The Dead Past

by Piccirilli, Tom

  "I don't know. How long did you know him?"

  "Since I met Tons, of course. A year and a half ago." The amount of time seemed to impress her, and those thread-thin eyebrows fluttered and a wrinkle creased her forehead. "Somehow it doesn't seem that long ago, and in another way it feels much longer."

  "Did he ever mention why he—"

  "Why do you keep asking so many questions?"

  "Because his body was found virtually on my grandmother's doorstep, and I want to know if that means something."

  "How could it mean anything?"

  My next question was cut off by a loud, low groan from the back room.

  "It's awake," Deena said.

  Tons stumbled behind her into the kitchen, wearing only sagging boxer shorts and a black T-shirt with the sleeves sliced off that said HARLEY RULES. My ex-wife would have loved him. "Get me a glass of juice," he croaked. "Jesus, it's cold. Shut the damn door will you, baby." He fell over into a kitchen chair and the floor rocked.

  "There's somebody here to see you," she told him. He peered around her to look at me but the sunlight was enough to blind him. "Who?"

  "Jonathan Kendrick," I said.

  "Who?"

  "Guess you should come in," Deena said.

  The dogs backed off and went to Tons and he swatted them away, grousing. Fred and Barney sat in the center of the small, cluttered living room and looked at me the same way the information clerks at Motor Vehicles will look at you.

  Empty beer cans littered the floor and a quarter bottle of Scotch peeked out between the cushions of the couch; Tons had spent the night drinking alone at home rather than at the bar.

  "You again," he said.

  "Me again," I said.

  "What do you want now?"

  "To find out why you never showed at Raimi's last night."

  "Huh?" he said, peering at my face as if he occasionally recognized me but kept forgetting from second to second. "Oh yeah, shit. We were gonna talk." Deena brought him a tall glass of V-8. He slurped half the contents down in one pull, then pressed the cold glass against his forehead. He burped and said, "One of them nights."

  "Yeah." It wasn't hard to see where Richie may have inherited his drug problem from.

  Tons drank the rest of the V-8 and Deena filled a second glass for him. He squinted so hard that his large face scrunched into strange, fleshy angles. "Somebody sure came down on you."

  "Raimi's doesn't always draw a friendly crowd.”

  “Ain't that the truth."

  "I was hoping we could finish our talk."

  "What time is it?" He spotted a clock on the kitchen counter, reached over, and pulled it to within six inches of his eyes. "Four o'clock?"

  Deena moved behind him, cleaning dishes in the sink. "You slept in big-time today."

  "Oh, man." He pushed the clock away from him. "Baby, why didn't you stop me when you got home last night?"

  "Like that's my responsibility? I've got to take care of an infant, work, and watch out for you, too? You're over eighteen, you do what you want."

  "Why didn't you show up?" I said.

  He sipped the juice. "I don't know. I meant to, but. . . I got to thinking, after our talk, about my brother, and I just started drinking some beer, and. . ." He let the sentence drift. "Maybe you can't understand this, but he's been dead four days now and it feels like I'm just noticing, you know? That make any sense?"

  "Yes," I said.

  "I sound like an ass."

  "It's tough to put into words."

  "Do you kinda feel like that, Deena?" he asked.

  She nodded slowly. "Yeah."

  Tons closed his eyes and rolled the glass over the bridge of his nose.

  "You mind if I take a look around Richie's room?"

  Deena gave me a puzzled glance. "Why?"

  "I don't know."

  "Cops were already here," Tons said. "They can try and pin whatever the hell they want on him, it ain't gonna do anybody any good now. What's the point?"

  I nodded. "I'd still like to look around. If you don't mind."

  He shrugged. "Who gives a damn? Go ahead."

  "I'll show you," Deena said. "But be quiet. Kristine is sleeping." She led me past the dogs to the back of the house. The one large window faced the East so the room was relatively dark. Either someone had cleaned his bedroom or Richie Harraday had been an exceptionally neat kid. The top of the dresser had been kept well-polished. There was a rifle rack with two BB guns over the headboard. Directly on top of that was another rack with three fishing poles.

