“Yes. But look, the ends of these are the wrong shape to fit into this phone.”
He squinted at the cord then handed me back the phone. “Ah, just give ‘em a try. You never know.”
I got the distinct impression he was keen to prolong my visit. Perhaps he got lonely in this old store away from the buzz and business of Main Street and just wanted some human company and a chat. It wouldn’t kill me to indulge him. Besides, if I wanted to be a psychologist, I should practice my underdeveloped skills in empathy and patience. So I made a show of trying each of the chargers, shaking my head sadly each time one failed to fit.
“It’s too bad, you know,” Hugo said. “First the boy and now the girl. Their mother, now — Barbara, is it?” He shot me a glance, his untamed eyebrows undulating like hairy caterpillars inching across the surface of a branch.
“Bridget,” I said.
“I’d have got there without any help,” he said, sounding offended. “Now she, Bridget” — he gave me a look — “was real bad after the boy’s death. I reckon losing another child will lay her so low she won’t ever get up again. Now the father …” He paused, eyeing me.
“Philip,” I suggested tentatively.
“Yes, Philip — as I was just about to say — he took it hard, too, but he’s done well since with that water company of theirs. Water!” Hugo shook his head in bemusement. “They put it in bottles now, and folks buy it instead of turning on the faucet. Made them a pile of money, mind. So did that housing development just outside of town that never ought to have been built.”
My ears pricked at that last bit. “Do you mean the Beaumont Golf Estate?”
“You betcha bub, I do. Those Beaumont boys made millions off of that, didn’t they?” He frowned down at the tangle of cords in my hands. “You’re wasting your time there, my girl. I don’t believe any of those are going to fit your telephone.”
“That’s what I said.”
He stuffed the cords back into the box, closed it and patted it fondly.
“What do you mean, the estate should never have been built?” I asked.
“That land isn’t right for building humungous houses on, that’s why it was always a trailer park. A darn nice one, too. Neat and tidy, with a great view of the valley, and folks put up little porches and flower boxes outside their trailers. But they just bought the land, turned most everyone out on their ass, and that was the end of that. I had the whole story from Lyle Wallace, who used to live in the trailer park back when he worked at the Johnson dairy farm. They wanted to buy up Johnson’s land, too, you know, but he held out. Anyhow, now he’s homeless, poor man.”
“Farmer Johnson?”
“No, Lyle.” He gave me a look that suggested he doubted my mental acuity, and checked a wall clock with a small garden fork and spade for hands. “Should be coming in soon. I make him a packed lunch, every day, see? And something for his cat.”
“What’s wrong with that land?”
He tapped the box. “Can you put this back in its place for me? My arms and shoulders don’t work as smooth as they used to. Arthritis.”
I grabbed the box and shoved it back into position on its shelf. “The land?” I prompted again.
“It’s wetlands, ain’t it? The ground is soggy. Lyle says those houses are going to subside and send cracks up the walls, you mark his words. I don’t know how they got permission to build there — must have greased the town clerk’s palm, if you ask me,” he said, rubbing fingers and thumb together.
I dusted my hands off on the seat of my jeans. “Michelle Armstrong?”
“The one and only. She’s riding the high horse in this town, trying to rename it and change all the stores, pushing old folks like me out. ‘Rebranding’ she calls it. I call it filling her coffers, because she’s an investor in that development syndicate, did ya know that?”
“I did not.”
Hugo parked himself on the stool behind the counter, all thought of finding me a charger seemingly forgotten. “Well, I’m not one as likes to gossip—”
Could have fooled me.
“—but I don’t reckon town clerking pays Lady Muck-on-toast enough to keep her in the manner she thinks is fit for herself. I remember when she was a snotty little kid who stole whatever she could fit into her pockets. You ask your father if she wasn’t always filching gumballs and little knick-knacks.”
“So, she invested in the new development and made good money?” I asked. Trying to keep the old man on track was like herding cats.
“Oh, yah. Because by then Doc Armstrong had retired. Had to, didn’t he? So he wasn’t bringing in any money, and that good-for-nothing boy of theirs was costing them a small fortune; somebody had to top up the family fortunes.”
