Lifeline

by Gerry Boyle

  He needed a parent who would ground him for that. He needed a parent who would ground him. He needed a parent. I wondered how Tanner had tried to fill that role. I wondered if he had tried at all.

  The first address was on Carter Street, which ran from Main to River. The number was 15C, at the far end. I walked past the open windows, the doors that spilled out onto the sidewalk. Number fifteen was a pink building set back from the street. There was a set of wooden stairs tacked to the side and a stoop on the front. I tried the stoop first, banging on the wooden door. I banged again. As I turned to leave, the curtain fluttered and I turned back. I caught a glimpse of an old woman, but then she disappeared. I banged again and the door shuddered open. The odor of an old woman billowed out.

  “Hi, there,” I said. “I’m looking for Jeff Tanner.”

  She was tiny, with a mustache and pale opaque eyes. Cataract gray. I reached for my wallet to get my ID.

  “He ain’t been here,” the old woman said. “Like I told your pals. One hand don’t know what the other hand’s doing, I’d say.”

  “What pals are those?”

  “The detectives. I told ’em. He ain’t been here since the night they first picked him up. I told ’em and I’ll tell you. You spooked him and he took off. You shoulda waited ’til you had your case and then pinched him and kept him in the can. What do they teach you in police school, anyway? How to drink coffee and eat doughnuts?”

  I smiled.

  “God almighty, I know more from watching television. Only now I mostly listen, ’cause of my eyes. What’s that on your face, anyway?”

  “A Band-Aid. So where was his apartment?”

  “Upstairs. Only it wasn’t just his. He lived there, if you could call it that, with another couple guys. Only they weren’t there, either. Goddamn druggies, if you ask me. None of ’em went to work. That fella Jeff, he only been here a month, but I still don’t know what he did for money. How do these guys buy groceries?”

  “Maybe they don’t,” I said.

  “Well, they live on something. That Tanner, he took my trash out one day. Strong buck. Usually the man next door does it, but he forgot or something and it was trash day, and I’m gonna be stuck with this garbage smelling for another week, and Tanner, he sees me and he comes over and he takes the bag and puts it out there. Polite and pleasant and everything.”

  “Really.”

  “That’s why I was disappointed when I heard he killed that little girl. Not surprised, I’ll tell you. These druggies don’t know what they’re doing half the time.”

  “Where did you hear that?” I asked her.

  “At the hairdresser’s,” the woman said. “Her daughter, she’s trouble, I think, but I don’t say anything. She knows cops, too, and she said he was good as hung for it. Strangled her. Helps me with my trash, nice as pie, and then goes out and strangles some girl.”

  “Her name was Donna.”

  “Poor thing. She had a little girl, right?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Her name is Adrianna. She’s four.”

  “Well, ain’t that a shame. Wonder what drove him over the edge? Usually it’s one thing that makes these people snap. They go along and some little thing happens and bam, they lose it. Don’t suppose it matters now. Won’t bring that girl back.”

  “No, but it still matters. It matters a lot.”

  “Well, you would say that, doing what you do, wouldn’t you?” the old woman said.

  I thought of Donna. In court. In the parking lot. In the paper.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I would.”

  22

  The second address was a lot like the first, except nobody answered the door at all. I waited a minute or two and then gave up, walking back to Foxy’s and the car. I waited there for a half hour and saw three men slink into the place, two men slink out. They came and went alone. Jeff was not among them.

  I decided to call it a day.

  Before leaving town, I stopped for Ballantine ale. When I came out of the store, the car was dripping antifreeze. I decided to pretend I hadn’t noticed. Maybe the car would pretend to run.

  It was almost five thirty when I got home, driving down the dump road under the big green maples. I slowed as I approached the house and scanned the woods. I was looking for Jeff, his truck, Leaman and his buddies.

  I didn’t expect the state police.

  But they were there, sitting in an unmarked car that was backed into an open space in the woods. It was Kelly and LaCharelle, and they both nodded at me as I rolled by. I kept going to the house and parked. They followed and pulled in behind me.

