by Nick Adams
“What do you think, buddy?” I asked Frank.
He opened his eyes halfway. Blinked lazily. Then closed them again.
No comment.
I looked to my right. Through the trees I could see the pond sparkling in the sun. Faintly I heard voices. Kids playing and fishing. People swimming and paddling in canoes and rafts.
Straight ahead of me was the end of the access road. It looped around an island of trees like the eye of a needle and rejoined itself and went off out of sight. I could barely see the driveways of the two nearest tent sites to the right of the road.
To my left I could see the rough outline of cabin number 7 through the foliage and the end of its driveway meeting the road. Everything looked as it should. Sounded as it should.
How could something like that happen here?
Realistically, what can I do about it?
What would Clint Eastwood do?
I looked at my wrist and smiled. A few years back my father gave me a black silicon bracelet with white letters abbreviating the question WWCD? It’s a silly slogan that strangely resonates with me. Maybe because I’ve watched too many movies. Or maybe because it sparks a legitimate play of conscience against the status quo. I’ve never been able to tell the difference. My father had meant it as a joke. But really, he couldn’t have picked anything more fitting with my personality.
The question put an end to my attempt at relaxing. I couldn’t sit still. No way would Clint mope around feeling bad about something. So I called my cousin, Will, to cover the grounds for me. Then I got Frank loaded in my minivan so we could go for a drive.
7
Driving slowly along the access road, my eyes were peeled out of habit. Watching for any hints of trouble. I passed the cabins and entered the stretch of tent sites. Site 14, where Jeremy Conner had been taken from, was all cleared out.
I smiled. I wouldn’t miss Rianne for a second.
The crashed minivan had been towed away and the broken glass had been swept up from the road. All that was left of the scene was the scar in the tree where the van had hit. A nice old maple tree. Never hurt anyone. Just standing there minding its own business for a hundred years. Until suddenly some dumbass smashed into it. Now it would have that scar forever.
After passing through the long section of tent sites I came into the rows of big motor homes nestled in their lots within tall shade trees and smaller vegetation. Then I passed my parents’ house. All was quiet between my cabin and the main road, which is about a mile. From a bird’s eye view the road is a windy half-circle running parallel with the oval shape of the pond.
About a hundred yards beyond my parents’ place I came out from the shade of the trees. Turned right onto the main road and headed for the center of town.
The heart of Saulsbury is an old colonial village set up on a plateau, fanned out around the four-way intersection of routes 4 and 127. There’s a church, a post office, a country store, a fire station. Rows of big colonial houses line the roads in all directions, each with massive old maple trees in the front yards. Supposedly Daniel Webster used to sit under the big maple by the church to read. But who knows if that’s actually true.
I crossed the four-way intersection under the blinking yellow light and turned into Crossroads Store. Pulled in beside a fancy pickup. I knew the owner. I had to laugh. It fit perfectly with the sort of day I was having. Tommy Brady is among my least favorite people on earth. Of course I’d run into him now.
In order to compensate for various inadequacies, Tommy gets a new truck every spring. The best Ram (formerly Dodge) money can buy. I parked my van right beside it. A four-year-old navy blue Town & Country. I got it gently used with low miles for much less than a new one. Not as impressive as a big truck. But perfectly comfortable and functional.
Tommy was standing by the ice chest near the store’s doorway. Which meant I had to pass him to gain entrance. He spends a lot of time at the store, because his girlfriend works there. The store and the post office are both gathering places. Little social venues for a town of people greatly outnumbered by trees. Unwanted meetings at one of these venues is one of the few drawbacks of living in a sleepy town of barely nine hundred.
Or maybe it’s just Murphy’s Law at work.
Tommy was talking to Marge Horne, one of the town’s selected officials. I saw him notice me approaching. He kept on speaking with Marge. Trying to ignore me. Which was wise on his part. He’s half my size. I could end his life with my bare hands in under thirty seconds.
“Tommy boy,” I interrupted. Just to be obnoxious. And because he hates being called that. “Working hard or hardly working?”
He flipped me the bird and tried to stay focused on his conversation. But he couldn’t keep it going, because Marge didn’t cooperate. She looked away from him to me.
“Evan, is it true? Did you save a little boy?”
“Save? Not even close.”
“But, I heard there was a kidnapping attempt.”
“There was.”
“You stopped it?”
“We did, yeah.”
“Wow,” she exhaled. “That’s amazing. Thank goodness you were there.”
“Thank Frank,” I said. “Goodness didn’t stop the guy.”
Tommy shook his head. He wanted very badly to say something. Probably something derogatory about my dog. But he knew better.
Marge stood there staring at me with wide eyes full of questions.
Instead of giving her further details, I said, “Guess what Tommy did?”
“What?”
“He killed our pet rabbit in first grade.”
“He what?”
“Yeah, he killed her for the fun of it. Snowball was her name.”
Marge’s mouth hung open.
Tommy shook his head. Clenched his jaw.
“Enjoy,” I said and left them with that awkward mess to wade through.
