Safe Houses

by Dan Fesperman

  “Looking for a guy name Merle. I’m told he’s a regular.”

  “Sorry, man. Can’t help you.” He kicked at the ground and turned away.

  “But you know him, right? Older guy with a beard?”

  The first guy, the bigger one, wheeled and spat at Henry’s feet.

  “Fuck off, man. We need work.”

  The boss man approached, wagging his finger.

  “No, no. I told you. Go!”

  “And I told you, we’re just looking for somebody.”

  “Only if you’ve got jobs. Then we can talk.”

  “I’ve got a twenty, how’s that for starters?” He held out the greenback, and it took the guy only a second to snatch it.

  “You said Merle? Anglo with a beard?”

  “That’s him.”

  “Mostly does chicken catching. Hates construction. But he hasn’t been here in at least a week, so there you go.”

  “Know where he lives?”

  “No idea. These other guys won’t know, either.”

  “How ’bout if I ask them?”

  “They don’t speak your language.”

  “What about these two?” He nodded toward the white guys.

  “They know better.”

  “Than to cross you? How much do you get out of all this?”

  He grabbed Henry’s forearm and led him back toward the car.

  “Out of here! Now!”

  By then a white pickup had pulled up to the crowd of laborers. The boss man released Henry’s arm and trotted toward the truck. Henry took out his notebook, scribbled his name, address, and cell number and tore out the page. He trotted back over to the white guys, approaching the less hostile one as he folded the scrap of paper and held it forward.

  “Fifty bucks to anybody who can help us find Merle, and this is where you can reach me.”

  He held out the paper. The shorter guy took it and then hesitated, like he was about to toss it aside. Then he stuffed it into the pocket of his jeans.

  “Tell the others,” Henry said. “You can always take a cut, just like the boss man.”

  There was a shout from behind.

  “You still here, asshole?” The boss man, already trotting back toward him. “Get the fuck out of here!”

  “I’m on my way,” Henry said. Anna pulled the car alongside him with the passenger door already ajar. Henry climbed in as a rock flew toward them from out of the crowd. It sailed across the hood before striking the asphalt.

  “The proverbial shot across our bow,” Anna said as she accelerated away. “He’s worse than Simon Legree. What did you give to the down-and-outer?”

  “My name and number. If anything comes of it, we’re in for fifty.”

  “Fair enough, as long as El Jefe doesn’t get a cut.”

  * * *

  —

  Back at the Shoats’ house the postman had just arrived. Atop the pile of junk and bills was an Express Mail envelope for Anna from the Employee Benefits Security Administration. There was a form to fill out, plus a list of the documentation she’d need to get the check.

  “Want to help me round up some of this stuff?” she asked. “It’s as good a reason as any to start poking around in all my mom’s old junk.”

  Just what Mitch would’ve wanted to hear.

  “What have you already gone through?”

  “Bills, mostly, like this crap. And farm stuff. A neighbor told me the beans needed spraying in another week. Now, if I just knew what to spray them with.”

  “What will you do with this place?”

  “Sell it. If Willard was around I might at least keep the house, find him a caretaker. But I guess the state will be handling his accommodations from here on out.” Then she turned away and opened the refrigerator, as if to hide behind the door. He listened to her rummaging through bottles and plastic containers. She heaved a sigh of exasperation and emerged holding a head of limp, rotting lettuce.

  “Everything in there is turning five shades of green.” She kept her face averted as she turned toward the garbage bin beneath the sink. “The fridge, yet another chore. But that can wait. Mom’s things should be a lot more interesting.”

  “You said she had an office?”

  “Out in the barn. Her hideaway. The key’s right here.”

  Anna rummaged through a wicker basket by the phone, and pulled out a plastic garage door opener attached to a silver key. He followed her out back into the mid-morning sun, the breeze smelling of manure and insecticide. The barn was a few hundred yards farther on.

  “Did she call it a hideaway?”

  “No. I came home at the end of my first semester and there it was. She liked to come out here whenever things got too hectic, or noisy. Once, during a big snowfall when I was home for Christmas, she spent the better part of a day out here. Her way of dealing with cabin fever, I guess. I think sometimes she just came out here to read and smoke.”

  “She was a smoker?”

  “That’s the funny part. She’d supposedly quit years ago, when she was pregnant with me. But whenever she’d come in from the barn I’d smell it on her clothes, and I’m sure Dad did, too. She’d be chewing gum so it wasn’t on her breath. Just like a high school kid.”

  “Your dad never said anything?”

  “That wasn’t his style. He figured that when she wanted to talk about something she’d let him know.” Anna paused as they reached the barn. “She could be that way about a lot of things. Keeping them to herself. Going off on her own.”

  “Maybe the CIA gave her a taste for secrecy.”

  “Or maybe a taste for secrecy is why she joined.”

  Anna clicked the opener. The door lurched open and rose with a clatter, like a big aluminum curtain.

