched revenge.

  I prayed I wasn’t too late.

  But knew I was.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Forty minutes later in Framingham, I stepped from my truck into a nightmare, the kind where you run and run through hip-deep mud. I knew right away Trey hadn’t cleared the house in time. Why the hell not? He should’ve had time.

  I had to park thirty yards up the street because an ambulance and three Framingham Police Crown Vics clogged my driveway. One cop squatted behind his open door, service automatic in one hand, microphone in the other. He looked fourteen years old. He was scared shitless. I ran past him, turned up the driveway, saw Trey’s rented Dodge blocked in by the ambulance.

  Nightmare sound track, the three types of sirens you hear at these things: cops, ambulance, and coming up the road a Framingham Fire Department truck, blatting looky-loos aside. They always send a fire truck, and nobody ever knows why.

  There was something else in the sound track. Something buried in the mix, something I couldn’t ID yet.

  “The fuck outta the way!” It was an EMT, pulling the crash cart from the ambulance. I let him pass, then followed him across the brand-new deck and into the kitchen. He left the crash cart on the deck. On the kitchen floor, another EMT was working on something that looked like a bloody pile of bath towels.

  It wasn’t bath towels. It was Kieu Phigg, all hundred pounds of her. Barefoot, cotton pants, cotton top the color of an unripened banana, straight dark hair.

  There wasn’t much of a face left. There was blood and pulp and one eye that may or may not be aware of what was going on.

  As both EMTs worked on Kieu, I finally ID’d the buried part of the nightmare sound track. Trey Phigg stood in the doorway leading to the stairs and living room. He pressed his hands to his head, a fistful of hair in each. His eyes were perfect circles. His mouth, too.

  He was screaming.

  Not screaming anything in particular. No words. He was making a howl that went on and on, and each time he ran out of wind he took a deep breath and screamed again. There was no comprehension in his eyes. He didn’t recognize me. He just screamed and tried to pull his hair out.

  Trey would have to wait. I stepped past him and turned to go upstairs. But I heard heavy footsteps and a cop-belt rattle, heard a voice say, “Upstairs clear.”

  I was lucky. It was Matt Bogardis clomping down the stairs, clipping his radio mic to his shirt pocket. I’ve known Matt a long time, since before he got on the cops. He said, “What the hell, Conway?”

  “It’s my house.”

  “I know. What the hell?”

  “I don’t know. My cats okay up there?”

  “Didn’t see ’em; must be hiding,” he said, and took a left into the kitchen. “Stick around, okay?”

  I said nothing. Walked into the living room as Matt and one of the EMTs tried to calm Trey.

  And there he was. He was so still, so quiet, a couple cops might have walked past w
ithout noticing him for all I knew.

  Tuan Phigg.

  He sat on the floor a few feet from the TV, watching a blue puppet try to pogo-stick.

  In the kitchen, Trey’s scream wound down. When the last one died he switched to something else: He said, “Ow.” Like he’d bumped his knee on a table. Then he said it again. “Ow.” His voice was hoarse: He’d screamed his throat raw. “Ow,” over and over.

  Tuan stared, sitting cross-legged, rocking a little at the waist.

  I knelt. I stroked his hair. I said his name.

  He eye-locked the TV.

  I picked him up. He didn’t resist, but as I carried him out he stared at the TV until he couldn’t see it.

  A voice said, “Who the fuck are you?” As I turned to face the voice I heard fumbling, then “Freeze!”

  It was another cop, stepping from the smaller first-floor bedroom. Like the guy out front, he looked very young. “Got one out here, Matt!” he hollered, his gun shaking. “Release the child! Release the child, motherfucker!”

  They watch cop movies, cop TV shows. They think it’s how they’re supposed to talk.

  Matt Bogardis stepped through the doorway. “Settle down,” he said to the other cop. “He’s the home owner. He’s okay.”

  I watched the other cop’s Adam’s apple bob as he gulped, relieved. He nodded toward the bedroom he’d just left. “Get an EMT in there,” he said to Matt. “Got another vic, an old lady.”

