by Adam Hamdy
The following day, Wallace located an Internet café and completed his ESTA Visa Waiver application, giving New York City’s YMCA as his intended residence. He also purchased a backpack, clothes, toiletries and a cheap digital SLR camera. The strongest lies were built of half-truths, and Wallace had resolved that if challenged, William Porter, an amateur shutterbug, would explain his presence in the United States as a photographic holiday.
Charles De Gaulle Airport had tested Wallace’s nerves. Airlines were on high alert for the holidays and he had no idea how widely his photograph and details had been circulated. As a murder suspect, there was every chance he had made Interpol’s alert list. He had photographed enough actors to know that trying too hard was fatal to any performance. The most powerful portrayals were grounded in an easy truth, so, rather than try to appear relaxed, Wallace had thought about Connie. Grief overwhelmed him, and his deep sadness was both genuine and palpable. The French immigration officer had returned his passport without comment, and an usher instructed him to proceed through security. Wallace was relieved not to be selected for a full body scan, as he was carrying close to eighteen thousand pounds in his belt, which was over the money-laundering limits imposed by the United States.
The flight had been unremarkable, and had arrived into John F. Kennedy International Airport at three p.m. The surrounding countryside was blanketed with thick snow, and dirty great piles of the stuff had been shoved either side of the slick runway. Inside the terminal building, Wallace had joined the snaking immigration queue, and gave quiet thanks that he had never been to the United States before. Seated in small cubicles that ran the width of the arrivals hall were a dozen immigration officers, each of whom took photographs and fingerprints of every single visitor.
‘First time to the States, Mr Porter?’ the immigration officer had asked him. The poker-faced man’s name tag identified him as Efren Luiz.
‘Yes,’ Wallace replied, as the fingerprint scanner captured an image of his digits.
He had waited for what seemed like an age while Luiz studied the screen on the other side of the counter.
‘Purpose of visit?’ Luiz asked at last.
‘Holiday,’ Wallace replied with relief.
‘Vacation,’ Luiz said firmly as he stapled Wallace’s visa waiver into the passport. ‘Welcome to America, Mr Porter.’
Wallace had asked the cab driver for a budget motel near the airport, and rejected the first option as too salubrious. The second choice, the De Lux Suites, had looked suitably seedy, and earned the cab driver a generous tip. Wallace paid for three days in advance, and used the time to acquire a vehicle and plan his trip north. Locked alone in his room, he also fought the painful effects of withdrawal. Determined to regain control of his mind and body, he resisted the urge to find a nearby pharmacy or seek out one of the many brightly signed liquor stores. Instead, whenever cravings threatened him, he performed his aikido drills over and over until he was too exhausted to do anything other than collapse on his king-size bed. The martial art that had brought discipline and routine into his teenage life now performed a far more profound function and prevented him from being swept back into the dangerous spiral from which he’d emerged.
Wallace had decided against public transportation because it increased the number of people he would come into contact with. Although he was taking a risk driving without a licence or insurance, he thought that provided he assiduously adhered to the speed limit there was little chance of him being stopped by the police. After trudging the slushy streets to check out the used car dealers in the neighbourhood, he had settled on Five Star Auto Sales as somewhere that wouldn’t demand too many answers. The Explorer had cost three thousand dollars, which Wallace obtained by exchanging small sums of sterling for greenbacks in half a dozen different banks. The ever-smiling Seth had been unperturbed by the cash or by Wallace giving the De Lux Suites as his address for the registration transfer. He simply waved happily as Wallace drove the lumbering old wreck off the lot.
With an iPad purchased from Best Buy and the motel’s pay-by-the-hour Wi-Fi, Wallace was able to research Cold Spring, Kye Walters’ home town. Situated on the east bank of the Hudson River, just over an hour’s train ride from New York City, Cold Spring was described as an up-market village that attracted tourists and wealthy New Yorkers tired of city living. Photos of the village made it look picturesque and inviting, with twentieth-century red-bricks dominating the architecture. But there were also New England-style clapboard houses with slate roofs and grand three-storey brown-brick terraces that added to Cold Spring’s traditional charm. It was not the sort of place Wallace would immediately associate with a teenage meth dealer.
