Damaged Goods: A Jack McMorrow Mystery

by Gerry Boyle

  “Soon,” I said.

  We kissed her softly, left a desk lamp on, the shades drawn. In the hallway, I reached over and took Roxanne’s hand. She stopped. Stood. Turned and fell into me, her arms wrapped around me. I wrapped mine around her.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry for all of it.”

  “I just want things to go back to normal,” she said.

  “Normal. What’s that?”

  “When I can do my job and not have it follow me home. When you can write your stories and be done with it.”

  “Not have them sleeping on the couch,” I said.

  “Yes,” Roxanne said.

  “I wonder what happened with her today.”

  “She tells her story and she leaves, right? I mean, they have ways of determining this stuff.”

  “The gun, the wound, the angle of the entrance. His state of mind. Whether she seems like she’s telling the truth.”

  We were standing in each other’s arms, Roxanne’s forehead against my shoulder. “You believe her, don’t you?” she said.

  “About this? Yes. But her whole story? I don’t know. There are gigantic holes.”

  “They would have brought her home?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “You know my theory.”

  “Yes,” I said. “She was abused. Blocks out a big part of her life.”

  “And you don’t agree.”

  “I don’t know. How do you leave your whole life behind?”

  Roxanne was quiet. “Maybe I’d be more sympathetic another time. But now—”

  “I know.”

  “Will you be up all night?”

  “We’ll spell each other,” I said. “At least I’ll try. Clair is in full combat mode. He told me he’s stayed up seventy hours before.”

  “Because there was no choice,” Roxanne said.

  “Because he was responsible for his men,” I said.

  “And now he feels responsible for us.”

  “And Cheree Wilton,” I said.

  “So he’ll stop Harland and it will be even?” Roxanne said.

  “Not even,” I said. “But closer to it.”

  “Why can’t we see the police?” Roxanne said.

  “They’re around. Saw a car pass on the road on the way home. But it’s better if you can’t see them. If we can’t, Wilton can’t.”

  “Be careful of yourself, Jack,” she said.

  I pressed her to me, said, “Don’t worry.”

  “If anyone hurts our baby. . .”

  “Don’t even think it,” I said, and gave her a last hug. Then we parted.

  Clair moved around most of the night. An hour in the barn loft and then he’d melt away into the woods. Scanning the fields, the trees from the barn, I knew he was out there, but, like a bittern in the reeds, he was invisible.

  He came and went. I went inside to say goodnight, found Roxanne and Mary had gone to bed. I went back to the barn, sat in the chair in the loft door and listened. I looked at my watch at 2 a.m. At 3:45, I woke up and Clair was in the chair beside me, his rifle across his lap.

  “Your gun’s behind you against the wall,” he said. “I was afraid you’d drop it, make a racket.”

  We sat and were quiet. And then in a little while it was dawn, the birds starting up, chickens clucking in the coop, trees emerging from the blackness. The sky turned from indigo to gray to rose-colored in the east, beyond the trees. Clair listened, heard a car approach, then fade into the distance.

  “Trooper,” he said. “Shift change at six.”

  We sat. I stood. Clair was frozen, listening again.

  “What’s that car?” he said.

  It was a small motor, moving slowly from the east end of the road. It stopped, idled, then started up again. Then it slowed and stopped again. I headed for the stairs.

  When I came out of the barn, the rifle at my side, I saw headlights approaching, then the car itself. It was a small sedan, a Toyota. It slowed again and then turned into the driveway. The lights were glaring and I couldn’t see the driver.

  Until Mandi turned the lights off, then the motor, and opened the door.

  She swung her legs out. Swiveled her foot. I came over and stood. She looked up at me. Drawn, gray, exhausted.

  “I can’t sleep there, Jack,” she said. “Even with Lulu, it’s like I can’t stand to be alone. I’m sorry. I think I’ve got that post-traumatic thing.”

  “Take the couch again,” I said.

  “I feel like I’m losing it. They brought me home, helped me up the stairs. I said, ‘I’m fine. I’m fine.’ And then when they left and the door shut I just started to shake. I was just shaking all over. For half an hour. I mean, what’s the matter with me? Am I cracking up?”

