Absentee List_An Old Horse Mystery

by Elskan Triumph

  And Dan figured he’d have to go downstairs and answer the door, before Peter heard the ring and did it himself.

  His stomach turned as he descended the stairs. He knew it wasn’t the coffee, but a need for resolution. ‘It doesn’t help, though,’ he thought, looking down at the black brew in his hand. Coffee and pancakes. ‘At least there were no police lights,’ he thought. That’s something.

  Walking down the hall to the front door, he thought about slipping on shoes but then decided it was unnecessary. ‘Why bother?’ Why ruin a nice morning by getting dressed for the day? Comfortable in worn sweatpants and a gray wool sweater, he had no interest in fighting what might come next—of suiting up for another day of battle. Fate was going to have to accept him dressed like this, in white socks. His and Peter’s shoes were lined up by the back door, waiting. It had taken him a while to get used to the “no shoes in the house” rule, but Peter had insisted.

  Everything was for Peter.

  Resigned, he pulled on the knob.

  For the last time, Horse stood on Dan’s stoop. He had rung the doorbell once, but hesitated doing so again.

  Give him time.

  There were not so much signs of spring, but of the end of snow. The roads had been wet, and Dan’s dirt and gravel driveway was soup. Horse hadn’t even tried it, but instead parked on the road and walked up the middle of the driveway; it had been graded once and water ran into the ruts and side ditching. Around the house the snow looked like tired shaving cream. Drops of cold water fell from the edge of the roof, drilling a line of small holes across the ice on the stoop. This was the time of year when things melted, and froze, and melted again. Sheets of ice lay below puddles, making for treacherous walking and an excessive use of sand. As the Johnsons used the backdoor to get to the barn and the truck, no one had bothered much with the front. Only Horse and their neighbor had used it, both strangers.

  He heard the sound of muffled feet tromping down the stairs and figured Dan was in socks. The steps were too heavy for Peter, and the hyper kid would have taken them two at a time, twice as fast. Horse braced himself for the confrontation.

  ‘How to do it,’ he had wondered on the drive over.

  When he left Wells two nights ago, there were a lot of missing bits of information. Laporte did little to fill them in, but eliminated a few others ideas. Horse’s main concern was not the mystery, but the boy.

  Was he safe?

  Waiting for the knob to turn, Horse tried to keep that—not the puzzle—foremost in his mind.

  “It’s you,” Dan said, but hardly looked surprised.

  Resignation, Horse thought. I could shoot him now with a crossbow and he’d look less surprised.

  “Can I come in?” the teacher asked.

  Dan moved aside without a word.

  “Coffee?” he asked, and Horse nodded.

  The two made their way to the kitchen. Pouring a cup, they exchanged perfunctory pleasantries about how the coffee would be taken, and then they sat at the table.

  “This will be my last visit,” Horse said.

  “I thought your last visit was your last visit,” replied Dan. It was said without much enthusiasm; more of a reflexive response.

  “You are Dan’s father.” It wasn’t a question, but a statement; a point from which the rest of Horse’s discussion would be built on.

  “Yes.”

  “So, who is the man in the snow?”

  Dan said nothing to this, but it was clear that he knew.

  “Let me fill in a few other things, to see if I can figure it out.”

  Dan nodded.

  “First, you know who the guy in the snow is.” Horse looked at Dan, but the father made no sign either way. “You had nothing to do with his death.”

  Eyes still fixed at a point far away, Dan’s face relaxed a bit.

  “You used to work for Laporte,” Horse said. “I’m guessing it was something illegal…”

  “Drugs,” Dan blurted out.

  “Drugs,” Horse repeated.

  “I’ve sold drugs since high school,” Dan said. His voice was a bit monotone, as he was mentally elsewhere and lacking enthusiasm. “Mostly Ritalin. I got it for my ADHD, or what they thought was ADHD, and I sold it. And some pot. I’d buy it in a big quantity from some guys who graduated a few years earlier with the Ritalin money. Then I broke it into dime bags and sold it at school. Sometimes at the college.” Dan laughed. “I got a job delivering pizza, but I’d make my money selling dime bags at the same time. The tips were gas money.

