Night Work

by Steve Hamilton

“Yes.”

  “When Darnell went away, I was angry at myself for breaking that promise. Angry at everyone else, too. You were a convenient target.”

  “I understand.”

  “So what I’m saying is, I hope you’ll forgive me. That’s all. I’m sorry for the way I treated you.”

  “It’s okay, Mr. Bowman. Seriously.”

  As I shook his hand, he looked at me close. “Who hit you in the face, anyway? Another father?”

  “No,” I said. “A husband.”

  When I left, I got back in my car and sat there for a minute. I didn’t find what I was looking for, but I did get something else. So maybe the day wouldn’t be a total failure.

  I started the car and drove to the next house on my list.

  TWELVE

  My next stop was a house up in Hillside Acres. It’s the high-rent district, at least as high as the rent gets around here. The lots are bigger, the houses are bigger—some of the newer houses might even qualify as ridiculous McMansions. If you think I wouldn’t have too many clients up here where the money lives, you don’t know a thing about juvenile crime.

  The direct route up to the Haneys’ would have taken me right past the old house. I usually avoid it if I can, but today I figured what the hell. I’m already dealing with the past.

  I drove up Linderman Avenue. When I got to the corner, I pulled over. There it was, a normal-looking split-level with two trees in the front yard. Some normal family was probably living here now. Twenty years ago, it was a different kind of place altogether. At least for me. My mother was deep into a string of bad relationships, an entire football team’s worth of men without one single redeeming quality between them. This particular house was owned by a man named Walter Powell, the most miserable of them all, but the first with money. She moved in with him when I was fifteen years old. By the time I was seventeen, I was literally counting down the days until I was out of there. I even had a calendar on the back of my closet door, on which I marked each passing day with a big X

  As I sat there reliving the bad memories, I picked up my cell phone and called the Kingston police. I asked for Howie. Sitting here in front of this house, I had to talk to him, if only for a minute. He’s the only person on this earth who’d understand.

  He wasn’t in. I asked the sergeant to tell him I had called.

  As I was about to put the car back in gear, I looked in my rearview mirror and saw a car moving slowly up the street behind me. He’s following me, I thought. Everywhere I go, he’s right there.

  I stayed where I was, hoping he’d make a mistake and come a lot closer to me. I might get my chance to catch him, or at least to get a good look at him.

  “Come on,” I said, quietly, like he’d actually hear me. “Keep rolling up here, you son of a bitch.”

  I waited. The car moved closer.

  “That’s it. A little more.” I had my hand on the handle, ready to make my move. I could almost see the driver now. Just a few more yards …

  A bend in the road, then a UPS truck parked against the curb, blocking my line of sight for a few seconds. The car was slowing down …

  If I can’t see him, I thought, then he can’t see me.

  I opened the door and stepped out onto the street. The car stayed where it was. I started running, moving to the sidewalk so I could keep the UPS truck between us, hoping it would buy me a few more seconds before he spotted me.

  I’ve got him, I thought. I’ll be right on top of him before he can turn around.

  Thirty yards away from him now. Then twenty. I put my head down and ran from the UPS truck to the nearest tree. It was a great, ancient oak tree. I remembered it from when I had lived just down the street. A few seconds passed as I caught my breath.

  “Okay,” I said. “Showtime.”

  I poked my head around the tree. The car was there, parked in front of somebody’s house. As the driver’s side door opened, I saw a woman get out. Then the two rear doors opened and two little girls climbed out of the backseat. They ran to the front door and took turns pressing the doorbell.

  I closed my eyes and leaned back against the tree. On any other day, I would have laughed at myself.

  A few more deep breaths, another minute waiting for my heartbeat to drop back into the double digits. Then I walked back to my car and got in. I threw it in gear and took off with a jolt.

  I drove all the way up the hill and made my way over to Dirk Lane. I found the house, stopped in front of it, got out, and went to the front door, nodding to the man mowing the lawn next door. I passed a FOR SALE sign. When I pushed the button, I heard the unmistakable sound of a doorbell ringing through an empty house. I took a peek in the front window and confirmed it. No furniture. Nothing.

  I was about to turn when the door opened. A woman in a peach-colored business suit stepped out and grabbed my right hand. “Hello there,” she said. “Come right in.”

  I followed her into the living room. She closed the door behind us. “As you can see, it’s all cleared out now.”

  “You must be the realtor,” I said. “I’m sorry, I’m not here to see the house.”

  “Oh?”

  “I’m a probation officer,” I said, taking out my badge. “I was looking for the family who used to live here.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know anything about them,” she said. The wattage in her smile was noticeably reduced, now that it was obvious she wouldn’t be making a sale. “I never met them, anyway. All I know is that this house has been on the market for about six months.”

  I walked around the place for a moment, remembering my visits here. When the son, Scott Haney, drew probation for possession of marijuana, I did my usual thing, stopping by the house, getting to know the parents. On my very first visit, they seemed to be smiling a little bit too much, trying a little bit too hard to act natural. The house smelled like fresh pine, too—like maybe a whole can of air freshener had just been emptied while I walked from my car to the door. Now, having your parents fire one up now and then doesn’t bother me too much, personally or professionally. A few more visits, though, and I was getting a different picture. It was more than recreation—it was a way of life, and apparently a thriving family business, too. Come to think of it, now that they were gone, it was no surprise that the house had been on the market for at least six months. It would take that long just to air the place out.

