by Joe Clifford
The first big storm of the season hit overnight, and I woke to a foot and a half of the heavy, wet stuff weighting the world. I was glad to see Hank Miller when I peeked out my window, waving good morning in the new day’s light. I bundled up and helped him dig out the parking lot. Hank was getting old, and the wear of shoveling, especially this thick, goopy kind, takes a toll on a man’s back.
Strange to think I’d been Hank Miller’s tenant for close to twenty years. We averaged about a dozen words a year. I could go months without seeing him. Even now as I shoveled, he nodded his appreciation, but we didn’t speak. I knew next to nothing about the guy. I had witnessed him age, going from forty-something to pushing seventy. The best years of his life gone, spent changing oil for housewives, patching up punctured tires, easing his way out to pasture. And what did he have to show for it? This garage, a tiny house out back. I knew he’d been married at one point. I had no idea what happened to her. Maybe he had grandkids. If anyone came to visit, I never saw them. After Charlie, Jenny, my son, perhaps Tom Gable, I was as close to Hank Miller as I was anyone on this earth.
The thought of such a lonely life might not have depressed the living shit out of me had I not just returned from Thanksgiving dinner with my ex-wife and kid at a fucking Denny’s in Burlington.
About a half hour in, I heard Hank curse.
I turned and watched him shuffle toward the side of the garage. The door was ajar, striker dangling off a screw.
“Goddamn junkies,” he muttered, before wincing a mea culpa. Hank knew all about my brother.
I brushed aside the comment. We did have a drug epidemic up here. Addicts frequently wandered into town from the Turnpike. Especially before they tore down the old TC Truck Stop. That place was a breeding ground for degenerates. Hard to believe anyone would be out boosting in the middle of a blizzard.
When Hank inspected the rotten wood flaking around the plate, he pretended the wind could’ve blown in the door. “Storm got pretty bad last night.”
Which was bullshit. A hurricane didn’t take a door off its hinges. I knew he felt bad about the junkie comment. I didn’t mention my strange late-night visitor. Hank had already poked his head inside and determined nothing was missing. Last night’s paranoia aside, I couldn’t imagine Vin Biscoglio breaking and entering in his expensive suit, pilfering spark plugs.
I got out my toolbox. I had an extra rim and mortise lock set floating around. I reinforced the frame with a two-inch-wide steel strip, inlet the jamb, drilled four heavy-duty decking screws. Should hold. But, I told Hank, with the wood being so rotten, he’d need a new door hung. Took me another hour to clear the rest of the snow and ice in order to get the station operational.
By then the roads had been plowed. Still took forever to get across town to meet Tom Gable for breakfast at Julie’s. I preferred the Olympic Diner, the twenty-four-hour diner on the Turnpike, but the boss liked Julie’s. And he always picked up the tab.
The traffic lights along Farmington Avenue had been knocked out by the storm. Four-way stops and the whole town loses its head. A bunch of power lines were down at the Christian Lane intersection, cars backed up, bumper to bumper. I saw Sheriff Rob Turley directing traffic, bundled up in his town browns and fuzzy hat. He waved hello. A former classmate, Turley and I had a complicated relationship, stemming from all the times he’d busted my brother over the years. Turley had also bailed my ass out of a few jams. I’d returned the favor. I guess that made us friends. Or at least even.
I spotted Tom’s Ford, his truck the only vehicle in Julie’s parking lot. Which wasn’t surprising. Being Black Friday, most of Ashton would be headed to the mall in Pittsfield.
Tom sat in a booth by the window, his usual spot, reading the Herald. A cold sun threatened to break through silver clouds, refracting dull shine off frosted glass. Julie’s still had a newspaper dispenser out front. In this new digital age, where everyone got their information off smartphones and the Internet, I dug the old-school touch.