  Jesus. I’d forgotten about Myna. And where the hell was Patty?

  While Matt hollered for an EMT and stepped into the bedroom, I went to the kitchen, making sure my body blocked Tuan’s view of his mother. Trey sat in a kitchen chair, an untouched glass of water on the table in front of him. Two EMTs worked on Kieu, not giving up, but the way her face looked … there couldn’t be a lot of urgency anymore.

  “Trey,” I said. “You don’t need to be in here. Come to the living room.”

  Nothing. He stared dead ahead. I saw dots of blood at his temples where he’d torn his hair.

  “Trey,” I said, rocking his shoulder with one arm, blocking Tuan’s view as the boy squirmed.

  Nothing.

  I got pissed. “Trey Phigg!” I punched his right bicep—harder than I meant to. “Be a man!”

  The way I said it made the EMT turn to look at me. “Easy, bro.”

  “His kid needs him!”

  The EMT made an okay-okay-back-off gesture and turned away.

  Trey Phigg stood. I passed him Tuan. “Your boy needs you,” I said. “Get him out of this room.”

  As Trey took Tuan, I made sure his eyes registered what was going on. Good: The thousand-yard stare was fading. Trey was coming back.

  I hustled into the small bedroom. It was crowded: Myna Roper on the twin bed, the EMT working over her, both cops watching. But one whiff and one glance told me everything I needed to know.

  “She just passed out,” I said. “Drunk.”

  “It’s not even nine,” Matt said.

  I pointed at the bourbon and vermouth that topped the presswood dresser in the corner.

  “I think he’s right, fellas,” the EMT said as Myna began to snuffle and blink.

  In the living room, Trey sat on the sofa. Tuan faced him, legs spraddled, and played with his father’s shirt buttons and spoke soft Vietnamese.

  I said, “What happened? Why didn’t you clear everybody out?”

  “I tried,” he said. “Tuan slipped out the front door while I was shaking Miz Roper. You’ve seen how quick he is. He was three houses down by the time I got outside. Then he spotted a cat in the bushes, and that was that: I had to chase him down. But I swear we weren’t gone ten minutes.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Coming back up the driveway, I heard a noise like somebody beating a rug. I joked with Tuan that mommy was overcleaning again. She can never relax, you know?”

  I nodded. Needed info now, but I had to let Trey tell it his way.

  “I heard a man’s voice and I knew something was wrong,” he said. “The voice kept saying ‘Where? Where? Where?’ And then I’d hear that rug-beating noise. So I picked up the pace. And then I heard…” Trey paused for a deep breath and shook on the inhale, holding Tuan close to his chest. The boy wrapped his arms around his daddy’s neck. “You know the sound a Ping-Pong ball makes when you hit it and it breaks?”

  I went to one knee. “Was it Josh Whipple?”

  “I’ll never forget that sound. I don’t know what this Josh looks like.”

  “Younger than you, redhead, slim.”

  Trey nodded and held his son. In a few seconds he began to cry. I rose, got set to leave. From the bedroom I heard Myna. She sounded pissed. She said she’d just been resting her eyes, was an old woman allowed to do that anymore, and what in the good Lord’s name were all those sirens for? Myna’s voice made me wonder again where Patty was. I hadn’t noticed her Jetta outside, but I hadn’t been looking for it.

  I turned back to Trey. “When you came in, Josh was still here?”

  He nodded.

  “Why didn’t he start pounding on you?”

  “I told him where I hid the money,” Trey said, staring at nothing. “If Tuan hadn’t run out the door … if I’d grabbed him a little faster…”

  “Where’s the money?”

  “Right where we found it.”

  “What?”

  “The false floor, the shack in New Hampshire,” he said. “I thought since the shack had already been searched…” His voice trailed “… I thought that was very clever of me.”

  As I left, stepping around the EMTs while they put Kieu on a backboard, I heard Trey in the living room. “Very clever of me,” he said over and over.

