Hard Aground

by Brendan DuBois

“You must have known it wouldn’t stop there.”

  “Shit, what did we know? We were all young, strong, drunk, high, or strung out. We didn’t care. But I did luck out when the shit came down.”

  “And how was that?” I asked.

  “I was out on a beer run. I was the only one who had a car. Not like today, when every kid gets a car on their sixteenth birthday, the spoiled brats. I drove down to Bubba’s in Falconer, stocked up on a few cases, and when I came back here … Christ, what a show was going on.”

  “What kind of show?” I asked.

  “State cops, cops from Tyler and North Tyler, even the goddamn shore patrol. I drove into the parking lot up there, it was dirt at the time, and when I saw all those cars and some of my buds being led away in chains and handcuffs, well, shit, I turned around, dumped that beer, and went to the hospital in Exonia, all spiffed up and ready for afternoon class. Hah!”

  “You didn’t get into trouble?” Gwen asked.

  “Oh, a bit, but nothing they could prove. Besides, the whole mess was an embarrassment to the Navy and the town, and it was in everybody’s interest to keep things quiet. So that’s what happened. I hung out at a boarding house in Exonia for a few weeks, went to class a few times, and then diddled around until I was discharged. Maybe a week or so later I came by to see what was what, and the place was clean. I mean, clean. Everything had been pulled out, stripped. All the furniture was gone, even the hi-fi, which was a pretty piece of equipment. You know, I looked around, to see if any of my gear was there, but nope. But one place I didn’t look was the cellar. You sure the bar down there is gone?”

  “It sure is,” I said.

  “Mmm,” he murmured. “Lots of fun memories about that cellar. You sure I can’t go down there for a peek?”

  “There’s nothing down there except dirt and a furnace.”

  He grinned. “That’s how we got the girls down there. ‘Come see our special party room.’ Hah. Hey, can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure.”

  “How did you end up living here? I mean, it’s always been government owned.”

  “The government gave it to me a few years back.”

  “Shit, for real?”

  “Shit, for real.”

  Gwen nudged him with an elbow. “You got anything else to say to Mr. Cole?”

  “No, but—”

  “But what?”

  “Damn it, Gwen, why in hell didn’t you stop by back then? We would have had a good time, you and I. Honest to God.”

  Gwen got up, and she and Mia assisted Turcotte to his feet. “I may have been wild, but I was smart. Come along, Bobby, you don’t want to miss tapioca pudding night.”

  We got outside, Turcotte leaning onto Mia’s grasp, and Gwen asked me, “How are you feeling?”

  “Tired,” I said. “Always tired.”

  She touched my cheek. “Hell of a thing, isn’t it. You grow older, and older, and friends and family start dropping off, and there you are. Death is just God’s sniper, one of my ex-husbands told me. Just don’t ask me which one.”

  Gwen gestured at Turcotte, slowly going up my rugged driveway. “I know this wasn’t your plan, but it was good to get Bobby out, let him come back here, let him be a hell-raising young corpsman again for just a while. That was a good thing.”

  “It was an accident on my part,” I said.

  “It was still a good thing.”

  She kissed my cheek. “Ah, if only you were a couple decades older …”

  “Stick around,” I said. “I plan to get there eventually.”

  Gwen laughed. “But that’s a goddamn race I’ll never win.”

  Back inside the place seemed empty without my visitors. I imagined the ghosts of the past enjoyed the little visit from Bobby Turcotte. I sat down on the couch, slowly oozed over, and slept and slept until knocking on the door woke me up.

  I rolled off, yawning, the cane with the ugly wolf’s head falling to the floor. “Hold on, hold on!” I yelled out, stumbling up, grabbing my cane, and lumbering over to the door.

  On the other side, looking big, well-dressed, and very professional, were the two state police detectives from last night.

  I squinted from the sunlight. “Have you guys gotten any sleep yet?”

  One said to the other, “Steve, you get any sleep?”

