Out of the Cold (11 page)

The man chatted with Ben for a few moments about the shelter. Then he pulled out a business card and wrote something on the back.

“Here's a number where you can reach me,” he said. “I'd be interested in knowing if you ever solve this little mystery of yours.”

I tucked the card in my pocket.

“Nice guy,” Ben said.

“All the people who stopped to talk were nice,” I said. The four who had taken a few moments to try to talk to Mr. Duffy made me feel a little ashamed. The most I had ever done was drop a few quarters into a hat.

The rush-hour crowd had thinned. I shivered un-controllably as I pulled off my sandwich-board sign.

“I guess that expensive jacket isn't as warm as it looks, huh?” Ben said.

“For your information, I've been out all day talking to people—”

“I'm just teasing,” he said. For once he didn't seem to be angry with me or to be making fun of me. “Come on,” he said. “Let's go someplace where you can warm up.”

He steered me to a cozy, delightfully warm res-taurant. We claimed a booth near the back and shucked our coats and hats. Ben dropped his back-pack onto the floor beside him. After a waiter handed us menus, I glanced at Ben.

“What are you doing down here anyway?” I said. “Are you checking up on me?”

“Actually, yes,” Ben said.

That made me angry. “I told you I'd do whatever I could to find out about Mr. Duffy. Didn't you believe me?”

“Of course I did,” he said.

“But you still came to check up on me?”

“I came to make sure you were all right. And to see if I could help.”

“How did you even know I was here?” I asked.

He smiled at me. “Billy's girlfriend called me.”

“Morgan?”

He nodded. “She told me what you were doing. She suggested that I come down here.” He laughed. “Actually, more than suggested. She said she thought it was totally unfair that you were freezing your butt off down here while I was lounging around in a nice, warm house.”

That sounded like Morgan. I bet I knew why she'd made the call too, and it wasn't just because she thought I needed a hand. She thought Ben would be the perfect replacement for Nick. But I wasn't interested in a replacement.

“She's right,” Ben said. “I shouldn't leave it all to you. I've been thinking about what I said the other day. I was mad. I hate that Mr. Duffy died the way he did. But I shouldn't have taken out my frustration on you.”

We ordered. While we waited for our food, I said, “Well, at least we know a little more about him now than we did before.”

“We do?”

“Sure. You heard what some of the people out there said. I'd bet that Mr. Duffy spent some time out west. We know he liked tea. We know that he knew enough about computers to impress someone who's in the computer business.”

“He liked to surf the Internet at the shelter some-times,” Ben said. “I asked him one time what kind of sites he liked to visit, but he didn't answer.”

“Well, he may not have talked much, but he wasn't completely antisocial, either. Sounds like that little girl made him smile.” I thought about that for a moment. “The librarian Morgan talked to said he bought used paperbacks from the library.”

“I know,” Ben said.

“You do?”

“The two books he had with him? They were from the library. They were stamped
Withdrawn
.”

“Morgan said that up until recently he bought grown-up books,” I told Ben. “Then about six months ago, he started buying kids' books. Maybe they were for that little girl. He also bought children's clothes at a secondhand store. But he always brought them back for a refund.” I hadn't figured that one out. “How long did you know Mr. Duffy, Ben?”

“Almost a year. I started volunteering at the shelter last January. It was my New Year's resolution—do something good for someone else.”

“What was he like when you first met him?”

“What do you mean?”

“Morgan and I talked to a lot of people today. From what everyone said, it seems that something changed in Mr. Duffy's life about six months ago.” I went over everything that Morgan and I had found out. “Till then he was drinking. But he stopped. Until six months ago, he didn't cause trouble at any of the shelters or soup kitchens he visited. Then he started taking things—food, mostly. All of a sudden he was buying children's clothes.”

“Which he returned,” Ben said.

I nodded. “Up until about six months ago, no one at any of the stores he went in ever complained about him. Then he started stealing. He stole spices from a grocery store.” I asked Ben the same question Morgan had asked me. “Why would a homeless man with no access to a kitchen steal spices?”

“Maybe he gave them to Betty,” Ben said.

“We talked to Betty. She would have mentioned it.” It was so frustrating to have uncovered such tantalizing little bits and pieces but to be no closer to the truth. “I have no idea what it all adds up to,” I said.

The waiter returned with our food. I couldn't believe how hungry I was. I plunged into my grilled chicken salad.

“Do you think maybe we should just leave it alone?” Ben said. “Drop the idea of a memorial service? You know, respect his privacy?”

“I don't know. Maybe.” What to do about the memorial service was Ben's decision. I was thinking about what the woman said about the little girl and her mother. And about the spices Mr. Duffy had stolen. I wondered if the woman and the little girl knew that Mr. Duffy had died. “What happened to the books Duffy had with him?”

“I have them right here,” Ben said. He picked his backpack up off the floor. I stared at it.

“What's that?” I said.

“What's what?”

“That.” I pointed to the crest on his backpack. I hadn't noticed it before. “Does that say Ashdale Academy?”

Ben's cheeks turned pink.

“How come you have a backpack with an Ashdale crest on it? Do you go there?”

Ashdale Academy was a private boys' school uptown. I'd heard called the most expensive, most exclusive boys' school in the city. Ben looked at the few remaining French fries on his plate. He straightened up slowly and nodded.

“Uh-huh,” I said, digesting this new fact. “So where exactly did you get off giving me a hard time because of how
I
dress and the car
my
dad drives?”

“Would it help if I apologized?”

“It would help if you explained.”