  On the far wall rested a tack board covered with the usual: stickers, pennants, and group photographs. I realized I'd never seen a picture of Richie Harraday and asked Deena to point him out. She chose a family shot down by the river: Tons had a beer in one hand toasting the camera, his other arm thrown around Deena, who was smiling seductively, hair alive in the wind. I got another charge from her, seeing those bedroom eyes, and wondered how she'd wound up with a guy named, at his best, Tons, and at his worst, Maurice. Richie stood a couple of feet to one side of Deena, a noncommittal smirk on his face. I didn't know what I'd expected, but he looked more average than I would have thought: wavy brown hair, round face like his brother, Beverly Hills 90210 sideburns thick and well-trimmed. He was just a rather clean-cut looking kid, and if I had a baby sister I would've preferred that Richie took her out than the enraged, acne-riddled maniacal Dean.

  Deena grinned sadly and pointed out a couple other photos of Richie. "This one was taken at the sheet metal factory where Tons works part-time."

  "Did Richie work?"

  "Nah, not really. He picked up a few bucks here and there, but nothing steady. He tried but never got his diploma. He would have graduated last year, but he had to take summer school and Richie wasn't the type to give up his summers for anything."

  I didn't want to search Richie's room while Deena was present but she made it obvious she wasn't about to leave. I tossed the room anyway, starting in his closet. Nothing unusual, just clothes and ordinary hideaway junk. Drawers of his dresser were the same, as were the two shelves beside the tack board. Nothing struck me as odd until I opened his night stand. There was an open box of condoms.

  "I think maybe he had a girlfriend after all," I said.

  Deena frowned. "Hell, anybody can get laid. It only costs a couple bucks."

  "Would a shy kid like Richie go to a pro?"

  "I can't imagine it, really, but if he had a girlfriend he never brought her home or talked about her. Why wouldn't he have told me?"

  "Was he gay?"

  The narrow eyebrows moved liked spiders. "If Tons heard you ask that he'd beat you to your knees.”

  “That's not really an answer," I said.

  "No, I don't think so. I'm not sure what Richie was, and this is starting to get a little rude for my tastes, if you know what I mean."

  "Were you close?"

  "I thought we were, but Richie was so quiet you just took it for granted that he had his secrets like everybody. He didn't talk enough about what was on his mind. He kept too much to himself." Her voice had consistently faded as she spoke, until now she was barely whispering. "His funeral's the day after tomorrow, if you want to come."

  I looked at his photographs again—a nice-looking boy with a self-conscious smile, his eyes anything but shrewd—and thought, Jesus Christ, kid, how did you end up in my trash?

  ~ * ~

  The roads were slick getting back, melting snow turning to ice as night fell. The sheen of black ice made for especially dangerous driving. I switched on the radio and the newscaster said our streak of one beautiful day was at an end, and we could expect six more inches of snow by morning.

  I pulled into Anna's driveway, but decided I should speak with Jim Witherton at least once. I'd talked with everybody else I could think of and wanted to be thorough before I told Anna I'd been punched out, stitched in the emergency room, troubled by Crummler, involved in a family dispute, and learned absolutely n
othing all day. I jogged down to Jim's house. No lights showed through his windows. I knocked, waited, tried again. Still no answer.

  I walked back to Anna's and let myself in.

  Anubis wandered over and stared stoically at me. I should've brought him to Harraday's house to kick the shit out of Fred and Barney. He stepped forward and stuck his tongue out to lick my hand but didn't quite make it. He slurped his lips and turned and went back into the bedroom.

  "Jonathan?" Anna called.

  "It's me," I said. "I'll be there in a minute." I went to the refrigerator and wished I'd stocked up on beer. The hardest drink we had was milk, so I poured myself a double. I actually had a hankering for some cookies, but I wouldn't be caught dead having milk and cookies in my grandmother's house. Somebody might write me into a nursery rhyme.

  Anna didn't want to wait. I heard her throw a book aside and wheel herself out into the kitchen.

