Countdown City: The Last Policeman Book II

by Ben H. Winters

  But no one knows. No one really knows. They have computer models, based on the Yucatan event, based on Siberia. But it all depends on final velocity, on angle of approach, on the precise makeup of the object and the soil below the impact spot. Probably not everyone will die. But probably most people will. It will definitely be terrible, but it’s impossible to say exactly how. Anyone making promises for afterward is a liar and a thief.

  * * *

  When I get home there’s a thick manila envelope jammed between the screen door and the front door, so that when I pull open the door the package falls out and lands on the porch with a thump. I crouch down and tear open the envelope with one finger and slide out a single manila file folder, thickly packed, stamped NEW HAMPSHIRE STATE POLICE FILE: BRETT ALAN CAVATONE (RET.).

  “Thanks, Trish,” I murmur, and turn eastward toward School Street to toss her a salute, soft and sweet as blowing a kiss.

  Stepping inside I close the front door carefully, not wanting a sharp slam to wake Houdini, who is snoring lightly on the sofa, curled with his face smushed into his own warm side. In the kitchen I light three candles and make tea. The police file is written in the clipped language of all such reports: a short story written in brief static bursts of institutional prose. The subject is referred to throughout as O. Cavatone. “O.” for officer. O. Cavatone graduated the police academy on such-and-such a date. On such-and-such a date he was assigned to Troop D of the Division of State Police with the rank of Trooper I; transferred north, then, to Troop F; recognized with a commendation and a small ceremony for saving the life of a traffic accident victim; promoted to Trooper II. Taken together, the pages speak to an admirable, steadfast career: no citations, no warnings, no blemishes on the record.

  “The Governor’s Medal,” I say to myself quietly, turning a page, nodding appreciatively. “Very nice, O. Cavatone. Congratulations.”

  Halfway down the fourth page, the quick log-line bursts of information give way to one long detailed paragraph, delving in some detail into one particular incident. It begins with the arrest report: four suspects accused of trespassing. The location is a slaughterhouse operated by a dairy farm called Blue Moon, near Rumney. The apparent mission of the alleged trespassers was to install hidden videotaping equipment, but they tripped alarms and were apprehended fleeing the scene. Subsequently, the suspects explained to the arresting officer—O. Cavatone—that their action was intended to gather evidence of inhumane and unhealthful treatment of the cattle: to “provoke horror and outrage,” says the report, “toward Blue Moon in particular and U.S. agricultural practice in general.”

  The case rings a bell, the thing about the slaughterhouse. I get up and pace around the dark kitchen a little bit, try to remember it. According to the date on the file it was two and a half years ago, this arrest. I probably read about it in the Monitor, or maybe they went over it with us in the academy. An interesting sort of crime, an unusual category of motivation for this part of the world: political provocation, college kids in tie-dyed ski masks, planting video cameras.

  Houdini murmurs in his sleep, growling a little. I sip my tea. It’s cold. I lift the file again, read the names of the perpetrators, all of whom had been charged with trespassing and two counts of criminal mischief. Marcus Norman, Julia Stone, Annabelle Demetrios, Frank Cignal.

  I read these names again, study them, tapping my fingers. Why does O. Cavatone’s file include a detailed report of this particular case, why the full paragraph on this one arrest, when there must have been hundreds over the course of a six-year career?

  The answer, as it turns out, is not hard to find. It is, indeed, highlighted—literally highlighted, on the next page of the record.

  “Charges against all suspects dismissed; O. Cavatone failing on several occasions to provide appropriate testimony.”

  The Blue Moon incident is the end of Brett Cavatone’s file. There is no discharge information, no report given of his dismissal or early retirement. The rest of his story I already know, more or less: Brett leaves the state troopers a few months later, at age thirty, and takes a job at his father-in-law’s new pizza restaurant. And then, three days ago, he disappears.

  I rise and stretch, feeling my bones ache along the length of my body. My body is crying out for sleep—for sleep or for coffee. There’s a dull throbbing at my temple, and it’s only when I raise one finger to the small divot beside my eye do I recall that I was shot earlier today with a staple gun. I gently move Houdini over and lie down beside him in the darkness and then a few minutes later I’m up again, reopening the file—reading it again—and again—unable to stop—the impulse to discover speaking up in me like morning birds, like unruly children.