I walked on by the ice chest and entered the store. Found Amy Cutler behind the counter, as she often is. The store was quiet and she was leaning against the shelves of cigarette cartons. Watching the parking lot through the big side window.
“Did Thomas just flip you off?”
“Yeah,” I answered sullenly.
“I told him to stop that.”
“Well, Amy, unlike you, some people are just ugly and mean.”
A little smile spread across her face. She was a decent-looking girl with a nice smile. A social butterfly. The sort of girl that managers and customers love. She had a way of speaking loudly but somehow did so in a pleasant, humorous way. Her job was hardly a job to her. She genuinely enjoys talking with anyone and everyone.
“He flipped me off because he hates the truth,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“He killed Snowball. Remember?”
She sighed, “Not that again.”
In first grade Snowball was our class pet. Not exactly a mascot, the real purpose of having her was to teach us responsibility and compassion. Each of us kids took turns bringing Snowball home on Friday nights. The experiment went smoothly for the first few months. Until it was Tommy’s turn. The following Monday, Snowball’s empty cage was all that made it back to school.
“I’ll never forget it,” I told Amy. “Tommy stood there at the front of the class smiling while Miss Garner told us the sad news. He wasn’t sorry. He was proud of himself.”
“He smiles when he’s nervous,” she informed me.
“Or because he’s a complete asshole.”
“You don’t know him like I do.”
She was right about that much. I didn’t know him like she did. And I didn’t want to.
I said, “Give me a pack of Marlboro’s. Please.”
She got the cigarettes and rang me up. I paid with my card. She watched me swiping and punching the numbers. I was wearing clear vinyl gloves, as I usually do. Because the world outside my cabin is a troubling and germy place.
“You’re so weird, Evan,” she mutte
red.
I said, “The day he fesses up and apologizes, I’ll let it go. Till then, no way. He murdered Snowball.”
Amy rolled her eyes as she handed me my receipt. I smiled at her.
“Please don’t start a fight when you go out.”
“Because you asked nicely, I’ll try not to.”
“So is the rumor true? Some guy came in a while ago saying you stopped a kidnapping. It’s spreading all over town.”
“Wonderful.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Is it true?”
“Yeah. Some guy grabbed a kid and tried to make off with him. Frank caught him and took him down. Dad stopped the driver, and I cleaned up a little. That’s about it.”
“Crazy,” she said. “I mean, after what happened last summer.”
I looked over at the bulletin board in the far corner beyond the coffee maker. Lucy’s missing flyer had been there almost a year. Now that space was occupied by a picture of a used wood splitter for sale.
I looked back at Amy. Asked her where the flyer was.
“That’s been gone for a few months.”
“Why?”
“I guess it was depressing people.”
“So the policy is, if someone else’s reality is making us uncomfortable, just get rid of their picture?”
“It’s not my store, Evan. Wasn’t my call.”
I started for the door.
“Wait,” Amy said. She hurried over to the sandwich cooler and took out a single hotdog with a paper towel. Hurried back to me and said, “Give this to Frank.”
“Don’t I get one?”
“Not for free. You have money. Frank doesn’t.”
I smiled politely. Thanked her and went out. Passed Tommy and Marge without a word. They were discussing town business. Which concerned Tommy because he worked for his father, who had been the town road agent for about three decades.
Frank wedged himself between the van’s front seats as I slid in. I handed him the hotdog and then tossed the towel into a little trash container on the passenger side floor. The hotdog was a fleeting memory before I could turn the key in the ignition.
“Did you even taste it?” I asked.
Frank offered no excuses. Just licked his chops and withdrew to his personal space.
8
From the store I turned left through the four-way intersection. Went about a hundred yards and swung a right into the post office. Went into the lobby and checked the bulletin board. There were posts pertaining to town business and federal mail laws. Flyers for a few wanted fugitives and local flyers for a few missing cats. But Lucy’s flyer was nowhere to be found.
From the post office I turned left. Went straight through the four-way and drove to Uncle Danny’s house. He lives a few miles from the center of town, off a little side road called Center Road.
Almost ten years back Uncle Danny retired from the state troopers in an attempt to save his marriage with Aunt Shelly, my dad’s little sister. He was getting older, the work was too consuming, and she resented him for his devotion. So he retired and easily acquired the position of Saulsbury’s part-time police chief. With the spare time he tried to focus his energy on making Aunt Shelly happy.
To no avail.
Within a year she moved out and rented a small place in the next town over. Uncle Danny didn’t like it, but there wasn’t anything he could do to stop it. So from then on he put all of his effort into building cabinets and rustic-looking furniture and wagons for lawn decorations. Woodworking had been a hobby as a young man and he’d always wanted to give it a try for pay. So he gave it his all. And that plan worked fine.
I parked in the shade of the pine trees bordering his woodshop. Got out and found him inside, as usual. He was sanding a rocking chair as I entered, still wearing his uniform. Considering the stress the man has been through in his adult life, he doesn’t look his age. Especially not in his uniform. At a glance he looks like a fit fifty-year-old, though in fact he’s sixty-two.