Bunching my Patriots hat in the pocket of my new winter coat, I stomped snow, mud, and rock salt from my cuffs, and nodded to Christine, whose family owned Julie’s. Christine brought me a coffee as I slipped opposite Tom, who held up a finger to let him finish whatever he was reading. I remembered coming here with my dad and Chris. Layout remained the same from when I was a kid. Six booths. Five tables. Counter with four stools overlooking a cook’s window and fry stove, coffeepot and muffin basket. I liked knowing some things would never change, even if Julie’s made a lousy breakfast and burned the shit out of their eggs. There was no one actually named Julie.
Tom folded his Herald, placed the paper on the tabletop, pushing it away. “Don’t know why I read the thing. Nothing but bad news.”
I passed along the itemized list from last night’s auction, including Owen Eaton’s grift, the rental fees, and four hundred and change from his original five thousand.
Tom strapped on his reading glasses, tallying the inventory. Since we’d hosted the event, Tom got a straight percentage off the top, but he’d have to handle taxes, too, a pain in the ass, cutting into any significant profit. In the end, he might’ve cleared the three hundred he was paying me.
He tucked the note in his breast pocket, then passed back the envelope with the four bills and change. I went to pick out my three, but he said to keep it all.
“An early Christmas bonus,” he said. “Thanks for overseeing that sale.” Tom scratched his big, bushy beard. “Heard about your run-in with Owen Eaton last night.”
“You heard about that, eh?”
“I hear everything.”
“He was just being a dirtbag.”
“What else is new?” He paused. “You get a look at the dresser?”
I nodded.
“The genuine article?”
I nodded again. I saw the hurt in his eyes.
“Not gonna lie,” he said. “Would’ve loved to land a piece like that. But you did the right thing. That’s not how we do business.”
I stuffed the bills in my shirt.
Tom studied me, as if something burdened his mind. Like a lot of mountain men, Tom Gable, with his logger forearms and stolid girth, wasn’t big on heart-to-heart conversation. Neither was I. Probably why we worked so well together. But the way his brows clipped together now—the pained expression, the stuttered starts and aborted sighs—I dreaded he was about to say something tender. Instead all he said was, “Nice coat.”
“A tip from Keith Mortenson.”
“Glad it was worth it.”
Christine brought his breakfast, and Tom dug in to the mound. The Lumberjack Special featured a pile of eggs, hash, home fries, pancakes, grilled breads, sausage and Canadian bacon, assorted layers of carbohydrates and fats, which Tom slathered in maple syrup. If there’s one thing this part of the state’s known for, besides our drug epidemic, it’s maple syrup, 100 percent, grade-A. You don’t get a body like Tom Gable without working at it.
“How about you, Jay?” Christine asked.
“I’m good with the coffee. Thanks.” For as famished as I was last night, having failed in my attempts to liberate the bean and cheese burritos from my freezer, I was strangely not hungry at all. I felt my body knotting up, tense, anxious. I’d popped a couple lorazepam when I woke up. Hadn’t helped. Vin Biscoglio’s visit had unnerved me, the break-in leaving me on edge. As soon as anyone evoked drugs, like Biscoglio had done with the missing Crowder boy, the back of my brain started tickling with thoughts about my dead brother, outcomes I wished were different, shit I couldn’t do jack about now.
Tom stuffed his face with greasy links and starches, slurping coffee, returning to impervious. Maybe I’d mistaken empathy with heartburn or gas. Just as well. Last thing I needed was tenderness. I can handle insults fine. Kick me in the balls when I’m down, no problem. Just don’t say anything nice to me. Breaks my fucking heart.
Biscoglio’s job offer had wormed into my brain, which got me examining everything els
e wrong in my life. Starting with Tom’s even entertaining the notion of selling to a cretin like Owen Eaton. I began to pile on the misery. Like listening to sad songs when you’re already depressed. I didn’t know why I did this to myself.
I must’ve been making faces, because Tom put down his fork, giving me his full attention. “My first choice is to sell the business to you. We have time. That year deadline? It’s not real. If I have to hang on another three, four years, I will.” He caught my eye, earnest as homemade pie. “We’ll find a way to make it work.”
“Thanks.”
“Owen is a backup plan; in case you can’t come up with the money.”