  * * *

  “I’ll have the lobster Thermidor,” says Detective Culverson.

  “We don’t have that,” says Ruth-Ann, sighing elaborately.

  “Coq au vin?”

  “We don’t have that either.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Sorry.”

  It’s midmorning the next day, Friday, and Culverson and Ruth-Ann are doing the kind of flirtatious give-and-take that I normally find amusing, but now I’m rat-a-tatting my fingers on the edge of the booth, shifting impatiently while they go through their bit. Detective McGully isn’t here yet, but that doesn’t matter, it’s Culverson’s opinion I want.

  “Here,” I say, as soon as Ruth-Ann turns and heads back to the kitchen. “Okay.” I slide him the file. Not the whole thing, just the last two pages. “Tell me what you see.”

  “This is the Bucket List guy?” He slowly unfolds his reading glasses. “Your babysitter’s boyfriend?”

  “Husband.”

  “Oh, I thought boyfriend.”

  “Can you just have a look?”

  Culverson lifts the pages and scans, glasses perched on the end of his nose, and quickly comes to the exact same conclusion that I did. “Looks like he got fired.”

  “Yes.”

  “But someone doesn’t want to say that.”

  “Yes!” I beam at him. “Exactly.”

  “Where the hell is McGully?” says Culverson, straightening up and peering at the door.

  “I don’t know,” I say quickly, and tap the file. “But the question is why, right? Why is this guy fired? I mean, so he fails to testify.”

  “Right. But he’s not getting fired for a no-show.”

  “Right.” Pause. Take a breath. “But, what if he couldn’t show up.”

  “What do you mean? You saying he was a drunk?”

  Ruth-Ann returns with two bowls of oatmeal. “Lobster Thermidor,” she says, putting one down in front of me. “And coq au vin,” giving Culverson his.

  “No,” I say, when she’s gone. “No, not a drunk.”

  “Listen, Stretch, if you got some kind of stunning breakthrough to lay on me, then go ahead and do it,” says Culverson. He tucks a napkin into the collar of his shirt, spreads it down across his chest like a bib. “Maybe you haven’t heard, but life is short.”

  “Brett named the specials.”

  “What?”

  “At the pizza place. Rocky told me—that’s the boss, the father-in-law—he told me. Brett leaves the force after this thing at the dairy farm, he comes to work at his wife’s father’s pizza restaurant, and one of his first jobs is: name the specials. All of them get classic rock names. Layla: a very unusual and specific name. Hazel: unusual and specific. Sally Simpson: unusual and specific. And then—Julia.”

  He looks where I’m pointing, where I’ve laid my finger across the case file, at the list of suspects. Marcus Norman, Julia Stone, Annabelle Demetrios, Frank Cignal.

  “Palace.”

  “Of all the girls’ names in all the songs in the world?”

  “Palace.”

  “Even all the girls’ names in all the Beatles songs? Who picks Julia?” I jab my finger at the page. “Who but a man with a woman on his mind?”

  “I’m not really a Beatles man,” says Culvers
on, stirring honey into his oatmeal. “You got any Earth, Wind, and Fire related clues?”

  “Come on, Culverson.”

  “I’m teasing you.”

  “I know. But do you think it makes sense?”

  “Honestly? No.” He grins. “You have gone for a walk, my young friend. You have wandered so far from the available evidence that I cannot see you anymore, tall as a telephone pole though you may be.”

  “Maybe,” I say. I cross my arms. “But I’m right.”

  “It’s possible,” he says. I’ve known Culverson for longer than anyone now living, except for my sister. Long ago, when I was still a child, it was Detective Culverson who solved the murder of my mother. “And hey, you know what? The world’s about to blow up. So, you know, knock yourself out. You have a last-known address for young Julia?”

  “Yeah,” I say, tapping the file. “Durham.”

  “Durham?” he says.

  “Yeah. At the time of the incident, she was a rising junior at UNH.”

  “So her last-known is on the grounds of the Free Republic. You’re ready to go door to door down there?”

  “No. Maybe.” I grit my teeth. This is the hard part. “I actually know someone who might be able to help.”

