Buried Dreams

by Brendan DuBois

  Diane was back in her office, the cement blocks now painted a pale yellow. Her desk was clean and neat, unlike the desk next to hers, which is used in the summer by a patrol officer temporarily assigned to her to assist in the heavy upswing of felony cases. That desk was piled high with file folders, newspaper clippings, and packets of photos. During those months that don't fall between Memorial Day and Labor Day, she is the entire detective force for the town of Tyler.

  I sat down across from her and said, "That desk looks like it could use a clean-up."

  She smiled at me, the scar on her chin faded, a good sign. "Tell you a secret?"

  "Secrets from cops are the best ones. Sure, go ahead."

  She was leaning back in her office chair, hands folded against her slim waist. "That mess over there, that all belongs to me. This desk is just fake. All those files are cases I'm working on."

  "Then why are you sitting here, and not there?"

  "You know how depressing it is, to walk into an office first thing in the morning and look at a mess? Thing is, you come and sit at a clean desk, you start the day in a good mood. Sets the whole tone."

  "Sounds too weird to work," I said.

  "Well, it does," she said. "Guess you're here looking for an update on your friend Jon."

  "l am."

  "The investigation continues," she said.

  I waited. There was one window in the office, heavily barred and screened, that overlooked the rear parking lot of the police station, the marshland beyond that, and a couple of miles away, the impressive bulk of the Falconer nuclear power plant. Diane sat there, silent, and I said to her, "You know, I haven't changed jobs."

  "You haven't?"

  "Nope. I don't work for the Porter Herald or Tyler Chronicle or even the Boston Globe. It's still me and my monthly column for Shoreline."

  "I didn't think you've changed jobs," she said. "So why bring it up?"

  "Because that crappy answer you gave to me back there, about the investigation continuing, is the kind of answer you'd give to anybody else. But not for me. What's going on?"

  She slowly unfolded her hands and said, "What's going on is the investigation, Lewis. And you and I have the same goals --- to find the asshole who murdered your friend, and to put him away. But this case is an important one, and it's not one that I'm going to look the other way while you do your poking and prodding, pretending to be doing a story for Shoreline."

  "It's not stopped you before."

  "Times have changed."

  "How?"

  Then her face shifted, like some memories back there that she had kept quiet were suddenly coming to the foreground. "Two things, my friend, two things have changed. One personal and the other public. Guess it's time to hear some more secrets, eh?"

  "I guess."

  She looked over at the door and I got the signal, and got up and gently closed it. I sat back down and she said, "Okay, friend to friend. This is what's going on, and I'm sorry I wasn't upfront with you the other day, at Jon's house. First and foremost. Kara."

  "Is she all right?"

  A nod. "Yes, she's doing fine. The occasional nightmare but she's recovered well from last winter. But something's up. You've been reading the newspapers?"

  "Every day."

  "Sure, but have you been reading the business news?"

  Oh. "Her job."

  Another nod. "She was laid off from what's left of Compaq, about two months ago."

  “I’m sorry, I didn't know."

  Diane said, "It didn't seem to be a problem at the time. Kara is very good, she's very talented, and we were both convinced that she'd find another job in a matter of days. Well, those days have slipped by, and nobody's hiring. Now she's trying to make a go of it as a consultant, but the woods are thick with ex-computer analysts, trying to start up a consulting business. In a few days, my friend, she's moving out of her apartment in Newburyport and is moving in with me."

  "Oh. Congratulations, I guess."

  Outside a Tyler police cruiser, painted green and white, pulled up to the rear entrance. Diane sighed and said, "That's a good one. 'Congratulations, I guess.' I've always pushed her to move in with me, and she's always resisted. The usual tale about keeping one's space. Fine, I could handle that. But having her move in now... Well, it's tough. I always wanted her to live with me because of our love and our relationship. Having her move in with me because her bank account is draining away isn't quite the romantic fantasy I've always had."

  "I see."