I held up a hand to halt the flow. “Wait, wait. Why did Doc Armstrong have to retire?”
“Well, I’m not one as likes to spread stories, but the good doc always did have an inordinate fondness for old Johnny.”
“Johnny? Johnny who?”
“Mr. Walker, if you catch my drift.” Hugo mimed tipping back a bottle into his mouth and made chugging sounds in his throat.
“Ah.”
“Got to a point where he couldn’t doctor anymore.”
“And his son, James?”
“You kids had another name for him.”
“Blunt.”
“That’s the one, Blunt. I never forget a name.” He nodded in satisfaction. “He’s another one with whatchamacallit–? Substance abuse problems. The apple don’t fall far from the tree, eh? But how come he got to keep his trailer in the woods back of that development, that’s what I’d like to know. Lyle wants to know, too. Course, his pigeons are coming home to roost now, ain’t they? Hasn’t got long, I hear.”
“Lyle?” I asked, struggling to keep track of the conversation.
“Lyle? No, Lyle’s as strong as an ox. He sails through summer and spits in the eye of winter.”
“So, who’s dying — Blunt?”
“No, not the boy,” Hugo said impatiently. “His father.”
27
NOW
Wednesday December 20, 2017
“Doc Armstrong is dying?” I asked, shocked.
“Cirrhosis of the liver, as I heard it,” Hugo said.
“Jeez, you leave a town for a decade and everyone gets ten years older and sicker,” I muttered.
“Not me, I’m healthy. Want to know my secret?”
“Sure.”
“I eat a garlic sandwich for breakfast every morning.”
That explained the awful odor.
“It keeps the bugs away,” he said.
Customers too, I’d bet.
“You said Blunt was a good-for-nothing. Drugs?” I asked.
“You betcha. If it ain’t the liquor that’s been the death of Doc Armstrong, then it’s his boy, because that one never could clean up his act, and he tries to take some of our youngsters down his path, from what I hear. The official story is he does construction work out of town from time to time in Bangor and Portland and such, but everyone knows it’s the boy going into rehab out of state. He comes back looking shiny pink and clean, and flies right for a month or six, then he starts up again. That kind of treatment costs a family a wheelbarrow of money and a whale of tears.”
“Poor Jessica.”
“Oh, yah. But now that’s a girl as done well for herself, even if she did—”
The bell on the shop door interrupted, and Hugo looked over my shoulder, nodding.
“Hi, hi, Lyle, come in. I’ll just go fetch your lunch,” Hugo said, and disappeared to the back of the store.
The man who walked up near to where I stood at the counter moved so slowly and carefully that his steps made no sound. He was tall and had dark eyes, but I could make out little else about his appearance because he was wrapped in sweaters, a coat, two scarves, mittens and an ice-frosted khaki balaclava. A stuffed backpack was slung over one shoulder, and a mean-looking marmalade cat rested in his arms. I n
odded a greeting, and the wool-swathed head nodded back. So this was Lyle.
He gently placed the cat on the floor, where it sat beside his feet, yellow eyes fixed on me. No, not quite on me — its gaze appeared to be focused to the left of me. I glanced over my shoulder to see what it was staring at and saw nothing. Lyle pulled off his mittens to reveal hands clad in fingerless gloves. He rubbed the fingertips, with their dirty, overgrown nails, over his lips.
“Your eyes are different,” he said in a pitch so rough and deep, it was more vibration than voice. “Which one is real?”
“Both of them.”
“I don’t know which one to focus on.”
I lifted my hands in a can’t-help-you-with-that-problem kind of shrug.
“And I don’t know you,” he said. “You’re a stranger.”
Not as strange as you, buddy.
“I grew up here. But I left many years ago,” I said, wondering why I was telling him anything.
“Now you’re back.”
They were innocent words, but something about his gruff tone and the way the cat was tilting its head and squinting off to the empty side of me, was unnerving.
“I’ll be going home soon,” I said.