  “I’m sorry to take up your time,” I said to her. “I’ll get out of your way now.”

  “Here, take my card, anyway. My name is Marion Stansberry.”

  “Thanks, but I’m really not in the market these days.”

  “Someday you will be,” she said. “I hope you’ll give me a call.”

  “Okay, thanks.” I took her card, thinking, yeah, she’s in the right business, all right. When I went back out the door, I saw the man next door shutting down his mower. He took a white towel off his belt and wiped his face with it.

  “Hot day for it,” I said to him.

  “You got that right.”

  “Did you know the folks who lived here?”

  “The Haneys? I guess so.”

  “Do you know where they went?”

  “No, I’m afraid not. I didn’t know them that well. They kind of stuck to themselves.”

  “You weren’t around when they raided this place?”

  He looked a little embarrassed. “That lady in there asked me not to mention it to anybody,” he said. “I guess the father, he took the rap for the whole family, eh? Told the cops it was all him and nobody else.”

  “That’s right,” I said. They ended up assigning another probation officer to Scott. He finished out his year of probation without incident and went off to college, where he probably resumed his interest in pharmaceutical agriculture. I hadn’t heard anything about him since, but I remembered the way he would look at me whenever I happened to run into him in the waiting room. To him, I’d always be the man who ratted out his whole family.

  “So you’re
not here to look at the house?”

  “No, I’m not. But I appreciate your time.”

  “Are you a private detective or something? Did somebody hire you to find them?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Oh,” he said, clearly disappointed. The private detective thing would have apparently made his day. “Okay, then.”

  I figured I was dismissed, so I thanked him again and left. When I was back in my car, I picked up my cell phone and saw that I had a message. Howie calling me back, I hoped—but no. When I listened to the message, it was Detective Shea, asking me to call him.

  I dialed the number. He answered on the first ring.

  “Joe,” he said. “Any luck so far?”

  “No, not yet.”

  “You want me to meet up with you? I can help you with the rest of your calls.”

  My calls, he says. Like I’m selling vacuum cleaners.

  “I got a better idea,” I said. “I’ve already hit one old client who doesn’t live in Kingston anymore. You think you could follow up from your end?”

  “What, you mean find out where the family is now?”

  “Yeah, I imagine I’ll have more, now that I think of it. Considering what happened to these families, I figure some of them might have moved on.”

  “I could do that, I suppose.” He didn’t sound totally sold on the idea, but he didn’t argue with me, either. “Do you have a name?”

  I gave him the Haneys’ name and told him I’d call him again later if I had more. As I pulled away from the curb, a thought started to bother me. Whoever this was I was looking for … Would he still be able to lead an otherwise normal life? Wouldn’t it be more likely that he’d be living all alone in a single room somewhere?

  Yeah, Joe. You can see the whole scene right now. Pictures all over the walls, candles on the floor, your name on the bathroom mirror, written in blood …

  Okay, enough of that. But it’s funny when you think of it … Living alone, totally disconnected from everyone else. The one person you loved most in this world gone forever …

  You and this killer friend of yours … You seem to have a lot in common.

  Which is sort of the point now, isn’t it? That’s the name of his song.

  A car’s horn, jarring me out of my reverie. I swerved to the right, back into my own lane, missing him by maybe two inches.

  I need some food in my stomach, I thought. Then I need a very strong drink. Then I need to sleep for three days straight. I figured I could settle for the first one, at least. I drove back uptown, stopping at the Broadway Lights Diner for a quick hamburger. When I was done, I was ready to hit the road again.

  The next house on my list was over on Flatbush Avenue. It didn’t occur to me until I was almost on top of it, but the route I was taking, the quickest way there, went right over the railroad tracks by St. Mary’s Cemetery. The whole night came back to me—sitting in Howie’s car, waiting for the train, then pulling forward and seeing all the police cars there. Marlene’s body on the ground, right there. I slowed down as I passed the crime scene. Three days gone by and every trace of what had happened was gone.

  It still doesn’t make any sense, I thought. To leave Laurel in her bed, to leave Sandra on the floor of her living room … But to drag Marlene halfway across town and leave her out here in the weeds … What reason could he possibly have for doing that?

  If there was any human reason I could even imagine, it wasn’t coming to me. I kept driving, putting that place behind me, wondering how I’d ever be able to drive down this road again.

  When I got to Flatbush, I hung a left and went over more railroad tracks. This was another forgotten part of the town, at its heart an old junkyard with a high fence topped with razor wire. I knew there was once a pair of Dobermans who would run up and down the perimeter, leaping at the fence and generally letting you know that they’d like nothing more than to rip the heart out of your chest and fight over who gets to eat it. I didn’t see them around today, but maybe they’d mellowed with age.

  I found the house and parked on the street. For this client, I was going further back in time, a good six years since he went away. I knew it was a long shot that he or his family would still be here. I knocked on the door.

