Millerville was about four hundred miles away, the apex of a stubby triangle with the East Canton-to-Silver City line forming the base. They stopped for gas in a tiny flatland town at the halfway point, the wind blowing scraps of paper across the road.
“See if this works,” Greer said, pulling out a credit card.
Wyatt glanced at it: a corporate Visa card for Torrance Amusements.
“Maybe they haven’t blocked it yet,” Greer said.
Wyatt gave it back, went inside, and handed over a twenty. He returned to the car and was pumping gas, hunched against the wind, when his phone rang. He dug it out of his pocket, checked the number: his mom. He almost didn’t answer.
“Hi, Mom.”
“Wyatt,” she said, her voice unsteady with emotion, “this can’t go on.”
He straightened. “I love you, Mom. You and Cammy. But I’m ready to be out on my own.”
“What are you talking about? You’re sixteen.”
“I’ll be seventeen soon. And I’m ready.”
“You’re not ready. And even if you were, it doesn’t matter. You can’t leave home without my permission until you’re eighteen in this state-I checked with a lawyer.”
“Then give me your permission, Mom.”
“Absolutely not. I want you home today.”
“I just can’t,” Wyatt said. Inside the car, Greer had her earphones on, was nodding her head slightly to some beat, eyes front.
“Is this about Rusty?” Linda said. “Are you punishing me or something? I’ve been going to this website on blended families, and they say that often happens in cases like-”
“Aw, Mom, I’d never think about you like that. You haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Then what? Is it that girl? I wish you’d waited…you know, before, um, an intimate relationship, and I know it must be exciting, but there’ll be other girls.”
Not like this. That was Wyatt’s thought. He kept it to himself.
“Wyatt? Are you still there?”
“Yeah.”
“You know how hard it would be for me to come down there. I can’t miss work, not in this economy.”
“Why would you want to come down here?”
“To get you. Didn’t I just explain? You don’t have my permission.”
“Sorry, Mom. Please don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”
“And I’m sorry, too, Wyatt, but it’s not your call. In the eyes of the law, you’re a runaway. I have the right to notify the police.”
“You wouldn’t do that.”
“Don’t test me. I want you home tonight.”
“Come on, Mom. I’m no runaway. I-”
She hung up. The pump hit the twenty-dollar mark and shut off. Wyatt tucked his phone into his pocket and replaced the nozzle. Greer turned and blew him a kiss through the window.
19
Wyatt got back in the car.
“I’ve been thinking,” Greer said. “What if-”
Her cell phone rang. Greer had a cool ringtone, three resonating Dobro notes. She checked the screen. Wyatt happened to see it, too. HONG KONG, it read, followed by lots of numbers. Greer shrugged her shoulders, flicked the phone shut.
“Hong Kong?” Wyatt said. “That’s weird.”
“Yeah,” said Greer. “So here’s my question-suppose he really was innocent, like totally. What are we going to do about it?”
“I don’t know,” Wyatt said, pulling back onto the highway, which they had pretty much to themselves. The land flattened out and the wind came unimpeded from the west, sometimes buffeting the car. “What could we do?” Wyatt said. “Also, maybe it’s not even our problem. It’s for sure not yours.”
“Oh? What do you mean by that?”
He caught a sharpness in her tone, didn’t know what to make of it. A quick glance at her and he still didn’t know: she had her eyes on the road.
“Just that you have your own problems,” he said.
“Like what?”
“Like what? Like this whole thing with the bankruptcy, handling that all by yourself.”
“Nothing left to handle. They changed the locks-you know that.”
They drove in silence for a while. A horse ran by itself in an empty field. Bankruptcy meant the end of something, and big changes-Wyatt knew that from what had happened at Baker Brothers Iron and Metal Foundry. “So what are you going to do next?” he said.
“Huh?”
“Your plans and stuff,” Wyatt said.
“What plans should I be having?”
