by Gerry Boyle
I drove fast, pounding the truck down the back roads. I flew through Hope, took the back road to Belfast. The truck motor whined as I whipped over potholes, skimmed the bumps, tapped the brakes for the occasional four-corners, the flashing yellow caution lights blinking.
At Belfast I crossed the bridge, then swung north, off of tourist-clogged Route 1, put the pedal to the floor. I passed trucks, old couples in sagging cars, went airborne on an unexpected rise. The tires chirped, the truck started to swing right, then left. I backed off, made Swanville, a smattering of houses and trailers at a crossroads, then swung east. Tacking left and right, I ran the back roads, past corners bearing the names of people who were dead and forgotten.
And then I was back on Route 1, the tourists continuing their slow procession, like traders in a caravan bound for some desert market. In traffic, I searched on my phone for “assisted living” and Bucksport. Came up with five possibilities and started calling.
“Hi, this is Jack McMorrow. I’m a friend of Linwood Penney’s. Could you tell me if he’s up to having a visitor?”
The first three had no one there by that name. The phone at the fourth was answered by a cheery-sounding young woman who said she’d check. I drove off Route 1 and headed for the Penobscot Narrows Bridge.
“Mr. Penney is awake,” the young woman said, like I’d won the lottery.
“Great,” I said. “Be there in ten minutes.”
This was the River View Home, and the GPS put it among the old stately houses that were clustered above Bucksport’s Main Street, overlooking the Penobscot River and the paper mill.
It was an optimistic sort of town, a little tired but still trying, with coffee shops and a bookstore and orange signs that told motorists to stop for pedestrians. There weren’t any when I cruised through, took a right, a left, another right, and saw the sign for the River View Home, hanging outside a white Victorian house that might have been built by a sea captain or a mill manager. Now it had wheelchair ramps built of pea-green treated wood, blue signs that designated handicapped parking.
I parked on the street, a half block up, and walked back. There was another sign that said VISITORS and pointed toward a side door. I walked up the ramp, opened the door, and walked in.
It had been a parlor, but now was like a dentist’s office waiting room. I walked to the window and a woman reached from her chair and slid it open. I said I was there to see Linwood Penney.
She said, “Oh, yeah. He’s expecting you.” As she closed the window she called to someone, “Is Mr. Penney ready for his visitor?”
He apparently was, because the same cheery woman on the phone came through a door and greeted me like I was her long-lost English teacher.
“Mr. McMorrow. How lovely to see you.”
She was short and wide but with a broad, gum-revealing smile that said her cheeriness could not be deterred by any magnitude of tragedy. She introduced herself as Vanda, pronounced like veranda.
“Mr. Penney is going to be thrilled to have an old friend visit,” Vanda said, taking me by the arm, like I might fall down. Habit. And then she led me from the waiting room, through a door that led to a hallway. The room was the last one on the left.
“Now, Mr. McMorrow,” Vanda said, drawing me closer. “You know that Mr. Penney isn’t quite as sharp as he was years ago.”
“I’ve been told.”
“Are you a policeman?” she said.
“Sort of an investigator,” I said.
“Really,” Vanda said. “How exciting.”
“It can be,” I said.
“Sometimes Mr. Penney tries to tell us about his work.”
“Tries?”
“He gets frustrated,” Vanda said. “It’s common in the early to middle stages of his illness. Where you know that the information is in there, if you could only get to it.”
She smiled, like memory loss was a pleasant sort of game.
Vanda opened the door. It was a small room: single bed, dresser, table, an easy chair with a folding chair beside it. Linwood Penney was in the easy chair, facing us. A thin, sunken sort of figure, he had combed-over salt-and-pepper hair and gold-rimmed glasses. He was wearing blue jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt, the kind with a dark middle and white sleeves, like a coach would wear. His hands were folded on his lap.
“Mr. Penney,” Vanda said loudly, as though volume could cut through his mental confusion. “This is your friend, Mr. McMorrow. He’s come to visit. Isn’t that nice?”
“Yes,” he said, his voice a little croaky.
I crossed the room, held out my hand. He took it, gave me a hearty handshake, all the while peering at my face for a clue, like acquaintances at a high school reunion.
“How you doing?” I said.
“Good,” Penney said. “Fine. They’re very nice here.”
Vanda beamed.
“Yes,” I said. “They seem to be.”
“Well, I’ll leave you two guys to talk about old times,” Vanda said.
She left. I pulled the folding chair around so I could see Mr. Penney’s face. He smiled, gave me the searching look again.
“Did we work together?” he said.
“Not really,” I said. “I was a reporter.”
“Ah,” Penney said, grinning. A clue.
“I don’t read the newspaper anymore,” Penney said.
“Doesn’t interest you?”
He shook his head, but seemed perplexed.
“You know I don’t remember things,” he said.
“I know. That’s okay.”
“You sure we didn’t work together?”
He examined me, his eyes squinting in concentration.
