Drift (6 page)

“Developers?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “They’re buying everything up out here.”

I laughed before I could stop myself.

Nola gave me a sharp look. “What?”

“Well, nothing. It’s just that … well, Moose was going on about that earlier, and I’ve seen a little bit of that, but mostly it’s all farmland.” I laughed again, this time drawing looks from both of them.

“Just because it isn’t being developed now doesn’t mean it won’t be soon,” she snapped. “Pennsylvania is losing open space at a rate of three hundred acres a day. And it happens fast. One day a port-a-potty shows up, two weeks later there’s a sign saying ‘Coming soon, the Estates at Mountain View Village.’ Six weeks after that, there’s fifty McMansions where there used to be a meadow.”

“If you say so, I believe you,” I said, leaning back in my chair. “But I wouldn’t have thought there was all that much demand for land out here.” I smiled to myself, thinking it more likely they’d be pressuring her to buy than to sell.

Moose rolled his eyes. “Tell that to whoever keeps calling and hanging up.”

Nola sighed and draped her hand wearily across her forehead. “It’s nothing. Really. Despite Moose’s conspiracy theories. Yes, there’s a developer trying to buy up a lot of the land out here. Wants to build some tracts. And yes, I told him I wasn’t interested. I came here to farm.”

“And that’s when the calls started,” Moose added.

“How many calls?” I asked.

“Not that many.”

“A couple of times a week,” Moose said.

“Always hang-ups?”

“Yes.”

“Who’s the developer?”

Nola just sighed, but Moose chimed in. “Company called Redtail.”

“Is that who’s calling?” I asked her.

“I have no idea.”

“Do they block the number?”

“Of course they do.”

“Can’t you just block calls from any blocked numbers?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know how many customers that would cost me, but I can’t afford to lose any right now.”

“Have you talked to the police?”

She laughed. “No.”

I smiled. “Yeah. I’ve met your police chief. Didn’t exactly fill me with confidence, either.”

She shook her head. “No, it’s not that. It’s just … I mean, it’s nothing.”

“Want me to talk to the developer? I could put a little fear of God in him. Or at least fear of the IRS.”

Moose leaned forward. “You have friends at the IRS?”

I shook my head. “Nobody has friends at the IRS. But I know some people.”

She looked at me with an odd smile: part patronizing, like she thought it was cute, and part annoyed, like she really didn’t. “If you want to talk to the developer about paving over all the farmland around here, that would be great. But this”— she reached over and put her hand on my knee—“this is just a minor nuisance.”

Then she got up and headed toward the kitchen. I had never thought of myself as having particularly sensitive knees, but my knee was tingling where her hand had been.

Then I noticed Moose looking at me with that same drunk-but-smug look. “It’s probably not the developer, anyway,” he whispered loudly, his words bumping up against each other.

“What do you mean?”

“If the developer can’t assemble the whole parcel, the whole deal could fall through. The developer can just walk away, find another place to pave over. The people who already agreed to sell, the ones who’ve already made other plans, picked out other houses and spent all that developer money—I bet that’s who’s calling.”

13

Nola and I switched from beer to coffee after dinner, but Moose stuck with his squish and the effect was visible. He poured another inch into his glass and sloshed some onto the coffee table.

I reached over and grabbed the bottle as he put it down. “What the hell is this stuff, anyway?” I sniffed the mouth of the bottle. It smelled like a cross between dry wine, rotten apples, and vinegar.

“Try it,” he said, sliding back in the armchair and closing his eyes for a second. “You’ll like it.”

I poured an inch into my glass and sipped it.

“Not as bad as I expected,” I said, surprised.

“It’s not just the taste that’s the deal breaker,” Nola said, returning with a plate of brownies. “Have a few more and tell me how you feel.”

Moose let out a drunken giggle and closed his eyes.

I finished what was in my glass, but didn’t pour any more. The events of the past few days suddenly weighed heavily on me, pushing me down against the sofa. I broke a brownie in half and went back to my coffee.

“Hey, sleepyhead,” Nola said loudly, nudging Moose’s leg with her toe. “You want a brownie?”

He flopped an arm over his belly. “Stuffed,” he said without opening his eyes.

“See what I mean about that stuff?” she said, turning to me.

