“I wouldn’t do anything vigilante, but keep your eye out for the guy who kidnapped you. If you can give the cops the real killer, they won’t like you for it anymore,” Elaine said, as if the idea were obvious.
“And pressing charges against the FBI?”
“That sounds like the opposite of laying low. I’m sure your nose hurts, but you look pretty tough. I’d let it go and be happy about your freedom.” She turned the doorknob and pulled it open.
“Do I have to stay local or anything?” Dylan called after her.
“You’re free, but boy, running away would sure make me think you’re guilty,” Elaine answered. “My advice is to sit tight and keep your eyes open.” She left and never looked back.
Chapter 11
There had been no rush to process Dylan out of lock up. Paperwork was missing or incomplete, and they struggled to find his belongings, finally giving him a hodgepodge of things, some of which weren’t even his. Once they had their papers together, the officer in charge had been called away and was unavailable to sign off on his release.
Through it all, Dylan maintained a stoic demeanor. Pissing and moaning made pain last longer. He had learned that running sprints in hundred-degree heat.
When they finally ran out of ideas for delaying his release, they simply walked him out the front door. They offered no ride and no phone call. Dylan was miles from home with no phone and no car. Knowing that the county court would offer no sympathy, he simply put one foot in front of the other and started walking.
When he got to Main Street he thought about his options. The only phone number he knew from memory was that of his landlord, Eliza. He doubted that she would be willing to come pick him up after what she had learned about him. He could hitchhike, but even that would have to wait until he got further out from the center of the small city. A cab slowed and turned up a side street. Huh, a taxi service in Nashua? Dylan had never seen that before. Hopefully they would take him home. He went up the side street and was pleasantly surprised that the taxi stand was easy to identify and not far up the street.
A cab was available and the ride home wasn’t outrageously expensive. Dylan hoped this would be the start of better luck, but the driver spent most of the ride texting and Dylan again questioned his luck. If he had more energy, he would have said something to the man, but exhaustion allowed him to close his eyes and just breathe.
Once they got home, he had to run inside to get his wallet. The driver didn’t mind waiting; it wasn’t like there were fares standing at the next corner. After he paid the driver, relief washed over Dylan. He’d find Montana, give him a treat, and then sleep for a day.
A survey of the yard did not reveal the sleeping golden retriever he expected. For an instant Dylan feared that the animal control officer had taken him and there would be more police process to deal with before he could come home.
“Montana,” Dylan called optimistically.
It only took seconds for the dog to recognize the voice of his owner. A blond hulk appeared from behind the house and quickly triangulated where the call had come from. As soon as he locked in on Dylan, Montana ran toward him at full speed.
Montana slammed into Dylan’s body and licked his face. He fell backwards onto his butt and embraced the hundred-pound golden retriever.
He spoke quietly in to the dog’s fur. “Hey buddy, I missed you.”
After worrying about his own life and liberty, the only thing Dylan cared about was Montana. Now that Elaine had done her job and gotten him released from custody, he was free to worry about other things. Like where he was going to live, for starters.
“Hey Dylan,” Ryan said cautiously.
“Hi Ryan. Did you take care of Montana for me?” Dylan asked with a big smile.
The ten-year-old averted his eyes. “Mom says I’m not allowed to talk to you. She let me give Montana food and water, but she wouldn’t let him in the house,” he said. “Sorry, I tried, even lost my iPad for a day because I snuck him in once.” Ryan smiled weakly.
“Thanks for feeding him. He’s pretty wimpy, though. A few nights outside probably did him good.” Dylan felt bad for damaging the trust that had been put in him.
“Did you go to jail?” Ryan asked with awe.
“A long time ago I made some mistakes and yes, I did go to jail.” Dylan let his head drop.
“No, I mean like, yesterday? Are you coming home from being in jail?” the boy asked with even more amazement.
“Not really. I saw a bad guy do something and I was working with the police and some other people to figure out why the bad guy did it,” Dylan lied. Immediately, he regretted it.
“Ryan. Come inside right now,” Eliza called from the side door of the house.
“Awwww, but mom he was helping the police,” Ryan whined but he walked away from Dylan.
The landlord and mother passed her son about halfway between the door and her tenant. She was serious and rigid; this would not be a welcome home speech.
“I expect you to be gone before it gets dark. I told you there was a child in this house and I wouldn’t tolerate any funny business. He looks up to you so much. Why did you have to go and break his heart?” She searched his face for an answer.
“I’m sorry I lied to you about my past, but it has nothing to do with what happened,” he said. “I’m not a bad guy; I just have rotten luck.” Dylan hated excuses but it was the truth.
Dylan had always gotten along with Eliza. He was quiet and kept to himself for the most part. She was initially concerned about Montana, but once she realized that he almost never barked and Ryan could get the benefits of having a dog without the hassle of owning one, she had liked him a lot more.
In the past she’d accepted tenants who promised to do odd jobs for a hundred bucks off the rent. Most of them either nickel-and-dimed her with notes that they changed a light bulb or performed some other mundane task and wanted a steeper discount on their rent. When Dylan had floated the arrangement, she refused, and still he had done more handiwork around the property than anyone else in years.
