by Jon McGoran
As the engine sound grew louder once more, the lights reappeared, this time right in front of me. I fired another warning shot. Then, as the headlights came at me, I fired again, right between them. The lights tilted crazily, then wobbled back and forth before they pulled away, engine screaming, and disappeared into the night.
The sound seemed to be still fading away when the lights came back behind me, approaching even lower. I whirled and pointed my gun, ready to shoot. But this time it wasn’t the plane, it was a station wagon, and it swerved wildly to avoid me. Two of its wheels left the ground. Then it dropped heavily back onto the road, shimmying as it sped off into the dissipating mist, the taillights receding into the darkness.
And then it was quiet. Already, the lights from Nola’s house appeared brighter. A light breeze picked up, and swirls of clear air cut through the fog.
By the time I had walked back to the foot of my driveway, the breeze had swept away whatever it was and the air was clear. If not for the chalky taste in my mouth and the gritty feeling in my eyes, I might have thought it had never happened.
But it had. The sweat was drying on my skin, and maybe that’s what was making me itch, but I’d been sprayed with something, and I needed to get it off of me. I ran into the kitchen to rinse my face in the sink. The counter was covered with moldy bread and leftovers and wilted vegetables and the floor was littered with shards of the casserole dish and bits of the moldy noodles it had contained. I shoved them out of the way and turned the faucet on full, rinsing my hands and splashing my face.
I went upstairs and took off my boots and socks, resisting the urge to scratch my burning toes. When the shower was scalding and the bathroom was filled with steam, I got in and started scrubbing.
43
By the time the hot water faltered, my skin was pink and raw, and I was pretty sure whatever might have been on me was gone. The scalding water had felt pretty good, and I was thinking that my bed was going to feel even better. But as I turned the water off, I heard banging on my front door and felt a jolt of alarm. Maybe it was one of the gunmen from across the street, or some friend of the Red Baron come to follow up the air assault with infantry. But the knock had a tone and a rhythm that I knew well, because I’d used it often.
I pulled on clean underwear and a fresh pair of jeans and grabbed a T-shirt on my way downstairs.
The pounding at the door started up again as I reached it. I paused at the peephole, taking a moment to savor the sight of Chief Pruitt standing out there with his face red and his jaw clenched. Then I opened the door.
“Jesus Christ!” Pruitt sputtered. “What are you, going to leave me out here all goddamned morning?”
“I was in the shower, actually. Can I help you?”
“You help me? Frankly, I doubt it. Can I come in?”
I stepped out onto the porch and pulled the door closed behind me. The wood floor felt nice and cool under my bare feet. “What do you want?”
“Got a complaint about some crazy bastard standing in the middle of the road shooting a gun in the air. Right outside your house. Know anything about that?”
I thought about saying, “Yeah? Well I’d like to file a complaint about my crazy neighbors trying to kill me.” But I didn’t know how much I trusted Pruitt, and I didn’t want to cop to trespass just then, either. I stayed quiet for a moment, thinking about how to play it. The sky was just starting to lighten in the east, and it seemed like a long time since I’d had a normal night’s sleep.
Pruitt laughed. “Yeah, I thought it sounded like you. It was the McCutcheons that saw you. Good people, live in town. They said they could come by for a visual identification, but I told them I was pretty sure I knew who it was. Didn’t want to trouble them any more than necessary.” One of his hands was idly playing with a pair of handcuffs. “Mind telling me what that all was about?”
If he was in on it, he’d already know about the crop duster. But even if I wasn’t getting that dirty-cop vibe off of him, I wasn’t about to trust him with much.
“I was attacked by an airplane.”
“By an airplane?”
“Yes, an airplane. One of the ones that sprays stuff. A sprayer.”
“A crop duster?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“They don’t usually fly at night, I don’t imagine.”
“I don’t imagine they usually dive-bomb people either, but there you have it.”
“So what,” he said with a snicker, “you think the terrorists are attacking the Borough of Dunston?”
He stared at me for a moment. Then he let go of the handcuffs and took out a pad. “Okay, what did it look like?”
“What’s that?”
“The airplane, dumbass!”
“Red, I think.”
“You think?”
“Sorry, it was dark out. It was red, and it had a black-and-white stripe on the side.”
He dutifully wrote that down then looked up at me dubiously. “And the plane attacked you?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“And what was that, like with machine guns or with Martian brain waves or something?” He wiggled his fingers as he said the last part, then bit his lip like it was a struggle not to laugh.
“No, actually, it was spraying, probably some kind of chemical. I woke up because the windows were rattling. I ran outside and the damn thing was practically flying down the middle of the road.”
“So what did you do?”
I thought for a second about what I was going to tell him. From my own experience, when you catch someone in a little lie, it’s usually because they’re covering up something bigger.
“I fired a warning shot.”
“You shot at the plane?”
“No, I fired a warning shot.”
“So all you know, this could have been some mosquito prevention program, and you just start discharging your weapon all over the place?”