  "Very good," she said. "Now, it's time for the public secret. And please do keep this a secret, especially from your girl toy Paula." Diane swiveled some in her chair and opened the center drawer to her desk, pulled out a triangular-shaped patch, green and black. She turned it over and I recognized the three chevrons of a sergeant rank.

  "Really?" I asked, delight in my voice, and that seemed to please her. She smiled and twirled the patch in her fingers.

  "Really and truly," she said. "In a few days time, if I keep my nose clean and keep my work up, this well-dressed and muscular woman sitting across from you will be known as Detective Sergeant Diane Woods, not just plain old Detective Woods. Even though it's a one-man detective bureau, Lewis. It's a very big deal."

  I nodded and said, "Okay. Both secrets received, loud and clear. No time for loose cannon, no time for jeopardizing anything."

  "You've got it, my friend," she said. "I've wanted this promotion for a long time, Lewis, and with it, comes extra money and a few more bennies. Stuff that I can really use with Kara now living with me. And truly, don't take offense when I say this."

  "Okay, I won't.

  A smile. "A sign of a true friend, saying yes before I say a damn thing. What I'm saying is that my first loyalty and first priority is to the woman in my life, and I'm not going to do anything to threaten that. And you may be number two and try harder, Lewis, but still, when you ask me about the Jon Ericson case, you're going to get the very basics. I can't afford to do anything else."

  I got up from the chair, knowing what she said made sense, still not enjoying hearing it. "I understand, Diane. I really do."

  She folded her hands back together. "I knew you would. But still ... if you do hear anything that might help me, please call, all right?"

  My chest ached --- maybe it was guilt, maybe it was a memory of where Felix and I had been the other morning --- and I said, "Let me get this straight. You're not going to tell me anything, but if I hear something, I'm supposed to pass the information over to you."

  "That's right."

  "Sure doesn't sound fair." Which made my not saying anything about our little break-in at Seacoast Antiques seem just fine.

  She leaned farther back in her chair. "Welcome to the realities of police work."

  Outside, the wind had died down some, but cigarette butts and fast food wrappers and even fine grains of beach sand blew across the cracked pavement of the parking lot. Diane had just told me her priorities, about taking care of her life and her first priority, which made sense. No argument there.

  The only argument I had was that she didn't ask me about my life, about my priority, and that was something I was going to take care of, no matter the realities of police work. I reached into my coat, rubbed at the sore spot on my chest. It still hurt.

  I got into my Explorer and went home.

  Before getting busy, the phone rang, and it was Felix, who got right to the point. "Talked to my Porter police contact, about a little event at Seacoast Antiques the other night."

  "And?"

  "Nothing to report. No evidence of who was in the building, how many people were in the building, and also --- I'm sorry to say --- no blood trail from whoever was in there that ran into an, um, knife."

  "Thanks for the update."

  "Not a problem. Now it's time to work the phones and talk to some guys in St. Pete. You feel like a Florida trip anytime soon?"

  "Could we get to Cape Canaveral?"

  "That's on the other
damn coastline."

  "So it is. So I guess I won't," I said. "Besides, I've got things here to do while you're reconnecting with your godfather or whomever."

  He laughed. "I'm sure you do. Talk to you later."

  After hanging up the phone, back into the cellar I went, after a late afternoon lunch of a grilled tuna fish and cheese sandwich. I was excavating one part of the cellar, recalling what Jon had told me. It had seemed simple, but I quickly saw how hard the work was, staying on one's knees, digging gently not to break any possible objects, and then sifting the dirt through the old colander, the rain of dirt making a whisper like noise as it fell back to the cellar floor. When I had started the other day, it had seemed magical, peeling away the layers of dirt that represented months, years, and decades of history. But after a while of moving dirt, boredom started setting in. I always had the imaginative thought of what being an archaeologist was all about, of digging for a few days and finding treasure or the Holy Grail or a shinbone from a T. Rex, but face-to-face with the fantasy, reality was settling in for a long stay. Each little spoonful of dirt, which earlier seemed to represent something magical, with lots of potential, eventually ended up being just another spoonful of dirt. Soon my wrists felt stiff, and then they started to ache, matching the ache in my chest.