It was a nice thing to say. And I appreciated the reassurance. I believed he was sincere. But it was also lip service. Four years, five years—another ten, twenty—I’d never have the cash I’d need to buy the business. Which was why I fingered Vin Biscoglio’s card in the pocket of my new winter coat. That was a lot of scratch to leave on the table. It would put me almost halfway there, but the skeptic in me was, well, skeptical. Why pay me that kind of money? Must be a dozen licensed private investigators to handle the gig.
“Something else happen last night?” Tom asked.
“This guy stopped by my place.”
Tom waited for the rest. I could use the sounding board. I supplied the abridged version, omitting names and exact figures, highlighting the offer to investigate a disappearance. For a lot of money.
“Don’t you need a license for that sort of thing?” Tom’s face twisted up, a telling expression that told me nothing. He was responding to more than my news. Like he had a question he was afraid to ask. I wrote it off as too long with the in-laws and turkey-day hangover. But it was an odd expression from a man I knew so well. “Be careful,” he said. “Strangers don’t often knock on doors offering money for nothing.”
“Not since Ed McMahon died.”
Tom laughed. Christine brought the check. Tom peeled cash from his wad. We headed out into the blustery parking lot, where snow dusted off plowed mounds, swept away with the rest of the scrapings.
I lit a cigarette.
“Those things’ll kill ya.”
Tom smoked three packs a day when I first met him. Nothing like the glibness of the reformed smoker.
“What’s on the agenda?”
“Got a house to clear on Worthington Ridge.”
“Address?”
“I’ll text you later.” Tom pointed at the breast pocket where I’d stashed the four hundred. “Another reason I thought you could use that. Until I move the merch from last night’s sale, money is going to be a little tight.”
Tom fished out a key, placing it in my palm.
“What’s this for?”
“New warehouse space in Pittsfield is available.”
“Thought that wouldn’t be ready for a few weeks?”
“Me, too. Got the call this morning to head down and sign the lease. You can start moving Monday.”
I nodded and turned to go, but he called me back.
“I’m going with your suggestion for the new name.”
“Yeah?” I’d thrown out an idea the other day. Off the cuff. Wasn’t sure it worked, given our perpetual winter. “You don’t think it’s too cheesy?”
“No, I like it,” my boss said. “Everything Under the Sun. Has a nice ring to it.”
“I’ll stash last night’s score in the unit down the Turnpike. Safer than the back of a U-Haul.” We’d been doing so much clearing of late, Tom had been forced to rent a temporary pod at You Store, no space left at the warehouse. Until the summer flea market sales, we did more storing than selling.
“Good idea. I know it’s extra work. Starting next week, you won’t have to keep reconfiguring layouts.” He reached into his truck, retrieving a brown paper bag, passing it along.
“What’s this?”
“Smart thermostat. I know how cold you keep your apartment to save on heating costs. Hooks up to your Internet, monitors usage, peak hours, turns on and off automatically. There’s a Osram lightfy in there, too.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“Turns on your lights remotely.”
“Like via computer?”
“Wi-Fi.”
Who the hell needs to turn on their lights if they aren’t home? I didn’t say that. Tom often gifted me things like this to make up for the lack of pay or medical benefits.
“Tech stuff is out of your comfort zone, I get it.” Tom laughed, pointing at the bag. “Picked that up from an estate sale last week. Brand new. Never opened. Wanted to give you something to show my appreciation.”
I patted the cash in my pocket.
“I mean more than money. You mean a lot to the business.” He paused, hand gripping my triceps. “To me, too.”
I waited for him to say he had cancer and was dying. What other reason could there be for all the touchy feels?
“Are you all right, Tom?”
“I’m fine.” He smiled and started to climb in the cab. “Just glad Mortenson is on a plane back to Boston. That last-minute sale was a pain in my ass. I know it was a pain in yours.”
“Boston? I thought he lived in North Carolina.”
“Owns a house down there, but he works up in Boston. Accountant for that steel firm.”
“What steel firm?” I asked the question, although I already knew the answer.
“You know. The big one. Crowder. Crowder Steel.”