“This is home.” The words sounded like a threat.
“Right. What’s your cat’s name?” I asked, reaching out to stroke it and pulling my hand back rapidly when it hissed at me.
“Cat,” Lyle said.
“Your cat’s name is Cat?”
“You have a problem with that?” he said, taking a step closer.
“No. Uh-uh, not me. No problem at all,” I said, backing up.
“Here you go,” Hugo called from behind me.
He handed Lyle a brown bag and a travel mug, and placed a bowl filled with what looked (and smelled) like mashed tuna on the floor beside the cat. It ignored the food and continued its unnerving examination of the space beside me, its eyes flicking from side to side, and up and down.
“That’s not like Cat, to ignore her food,” Hugo said, frowning at the animal.
“She doesn’t like to eat in front of strangers,” Lyle said. “She doesn’t like strangers.”
“Well, if I could just get—” I began, but Lyle stowed the bag and travel mug in the capacious pockets of his overcoat, then scooped up the cat in one hand and the bowl of food in the other and left without another word.
“Not very sociable, is Lyle,” Hugo said. Then he held up a bulging black trash bag. “Look what I found in the back!”
He spun the bag around to unwring its twisted neck and then plonked it on the counter. Inside, I could see all manner of junk, including some cords and wires. I began sorting through them.
“So, Jessica Armstrong was your friend way back when. Who else was in your class at school?” Hugo asked.
“Katherine Kehoe, Judy Burns, Taylor … something, Ashleigh Hale.” They were names I hadn’t thought of in years.
“Hale! I remember her — a shy little thing. Wouldn’t say boo to a goose. She left years ago. California, or Colorado. Something with a C. Callicoon, maybe. Who else?”
“Pete Dillon, and his friend Brandon Nugent.”
“That Nugent boy enlisted right after high school and was killed six months later in Afghanistan, did ya hear about that?”
I shook my head, a little shaken by that piece of news.
“Pete Dillon, now — he pulled his life together many years back. He runs old man Dillon’s store with that pretty little wife of his, did ya know that?”
“That, I did.”
He raised his eyebrows at me, as if surprised I knew anything. “Very fancy eatery and doing nicely, they tell me. Still, it doesn’t stop the rumors.” He fished a silver badge out of the bag, breathed essence of garlic on it, and buffed it against his trouser leg before pinning it onto his lurid sweater. “Vermont Wrestling Champion, 1957,” he said, beaming proudly.
“What rumors?”
“Take your pick: that he don’t treat his little lady well, that he has a piece on the side over in Randolph, that he poisoned the old man to inherit the store, that his expensive Ethiopian coffee is really just repackaged Folgers.”
Startled, I looked up from the tangled contents of the bag. “Poisoned his old man?”
“Could be. Could well be. Way I hear it, Randolph Dillon was in the process of changing his will, but he gave up the ghost before it was finalized. Very convenient for someone, I think. And I have it from the horse’s mouth that he died frothing at the mouth. Cyanide, if you ask me. Or a tot of weed killer would’ve done the trick — we’ve got some deadly ones in stock right here,” he said cheerfully, pointing at a nearby shelf as though I might be in the market for some toxins. “Now, Samuel Wallace — he was a teacher at the school back in the day. Was he one of yours?”
I nodded. “He taught me chemistry.”
“He’s a strange one. I could tell you some stories about him. He’s Lyle’s father, did you know that?”
“No,” I said, very surprised.
My return of ignorance brought a gleeful smile to Hugo’s face. “He’s the principal now.”
“Do you have some kind of a light?” I asked. “I’m battling to see inside this bag.”
“Here you go,” he said, fetching a lamp with an extendable neck from the far end of the counter. “Now Mrs. Jorgensen would have been principal back then, but she’s retired now. Spends her days fishing for pike and carp.” He pronounced the word kerrup. “And teaching her parrot to speak. Damndest thing! That bird says, ‘Would you like a hall pass?’ and ‘You may be seated,’ and rings like the school bell!”