  “When I got a job swinging a hammer for Laporte, I sold drugs from the site. Small amounts. Enough for a night. You know, like buying a six pack after work. We worked a number of crew from out of state, and their guys had too much downtime between shifts and no local source.”

  “So, you were it?”

  “It was petty stuff,” Dan said. “I did some speed, too. When it came my way.”

  “How often was that?”

  “Drugs used to be no pressure around here.” Dan took a sip and looked out the window. “No pressure. Maybe it was that hippie vibe left over; you know how it is around here. A generation of rednecks grew up with the idea that a little fun wasn’t bad. Cops didn’t care. I’d buy a pound here and there, and sometimes the guys would have a shipment of speed from Canada. Or not. It was like going to the grocery store.”

  “And then Laporte found out?”

  “He took a cut, but mostly looked the other way. I guess he could have taken advantage of the situation, but he didn’t.”

  “It sounds like the whole operation was getting pretty big. Certainly larger than a few pizzas.”

  “Supplies were easy. And with Laporte giving me access to more sites, moving it was easy, too. The money was good enough to pay his bills when things were lean, and I was set up to take the fall if the law got involved.”

  “Did it?”

  “No,” Dan said. Then he added, “… not then.”

  “How big was your dealing?” Horse asked.

  “It paid for this house,” Dan replied. “The other guys… They live in trailers or rent, but I was able to buy this bit of land and a house.”

  “So, this wasn’t petty stuff…”

  “It grew with Laporte. He got bigger contracts, and we worked on bigger projects with more companies. I shifted around from site to site. First, I’d get in and swing my hammer or whatever and make friends. Then, I’d be a source. A week later, I’d do the same at a new site. On Tuesdays I’d swing past the old sites with new supplies.”

  “Is that a euphemism?”

  “Kind of.” Dan took a sip of his coffee, which Horse was sure was cold by now. “After Laporte discovered my activities and cut himself in, I was allowed to call some of the shots. I was no longer a dumb kid selling pot, scratching a living on dime bags. Laporte and I, we were both businessmen. Smart. When a new site opened, I’d swing the hammer and carry stuff, do whatever got me into conversations where I’d be asked to share a beer after the shift. Then, I’d have Laporte make me one of the supply delivery guys. On the books, I’d drive one of Laporte’s trucks to a site with whatever was needed. All of it was above board. Of course, I’d also have a week’s worth of drugs.”

  “What did you sell?”

  “Mostly recreational. Pot. It passed the time, and beer gets depressing after a while. It’s really boring spending a week where you don’t know anyone and there’s nothing to do but work. Some guys needed a stimulant, and that varied.”

  “No meth or heroin?” Horse asked, surprised.

  “People on meth or heroin don’t last long on a job site. Getting it can be dodgy, and the clients aren’t reliable. That’s a recipe for someone saving themselves by ratting on you when the cops bust them. No one cared about pot. As I said, it was an after work drug. Like beer. People on speed are industrious; in our industry they take it to get overtime and send money back home. Everyone has a vested interest in keeping their job. I think Laporte accepted w
hat I was doing because he knew it wouldn’t affect his business like that other stuff might.”

  “He didn’t want a swarm of DEA agents poking through his garage and office,” Horse offered.

  “Or going through the files.”

  Rising from his seat, Dan walked over to the window and looked at the snow melting on the woodpiles. Blue plastic lines still strung from tree to tree, collecting sap for Laporte. Someone had taken away the police tape and the taps were flowing again. He listened for Peter, wanting to spare him from what was coming. Fate. Payment. Above, he could hear the boy knocking around his room. Relaxing his shoulders, he moved to the counter and leaned against it, arms crossed.

  “So, the dead body?”

  “It wasn’t Peter who did it,” Dan replied, surprising Horse. His body straightened.

  “I didn’t think it was.”