Aside from the local news articles Connie had found, there didn’t seem to be anything else on Kye Walters. Wallace read them over and over, each time growing ever more convinced that the man who had tried to kill him had also murdered Kye. On the face of it, there was no obvious connection between him and the previously untroubled eighteen-year-old high school student who had suddenly taken his own life, revealing a shameful secret existence as a meth dealer in a suicide note posted on Facebook. But the unexpected suicide and subsequent sordid revelations also fit the pattern of Huvane’s death.
Wallace had checked out of the De Lux Suites and travelled north on Highway Nine, through the snow-covered landscape of New York State, until he found the Country Comfort Motel, five miles north of Cold Spring. There were a couple of guest houses in town, but Wallace wanted to put some distance between himself and Cold Spring: a stranger asking difficult questions might attract the attention of local law enforcement.
The Country Comfort Motel was an aluminium-clad box that had been divided into a dozen apartments. The owner, a chubby, middle-aged, heavily made-up woman called Martha, had given Wallace number eight, a one-bedroom apartment on the ground floor with a studio living room/kitchen and a tiny faux-marble wet room. After he’d deposited his luggage, Wallace had returned to the wood-panelled reception and explained to Martha that he was a filmmaker researching a documentary on suicides. Eager to oblige her foreign guest, Martha had volunteered Kye Walters before Wallace even mentioned his name. With the hushed tones of a gossip’s false compassion, Martha told Wallace everything she knew about Kye and expressed surprise that Kye’s mother, Robyn, didn’t leave Cold Spring as a result of the scandal. According to Martha, Robyn was a single mother who lived in a tumbledown static trailer on a gnarly lot on the outskirts of Garrison, a tiny hamlet a few miles south of Cold Spring. Apparently Robyn still managed the East Point Café on Main Street, which was how his rasping Ford Explorer came to be parked in the heart of Cold Spring the following frozen January morning.
Wallace sat in the warmth of the SUV and rehearsed how he would approach the bereaved mother. Condensation clouded the windows of the East Point Café, which was located on the ground floor of one of the many red-brick buildings that lined Main Street. Wallace could not see inside, but he watched as a handful of loyal customers braved the cold and stopped for morning coffee and pastries on their way down to the train station, which was located by the Hudson, at the western end of the street. The last of the customers, a trim man in an expensive suit, parked his gleaming silver SUV directly ahead of Wallace, and left his engine running while he went inside to collect his order. Emerging minutes later, the man carefully crossed the icy sidewalk, and nodded a greeting at Wallace before getting into his car and driving towards the station. Wallace waited a couple of minutes, and when he finally felt there was a lull in the rhythm of the café’s morning trade, he switched off the Explorer’s engine and stepped out to be greeted by the bitterly cold winter air.
26
‘Sorry about the view,’ the bubbly blonde called across the empty café, indicating the misted windows.
‘At least it’s warm,’ Wallace observed, pulling the door closed behind him and stamping his feet on the thick rug to shed the snow that clung to his heavy boots.
‘You vis
iting?’ the blonde asked.
Wallace nodded.
‘What can I get you?’
For all his rehearsal, Wallace was at a loss. He assumed this effervescent, friendly blonde was Robyn Walters and suspected that he was about to ruin her day. She was younger than he expected; Wallace guessed she was mid-to-late thirties. Her long blonde hair was tied in a loose ponytail revealing a warm, unblemished face. She was naturally beautiful with smooth skin and a country fair smile. Only her eyes hinted at sadness. They were a striking green, but unlike her lips, they weren’t smiling. Instead, they seemed to be peering beyond Wallace, as though searching for something they would never see.
He walked to the counter. The café walls were lined with framed postcards of local landmarks and old monochrome photographs of officer cadets at West Point. There were ten heavy rustic tables arranged in neat rows, with four high-backed seats at each. The blonde stood next to a pastry display, and behind her was a large Italian coffee machine and a door that led off to the kitchen. Wallace leaned against the counter and bought time by studying the pastries.
‘What’ll it be?’ the blonde asked. ‘We do a mean apple Danish.’
