by Joe Clifford
My only ally in any of this was Fisher. He had also phoned in with the latest developments. Unable to access Tom’s e-mails via conventional methods, he was going “in the back way,” whatever the fuck that meant.
The final voice mail was from my ex-wife, Jenny. She hadn’t heard from me “in a few days and wanted to be sure everything was okay.” I didn’t know if that meant I called her too often, because most divorced couples, even ones with a kid together, probably didn’t talk as often as we did. Maybe she missed the sound of my voice. I knew I missed the sound of hers.
I threw yesterday’s coffee in the microwave, got distracted, heating it too long. The black liquid boiled over, spilling everywhere. While I was sopping up the mess with a wad of paper towels, another call came in that I couldn’t get to in time. I checked the message I’d missed, dreading whatever bad news was headed my way, because all I got these days was bad news.
But this was the first message to make me happy.
Middlesex comprised one restaurant, Fanny’s, in the middle of town, next to the one gas station. Never ate there so I couldn’t vouch for the quality of food. Open for breakfast and lunch, Fanny’s closed in the early afternoon. We still had time to make it, I said, and I was more than happy to meet her halfway. But Alison Rodgers rejected any offers, insisting on driving all the way to Ashton. Which told me one thing: she didn’t want to risk being seen with me.
I arrived at the diner first. Trace flurries lingered, but by then roads had been plowed and weekday lunch crowds packed the Olympic Diner. This time of day, you got a lot of White Mountain Tech students soaking up hangovers with skillet grease and fried foods before rushing off to make afternoon classes.
Old folks dined on liver and onion specials, a staple of the septuagenarian sect. Factory boys and utility workers perched on stools, scarfing burgers in the allotted forty-five, before scrambling back to the mills and assembly lines, gassed up on caffeine and processed meats in order to survive the second-half drudgery.
With plenty of places to sit—there was never a waiting list at the Olympic, no matter how busy—I found our booth in the back, the same one we—Fisher, Charlie, and I—always sat in. Felt like it was reserved just for us. I liked believing there was at least one place where they knew my name.
No one knew my name. In fact, I was never closer to disappearing. One of the beautiful Greek waitresses brought me coffee. She’d waited on me at least two dozen times. Didn’t even toss off a courtesy smile. I sniffed my shirt to make sure it didn’t stink too bad, checked my reflection in the glass. I needed to shave. I kept staring out the window, waiting for Alison.
Up and down the Desmond Turnpike, riff-raff—lowlifes, addicts, alcoholics, welfare cases, assorted sad-sack losers who called these dumpy motels home—crept out of their holes, prepared to meet a cold and uncaring world. Some cracked the door, easing into the harsh new day’s light, like stepping into an icy pool, one painful toe at a time. Others jerked the door open, ripping off the Band-Aid in a single violent motion. Tear some skin, spill a little blood, but get the shock over with.
Plows barreled along, scraping up pieces of permafrost asphalt. Cars veered off the boulevard, into the Shell station next door, taking advantage of the free coffees that came with fill-ups, before peeling back onto the ice-slicked road, racing to be somewhere else. Where did all these people go? Thousands of lives I knew nothing about, men and women I’d never come into contact with, existing in bubbles that had nothing to do with me.
“Is this seat taken?”
It was a cute but clumsy line. I hadn’t seen Alison pull up or walk in, too stuck in my head.
They brought her coffee. She looked older in the brighter natural light. At first I’d pegged her for thirty-five, tops. Now I saw the faint crow’s feet around her eyes, betraying a harder life than I’d first assigned, adding another five or six years. It didn’t matter. Alison Rodgers was still a beautiful woman.
“I was surprised to get your call.” I wasn’t sure of the reason behind the call. She’d only left a message to call her back, and when I did she asked if I was free to grab a bite. I hoped she was ready to tell me something about Phillip Crowder and Rewrite Interventions, opinions and facts she hadn’t been able to share in mixed company. In other words, I hoped she was willing to trust me. There weren’t many of those people left. Brother, it sucks when there’s no one left to let down because no one believes in you anymore. The truth was, I didn’t give a damn why she wanted to meet. I liked being near her.
“This is what I do for a living, Jay. I try and help people when I can.”
“Good,” I said, ready to catch a break. “I could use some help.”
I knew violating confidentiality was a big deal in the recovery community. It was called Alcoholics Anonymous for a reason. I appreciated she recognized how dire my situation was.
“Can you tell me about your brother?”
“Huh?”
“We’re going to talk about what you want to talk about, okay? But first I’d like to talk about you, if you don’t mind.”
“Me?”
“I want to hear about your brother. The one who died. The one you mentioned yesterday.” Alison glanced around the room, unsure what to do with her hands, the way people do when they are stalling for time. When she turned back to me, her eyes were red, rimmed with tears. “I haven’t been able to get your face out of my mind.”
Normally when a beautiful woman says she can’t stop thinking about you, it is a good thing. This was not a good thing. I already saw where this conversation was headed—down Pity Street, by way of Woe Is Me Lane. This was the second time in as many days I’d misread Alison’s intentions.
“You seem like you are in such pain,” she said.