“I don’t know.” But she was nineteen, smart, good-looking. Was reading to old blind people all she wanted? “Your music, for example. Isn’t that something you want to do?”
“Didn’t I mention that I sing flat?”
“I liked your singing.”
“And my playing is faked,” Greer went on, showing no sign she’d heard him. “I mentioned that, too.”
“It didn’t sound faked to me,” Wyatt said.
“What are you really saying?” Greer said. “That I’m not good enough for you as I am?”
“Huh?” All of a sudden they seemed to be fighting; about what, he didn’t know.
“Don’t play dumb.”
“I’m not. I don’t understand what-”
“And since you brought up the subject of plans, are you going to divulge yours any time soon?”
Wyatt glanced at her again: still gazing at the road ahead, no expression on her face to indicate she was in a fight. “No secret,” he said. “Graduate from high school, go to community college if I can, see what happens after that.”
“Graduate from what high school?”
“This one. Bridger.”
“Good luck and Godspeed,” she said.
“What do you mean? What’s wrong?”
“If I have to tell you, that just proves it.” She leaned forward, switched on the radio, turned some country song up to earsplitting volume.
Wyatt hit the off button. For a second or two, he thought she would turn it back on, foresaw a quick mutual deterioration back to completely childish behavior. But instead Greer shifted away from him and cracked her window open an inch. Cold air came flowing in.
Some cows went by, then some sheep, and a llama. Only the llama turned to look. There was something about the gaze of the llama, or maybe the angle of its head, that crazily enough seemed scary for a moment. Wyatt took a deep breath.
“What’s going on?” he said. “Why are you mad at me?”
There was a long silence. All Wyatt knew was that he wouldn’t let himself ask again. A little settlement appeared in the distance, low shapes with lots of right angles in an enormous natural landscape with none. Wyatt parked in front of an old general store with a hitching rail out front.
“I’m getting a sandwich,” he said. “Want anything?”
“I’m not hungry.”
Wyatt switched off the car. And then a second crazy thing: he almost took the keys with him.
He went inside, got a turkey sandwich on homemade bread, a bag of chips, and a yogurt for Greer; she liked yogurt, could eat it later if she wanted. What was wrong with her all of a sudden? He had no idea. Back outside, he saw that she was on her phone. She closed it and put it away as he entered the car.
“Who was that?” he said, handing her the yogurt.
She put it on the floor. “Just some asshole.”
“Who?”
“Nobody you know.” She was silent as they pulled away. A state trooper zoomed by in the other direction. Greer sighed. “My landlord,” she said. “If it’s really that important.”
Wyatt felt some of the tension between them dissipate. He tore off one end of the sandwich wrapper with his teeth, took a bite, realizing at the first taste how hungry he was. “What’d he want?” he said, talking with his mouth full.
“What do landlords usually want?”
“Rent?”
She nodded.
“How much is it?” he said. “I should
be contributing.”
“No,” she said. “I’m fine. Fine for money.” She reached for the yogurt. “Lemon, my favorite. Thanks.” She started eating, shifted back closer to him. The sun came out, or if it had been out the whole time, Wyatt finally noticed.
Both East Canton and Silver City were hilly towns on rivers. Millerville was flat and riverless; as they drove into it, Wyatt couldn’t imagine why anyone would have picked this spot for a town in the first place. They followed the main street past a doughnut shop, an auto supplies place, a going-out-of-business gift shop, a boarded-up building, the town hall. The town hall was solid-looking with a round tower on top; most of the windows in the tower were broken.
“What a pit,” Greer said. “We better stop and ask.”
“Ask what?”
“Directions for thirty-two Cain Street,” Greer said. “Shouldn’t we have a look at where all this went down? Or do you want to start at Pingree’s construction yard, assuming it still exists?”
Wyatt didn’t know, hadn’t thought much about the steps beyond just getting to Millerville. “How are we going to do this?”
“Look around,” said Greer. “Play it by ear. Isn’t that the way everyone ends up doing just about anything?”