  “Frank, if I did, I’m not telling,” he said. “Sorry to disturb you, Mr. Cole, but we’re just wondering if you’ve thought of anything else since last night’s events.”

  “Not a thing,” I said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Very sure.”

  A photograph of a dead Ramon was produced. “Do you know this man?”

  I made a point of giving it a good look. “I do not.”

  “Are you sure?” the other detective asked. “Are you sure you don’t know him, that he wasn’t coming to see you for a reason?”

  “I still don’t know him, and if there was a reason, I would bet that he was trying to get away from all of the shooting in the parking lot and didn’t make it.”

  Frank looked to Steve, who looked back, and the photo went away.

  I asked, “How goes the investigation?”

  “It’s going,” Steve said. “Trouble is, nobody wants to talk.”

  Frank corrected him. “Not true. Some people want to talk. It’s just the wrong people.”

  I yawned again. “But it seemed like there were two groups of guys up there, two gangs, shooting it out.”

  “Maybe,” Steve said. “Or maybe it was one gang, splitting apart under the pressure, deciding to settle things on neutral territory, and then bam, the shooting starts and the Germans take Slovakia.”

  “Huh?” Frank was confused.

  “Nice analogy,” I said.

  Steve said, “See, Frank? See? There are some smart people out there in the world. I just happen to not be working with one. Mr. Cole, you still have our business cards, correct?”

  “Correct.”

  “Then we’ll leave you be,” Steve said. “But if you think of anything, or see anything, do give us a call.”

  “I will.”

  “And us, well, we’ll keep on digging.”

  “And digging,” his partner said.

  And back to sleep I went, though I didn’t have enough energy to get back to bed. The couch again.

  When I woke up it was dark outside. I felt troubled. I dozed some, woke up, wondered about things.

  If it was already dark, Paula should be here. I moved around on the couch. She’ll get here, I thought. She’ll get here.

  Digging, I thought. Those poor detectives, digging. Looking. Searching. Like …

  Like the killers of Maggie Tyler Branch. They apparently didn’t take anything from her antiques shop. Certainly hadn’t taken Felix’s antique silver service.

  Like the crew who had broken into the Tyler Chronicle and had torn apart the cellar. They hadn’t stolen the silver sludge that everyone assumed had gone missing due to theft. Nope.

  In each case it had been—papers. Old files. Back issues of newspapers. Information.

  The crew had been looking for information?

  And Maggie’s voice came back to me, pointing to her old wooden filing cabinets:

  In there are old documents, papers, invoices, receipts, and such concerning the history of the Tyler family, the history of the town and its famous buildings …

  “Famous buildings,” I whispered into the darkness. “Like the one I’m living in.”

  It was there. Almost there.

  And I remembered my incessant visitors from Albany, who kept on wanting to come into my house, again and again.

  For photographs? For history? For something else?

  Dave Hudson’s voice came to me as well:

  The basics of your house, the foundation of your house, it’s remained the same …

  It certainly has, I thought. Even with the fire, the extensive repairs, the earlier reconstruction. The basics had stayed
the same.

  I got off the couch with my cane, switched on some lights, grabbed a flashlight, and then went to the cellar.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  I switched on the light and slowly descended, one step at a time. At the bottom I had to sit on a step to catch my breath. I switched on the flashlight and examined the place.

  Not much to look at, to be honest.

  The floor was hard-packed dirt. In one corner was a small oil furnace and small oil tank that warmed the water for the radiator system that kept both floors heated. The foundation was old stone, carefully assembled and cemented in the old style from the mid-1800s. One old historian told me years ago that these types of foundations are rare. The masons back then took pride in their work, making sure every piece fit right and was level. Definitely not like today, when the goal isn’t doing it right, but doing it by next Thursday. I let the light move across the cellar, checking the stonework and the dirt. A couple of years ago, in a fit of energy and idealism, I had used a spoon and an old colander to dig some in the dirt down here, looking for archaeological artifacts from my predecessors. But I had come up with exactly nothing. Just dirt.

