by Jon McGoran
Singly and in pairs, they came up and shook my hand and said how they knew Frank or my mom and how they were sorry. Then they headed up the steps into the church. At the end of the line were Danny and Laura Tennison. I was relieved to see them, a breath of normalcy that breached the bubble, even if just for a second.
“Hi, Doyle,” said Laura. She gave me a kiss on the cheek, then wiped off the lipstick, looking up at my face with an expression of genuine concern. “How are you holding up?”
“You know me. I’m okay.”
Danny leaned forward and spoke quietly. “You look like shit.”
“More than usual?”
“About the same. Like the suit, though.”
They headed up the steps, and as I started to follow them, I heard a soft whistle, and I turned to see Stan Bowers walking up, wrapping a tie around his neck. In the time it took him to close the six paces between us, he looped the tie into a tight little knot.
“Hey, Carrick. How you holding up?”
“You know.”
“Yeah, I do. You don’t look too banged up, considering.”
“Thanks for coming.”
“You know it.”
McClintock cleared his throat beside me and glanced down at his watch.
“All right,” I said. “I got to get in there.”
“I’ll see you afterward.”
It seemed that McClintock touched my elbow and suddenly I was seated in the front of the church, just like at my mom’s funeral. Everything about it reminded me of my mom’s funeral, including my efforts not to think about her because I was worried I would lose it if I did. The biggest difference was that Frank wasn’t sitting next to me. I was so busy not thinking about my mom, I forgot to not think about Frank, and when I looked at the empty space on the pew beside me, I felt the muscles tighten in my jaw and my throat.
Nola was sitting on the other side of the church, Moose right next to her, still looking like hell. The urn with Frank’s ashes was sitting on a pedestal. The service itself was a blur, a lot of stifled coughs while the reverend recited a mixture of prayers and platitudes, with just enough vague personal details sprinkled in to make you wonder if at some point he had actually met Frank. Not that I could have come up with anything better.
Lost in my own thoughts—about Frank, about my mom, my dad, memories from my childhood—I felt like a spectator, of the service as well as the memories. It was like watching Nick at Night: sepia-toned childhood memories interrupted by commercials from the present day—drug dealers, land developers, crop fires, trucks running me off the road.
By the time the service was over, my feet were itching in my three-hour shoes and I was desperate to get out of there. But McClintock steered me back to the steps in front of the church so I could graciously receive everyone’s condolences yet again. With all the coughing going on, I made a mental note to track down some hand sanitizer.
Moose was at the front of the line, with Squirrel, whom I hadn’t realized was there. They both mumbled something and shook my hand before disappearing.
The rest of the crowd was kind enough not to disperse until everyone had a chance to shake my hand once more. While I was chatting with a blue-haired old woman whose name I had forgotten in the hour since we’d last spoken, I noticed Bowers and Tennison standing off to the side. They were quietly chatting and sharing a furtive laugh. At one point, they both looked over at me, then both looked away. I had the distinct impression that they were trading Doyle Carrick stories. Pricks.
As another old woman stepped up to tell me she was still sorry, I noticed Nola chatting with Laura Tennison. I liked that even less.
* * *
I don’t think McClintock had approved when I said no, I did not want a reception. Standing there holding hands with the last old lady in line, I knew I had used up all my civility, and I was grateful I had stood my ground.
When it was all over, Nola came up and told me that she had to drive over to Harrisburg, but that she could blow it off if I wanted some company. As much as I didn’t want to say no, the fact was I needed to be alone.
I think she understood. I think she was relieved.
McClintock packed me into the limo and drove me home. He opened my door, gave me a small, sad smile, and shook my hand. Then he got back into the car and drove off.
I watched as the car curved along Bayberry Road and disappeared, and suddenly I felt very alone.
A warm breeze swept across me. I closed my eyes and enjoyed the feel of it for a moment before slowly climbing the steps. It felt like the end of the summer. A butterfly floated by, and I thought about Mexico, about finding out where the butterflies were headed and going down there to wait for them. Entering the house, I also thought about going to bed. But I knew that if I did, I might stay there for a week.
Sydney Bricker had given me a list of papers I needed to find—life insurance, bank statements, deeds—and a strong suggestion that I do it sooner rather than later. So instead of going upstairs, I went into Frank’s office, confronting two of my greatest phobias: paperwork and awkward personal matters.
It felt like I was violating his inner sanctum, rude just to be in there when he was so powerless to stop me.
Behind the desk was a wooden credenza, and inside it were boxes of all sorts of papers. They were stacked neatly, if not exactly filed, and I was pretty sure I would find what I was looking for inside them.
When I opened the first box, I caught a whiff of something so faint I didn’t completely recognize it at first. But part of me did: a combination of leather and aftershave and something else, like tweed. It was Frank. I smiled when my brain caught up with my nose, but my eyes were already wet.
Within five minutes I’d found everything I was looking for. Alongside neatly bundled stacks of bank statements and utility bills was an accordion folder marked “Important Papers,” with each of the tabs marked with one of the items on Bricker’s list. I wondered if they had been in cahoots, or if this was something normal grown-ups did.