I remembered Jorgensen. Wouldn’t have guessed she’d had a sense of humor. I made to angle the light so that it shone into the bag, but as I touched the shade, the bulb blew. Again. Really?
“Son of a bitch,” Hugo said mildly.
I snagged my own cellphone from my handbag, activated the flashlight function, and shone it into the bag.
“If you have a fancy phone like that, what do you need this old thing for?” Hugo asked, pointing at Colby’s phone.
“Reasons,” I said.
“Me, I like a phone that’s a phone and a flashlight that’s a flashlight, but you can’t fight change, can you?” he said sagely, though his store seemed a monument to precisely the opposite sentiment.
I spied a charger with the right sort of connector head and eased it into the socket of the iPhone. It fit.
“We have a winner!” Hugo said. “Now you just need to free it from its bedfellows.”
I started picking at the knots and tangles that entwined the charger with other cords and wires, thinking about the rest of the old guard in town, and about what else had changed.
“What happened to Chief Turner?” I asked.
“Retired. Soon after your fellow died. He was never the same after that. He’s still around — lives at the Roseacres Nursing Home. Doc Armstrong is there, too, now. Guess Mrs. Armstrong is too busy running the town to take care of her husband at home.” He barked a laugh and gave me a broad wink. “She never did like the old ones.”
Hugo gusted out a deep malodorous sigh. “He’s completely off his rocker, of course — Turner, I mean — old-timer’s disease. They all seem to get it these days, but it won’t ketch me. Want to know my secret?”
“Let me guess, garlic?”
“You betcha.”
I wondered just how bad Frank Turner’s dementia was, because he’d be a useful person to interview about Colby’s death. I’d pay him a visit just as soon as I got the wretched charger freed.
“And the new police chief?” I asked.
“Eh,” he cackled, “all the young ladies want to know about that fella, and I guess you’re no exception! He’s divorced.”
Interesting.
“He had a lovely wife, mind, with golden hair and cornflower eyes, but she was a Southerner, and I don’t think she ever took to our Yankee ways. Or maybe she just couldn’t stand the winters. A
nyhow, she ran off with some Texan fella. That must’ve been three or four years back.”
“Got it!” I said, finally freeing the cord and handing it to Hugo. “Can we check whether it works?”
He plugged the charger into an electrical outlet on the wall. Holding my breath, I leaned over and stared at the phone, willing it into life. For long moments, nothing happened. Then a battery charging icon appeared in a corner of the blank screen.
“We did it!” Hugo said, smiling widely. “For sure, you’ll be wanting an adaptor that fits into your car’s cigarette lighter?”
He found one with such alacrity that I immediately suspected he’d been drawing out the whole process of finding the charger to prolong our chat. The old codger named a price at least triple what the charger could have been worth and encouraged me to pop around again soon, so we could chew the fat.
Outside the air was cold and odor-free, the sky crowded with steel wool clouds. I slipped behind the wheel of my car, plugged the charger in and connected it to the phone, and then I started the engine and cranked up the car’s heater.
My stomach rumbled. I’d kill for a burrito with extra-hot tomatillo salsa and an icy margarita on the side, but I was pretty sure Chipotle hadn’t yet staked a foothold in Pitchford. I found a half-crushed packet of chips in the glove box and ate them on the way to the Roseacres Nursing Home. Hugo had said both Turner and Doc Armstrong lived there; perhaps I could pop in and pay my respects to Jessica’s father, too.
Yes. The word washed through me like a powerful wave.
Whatever this thing I was experiencing was, it wanted me to talk to the doctor.
28
NOW
Wednesday December 20, 2017
Roseacres Nursing Home smelled of urine, pine disinfectant and the flat, dead-skin odor of old people.
“Are you family?” the attendant behind the front desk asked around her wad of gum. She had a hypnotic way of chewing that wrenched her jaw to the side on every pass, like a cow working its cud.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m his niece from Boston.”
She studied me for a few seconds with round brown eyes and asked, “Is this the first time you’re visiting? Do you know what to expect?”
The First Time I Died Page 17