  I dug for about an hour, slowly moving across one side of the cellar, and when the old lightbulb hanging up by the furnace flickered, flared, and died, I took it as a sign from some greater power. I dropped the colander and spoon and, with some difficulty, tapped my feet free of dirt, and started up the stairs. It was now dark out and cooler, and I guess I should have thought about dinner, but I wasn't particularly hungry. The first floor of my house was unlit, and I moved quietly through the kitchen and out the sliding glass doors to the rear deck.

  I went out without a coat, which was fine, for I didn't want to spend too much time out there. It was just past seven p.m. and night had already fallen. Part of me felt that little twist of melancholy, knowing that in a few days' time, when the clocks changed from Daylight Savings Time, this dark part of the night would be six p.m., and soon enough, it would be pitch black at four-thirty.

  I leaned against the railing, looked out at the lighthouse on White Island, at the Isles of Shoals, out there on the Atlantic, and noted the lights up and down the coastline, from here in Tyler, down to Falconer, and up to North Tyler and Wallis and Porter. A few ships' lights were apparent as well, out on the dark ocean, and up in the night sky was the sound of a whisper-jet and its red and green running lights. I squeezed the railing tight, wondering what it must have been like, about a thousand years ago, to be out here in the ocean, far away from home, in a longboat with sails and oars, exploring a forbidding coastline, looking for treasure, for wood, for furs, knowing you were part of a brave tribe, the Norsemen of history and sagas, and out here, there would be no lights, no signs of home and hearth. Just the darkness, just the woods, and maybe, just maybe, the quiet glances from the inhabitants of this rough coastline, looking on with maybe awe and a bit of hate for the strangers in their midst.

  It must have been something, to have been here a thousand years ago, but unless I was quite skilled and quite lucky, the evidence to prove they had actually been here, the evidence that my friend Jon had found, would remain lost for another ten centuries.

  Chapter Six

  The University of New Hampshire is in a small town called Durham, about ten miles up from Tyler, inland and near the Oyster River. Starting out in the middle 1800s as a typical state agricultural school --- it still has barns and horse stalls and dairy equipment at one end of the campus --- it has grown, through luck and the good fortune of having influential friends in Washington, into a respectable university. It dominates the center of Durham, with old brick buildings and some newer construction, and a moving mass of students who clog the sidewalks and the wide lawns of the campus between classes. Paula Quinn had gotten her degree at UNH and said to me once, "I can't even recognize the place anymore. Every time I go back there, either they're building something up or tearing something down."

  With its growth meant an apparent disappearance of parking spaces, and I had to leave my Explorer at a small shopping plaza almost a half-mile from my appointment. I had to walk quickly to make my way to the anthropology department, which was located in a cube of a building called the Horton Social Science Center. The tile floors were worn from thousands of feet over the years, and bulletin boards flanking the glass doors were festooned with multicolored flyers offering everything from guitar lessons to memberships in the vegan food cooperative. Up on the fourth floor, near the east corner, was a series of offices, each with a black metal door. The one I sought was half open, with a little plate on the outside that said O. HENDRICKS. Below the nameplate was a sign-up sheet for student conferences, each conference lasting fifteen minutes.

  I rapped on the door and said, "Professor Hendricks?" and a woman's voice came right back with, "Come on in."

  The office may have been good size at one time, but now it was packed and cluttered. Walls on the left and right were filled with overflowing bookshelves, and before me were two wooden chairs, a large wooden desk, also cluttered with books and papers, and behind the desk, a woman in her mid-fifties, with short brown hair, wearing a light green sweater. She stood up, smiling, and I figured I would have enjoyed being a student in one of her classes. She had horn-rimmed glasses and simple gold-hoop earrings, and I held out my hand and she gave it a quick shake.

  "Mister Cole, from Shoreline magazine, am I right?"