  19

  To Henry’s eye, the barn was more of an oversized garage, housing machinery instead of animals. The floor was a slab of concrete. There was no loft. A mammoth John Deere tractor was parked in the middle, surrounded by all sorts of attachments and equipment. The hideaway, as Anna called it, was in a rear corner with its own door, which Anna opened with the silver key.

  It was small, about nine by nine feet, but felt instantly comfy. The walls were painted a soothing green, and there was a custom-made desk along the back with drawers, cabinets, and shelves all built from the same blond wood. A MacBook sat on the desk, folded shut. In the corner was an easy chair with a reading lamp mounted just above it. There was no window, but the lighting was warm and homey. The overall effect was like something you’d see in an IKEA catalog. The only items that seemed out of place were a small space heater and an air-conditioning unit that had been built into the outer wall where a window might have gone.

  His eyes were drawn to the highest shelf, where an old bottle half filled with an amber liquid was perched by an empty wineglass.

  “Mom’s little tipple?” Anna said.

  “I doubt it was a regular habit or she wouldn’t have put it somewhere she’d need a chair to bring it down.”

  “The voice of experience?”

  He climbed onto the office chair for a closer look. The bottle was dusty, the writing in French.

  “Brandy,” he said. “A label I’ve never heard of, probably because it’s well out of my price range. But it’s definitely got some years on it.”

  “Only one glass. That’s kind of sad.”

  “I can see why she might want a solitary nip now and then.”

  “Says the man who drinks alone.”

  He was about to climb down when he noticed something else pushed toward the back of the shelf, which made it invisible from below—a big, touristy snow globe with a gilded Eiffel Tower inside, mounted on hulking plaster base with “Paris” painted in blue letters.

  “Boy is that ever ugly.”

  “What’s ugl
y?”

  “I’ll show you.” Henry raised up on his tiptoes and stretched out his arm. It was covered in dust.

  “God, it weighs a ton. Take a gander.”

  Anna burst out laughing.

  “Wow, that’s hideous.”

  “And broken. Looks like somebody knocked a chunk off the bottom.”

  “Why would she even keep it?”

  “Did your parents go to Paris on their honeymoon?”

  Anna snorted. “Are you kidding me? No way. Ocean City, a week at the beach. It was probably all they could afford. Dad’s never even been out of the country. Maybe Mom went while she was in Berlin.”

  He set it back on the shelf, climbed down, and wiped the dust on his pants.

  “Did your Dad build all this furniture?”

  Anna shook her head.

  “She wouldn’t let him near the place. She hired some cabinetmaker out of Easton. I always thought it looked like something you’d see in Europe.”

  “Definitely. Like Germany.” The word hung in the air for a moment.

  “I guess you’d know. Never been there myself. I still can’t imagine Mom being there. In the middle of the Cold War, no less.”

  “Well, that’s why we’re here. To find the real Helen Shoat. Should we fire up the Mac, or save the hard stuff for later?”

  “Why would the Mac be hard?”

  “Password protected, don’t you think?”

  Anna smiled.

  “Mom told me once that she used the same password on pretty much everything. Her phone, her ATM, her library card. She said she could never keep them all straight otherwise. Osprey. Her favorite bird. She was kind of an idiot about those things.”

  Henry was skeptical but typed it in.

  “Damn. You’re right. Not exactly a super spy.” He wondered if Anna was as disappointed by that as he was. Mitch probably would be, too. Although, for all Henry knew, Mitch was looking for something completely different.

  Icons came up across the bottom of the screen for a web browser, a mail account, search engines, photos, a word processor, and a few other items. He clicked open the browser and got more icons—for Google, Netflix, AccuWeather, and a local bank. He checked her browsing history and it came up blank. The search history on Google gave the same result. The photo archive was empty, and her mail basket only had a half dozen unopened items that had come in since the night she was killed. All of them were junk.

  “I’m beginning to see why she didn’t worry about her password. Either she rarely used this, which I’m doubting, or she was good at covering her tracks.” He made a few more clicks. “Look at this. No search histories, no way to follow her footprints. And I’m guessing her emails purged as soon as she read them.”

  “What about document files?”

  Henry clicked some more.

  Nothing.

  Anna took a crack at it, and they pecked around a while longer, but it was like scrounging for food in an empty kitchen.

  “You said she was an idiot about these things? Looks to me more like she got advice from a professional.” In fact, based on everything Rodney Bales had once taught him, he knew she had. With a sigh of exasperation, he shut it down.

  Next to the desk was a two-drawer filing cabinet. Locked.

  “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

  Anna searched for a key inside the top desk drawer, but found only pencils, pushpins, and paper clips.

  “We could force it with a crowbar,” Henry offered.

  “We could. But they’re handmade, and I’d hate to damage them. Give me a few minutes in the house. I’ve got a decent idea where she might have kept it.”

  Henry waited until he could no longer hear Anna’s departing footsteps. Then he reached into a hip pocket and pulled out a slender black case about double the size of a matchbook. Inside was a set of tiny stainless steel tools, like needles with various shapes at the ends. Rodney Bales had given it to Henry as a “graduation gift” from his School of Night, along with a gag gift of disposable surgical gloves, for rummaging through people’s garbage.