It was cathartic, but almost anticlimactic. I had nothing else to do, so I put the papers I needed on the desk and moved on to the next box. This one was clearly my mom’s, and the fragrance totally different, mostly Chanel. My throat caught as I opened it. There was an envelope of old photos, mostly her and me. I was a kid, and she was a beautiful young woman. There were some old tax returns, a few résumés. I lifted out a stack of old manila envelopes, and felt something bulky in one of them. I opened the flap and slid it out: my dad’s wristwatch.
I felt a surge of emotions, but before they could assemble into anything coherent, I caught a whiff of smoke and ashes, the faint but acrid smell of something burnt that was not meant to burn. The hairs on my arms rose up as I recognized the smell from my nightmares. I quickly slid the watch back into its envelope. But before I could put the envelope back in the box, I saw something that stopped me.
A restraining order.
“Meredith Carrick,” it said across the top. Scanning it, I picked out words like “protection from abuse” and “battery.” I felt a jarring sense of disequilibrium. I’d had my problems with Frank, especially in the early days, but strangely, in the days since he died, I felt closer to him than ever before. Now this. I would never in a million years have suspected him of this.
Then I saw the date. Three months before the motel room fire that killed my dad. Then I saw the name. David Carrick.
At first it made no sense to me. Then it came back in snippets: arguments, shouting and cursing, broken furniture, tears. Apologies. I remembered driving with my mother at night, wondering where we were going. It was a school night, and it was an adventure, staying in a hotel, but the gnawing feeling in my stomach came back to me so clearly that I felt it again sitting there on the floor. I remembered coming back home the next day and knowing that my dad no longer lived there.
Suddenly, I felt completely devoid of energy. I left everything right where it was. Feeling sore and stiff and creakier tha
n the steps I was climbing, I went upstairs to bed.
36
It was after dark when I awoke. A gusty breeze was rustling the trees and billowing the curtains. The windows were open, and I lay there in the darkness, feeling the air on my skin and the electricity of an approaching storm. I tried not to think about the restraining order, or anything else.
I tried to go back to sleep, but that wasn’t happening, so I moved on to plan B.
Pulling on my jeans and a T-shirt, I went downstairs without turning on the lights. I banged my toe, but took it as fair punishment for not knowing the layout of the place a little better. In the darkness, I grabbed a square bottle from the bar, pretty sure it was Jack Daniel’s, and went onto the front porch. In the back of my mind, I wondered about Moose—if he was asleep or out somewhere. At some point I’d have to figure out what to do with him long term. I definitely didn’t want to be roomies for life, but I probably wasn’t going to keep the house anyway. At the moment, I was just glad to have some time on my own.
The first sip tasted harsh and raw and smooth and warm, sliding down my throat and curling around in my stomach, getting comfortable. I followed it up with a nice long gulp, and that tasted even better. They kept getting better after that.
The storm was approaching from the west, and it looked like a good one. It wasn’t raining yet, but the wind was picking up. The lightning itself was too low on the horizon to see, but its reflection lit up the clouds.
The plan was to sit out on the porch, drink too much from the square bottle, and watch the storm. But before long, I remembered all those open windows. When I went upstairs to close them, I was stunned by the view from the hallway. Out over the roof, thunderheads were rolling in, each flash of lightning illuminating the countryside below.
I climbed out the window and onto the lower roof. The sky was dramatic, and maybe the whiskey was already clouding my judgment, but after a few minutes of watching and drinking, I looked up at the upper roof behind me and wondered what the view would be like from there. As I pulled myself up, lightning flashed, casting my silhouette against the roof, just like the stun grenade the day before. My body tensed as I waited for the concussion, and I felt a moment of panic before I realized it was just thunder. Still, I almost dropped the bottle.
Once I got up there, the pitch wasn’t bad, but the wind was fierce and there was plenty of lightning.
I was drunk, but not so drunk I didn’t know it. I kept low and moved cautiously until I was comfortable, lying back with my hands behind my neck, relaxing and watching the storm.
The wind got up even more, surging and swirling around me. Occasionally, a volley of heavy raindrops would blow over from somewhere it was really raining, splattering loudly on the tarpaper shingles, and on me.
I figured I would stay up there until it started raining hard. I don’t know how long I’d been out there, but the bottle was empty and the storm was still approaching when I heard a crack of thunder that didn’t sound like a crack of thunder. There was no rumble or roll, just a single sharp crack so brief and so familiar it could have been my imagination.
Propping myself up on an elbow, I looked out over the countryside and tilted my head, listening. All I could hear was the wind and the rain and the slow, distinctly different rumble of thunder in the distance.
As I was lying back down, I saw a string of lights in the distance, four of them, like little dots, snaking through the fields behind Nola’s farm. The lightning was picking up again, and between that and the darkness and the swell of the undulating fields, it was impossible to tell how big the lights were or how far away. It was only when one of them stabbed into the sky that I recognized them as flashlights. My brain seized that bit of information, filling in the blanks to give them scale and distance and meaning.
