Lamentation (10 page)

“That’s your choice. You could do anything you want. You’re a bright guy—”

“Gee, thanks.”

“—who plays dumb. You sell yourself short, hauling junk for Tom Gable.”

“I don’t haul junk. And Tom’s been good to me.”

“I’m sure he has. I like Tom. He’s a nice guy. But you could be doing so much more—you still
can
do so much more.”

“I’m glad you are such an authority on my life. And I do appreciate the unsolicited advice, really.”

“I think you’re scared.”

“Scared?” I had to laugh. “And what am I scared of?”

“Not being as good a father as your dad. You blame yourself for not being able to fix your brother, and you feel you’re letting down his memory. So you deliberately sell yourself short and don’t live up to your potential. You suffer. Like a penance.”

“Congratulations,” I said, jeering. “That’s officially the dumbest thing anyone has ever said to me.”

“How long do you expect us to wait for you to get your shit together?”

I moved toward her.

“What if I did?” I said.

“What if you did what?” Her eyes blazed with fury as she balled her hands into tiny fists, mouth compressed into a hard, thin line, which is what happened every time I got her worked up, something I possessed an uncanny ability to do.

I stepped closer, and she stuttered a half step back.

“What if I had my shit together?” I said. “What if I had a regular job, a steady paycheck with security and benefits—what if I worked at the phone company like Charlie—punched a clock every morning, came home every night?”

“What if you did?”

I moved in. She backpedaled, bumping against the kitchen table, hands fumbling to grip an edge.

“Would you still be with me?”

She couldn’t retreat any farther; I was pressed against her now. She turned her head away. But I had her pinned, my mouth inches from her face as she squirmed half-heartedly.

“I’m not answering that,” she said. “It’s a stupid question.”

“What’s so stupid about it?”

Jenny stopped squirming, squared her face to mine. Her hands went to my hips, pulling me in, pressing hard against my jeans. She stared into my eyes.

“Because I never would’ve left in the first place.”

I jerked a hand over her head and snagged my heavy wool coat off the kitchen table. “I have to go.”

I left her standing there.

“Thanks for the visit,” I said, walking out. “Lock up when you leave.”

“You should know, people are saying he killed that guy.”

“People are wrong.”

I bulled out the door and down those old rickety steps, out into the biting northern winds that felt like a million razors slicing my skin.

The Dubliner was dead, typical for a Sunday night. A few college-aged stragglers looking too preppy for White Mountain Community—but too far from Dartmouth to be Ivy League—played a game of ham-fisted darts in the corner, in between loud sports talk and rape jokes. A pair of white-haired, leather-faces slumped over amber shot glasses along the bar, droopy eyes, poor posture, trying to tuck a lifetime of regret deep down inside and keep it hidden from the light.

On weekends the place could pick up when Liam, the bar’s owner, featured his Celtic folk trio, The January Men. The music sucked, but if you cozied up to him afterwards, telling him how great they were, you’d get drinks on the house all night long. Even on Fridays and Saturdays, patrons were mostly locals; nobody would come to a place like the Dubliner unless he lived within a six-block radius.

I didn’t see Charlie so I poked my head out on the smoking porch, where I found him—and Fisher—leaning against the long tiki hut counter, island straw and bamboo entirely out of place in an Irish-themed bar in the dead of winter in the Northern wilds. Charlie waved at me; Fisher nodded glumly. The two of them were smoking cigarettes, a pitcher of beer and a basket of chicken wings between them. The cold night air hurt to breathe in.

I’d give Charlie hell later. I knew he’d planned on calling Fisher, but didn’t realize he already had, and that that was the urgency behind meeting for a drink. I could’ve used prep time before having to deal with the guy.

All the umbrellas were strapped down, chairs upended and set atop tables. Deep snow covered the patio floor, except where Charlie and
Fisher stood, a puddle of slush from smokers’ trampling. On the walls, a fenced enclosure, hundreds of license plates and other tin sign oddities hung, quirky symbols of Americana from places like Route 66, the Grand Canyon, Amish Country. I remembered being so drunk with Charlie one night that we tried to pry off a chicken ranch sign with a screwdriver.

I’d been gnashing my teeth the whole drive over here. Seeing Fisher only agitated me more. I would’ve gone back to my place, except I’d left Jenny there, and she was what I wanted to get away from. No one could make me as happy as she could, and no one could piss me off as much.