  “Get some sleep, you’ll feel better.”

  “He didn’t come, did he, Jack?”

  “No.”

  “I could help. I could look after Sophie, give Roxanne a break. I mean, I don’t want to be in the way.”

  “You won’t be.”

  “You’re a good friend, Jack McMorrow,” Mandi said.

  “Am I your only friend, Mandi?” I said.

  She stopped talking, looked at me. “I don’t know. What do you—”

  “You must have somebody you can go stay with. Not tonight but sometime. I mean, away from here.”

  “Not really,” she said.

  “Why not?” I said.

  “I don’t know,” Mandi said, the vagueness creeping in. “I guess I’m sort of a loner.”

  She reached back for her bag, and I helped her up the stairs and inside. Despite it all she seemed stronger than the previous day and she hobbled into the bathroom on her own. I put the kettle on, and when it had boiled, I made tea. Wearing the same sweatshirt and jeans she’d had on when Raven took her away, Mandi sat at the table and sipped. I brought out blueberry muffins and she ate one, then half of another.

  “When did you eat last?” I said.

  “Lunch yesterday, I think,” she said.

  Her eyes began to droop and she said, “I think I do need to sleep.”

  “Let’s go then,” I said. I helped her up from the chair, but she dropped my arm and made her way down the hallway to the den. She closed the door and I heard the couch creak.

  I sipped. Wondered where Clair was.

  Reached for her bag.

  A wallet. ID with the Portland address. Cell phone, turned on. I looked at the list of incoming calls: eight different numbers all days old. Two outgoing calls, both to me.

  I listened for noise from the den. Opened the photo folder on the phone, then began to select. I didn’t want to see pictures of her at work, but there weren’t any. There were twenty-one photos in the folder. All of them were Mandi, self-portraits, slight variations on a theme: Mandi, holding the phone out at arm’s length and snapping her picture. Scowling. Screaming. Crying. In none of them was she smiling.

  I quickly pushed the buttons, punched in my cell number. Sent one of the photos to myself. There was a rustling in the den and I put the phone back, dug around quickly.

  Felt something hard and pulled it out.

  A small hunting knife, like guys I knew carried in sheaths on their belts. Six-inch blade, leather-wrapped handle.

  So what, I told myself. With what had happened to her, I shouldn’t have been surprised to find a Glock, much less a knife.

  Seven o’clock, asleep in a chair by the kitchen window. A touch on my shoulder and I started, saw Clair standing beside me, heard the shuffle step of Sophie coming down the front stairs.

  Clair put his shotgun behind the door. I got up and put my rifle there, too. There was the sound of slippers on the pine floors, Sophie accelerating, sliding into the kitchen, and throwing herself at me.

  I swung her up into my arms. She hugged me and slid down. “I’m hungry,” she said, and she climbed into a chair at the table. “Please.”

  There was more stirring upstairs, footsteps coming closer. It was Mary, in he
r bathrobe, saying, “I don’t know what got into me. Look at the time.”

  “Day’s half gone,” Clair said. “Jack and I already milked the chickens.”

  Sophie grinned. “You can’t milk chickens,” she said.

  “Sure you can,” Clair said. “Where do you think they get chicken broth?”

  Sophie looked at him, cocked her head. Just then Roxanne came into the room, wearing shorts and one of my T-shirts.

  “Mommy, do you get chicken soup when you milk the chickens?” she said. “Clair says—”

  There was a rattle from the direction of the hall. The den. Roxanne turned and looked. Turned back to me.

  “She was freaked out, alone in the apartment,” I said. “She got here at four-fifteen.”

  “And walked right in?” Roxanne said. “That’s reassuring.”

  “We heard her car coming down the road,” I said.

  She looked at me, was silent for a minute. Clair poured Fruit Loops into a bowl, added milk, and put them in front of Sophie.

  “Yum,” she said, and started shoveling them into her mouth like coal into a furnace.

  “What do you say?” Roxanne said.

  “Thank you,” Sophie mumbled, still crunching.