Wyatt thought that over. People tried to organize the future-for example, Coach Bouchard had come up with the whole Bridger idea, trying to keep baseball in Wyatt’s future-but then things had gone wrong, at least partly because Mr. Mannion had been organizing Dub’s future at the same time-and since then, yes: Wyatt had pretty much been playing it by ear. Maybe Greer was right and it was the same even at the very highest levels-why else would the economy be like this, boarded up, going-out-of-business, bankrupt? Everyone, from the top right on down to him, here in this crappy flatland town, ended up playing it by ear.
“Okay,” he said, “how about thirty-two Cain Street to start?”
“Now you’re talking,” Greer said. “Pull over-here’s a likely citizen.”
He pulled over. The likely citizen was an old woman in a pink quilted jacket, tacking a notice to a telephone pole with a small hammer. Wyatt slid down his window.
The old woman glanced over, pausing in midstroke. “You seen Effie?” she said. “Effie’s my cat.”
“Sorry, no.”
“She’s missing. White with black feet.”
“Uh,” Wyatt said, “we’re looking for Cain Street.”
“Cain Street?” said the woman. “No way Effie’d make it that far, not with her arthritis.”
“Where is it?”
“Cain Street? To hell and gone.” She waved vaguely. “Know where the bus station used to be? Way past that.” She went back to tacking up the notice.
“Thanks,” Wyatt said, pulling away.
“I hate cats,” said Greer.
“What about dogs?”
“I’ve always wanted one.”
“Me, too.”
“Let’s get one.”
“Maybe sometime.”
Greer sat back, folded her arms across her chest. He had another crazy thought: she wanted this dog today. “We could name it Millerville,” he said. She laughed, and put her hand on his knee. He placed his hand over hers; it felt cold, and not quite steady. “Are you nervous about something?” he said.
“Always,” she said. “Didn’t you know?” She raised his hand and kissed it. “But not with you.”
They found the old bus station-now padlocked, with a bright orange notice on the door-and came to Cain Street a few blocks later.
“Right or left?” Wyatt said. Greer pointed to the right. Wyatt turned right. The houses on Cain Street were small and low, mostly aluminum sided, a few painted cinder block, plus one or two sagging trailers that looked like they’d never move again. The lawns were brown and weedy, littered with all kinds of things-bald tires, rusted machinery, a yellowed Christmas tree, tinsel fluttering in the wind. A mailbox went by, the number on it-757. No numbers on the next bunch of mailboxes, and then came 921.
“I’ve always been a bad guesser,” Greer said.
Wyatt U-turned, crossed back over the main drag, and continued to the other end of Cain Street. It grew more and more potholey, and finally the pavement petered out completely. Cain Street ended with no warning at a small stand of trees. The nearby lots were all blackened, as though the houses had burned down. The last one standing-a single-story house with two front windows, one big, one small, like mismatched eyes-had the number 32 on the door. Wyatt stopped the car.
They gazed at 32 Cain Street. The blinds were closed on both front windows. Flyers lay scattered outside the front door.
“This is where it happened,” Greer said. “Or where whatever happened happened is maybe the way to put it.”
Wyatt tried to imagine the scene. Had the blinds been closed that night, too? Probably, with drug dealers inside: Luis and Esteban Dominguez, plus Esteban’s girlfriend, Maria, who died, and their baby, Antonia, who got shot in the eye and ended up in foster care. Thirty-two Cain Street was a very small house to contain all that trouble.
“All set?” Greer said.
“For what?”
“Knocking on the door.”
“And then what?”
“Playing by ear.”
“Can’t we do better than that?”
“We could say we’re looking for the Dominguez brothers,” Greer said.
“Because we want drugs?” Wyatt said.
“Well?” Greer shrugged.
Greer and drugs: he shook his head.
She laughed. “Scared you, huh? How about we’re a couple of ambitious students doing a story on the case for the school paper?”
He thought that over.
