Little Comfort

by Edwin Hill

  “It was in Davis Square, I think,” Felicia said. “I met him at a bar there one night. Him and his creeptastic, Unabomber friend. Barry something.”

  Angela couldn’t have described Gabe DiPursio better herself. “Did Twig paint her nails blue?” Angela asked. They’d sent the finger with blue polish that they’d found to the lab.

  “I don’t know …” Wendy said. “That’s something she’d have done. Why?”

  “It’s not important,” Angela said as her phone rang. She excused herself and stepped to the other side of the room. It was Stan, who got right to the point. “IAB is looking into the shooting tonight. Honestly, Angela? A black veteran, holding a knife with strawberry syrup on it? This couldn’t get much worse.”

  “It didn’t look like syrup to me.”

  “Don’t say anything,” Stan said, and Angela could see him in his tiny Hyde Park condo, his round face flushed from high blood pressure and stress. He’d be sitting in front of the TV in his robe and wondering whether he should head into the station. “Not a word. If you say it to me, then I’ll have to say it to them.”

  Angela let her guard down. “There ain’t nothing to say, Stan.” She tried to whisper, but she could see Felicia Nakazawa eyeing her from across the room.

  “The press is going to have a field day with this one,” Stan said. “And I know you didn’t pull the trigger, but you were the officer in charge. That’s what I’m calling about. You’re on administrative leave pending the investigation. You and Dwayne both.”

  Angela nearly protested. She nearly tried to defend herself, defend Dwayne, the rookie who’d actually pulled the trigger, but it had been strawberry syrup on the knife and Angela had been the one to say “Go!” And now a man was in the hospital fighting for his life, a man she suspected was innocent. “What do I do?” she asked.

  “Go home,” Stan said. “Not in an hour. Not in five minutes. Now. Ben’s on his way to take the case.”

  But Angela barely heard what he said. She let the phone fall to her side. Over Felicia’s shoulder, the television was on with the sound muted. Angela fumbled with the remote as images of Hester Thursby and that little girl flashed across the screen.

  *

  The names and faces from the past had begun to fade. To Sam, even the name “Sam Blaine” sounded like an old telephone number, shadowy and vaguely familiar. As he turned off 93 and onto the back roads of New Hampshire to avoid the tolls, he looked in the rearview mirror, into his own eyes, new and oddly unfamiliar. He touched a cheek and ran a hand through his hair. Could it all really be him? In the mirror, he saw only the future.

  Outside, the snow had picked up. Sam drove the Nissan around the village green in a tiny New Hampshire town. He passed a man walking a golden retriever through the drifts and imagined being that man, tossing a ball and waiting for the dog to fetch it, all the while having nothing in the world to worry about but taking deep breaths of exhilarating winter air. He wondered if the man had children. Gabe had always wanted kids, and Sam realized now that he wanted them too. That would be his next life. Three kids, two girls and a boy. Kids who’d climb on him like he was a jungle gym, whom he’d throw into piles of leaves, and whom he’d read to late at night.

  Wendy had wanted kids. But then, things were over with Wendy. With Aaron Gewirtzman, too. It always felt strange once he began to shed the skin of whom he’d become. He remembered the first time, in San Francisco, when he knew it had ended. Ellen’s family owned a ranch in Marin, where she went to ride horses and be alone, so they’d both been surprised when her brother Zach showed up late one Saturday night. He barely said hello, or looked at Sam, and Sam knew, almost at once, that someone had told Zach about Ellen’s play at the company, her plan (his plan) to oust Zach from the board. Later that night, he came downstairs to find Zach sitting in front of the fireplace drinking a glass of scotch. “First thing in the morning,” Zach said, “get the fuck out of my house.”

  Sam could still see those hills that rose around the ranch the next morning, the way fog rolled in over them, the way Zach had dashed around the bend in the trail and seen Sam standing in his way. Had it surprised him? Had Zach known he’d run straight into his own ending?

  Zach stopped, bending over his knees to catch his breath. Sam went to say something, and Zach raised a hand. “I’m hiring a private investigator,” he said. “Or I will, unless you leave today.”