  “I’m going down to the house,” Roxanne said.

  “I’ll go with you,” I said.

  “She’ll be fine here,” Clair said. “If I were you, I’d walk down the road.”

  “Why?” Roxanne said.

  “High visibility,” he said.

  “Is visibility a good thing?” she said.

  I glanced at Sophie, but she was intent on her cereal.

  “Let’s go, then,” I said. “We’ll be back.”

  I picked up the rifle outside the door. We walked down the drive and started down the road. Sparrows flushed in the grass and flitted ahead of us.

  “You know, I was reading about someplace,” Roxanne said. “I can’t even remember where it was. The Philippines. Someplace like that. People in this village carry their guns everywhere because they’re fighting the rebels. Or maybe they are rebels. I don’t remember. But they said they’d leave their clothes behind before they’d leave home without their machine guns.”

  “And you think that’s what we’re turning into?”

  Even as I said it, I found myself turning to scan the woods, sweeping the rifle across. A car started and we spun around. An unmarked police cruiser eased out of the mouth of a tote road and turned toward us.

  Trooper Ricci was at the wheel.

  She pulled up, stopped beside us.

  “A little news for you, folks,” she said.

  “Somebody who fits Harland Wilton’s description got on a bus in Augusta yesterday morning, heading south. Bought a ticket for Fort Lauderdale.”

  “But was it Wilton? What’d his ID say?

  “Guy said his name was Pazuzu,” Ricci said.

  “So,” I said.

  “I went online,” she said, the cruiser idling, her arm out the window. “Pazuzu is a Sumerian demon, supposed to protect children. It was in The Exorcist, the movie.”

  “And common knowledge, if you worship Satan, I suppose,” I said.

  “Where’s the bus?” Roxanne said.

  “Pennsylvania. He got off in New York. Ticket the rest of the way is good for two days.”

  “What are the chances?” Roxanne said.

  “Of it being another whacked-out devil worshipper?” I said.

  “Not very good,” Ricci said. “As soon as we pick him up, I’ll call you or come find you.”

  Ricci put the car in gear and drove off, toward Galway.

  “I’ve been praying,” Roxanne said.

  “Don’t stop now,” I said.

  Chapter 37

  Ricci’s news had lifted a weight from Roxanne. She played with Sophie that day, more Chutes and Ladders, called the office while Sophie took a nap. I heard Roxanne say, “I may be in tomorrow. I’ll call you. How are the kids? No, I think I need to be there.”

  Mandi got up for breakfast, then went back to sleep on the couch. Roxanne was civil to her, if not friendly. Sophie had Mandi play a round of “Chutes” and patted her on the hand when she lost.

  Clair and I switched off patrolling that day. He was out back when the mailman came in the afternoon, pulling up in a Jeep with the flashing yellow lights on the roof. I took the Varneys’ mail and ours and walked back up the driveway.

  There was a New Yorker, some bills, a catalog from Agway, and a couple of credit card offers. They didn’t know I hadn’t worked in a week, I thought, as I continued to flip through the mail—and saw the letter with the handwritten address:

  Christian/Jew Power Center

  c/o Roxanne Masterson, state agent

  I looked at the postmark: New York, N.Y. 10008. The date: July 20. Yesterday. Good mail service.

  I went inside and looked for Roxanne. Found her reading to Sophie on the bed upstairs.

  “What?” she said.

  “You need to read to your friends for a minute,” I told Sophie, “and Mommy will be right back.”

  As we went into the hall, we heard Sophie “reading” the animals a story she knew by heart. I showed Roxanne the envelope.

  “I don’t think you should open it,” I said. “It could be a letter bomb or something.”

  Roxanne took the envelope from me.

  “New York,” she said.

  “Yesterday,” I said.

  She ran her fingers over the envelope. Held it up to the light. Brought it back down and tore it open. Unfolded what appeared to be several sheets of paper.

  Roxanne scanned one, handed it to me.