‘I’ll take one of those,’ Wallace replied. ‘And a mocha.’
‘Coming right up,’ the blonde said brightly, turning towards the chrome coffee machine. Wallace watched as she ground the beans into fine powder and then filled the double basket before securing it to one of the group heads.
‘Are you Robyn?’ he asked finally. She paused for a moment, and then pushed a small paper cup under the basket. When she turned round, the friendly effervescence had been replaced by cautious suspicion.
‘What d’you want?’ she asked coldly.
‘I’m looking for Robyn Walters,’ he replied.
‘Like I said; what d’you want?’
‘I want to ask you about Kye,’ he said softly, but the moment he spoke the words he saw the blonde’s face harden. She turned back to the coffee machine and studied the slow stream of brown ink intently.
‘I’m sorry. I know this is difficult,’ Wallace continued. ‘Please. Someone tried to kill me.’
The blonde spun round suddenly. ‘Listen, mister!’ she spat. ‘You don’t have any fuckin’ idea what difficult is!’
‘Mornin’, Robyn,’ a voice called from the door. ‘Everything OK?’
Wallace turned to see a large, middle-aged bear of a man in a thick winter coat. The bear stamped his boots on the mat and removed his deerstalker to reveal a tight crop of close-cut hair.
‘I’m good, Saul,’ Robyn lied. ‘Just getting this guy his coffee.’
She turned for the paper cup and placed it on the counter. Saul joined Wallace, looming over him by a good four or five inches.
‘Best coffee in the state,’ Saul observed, as Robyn used a pair of tongs to claw a Danish into a bag. ‘You visiting?’
When Saul unzipped his coat to reach for his wallet, Wallace saw that his imposing neighbour wore the black tunic and insignia of the Putnam County Sheriff’s Department.
‘Just staying for a couple of days,’ Wallace lied. ‘I’m on holiday – vacation as people keep telling me. I’m heading up to Niagara Falls.’
‘Nice part of the world.’ Saul’s reply was light and easy, but Wallace got the sense that the huge man was studying him.
‘That’ll be five-sixty,’ Robyn announced as she deposited a liveried paper bag in front of Wallace.
‘Thanks,’ he said, pulling a ten from his wallet.
‘That your truck out front?’ Saul asked.
‘The Explorer?’ Wallace responded, and Saul nodded. ‘Yes, it is.’
‘Rental?’ Saul probed.
‘No,’ Wallace answered. ‘I did the sums, and it was cheaper to buy an old banger than to rent. And this way I get the authentic experience, right?’
‘Right,’ Saul said half-heartedly. ‘I didn’t catch your name.’
‘William Porter,’ Wallace replied.
‘Four-forty,’ Robyn said, handing Wallace his change.
‘Thanks.’ He dropped a dollar in the tip jar, and picked up the coffee and Danish. ‘Nice meeting you both,’ he said as he backed away from the counter. He turned for the door and felt Robyn and Saul watching him as he moved casually towards the exit.
‘Hey!’ Saul called out. Wallace froze in his tracks and turned to see the huge man lumbering towards him. ‘You forgot this.’ Saul handed Wallace the brown leather wallet that he’d left on the counter.
‘Thanks,’ Wallace smiled with relief.
‘You take care now,’ Saul counselled as Wallace opened the door and stepped outside.
Feeling nothing but relief as the raw air stung his cheeks, Wallace carefully crossed the sidewalk and climbed into the Ford. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Saul watching him through a freshly wiped patch of glass. Wallace smiled and nodded at the sheriff with the heavy realisation that he could never risk returning to the café. He’d have to find another way to persuade Robyn Walters to talk about her son.
Pink juices ran down Wallace’s chin and he instinctively sagged back to prevent them from falling on to his shirt. He reached for the dispenser and grabbed a couple of paper napkins which he used to mop his mouth and the tiny puddles that had fallen between his thighs on to the high stool. The towering burger was rich and flavoursome, the thick patty topped with crispy bacon, blue cheese and pickles, all of which was enclosed in a brioche bun. But it was too big to be eaten without creating a sticky mess. He glanced around the Hudson Burger Joint and saw that he wasn’t the only one struggling; the place was packed with diners and, despite the variety of techniques being employed, every single one of them was finding it difficult to fit an oversized burger into a standard-sized mouth, but the taste more than compensated for the mess, and Wallace tried to take another bite.