  I closed my eyes, thought about Bobby Turcotte and his merry band of naval corpsmen, setting up a bar down here. Why in the cellar? Why not upstairs in the light and openness? Because it was easy to hide. It was easy to be out of sight, out of the way. To bring down giggling young girls, some of them just teenagers, to show them the world of the adults.

  Booze, of course. Marijuana, definitely. And—other things, as well. Turcotte had said that. Other things as well.

  I opened my eyes, heaved my way off the step, and with cane in one hand and flashlight in the other, I went up to the stone foundation. Started looking, examining, feeling foolish that this was the first time I had given this cellar—it was just a cellar, after all!—such a close examination.

  The stone foundation went up to about head high, and then thick beams of wood called sills were on top, which supported the rest of the house. I moved along, moved along, and—

  Came to a place where there was more than just a sill.

  There was a length of dark wood, almost like a plank, that was nailed to the sill. The color of the wood neatly matched the sill. No wonder I had never noticed it before.

  I leaned on my cane, breathing hard, feeling that pressure on my back that told me I really, really should empty my drains before I made a mess.

  But it could wait.

  It would have to wait.

  I ran my fingers across the plank.

  It was definitely out of place, definitely didn’t belong. So what was it doing here?

  I set the flashlight on top of the oil furnace so it was illuminating the part of the sill were the plank was located, and limped back.

  I put my fingers under the plank, gave it a good tug.

  Nothing moved.

  Of course.

  I tried again, grunting and groaning.

  Nope.

  Upstairs in one of the closets was a toolbox, with screwdrivers, hammers, wrenches, and a pry bar. All I had to do was to go back upstairs, grab the necessary tools, and come back down.

  Right.

  But I was a dumb and impatient man. I grabbed the cane from Felix’s uncle and managed to shove the tip of the cane underneath a small gap in the wood. I pressed, pressed, and there was squeaking as some nails started to let loose.

  “Almost there,” I whispered.

  I pushed in again and used the cane as a pry bar, hoping the spirit of Felix’s uncle would forgive me.

  The wood came apart a couple of inches. I moved the cane down, and repeated the process two more times.

  Now I had a good grip. I reached in, tugged up, tugged up hard, and with one ungodly screech, the plank came free. I felt cold air on my face, and wondered how much of an opening I had just discovered. I limped back to the furnace, grabbed the flashlight, and then went back and peered inside.

  Lots of stuff was piled back there.

  For some reason I recalled the discovery of King Tut’s tomb. When Howard Carter opened the tomb and thrust a candle inside, he was asked, “Can you see anything?” “Yes,” Carter responded. “Wonderful things.”

  Me?

  I saw things. None particularly wonderful.

  I carefully reached in and pulled out one, two, and three bottles of Four Roses bourbon. Then some rusted cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon and Narragansett Ale. Soggy cartons of Lucky Strike cigarettes. A plastic-wrapped package of what the police would have probably called “green leafy matter” at the time.

  I carefully placed everything on the dirt floor. Turned back to the opening.

  There were three other soggy cardboard boxes back there, almost falling apart in my hand as I slowly pulled them out.

  There was official lettering on the covers. I opened one soggy cover and saw little yellow cardboard boxes, nestled in rows, scores of them, each about the size of a small travel toothpaste box.

  I flipped one open with my thumb, holding the flashlight in my other hand. A little glass ampule with a needle came out.

  A morphine syrette. Made to be used on a battlefield by a corpsman or a medic, or even a wounded soldier or marine. Break the tip by tugging on a little wire, insert the needle under the skin at a certain angle, and squeeze, and the person in question in terrible pain will get some relief.

  Morphine.

  Opioid.

  Lots and lots of it.

  All piled up in my house, undisturbed from one century to the next, until now.

  From upstairs I heard my front door open, and the familiar voice of Paula Quinn calling out.

  “Lewis? You here?”

  “Be right up,” I said. “You won’t believe what I’ve found.”

  I stuffed one of the cardboard packages in my pocket, and then gimped upstairs, feeling full of energy and vigor. Now it all made sense.