I dragged my bum leg out of the booth, running a finger down the length of my inner thigh to the calf. I nodded out the window, toward the mountain above us. “You know Echo Lake?”
“I’ve heard of it, yes. Up on Lamentation Mountain.”
“Few years back, I was working an insurance investigation, and I ran up against a couple dirty cops.” I didn’t detail the whole Judge Roberts drama, didn’t mention the young clerk, Nicole Parker, who’d fucked me over, selling me out to Michael Lombardi, who, it turned out, had been funding Roberts the whole time in order to build his private prison pet project, the new Coos County Center. None of that was germane to this story. “These cops brought me up to Echo Lake and made me walk the thin ice. The thaw of spring. Gun pointed at my skull, I didn’t have a lot of say. The ice cracked and I fell in. You know where the saphenous vein and nerves are?”
“I’m not a doctor.”
“The saphenous runs up your leg. It’s pretty much responsible for keeping the blood pumping in your body since the leg is so goddamn big. Turns out the nerve’s important, too. And I sliced the fuck out of mine.” I stomped my boot on the floor, prompting several customers to turn around. “Can’t feel that.” I rubbed my thigh. “Parts of my leg, I could stick a fork in. Wouldn’t feel a thing.” I took a sip of coffee. “But, no, I don’t take painkillers.”
“I’m trying to help.”
“Yeah? Then tell me where I can find Phillip Crowder.”
“I didn’t mean like that. I can’t talk about Rewrite Interventions.” She stopped. “Except how it might help you.”
“Rehab?” I entertained brief fantasies that this might be a means to an end. Play on sympathies, parrot back what she wanted to hear. Let her take me in, find Phillip that way. Some old-school undercover. Except I wasn’t a cop, and I wasn’t an investigator, and I’d be damned if was giving her or anyone else the satisfaction of admitting to a problem that didn’t exist.
“Are you happy, Jay?”
“Thrilled. You said we were going to talk about what I wanted. I’d like to talk about Phillip Crowder.”
The waitress came for our order. I waved her away. It was just us now.
“I can’t confirm a patient—”
/> “What was all that ‘I promise we’ll talk about what you want’ then?”
“Let’s just say some kids are better off where they can’t be found.”
“What’s that mean?”
“You said you are working for someone? As impetuous and angry as you come across, I would hope you’d check out any client’s true motives.”
“Let’s make a deal, Alison. I won’t tell you how to do your job. You don’t tell me how to do mine.”
She laughed. “All you’ve done is tell me how to do my job. You want me to break a confidence.”
“And you called to meet me for lunch. You want to tell me something, and you don’t want your husband—or anyone else in your town—to know you’re meeting me. So why are we doing this dance? Do I need to coax it out of you? Why not save us both the time? Someone’s life might depend on it.”
“Maybe that’s the point.”
“I’ll make it easier for you. You say you want to help me, right?”
“Very much.”
“Will you believe me if I tell you the only thing keeping me out of jail right now is finding this kid?”
“What kind of trouble are you in?”
I hadn’t wanted to play my ace, which in this case was the sympathy card. But she wasn’t leaving me a lot of choice. I told her about Tom. The attack. The false accusation. And about the mystery man who stopped by the night before it all went down.
“So you see, I have to find Phillip Crowder. He might be the only one who can clear this up.”
“I am sorry about your boss and friend.” She leaned over, looking me in the eye. “And I don’t believe for one second you could harm anyone.”
“Oh, I could harm someone. Just not this someone. I don’t care about money. If I did, I’d still be climbing corporate ladders. I don’t have patience for bullshit.”
“This is why, besides legally binding confidentiality agreements, I can’t talk to you about this. You’re so volatile.”
“I opened up to you. Told you everything, the whole truth, held nothing back—something you haven’t done with me—you’re content to let me twist in the wind?”
“Have you been charged with any crime?”
“No. Not yet.”
“And you said you think your boss will pull through.”
“Sure. I mean, I hope so.”
She smiled, genuine and warm. “I do, too.” She stood up and collected her coat and purse.
“What? Wait. That’s it?”
“Hypothetically speaking—?”
“Fine. Talk in code. Talk in tongues. Use smoke signals. Give me something I can use.”
“This . . . boy. Has anyone seen his mother?”
“She’s missing.”
Alison’s face opened up, like she wanted to say more. Then she shut it down, on a dime. Like that. “It was nice seeing you again. When you are ready to get help, I hope you can swallow some of that pride. I’d rather have you hate me for calling you out on your bullshit than let you think you have to suffer in silence.”
“Thanks. That’s a real big fucking help, Alison.”
“Until then: be careful. You are playing with fire.”
“I got more problems than a matchbook.”
Alison put two dollars on the table. I told her the coffee was on me. She didn’t pick her money back up.
“You are screwing with a very powerful family,” she said. “And you are being used.”
After my infuriating, unproductive coffee with Alison Rodgers, I pulled onto the Turnpike, heading north back to Joanne Crowder’s. Messing around with a very powerful family? Where had I heard that one before? The mistake I’d made in the past was not pressing harder, taking my foot off throats. I wasn’t making that mistake this time, and I wasn’t getting scared off by bad reputations. I had a pretty bad one of my own.