  "Where have you been?" she said, as close to angry as she usually gets. "Why haven't you called?”

  "Anna."

  I turned, and when she saw the bruises her face tightened. "You've been in a fight. When? With who? What have you been doing? Explain yourself."

  I pulled a chair from the table and drank my milk and she sat next to me. Anubis kept the side of his head pressed to her leg and occasionally gurgled and moaned. I told her what had happened at Raimi's and she listened thoughtfully but tsked a lot; shudders of irritation run up my back whenever she tsks me.

  "Are you in much pain?"

  "No," I said.

  "Did you pound him to within an inch of his life?”

  “No, but I've got a much better hairstyle."

  "Well," she sighed, "I suppose that is something."

  It was odd, but—sitting there and sensing the sharp and keen presence of her strength—I felt especially weak in comparison, a failure by default. She held her finger up like a teacher making an important point about the atomic weight of Bromide. "You shouldn't be off all day probing this case on your own. You know as well as I do how dangerous that can be, and you wear the scars for it. I insist you inform me of your whereabouts and . . ."

  "Anna, I'm not ten years old."

  "Then I suggest you stop acting like a petulant child, always forcing me to reprimand you because you enjoy it so much. Do not approach this case with such obstinancy, Jonathan. The time for that is over, we've dealt with the past. This is a serious matter."

  "Case?" I said.

  She frowned. "Yes."

  "What case? Where is this case you see, will you tell me, please? When the Degrase baby was taken there were pieces that didn't fit, there were steps to follow; we caught the infant's aunt in lies and found out she'd snatched the kid and was blackmailing her own sister.

  We dug into their past and you stuck it out and kept coming at them from different angles until the woman broke. If Broghin and Lowell hadn't been tied up with the bank robbery at the time, they would've spotted it, too."

  "We can only hope," Anna said. "But I still have my doubts about that. Don't underestimate your own temerity or the danger it placed you in at the time, as it has before."

  "I don't want to go into it again."

  "However, the fact remains that the police did not solve the case, and we did."

  "That doesn't mean we should go hunting for trouble. There's nothing here involving us so far, just a lot of talk and rumor. You shouldn't get so caught up in playing Miss Marple."

  Strands of her silver hair caught in the corners of her mouth, and she turned on me as I licked my milk mustache and made me think twice about my ability to outrun her. Her hand shot out and gripped my wrist, and though her voice never wavered there was a pain in there that nearly took me out. "Are you suggesting I'm a senile woman who doesn't know the difference between reality and the irrational? That I cannot distinguish the truth from desultory fantasies?"

  I swallowed thickly. "No, I'm not saying that. But I'm doing the dirty work to cover our asses and make sure Richie's corpse in the garbage doesn't really have anything to do with you."

  She gave me a thick harumph. "I do not need you to 'cover my ass.' In fact, the image is enough to give me chills. Kindly refrain." Anna worried her bottom lip and cleared her throat. "I've never seen you in this state. Obviously you have a great deal more than this"—she didn't use the word "case"—"situation weighing on your mind." She took a breath and held it longer than a champion diver, letting it out slow so that it puffed her hair back around her ears. "I am sorry I haven't noticed, that I've been preoccupied." She looked me in the eye and said quietly, "But you know that if you ever need to speak with me I am always available to you."

  "I know. It's not your fault."

  "Then, please, dear, tell me."

  I didn't know what to say. "I'm getting a little tired of it. I'm sick of always feeling like there's something chasing me. I'm not a cop or a private detective or a mystery writer who stumbles into real life crimes. I'm just a bookseller."

  "Oh, you say that with such a sense of loss." She was taken aback and the sorrow lined her face. "You are far more than your designated career, Jonathan. You've proven that several times over the last half decade. You've a passion for justice surpassing that of most law officers. You also care about people, especially the people of this town."

  "Of course I do," I said, "but that has nothing to do with this."

  "It has everything to do with this."

  "I'm not so sure."

  "What happened today?" she asked.

  "I'm not so sure about that, either," I said.