  He quickly selected a tool and slipped it into the keyhole. Within seconds he’d maneuvered open the lock, although he also noticed that the mechanism was already loose, and when he looked closer he saw faint scratches around the keyhole. He pocketed his tool case, reached into the desk drawer for a paper clip, and waited in silence for Anna’s return.

  “No luck,” she said, coming back through the door. “But I did find this, on the top shelf of her closet.”

  It was a hatbox. Inside was a blond wig, in a layered cut that looked fairly retro.

  “What do you think? The master of disguise?”

  “You never saw her wearing it?”

  “God, no! Anyone around here would’ve laughed her out of town, my father included.”

  Then she spotted the file drawer, standing ajar.

  “You found the key?”

  “Picked the lock,” he said, holding aloft the paper clip. No sense letting her know how he’d really done it, or she might start asking some unwelcome questions. “But the lock was already loose. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s fifty-fifty somebody beat us to it.”

  “And then relocked it?”

  “To cover their tracks. Wouldn’t be that hard for someone who knew what he was doing.”

  “Especially if he had the right tools,” she said, eyeing him closely. “You know, like a paper clip.”

  Henry shrugged and offered what he hoped was a convincing smile. He then stood aside as she checked inside the drawers. Both were full, front to back, although it quickly became apparent that the contents were mostly routine paperwork—tax returns, car loans, repair invoices, bills for hospital visits (the births of Anna and Willard, Anna’s tonsillectomy). The fattest folder held warranties and user manuals for seemingly every household appliance the family had ever owned. There were insurance policies, banking statements, and reports for a small investment account. Most of the bottom drawer was devoted to records from Washam Poultry, along with invoices from agricultural suppliers, seed companies, and other farm business. There were school report cards, copies of standardized test scores, and catalogs from at least a dozen colleges that Anna must have considered applying to at one time or another.

  “I can’t believe she kept all this,” Anna said.

  At the back of the top drawer they found a Last Will and Testament for Anna’s parents, which silenced them for a moment. Anna flipped past a few pages of boilerplate until reaching the beneficiaries.

  “Looks pretty basic. Says that if they were both to die that everything goes to me, et cetera, et cetera…As does the guardianship of Willard. Then there are a few pages of ‘selected personal effects’ for special distribution.”

  “Like what?”

  “Well, let’s see.” She flipped another page.

  “Wow. I had no idea they were such detail freaks. Listen to this: ‘To the Rev. Martin Wister, if surviving, the small bronze figurine of a feeding heron.’ Probably because he’d complimented the pot roast when they had him over for Sunday dinner, and then maybe said something about liking the heron. Here’s something about a few old books for Willard’s first teacher in kindergarten, who he adored. It goes on for another two pages. Endless junk and glory from stuff around the house. The lawyer who drew it up is also the executor, so I guess I need to make an appointment.”

  She closed the folder with a sigh.

  “Maybe this is as good as it’s going to get,” Henry said.

  “Maybe.” She dug back into the lower drawer. “Ah. Here we go, way in the back. This one’s marked ‘Personal.’ ”

  She placed the folder on the desk. Out spilled birth certificates, Social Security cards, vaccination records, and expired driver’s licenses.

  “What’s this?”
Henry said, picking up a laminated ID. “Your mom got a researcher card at the National Archives.”

  “The photo’s pretty recent.”

  “These things are good for a year, and this one expires next June, so she must have gotten it a few months ago. What do you think, genealogical research?”

  “If it was, it’s nothing she’s ever mentioned. You think maybe she was looking up her own records? CIA stuff?”

  “Doubtful. Agency files stay classified at least fifty years, and the stuff they do release is available online.”

  “How do you happen to know that?”

  “My job on the Hill.” Sir Rodney, yet again. “When you’re paid to dig into other people’s secrets, you end up burrowing into all kinds of archival hidey holes.”

  He held aloft the ID card.

  “What do you think? Something worth following up?”

  “Maybe.” She rummaged some more. “Look, pictures!”

  Anna pulled out a small pile of photos.

  “Didn’t she keep a family album?”

  “Tons. There’s a whole shelf of them in the house. Maybe these are special.”

  A few were mug shots of Anna’s mom, like the ones you’d use for passports and visas. There were different sets that appeared to have been taken at different times in her life. Others seemed to have sentimental value—family shots at Christmas, one of both kids with their Easter baskets. There was a shot of Willard and Anna from when Anna must have been about ten. They were barefoot, standing by a picnic table on a summer lawn. She stood behind her brother in a protective pose, hands on his shoulders and her face a bit fierce. Willard grinned goofily. A pink wisp of cotton candy was stuck to the left side of his mouth.

  Anna grew quiet and picked up the next one, a shot from a few years later of her family out on the Bay, seated on the windward side of a sailboat. She was eyeing Willard as if he might be about to fall overboard. Seated just behind her was a handsome middle-aged man with sinewy muscles and a farmer’s tan.