Since my first visit to Joanne’s place, I’d gotten a phone number, but that hadn’t yielded anything either. I’d left several messages; no one had called back. I hadn’t expected anyone to. Pulling into the gated community of Crimson Peak, I found more of the same. More mail. More newspapers. Still no Joanne Crowder. She was gone, and she wasn’t coming back.
I’d done enough estate clearing to tell the difference between snowbirds on vacation and someone who has left this mortal coil. I didn’t go for hippy bullshit of auras and energy fields, none of that New Age-y crap. But I could feel Joanne Crowder’s absence the moment I stepped out of the truck. The yard smelled of abandon and loss.
I cupped my hands and peered in house windows, the garage, too. Didn’t have the best view, but the car was still there. A woman with her financial resources could’ve caught a limo to the airport, or maybe she had more than one car, a driver, so that told me nothing. I tried a couple doors, relieved to find them locked, because knowing dumbass me I’d walk in, trip an alarm, and have to explain to the cops what I was doing there, a question to which I’d have no plausible answer.
Leaving the mountain, heading south, I was planning to take another load down to Everything Under the Sun before zipping over to the hospital to check on Tom. Let Freddie throw all the shade she wanted.
I didn’t need Alison to plant the idea. I’d already considered the possibility I was being manipulated, and I had a good idea who was jerking that chain. The question was why they had chosen me.
Sliding over to the left lane, I saw Owen Eaton’s truck fly by, heading north. I had no reason to follow him. But with no sales or clearances on the docket today, Owen didn’t have any reason to be in Ashton either.
I cut through an emergency-only turn lane and blended into Turnpike traffic, lagging behind several lengths for a few miles, exiting Orchard Road. As we wound through the foothills, heading up the mountain into the subdivisions, I recognized the familiar route. Without benefit of other vehicles, I had to grant wide berth. Didn’t matter. By now I had a good idea where Owen Eaton was headed.
I pulled up well short of Tom Gable’s house, one whole street over in fact, watching though the evergreens as Owen exited his truck, bouquet of flowers in hand.
Freddie greeted him at the door. He handed her the flowers. They embraced. She panned the woods, straining through the thicket to make sure secrets stayed safe, before ushering him inside and softly shutting the door.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
AND LIKE THAT my picture got a whole lot clearer. Why Freddie “found” the letter that morning. After inheriting the company, Freddie could sell to Owen outright, the logical play. But there would still be that minor detail of murder. Tom writes a note leaving the company to me, then is beaten to death? Same end accomplished with none of the messy suspicion. And you have your patsy. Clearer didn’t translate to crystal, though. Like Tom’s having written the letter and signing it himself. What about the garage break-in? Owen didn’t know Vin Biscoglio. Or maybe that was how Owen knew about that dresser to begin with. Both Biscoglio and Mortenson worked for Crowder. Trying to tie together all these intersecting plot points was giving me a headache.
An accusatory wind rustled loose canopies of snow, clods crashing down on the roof of my ride. This connected to that, but that didn’t necessarily connect to this. Was Owen so worried about Tom selling the company to me that he’d resort to murder? Owen Eaton, that aw-shucks hillbilly huckster? The Clearing House did plenty of business on its own. Crime of passion? Owen Eaton banging Freddie Gable while Tom lay in the hospital fighting for his life made the guy an asshole. But it didn’t make him a killer. Freddie wants a divorce, she files. She’d be leaving a good man, but if it was Owen she wanted, she’d be moving up, financially speaking. No one had to die.
I thought about going to Turley with this latest discovery. Couple things prevented me. One, Turley was a moron. This was the same cop who’d let a hit man pretend to be a Concord detective, pick up my brother from the county jail, and haul him to the mountain to put a bullet in his brain. Four years was a long time ago, and Turley had done a lot right by me sinc
e then. But such incompetence and gullibility was tough to overlook. The bigger reason, though, I didn’t have proof of anything besides a man showing up with flowers. If I went to Turley now, Owen Eaton would spin it as an act of compassion and support, with Freddie backing that version. I decided to play hangman instead. Leave enough rope . . .
Digging around my glove compartment, I found something to write on and scribbled instructions. Then I crept through the forest and tucked the note under Owen’s windshield wipers.
I drove out to Charlie’s but didn’t see a car, which meant Fisher wasn’t around. I’d tried calling from the road, but it’s tough getting through up here after the storm, half the town’s grid—telephone lines, cell towers, power plants—out of commission. I hated leaning on Charlie, given his current state, but I wasn’t flying solo. I had no idea how Owen would react to being called out.
Took a few minutes to get Charlie on his feet, but I was able to pry him upright with coffee. He was still drunk, the caffeine rendering him only slightly more functional. At least he was out of his house. I needed stronger brew. The entire ride to Dunkin’ Donuts, Charlie slumped against the passenger-side door, mumbling, half asleep. Any semblance of my friend didn’t appear until Charlie had drunk a jumbo hot large, bummed three smokes, and had me pull over to piss twice and puke once.