  “Phil fell down the stairs,” Dan said matter-of-factly. “He came home, complaining of dizziness… He told Peter he was surprised he was able to drive home. Anyway, when Peter got up the next day, Phil was at the bottom of the stairs. Peter told me it was all wrong. That was what he said, the body was all wrong. Snapped neck, I assume. I don’t know. Autopsy will show it, I’m sure.”

  From his seat, Horse could see the bottom of the stairs. A simple layout, the stairs were a straight shot—fifteen, Horse figured—into a granite slab landing and wall at the bottom.

  “Peter was alone,” Horse said.

  Dan nodded.

  “All of these photos,” Horse said, scanning the room. “They’re all Phil. Phil Plowman.”

  Again, the father nodded.

  Horse thought for a moment. Both were silent. Above, a little bit of rustling to remind them both of the boy.

  “Phil is Peter’s mother’s brother,” Horse said at last. “And when she died, and you were laid up in the hospital after the crash, Peter needed someone to look after him. Phil came.”

  “And by the time I got home,” Dan said, “I’d been replaced.”

  He started crying, quietly.

  It was more tears than anything. After a minute, he wiped his nose on the back of his wrist and pulled himself together.

  “What happened after the car crash Your wife dead, Phil having replaced you as the man of the house,” Horse asked when he thought Dan was ready.

  “First of all, I had sobered out.” Dan looked up, and then at Horse. “I wasn’t sorted out, but I was off drugs for the time being.”

  “Except medication,” Horse added.

  “Yeah,” Dan thought with a smile. “I guess I was. Anyway, I came home and Phil and Peter had this nice life. I’d just lost my wife. Peter had lost his mom. And this guy is there, being the guy I wanted to be and I flipped out on him.” Horse noticed that with the story, Dan was working himself up. For the first time in the conversation, Dan was active, breaking out of his resigned stupor. “We had a fight. An ugly fight.”

  “So, what happened?”

  “Simple. The two of us were shouting in the middle of the living room. Just yelling. And I hit Phil. Hard. It was all anger—I don’t know if I was angry at him or me or my life or what but I balled it all up and threw it at the guy. Phil went down. The guy lost his sister. I forgot it was his sister, too. And there he was, for Peter. For his sister, I guess. And we were yelling and I hit him.

  “In the middle of it all, Peter told me he liked Phil better. He just blurted it out. Go away, he’d shouted. I like him better. The kid was five. He didn’t know what he was saying. Well, he did, but at the time I didn’t give a shit. So I punched him in the face.”

  “Peter?” But Horse knew the answer.

  Dan stood, rubbing his right fist with his left hand, a crazed smile on his face. But underneath, the old teacher could see the sadness.

  Regret.

  “Broke his nose,” Dan finally said. “You can still see it. When he comes downstairs, take a look. It never set right.”

  “Did you take him to a hospital?”

  “No. But,” Dan was quick to add, “that was Phil’s idea. We had broken nearly everything in the house, and Peter was wailing and bleeding all over everything until I finally stopped.”

  Dan looked at Horse. He needed for the teacher to understand.

  “I was always in a rage. I’d been away for six months, and on the first night back I had punched my kid. Broken his nose.”

  Shaking his head at the memory, Dan cried again.

  “That wasn’t the first time,” Horse said.

  “My wife…” he began. “My wife. She’s dead because of it. I used to beat the shit out of her. Rage. Break stuff. Those first few years…” Dan didn’t bother to fill in the details. “Clients used to come over to our old place. We partied all night. People crashed.”

  “Not a place to raise a child.”

  “No,” Dan agreed. “I knew that, but couldn’t stop. I’d lash out whenever Cora said something about it. Finally, in a rational state and with a wad of cash, I agreed to this house. Cora made me promise none of my ‘friends’ would visit.”

  “It didn’t work?”

  “One night, she got me drunk—which wasn’t hard—and then said we needed to get something at the Grand Union. She strapped Peter and herself in. Then, she rammed the car into a tree at sixty miles an hour.”

  “She tried to kill you?” Horse asked, surprised.

  “Yes.”

  “It could have been an accident.”

