Buried Dreams

by Brendan DuBois

  "Ha, ha," she said, with not much mirth in her voice. "Thing is, I can't figure out why service is slower here than it would be in August."

  "Maybe they want us to enjoy our time together."

  "Could be." She clasped her hands together on the table and said, "There're a few things we need to clear the air about, before lunch arrives. Okay? So when the food comes we can enjoy it and have some fun conversation, and not ruin our digestion. Deal?"

  "It's a deal, detective."

  "Good." She seemed to take a breath and said, "Why haven't you called?"

  "Excuse me?"

  "Today is Thursday. I haven't talked to you since we were in my office, back on Monday."

  "Gee, mom, I guess I should have."

  The scar on her chin seemed to whiten some. "Mom reference was funny the first time, not funny the second. You know what I mean. I'm working a murder investigation involving a friend of yours, and you haven't asked me for an update since Monday. Which begs the question why. First reason, of course, is that you don't care about what happened to Jon and my investigation. Which is bullshit."

  "True. I do care. So tell me. How goes the case?"

  "The investigation continues. End of statement."

  "All right, maybe I didn't call because I knew that was what I was going to receive for an answer."

  "I doubt that would have stopped you. So you didn't call on a case that you care very deeply about. Which means that either you're pissed at me, or you're off doing something on your own."

  "I'm not pissed at you," I said. "You're doing your job, and I know that with the two secrets we discussed... well, I'm not angry, Diane."

  She squeezed her hands some. "All right, for what that's worth.

  Let me tell you two other things, my friend. The first is that I heard from a buddy of mine with the Porter police, that somebody broke into Seacoast Antiques over the weekend. Not sure if anything was missing, but since it was the residence and business of a prime suspect in your friend's murder, that sure raised my interest."

  I stayed silent, wishing that the damn waiter would show up with our lunch, or a tidal wave would suddenly come through the front door, or something equally distracting. Diane went on. "Another thing. The chief's secretary, she loves to read newspapers through her lunch. Reads about five or six every day. She passed over a little clipping from the Durham paper, about a Tyler resident who was involved in a car accident on Tuesday. Sound familiar?"

  I still didn't want to say anything, so I just nodded. "Okay," Diane said, "I'm going to let you in on another little secret. I don't know what you're up to, and I don't want to know, all right? The break-in at Ray Ericson's place, your traffic accident, whatever. Here and now, Lewis, we're coming to an understanding, an agreement. You're not going to ask me anything about the investigation. In fact, it would probably be healthy for the both of us, if this were our last gabfest for the foreseeable future. Because when your buddy's killer is caught --- and one of these days, he will be --- some scum defense lawyer is going to go overtime trying to find a weakness in the state's case. And that weakness is not going to be our relationship, as dear as it is. Understood?"

  This time, I spoke. "Understood."

  "Good. And while I'll miss you dearly over these next few weeks, I am going to count on you to pass along anything you find to me, through an anonymous phone call or tip or something. Because we both want the killer caught. Right?"

  I said, "You're right. We both want justice done."

  She cocked her head at that one and said, "Okay, I'll let that one slide, because I really don't want to know any more than that. Just don't screw up my case, okay?"

  I nodded. "Okay."

  "Because I've already told you why this one is personal to me, friend. With Kara and my promotion."

  Finally, the waiter approached, carrying a tray. "It's personal to me as well, Diane."

  She undid her hands, offered me a smile as the waiter came up to us. "All right, friend. It's official. Topic A is now off the table."

  “What's Topic B going to be?" I asked, as I took a cloth napkin and spread it over my lap.

  "How about your love life?"

  "Going to be a damn short topic," I said, and both she and the waiter laughed.

  Lunch was fried clams for her, fried shrimp for me, and Diane wiped her fingers and looked out the window, to the nearly empty sands. There were tiny moving figures out there, people who wanted to be near the cold ocean and cold sands on this windy day. She leaned back against the padded seat and said, "I know I've said it before, but I'll say it again. This and winter are my favorite times of the year. The workload gets down to a manageable level, only the diehards show up at selectmen's meetings to complain about the police department, and all of the tourists stay away. Not healthy for the chamber of commerce, but healthy for me."