Frank rushed by me in a frenzy to greet his favorite uncle. He hadn’t seen him in over an hour.
“Well,” Uncle Danny said, looking up at me as he was giving Frank a good scratching. “How does it feel?”
“My fist isn’t sore at all,” I said, flexing my right hand.
“I meant, how does it feel to be the man of the hour? The talk of the town?”
“Oh, that.”
“You ought to be proud. Aside from nearly putting the driver into a vegetative state, you handled yourself very well today.”
“Did I?”
“I’d say so.”
“You’re forgetting the way I treated the kid’s mother.”
He said nothing.
“Was I wrong?”
“You made a legitimate point. It was just … a little sharp.”
I laughed to myself.
He regrouped his positive tone and said, “Maybe you’ll get voted Saulsbury’s Citizen of the Year at the next town meeting.”
“Sure. Maybe they’ll erect a statue in my honor. Set it up in front of the store. Or out in front of the church. Me, standing there with a bat in one hand and a gun in the other.”
“I was being serious,” he said.
“That’s why it’s so funny.”
“You know, you weren’t this sarcastic as a kid.”
I didn’t respond to that. Just leaned against the frame of the double doors. I opened a bottle of ginger ale I’d brought from home and took a sip. My stomach was a little sour.
“Let it go, Evan,” he finally said. He brushed some of the dog hair from his pants and then took up a fine sanding block.
I kept quiet.
“Did you hear me?” he asked.
“Yeah. You want me to forget about Lucy. Like everyone else has.”
“I don’t want you to forget. I do think you should take a step back.”
I stared at him. He was giving me some friendly advice. But more so he was telling me to keep my nose out of police business. We’d covered this same ground before.
Stonewall.
“Maybe you should go camp out for a night or two,” he said. “Get away from the grounds. Clear your head.”
“Will that help Lucy Kurtz?”
“Evan,” he exhaled. “We’ve been over this enough. Haven’t we?”
“I don’t believe she’s dead.”
“Statistically she probably is.”
He was probably right. Statistics, though ugly, were often accurate. Every hour that passes following an abduction drastically reduces the likelihood of a happy ending.
“I know exactly how you feel,” he said. “Unfortunately there’s no evidence. No trail to follow. I wish to Christ there was. But there isn’t.”
I said, “It makes no sense. How could a little kid get away on her own? She didn’t even have shoes on her feet.”
“I hate to say this,” he answered, and I could see the strain in his expression. “Sometimes there’s no sense to be made from these tragic cases. That’s why we call them tragedies.”
“Go ahead,” I said. “Call it tragic. But it wasn’t an accident. Someone took her.”
“Obviously.”
“On purpose, someone took her.”
“Yes. And on purpose they probably killed her within a few days. That’s what these sick bastards usually do.”
I shook my head. He was quoting statistics. It wasn’t that I denied their accuracy. I just didn’t want to face them.
“What do you want me to do?” he asked next. “Kick down every door in New England until I finally get lucky?”
I kept quiet. The frustration was churning within me, making my stomach worse. But none of it was my uncle’s fault. I had to keep reminding myself of that fact. He hated it as much as I did. Maybe more.
“Go camp out for a few days,” he said. “I mean it. Today’s incident was highly stressful. You’ve earned the break. Let Willie watch the grounds for you.”
Maybe he was right. Maybe I nee
ded some distance and separation. Maybe hiking out to the middle of nowhere and sitting by a fire all night would settle me down. It usually did.
His advice was well intended, but within a few seconds it had the opposite effect. Instead of agreeing to step back, I resolved to step out. Look closer. Find something. Anything.
That’s not to say that I knew exactly what I was going to do. I didn’t. All I knew was that doing something would feel better than nothing. And talking to my uncle was getting me nowhere.
I called Frank, looked at my uncle and said, “I can’t let it go. I don’t know why, but I can’t.”
“You have to, Evan.”
“No. Today was nothing. I—”
“It was something.”
“I’m almost glad it happened. It was a wakeup call.”
“Listen to me,” he pleaded.
But I didn’t listen. In that frame of mind I wasn’t capable of hearing any sense he had to dispense. I turned and walked to my van. Opened the slider and let Frank in. Got in and cranked the motor. Put the window down.
Uncle Danny came over. Set his hands over the door. He looked determined to change my mind.
He said, “You absolutely cannot hassle Lucy’s mother.”
“No?”
“It’s an open case. The FBI still has their eye on it. If you—”
“They’re free to stop me,” I said over him. “At least it will get them thinking about Lucy again.”
I could see the tension in him. The conflict. If he’d been a few decades younger, he might have grabbed me by the shirt collar and tried to shake some sense into me.
“I’ll catch you later,” I said and clicked the shifter into drive.
“Look,” he said. “I get it. You’re pissed off right now. Sick of seeing all the problems and dysfunction going unaddressed. You don’t want to sit back and wait for someone else to act. I understand, Evan. Believe me, I do. I spent over thirty years serving this state.”