  A kid answered. I recognized him from the high school—he was one of those goth kids who wear black eye shadow and huge baggy jeans. If there was any way to get more metal in his earlobes, I couldn’t imagine how.

  “Henry,” I said, picking his name out of thin air. “I’m Joe Trumbull. You’ve seen me at school.”

  “My name’s Damian.”

  “Pardon me, my mistake.” Damian, my ass. I guess Henry wasn’t goth enough. “I was looking for a family who used to live here, but I can see they’re long gone.”

  “Who, the Morrisons?”

  “Yeah, do you know them?”

  “I’ve heard my mom talk about them. They had that kid who got sent away, right? Kevin?”

  “That’s right.”

  “It’s such a square name, isn’t it? Kevin Morrison?”

  “Yeah, I suppose so.” Almost as square as Henry.

  “Did he really think he was a vampire?”

  “I’m not sure about that,” I said. “I think that was all part of his act. He was a pretty messed-up kid.”

  As ironic as it may have been to say that to a young man wearing black eye shadow, I knew this was probably just a phase he was going through. Twenty years from now he’d work in an office and have kids of his own—and wonder why they acted like they came from another planet. But Kevin Morrison was a different deal altogether. The first time I saw him, I took one look in his eyes and said to myself, There’s something seriously wrong with this guy. There’s some basic part inside him that’s just totally unhooked.

  He was the first client I had who turned out to be unreachable. It was a hard lesson for someone who thought he could get through to anybody, no matter what they’d done or where they’d come from. The crimes themselves weren’t that serious, at least not at first. Shoplifting from the convenience store. Vandalizing the school. I’d ask him why he did these things, and he’d just look at me like I was asking him why Saturn had rings. Within the first month of his probation, we were already sending him to different agencies for psychiatric evaluation. He seemed to stabilize for a while. Then it all came apart. He threatened to kill both of his parents, who happened to be right in the middle of a divorce. He threatened to kill his teachers. He threatened to kill me. He brought a knife to one of our appointments—this was back in our old building, when we didn’t have the metal detector and the sheriff’s deputies. He took out the knife and he told me he was going to cut two holes in my neck so he could suck my blood. He said it in a dead calm voice, like it was something he had every intention of doing.

  “Why are you looking for him?” the kid said. “Do you think he’s still biting people?”

  “I don’t think he ever really bit anybody. I was just wondering if he’s still around, that’s all.”

  I knew he’d gone away for a while. I was sure he had been under some kind of psychiatric care at some point, but I knew how these things went. If you don’t have money and you’re not actively threatening people anymore, you’re probably going to end up back on the street. Which was really the only reason I was here. It’s not like I knew of any specific reason he’d have to come after me—he finished his probation and quickly disappeared. And if I was ranking all of my old clients based on how fast they could run, God knows he’d be near the bottom of the list. He was overweight and looked about as fast as rust. But hell, a man can lose weight and get in shape, and if he’s stone cold crazy enough, maybe he goes back to where it all began.

  “Now I remember you,” the kid said. “You’re the parole officer, right?”

  “Probation officer.”

  “Well, if you see Kevin, tell him I said hello, okay? I mean, I never even met the kid, but I feel like I know him, you know? I even sleep in his old
room.”

  Sounds like seven nightmares a week to me, I thought, but what the hell. “I’ll pass that along if I see him,” I said. “Thanks for your time.”

  “No problem, man. See you at school, eh?”

  I said good-bye to him and went back to the car.

  Another one for Shea to look up, I thought. This is turning into a real trip down memory lane. I can’t wait to see what comes next.

  The next stop turned out to be a little road trip for me. Brian Gayle had lived in Woodstock, which meant he normally would have reported to the Saugerties office, but when his first PO out there took a maternity leave, they asked me if I wanted to take a shot at him. He wouldn’t talk to anyone, was the basic problem. Not one word. Ever.

  I had twenty minutes to remember him as I drove out there. Within one mile of leaving Kingston, the city disappeared behind me and I could see the high stalks of corn in the fields, then the trees and the Ashokan Reservoir. As I went farther up the road, I could feel my ears starting to pop. Finally, as I cut north toward Woodstock, I could see the soft green contours of the Catskill Mountains.

  I’d come up here every week when Brian had turned into a real personal challenge for me. It was obvious to me that his biggest problem in life was his father. It was certainly something I could relate to, even if my own version of the story included a string of stepfathers. I knew his father was abusive to him. It was just a matter of how and when, and whether I could do anything about it. I never saw any bruises on the kid, and hell, if he wasn’t even going to talk to me, I didn’t have much to act on.

  But I kept trying. I told him he had one more semester of school to get through, then he’d be both a graduate and an adult. Everything will change then, I told him. Maybe not a hundred percent true, but something to focus on. Just work with me and we’ll get through it.

  Seven months into his probation, he tried to burn the house down. When they tried to arrest him, he nearly killed a Woodstock police officer with his father’s hunting rifle. I was hoping to see him placed in the Mid-Hudson Psychiatric Institute, but six weeks after his arrest he ended up in Coxsackie. A month after that he hanged himself in his cell.