I was in a helluva mood, and the oily stench of bar food and cloyingly sweet smell of cheap aftershave wasn’t helping.

“Hey, man!” Charlie said, perking up too enthusiastically.

Charlie knew Fisher and I didn’t get along, which thrust him into the role of peacekeeper whenever we got together. Which didn’t happen often. I probably hadn’t seen Fisher in three, four years, not since Charlie had pulled the same stunt at an Applebee’s in Clear Lake. I think Charlie, who didn’t have a lot of friends, secretly held out hope we’d suddenly start liking each other.

Fisher gnawed on BBQ, slurping bits of meat from bone, face and fingers stained muddy red. He waggled a wing at me before flinging it into the cast-off pile.

“So, Porter,” he said, “still the king of Shit County?” He snorted. Fisher had packed on some pounds since I’d seen him last. His hair was thinning, but he still wore it longish, in a mullet. Slick, black ringlets curled behind a pair of Dumbo ears. With his bulbous nose and soft chin, Fisher hadn’t exactly grown into his looks.

Snow started to fall. Nobody made for the door. I fired up a cigarette and let Charlie pour me the last of the beer.

“Why’d you drag me down here, Charlie?”

Charlie clasped a hand on Fisher’s back. “I told you. Fisher’s an investigator. He’s offered to help us out. Isn’t that great?”

“Yeah. Great.”

“Why not?” Fisher said, sucking on the bone. “We’re all friends here.”

His contemptuous tone made it clear he still hated my guts. Our rivalry began at the reservoir one summer, when I felt up Gina Rosinski in the backseat of Sal Atkinson’s Buick. Fisher had a thing for Gina, which I only became aware of after the fact. Hell, it was high school. He never got over it. I seriously doubted he was itching to do me any favors.

“I appreciate the offer,” I said, “But I don’t have money to hire an investigator. I’m sort of out of work right now. I don’t know when it’s going to pick back up.”

Fisher sifted through the basket of wings, searching for a juicy one. “I don’t want your money, Porter,” he said, as if the mere suggestion was offensive. “Charlie tells me you’re in a tight spot. I’m here helping my mom pack up the house—you know she’s moving to Florida, right?”

I hadn’t seen Fisher’s mother in probably fifteen years. How the hell would I know that? I nodded anyway.

“Charlie says you had a run-in with some tough druggie bikers.”

“It wasn’t exactly a run-in.”

“The Desmond Turnpike is a pipeline for dope smuggling,” Fisher said. “Boston to Montreal, up, down, all through the night. Better than the I-93.” Fisher poked around the discarded bones for any fleshy tidbits he might have missed. “They have video cameras set up all along the Interstate. Highway Patrol records license plates. Same vehicle makes the trip too many times—say ‘cheese’! Boom, they pull your ass over. Trust me, I deal with this shit every day.”

“So what,” I said, “you’re, like, a private investigator now?”

“Not private, but, yeah, I’m an investigator.” Fisher drained his pint, clinking the bottom of the glass against the counter.

Charlie playfully punched my shoulder, grinning. “See? Aren’t you glad I brought you down here? He’s offering to help, Jay. And he ain’t charging us anything. We could use a pro.”

“No, man,” Fisher said, “like I say, I’m stuck in this shitburg. You two might like fixing phones—or whatever the hell it is
you
do, Porter, selling lamps at flea markets or some shit—but I got nothing to do during the day. I’m bored out of my mind. Might as well help out a couple old pals, right?”

The barmaid, Rita, Liam’s wife, stuck her head out the back door, and Fisher hoisted his empty pint glass and pointed at the empty pitcher.

“If you’re not private,” I said, “then you work for the police or something?”

“Something like that,” Fisher said.

“Something like what?”

“Insurance.”

“Insurance?”

“Yeah, insurance,” Fisher said, heated. “I investigate fraudulent claims. I do surveillance, videotape assholes trying to steal my company’s money with their bullshit scams. I follow them. Use public records. The Internet, eyewitness testimony. Study accident scenes, examine a claimant’s past for any recurring patterns of negligence or deception. Conduct interviews, follow up leads, write reports. A fucking investigator. You got a problem with that?” He threw up his hands at Charlie, who motioned with both of his to stay calm.

“He’s just worked up about his brother,” said Charlie, turning my way. “Right, Jay?”

I nodded. I didn’t need any more drama in my life right now.