  "Yes," I said, sitting down across from her. "Sorry I'm late. Parking here is ---"

  She laughed. "Years ago, believe it or not, I was a student here, and I worked for a while at the student newspaper. I won't tell you how long ago, but let's just say our president had just announced he wasn't a crook. One day, just for the hell of it, I went through the previous twenty years of the bound newspaper, just poking around, and you know what? One constant story, year after year, was parking, or the lack thereof. The great thread linking years of history here at UNH. Where in hell can we park our cars?"

  I smiled at her in return as she sat down, and I saw that behind her was a built-in radiator and picture window, overlooking a small wooden ravine. On one side of the radiator was a small coffee machine, and on the other side was a black and white cat, sitting on a tan pillow and curled up in a ball, who stared at me with an equal mix of curiosity and disdain. She noticed with some amusement that I was looking at her cat, and she said, "My muse and boon companion, Oreo. Named for a certain black and white cookie."

  "People mind having a cat in your office?"

  She shrugged, folded her hands across her stomach. "If they do, they keep quiet. It's part of the image, I suppose, Eccentric professor and all that. Besides, he's nice to have around. Quiet, well-groomed, not too demanding. Lots of other faculty have done worse. It also helps relax some of my students. Makes me seem less fearful. So. Enough of my choice in companions. What can I do for you, Mister Cole?"

  I took a breath, thinking again of how many times I had gone down this path, trying to elicit bits and pieces of information from different people, all by letting them think that they were doing me a favor. Not a pleasant task but one I had done before, and would no doubt do again, but at least this time, it was different. The spirit of Jon was back behind me somewhere, watching me as I worked, and I had to do what was right.

  "I write a column for Shoreline, called 'Granite Shores.'"

  A nod. "I know. I've seen it."

  I guess there was shock on my face, for she laughed and said, "You look quite surprised."

  "Well, it's not often that I meet people who've even heard of my magazine. Not to mention my column."

  "Well, I like to keep up with the history of the region, Mr. Cole. That's my specialty. And I remember reading something you did last fall, about the start of shipbuilding in New Hampshire. Not bad."

  "Thanks."

 
"So. Your column this time?"

  "About an acquaintance of mine, an amateur historian, who died last week."

  "Oh. I'm sorry. And how can I help?"

  I took another breath. "It seems you met him a couple of weeks ago, before his death."

  "Ah." She unfolded her hands, leaned forward, moved some papers around and then revealed a desk calendar. "Here it is. Jon Ericson. From Tyler. Am I right?"

  "Yes, you're right."

  "Sure, I remember him. Vikings." She shook her head. "Sorry to hear he's dead. What happened?"

  "He was murdered."

  "Oh." She sat back in her chair. "Oh. That's horrible. I mean, well, I just talked to him, less than a month ago. Oh, how awful. And you're doing a story about ---"

  I made a point of taking out my reporter's notebook. "About his life, about his quest. You see, he was convinced that ---"

  "Yes, I know. Convinced that Vikings had set up residence here in New Hampshire, hundreds of years ago." She shook her head again. "Brrr. To be murdered. What a nice man... not your typical barefoot doctor."

  "Excuse me? Barefoot?"

  She flashed me an embarrassed smile. "Sorry. An academic secret. Please do me the favor of not spreading it around."

  "All right, I won't."

  "There. You've made progress all ready. All right. Barefoot doctors. You know anything about history, Mr. Cole?"

  "Some." The phrase she had mentioned was now bouncing around in my memory, and when she said, "The Great Cultural Revolution in China, back in the Sixties, when Mao sent people into the countryside, and ---"

  "Barefoot doctors," I said. "Trained peasants in basic medical care, went into the villages. Am I right?"

  She gave me her best professor smile, and I was surprised that it made me feel good, like a student. Perhaps it was an old professor's trick, handed down from generation to generation. "Yes, that's right. Barefoot doctors. A noble idea, like so many of the sixties ideas, that absolutely failed in its execution. You see, there was a shortage of trained medical professionals in China at the time. So it was thought that one way to address the problem was to give rudimentary medical training to particularly bright peasants and send them on their way to remote villages. Like I said, a good idea that failed."