When he wasn’t at work or doing small projects for her, he was tossing the football with Ryan. The two of them would be outside for hours at a time, playing catch, running routes, and diagraming plays. Ryan had grown from a clumsy little kid into an athletic boy under Dylan’s guidance.
In August, Ryan had begged to play football. Eliza had been comfortable rejecting the request immediately, but it had taken Dylan’s words and support to make Ryan understand and accept the ruling.
With Dylan, there were never empty bottles or cigarette butts in the yard. His truck was clean and his language was even cleaner.
Dylan shook his head at the injustice. A seven-year-old drug conviction felt like a bad reason to kick him out. Suspicion of murder was a fine reason, but he had just been cleared of that, sort of.
“So if I need a reference, would you be willing to give it without mentioning my past?” Dylan asked, hoping for a tiny remnant of good will.
“Do you have a place in mind?” Eliza asked in return. She suddenly sounded unsure of what she was going to do.
“Well, I was hoping you would give me a few days to find one. Me and Montana sleeping in the truck is a little rough.” Dylan rubbed his hand on the back of his head and down to his neck.
“It’s not the stuff from this weekend that bothers me. The lying is what I’m upset about. You should have told me you had a record and that you had paid your dues to society,” she answered.
“Would you have rented to me then if I had?” He knew the true answer.
“No. It’s just—” Eliza looked off to the street.
Dylan followed her gaze and watched a police car roll past. They hadn’t indicted him for murdering the cop, though it was lack of evidence that freed him. It was possible that they were still suspicious of him and they were around to catch Dylan if he slipped up.
“I can understand you wanting me gone. All I’m asking for is a few days.
Please? I promise you, nothing will happen. I would never do anything to put Ryan or you in jeopardy.” He could sense her getting ready to cave.
“I don’t know,” Eliza said. She looked back at the house and froze.
Dylan turned to look with her. In the window was Ryan, holding a football. His head was leaned up against the glass and moisture on his cheeks glistened in the sun.
“You have until Saturday,” Eliza said suddenly. “If there is even a hint of trouble, you’re gone immediately and I’m calling the cops. Do you understand?” There was a tremor in her voice.
“Thank you,” Dylan choked out as tears welled in his eyes.
Eliza turned and began walking back toward the house. Before she got too far, Dylan thought of something from earlier in the day. “Eliza, you’ve lived in town for awhile right?” he asked to her back.
“Twenty-five years,” she answered, turning to face him.
“Have you ever heard about a lease or something buried in Monson?” Dylan asked.
“Is that why you’ve been walking in there everyday? Looking for a buried treasure?” Eliza laughed.
“No. Someone at the police station asked me about it today and I thought it was a trick to confuse me. The guy who kidnapped me had what looked like a map and some other weird documents in the car. Would the paperwork for some old town charter be worth killing for?” Dylan didn’t think that the lease was real or worth pursuing even if it was, but he liked it here and didn’t want to have to leave.
“Well, between you and me, the buried treasure idea was the brain child of a local marketing executive. In the late nineties, a developer wanted to build a few homes on the land and it would have interfered with this guy’s views and given him the worst thing you can have in New Hampshire.” She let her eyes drift back to history.
“What is the worst thing you can have in New Hampshire?” Dylan asked curiously.
“Neighbors you can see,” Eliza said. She filled out the story: “But anyway, he came up with this story about buried treasure and important colonial documents hidden somewhere in the boundary of the old town. He spun a good yarn and the locals who wanted to believe it never searched for much proof. The development was blocked and the town bought the land for short money and put it into conservation.”
“That makes more sense than a mysterious lease. Thanks.” Dylan let her leave and shuffled to his door.
He finished removing the yellow crime scene tape that had been across the door. Dylan feared that when he got the chance to really look, the inside would be in shambles. It was doubtful that the local and state police had been careful when going through searching for clues. Inside, he was surprised to see that stuff had clearly been moved but nothing was broken or even left in disarray.
Montana nudged past him and through the door. Without waiting for instruction, the dog trotted over to the couch and hopped up. He curled himself into a ball and lay down with his head on the arm.
Dylan closed the door behind him and barely made it to his bed before collapsing. Sleep came almost instantly.
Chapter 12
Hunger woke him some time around mid-day. Montana was whining by his bowl and Dylan’s stomach rumbled. After all the time asleep, they both needed food.
Pouring some kibble into the dog’s bowl, Dylan wondered about the last time Montana had eaten.
A flash of light off the windshield of a car on the street got his attention. He looked out the window and saw it roll past the house slowly. It wasn’t a police car, at least, not a marked one. There was something about the all-black colors and its speed that made him think “official.”
Letting wild fantasies run through his mind was not good for his sanity or his sobriety. He needed to eat and then do something, or he would lose control.
One of the drawbacks to being a bachelor who had no friends and did not entertain was that the cupboards were perpetually bare. When he went to work, he stopped at the coffee shop for breakfast, grabbed a sub for lunch, and ate takeout or microwave food for dinner.