  “Officers,” I said, getting out of the car.

  “Mr. McMorrow,” Kelly said, closing the driver’s door. “Long time no see.”

  “I’ve been around.”

  “So we’ve heard,” LaCharelle said, walking up to me. “We need to talk.”

  “Come on in. I’d offer you an ale, but I suppose you’re on duty.”

  “Story of our lives,” Kelly said. “But you feel free.”

  I put the Ballantine on the kitchen table but left it in the bag. Kelly and LaCharelle scanned the place in that involuntary cop way and then leaned against the counter. I leaned, too.

  “Mr. McMorrow, you’ve been busy,” LaCharelle said, hitching at the gun under the back of his jacket.

  “How’s that?”

  “Everywhere we go, you been there,” Kelly said. “The pothead downstairs from Donna Marchant. The lady next door. Even at the bar.”

  “The Mansion,” LaCharelle said.

  “They said you’d been there. At least we figure it was you. Description fits. The way you handle yourself.”

  “How do I handle myself?”

  “Kind of cocky, for a reporter,” Kelly said.

  “I prefer to think of it as quiet confidence,” I said.

  “Whatever,” Kelly said. “I just wonder what you’re working so hard on.”

  “A story about a murder. What do you want me to do? Wait for your press release?”

  LaCharelle shifted to his other foot.

  “Yeah, well, we stopped at the newspaper to try to find you,” he said. “We talked to this Mr. Albert. He said you aren’t even working for the paper anymore.”

  “Not that one.”

  “So who you gonna write this story for? The New York Times?” Kelly said.

  “Maybe.”

  “What are you up to, McMorrow?” LaCharelle put in, his tone more confidential, more intimate. “I talked to the Kennebec cops. You’ve been connected to an assault, and Lenny there said you’d been hauled off by some local luminaries and beat up. They give you that cut on your face?”

  I shrugged.

  “Listen,” Kelly said. “This isn’t some goddamn game. And we’re sick of you getting in the way all the time. I knock on a door and they say, ‘I just told the other guy the whole story.’ I say, ‘What guy?’ They say, ‘The guy from the newspaper. At first I thought he was a cop.’ You aren’t impersonating a police officer, are you?”

  I smiled.

  “What good would that do me in a place like The Mansion?”

  “What were you doing there?” Kelly said.

  “Didn’t they tell you?”

  “Nope,” LaCharelle said. “Like I said . . .”

  “Cut the shit,” Kelly said. “What’s the connection to you and the victim? What’s the connection to you and Tanner? We can nail him. We don’t need your help. We don’t—”

  “Let him answer,” LaCharelle broke in. “What is the connection between you and this Marchant woman?”

  “I told you. I talked to her once, outside court. I wrote about her once. I talked to her again at her house. That’s it.”

  “So what are you doing in this thing up to your eyebrows?” Kelly said. “She some squeeze you had?”

  “No.”

  “So what is it?” Kelly said. “Why don’t you just back the hell off?”

  I didn’t say anything.


  “Let him answer,” LaCharelle said.

  “I am,” Kelly said.

  They both waited.

  “I can’t,” I said.

  “Can’t what?” Kelly said.

  “Can’t just back off.”

  “Why the hell not?” he said. “It’s none of your goddamn business. It’s our goddamn business.”

  “You guys ought to work homicide in New York. Do a nice high-profile murder, with newspapers and TV and radio stations climbing all over you morning, noon, and night. You’re spoiled.”

  “This isn’t New York,” Kelly said.

  “No, he’s changed the subject,” LaCharelle said. “Shut up for a minute. McMorrow, now why can’t you back off?”

  I thought for a moment.

  “Because I don’t,” I said. “Not anymore.”

  They looked at me.

  “What is this bullshit?” Kelly said. “Listen, you know something about Marchant or Tanner or any of this that we don’t know?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, you better friggin’ know so,” Kelly said. “And you sure as hell better not frig this up. ’Cause we will friggin’ lock you up. And don’t think I’m kidding.”