  “No,” Dan said. “I’ve thought about it. I thought about it while I was in the hospital, and I’ve thought about it more over the years. She never brought me to the Grand Union. It was her respite from my rages. No, she’d usually bundle up Peter and go out until she was sure I’d passed out or left. This time, though, she insisted.”

  “Still…”

  “And she unlatched my seatbelt.”

  Dan looked a Horse, daring him to rationalize this.

  “If I can walk, I latch my seatbelt. My mother beat that idea into me, so that I feel unsafe if I’m not belted in. I need to feel that pressure across my chest. I’m sure I did it.”

  “Your wife tried to kill you.”

  “I don’t blame her.”

  Dan did not cry. Staring off into space, he did nothing.

  “So, when you came back from the hospital, Cora’s brother had it out with you.”

  “He blamed me for her death,” Dan said. “And he was right to. I as good as killed her. I think he came, at first, to confront me about this. And he knew Peter was all that was left of his sister. That she loved Peter. And after six months, he had grown fond of Peter. Don’t get me wrong, he was still angry about his sister, but he was mostly protective of his nephew when I came back from the hospital.

  “After wiping up Peter’s blood, Phil gave me his ultimatum. His main point was to look inside myself. If I loved Peter, he had a plan.” Dan laughed, “We switched identities. He became Dan, I became Phil and was told to disappear. We looked enough alike to pull it off. ”

  “No one noticed?” Horse asked.

  “No one cared. I had spoken to Laporte about a job for Phil—he was a licensed plumber—and Laporte fudged some paperwork to put my name on the path towards becoming a licensed plumber, too. Phil could do the job, but needed the legal paperwork as Dan. Me. That took care of his livelihood. He had a house, a car…”

  “What did you get?”

  “I got Phil’s car and his bank account, which had enough money in it to start something elsewhere. I went to upstate New York.” Dan scratched his chin. “To be honest, this was me hitting bottom. I wasn’t ready to be responsible enough to take care of myself, but I knew I had to minimize what I did to my kid. So I took the deal.”

  “What if you hadn’t?”

  “To be honest, I think Phil would’ve killed me and never thought twice about it. I’d be buried in the backyard, under the compost.”

  “Is that why you took it?”

  “No. I was so out of control with rage…
” A look came over his face. Horse noticed that his fists grew tight and his facial muscles became focused. “If I hadn’t had a kid, Phil would have been dead. He was on his back and I was ready to stop him when Peter chimed in.”

  “Without the kid, though…”

  “No Phil. I know. Anyway, I did it for Peter.” Dan chuckled. “A moment of clarity.”

  “And now Phil is dead.”

  “Peter was only five at the time, but his life until then was burned into his memory. When Phil had his accident, Peter didn’t want to go back.”

  “So,” Horse said, finishing Dan’s thought, “he took care of the body himself.”

  “He put Phil’s body in the freezer. The little guy then paid the bills and managed all of the money. When the thaw came, Peter had planned to bury him out back.”

  “Under the compost.”

  Dan nodded.

  “How did you come into the picture?”

  “Phil’s been in jail for the past two years.”

  Dan gave a weak smile, and raised his right hand lazily to show that it was him in jail, under Phil’s alias.

  “Drugs. Dealing, knocked down to possession. A plea deal. I got out in January. I thought I needed to tell Phil, in case he ever wanted to get his old life back. I had called a few times, and Peter picked up. I hadn’t wanted to get back into his life or complicate things, so I hung up. After a few weeks, something seemed wrong. Phil never answered. I came back.”

  “Peter must have liked that.”

  “He was with you.”

  “He wasn’t happy.”

  “He wasn’t home.” Dan leaned back in his chair. “I got him to meet me after school. In town. We had pizza. I laid things out. He wanted a home. His home. I guess he wanted it to work.”

  “And has it?”

  “We’ve adjusted. But, yes.”

  “You’re not Phil.”

  “I’m his father.”

  The two men looked at each other, taking this in.

  “And Phil’s body…”

  “When the power went out a few weeks ago with all of the snow, the freezer stopped working. I thought I could bury him in the snow. The thaw was coming.”