by Neil Plakcy
“She’s been answering to Jean. I asked her which she preferred and she said she didn’t care.”
“Students,” I said. “Sometimes, you can’t teach them anything.”
“You got that.”
I stood up. “Doing anything for dinner tonight?” I asked.
“Lean Cuisine. And then I want to go through some old rolls of film I’ve never had developed. My friend Adam says I can use his darkroom tomorrow.”
“Adam? I haven’t heard of him before.” I felt a twinge of jealousy. Lili and I had never explicitly talked about being exclusive, but I’d always assumed we were, and that her desire to move in together was another step along the same line.
“He’s a sweetheart. He does a lot of freelance work for magazines, but likes to experiment with new techniques, too. We met at an exhibit a few weeks ago and he mentioned that he had a darkroom in his basement. Then I ran into him when I was out with the students on Monday night, and I mentioned that I still had some rolls of film I never developed. He invited me to come over and use his darkroom, and we agreed on tomorrow morning. It’ll be a lot easier to work there than in my bathroom.”
I was dying to know more specifics about this Adam—how old was he? Did Lili think he was good-looking? I couldn’t figure out how to ask without sounding possessive. Then I stopped myself. She had asked to move in with me, not Adam, even though he had film developing facilities in his basement. That had to reassure me. But I had to admit I didn’t like the idea of Lili being alone in a dark room (or darkroom) with some other guy.
“I figured I’d come to your house after I finish at Adam’s. If that’s okay with you.”
At least she wasn’t having dinner with Adam, I thought. “Sure. I found this recipe on line for homemade dog biscuits. I’ll make some of them while I wait for you, and then I’ll have them when Rascal comes over.”
“You really are puppy-whipped,” she said.
I crossed my arms over my chest in mock anger. “And is that a problem?”
“Not when the puppy is as adorable as Rochester.”
He heard his name and raised his head, and when we stood up he hopped to his feet. Lili leaned forward and we kissed. Rochester tried to nose between us but I swatted him away. When we backed apart she said, “I should be there about three or four o’clock.”
“The only place I might be is out with the dog. But you have your key.” I had given Lili a key to my house the second or third time she stayed overnight, and I’d added her to the permanent guest list at the front gate.
I hooked Rochester’s leash and we headed for the parking lot. On my way home, Rick called. “I spoke to Arnold Lamprey. His brother went missing back in 1969. They assumed he’d made it to Canada, started a new life.”
“They never wondered about him?”
“Their dad was a World War II vet, and his brother Brian served in Vietnam. The family didn’t approve of Don’s decision.”
“It still seems cold.”
“Well, Arnold’s interested now. He’s going to get his brother’s dental records and send them to me so we can compare them.”
“How about the other kid? Breaux?”
“I called the Mounties in Ottawa.”
“Really?” I interrupted him. “The Mounties? They always get their man.”
“They’re the national police force for Canada, dimwit. I had someone check immigration and customs records. It took a while, but late in the day the guy called me back. No one named Don Lamprey ever entered the country. But Peter Breaux did, the day after John Brannigan’s journal entry.”
“Anything after that?” I asked Rick. “He have a driver’s license, insurance card?”
“There are a number of other guys with that name. But none of them are the right age. Not even close.”
“You think he went to another country from there?” I asked.
“There’s no record of him leaving Canada, though my contact told me that he could have turned around and walked right back across the border, without anyone knowing. They only cracked down in the last couple of decades.”
“So he basically disappeared after he crossed the border.”
“That’s about it,” Rick said. “One more thing. I was curious about how come no one smelled the dead body at the Meeting, and once I knew when the boys were there I asked Tamsen to check the old records and see if there was any mention of exterminators or a bad smell.”
“Did she find anything?”
“Yup. The heater broke at the beginning of February, and they couldn’t afford to repair it until the spring. So nobody was in the building during the time the body would have smelled.”
“You think someone broke the heater deliberately to keep people out? That would mean that the killer had to be one of the Friends.”
“Or someone who had access to the building. Remember, when we were kids a lot of people never locked their doors. Anybody in town could have learned what was going on, and gotten into the Meeting, not just members.” He sighed. “Anyway, I have to go to the gun range tomorrow morning and get some practice in before I requalify. Since I gave you back your dad’s gun I should make sure you know how to handle it. Want to come along?”
“Sounds like fun. Can I drop Rochester off at your place to play with Rascal?”
We agreed that I’d meet him at his house at ten, and hung up. I wondered how a family could let a son go missing like the Lampreys had, and felt sorry for the kid, dying alone and unmissed.
Could the same thing have happened to me if I hadn’t survived prison? Once my father was gone, the only person who kept in touch with me during that dark time was Tor—something I’d be forever grateful for.
Now, though, I had friends and a family again. It was up to me to manage to hold on to all of them, so that I didn’t end up the way Don Lamprey had.
22 – Target Practice
Saturday morning after our walk, and after Rochester had wolfed down his chow, we played tug-of-war with a couple of different ropes, including a red-and-white striped one with a green plastic loop on the end that he kept trying to put his paw through. When he lost interest, I retrieved my dad’s gun.