“Jay, tell him about the hard drive,” said Charlie. “That’s the key to this whole thing.”

Fisher whipped out a tiny notepad and pencil, crinkling his brow as though commencing an exclusive interview.

“Not much to tell,” I said. “According to Turley, my brother made some threats, so the cops called me down. Chris and his buddy, Pete—”

“The guy who was killed,” Charlie interjected.

“Yeah, the guy who was killed,” I said. “They have a business recycling old computers, erasing their memory. Chris claims someone dropped off a computer, and they found something incriminating.”

“He say what?”

I shook my head. “He wasn’t making much sense. When I picked him up and we went back to my place, he asked if I could keep a secret. But he was also making up stories from when we were kids and quoting Bob Marley songs.” I looked at Fisher, as if he needed the added explanation. “My brother’s a whack job; his brain’s fried on drugs.”

“What kind?” Fisher asked.

“I don’t think he discriminates. I know he does a lot of meth.”

“That’s hard to get up here,” Fisher said, thoughtfully tapping his head with the pencil, then pointing its tip at me. “That’s good info. It’ll help me chase down leads, y’know?”

“And then there was the phone call,” Charlie said. “Jay, tell him about the phone call.”

Rita returned with a new pitcher, and we all refilled.

“While Turley was telling me they’d found Pete’s body at the TC,” I said, “I got a call from a guy, a boy—real soft-spoken, voice cracking—who said he’d dropped off a computer and wanted it back. Obviously, he was looking for my brother. I don’t know how he got my number. He sounded desperate. He offered to pay money.”

“When?”

“When, what?”

“When did you get this call?” Fisher asked.

“I already told you. When I was on my cell with Turley, yesterday. Maybe, what, Charlie? Noon? Could have been a coincidence.”

“In the world of investigation,” said Fisher, “there’s no such thing.” He jotted a note. “You received the call on your cell?”

“Yes, I was at Charlie’s.”

“You call the number back?”

“No. Why would I?”

Fisher exhaled. “Jesus, you guys have no idea what you’re doing.”

“We’re not
doing
anything,” I said.

“That’s the problem,” said Fisher. “Is the number still on your phone?”

I pulled my cell and scrolled through Saturday’s calls. I recognized the police station number, so it was easy to find. Only, it was pointless.

“Restricted,” I said.

“Interesting,” replied Fisher. He held out his hand for my phone.

“Why do you want my phone? I told you the number was blocked.”

He kept his hand out, twiddling his fingers, so I slapped the phone in his palm.

“Let a professional handle this,” he said.

I don’t think he noticed me rolling my eyes at Charlie. He scribbled in his notepad, before passing back my cell.

I answered some more of his questions about the bikers at the shop, my brother’s recent bizarre behavior, the details of Pete’s death. After another pitcher, when Fisher started slurring his words and getting snippy, I got a feeling the subject of Gina Rosinski might come up soon if I didn’t bail. So I said I had to take a piss, then headed out to my truck.

Sizable drifts had started to mount in the parking lot as snow continued to fall. Letting my truck idle, I cranked the heat, even though I knew damn well it wouldn’t work, then got mad when it didn’t and pounded the dash.

Heading back to my place, I grew increasingly furious, livid, although at what, exactly, I couldn’t be sure. Maybe for wasting the last hour and a half of my life with Fisher and Charlie, acting like a bunch of teenage Hardy Boys trying to crack the case of the missing yellow dog. I collected junk. Charlie worked for the phone company. Fisher pushed pencils and thought he was Dick Tracy. And Chris? My brother was nothing but an opportunistic scam artist who’d pissed away his life. And now he’d pissed off the wrong people and was going to have to pay the piper. There was no good end to this, and I felt guilty for admitting I’d be happier if he stayed gone. And then I knew what I was so angry about. It was a rotten thing to think about your own brother, no matter how big a fuck-up he was.

I hopped over the Turnpike, hitting the no-man’s-land stretch of Orchard Drive, a long, one-lane road that ran along old apple orchards. No streetlights. No houses. Bumpy, torn-up gravel. With the storm, I couldn’t see shit through the swirling gusts, my truck’s rear end swinging all over the place. Drainage ditches, filled with the felled limbs of fruitless apple trees, traversed each side. The last thing you wanted out here was to blow a tire or to spin off into one of these culverts and spend the next two hours trying to wedge a jack on soft, loose soil.