“Maybe our paths crossed years ago,” I said. “Twenty years.”
“Oh, yeah. What’d you say your name was—Jimmy, right?”
I didn’t answer.
“I liked it, working the fires. Like a puzzle. Some of the people here, they do puzzles. A million little pieces. I don’t care for that.”
“Right,” I said.
He sat, his hands folded on his lap again. He was wearing black shiny tie shoes, and he looked down as if surprised to see them.
“You caught a lot of bad guys,” I said.
“Oh, yeah. There were some real bad apples.”
“Murderers, even,” I said.
“Yes, some of them were murderers.”
“Shame about the people who died.”
“My wife died, I think,” Penney said. “She doesn’t come here.”
“Julie Barber, too,” I said. “She died.”
“Julie,” he said.
“Died in the fire,” I said. “The gas-stove explosion. In Bangor.”
He looked away.
“Bound her up,” he said. “With duct tape. Wrists. Ankles. Mouth. Lucas too.”
“Ross Lucas.”
“That sounds right. Bartender. And the girl.”
“They’d just started dating?”
“Yeah. Bad luck. Remember? We told her mother she died of smoke but she didn’t.”
“A white lie,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said. “The lie was bad enough.”
He was sorting mentally, face screwed up at the effort. Then the lightbulb.
“Extension cords, too, but the whatchamacallit, the stuff on the outside,” he said, holding his hands out like he was handcuffed.
“Plastic,” I said.
“Yeah. It burned off.”
He rubbed his chin, the gray stubble.
“Julie,” he repeated, pronouncing the word carefully, like he was learning a new language.
“She was only nineteen,” I said. “Very young.”
“Yes,” he said. “She was alive, you know.”
“Alive when?” I said.
“Alive when they burned the house. I remember that. Awful.”
He looked at me.
“What did you say your name was?”
“Jack,” I said. “Now, Julie. In the fire. You di
dn’t catch those bad guys?”
He looked away.
“Bound her up. With duct tape. Wrists, ankles, mouth. The guy with her, too.”
“Lucas,” he said.
“Ross Lucas,” I said.
“That sounds right. Bartender. And the girl.”
“They’d just started dating?”
“Yeah. Bad luck. Remember? We told her mother she died of smoke, but she didn’t.”
“The white lie,” I said.
Penney scowled, pale face wrinkling. I could see a whiskery patch on his cheek that he’d missed when he shaved.
“Told the father the truth. The boyfriend, too. Said they’d kill the guys. I remember that.”
“Did they?”
“No. The druggies, they ran. I went to California, almost caught up with them. Awful traffic out there.”
“Yes,” I said.
Penney was quiet for a minute, rummaging through his memories, rubbing his lips with his forefinger.
“Pretty girl,” he said. “In her picture.”
“Yes.”
“Boyfriend was lucky, have a girl like that. You remember him? Big handsome kid. Played something. Basketball? Baseball?”
“Right.”
“Mark. No, Erik. No, Derek,” Penney said.
I looked at him. Smiled.
“That’s right,” I said. “Derek. What was his last name?”
Penney shook his head. “Oh, jeez. It was . . . like the baseball player.”
“Mickey Mantle?”
He scowled.
“Oh, I hate this.”
“It’s okay,” I said.
He turned away and stared at the wall. I couldn’t tell if he was thinking or if he’d checked out, but then he turned back to me.
“Say, hey,” Penney said.
“What?”
“Say hey. The Say Hey Kid?”
“Willie Mays,” I said.
He grinned, held his hand up for a high five.
“It’s Derek Mays?”
“I got it,” he said.
“You have a good memory,” I said.
“Isn’t what it used to be,” Penney said.
“Mine isn’t either,” I said, and then we were quiet for a couple of minutes.
There were women’s voices in the hallway, the rattle of a cart going down the hall. He pulled his legs up and set his black-shoed feet side by side.
“The drug dealers,” I said. “The ones who killed Julie. Who were they?”
“Bad, bad people. To do something like that. For what? For nothing.”
“You remember their names?”
He thought. “I used to know that. Went to California. Traffic was hellacious.”
“Right. You don’t recall the names now?”
“No,” Penney said. “I can picture them. Old and young and one in between.”
“Still out there somewhere,” I said.
“I think they’re dead,” Penney said.
“Why?” I said.
“I don’t know. I think somebody told me. Somebody said—”
Vanda pushed the door open and stepped in.
“—the goddamn head motherfucker is dead,” Penney said.
“Mr. Penney,” Vanda said, putting her hand to her mouth. “My goodness.”
“When?” I said.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Where?”
He shook his head, looked up at Vanda, standing there with her smile on.
“What’s your name again?” he asked her.
“Oh, you know my name, Mr. Penney,” she said. “I’m Vanda.”
He eyed her. “No,” he said. “You’re not.”
