Purgatory Chasm: A Mystery (25 page)

I dragged him through dirt, screaming at him, calling him a stupid old rummy cocksucker who couldn’t drive for shit. As I dragged, his shirt rode up all the way to his neck. His belly was loose, his chest scrawny, the whole mess fish-belly white except for lots of black hair.

Something about that hair lit off half a memory—shirtless Fred fixing a clapboard in Mankato, me looking on, maybe eight years old, wondering if I’d ever have chest hair like that, my father smiling as he explained how he got the butt joints just so—and ratcheted my red-mist fury. I dug my heels in and set my weight against Fred’s.

Then I began to spin like a discus thrower. Fred slowly rose from the ground, flailing, grabbing at nothing, saying things I couldn’t hear while I whirled him in circles, did a couple of full 360s …

… and let go, tossing my father in a dumb little arc that carried him ten or twelve feet. He landed on his back, then snapped the back of his head to hard-packed dirt. His arms and legs splayed. He didn’t move.

I breathed myself calm, felt the red mist drain from my head, replaced instantly by a Jesus-I’m-an-asshole vibe that I know too well.

Sophie rushed past, and the way she looked at me was worse than anything she could have said. She knelt next to Fred, turned to face me. “His eyes are closed, Conway!”

I said nothing.

“I think you killed him!”

“Doubt it.” I needed to move away while the worst of the shame washed through me. I walked over to Fred’s Chevy, leaned on the roof, pushed. It rocked a little. I pushed harder. The car rocked three inches, but when it settled back toward me it rocked four. Damn thing might fall over on me.

I deserved it.

I glanced at Sophie and Fred. He was propped on his elbows. I’d just knocked the wind out of him, maybe put him on queer street a few seconds.

I kicked little ruts to set my heels in. Then I put my back against the Chevy’s roof and spread my arms.

Then I pushed.

My boots locked into the ruts, and I felt the push start deep in my thighs. The push rose through my rear end, into the small of my back.

When the Chevy tipped a foot and a half, I got my fingers around its drip rail, and that helped. I rose, gripped, rose. That might have been when I began to scream.

My thighs screamed back, wanting to quit.

I pushed and I screamed.

The car came up another foot but didn’t want to move any farther. I’d run out of leverage: My knees were nearly straight now. I let the scream die, watched my right leg quiver. Sweat stung my eyes. If I bailed out now, I could quickstep out of the way before the Chevy tipped toward me.

I’d be damned if I was going to bail out.

I breathed three times, then pushed again. I pushed with everything I had. This time the scream started deeper and rose higher.

I pushed. I screamed.

And felt the car shift past the tip-back point as gravity became my ally. The Chevy fell away fast, bounced once on all four tires, groaned, squeaked.

And came to rest, the only sound a drip-drip-drip as neon-green antifreeze hit dirt.

In the quiet I leaned forward, breathed, put both hands on knees, watched my legs shake.

After a while I walked to Sophie and Fred. They were staring at me. Sophie’s eyes were huge. Fred looked old and small and scared. I extended a hand. He looked at it for maybe ten seconds, then took it. I pulled him up.

“I’d do it again,” my father said.

I thought he was talking about trying to wreck me.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Quiet drive to Shrewsbury. Sophie, sitting in the middle again, said nothing and tried not to touch me. Fred jammed himself against the passenger door, arms crossed, and mumbled to himself. Every few minutes I glanced over without turning my head, and it made me sad. What with his stubble and his dirty chin and the mumbling, he looked like what he’d been for twenty years or so: a bum. One time, his torso shook enough to make me nervous. But when I asked if I should pull over, he waved me off, rolled down his window, and sucked air.

Charlene’s SUV was in the driveway when I pulled up, so I just dropped the two of them off. As Sophie slipped across the bench seat, I said her name.

“Don’t worry,” she said before slamming the door. “I won’t tell her.”

Smart kid.