My father was born on a farm in Connecticut, and he had grown up around guns. He hadn’t been a hunter or a target shooter, but he was a Civil War buff and had collected guns, rifles and other materiel from that period. Though my .22 wasn’t historic, it had belonged to him and so it was one of the few real connections I still had to him. I took it out of its leather case and cleaned it at the kitchen table the way he had shown me, and it almost felt like he was looking over my shoulder as I applied the oil from an ancient squeeze bottle.
By nine forty-five the gun was clean and ready to fire. I got Rochester into my car and drove over to Rick’s, where I let the dog loose in the back yard with Rascal. Then I joined Rick in his truck. “So how good are you with that gun, anyway?” he asked. “Do I have to worry you’re going to shoot me?”
“My dad was pretty strong on the basics,” I said. “Always know if the gun is loaded, and don’t point it at anybody you don’t want to shoot. That kind of thing.”
“Good start.”
I followed him into the gun shop, where I bought a box of ammo for the .22 while Rick filled out some paperwork for the police force that showed he was getting in the required hours to requalify with his weapon.
We got our ear protection and walked to the indoor range, where we laid our guns on the shelf, facing down toward the targets, and he watched while I loaded mine. Then he popped the magazine into his Glock and picked it up. He spread his legs and balanced himself, then raised the gun in a two-handed grip. He fired a series of six shots in quick succession, then lowered the gun.
He said something to me, and I lifted one side of the ear protection to hear. “Aim for center body mass.” He pointed downrange. Five of his six shots had clustered around the target’s heart; the sixth had hit the neck.
I readjusted the ear protection,
then tried to mimic Rick’s stance. My hands were shaking a bit as I raised the gun. Rick adjusted the position of my right thumb, then wrapped my left hand around the right. He pointed at the sight, and I raised the gun and tried to line up. I fired one shot and the kickback surprised me.
It wasn’t the first time I’d shot, but it had been long enough that I’d forgotten what it felt like. I had hit the target high, somewhere on the cheek. I took a couple of deep breaths and raised the gun again, closing my left eye and focusing.
I fired the next five shots and then put the gun down, again facing forward, even though I knew it was empty. “Not bad,” Rick said. I had hit three of my shots around the center of the chest; the other two had gone high.
He went through a couple of rounds, and I followed. My aim didn’t get much better, but I did start to feel more confident. By the time we were finished, I felt that all the adrenaline my body could produce had drained away.
We didn’t say much as we left the range. I guessed Rick was caught up in his own thoughts, as I was in mine. Could I ever shoot someone who menaced me? Or Rochester? I’d threatened it in the past, in the heat of the moment. But I hadn’t had to carry through. And I knew that if I did shoot someone, even if it was justified, my felony conviction would make things difficult for me.
I was lost in memories when Rick said, “Assuming the dental records match, and the victim turns out to be Don Lamprey, I still have to figure out who killed him. I need your help to do some more searching for Peter Breaux. The Pop Warner kids are practicing this afternoon at the middle school and I’ve got to be there to coach.”
“And to see Tamsen,” I said.
“Give it a rest, Levitan. I already told you I’m having dinner with her tonight. Do you think you can do some searching for me this afternoon?”
“Never tried anything in Canada. I’m sure there are some public databases. I’m assuming you don’t want me to do anything illegal.”
He looked over at me. “You even have to ask that?”
I shrugged. “Just saying.”
He shook his head. “You don’t change, do you? Even after prison, and parole, and all the things Lili and I said.”
“Hey, you’re the one who needs my help.”
“You know what? Forget it. Forget I asked. I’ll put together an official request and send it to Canada.”
“Rick…” I began.
“No. Just no, all right?” He pulled into his driveway.
He was acting like a jerk, and I wasn’t sure why. Did he think that asking me for help was admitting he couldn’t do his job? Or was he nervous about his date, and taking out his irritability on me?
“Thanks for taking me with you this morning,” I said. “I appreciate it.”
“You’re welcome.”
Rochester came romping over to the fence, and I reached down and scratched under his chin. “You have fun, boy?” I asked. He woofed. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
Rick looked at me as I opened the gate to let Rochester out. “Remember,” he said. “Frank Hardy is the older brother, and he can kick Joe’s ass.”
At least if he could still make jokes, he wasn’t that mad at me. Maybe he was just nervous about his date.
In the year and a half we’d been friends, since reconnecting at The Chocolate Ear one day soon after I returned to Stewart’s Crossing, Rick had dated occasionally. They were always women he didn’t see a future with, casual affairs that were mostly about sex. Tamsen seemed different. He already knew her and her son, and I’d never seen him bashful around women before.
But Tamsen’s husband had been a war hero, and those were big shoes to fill. So I assumed that’s why he’d snapped at me, and tried to let it slide off my back.
While the dog biscuits baked that afternoon, Rochester and I spent some quality time on the living room floor with him jumping back and forth over me. When he heard Lili’s car pull up in the driveway, he abandoned me faster than smoke vanishing to rush to the front door. He stood there, panting and sniffing, until she opened the gate to the courtyard, when he barked a welcome.