“Point taken.” I sipped my coffee. “So who was that guy, anyway?”

“Who?”

“The guy who swiped your chip. Back at Branson’s.”

She frowned. “Oh, that.”

For a moment, I regretted reminding her about it.

“That’s Dwight Cooney.” The way she said it sounded like she was more annoyed at him than me. “He’s harmless. Just a meathead with an underinflated sense of his own repulsiveness.”

“You got a lot of them out here?”

She smiled sweetly. “Not just around here.”

I put my hand against the slight swelling along my cheekbone. “I don’t know if I’d say he’s that harmless, by the way.”

“No, he is. Annoying, but harmless. Besides, you seemed to be able to handle him without much trouble.” She smiled. “Until you got distracted, that is.”

I could feel my face warming. “Right.”

“I suppose I should say thank you for coming to my rescue and all,” she said, reaching over to run her fingertips lightly across my bruised cheek. Apparently, my cheeks are sensitive, too. “But I had the situation under control, so I won’t.”

She grinned at me as she took her hand away, letting me know she was yanking my chain. I grinned back at her, because I couldn’t help myself.

If I had been better at that sort of thing, I might have gone in for a kiss. I was still considering it when Moose snuffled loudly and let out a long sigh.

It was an undeniable cue to call it a night, and a pause hung in the air, waiting for one of us to acknowledge it. Instead, she got up from her chair and sat next to me on the sofa. “So how does someone end up being a cop, anyway?” she asked.

I smiled. She didn’t want me to leave. She smiled back conspiratorially, like she knew I knew, but she expected me to go along with it.

I laughed. “By ignoring lots of good career advice.”

She laughed, too, putting her hand on my knee again, this time leaving it there. Now, my knee is connected directly to my thigh. And I don’t want to get into what my thigh is connected to, but her hand had an effect on me. It might have shown on my face, because she smiled mischievously as she took her hand away.

“Come on,” she said, “seriously.”

“Seriously?” I shrugged. “A buddy of mine talked me into going into the police academy with him. He washed out; I didn’t.”

“Hmmm. The thing is … you don’t seem like a cop.”

“Yeah, I get that a lot. My lieutenant tells me that all the time.”

“But you’re a detective, right? So you must be pretty good at it.”

“That’s where you and my lieutenant differ. But I am pretty good at parts of it.”

“So what do you have, issues with authority?”

“You don’t?”

She shrugged.

This time, when Moose snorted, he opened his eyes and looked around, confused.

I looked over at him, and when I looked back at Nola, she was stifling a yawn.

“I guess it’s that time,” she said, looking at her watch. “And I guess I’ll be picking the tomatoes by myself. I have some other crops to check on as well, so don’t be alarmed if you see me sneaking through your backyard early in the morning.”

Moose let out a sigh and fell back to sleep. Nola shook her head. “You can leave him here, if you like.”

“Nah, he’ll be all right,” I said, for some reason not crazy about the idea of Moose spending the night there. I slipped a shoulder under his arm and hoisted him out of the armchair. His eye opened but remained unfocused. “But he’s going to be a mess in the morning.”

14

I got up at seven the next morning, not hungover but tired and unprepared for the horrifying revelation that now there was no coffee at all. I managed to assemble a lukewarm cup of tea that not only confused my metabolism, but I think actually pissed it off.

I had an appointment with a lawyer to read Frank’s will at nine and an appointment at the funeral home at nine forty-five. I told myself I had gotten up early to get a jump on the day. But I lingered by the kitchen window and pretended to drink tea until seven-thirty, when Nola showed up in the backyard. I took a step back and watched as she walked barefoot up the path between the tomatoes, carrying a large basket. As she bent over to pick some tomatoes, I leaned closer. She stopped and turned, smiling right at me.

I smiled back and waved. Busted again.

*   *   *

Moose woke up as I was getting ready to leave. He looked worse than I felt, stumbling downstairs in the same clothes he’d been wearing the night before.

“Tell me there’s coffee,” he mumbled as he entered the kitchen.

“You look like shit.”

“Coffee?”

I picked up the empty coffee can and tapped it loudly with a spoon.

He winced and groaned and covered his head with his hands. “Shit, that’s my bad. I finished it before I left. I meant to pick some up.”