  The sun had set and the kitchen had grown dark while we talked. I put on the light, a headache beginning to clamp the back of my skull.

  Anna scratched her neck, leaving fine white line trails. "It's been a long time since you've been to the cemetery.

  "Yes."

  And that was that.

  She said, "I'll get our dinner," and moved to the stove.

  We ate lamb chops and Anubis eyed me woefully. I had a lot to talk about with Anna but didn't know how to begin again; she wouldn't push. I washed the dishes and took Anubis for a walk in the park and the two of us sat by the pond while the snow started to come down. When I got back I reread Kosinski's Steps and didn't like it as much the second time around. I got ready for bed and slept and woke in a dark fury, hearing my mother's neck crack, slept a little more, and woke again, the stitches pulling painfully whenever I turned in my sleep. My watch said 12:30. I got up.

  Anna was in the kitchen, robe loose around her waist. "I couldn't do more than nap a half hour at a time," she said, "so I decided to make myself a hot cup of milk."

  "People really drink it like that?"

  She smiled. "Believe it or not, chemically it actually does help one get to sleep."

  "I've already had my fill."

  "As you wish."

  I did not like the heavy politeness that had fallen between us, but couldn't think of a way to get past it. Maybe the morning would clear both our sensibilities.

  She drank her milk. I started to ask about her day when she frowned at the same moment that Anubis cocked his head. "Did you hear something?" she asked.

  "No."

  "I could have sworn I heard a car door—"

  She wheeled herself to the window and murmured my name.

  Anubis barked twice.

  "Oh, shit," I said.

  Anna looked back at me. Her right hand clawed the neck of her cardigan, face draining of blood until it was the color of her hair. Anubis barked twice more, sounding incredibly lethal. Anna's mouth thinned as if she champed at a bit, trying hard to swallow. She closed her eyes and kept them shut as she reached to pet Anubis, and he ducked his head beneath her hand and she opened her eyes and gazed steadily at me. "It seems we have quite a growing collection," she said. Her voice dropped like a boulder. Furrowed tracks ran across her forehead. She stroked the dog more firmly between the ears, and he began to whimper, then whine loudly, and I moved forward.
"I think it's fair to say that we most certainly do have a case, Jonathan." She smiled faintly. "There's another body in the snow. A woman, I think."

  TEN

  Broghin and Lowell and the other cops ranged across the front yard as the snow spun madly. Red and blue lights flashed, and the wig-wag high beams threw hellish shadows against the brush. Neighbors came onto the sidewalks from both ends of the block, and the deputies asked questions and looked for a murder weapon all along the street. I sat at the top of the ramp watching the scene and feeling disconnected from it. I had a sour stomach. The headache was much worse. I bent and took a handful of snow and rubbed it into my face until I came a little of the way back.

  The corpse was still there. They had set up a kind of lean-to over it to keep the snow off. They were taking photographs of it and every so often a powerful flash exploded and illuminated most of the yard. Jim Witherton's car went by slowly and Lowell stepped into the street and directed him to stop. They spoke for a couple of minutes and then shook hands and Lowell waved him on. Jim must've just gotten back from his night security shift at Syntech. He'd missed the action this time; he hadn't found our body tonight. I had.

  I'd grabbed a flashlight and gone outside, and even before I saw her face I knew who it was. She was on her belly, one arm twisted around as if she was reading a good book on a beach and reaching to scratch her back. Her hand hung in the air, fingers splayed. Steam rose around her head. The light reflected off the thick lacquer of her turquoise nails: I hoped Mary Jean Resnick didn't spread the rumor that Anubis had partially eaten Karen Bolan, too.

  Sheriff Broghin stepped beside me without a word. He stared long and hard and I stared back. He started to say something and then stopped, started, and stopped again. His enormous gut hung out from beneath his jacket and over his belt like the blob trying to get at Steve McQueen. It was very close to the side of my head. He didn't cock his thumb and point his index finger. I rested my elbows on my knees and my chin on my fists. He said, "You. . ." and then cleared his throat and went into the house to talk with Anna.