Occasionally on the weekends he would go to the local farm stand and buy fresh vegetables and make himself a steak and a salad. During football season, pizza and seltzer water ruled the weekend eating. Today was a Tuesday, and he had to get food.
Seeing the dead body, pissing himself and then sleeping for sixteen hours left him feeling gross. Even though he had showered, a big salad would fill him up and provide a clean healthy feeling to help with his attitude.
“Come on Montana, let’s go for a ride,” he called to his best friend, and headed for the door.
The aging golden retriever climbed onto the couch in defiance. He put his chin on the arm and gave Dylan a look that said, “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Okay, you sleep, I’ll be back in a bit.” Dylan shook his head at the lazy old dog and walked out to his truck.
As he drove down the quiet country lane he remembered how much he liked it here. When the tractor with an empty hay trailer rolled past, he added “hard-working” to the list of things he liked. It was a shame that he had to leave and start over again. Guilty or not, he was pretty sure he would always be held to some level of responsibility for the death of officer Farley. It was a delicate balance, not running away but planning to leave so you could avoid trouble.
While he meandered through town, his brain listed the things he would buy at the farm. Lettuce, cucumbers, and tomatoes were obvious choices, but today he felt like corn on the cob, and maybe even a little roasted broccoli and cauliflower.
Jumps of the mind are incredible. Cauliflower reminded him of how his father used to dice and blend the vegetable in an effort to sneak it into every dinner when Dylan was a boy. Sometimes he couldn’t tell the difference, and other times it was obvious that there were chunks of vegetable in his food. His father’s best-laid plans were not always successes.
Something about planning and sneaking caused his mind to jump back to the American Lease. There had been a plan to find it and retrieve it, if it actually existed, but the plan was covert. Whoever wanted it didn’t want anyone to know they were looking for it or had found it.
A two-hundred-and-fifty-year-old document was surely worth something, but didn’t it belong to the U. S. government? At the very least, its only possible destiny was a museum. Or was it?
Waiting for the light at a four-way stop, Dylan saw the black car roll past again. The driver was not trying to be covert or sneaky; he stared right at Dylan while rolling through the intersection. It was the FBI agent who had questioned him at police headquarters.
It pissed him off that the FBI was following him. He hadn’t done anything wrong and had been completely forthcoming with every answer he gave. If they wanted to know something more, they should stop in and ask him.
Confident in the knowledge that he was clean, Dylan turned and followed the FBI car down the road. He smiled broadly when the agent guessed wrong and turned in the opposite direction from the farm stand. Even if the guy was in front of him, it seemed fitting that the FBI couldn’t even follow someone who didn’t care about being followed.
Pulling into the dirt parking lot, Dylan was relieved to see so few cars. Harvest weekends brought what seemed like every city dweller on the East Coast up to the town’s farm stands. People stood three deep looking at pumpkins or picking out heirloom tomatoes. At midday on a Tuesday, the place was practically a ghost town.
From the bins outside he grabbed two ears of Mirai, his favorite variety of sweet corn, and an heirloom tomato. Workers were busy taking fresh produce off the trailer and placing it in the proper bins while rotating out anything that had spoiled or would soon.
Inside, Dylan picked out a small tub of fresh mozzarella and a couple of diva cucumbers. None of these were hard choices; they were his usual salad ingredients. For some reason, lettuce stumped him. There were several choices beyond simple iceberg, but spinach kept popping into his head. He stared at the display for a minute or two and didn’t move.
A young woman approached. “Can I help you?”
“What? Oh no, just trying to decide on lettuce,” he said. His brain was not firing on all cylinders.
“Hey. You’re the cop killer guy,” the woman said, suddenly angry.
“I prefer ‘kidnap victim.’ I did not shoot that officer; my dog found him.” Suddenly, Dylan regretted not going to the super grocery store and its self-checkout options.
“Steve Farley was a good man. He was going to Monson in response to a vandalism call. If you didn’t let your dog dig all over and tear up historically significant land, he’d still be alive today,” she accused.
“Montana didn’t tear up anything. The killer, and kidnapper, was using a pry bar on the Gould house. There were no holes in the ground.” Dylan was a little confused about why she was focusing on a minor disturbance of nature.
“Right, and you’ve never been out to the Nevins foundations or let your mutt run free?” she challenged.
“Neither Montana or I have ever damaged anything in Monson. We love walking in there, why would we ruin it?” he asked.
“Don’t play dumb, you already look the part. An out-of-towner moves to Brookford and becomes obsessed with Monson? Then the first time in hundreds of years that anything even happens there and we’re supposed to believe you had nothing to do with it?” A tear rolled down her cheek.
“I wasn’t obsessed with Monson. My dog likes walking in there and I can let him run free without worrying that a car, or a tractor, will run him over. The killer is the one that was out of place. Guy in a suit is hacking away at the Gould house and you people are pissed at me for walking my dog!” Dylan shouted.
The young woman looked at him in silence. She was not confused or bemused, but she was deep in thought. Something Dylan had shared struck a chord with her.
Whatever she was thinking, Dylan didn’t care. He grabbed a head of iceberg lettuce and turned for the register. There would be no apology and this was probably the last time he would ever be in this building.
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