I was walking down the hallway, the antiseptic smell layered over the stale odor of moldering humanity. A heavy woman in light blue slacks, a red printed top, squeezed by me. I was someone’s visiting friend, brother, son—not a reporter faking his way in, talking the dementia patient out of information.
And then another woman—small and trim, short white hair, jeans and clogs. I bent to tie my shoe, turned and followed her after she passed. As she approached Penney’s room, I called out.
“Excuse me.”
She turned. There was a weariness in the set of her eyes, a woman who had been left on her own way too soon.
“Yes.”
“You’re Mrs. Penney?”
“That’s right.”
“I’m Jack McMorrow. I was just talking with your husband.”
She turned warily, searching for a clue.
“Are you a detective?”
“A reporter.”
She took a step back.
“Oh, but my husband has been retired for several years now. He’s disabled.”
“I know, Mrs. Penney,” I said. “But I’m writing about one of his cases. Julie Barber.”
A wave of sadness passed over her.
“The girl in the fire.”
“Yes.”
“That one stayed with me. With both of us. But why now?”
“Something’s come up that may be connected to it.”
Mrs. Penney waited, not quite convinced.
“I’ve been talking to the investigator on the case now. Davida Reynolds.”
She shook her head. “I don’t know the new people.”
“No, and they don’t know that case the way your husband does.”
“Did,” she said. “You know he has dementia?”
“Yes,” I said.
“He may not remember any of it. Or he may remember it like it was yesterday. It’s impossible to predict.”
“We talked,” I said.
“And?”
“He remembered a lot.”
She looked proud.
“Well, that’s good. That one really bothered him. The girl. The way . . . the way it happened.”
“Yes,” I said. “Horrible.”
“He went to California. He really wanted to catch them.”
“But he didn’t find them?”
“Oh, California. You can imagine. All those millions of people. Easy to get lost, not like Maine.”
“Yes,” I said. “Mrs. Penney, I was wondering . . .”
The wariness again, like a veil.
“Did Mr. Penney keep files of his own? I know a lot of investigators do, if they’re really into a particular case. The file that they have in Augusta now doesn’t have much in it at all.”
She considered it. I waited, trying to exude trustworthiness.
“There are boxes in the basement,” she said. “I never touch them.”
“Might I look sometime? See if the Julie Barber case is in there?”
Mrs. Penney hesitated.
“Do you have an ID?”
I showed her my Times ID, gave her my card.
“New York?” she said.
“I write for them here in Maine,” I said. “I live in Prosperity. Over near Knox.”
She looked at the card, turned it over and back again.
“Why don’t you call me,” she said. “We live in Lincolnville Center now.”
We, not I.
“You can look. I haven’t thrown anything out. Just in case—”
She paused.
“He gets better?” I said.
“I know the odds are a million to one. Maybe a million to zero. But Linwood—did you know him? When he was working?”
“No,” I said. “But I’ve heard good things about him. He was very well respected.”
Mrs. Penney beamed. Another white lie, worth every word.
“Sometimes I feel like just whacking him upside the head. Like smacking the side of the television, you know? Maybe get the picture to come back clear again.”
I smiled. Handed her my pen and notebook.
“Your number. Could you write it there?”
She hesitated but then did it. Handed the pen and notebook back.
“I’ll call you,” I said.
“Okay,” she said. “But you’ll have
to sort through the stuff yourself. I never go down there. It makes me too sad.”
She turned toward the room, squared her shoulders. “Are you married?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Well, you can just imagine.”
“No,” I said. “I can’t.”
I drove down the hill to the little downtown area of Bucksport, sat at the red light and waited. Some teenagers were standing on the corner, leggy girls with eyeliner, gangly boys on clacketing skateboards.
I called Roxanne. The phone rang and she answered.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hi there,” she said.
“Anything from the cops?”
“Not a peep.”
“What are you doing?”
“Playing checkers with Clair and Sophie,” she said. “The three of us. It’s a round robin.”
“Who’s dominating?”
“Your daughter, but she bends the rules.”
“Takes after her father,” I said.
“Yes,” Roxanne said. “She does.”
I said I was on my way home, and told her about my visit with Mr. Penney.
I left out the details about Julie Barber being tied up, the electrical cord, that she was burned alive.
The light turned green. The kids on the corner had sauntered into the street. They stood in the road in front of my truck as one of the boys bent to tie his shoe. The light changed to yellow and then red. They looked at me defiantly and walked on.
“Little bastards,” I said.
“What?” Roxanne said.
“Nothing,” I said. “Give Sophie a hug.”
I pulled onto the main street and parked, got out of the truck, and walked down the block. There was a laundry, a five-and-ten, a thrift store, and a hair salon called Clip ’n’ Snip. I stopped to look in the window. It was a bunch of women, most in their thirties and forties. One guy fiddling with a woman’s hair.
I opened the door and a chime rang. There was a woman at a front desk, made up and well-coiffed. Looked like a mannequin until she moved.
“Hi there,” I said.
“Hi there, yourself,” she said.