  Finally.

  The search hadn’t been for silver.

  It had been for this old stockpile of opioids.

  At the top of the stairs I bore right, and Paula was standing in my open doorway, not looking very happy to see me.

  “Hey, it’s okay,” I said. “I don’t mind you being late.”

  Her face …

  Then she was shoved into my house, nearly stumbling.

  Dave Hudson came in, face set, eyes hard. “Then I hope you don’t mind we’re late, as well,” he said.

  He was followed by his wife, Marjorie.

  Who was holding a shotgun aimed at Paula’s head.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  I said very carefully and plainly, “Let her go. It’s just us. Not her.”

  With bitterness in his voice, Dave said, “Oh, now you’re friendly, now you’re open for reason. Too late now, fool. We could have done this easy, we could have done this in a friendly manner. You could have stayed up here with Marjorie while I went in the cellar and quickly did what had to be done, but no, you had to be a stubborn, arrogant prick. Well, now you’re going to pay the price, and pay it in full.”

  The three of them were now in my house and Dave closed the front door, locked it. “There. We won’t be disturbed now, will we.”

  Thoughts were trampling fast through my head like horses on the last stretch of the Preakness. “Dave, I told you before, I’ve been sick. I’ve got two tubes draining blood and fluid out of my back and—”

  “Shut up!” Dave shouted. A revolver was now in his right hand. “Just shut up. So you’re sick. So what? Lots and lots of people are sick out there, and what do you care?”

  I tried to catch Paula’s eye but she wasn’t looking at anyone, just at the floor. My heart felt like a lump of cold lead. Marjorie prodded Paula with the shotgun and I remembered.

  The first time I had seen Marjorie.

  Picking up dropped papers in my yard, how she winced, like her arm and shoulder were hurting—

  Hurting from the kick of a shotgun blast the night before.
<
br />   “Why did you kill Maggie? For God’s sake, why?”

  Marjorie spoke up, eyes flashing. “Yap, yap, yap. That’s all the old bitch did. Yap, yap, yap. I told her if she didn’t stop talking, I’d blow her goddamn head off. She laughed, said I didn’t have brass to do that. So she yapped some more—and I showed her.”

  Words and thoughts failed me.

  Marjorie looked to her husband. “David, I need it.”

  “Not now, hon.”

  “David, I really … I need something.”

  “Wait until I go in the cellar.”

  “I can’t wait that long!” The shotgun was wavering in her hands. “Please … please …”

  “I can’t help you, Marjorie. Not now.”

  The shotgun was now pointed at him. Paula sat down on the couch, head slumped forward. Marjorie took a long, hacking breath. “David, you always carry something for me. Something for an emergency. This … this is it.”

  Dave looked at me with despair and I matched his look. “Okay, honey,” he said. “Relax. Just relax, all right? The shotgun, go put it up against the fireplace, okay?”

  As she walked over, Dave said to me, “You don’t move, all right? I mean it. You move and your girlfriend gets shot. I’ll aim for her leg or shoulder, but I’m not that good of a shot, and I might miss and hit something more vital. Got it?”

  Paula had both hands up to her face.

  “I’m not moving,” I said.

  “Good.”

  As Dave moved around the coffee table he reached into his pocket and pulled out a couple of folded dollar bills. He opened one of the bills to reveal a pill of some sort inside; Marjorie smiled and her eyes lit up like Christmas had come eight months early.

  With trembling hands, she took the dollar bill and folded it back up again. I watched, horrified and fascinated at the same time. She took the folded bill and put it in her mouth, and crunched down with her teeth. Chewing and chewing the bill, crushing the pill and crushing the pill.

  She ignored all of us—slumped-over Paula, Dave, and me watching. The trembling in her hands halted as she removed the bill, carefully placing it on the table. She knelt down and rolled the second bill into a thin tube. She placed one end of the paper tube onto the crushed pill and the other in her left nostril, then she took a deep snort. She moved the tube to the other line, and snorted in one more time.