  * * *

  Matt Bogardis had told me to stick around. He’d said it as a cop, not as a pal. But I needed to go. I angled, ducked, cut through backyards. It worked: By the time I made the street, I’d cleared the perimeter set up by the cops.

  As I neared my truck I saw Randall had parked up at the mouth of the street, knowing that if he drove inside the perimeter they wouldn’t let him out. That was smart, I thought. Very clever, Trey had said.

  Yeah. Me and Randall, clever as hell. Now Josh was gone, Patty was probably with him, they were flying toward the seventy-five grand, and Kieu Phigg was dead or close to it.

  Very clever.

  I backed toward Randall and saw he hadn’t parked after all: His father’s wagon was at a crazy angle. And its hood was buckled. Huh.

  Closer. Now I saw why: Randall had rammed a car trying to leave the street.

  A Jetta.

  “Hot damn,” I said out loud, putting the F-150 in neutral and hopping out.

  Patty Marx sat in her driver’s seat, looking dazed. The car’s left front corner was destroyed. Randall stood next to the car holding its keys. “I was up here blocking the street,” he said, “and I watched her sweet-talk a cop and roll past the perimeter. It seemed like a good idea to halt further progress.”

  “It was,” I said, grabbing the Jetta’s door handle. It didn’t budge.

  “Crunched shut in the wreck,” Randall said, and nodded toward my house. “How bad?”

  “I think Kieu’s dead.” I looked around as I spoke. Spotted a rusty old wheel near a curb, stepped to it, hefted it.

  “Dear Lord,” Randall was saying. “Conway, I … I thought trailing you was the smart play.”

  “Very clever,” I said. “Lot of that going around.”

  Then I heaved the steel wheel at the driver’s window, not much caring if it went through and wrecked Patty Marx’s face. It didn’t, but it shattered the safety glass nicely. I elbowed most of the glass out, reached across Patty, undid her seat belt, grabbed her jeans jacket with both hands, hauled her out the window.

  She screamed. Down the street, a cop turned. He gave us a long look, spoke into his shoulder mic, and began walking our way. With his right hand on his holster.

  “Stay here,” I said t
o Randall. “Deal with the cops, Trey, the hospital.” I walked Patty Marx to my truck.

  * * *

  I didn’t know what I expected to find at Jut Road, other than an empty space where seventy-five grand used to be. But I didn’t know what the hell else to do either. Called McCord’s real cell—not the prepaid one—got voice mail, said the staties should head for Rourke and look for Josh Whipple.

  I aimed north and tried to muster adrenaline. Felt empty, heavy, slow on my feet. I thought about Fred telling Josh how to find my house. Thought about Patty Marx, playing both ends against the middle and then some. Betrayal all around.

  “How’d you work it with Phigg?” I said after a while.

  “Fuck you.” She twisted the rearview mirror to look at her face. Made a tutting sound, pulled Kleenex from her jacket pocket, began dabbing at air-bag dust and tiny glass shards.

  “How’d you work it?”

  Long pause. “I explained it in straightforward fashion,” she finally said, still wiping. “I told him Bobby Marx laid hands on me four hundred and three times. That was a stone-cold fact. I kept a tally on the flyleaf of my Bible. The figure I had in mind was a thousand dollars a pop.”

  “Straight blackmail?”

  “That’s the way I planned it. But the jackass went and fell in love with me.” That last part hung for a split second too long before she said, “As an estranged daughter, of course, and a link to his oh-so-happy past.”

  “And the Canada plan fell out of that.”

  “I needed a tool to convince him to liquidate everything.”

  “I can’t believe he went for that,” I said. “He wasn’t a dumb guy.”

  “Around me he was.”

  It didn’t hang together. I had that heavy feeling again, knowledge bearing down. “What was the stick?”

  “Hmm?”

  “The carrot was a chance to help his daughter who’d had a helluva rough break,” I said. “But what was the stick?”

  Nothing. I glanced at Patty as we neared the exit for Route 119. And I knew. And my heart hurt.

  We played chicken, neither wanting to say it.

  The game lasted 2.3 miles. I lost. “You fucked him,” I said.