  “I don’t.”

  “It’s a homicide,” he said. “No joke.”

  “What’s the cause of death?” I said.

  “What?” Kelly said.

  “How’d she die? Nobody’s released the official cause of death. I heard she’d died of asphyxiation. That true?”

  “You’re a nervy SOB, you know that?” Kelly said.

  “What else you hear?” LaCharelle said.

  “That there were no obvious signs of foul play. No cord around her neck or anything like that.”

  “No, but she was suffocated,” LaCharelle said. “Bruises on the throat. Faint ones, but that isn’t what killed her. Could have been a pillow, or even a hand.”

  “That for the record?”

  LaCharelle thought.

  “Sure,” he said. “What are you going to do with it?”

  “I don’t know. Did the lady next door have anything to say?”

  “You letting him ask all the questions?” Kelly sputtered.

  “It’s okay,” LaCharelle said. “With all those kids, McMorrow? You could have a goddamn shotgun slaying next door and she wouldn’t hear it.”

  So it wasn’t Miss Desrosiers they’d talked to. I still had Jeff leaving and Donna doing dishes after he was gone.

  They both straightened up and moved toward the door.

  “Something doesn’t add up about this, McMorrow,” Kelly said. “So just stay out of the way. Whatever game you’re playing, do it somewhere else.”

  “It’s not a game,” I said. “It’s a woman’s life. A man’s life. A kid’s life, too.”

  “Just so we understand each other,” LaCharelle said.

  “I think we do.”

  They pulled out of the dooryard and headed back out to the main road. I watched the cruiser, then went back to the table and got a Ballantine. I opened it and took a long lukewarm swallow. It would have tasted good boiled. I drained it, put one in the freezer, and opened a third. I had just sat back down when I heard tires in the yard again. I went to the front window.

  Roxanne.

  She came through the door and I got up and she threw her arms around me and held on tight. For a long time. A very long time.

  Her face was buried in my shoulder and when it finally came up there was a hint of tears in her eyes.

  “Your allergies kicking up?” I said, looking at her.

  “I don’t have allergies.”

  “Except to me.”

  “Don’t say that,” Roxanne said.

  “All right, I won’t.”

  “Don’t even think it.”

  “I won’t,” I said, still holding her. “If you don’t ask me what happened to my face.”

  “What happened to your face?”

  “You weren’t supposed to ask me.”

  “The deal’s off, Jack. What the hell happened to your face?”

  She reached up and gently touched the bandage.

  “I got cut,” I said.

  “How bad?” Roxanne asked, her voice gentle too.

  “Not too bad.”

  “What’s not too bad?”

  “A few stitches.”

  “How many’s a few?”

  “Relentless, aren’t you,” I said.

  “Yes. How many’s a few?”

  “Several.”

  “Jack,” Roxanne said.

  Her fingernail slid under the tape on the side of the bandage. It peeled away easily.

  “Oh, my God, Jack. Oh, you’re going to have a scar.”

  “Not just another pretty face.”

  “What happened?”

  Her eyes moved from my eyes to the cut, back and forth. Her eyes were deep and dark and beautiful. Her nose and mouth weren’t bad either.

  “I fell on a piece of glass. It was sort of an accident.”

  “Sort of?”

  “They didn’t mean it.”

  “Who’s they?”

  “The guys in the car,” I said.

  “What guys in what car?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “I think I need a glass of wine,” Roxanne said.

  “But that’ll mean letting go of me.”

  “Where’s the corkscrew?” she said. “I brought a bottle of Merlot.”

  So Roxanne poured a glass of wine. I poured the Ballantine into a beer mug. We sat side by side on the bench on the deck. With one hand, Roxanne held her wineglass. With the other, she held my hand. We talked easily, as always. I told her about Leaman and his friends.

  “So that’s why you weren’t supposed to come back yet,” I said.