The way he said it, it did sound pretty bad. I could see the ominous clouds of a shit storm on the horizon if this ever got back to my lieutenant. “It was a warning shot. I fired into the air away from the plane.”
“Well, I think you’re full of shit.”
I didn’t say anything to that.
He stared at me for a second, like he was trying to decide what to do next.
“All right,” he said finally. “Go put some shoes on and get in the car.”
“That’s bullshit. You can’t arrest me just because some townie says they saw someone with a gun.”
“You’re not under arrest, asshole. At least not yet. Charlie Brand’s the only pilot in the county who’s got a crop duster. You and me are going to pay him a visit.”
44
By the time I came back outside with my shoes on, the sun was coming up. It looked like a nice day, and the incident with the crop duster seemed even more unreal, like something from a dream. I felt giddy from lack of sleep, and I knew at some point I was going to crash.
I got in the front passenger seat, and Pruitt grunted, like maybe that wasn’t the seating arrangement he had in mind, but he didn’t make me get in back.
As we drove off, he made a couple of very official-sounding radio calls, and it occurred to me that he was trying to impress me.
“How far’s this place?” I asked, biting back a yawn.
“Not too far,” he replied without looking at me.
I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the window.
He turned on the radio, and we caught a few bars of Steely Dan. Not my favorite, but pretty good. He must have sensed my approval, because he switched it over to a country western station. When I looked over at him, he seemed pretty happy with himself.
I closed my eyes again, serenaded by some cowboy. When I opened them, we were turning into a driveway next to a sign that said “Brand Agricultural Aviation Services.” It sounded like the same guy was singing, but a half hour had gone by.
Fifty feet up the driveway was a nice looking Cap
e Cod with a wide porch in front that wrapped around the right-hand side, a small strip of garden wrapping along with it. The driveway wound around to the left, leading past a wooden two-car garage and onto a wide, corrugated metal shed in the middle of a large field.
A sign next to the driveway said OFFICE, and pointed to the shed in the back.
Pruitt drove straight back and parked in front of the shed.
“Come on,” he said as he killed the engine and got out.
I got out, too, rubbing my face and blinking. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I suspected Pruitt probably was—otherwise he wouldn’t have brought me with him.
By the time I caught up with him, he was already tapping on the unpainted aluminum screen door set in the side of the shed. He stepped back, hands on his hips, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet, as if he was hoping someone would answer the door before I caught up with him.
It was a tie.
The woman who answered the door wore pink lipstick and had curly blond hair, bleached and going gray. She opened the door with a big, customer-service smile, but when she saw Pruitt’s uniform and the cruiser parked in the driveway behind us, her expression reflected the fact that it wasn’t quite seven o’clock. Her eyes lingered on me, probably wondering if I was responsible, then she looked back at Pruitt.
“Kinda early. Can I help you?”
Pruitt widened his stance. “Is Charlie here?”
She shook her head. “Nope. You need some spraying?”
“No, ma’am,” he replied. “I just need to ask Charlie some questions.”
She took a drag of a previously hidden cigarette and shook her head. “He’s down in Carolina.”
“He been down there long?”
“About a week, I guess.”
“You expect him back anytime soon?”
She shook her head again. “Maybe not till next week, but I’m not sure. Why? What’s this about?”
“Nothing you need to worry about. You do all the spraying around here?”
“We better. Hardly enough of it to go around. I’d hate to think folks was bringing someone in from outside.”
“Who’s your closest competition?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Probably Fred Tate up in Luzerne or Joey Colino in Mifflin. But they’re both a hundred miles away. That’s a lot of fuel. Even if they was cheaper, I can’t imagine they’re that much cheaper.”
Pruitt glanced at me out of the corner of his eye. “Well, thanks for your time, ma’am.”
She seemed relieved it was over. “Always glad to help, officer.”
“Actually, I have a question,” I said. “How long would it take Mr. Brand to fly back here from where he is?”
She looked at Pruitt before answering, and I got the distinct impression she was checking with him for permission to ignore me. When he didn’t give it, she shrugged. “I reckon three hours. But he’d be driving, and that would take longer.”
“Why would he be driving?” I asked.
“Because he don’t got the plane. It’s parked in the shed.”
I sighed, but Pruitt silenced me with his hand.
“You mind if we take a look at that plane?” Pruitt asked with a smile.
“You got a warrant?”
Pruitt’s smile got smarmy and big. “You telling me I need one?”
“No need to be like that. Go on back, if you want,” she said, hooking a thumb toward the garage door around the corner of the building. “Look all you like, but don’t touch anything. Charlie’ll know it if you do.”
Pruitt cocked an eyebrow, giving her a look like he appreciated the permission but not necessarily the attitude. He turned and started walking around to the garage door. I followed him.
There was a pair of large, swinging hangar doors, a window in each of them. Pruitt checked the door, but it was locked, so we both converged on the same window.
Inside was a single-wing, single-engine plane, bright yellow, with no stripe.