  Sam hadn’t had a choice. He body-checked Zach off the trail, and then watched as the man clawed at grass and stone and sand. Zach had never had a single bad thing happen to him in his entire short life. Sam wondered, as he fell into the fog, whether he believed his shouts would somehow save him.

  At least that one had been clean.

  Back at the ranch, Ellen had stared out the window into the hills as though she knew something had happened. In the afternoon, she asked where Zach had gone.

  “I think he went for a run,” Sam said.

  “That was hours ago,” Ellen said. She turned from the window. Soft afternoon light filtered in through curtains onto her plump face. “Where did you come from anyway?” she’d asked.

  *

  Sam pulled into a 7-Eleven parking lot as his phone buzzed again. He’d turned the ringer off to keep from waking the little girl, who lay on a blanket in the backseat, fast asleep. He glanced at her in the rearview mirror, lying there in her pink pajamas, those curls fanning her face. She looked so peaceful. So innocent. So pure.

  His phone buzzed again. Even though he didn’t recognize the number on the display, he was sure it had to be that detective. Who else would call after midnight?

  Earlier, Sam had walked through the snow to his car and driven to Union Square, where he’d watched while Gabe struggled with the squirming blanket that he shoved into his trunk. Sam rolled the window down and almost called out, but there were too many houses around, despite the empty streets. When Gabe sped away, Sam nearly followed, when he saw the girl poke her head from around the corner of the house, the phone to her ear and a stuffed monkey clutched in her hand. She only had on the pajamas and slippers, and it hadn’t taken much to lure her into the car. He took the phone from her and listened as the man on the other end, huffing as he ran, shouted, “Stay exactly where you are! I’m coming! I’m almost there!”

  Sam clicked the phone off, threw it into the snow, and drove away while the girl screamed. Just a little bit at first. He told her not to worry, that he was a friend of her aunt Hester’s, and then he’d managed to dig out a pack Lifesavers that really did save the day. Kate gobbled down the entire roll and fell asleep a few moments later.

  Now, Sam turned to where she lay in the back of the car. If she made it through all of this, he’d call her Lydia. He’d get her papers and make up a backstory for her. He brushed a curl from Kate’s face. “Sorry, sweetie,” he whispered. “Tough break.”

  He left her and went inside the store, where he picked up coffee, a bag of Doritos, and five candy bars to use as bribes with Kate as needed. The store was empty except for the clerk, who could barely tear himself from the TV long enough to take Sam’s money. “Big storm out there,” Sam said.

  “Yep,” the man said, “the plow drivers’ll be in all night.”

  As he turned to leave, Sam noticed a photo of Kate flash across the TV screen with “Amber Alert” running beneath it.

  “Those things break my heart,” Sam said. “My little girl’s conked out in the backseat. It’d kill me if something ever happened to her.”

  “I know what you mean,” the clerk said. “Be sure to drive safe.”

  Outside, Kate woke and sat up as Sam shut the door. Her eyes were wide with shyness and curiosity and, he had to admit it, fear.

  “Go to sleep,” he said.

  “Where Aunt Hester?” Kate asked.

  “We’ll meet up with her later,” Sam said. “She’s with her friend Gabe. Do you know him?”

  Kate said something that sounded like “Popsicle sticks.”

&nbs
p; “We need to find them, but luckily I know where they’re headed. We need to find some other friends too. They all know secrets about me.” Sam backed the car out of the parking lot. “Have you ever had a secret? One that you didn’t want anyone else to know?”

  Kate nodded.

  “I bet it was a big one!”

  She smiled.

  “I have lots of secrets,” Sam said. “And I have to be sure they stay secret. Do you think you can help me?”

  “Yes,” Kate said.

  “That’s my girl!”

  *

  The windshield wipers fought a losing battle against the building snow. Gabe hadn’t bothered with back roads. He drove slowly through the tolls on 93 till he finally exited and headed east toward Holderness. He dared to sneak a glance toward the passenger’s side seat. She sat beside him, tiny in her pajamas, her face blank as she stared out the window into the early morning darkness.