  “Oh yeah?” Culverson raises an eyebrow. “Who’s that?”

  I’m saved by the bell. The door chimes, and McGully comes in with an old Samsonite suitcase like a traveling salesman. We look at him, Culverson and I, and Ruth-Ann looks over from her spot at the counter, at old McGully with his suitcase and his boots. No one says anything. That’s it—it’s like he’s already gone, fading from full color to black and white before our eyes. He stands at the threshold of the restaurant, in the antechamber by the cash register where the pictures still hang of the owner, Bob Galicki, shaking hands with various politicians, where there’s an old-fashioned gumball machine. The gumballs are gone now, the glass sphere shattered a long time ago.

  Culverson leans back in his seat; McGully stares back at us in silence.

  “Wow,” says Culverson. “Where to?”

  “New Orleans,” says McGully. “I’m going to hoof it to 95, look for a southbound bus.”

  Culverson nods. I don’t say anything. What is there to say? In the corner of my eye, Ruth-Ann is ramrod straight at the counter, carafe in hand, watching McGully in her doorway.

  “You tell Beth?” Culverson asks.

  “Nah.” McGully flashes his monkey’s grin, real quick, and then looks down at the floor. “I’ve been telling her, you know, we should get outta here, we should make a change, but she’s … she’s settled, you know? She’s not leaving the house. Her mom died in that house.” He looks up, then down again, mutters into his shirtfront. “I left her a note, though. Little note.”

  “Hey,” I say. “McGully—” and he says, “No—no, you shut up,” and I say, “What?” and then suddenly he’s hollering, furious, stalking across the diner toward me. “You’re like a little kid, you know that?”

  He leans over me in the booth. I shrink back.

  “In your tidy little universe, with your notebooks, and the good guys and the bad guys. That shit is moot, man. That shit is over.”

  “Easy,” says Culverson, half rising, “take it easy now,” but McGully keeps his finger in my face. “You just wait until the water runs out. You just fucking wait.” He’s snarling, showing his teeth. “You think this trooper you’re looking for, you think he’s a bad guy? You think I’m a bad guy?”

  “I didn’t say that,” I murmur, but he’s not listening. He’s not talking to me, not really.

  “Well, you wait until the taps stop working. Then you’ll see some fucking bad guys.” He’s bright red. He’s out of breath. “Okay?”

  I don’t say anything, but he seems to want an answer. “Okay,” I say.

  “Okay, smart guy?”

  “Okay.”

  I meet McGully’s eyes and he nods, eases off. No one else says anything. The boots squeak on the linoleum as he turns around, Ruth-Ann tsk-tsking at the scuff he’s leaving on her floor. Then the door chimes, and he’s gone: off and running. We look at each other for half a second, me and Culverson, and then I stand up, my oatmeal untouched on the table.

  “So,” says Culverson mildly. “UNH, huh?”

  “Yeah. Just a day, I figure. There and back.”

  He nods. “Yup.”

  “The only thing is, there’re these kids.” And I tell him about Micah and Alyssa, the business with the sword, and he says sure, he says he’ll look into it. We’re talking quietly, carefully, not moving much, McGully’s angry energy still buzzing around the room.

  I tear the relevant piece of paper from my notebook, and Culverson tucks it into his shirt pocket.

  “Go on ahead, Henry. Solve your case,” he says. “Get it right.”

  * * *

  I sit on my bus bench across the street from Next Time Around, the vintage clothing store, for thirty seconds, a minute maybe, gathering my nerve. Then I stand up, march over there, and knock on the front door.

  No one answers. I stand there like a dummy. Somewhere farther down Wilson Avenue there’s a loud, muffled clang, like someone banging two trash can lids together. I knock again, harder this time, loud enough to rattle the glass panes of the door. I know they’re in there. I’m bending to peek in the curtained window when the door is jerked open and here’s the fat young man with the greasy hair, wearing a wool cap despite the heat.

  “Yeah?” he grunts. “What?”

  “My name is Henry Palace,” I begin, and Nico rushes over, rushes right around this guy’s hunched frame to hug me like a maniac.