‘Everything OK?’ the genial barman asked.
Wallace nodded, and the barman continued preparing a tray of drinks. The Hudson Burger Joint was a lively restaurant across the street from the East Point Café. Wallace sat at the bar – the waitress had called it a counter – and watched through the window as a small but steady procession of returning commuters stopped for their final fix of caffeine. After the morning’s encounter, Wallace had returned to the motel. Checking online, he discovered the East Point Café closed at seven p.m. He spent a restless afternoon impatiently flicking between television channels, and eventually, when his thoughts began turning to drink, he performed two hours of aikido drills. After showering, he had driven into town and parked the Explorer round the corner, a block west from the East Point Café. At six thirty, he had left the stifling warmth of the Ford and stepped into the freezing night. He walked past the café and saw Robyn was still inside. He’d rightly gambled that a small café running a twelve-hour day would not incur the extra cost of shift workers. He had selected the Hudson Burger Joint because of its position; the quality of the food was an unexpected bonus.
The large clock on the wall behind the bar said seven fifteen when the East Point Café’s lights went off. Moments later, Robyn Walters emerged in a long woollen coat. As she locked the door behind her, Wallace threw twenty-five dollars on to the bar, grabbed his coat and hurried out of the restaurant. He reached into his pocket and pulled on a thick ski hat. He was grateful for the ominously dark clouds that swelled the night sky. Without moonlight he was just a dark shadow on the other side of a wide street. He watched as Robyn headed east, and when she turned into Kemble Avenue, the next block up, Wallace realised he had a decision to make: try to follow her on foot or go for his car. He opted for the latter, and hurried west as fast as the icy conditions would allow. He reached Rock Street, jumped in the Explorer, gunned the engine and quickly pulled on to Main Street. When he turned on to Kemble Avenue, Wallace was relieved to see Robyn two hundred yards away, opening the door of a small dark car. He pulled into a parking space and killed his lights. Leaving the engine running, he waited until Robyn pulled out
. The first flakes of snow started to fall as he followed her out of town.
There was very little traffic, so there was no way for Wallace to try to use other vehicles to conceal his presence. By the time they made it to the Bear Mountain Highway, their cars were the only ones on the road. He simply had to hope that after a busy day Robyn would not notice she was being followed, and even if she did, the bright glare of his headlights would make it impossible for her to identify the vehicle. The windshield wipers were waving furiously and Wallace was glad that Robyn had slowed to just over twenty miles per hour. The thick falling snow was making the road treacherous, and he could feel the Explorer starting to slide around as its wheels fought for grip. The Ford’s beams took on clearly defined, tight conical shapes as bulbous flakes reflected most of the light. Up ahead, Wallace could just see the bright red tail lamps of Robyn’s small car as it moved slowly south.
After fifteen minutes, Robyn signalled left and pulled off the highway on to Indian Brook Road. Wallace followed, turning on to a potholed track that cut through a large pine forest. He had always heard how vast America was, but nobody had ever mentioned the wilderness. Here, not more than fifty miles from one of the world’s biggest cities, was an ancient wild woodland complete with coyotes, deer and black bears. Even though he was only a few miles outside town, the sheer scale of the expansive wilderness that stretched out towards the Atlantic made him feel isolated and vulnerable. He kept his eyes on Robyn’s car as it bounced around the narrow road over a newly laid blanket of snow that made the potholes impossible to detect. The Explorer took a couple of jarring knocks as it slowly climbed the steep hill, winding its way further into the forbidding landscape. Occasionally the forest would be broken by a house, but for the most part Wallace drove with nothing but tall, imposing trees lining his route. There was no doubt Robyn would have noticed the trailing vehicle, but Wallace hoped she’d think he was one of her neighbours. After another fifteen minutes’ snaking up the hill, she finally turned into a driveway. Wallace glanced into the property as he drove slowly past and saw Robyn’s car pull to a halt next to an old pick-up truck that was parked in front of a small static trailer.