I let him take the rap; instant doesn’t count. “I wish you had, because I just started my morning with a lovely cup of
tea
. I’m going into town, and I’m definitely getting a cup of coffee. If you want, you can tag along, but we’re leaving now.”

He groaned. “Can you wait ten minutes? I just have to go out back and pick some tomatoes.”

“I think Nola already picked them.”

“She did?”

I nodded.

“Damn. She’s going to be annoyed.” He seemed perturbed for half a second, then he said, “Let’s go.”

*   *   *

We drove in silence marred only by an occasional soft groan as Moose massaged his temples. I thought about cranking up the radio, just for laughs, but I wasn’t too far away from a headache myself. As it was, Moose winced when my cell phone started playing “Watching the Detectives.”

I snatched it up. “Danny-o!”

“Doyle. You sound distressingly chipper. Staying out of trouble?”

“One day at a time.”

“Got those plates back on your friend there.”

I’d almost forgotten I had called. “The plates, right. So what’s the story?”

“Well, it’s no epic, but there’s a story. George Arnett. Assault, a couple of possessions, possession with intent. Nine months at Graterford. Got out two months ago.”

“Any good reason he would be out here?”

“Nothing that jumps out. Born in Kensington, raised in Kensington, went to school in Kensington, arrested in Kensington. I think the trip to Graterford was his first time out of the ’hood.”

“Well, it’s nice that he got a chance to get out and see the world. Hey, does he have any piercings?”

“Piercings?”

“Yeah, you know, nose rings, that sort of thing.”

“No, nothing like that in the mug shot.”

“Why don’t you send me the mug shot anyway?”

“Doyle…”

“Danny, come on, it’s just a mug shot.”

He sighed. “So what’s your interest in Arnett, anyway?”

“Nothing really. A big Escalade driving around Dunston looking suspicious, all out-of-place with its rims and tinted windows.”

“Got the old Spidey sense tingling?”

“Something like that. It’s a hell of a car for a loser just a few months out of jail.”

“You know, technically, you’re not supposed to be using your Spidey sense.”

“It’s okay—I’m only using it for the forces of good.” My phone beeped to let me know I had a message. It was the photo from Danny.

Arnett didn’t look familiar, but he looked like a lot of other losers I’d known. His eyes were half-closed in the picture, trying to look tough but coming off stupid. He had too much forehead and not enough chin, with reddish brown hair that was very short on the sides and nonexistent on top.

I had only caught a glimpse of the guy in the Escalade, and this wasn’t him. But that made sense; Arnett would have been the one driving.

“Seriously, dude,” Danny said. “You got a few weeks of this to go yet. Don’t be getting in trouble right off the bat.”

“I know. I’m cool.”

“Yeah, all right, you lying dirtbag. Take care of yourself, okay, buddy?”

“I always do.”

*   *   *

We stopped at a mini-mart on the edge of town and got two coffees and a bag for later. I filled a bag with cans of chili and boxes of granola bars, food I could eat without thinking. As we stepped outside, I took a long, scalding sip that immediately improved my outlook.

In the parking lot, we bumped into a skinny white kid with a dirty neck and an awkward attempt at dreadlocks. I thought he was going to ask us for money, until Moose said, “Hey, Squirrel!”

The other kid’s eyes widened, but just a little. “Moose. Yo, what’s up, man?” He looked at me the way skinny white kids with dreadlocks look at people they think are cops. “Hey,” he said warily.

“It’s cool,” Moose said. “This is Doyle. Mrs. Menlow’s son.” Then to me, “Doyle, this is my friend Squirrel.”

“Right.” Squirrel stared at me for a second, his eyes suspicious and strangely pale. His pupils were tiny. “I’m sorry about your folks.”

I nodded. “Thanks.” Then, turning to Moose, “Anyway, I got to get going. I’ll be heading back in an hour and a half or so if you want a ride.”

Moose turned to his friend. “Where’re you headed?”

“Back home. Want to stop by?”

“Sure.” Moose turned back to me. “I’ll see you back at the house.”

Squirrel immediately took a step back, like he couldn’t wait to be away from me. “Good to meet you,” he said, wiping his nose with the base of his thumb.