A blinding flash of lightning made them disappear for a moment, but then they were back, four flashlights in the distance, moving at a decent clip. As I watched, they spread out, from a single column to a single row, now sweeping across the field. The lights were flickering now, maybe sweeping back and forth.
I stood up to get a better look, and the roof seemed suddenly steeper than before. Maybe it was the whiskey, or maybe it was the storm, but I had a hard time keeping my feet under me.
The wind was howling now, and it finally started to rain in earnest, but I stayed up there on the roof, watching the light show playing out across the fields. The lightning was getting closer and brighter. Each flash erased my night vision, causing the lights to disappear again, and as the rain intensified, it became harder and harder each time to find the flashlights again.
An impossibly bright flash of lightning was accompanied almost simultaneously by an explosion of thunder that sounded like it was right on top of me. I dropped to the roof, clinging to it, cowering and fighting the urge to clench my eyes shut. The bottle slid down the roof and wedged in the gutter. The flashlights changed formation yet again, the two in the middle holding steady while the two on the edges moved forward and closed in, forming a box.
They held steady like that, and I realized I was holding my breath. When I breathed again, I caught a strong whiff of ozone and my skin started to tingle. I dropped down, trying not to take my eyes away from those four points of light. But then the world exploded in brilliant white light and a clap of thunder that drove the air out of my lungs. My eyes clamped shut, and I pressed myself against the roof.
When I opened my eyes, the four lights were gone. I stared without blinking, my eyes sweeping the darkened landscape, probing the spot where I thought I had seen the lights. I lay there soaking wet as the storm moved away and the night turned dark and quiet, my eyes straining into the darkness until eventually, they closed.
37
When I opened my eyes again, the sky was beginning to pale and the birds were making a racket. It felt like they were talking about me.
I was cold and wet and stiff and sore. And on the roof.
The buzz from the whiskey had long since worn off, replaced with an ominously throbbing headache. Lying there for a moment, I thought about the strange procession of lights and wondered if I had dreamed the whole thing.
As I rolled over, the headache flared with an intensity that made me feel nauseous. The rest of me hurt, too. I crawled toward the edge of the roof, gulping air and clenching my jaw against the urge to be sick. I paused at the edge and got to my feet, trying to keep my balance as the roof swayed under my feet. I looked out at the land rolling gently in the morning haze. Once I had fixed in my mind the general area where those lights had been the night before, I slowly slid over the edge of the roof.
Stiff and sober, climbing down off the roof was much scarier than climbing up had been.
I lowered myself over the edge, to the slightly pitched lower roof. For an instant, my arms went wide, making goofy little circles until I regained my balance.
The window was still open, and I shook my head; the reason I had come upstairs the night before was to close it. I pulled the window open a little more and half-crawled, half-tumbled inside to the second-floor hall. I had just closed the window when I turned and found myself face-to-face with Moose, coming out of his room.
He stopped and looked at me, down and then back up. “You look like shit.”
“Fuck you, too.”
“No, seriously. You look awful. What, did you sleep in your clothes?”
“Something like that.”
“Are you okay?”
“Rough night. I’m fine.”
“Okay.” He said it like he didn’t believe me. The corner of his mouth tugged up into a slight smile. I gave him a look that made the smile go away.
“Okay, then,” he said. “I have to run some errands for Nola. She’s still in Harrisburg. Then I’m supposed to help Squirrel with something. You should maybe try to get some rest.”
I answered him with a grunt. As soon as he was out of my way, I headed straight for my room, where I peeled off my wet clothes and climbed into
bed.
It felt like only a few minutes had passed, but the sun was brighter when Moose woke me up again.
He seemed agitated, and sounded like two people talking at once.
I held up a hand. “Slow down a minute. What are you talking about?” My voice sounded croaky, and my throat was sore.
He plopped down on the side of the bed. I sat up and gave him a look to let him know he was crossing a line.
“It’s Squirrel,” he said. “He’s missing.”
“Missing?”
“Yeah, I was supposed to meet him at his place this morning, and he wasn’t there. I can’t find him anywhere, and he’s not answering his cell phone.”
I sank back and laughed. “Moose, your friend is a junkie. They’re not really known for being reliable.”
“Doyle, that’s bullshit. This is serious.”
“I am serious. Your friend’s a goddamn junkie. And I don’t know if you’ve been watching the news, but six drug dealers were killed right here in Dunston. Now, maybe Squirrel didn’t have anything to do with those guys, but he probably wasn’t too many steps removed from them, either.”
“Jesus, for the last time—Squirrel’s not using drugs. What is it with you?”
I glared at Moose in reply, but he took a deep breath and continued. “His car was missing, too—”
“So? He probably went out—”
“I found it.”
That stopped me. “You found it?”
He nodded.
“Where?”
“Not far. On the side of the road.”
“Did you check the gas gauge?”
“What?”
“The gas gauge. Did you check it?”