“Or criminal justice students at the community college, working on a project?” she said.
“Yeah,” said Wyatt.
She opened her door. “What are we waiting for?”
20
Wyatt and Greer walked to the front door of 32 Cain Street, a white door, the paint peeling here and there, revealing black paint underneath. Greer pressed the buzzer. Wyatt listened, heard no buzzing sound from within, or anything else. Maybe nobody was home; maybe they’d gone for good. Greer tried the buzzer again, then knocked, hard knocks, one-two-three; Wyatt was surprised her fists, not very big or powerful-looking, could make noise like that.
A woman spoke on the other side of the door. Wyatt had heard no footsteps: she might have been standing there the whole time. “Who’s there?” she said.
“We’re from Foothills Community College,” Greer said, so natural and confident Wyatt could almost believe it himself. “We’ve got a few questions for our school project.”
Silence.
“Easy ones,” Greer said.
More silence, and then: “Are you here for the rent?”
“The rent?” said Greer. “No. We’re from the community college. We just need a minute or two of your time.”
“The car’s not here,” the woman said, “in case you want to repo it.”
“We don’t want your car. We just want your help.”
“My help?” The door opened. A woman stood there, blinking in the light. She was old, wore a threadbare robe, had bare feet, one with a big bunion, the other slender and nicely shaped. She looked at them, her expression puzzled and a little afraid. “What kind of help?”
“Just answering a few questions,” Greer said. “Not for attribution if you don’t want.”
The woman began to look less afraid, more confused. “I don’t understand a word you’re saying.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Greer said. “How long have you been living here?”
“Almost five years now. But there’s no lease or nothin’, which is how come the landlord-”
Greer cut her off with a quick chopping motion. “Do you know the Dominguez brothers who used to live here?”
“The place was empty when we moved in. I can’t be held responsible…” Her voice trailed away. After moment or t
wo, she blinked again and said, “Are you cops? You look too young to be cops.”
“We’re not cops,” Wyatt said. “But a murder was committed in this house.”
The woman took a step back. “That was long before my time.”
“But you know about it?” Wyatt said.
“Too late. I knew too late.”
“What do you mean?” Wyatt said.
“Ever hear of bad luck?” said the woman. “What’s badder than living where murder’s been done? We’d never have moved in if we’da known. Then it was too late.”
“Couldn’t you have moved out?” Wyatt said.
“And gone where? It’s not so easy.”
“What do you know about the murder?” Greer said.
“Nothin’.”
“You must have heard something about it.”
The woman shrugged. “Drug deal gone wrong or some such. Why are you asking all these questions, anyways?”
Greer’s tone sharpened. “We told you. For our project-it’s about the murder.”
The old woman gave Greer an unfriendly look. “Sounds like a no-good project to me.” She turned to Wyatt. “Why don’t you take your question to the goddamn landlord-he’s owned this place forever.”
“Okay,” Wyatt said. “Who’s the landlord?”
“Slumlord’s more like it-owns the whole godforsaken street.” She bent down, clasping her robe at the throat with one hand, fishing through a scattering of unopened envelopes on the floor with the other. She picked one up, ripped out the return address from the upper left, handed it to Wyatt.
“Pingree Realty?” he said.
“Bloodsuckers,” said the old woman.
“Any relation to Art Pingree?” Wyatt said.
“How would I know? Think I socialize with those people?” She leaned closer to Wyatt. He smelled booze on her breath. “I’m choosey about my friends.”
Back in the car. “Art Pingree’s the nephew of Sonny’s boss?” Greer said.
“Yeah.”
“See what this means? The Dominguez brothers were renting the house from old man Pingree. The nephew found out they were drug dealers and cooked up the plan.”
“You should be a detective,” Wyatt said.
“Not a bad idea,” said Greer. She paused, then raised a finger, brought it down on Wyatt’s lips. A charge went through him. She smiled. He’d never seen her look better.
Bullet Point Page 13