*   *   *

Alone in the F-150, headed for Framingham, I called Randall.

“’Bout time,” he said when he picked up. “You teased me with your text last night. Big news from Hebron Crossroads?”

“You going to see your insurance lady soon?”

“Seven tonight for dinner. Is that soon enough?”

“Think you can get your grubby paws on her laptop again?”

“Note that I’m bypassing the easy joke regarding my date and my grubby paws,” he said, then paused. “The thing is, I like her a lot. I’m not sure I want to push my luck and monkey around with her databases every time we’re together, do you see? It’s a big deal, a firing offense.”

“Myna Roper had Tander Phigg’s kid. A daughter.”

“Wow.”

“That’s nothing. The daughter is Patty Marx.”

“
What?
Nonsense.”

I told him about Myna’s shotgun wedding to Bobby Marx, her daughter’s lifelong nosiness, the picture I’d seen. Each time I clicked in a new fact, he whistled. “So write this down,” I finally said. “Diana Patience Marx, born late ’sixty-two, graduated from Clemson in I guess the early eighties.”

“That may be worth pushing my luck for.” Click.

*   *   *

In Framingham, Trey Phigg’s rented Dodge was gone and there was nobody home except Dale and Davey. They were happy to see me. I let the three of us into the upstairs apartment, figuring I should give Trey and his family the downstairs for now. I spent ten minutes catching up with the cats, stripped off clothes that were filthy from the dirt oval, and hit the shower. Left the clothes on the bedroom floor, knowing Dale and Davey would have a ball sniffing them.

As I rinsed dust from my hair I remembered there was more to Ollie’s story about his Montreal connection. He’d tried to tell it in Enosburg Falls, but I’d cut him off because I wanted to hit the road. Dumb. Mental note: Call again, see how Ollie’s knee was healing, ask him to finish the story. I wished I had a cell number for Ollie, didn’t like the way Josh had blocked access last time I called.

I wouldn’t tell Ollie about Tander Phigg’s seventy-five grand. Keeping some info tucked in your back pocket is a hard habit to break. Montreal was looking more and more like the one who took out Phigg, but I couldn’t rule out Ollie—maybe working with Josh, maybe not.

I dried, dressed, and brought a load of dirty laundry downstairs. Tossed it in the washing machine and was headed upstairs again when the kitchen door opened. Trey, Kieu, and Tuan came in, laughing and chattering.

“Hello?” I said, not wanting to surprise them, as I headed toward the sound. When I stepped into the kitchen, Tuan rushed me. He had a red balloon from T.G.I. Friday’s, the string looped around his wrist, and I guessed it was what he was jabbering about.

“The miracle that is helium,” Trey said, laughing some more as his son tugged on the string, then let the balloon float to the ceiling.

“Good dinner?” I said.

Kieu nodded, cut her eyes to Trey, then back to me. “Very good,” she said, putting a hand over her belly. “Very …
big,
very
much
.” It was the first English I’d heard her speak, so I nodded to show I understood. She blushed and put two Styrofoam leftover containers in the fridge.

When Tuan calmed down some, I motioned Trey into the living room. We sat.

“Five happy years,” I said.

“How was your interview?”

“Myna Roper is a nice lady. Drinks too much, probably the only way she can fall asleep. But nice. Solid.”

“And?”

“She lives in a trailer,” I said, “but it’s a
nice
trailer, you know? Down south, folks plant a double-wide somewhere and call it home, and nobody looks down on them.”

“It’s not your style to hem and haw, Conway. Please tell me whatever there is to tell.”

“You have a half sister.”

His mouth opened. “Pardon me?” he finally said.

“Your father loved Myna Roper. He got her pregnant. They didn’t think that would fly in 1962, even in New York City. That’s why your father caved to his father’s threats and came back here.”

“And Myna Roper had a baby girl.”

“She was supposed to have an abortion. Your father always thought she did. But she couldn’t go through with it.”

