The Underneath

by Melanie Finn

  “Oh, gosh, yes, of course. Hi. Kay. Ward. We have a place in Kirby.”

  Trudi nodded, stroked the dog. “Hello, Kay.”

  Kay extended her left hand for an awkward shake. “Do you, um, sorry, I don’t know how to ask this, so I’m just going to come straight out with it. Do you know Ben Comeau?”

  Trudi wasn’t opening the door because of the AC. She was either going to have to come out or invite Kay in. Kay made a quick apologetic smile, then rambled as the warm air exchanged with the cool air of the Steiners’ expensive interior: “I’m asking because my husband and I need to have some of our woods logged, and we want the best person and we wondered about Ben. He seems so nice but then we did some research online and saw something about a court case.”

  “I’m not sure I should discuss—” Trudi stepped outside, shutting the door firmly behind her. “This is just between you and me.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Last year. About this time,” Trudi began, the way people begin, in short bursts. “He just showed up. He was the nicest guy, polite. As you say, just so nice. Even Lily liked him, didn’t you, little sourkins.”

  A brief hesitation as Trudi checked herself and scruffed Lily’s ears and wondered, should she really be telling this story? But it felt good to let injustice slide off her tongue, the sweetness of outrage, and she gathered momentum. “Nice, nice, Mr. Nice, that’s Ben. He started asking about our woods and who was logging them and Paul, my husband, said no one. So Ben said we should think about it, thinning out some of the less healthy trees. He went on about curating a healthy forest and that because there’d been so much bad logging over years—ironic, let me tell you!—so much clear-cutting, the trees all grow back in one big stand, so they crowd each other, trying to be the tallest, rather than the strongest. Such a nice guy, Ben, using the fancy word curate. He really gave the impression of being knowledgeable and all environmentally sensitive. He said he’d help us, his cousin was a forester, and they’d work up a plan to tag the best trees and weed out the weak. Ben offered us eight thousand.”

  Lily squirmed and Trudi put her down. Yippity yip yip, went the dog, wagging her fluffy tail, her bright eyes staring up at Trudi. “Mummy’s busy,” Trudi scolded, then continued to Kay: “Paul is a lawyer. He gets a contract for everything. Literally. You want to use the bathroom? You’ll sign a liability contract. But somehow Ben, this nice local guy, gets my husband to verbally agree.”

  Kay looked attentive, nodding now and then.

  “And then the forester came by with Ben. Quiet guy. But he knew about trees. He and Ben asked how often we were around because the logging can be noisy and they could see we come up here for the peace. So considerate, right? Paul tells them we’re going to California for two weeks, to the wine country, he actually said that to them, ‘We’re going to the wine country’ and how that would be the perfect time. And Paul’s all happy because now we’ve got eight grand for a bunch of junky trees.”

  Trudi gave Kay a rueful smile. “I mean, you’ve got to give them credit. We’re looking at them like they’re a couple of bumpkins as we gab on about wine country. So, they come when we’re not here, when they know we’re in wine country tasting a wide array of pinot grigios, because, duh, we told them. They strip it. It’s literally stripped. Fifty-five acres, clear-cut, what they call—apparently—a ‘high grade’ cut. It looks napalmed. Paul freaks out, but then he really freaks out when he finds out there’s nothing he can do. Lodge a complaint with the chamber of commerce. So that was it. Literally, it. Turns out there are no regulations, no oversight unless you have a contract and a contracted forester. Which we didn’t have. We just had a conversation with the forester. Nothing was ever signed, and when Paul tracked him down, he just said he didn’t know anything about it, he was so sorry, he thought we had decided not to log.”

  “Did you believe the forester?”

  “It didn’t matter by that point because there was no contract. What we believed, what we thought was bullshit. Because nothing was written down saying what Mister Comeau could or couldn’t take, and we had invited Mister Comeau onto our land, we had cashed his check. Of course, Paul pushed it as a fraud case, but fraud it almost impossible to prove, and anyway he works in Boston—he’s already totally overloaded with major malpractice cases; he can’t be coming up here to some Deliverance-country court for eight grand.”

  “Wow.” Kay furrowed her eyebrows. “What a terrible story. I’m so sorry.”