Pruitt looked over at me, but I kept my eyes front, because I didn’t want to deal with him. I was still staring at the plane when the radio crackled and the dispatcher paged him.
Pruitt walked away without a word. I turned to watch him and saw that the woman had followed us up the driveway, keeping an eye on us. I walked over and gave her my card, asked her to have Brand give me a call. She looked at the card, then studied me for a second before turning away without a word and walking back down the driveway.
When Pruitt came back, his shades were in his hand, his eyes were red and wet, and his face was ashy and gray. He seemed ten years older. “Come on. We’re going back.”
“Everything okay?” I asked.
“Friend of mine’s kid died.”
“Jesus. I’m sorry to hear it.”
“Just get in the goddamn car.”
45
We drove back in a stony silence until we pulled up next to my driveway and Pruitt turned to look at me, chewing the inside of his bottom lip. “Look here, Carrick, I brought you out there out of professional courtesy, understand? ’Cause you did okay on that bust. But I’ve had enough of you for a while. I’m going to leave this alone because I have other things to do, but I want you to lock up your weapon somewhere safe and keep it there. And then I want you to stay off my radar, you hear? I know you’re in the shit back in Philly. You cause me any more work, I’ll make sure they hear about it, okay?”
I nodded.
“Okay, now get out, and let’s you and me not run into each other for a while.”
As I got out of the car, I said, “Sorry about your friend,” but he sped off without looking at me.
Little more than an hour had passed since Pruitt came knocking on my door, but it seemed like a lot longer. The thought of sleep entered my mind as I walked through the front door, but then I saw the mess in the kitchen, the rotting food Nola had left on the counter, the bits of casserole dish scattered across the floor. As sleep seemed less and less likely, I felt more and more tired.
I took a broom from the closet and swept the shards of Corningware into a pile in the corner then grabbed a trash bag from under the sink and started with what was on the counter. It didn’t seem as bad as it had the night before. I could picture the bread and the strawberries covered with mold, but now they both just looked kind of wilted. The mushrooms were a mess, reduced to a brown slime, but the rest of it didn’t look so bad at all. I puzzled over it for half a second, then dumped it all into the trash.
Grabbing a yogurt from the fridge, I checked the date, then gave it a brisk shake and opened it up. For a brief moment, I stood there drinking my yogurt and wondering which domestic chore should come next, or if I should take another stab at sleeping.
Then I noticed a thin film of white powder on either side of the kitchen windowsill, and I remembered there were more pressing things to consider. Like what the hell was going on in this crazy-assed town, what kind of death from above was being sprayed in the middle of the night. Like why Nola’s neighbors tried to kill me instead of saying, “Hey, you going to pay for that apple?” Or where Squirrel was. Or whether any of it had anything to do with Roberts and Arnett, or if it was some bored paranoid fantasy and that was just how things worked out here.
A light breeze came in through the opened window, and I closed it so as not to disturb whatever was on the windowsill. Using a spatula, I scraped the powder into a Ziploc bag and taped it closed. As I was washing my hands and the spatula, the phone rang, a blocked number, and I kept right on washing, making sure I did a thorough job before I answered the phone.
“Doyle?” said a voice that sounded like the woman at the crop-dusting place but with twice the nicotine habit.
“Nola? Is that you?”
She coughed into the phone. “Yeah, more or less,” she croaked. “I want to come home.”
“You sound terrible.”
“Thanks. I feel pretty lousy.”
“But you’re okay, right?”
“I
f you mean are any bad guys messing with me, I’m okay. Other than that, I feel like poop.” She coughed again. I thought about all the coughing during the funeral, Pruitt’s sick cops. “How are you doing?”
“Me? Um … I don’t know. Okay, I guess. We had a bit of an incident last night.”
“What kind of incident?”
It wasn’t until that moment that it really sank in, the implications for Nola’s farm of what had happened the night before.
“I’m not sure, really. Last night, late, a crop duster dive-bombed our houses.”
“A plane?”
“Yes. A crop duster. One of the ones that sprays crops and stuff.” If someone knew how devastating this could be for her, for her farm and her organic certification, it could be an easy way to get her to sell.
“A crop duster.” She paused to cough. “Did it … spray anything?”
“Yeah, it did.”
There was a long silence on the other end. “On my crops? On my house?”
If someone knew she had chemical sensitivity, it could be attempted murder. “Yeah, both.”
Through the silence I could hear her breath becoming wet and thick.
“So, what does that mean?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she said, practically a sob. Then she inhaled deeply. “It means I want to come home and I can’t.”
* * *
When I got off the phone with Nola, I called Stan Bowers.
“What’s up, Doyle?” he answered.
“I need a favor.”
“A favor, huh?”
“I need you to get me some lab work.”
He laughed. “Don’t you have friends who can do that for you?”
“Just Danny, and if our lieutenant finds out Danny’s doing that for me, he’s toast. C’mon, who just got you your biggest bust of the year? Fifty keys of H has got to be worth a little lab work.”
He sighed. “What’ve you got?”
I told him about the incident with the crop duster.