  "You mean you don't like working on your tan during the summer?"

  She smiled. "Not much time for that. You know, it's days like this when you can really appreciate the history of this place. You just try to unfocus everything around you and look at the beach and the ocean, and you think, this is what it was like, hundreds of years ago. Before the English showed up and ruined everything."

  "As someone of Irish descent, I appreciate your opinion of the English."

  Another smile. "Another reason not to like most of the tourists.

  They come here and they think it's a big playground, a big Disneyland put here for their amusement. They don't realize this is a community of people, living here year round, and they certainly don't appreciate the history, the blood and sweat that had been poured out to give them a place to get sunburnt and drunk."

  'When people are having picnics at Gettysburg, you know they don't know their history."

  "True... and it's not like I'm thinking they should pay homage or not come here. They should just show some respect for the past. Some appreciation. My God, listen to me. The longer I live here, the crustier I get. Pretty soon I'll be listed in the damn tourist brochures, the police detective with an attitude."

  When the check came, I paid for it, and Diane said not a word, which was fine. I looked to her and said, "Jon had an appreciation of history."

  "That he did."

  "But his history didn't follow the usual path. He had his pet theory, about Vikings."

  "So far, you're telling me things I already know. Got a point there, Lewis?"

  "And I'm beginning to wonder if his way of looking at things got somebody angry. Somebody who didn't appreciate the thought of the history of this place being turned around to mention Vikings."

  She raised a finger to her lips, looked at me. "Not one word more, my friend. Remember our agreement."

  I reached over and got my coat. "Okay. I'll remember."

  "And remember the other part, too. You find anything I should know about, you let me know. Quietly."

  "With such a crusty personality, how could I forget?"

  And for that, she punched me in the shoulder. But lightly, since we were friends.

  Outside, the breeze was whipping from the ocean, causing our open jackets to flap in the breeze, and Diane leaned into me and said, "Thanks for lunch."

  "You're welcome."

  "A question?"

  "Go ahead."

  "How long have you been carrying?"

  I didn't insult her by asking her to be more specific. "For a couple of days now."

  She turned her head, and the wind was blowing hair into her eyes. She pulled it back and said, "Ever since the car accident?"

  "Yes."

  "You have reason to be scared, then."

  I zipped up my coat. "I believe I have reason to be cautious, Diane. That's all."

  She nodded. "You feel all right then? You going to be okay?"

  I brushed some of the hair out of her eyes. "I will be fine. Honest."

  "Good," she said, her voice suddenly sharp. "Because one homicide investigation is plenty. Take care, Lewis."

>   "You, too."

  I kept an eye on her, as she headed to her Volkswagen Jetta, thinking about what must be going through her mind. Juggling a homicide investigation, trying to keep things clear for her upcoming promotion, worried about the love of her life moving in with her. And little old me, the male friend in her life. I put my hands in my coat pockets. On Diane's ladder scale of priorities, I knew I wasn't near the top, not at all. And that, combined with her sharp words, bothered me.

  I waited. Diane got in the car, started it up, and backed out onto Atlantic Avenue. She drove by, and then there was a honk from the horn, a cheery wave and a big smile, and I waved back, suddenly feeling much better.

  Silly, I know, but there it was.

  I n the late afternoon, I was back in the cellar, breathing hard, leaning up against the cold and old metal of my oil furnace. My fingers were caked with dirt, and there was a smear of blood on the back of my right hand where I had scraped it against an old piece of brick. The jagged chunk of brick was the only manmade object I had found in my hours and days of digging, and now, at whatever hour it was, I was finished. I had gone from one end of the basement to the other, a foot or so deep, without finding a damn thing. About the only place left was the dirt that was under the brick and concrete mat that held up the oil furnace and tank, and I wasn't about to disturb that. Not yet, anyway. The seductive scent of being on the verge of making some important discovery certainly hadn't come along. The only thing that was here was a tired man with blue jeans almost worn through at the knees, an aching back, and dirty hands.