“Well,” he said, half smiling at something far away. “Well, then.”

“You’re cooler about it than I expected.”

He traced a finger along the back of the sofa. “I’ve had a long time to think about my father’s New York years. You run through possibilities, especially when the old man keeps everything a deep dark secret. Was he married? Was he gay? Was he talented? Was he miserable?” Trey shrugged. “I guess it would take a hell of a lot to surprise me.”

“Do you want to know about her?”

“Of course I do,” he said, dry-swallowing, his voice so quiet I barely heard.

“You’ve met her.”

“Nonsense.”

I told him. Diana Patience Marx aka Patty Marx. Curious, college, journalism. Figured out on her own that Tander Phigg was her old man. Climbed the journalism ladder, wound up at
The Globe
. Her mother claimed to have no idea where she was, and I believed her.

“They had a falling-out?” Trey said.

“Guess so,” I said. “Myna puked in a trash can and passed out before she got that far.”

“
Pardon
me?”

I told him about Myna’s Manhattans, her routine, her polite vomiting, her dog.

“That’s sad.”

“Yes.”

We were quiet.

“What next?” Trey finally said.

“Randall’s digging up info on Patty Marx. Maybe we’ll learn something.”

He nodded. I watched him work through possibilities, staring again at something far away. Then he locked onto my eyes. “The big question—”

“—is what the hell does all this have to do with seventy-five grand stashed in your father’s floor?”

“Well?” he said.

“No goddamn idea.” I rose, stretched, checked my watch. Charlene never got dinner on the table until seven. I could make it.

“Are you going?” Trey said.

“To Shrewsbury, yeah.”

“I thought you came here from there.”

“I did,” I said. “But I should go back. I
want
to go back.”

The words surprised me.

*   *   *

Twenty minutes later I surprised Charlene. “I’ll be damned,” she said. “Your father said you dropped them and took off. I thought you were gone for the night.”

“I’m here.”

“And showered to boot,” she said, hugging me and kissing my hair. “How lucky can a gal get?” When she turned away she had a little smile that meant she was happy but didn’t want to advertise it.

Charlene grabbed a butcher’s knife and attacked something on a cutting board. It looked like she was trying to kill a mouse. She goes through domestic bursts once in a while, and I wondered if Fred had triggered one. The problem is that when the bursts come along, she cooks and bakes—and we all suffer.

With her back to me, still whacking away, she said, “What did you Three Musketeers do this afternoon?”

So she didn’t know about the idiotic rat-racing, and was trying to milk me. I silently thanked Sophie.

“Three Stooges is more like it,” I said. “We took a ride out to Purgatory Chasm. Fred wanted to see the place again.”

She stopped whacking, turned. “Did
you
want to see Purgatory Chasm again?”

“Of course not,” I said, feeling bad about the lie. “Anyway, we weren’t there long. Fred’s rock-running days are over.”

“Huh.” She looked at me awhile, smelling a rat. Sophie saved me; she came in with wet hair and clean clothes.

“I was telling your mom about Purgatory Chasm,” I said. “How Fred wanted to see it but wasn’t up to hiking the trails.”

“I
told
you it would be too much for him,” Sophie said, smooth as that. Smart smart smart. She hollered out the sliding-glass door, and Fred came in. He was smiling, a clear drink in his beat-up hand, until he saw me. Then his eyes went dead.

Soon we were eating kielbasa. Charlene proudly set out the dish I’d watched her whack at. She said it was potato salad. It looked like dice covered with Elmer’s glue. I took a double portion and smiled while I ate it.

The talk was stiff and sparse. Charlene knew something was up but couldn’t break any of us down. Me, Sophie, and Fred mostly kept quiet for fear we’d blab about what had happened. If Charlene found out I’d taken my wet-brain father and a twelve-year-old to screw around on a half-assed racetrack, she’d kill me—and I wouldn’t blame her.