He drew in a deep breath “The first time I saw you, I thought I knew you,” he said. “I mean, I thought I knew your type. Like the girls who live in my neighborhood. The girls who go to St. Mildred's.” St. Mildred's was the most exclusive private
girls'
school in the city. “Most of them have no idea what real life is like. Their idea of struggle is waiting a week until the Prada bag they ordered comes in.”

“You think I'm like
that
?”

“Thought,” he said. “Past tense. I was wrong. I'm sorry.” He looked at me, and for a moment I looked back. Then I thought about Nick.

“Right,” I said. “Let's see those books.” I held out my hand.

“I don't think they're going to tell us anything.” Ben fished the beat-up novels out of his Ashdale backpack.

Ours hands touched as Ben passed the books to me, and our eyes met again. I looked away quickly and told myself that I didn't want to get involved with anyone else, even if he turned out to be a whole lot nicer than I had originally thought. I told myself that Nick was the one for me—Nick, who had left town without a word to anyone. A wave of anger washed over me. I blocked both Ben and Nick out of my mind and turned my attention to the two books.

CHAPTER
NINE

B

oth of the battered paperbacks that had been in Mr. Duffy's pockets when he died were written by Charles Dickens. One was
Great Expectations
. The other was
Hard Times
. I flipped through them. A business card was tucked in the pages of the first book—from one of the best hotels in the city. I held it up so Ben could see it.

“He must have picked it up somewhere,” Ben said. “Probably used it as a bookmark.”

I held the front and back covers of each book and shook them gently. A slip of paper fell out of
Hard Times
. I picked it up and looked at it.

“Anything useful?” Ben said.

“It's a receipt.” I studied the faint ink. “From a thrift store.” In fact, it was from one of the shops that Morgan had visited earlier that morning. “But I can't tell what he bought—it only says ‘clothing' and the price. And the date. About two months ago.”

“In other words, not useful,” Ben said.

I turned the receipt over. Someone had written what appeared to be a phone number on the other side, followed by the letter
F
.

“Would you recognize Mr. Duffy's handwriting if you saw it?” I said.

Ben shook his head. I looked at the phone number again. It had been written in pencil and had faded, but it was still legible. The numbers were formed in a thin, elegant hand.

“Doesn't look like a man's handwriting,” I said. “And it sure doesn't look like the handwriting you'd expect from a homeless person.”

“A homeless person who likes tea and Charles Dickens and daffodils?” Ben said.

He had a point. I had thought of Mr. Duffy as just a crazy old man who stole cookies and shoved people when he got mad, a man who was nothing besides what you saw. But he had come from somewhere. And he must have started out like everyone else: young and with the potential to become almost anything. It was possible that he had spent his whole life on the street, but it didn't seem likely. There just had to be a way to find out more about him. I looked down at the faded receipt. Then I dug into my bag, pulled out my cell phone, and started to punch in numbers.

“Who are you calling?” Ben said.

A phone rang somewhere at the other end of the line. It rang again and again until someone finally picked up.

“Hello?” A man's voice.

“Hello,” I said. “Who am I talking to?”

“Who do you
want
to talk to?” the man said. He sounded annoyed.

“Is Morgan there?”

Ben gave me a funny look. “Morgan is at Billy's house,” he said.

Instead of telling me that I had the wrong number, the man at the other end of the line called out, “Is there a Morgan here?” The number on the back of the receipt didn't belong to a private residence. I must have called some kind of public place. The man came back on the line. “You're out of luck,” he said. “There's no one here named Morgan.”

“Um, where is here, exactly?” I said.

“Look, sweetheart, you made the call. I just picked up the phone. Your friend isn't here, and a dryer just opened up. If I don't grab it, someone else will and I'll have to go home with wet undies, you know what I'm saying?”

Dryer? Wet undies?

“Morgan left me a message,” I said. “She wanted me to bring her some fabric softener, but she didn't give me the name of the place or the address.”

I heard the man shout, “Touch that dryer and you die!”

“Hello? Hello?”

He told me the name of the coin laundry and the main intersection. Then he hung up.

“What was that all about?” Ben said.

“The phone number on the back of this receipt—I think it's a pay phone at a laundromat a couple of blocks from the shelter.”

“The place where Mr. Duffy washed his clothes.”

“I guess.” I started to hand him back the books, but Ben shook his head.

“Every time I look at those books, I feel terrible. I know Mr. Duffy didn't have much—but to think that a couple of secondhand books were his only possessions... I hate to throw them out, but... ”

“If you want, I'll hang onto them for you. Just let me know if you want 'em back.”

Ben nodded, and I stuffed the books into my bag.

“Come on,” Ben said. “I'll walk you to the bus.”

I fished out my wallet, but Ben waved it away.

“Dinner's on me,” he said. “After everything you've done, I feel I owe you one.” On the way out of the restaurant he said, “By the way, the funeral is the day after tomorrow.”

“The day after tomorrow? But we don't know—”

“It is when it is. The way things are going, we won't be able to say much about him, and it looks like there will never be a complete name to put on the headstone.”

“Headstone?” I knew the city would pay for the funeral and the burial. But a headstone? “Aren't those expensive?”

“I'm going to pay for it—well, with a lot of help from my father.” There was no warmth in his words. “At first he said it was a waste of money.” He looked fiercely at me. “He was going to buy me a car for Christmas. I told him I wanted this instead. Maybe no one can say much about Mr. Duffy at his funeral, but if we ever find out his real name, he's going to have a headstone.”