  “That’s why I did. I was worried about you. I am worried about you.”

  “I’m fine. But that isn’t all.”

  “What else?” Roxanne said.

  Her fingers were intertwined with mine. They were long and soft. Her legs were crossed under her skirt. They were long and soft too.

  “I’ve been running around asking questions about Jeff and Donna. Then I quit the Observer.”

  “Why?”

  “Because they did a story on Donna that made her out to be some worthless piece of garbage.”

  “And she wasn’t.”

  “Not at all. She was a good person. She tried very hard in a lot of ways. She just didn’t have a lot of luck. Good luck, I mean.”

  “Why didn’t their story say that, then?” Roxanne asked.

  “Because it was easier to fall back on the stereotype. Welfare. Boyfriends. Drinking. To know her you had to really look at her. They didn’t bother. It’s a very lazy, cowardly newspaper. I didn’t want to be associated with it. I’m sorry I was.”

  I was quiet for a moment. Roxanne looked over at me.

  “You shouldn’t keep blaming yourself,” she said. “Is that why you’ve been off on this mission?”

  “I just need to know what happened.”

  “So you’re doing some kind of penance.”

  “I don’t know if I’d call it that,” I said. “I just think I should see it through to the end. I liked her.”

  “No, it’s a penance. And I can understand that, but it’s wrong.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “I understand what you’re doing, but I’m going to tell you how I have a problem with it,” Roxanne said. “It’s because it’s this martyr thing.”

  “You think I cut my own face.”

  “Jack, I’m serious. You think you’re to blame for Donna being killed. So you’re going to throw yourself in the middle of this whole thing, put yourself in the line of fire. Half hoping you’ll be hit, too.”

  “So what?” I said.

  “I don’t know, Jack. There’s something self-indulgent about it. Dangerously self-indulgent. You wrote your article in good faith. It was a fair subject for commentary and yo
u were trying to help. It didn’t work out. So instead of going on to the next story, try to do some good for somebody else, you throw it all away.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “It’s like what I do, Jack,” Roxanne said. “What if every time something went wrong with a client, I went on some crusade? If a child wasn’t helped, if a child went from bad to worse, to drugs and the streets? What if I tried to help the child and failed? You know what I have to do?”

  “No, what?”

  “Go on to the next kid. The next family. Even though I don’t want to. It would be easier to go off the deep end. A lot easier. But if I do that the other hundred and eighty-three clients are the ones who pay. I can’t allow myself that luxury.”

  “But you don’t get people killed,” I said.

  “Sure I do. I mean, I’m sure I do. I do it by not saving them. They just take a lot longer to die.”

  I thought for a moment. The phoebes fluttered by and lighted on a branch of a white ash. We were still. They flicked their flycatcher tails.

  “Where’d you get all this cold common sense?” I said.

  “From my mother. She’s spent half her life feeling sorry for herself.”

  “So that cured you of it?”

  “And keeps me from spending much time in Florida,” Roxanne said. “I can’t stand to watch her.”

  “What does she have to feel sorry for?”

  “Not much. It’s just this habit she can’t break. I can’t stand it.”

  “That’s sad,” I said. “So how are you going to stand me?”

  “When?” Roxanne said.

  “When I see this thing through right to the very end.”

  Roxanne sighed.

  “Well, maybe I could help hasten the process,” she said.

  “You hasten my process.”

  “You’re lucky I love you.”

  “That, too.”

  When the bugs got too bad, we moved from the bench to the house. We made a cold pasta salad and ate quietly, with candlelight. Roxanne talked about Skip and his boat, said that he was really becoming a good friend. She told me a few of her Human Services horror stories, then a couple more with tiny seed pearls of hope. She said she liked it, that she was enjoying being in the trenches again. I said I’d like to get her in the trenches again, and she shook her head in mock dismay. I put the dishes in the sink and she went to the bathroom. While she was gone, I took the rifle up to the loft and slid it under the bed.