  “He totally played us.”

  “The forester’s name—do you remember?”

  Trudi thought for a moment. “No. He was just a quiet guy, hung back, left the talking to Ben.” Yip yip yip, Lily insisted, so Trudi bent down, picked her up.

  Then, as Kay turned, Trudi added: “Just so you know, we’ll get the last laugh. Paul kicked up a fuss. He has connections. Justice Department, high level. He’s making all kinds of trouble for them.”

  Yip yip yip.

  Even as Kay smiled and thanked Trudi, her mind was in the basement, opening the tub, flipping through Maria’s cookbooks. She flipped The Joy of Cooking onto its side, shaking loose the notecards and clippings Maria had shoved into the pages including the fudge recipe from Candice to Maria. Kay was looking again at the notepaper, and there, across the bottom, Vermont Department of Forestry, and the logo for Parks, Recreation and Forestry.

  *

  The office of the Caledonia County Forester was in a square two-story brick and cement box on Route 2. Inside, there was no receptionist, just a high counter that separated off a large open area with several desks and computers where two men and a woman surfed a tide of paperwork. Kay waited, polite and patient, until the woman glanced up. She held a finger aloft, “Just a sec, hon.”

  After making a few definitive taps on her keyboard, the woman got up. She was tall, big-boned—a strong woman used to working outdoors.

  “Can I help you?”

  “I’m looking for Candice.”

  “That’d be me.” She made a jokey show of looking herself up and down. “Yep. That’s me. What can I do you for?”

  Kay leaned in, so that Candice had to follow suit. “Frank Wilson.”

  Candice pulled back. “I’ve already talked to you people.”

  “Have you?”

  “Aren’t you federal?”

  “Federal what?”

  “Let me get my supervisor.”

  “Candice—wait.” Kay softened her voice, she knew this hide-and-seek, this stepping forward or back, peering, poking. It was always a kind of flirtation. “Frank is your friend.”

  The woman hesitated, her wide, strong back still blocking out Kay.

  “You’re worried about him, aren’t you?”

  Now Candice turned. “We should go outside.”

  They sat at a splintery picnic table under a spreading maple at the east end of the parking lot.

  Candice’s face was spare. “Start by telling me who you are.”

  “I’m renting his house for the summer.”

  Candice nodded, waiting for more.

  So Kay obliged. She looked into the distance, as if trying to put her finger on the intangible—ghosts, God, the cold spot in a room: what Candice was also feeling. “No one will tell me where Frank is. I know I’m not from here, he’s not a friend, I’ve never met him.” Now she looked at Candice. “He’s missing, isn’t he?”

  Candice scanned Kay’s face with clear, perceptive eyes. “And you’re not DEA or FBI or whatever? You’re not wired. You have to tell me if you’re wired, don’t you?”

  “I’m not anyone”—and this Kay could say with complete conviction—“I’m no one, no one at all.”

  For a long moment, Candice mulled, then she decided. “Frank was in trouble. His marriage. Maria and the boys left. He tried to put a good face on it, that it was just a temporary thing. But we all knew they weren’t coming back.”

  “You asked if I was DEA.”

  “Yes.”

  �
��Because the DEA have already been here asking about him?”

  “Some kind of task force. We have a huge opiate problem here.”

  “Frank was using, dealing?”

  “I just can’t imagine Frank—”

  “Maria?”

  “You must be joking.”

  “Imagine Frank, then. Imagine him doing something he shouldn’t. Because people have reasons we don’t know about.”

  Candice considered, then she nodded. “Okay. A couple of months ago—March, it must’ve been—these two DEA agents were here asking about problem loggers, dirty loggers, and they were really pushing Frank about a couple of his contacts.”

  The bad feeling, that cold spot in the room existed after all. “Loggers?” Kay said. “Why would loggers be involved with drugs?”