CHAPTER FOUR
I KNEW CHARLIE was home when I pulled in his driveway because handlebars poked out of the snow. Of course he hadn’t shoveled the turnabout, and I had to abandon my truck like a schooner on a sandbar in Antarctica. Odd angles of twisting metal contorted, jutting haphazard from snowy reefs, a bizarre artifact of a long-dead civilization. Walking past, I made sure Charlie hadn’t blacked out and now lay under there, a giant blue popsicle, frozen dead. I was relieved to find just the bike. I wrenched the spokes free from the snow and wheeled the bicycle against the side of his house, propping it beneath an overhang. Guy just bought the thing and had already left it outside to rust. The door was unlocked. It was always unlocked. Charlie lay facedown where he’d passed out on the floral print couch. Like another ten feet to his bed presented too monumental a task to contemplate.
I parted the curtains. A low winter sun crested over the ridge. Cold sunlight cracked the pane, brightening the room by limited degrees of fractured glare. Charlie started flapping, covering his eyes, convulsing. Pure visceral response to stimuli, no higher critical thinking skills involved.
Charlie cradled a pillow around his ears, remaining face-planted in the cushions, kicking his feet. “Come on, man,” he whined. “I’m sleeping.”
I kicked the couch frame until Charlie flipped over. He peeled off the afghan, revealing fat pink ham flopped over tighty whities. “What?!” Deep fabric grooves imprinted his bloated beer face.
“When was the last time you talked to Fisher?”
“Wha—huh? Fisher?”
“Yeah, Fisher. When did you talk to him last?”
“I don’t know, man. Couple weeks ago. Why?”
“Get him on the line. I don’t have his number anymore.”
Charlie pinched between his eyes, willing clarity, or trying to stave off the start to another day. “Come back later, Jay. I’m beat.”
He started to lay down. I kicked the base. He sat up.
“Why you need to talk to Fisher so bad?”
“Where is he living these days?”
“Lakeland.”
“Where the hell is that?”
“Like thirty minutes outside Concord. Another town to hide.”
“Hide?”
“Stay off the grid.”
“What’s he doing?”
“You mean for work?”
“Never mind.”
Fisher got out of the insurance business around the same time I did, albeit for different reasons. Since then, he’d grown out his hair, gotten a p
air of glasses that he didn’t need, and turned into a typical New Hampshire radical. He’d also grown increasingly conspiratorial, like my brother Chris but without the excuse of drugs, wary of government intrusion. You encountered a lot of that up here.
“Why the sudden interest in Fisher? Thought you hated his guts.”
“Just give me his number.”
I didn’t give a damn what Fisher was doing for work. I needed to know why he’d sicced Vin Biscoglio on me. Something wasn’t right. What were the odds of Keith Mortenson working for Crowder Steel? I recalled something Fisher, of all people, once said: in the world of investigation, there’s no such thing as coincidence.
With great, heaving effort, Charlie rolled himself up, snatching his cell from the dirty jeans crumpled on the floor, mumbling, pissed off to be awake and sober. He found Fisher’s number and passed me the phone. I used Charlie’s line to call rather than mine. Knowing Fisher, he wouldn’t accept a call from a number he didn’t recognize. We hadn’t spoken in a while, and my number had changed more than once.
He didn’t answer. No one ever answers when you need them to. I could go my whole life and never use the telephone again and it would be too soon. People bothered me all the time. When they wanted something. Just show up on my doorstep unannounced, no big deal. But whenever I actually needed to speak with someone, they didn’t pick up.
I left a detailed albeit strongly worded message that I didn’t appreciate the referral or the stranger he sent to my place at midnight.
“What was that about?” Charlie asked.
“Missing teen. Hiding in rehab. One of those military ones in Middlesex. Someone wants my help finding him.”
“Middlesex? Isn’t that where your brother’s ex lives?”
“Lived. Kitty’s in California now. With my nephew, Jackson. Remember?”
Charlie bobbed his head like he knew what I was talking about, but I knew he didn’t. The more he drank, the less he retained.
“So you’re, like, what? A private investigator now?”
“I didn’t say I was taking the job.”
“How much are they offering?”