  Upstairs the phone rang. It rang and rang and rang, and I looked up at the floorboards above me and said, "Leave me the hell alone, why don't you?"

  My words must have worked magic, for when the answering machine clicked on, there was silence. Nobody had left a message.

  It was silent again. I shifted my weight, tried to get comfortable, decided sitting in dirt and resting against an oil furnace were never going to be comfortable, any time soon, but I was too tired to move.

  "Was this how it was?" I said to the empty cellar. "Hunh, Jon? Lots of long hours, hard work, and nothing to show for it? Was it like this?"

  Nothing. Wood creaked as something in the house settled. I bestirred myself and collected my pathetic amateur archaeological tools --- bucket, spoon, and old colander --- and clumped my way upstairs. If I had been a neatnik, I would have washed the spoon, washed the colander, and rinsed out the bucket and returned it to the shed that served as a garage. Instead, I dumped the entire mess on the floor and went into the kitchen, where I did battle with hot water and a chunk of Lava soap, trying to get the worst of the grime off. After a quarter hour of effort, I declared a truce and dried off my hands with a clump of paper towels and made my way to the living room.

  A neatnick would also have spread newspaper or a blanket or something on the couch to protect the fabric from the three or four pounds of dirt my jeans were carrying, but I just dumped myself there, and spent a couple of minutes deciding whether I had the strength to pick up the remote. When I decided a few more minutes of inactivity were called for, another challenge approached me when the phone rang again.

  I guess I should have ignored it again, but the noise was making my head ache, so I picked it up and grunted something, and Felix replied, "Man, you sound like you just woke up."

  That made me yawn. I said, "Mentioning sleep isn't a good idea now, Felix. I've been busting my butt the past couple of hours and I could drop right off. What's up?"

  "Oh, what's up is that I'm sitting poolside at my nice little hotel in St. Pete, and there are two sisters looking over my way, one in a pink bikini, the other in a green, and it's a heavy burden to carry, but I think they're about to get into a serious fight over me."

  "Things are tough allover," I said. "What else is going on?"

  "Not to get spookland on you, but I've made my contact, and I'm meeting him tomorrow. At first he didn't want to talk to me, but lucky for the both of us, I was able to bribe him."

  "With what? Cash? Girls? Coupons for the early-bird specials?" He laughed and I could make out a young lady laughing, somewhere in the background. Felix said, "Your last answer's pretty close. I got him through food-related means."

  "Which means what?"

  "Which means is that before I headed into Logan, I went over to the North End and picked up some specialty items that are hard to get in St. Pete. Certain sauces, spices, cheeses, and meats. When I told him what I had... well, he practically rolled over and started panting on the phone. So it's a go."

  "Good." I shifted some in the couch, decided enough energy was coming back that I could start thinking about dinner. "Sorry I missed your earlier call."

  "What earlier call?"

  "About ten minutes ago, the phone rang. It wasn't you?"

  "Nope. Ten minutes ago I was helping a young lady get her back oiled up. So it wasn't me. You okay up there?"

  "Yeah."

  "Those two cousins, they doing all right?"

  "Still on the job, as far as I could tell." I yawned.

  "Hey, sorry I'm keeping you up. What the hell have you been doing to get you so tired?"

  "I was digging in my cellar."

  "Your cellar?" Felix asked. "Your cellar's dirt?"

  "It surely is."

  "Then stop digging and put in some concrete or something. Jesus. What are you doing tomorrow?"

  "Tomorrow," I said, "I'm going back in time."

  "Oh. Care to explain?"

  "Not yet," I said.

  "All right, go back in time," Felix said. "But still watch your ass then, okay?"

  "I most certainly will." "Good. See you soon."