  “It’s a cut-throat business—it’s the Wild West, and loggers are pretty scrappy people. They work hard, overheads on equipment are high, the markets fluctuate wildly, there’s no safety net, no government subsidy. When prices tumble you’re on your own to cover your ass. Mills are closing all over, the big ones in Maine and Canada. Mainly it’s the damn Chinese bringing in cheap wood products. The big loggers are still doing okay. But the small outfits? They struggle. Our main job as foresters is basic oversight. Are they harvesting as they’re supposed to, are they following the laws—not that there are many. To be honest, it’s an almost completely unregulated business. And Frank, Frank—” she broke off again, and again looked behind her. “Frank is a bit of an oddball, a bit of a loner, we all are, tramping about in the woods all day long.”

  “What did the DEA want?”

  Parading out on the edges of her mind, loyalty, fear, discretion, Candice took a long time to answer; but in the end, the human need to unburden won out. “Maria wasn’t legal. Neither were her boys. They were hers, she’d brought them from Mexico when she and Frank got together. There was some problem with her birth certificate that made it difficult for her and Frank to get married; they couldn’t enroll the boys in school. It was a mess, and the government has been cracking down on illegals. So they were afraid to even go out. The DEA somehow got wind of the situation. They said they’d either make it easy or hard for her, and they wanted Frank to wear a wire and set up some sort of sting with a couple of the loggers.”

  The question formed on Kay’s tongue, a hard pebble. “Do you—do you know who?”

  “Wilder Bundy, Ben Comeau.”

  Now Kay stepped forward, because it was important to give as well as receive: to share. “I met Ben. He helped me with a problem at the house. He seems like a nice guy.”

  “He is.”

  “You know him, then?”

  Candice shrugged. “Here and there. Enough to know he’s in deep, equipment overhead and such.”

  “How could logging and drugs be connected?”

  “Maybe the cash. A lot of cash changes hands. And you got a bunch of guys who don’t care too much for the law.”

  “Did Frank cooperate with the DEA?”

  “He would never betray Ben. Never. They were like brothers.”

  Kay looked directly at Candice. “Where do you think Frank is?”

  “Officially? He’s still here.”

  “But surely someone’s noticed?”

  “His pay checks go straight to Maria. He set it up that way. So, we figure, until the cops actually decide he’s missing or whatever, we’ll screw the system right back. So far, no one’s asked. Till you.”

  “But where is he?”

  Candice raised her kids on a forester’s salary. She was loyal and kind. She wanted to see the best in people. She took a long time to answer, appraising Kay one last time, still uncertain of her credentials. “I think,” she said finally, “I think Ben knows.”

  48

  BECAUSE AUSTRALIA HAD NO TREES, the Australia in his mind. No forests to plunder, no old growth to diminish into pulp. Australia had no winter fist.

  Jake tried to blow on the didgeridoo and made a noise like a fart. They laughed. Ben tried and made a bigger fart, they laughed and laughed, fart fart. But the spooky, beautiful sounds the instrument could make played like a soundtrack over Ben’s imaginings: the lonely distance, the lightness of his body traveling on foot over red earth, Jake beside him, like ancient people, the first people, father and son, upon a clean and wide land, they could begin again, the whole human race, just start again.

  Because Frank, because Frank could not.

  Because he and Frank had kidnapped an overweight dachshund named Otto who belonged to a couple from Braintree, Massachusetts. It had been Frank’s idea, after seeing the ‘Lost Dog’ posters in White’s. “Reward offered.” How difficult could it be to kidnap a dog? It made so much more sense than kidnapping people, who were big and made a lot of noise and could talk to cops.

  They stole the aging Volvo from Old Lady MacDonough. She was in for a hip replacement and had left the keys in the car, an invitation—it could be considered—to the varmint foster kids next door. He and Frank kept to the backroads. They were outlaws, though they kept to the speed limit and ate M&M’s, and Otto sat between them, bright and happy for the car ride. When they got to the cabin, Otto jumped out and raced toward the lake—he was enjoying his day out. He waded into the lake, which wasn’t far given the shortness of his legs. “Good boy,” Frank said, crouching down to give him a pat. Otto barked.