I opened the door for her, and kissed her on the doorstep. Then I snuggled my nose into her curls and sniffed. “New shampoo?”
She laughed. “That must be the darkroom chemicals.”
I liked the fact that Lili had started leaving basic toiletries and casual clothes at my house. Even so, she always brought a wheeled duffle bag with her when she came to stay over. I took the bag from her and carried it upstairs. Rochester raced around between us as Lili followed me.
“It was strange to be in a darkroom again,” Lili said. “It brought back a whole lot of memories.”
“And Adam? Was he helpful?”
I was trying to mask my jealousy with curiosity but it didn’t work. “He was developing his own work,” she said. “Erotic nudes.”
My mouth must have dropped open, because she laughed and said, “Male nudes. Adam’s gay and he makes most of his money doing boudoir shots of gay men from New Hope.” She raised her eyebrows at me. “He shoots straight men too, if they want gifts for their girlfriends. Or photos for dating sites.”
I’m sure I blushed, because she poked me in the side and said, “Christmas is coming, you know.”
I had to change the subject quickly before I said something that embarrassed myself even further. “I’m surprised you’re still using film to take pictures. I thought everything was digital these days.”
“I started shooting digital back in ‘96 or ‘97, when I was on assignment in South America, and it was a lot easier to upload files than to overnight film,” she said. “But I kept shooting film, too, for years after that, because the results weren’t as good for art photos.”
I hoisted her bag onto my bed and she began to unpack her toiletries, a sexy nightgown I liked to see her in, and her clothes for the next day. Rochester rolled around on his back on the carpet, and I got down to his level to rub his belly.
“Good color negative film has terrific dynamic range, so you can capture a scene with bright highlights and deep shadows,” she continued. “But over the last few years the technology has improved to the point that there isn’t much difference, and I love the immediacy of digital – I can see right away if I’ve captured what I want, or if I’ve screwed up. I can shoot like crazy and then with a click or two delete anything not worth saving.”
She looked over at me. “Sorry, didn’t mean to lecture. I was usually good about labeling my film canisters but I must have gotten sloppy toward the end, so I had a bunch of film I’d never developed. It was interesting to see what was there.”
“Which was?”
“Mostly junk. A lot of background for a story I never finished, some art I might be able to use. And some personal photos, including a bunch of shots in Darfur of this translator and his family. He was this very sweet guy, and we loved working with him. Only after we left the country did we realize he was lying to us the whole time.”
She pulled a folder out of her bag and sat down beside me. “This is Jafaar,” she said, showing me a thin, dark-skinned man with a receding hairline. “At least, that’s the name we knew him under.”
“What do you mean?”
“I was working on a story with Van back then,” she said. Van Dryver had been a work colleague and a boyfriend; he had ended up with the Wall Street Journal, and continued to float around Lili’s periphery. I’d met him a couple of times, while he was nosing around stories that involved Lili or me, and I didn’t like him. His whole I live in the city and I’m a globe-trotting journalist persona grated on me.
“Jafaar turned up one day and offered to translate for us.” Lili pulled out another picture, of a dark-skinned young woman in a Western-style T-shirt. She had a small child on her lap. Rochester nosed his way between us, eager to sniff the photographs.
“Jafaar introduced us to his family. We trusted him and worked with him for nearly two months. Then we finished up and moved on. A few months later,
another reporter told us Jafaar had been arrested.”
“For working with foreign journalists?” I asked.
She shook her head. “He was a leader in one of the rebel groups. We didn’t believe it – but the authorities discovered his real name, and that he had faked a lot of his background, including the fact that the woman wasn’t his wife, and the child wasn’t his. He was using us to get access to the people we spoke to.”
“That must have been tough for you to realize,” I said.
She nodded. “I learned something from it, though. Don’t accept people at face value. Each of us chooses how we present ourselves – and sometimes that façade is very different from reality.”
I stood up, and offered my hand to Lili. I felt that we were starting, after six months, to begin to know each other well. We had established the basics, bringing most of the dark details of our lives out, and while I knew there was much more we would learn about each other, we were comfortable together.
“How was your morning?” she asked, as we walked back downstairs. I told her about going to the range with Rick, and how he’d gotten angry with me.
“I was joking with him,” I said. “I know that he can’t use any information I find illegally. And I had no intention of doing any hacking. But he jumped to conclusions. This is the second time he’s gotten touchy about asking for my help. I’m not sure if that’s what he’s really angry about, or if it’s the case getting to him, or maybe that he’s nervous about his date with Tamsen.”
“Probably the case. Rick doesn’t seem like the type to get nervous around women.” She leaned over and kissed my cheek. “I’m sure things will be fine. You guys are friends, and friends sometimes get cranky with each other.”
“I know, I know. What else is new with you?”
“Dr. Bobeaux is getting on my nerves,” she said as we walked into the kitchen. “Every other day there’s a new memo about department procedures, or new forms we have to fill out. New committees. It’s enough to drive you mad.”
Lili began to spread her photos out on the kitchen table. “I want to look through these before dinner. Is that all right with you?”