  He hadn’t returned to Holderness since that summer and was surprised by how little had changed. As he sped through the small center and passed the snowy lake, he could remember going to the general store with Lila. He remembered strolling down the docks to the marina, and feeling her breath in his ear and her hand on his ass.

  He followed the lakeshore till he turned into the hills. It was easy enough to find the old road into Little Comfort. The road down to the lake had grown in, but Gabe was able to pull the car in behind some trees and let the snow build up to camouflage them while they waited for morning. It couldn’t be more than a quarter of a mile from the road to the lake. He left the engine running to mask the quiet. He dug one of the fleeces from his bag and held it toward her. She wasn’t too proud to say yes, even if it did hang almost to her knees.

  “Do you shop in the petite section?” he asked.

  She glared at him.

  He tried again. “I bet your dog is okay.”

  “I don’t give a shit about the dog.”

  So much for small talk. He turned the radio on again, and they listened to crazy old men on late-night call-in shows.

  “What did you do with her?” Hester said.

  The truth was that Gabe had no idea. He’d thought the little girl would be able to get to a neighbor’s house. He’d believed that she’d escaped. Amber Alert. He’d hate to be Amber’s parents, to be reminded of that terrible time every time something awful happened to a child.

  “You killed that woman they found in Jamie’s backyard,” Hester said. “You and Sam. You did it together. Just like you killed the man they found in the woods here. Who else? Ellen Gonzalez in San Francisco?”

  She stared out the window, her breath freezing on the glass.

  “Yes,” he said, and he saw her inhale sharply. He almost surprised himself with the confession, but now that it was out, he felt years of burden lift from his shoulders. Hester swallowed and pushed away, if only a fraction of an inch. Her hand went to the door handle, and he reached over and took it away. Gently. “There’s nowhere for you to go,” he whispered.

  He meant to be kind. He meant to keep her from the cold, to keep her from leaving. It wasn’t safe. Not yet, at least. “The first person we killed was a man on this lake,” he said. “He was a pedophile who no one cared about. Sam started it, and I finished it. We used a hatchet and buried him in the woods, and then took his car and drove to Massachusetts. Then there was Ellen. She was rich and homely, and Sam thought he could make her love him. After that, there was an old woman named Maude in Chicago. I took care of her cats, and we got access to her bank accounts.”

  Maude had been a retired emergency room nurse who’d lived alone and told Gabe to brush iodine on the back of his throat when he got strep and couldn’t afford to go to the doctor. She had heavy laugh lines around her eyes, a central-European accent, and called him “honey” when they played gin rummy. One of the last times he spoke to her, she made him pancakes. “Honey, I think you have no friends, yes?” she said. “Get some. They matter. How are pancakes?”

  Then her son had shown up from out of nowhere, wondering where her money had gone even though he hadn’t visited in more than a decade. “Who cares?” Maude had said, and Gabe had understood, right then, that she’d known all along, that she, like him, needed friends no matter the cost. But that hadn’t swayed Sam, and Gabe could still see the look in Maude’s eyes when she’d woken a split second before he’d put the pillow over her face.

  He watched now as the snow dotted the windshield, and he listened to Hester breathing. “Robbed her blind,” he said. “She was meaner than you could possibly imagine, with no one to miss her.”

  That last part wasn’t true. But it made him feel better to say it.

  There was also the crack dealer in Baltimore and the stockbroker in Manhattan, who’d lived in an apartment with wood floors so shiny, it had been easy to mop up blood. Gabe remembered all of them, but the one that stayed with him, the one where he’d still had a chance to be someone else was Ellen.

  “She knows. I know she knows,” Sam had said. “I need you.”

  It was all Gabe had to hear. Sam needed him the way Gabe had needed Sam. It meant something. He took a bus, to another bus, across the Golden Gate Bridge, where he got off on the side of a highway and hiked into the hills. The ranch was nestled in a valley, and Gabe could still smell the scent of fennel and coastal sage, could still see the fading evening light as he crept across a dry lawn and in through the open French doors. Sam had already left. They’d agreed on that.