  That night was the happiest Ben had ever been; he and Frank eating gummy bears and potato chips for supper, roasting a pack of hot dogs on the fire. They even drank two beers, lifted from their foster parents. They lay on the grass with Otto, looking up at the night sky, and Frank said there were kids in cities who didn’t know the sky had stars. He told of this one kid at his school who was from New York City and he thought a cow was the size of a dog because he’d only ever seen a cow in a picture by itself. The kid’d had no way to reference the size. Ben and Frank laughed and laughed, imagining little cows the size of Otto and how you’d milk them by pinching your fingers, squeet, squeet, squeet. And Otto certainly appreciated his hot-dog supper.

  By the light of the kerosene lamp, they wrote Otto’s ransom note. “$1,000 to see Otto again! Do not call the cops! Put money in UN-MARKED $100 bills in a plain brown paper bag on the SE corner of Tunny Hill Road and Wiley View at 9:15am, August 4.” They’d only have to do this nine more times and they’d have enough money for Australia. This suddenly seemed like a lot of dogs. They discussed and agreed they’d do it only five times. Five grand would be enough.

  “Maybe we can just take Otto to Australia with us,” Frank pondered. The dog was snoring softly, his velvet ears cast across Ben’s lap.

  In the morning, they shut Otto in the cabin and went for a swim. The water was cold and they gasped, striking out for the center of the lake with ferocity. They were all the way out when they saw a truck pull up to the cabin.

  “Who’s that?” Ben asked.

  Frank didn’t answer. His face didn’t change. There was water in his hair dripping down into his eyes but he didn’t blink or wipe it away. Frank didn’t answer right away, and Ben had an animal sense of dread.

  “My dad,” Frank said.

  “I didn’t know you had a dad.”

  At the foster home no one discussed their parents. It would have been like playing Top Trumps: least able to provide food, biggest consumption of alcohol, most likely to pass out from a heroin overdose, most frequent sexual predator, most violent abuser.

  It was a beautiful morning, the hills around them glimmering with green, the promise of a true, hot summer day. But Ben now felt heavy, as if his limbs were water-logged. The air was suddenly cold against his skin as he rose from the water and followed Frank. Frank walked up to the cabin, he didn’t hesitate. There was no point in delay. Frank’s dad was sitting inside, smiling, Otto on his lap. The ransom note was on the table. “Cute little fellow, ain’t he.”

  Then this strange dad swiveled his head toward Ben. “Who’s the circus freak?” />
  “Ben,” Frank said.

  “Hi,” Ben offered his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  Frank’s dad laughed. The uninitiated, like Ben, might think the laugh jovial and embracing. He was petting Otto, stroking his long, soft ears, and Otto appeared to be enjoying the attention. This was how Ben learned that dogs have no instinct; they’ll take affection from anyone. Evil isn’t a smell, or a taste or a tone of voice, and it sure as shit isn’t a pat on the head. Dogs are stupid that way.

  “I like what ya’ve done with the place,” father spoke to son.

  “It’s mine. So is the house.”

  “Yer mother.” He smirked, rubbed his grizzled beard. Then he gestured to the ransom note on the table. “This yer idea?”

  Frank nodded.

  “I like it—very, ah, what’s the word, cunning.”

  “We’ll give you half.”

  “Half?” Frank’s dad scratched Otto’s chin and the dog closed his eyes. “I don’t need the money. Why do ya need the money?”

  “Ben’s saving up to buy a car.”

  “He’s 13. A little young. Mind, I can see yer already motorized.”

  Ben stepped forward. He wanted to help Frank. “Completely my idea, sir. My mother taught me to drive because sometimes she couldn’t. I’ve been driving since I was nine, sir.”

  “Sir?” Both boys were standing in their wet underwear. Frank’s dad scanned Ben from head to toe. It felt like an appraisal, the way judges looked at beef cattle at the county fair. He lingered on Ben’s face, and Ben felt every pimple erupt and seep, his blackheads cluster like fungi. “I like ‘sir,’” the man said. “Very respectful. Yer skin is giving ya some trouble.”

  “Dad, please.”

  His father shifted his gaze back to Frank, a thinner boy, smaller-boned, shivering in his wet underpants. “If this goes wrong, if the cops trace ya shitstains, this’ll come down on me. I’m the adult, the parent. Ya think I want cops snooping around?”

  “No. Sorry.”

  “We’ll have to sort this out my way.”

  “Sorry. Dad. Please. Dad. Sorry.”