  It began:

  Dear Jew Bitch Masterson, Christian Gustapo Agent from Rockland, Maine,

  This message is to inform you of our rejection of your government and you, as its official agent and there fore abducter of the children of Harland and Cheree Wilton. There is bodies of the spiritual world that are out of your control and forces that are beyond the “religions” Nazarean and Moses and Mohammad: and Christianity, the hoax that is being played on the people of this earth for the last 2,000 years by the powers of FEAR, needing to FEAR themselves because the DAY OF RECKENING is coming and it is coming hard and fast. It will come for all Jew/Christians but it will come to you, BITCH MASTERSON!!!!, and you alone swifter than you think it possible.

  This is your only warning. We are sorry that you have chosen the path that has taken us here but man has the god given right (true god, not the Nazarean) to protect his children against the GUSTAPO ABDUCTERS. The serpent gives us the knowlege and the demons they protect us as true believers in Satan’s goodness.

  “Why is it these people can’t spell?” I said.

  I flipped the pages. There were drawings of snakes and flowers and something that looked like it was supposed to be a pyramid. More about Jews and Jehovah and the evil Catholic Church, and the State of Maine and the Nazis who work in Augusta.

  “You’re Jewish and a Nazi.”

  “Who’s it from?” Roxanne said.

  I turned to the back of the last page.

  “Harland Wilton, Follower Of Satan, Respecter of his Demons.”

  “Wrote it on the way down,” Roxanne said.

  “Mailed it in Manhattan.”

  “Maybe he got lost looking for a mailbox, missed the bus.”

  “Let’s hope he gets on his soapbox in Times Square and gets locked up,” I said.

  “How would we know?” Roxanne said.

  “He’d come up a hit when they picked him up, if he’s carrying ID. Be sought in connection with a possible homicide in Maine. No ID, it’d take longer.”

  “I wish he’d made the bus and kept going.”

  “I wish it had run him over,” I said.

  “But all in all, this is good,” Roxanne said. “We always say at the office, it’s the ones who don’t call up and yell and scream that you have to worry about.”

  “A barking dog can’t bite,
” I said.

  “Is that some old saying?”

  “I just made it up.”

  “I don’t think that’s true,” Roxanne said. “A dog barks and then he bites.”

  “Okay.”

  “It should be, a dog can’t bite you if you’re in Maine and he’s in New York City.”

  “Not quite as catchy,” I said.

  “But at least it’s true,” Roxanne said, but I was thinking of something else.

  “His guns,” I said. “I wonder where he left them.”

  The house was still, the air stale. Our footsteps echoed as we crossed the kitchen. I put down the rifle, threw open the door to the deck. Roxanne opened the refrigerator, started sorting through food. She turned over yogurts, checking expiration dates, pulled out a bag of romaine and tossed it into the trash.

  “I’m ready to be home,” she said.

  “I know,” I said.

  “We can’t hide forever.”

  “Yeah—”

  “It’s been three days. It’s not good for Sophie. She has no routine at all and she’s starting to get cranky. And—”

  Roxanne paused. “We need to be in our own house, just us.”

  “Mandi,” I said.

  She didn’t answer, held up half of a cucumber in a plastic bag. Tossed it.

  “One more night,” I said. “Maybe they’ll pick him up.”

  “She’s like a pleasant stranger. She talks, but she doesn’t really say anything, not about herself, anyway. I mean, who is she? Who is she really?”

  “I know.”

  Roxanne opened the milk, sniffed it. “One more night at Clair’s, then,” she said. “And then we come home. And she finds another place to stay.”

  Roxanne went to the laundry room behind the stairs and took clothes from the dryer. I heard the washer lid shut and the water turn on. I went to the study, saw the answering machine light flashing. I pushed the button: Myra at the Times. “Jack. Where you been? Got a couple of stories for you. It’s a little after ten, Saturday night. Yes, pulled the weekend. I’ll be here another hour. Back to the grindstone tomorrow. Isn’t Sunday supposed to be a day of rest? Call me.”

  Ah, yes. Work. I’d almost forgotten. What had the plan been? Crank it up, make more money so Roxanne could stay home?

  I went to my desk. Looked at the list, nothing checked off. Down at the floor: the tub of Mandi’s papers.