  Ellen sat in the kitchen, facing out toward the hills, a cell phone inches from her hand. Gabe hadn’t seen her before. She must have been in her late twenties and wore her dark hair in a simple bob. Big, owlish glasses covered her eyes, but she wasn’t the way Sam had described. She was soft and kind looking. He imagined her voice, gentle and pure, and when he said hello and grabbed the phone away from her, he wanted to know whether he was right. Whether she sounded like someone he could love.

  “Tell me what you like,” he said.

  She sobbed, her eyes trained on the knife. A long wad of yellow snot stretched from her nose to the floor.

  “Just say it,” Gabe pleaded. “Say that you like horses. I know that you do.”

  She shook her head and tried to run for the door. Maybe she thought she could get away on one of those horses.

  But then it was done. And there was no going back. He made it look like a robbery gone wrong, and left her lying in a dark pool of her own blood.

  *

  “I’m not a good person,” Gabe said.

  He’d told Hester everything. Confessed it all.

  She opened her mouth, and nothing came out but a terrified croak. All the bravado and kindness that Gabe yearned for, that he’d earned, was gone. He remembered believing things could be different. But even if she did know how he took his coffee, even if she told him he wasn’t half bad, she had her own life. Her own story. And it had nothing to do with him.

  Off in the distance, he heard rumbling, and then headlights lit up the trees around them. He put a warning hand on Hester’s shoulder and eased her down in her seat as a plow turned the corner.

  “Not so rough,” she said.

  He saw her fingers inch toward the door handle again, but he switched off the interior light, reached over her, and held the door shut. He covered her mouth and shoved her down onto the floor of the car, and it wasn’t till after the plow had turned the corner that he took his weight off her. Her lip bled. “Get off me,” she said.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Stop apologizing,” she said. “You did this.”

  He’d have been lying if he’d said touching her hadn’t turned him on, that it hadn’t reminded him of what he’d seen in her all along, or the way she made him feel. But Sam wanted Hester dead like the others. Sam had listened to him on the lake that night, as they lay in the leaves surrounded by Penthouses. He listened all the way through. And when Gabe finished, Sam said, “I can get you out of this. But you have to do
what I tell you. No questions asked.”

  And ever since, no matter what Gabe told himself, no matter what he wanted, no matter how he envisioned the rest of his life, he’d nearly always done what Sam wanted.

  *

  A handful of cars passed their hiding spot in the waning hours of the early morning. Each time, Hester prayed that one of them might stop, but Gabe shoved her down and smothered her with his body till the grind of tires against snow faded. Then, at the first light of day, he took the keys and stepped into the storm. “Get out,” he said.

  For a moment, she considered refusing. But her tongue found her bloody lip. She felt Gabe’s body on top of her all over again. And she had to survive, no matter what the choices. Gabe was dangerous. Dangerous people were impulsive. She, on the other hand, could be patient. That patience might be Kate’s only hope.

  She pushed the door open to a blast of winter air. Her slippers filled with snow. The drifts rose nearly to her waist. Gabe handed her a pair of sneakers and a set of snow shoes. “We have to go through the woods.”

  The sneakers were dry and warm, a bit too big, but they were a relief nonetheless. She managed to work them into the snow shoes, and then Gabe gave her a duffel bag to carry as they set out. She searched through the trees for a weapon, a stone, maybe, or a tree branch, but here the world was solid white. She broke twigs off any branch she brushed past, a trick she’d learned from years of reading adventure stories. Soon, her heart rate had risen enough to warm even her fingers and toes. Snow still fell and, as they hiked around trees, over icy rock faces, and down a hill, she wondered how long their footprints would last, and whether she’d be able to find her way out of these woods when the time came.

  The snow-covered lake opened in front of them, where the remains of Little Comfort hovered on the shoreline. On the horizon sat a small village of ice fishing huts, at least a half a mile away through waist-deep snow. Gabe followed Hester’s gaze and shook his head to tell her not to bother. Then he stopped to look at the cabin.

  “I was here the other day,” she said. “With Lila. She told me you used to come here that summer. You used to swim off that dock. It must have been wonderful.”