  After he hung up, I put the phone down and decided to rest my eyes for a moment. I stretched out my legs and folded my arms and rested my eyes, and when I opened them next, an hour had passed. Diane had her Kara and Paula her lawyer friend, and Felix was making do with two sisters.

  But I had to make do for myself, so I got off the couch and tried to determine what I was going to have for dinner in the short walk I made from the living room to the kitchen.

  Chapter Ten

  For thirty years or so, the downtown of Porter, the state's only port, has seen an amazing change. In talking to some old-timers and reading books about the area, I learned some fun facts about the neighborhoods around the harbor, especially the places that have high store rents and which feature expensive hand-blown glassware, jewelry, or pieces of sculpture whose cost could feed a family of four for a year. All the tourists trooping through the little shops with their underdressed and over-pretentious help, none of them would have lasted five minutes in the area if they could magically be transported back in time about forty years. For the dirty little secret of the most high-priced area of Porter is that nearly a half century ago, it was a dark warren of alleyways, bars with sawdust on the floor, and brick boardinghouses where rooms rented for an hour, and where the occasional sailor or marine from the shipyard or one of the ships in port would end up dumped in a dark corner, bleeding and with broken bones.

  It was a rough piece of work, where the Porter police only entered in pairs after dark, and attempts by the city --- okay, halfhearted attempts, since so much of the money from the bars and whorehouses ended up in the right pockets --- to clean it up always failed. The only thing that killed the harbor district's reputation was when the shipyard started laying off folks in the sixties, the naval prison at the shipyard closed, and military ships stopped calling on a regular basis at Porter. Customers dropped off, bars closed, and the boardinghouses were boarded up, all because of Department of Defense cutbacks. With land and buildings cheap, it was primed for a boom, which is what happened some years later. Call it military gentrification, if you like.

  But if one looked hard enough, there were a few out-of-the-way places where the money hadn't changed the neighborhood, where the drinks were cheap, and if there were no boardinghouses around, late at night the right questions
and the right amount of money could rent you some physical entertainment.

  One of those places was Stark Street, where I was the day after I came home from my trek up north. It's near a tidal basin that stinks up twice a day during low tide, and since real estate developers haven't yet determined a way of eliminating odors from mudflats, it's still kept its rough-and-ready nature. Right next to the Muddy Bottom Pub was an old storefront that still had Marellis Grocery in faded letters over the glass windows, but which said First People's Civil Rights Council on a cardboard sign in the window. I went into the small storefront, and there were a number of high school kids working the phones, stuffing envelopes. There were four desks-none of them matched-and a longer table on one side that held a photocopier, piles of papers, and other office stuff. One of the young ladies, with a light blue tinge to her hair and a ring through each eyebrow, looked up at me cheerfully and said, "Can I help you?"

  "Sure," I said. "I'm looking for William Bear Gagnon. I have an ---"

  Just then a voice came from the rear of the storefront, "If that's you, Cole, come on back."

  Which is what I did, maneuvering my way across the soiled green carpeting, held together by gray duct tape. On each of the walls was a variety of posters, which could have come from a Smithsonian Institution display on sixties-era protests, with the customary and usual slogans: War Is Bad for Children and Other Living Things, Visualize World Peace, and Think Globally, Act Locally. The door to the rear office was flanked by two dented four-drawer metal filing cabinets, and in the office was a large man, standing behind a desk. He looked to be in his mid-thirties, wearing a denim shirt and blue jeans. Around his neck and on both wrists were elaborate pieces of silver and turquoise jewelry. His dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and his eyes seemed black. He nodded crisply at me as I came in and briefly shook hands, and I was glad it was brief, for if he was in the mood to break my hand with his grip, I'm sure he could have done it with no difficulty.

  In his office the posters were of a more direct bent. There were a couple demanding freedom for Leonard Peltier, one showing what looked to be Geronimo, another of Sitting Bull, and a last one showing a Native American woman squeezing an American flag. This last poster said: AMERICA, LOVE HER OR GIVE HER BACK.