  “Henry!” she says. “What the hell?” But she’s happy, grinning, stepping back to look at me and then forward to hug me again. I take a look at her, too, take her in, my sister: a man’s white undershirt and camouflage pants, an American Spirit hanging like a lollipop stick from the corner of her mouth. Her hair has been cut short and choppy and dyed black; the change is dramatic and entirely for the worse. But her eyes are the same, twinkling and wicked and brilliant.

  “I knew it,” she says, looks up at my face, still grinning. “I knew I hadn’t seen the last of you.”

  I don’t reply, I smile, I peer past her into the cluttered room, the rolling racks and overspilling bins of clothes, the mannequins arranged in a variety of obscene poses. There’s a man in there on the floor asleep, shirtless, in a tangle of sheets, a woman sitting Indian-style, dealing herself a hand of cards. There’s an ersatz table, just a piece of plywood laid across two sawhorses, strewn with drawing paper and old newspapers. The store smells like must and cigarettes and body odor. The squat man in the wool cap leans across the prone body of the sleeper to reach a Bunsen burner and light his cigarette on its blue flame.

  “So, what’s up?” says Nico. “What do you want?”

  What I want, suddenly and fiercely, is to get my sister the hell out of this filthy squat, to extract her like one of those private detectives who pull kids from cults and reunite them with their parents. I want to tell her she has to leave this—this—this dorm, this hostel, this squalid storefront where she has decided to spend the last days of human history bedded down with this collection of lice-infested conspiracy theorists. I want her to give up whatever fantasies are driving her actions at this point and come stay where I can see her. I want to scream at her that for God’s sake she is all I have left, she’s the only person still living that I have a claim on, and her poor decision-making makes me depressed and furious in equal measure.

  “Hen?” says Nico, dragging on her cigarette and blowing the smoke out her nose.

  I don’t say any of those things. I smile.

  “Nico,” I say. “I need your help.”

  1.

  If I can find the woman, I’ll have the man.

  Culverson’s right. When you look at it objectively, my plan is a long shot at best. It’s the plan of a rookie or a plum fool: going to look for a person in the one plac
e in New England where it’s probably the hardest to find anyone. A woman for whom I have no physical description, just an age and a stale address. And why? Because this woman may or may not have had a relationship two years ago with the man I’m looking for now.

  And the thing is, McGully’s right, too—I’m not unmindful of that. There is an aspect of my character that tends to latch on to one difficult but potentially solvable problem, rather than grapple with the vast and unsolvable problem that would be all I could see, if I were to look up, figuratively speaking, from my small blue notebooks. There are a million things I might be doing other than putting in overtime to make right one Bucket List abandonment, to heal Martha Milano’s broken heart. But this is what I do. It’s what makes sense to me, what has long made sense. And surely some large proportion of the world’s current danger and decline is not inevitable but rather the result of people scrambling fearfully away from the things that have long made sense.

  That’s what I like to tell myself anyway, and it’s what I’m telling myself now, as I take off for Durham, biking by night, east-southeast on Route 202 with my madman sister for a sidekick, buoyed forward on a cloud of instinct and guesswork. It’s only about forty miles from Concord to Durham, an easy bike ride with no vehicular traffic going either way, just mild summer weather and the trill of night birds. Sometimes Nico rides ahead and sometimes I ride ahead, and we shout jokes to each other, small observations, checking in:

  “You doing okay?”

  “Yeah, dude. You?”

  “Yeah.”

  One time the headlights of a bus appear in the darkness like lanternfish, get close, zoom past. A mercy bus, running on some sort of rotgut fuel, jammed with singing clapping passengers, luggage racks strapped precariously to the top: off to do some good works somewhere in Jesus’s name. We watch the taillights disappear into the westbound distance, the once-familiar sight of bus headlights on a highway at night as unfamiliar and eerie as if a tank had just rolled by.

  I’ve haven’t been to UNH, not recently. I’ve been before, in the old days, but not since Maia, and not since the bloodless “revolution” in January, when a group of students exiled the faculty and staff, took over the campus and rechristened it the Free Republic of New Hampshire. Supposedly the plan was to quickly forge a utopian society in which willing participants can live out the rest of time in communal harmony with their brothers and sisters, everyone contributing, everyone respecting everyone else’s freedom to spend life’s remaining hours doing what they saw fit.