NINE
When
she pops in from work to see that he is okay, and to bring him some takeout—Buffalo chicken wings and fries—he is sitting in the chair with a car magazine open on his lap.
“I don’t understand these what-they-call-’em nav systems,” he says. “All the cars have them now. Never had one of those in a car.”
“I hear they don’t work that well,” the woman says. “Heard about some idiot woman, she kept doing what the system told her and drove right into a lake.”
The man laughs softly. “That smells like wings,” he says, taking the Styrofoam box and opening it. “Looks delicious.”
“I brought you lots of napkins and wet wipes,” she says, handing them over. “Try not to drop the bones all over the room.”
Like it would matter. He’s always spilling his food. Once a week or so she tries to get in here and clean up the mess, but honestly, doesn’t she have enough to do? The room reeks, but she stopped noticing the smells long ago.
“Did you think about what I said this morning?” he asks, biting into a wing, tearing at the chicken with his gray teeth.
“What did you say this morning?” she replies. She remembers—she always knows what it will be about—but feigning ignorance stalls things for a while.
“About going in to work? Or just going out?”
“Enough. You’re wearing me out.”
She gathers some magazines on the bed—car magazines, a
People
and half a dozen
National Geographic
s—and sets them neatly on the bedside table. “You can’t ask me the same thing every day and think you’re going to get a different answer. You—oh for God’s sake, there’s toast crusts in your bed.”
The man says, “If it’s getting me out that worries you, I think I could manage the stairs myself. It’d just take a while, that’s all.”
“It’s not about that,” she says. “You know that.”
Something that troubled her that morning is eating at her again. Where’s the book? The one he writes in three times a day, or more? Now that she thinks about it, she hasn’t seen it for days.
“Where’s your stupid little notebook?” she asks.
“I told you, I write in it after you leave.”
“Since when?”
“I just do.”
“Where is it right now?”
“I think it fell under the bed. Might be stuck between the bed and the wall.”
“Move aside, I’ll find it for you.”
“It’s okay,” he says. “I’ll do it.”
“Better find it fast or you’ll forget what to write,” she says, deciding to drop it, at least for now. She has to go.
As she turns to leave, he says, “Wait.”
She stops. “What?”
“The boy,” he says. “What’s up with the boy?”
She is confused for a moment, unsure which boy he’s referring to. His stepson, or the one who’s caused them so much trouble lately. She decides on an answer that covers all the bases.
“Everything’s under control,” the woman says. “We’re doing our best to sort things out.”
“Maybe,” the man says, allowing a naive sliver of hope to creep into his voice, “it’s a good thing, what happened. I mean, it might mean things will change.” He smiles at her with those gray teeth. “I could use a change.”
“No,” she says. “It doesn’t mean that at all.”
TEN
He
was always on my mind. It was true all through this period, but even now, after all this time, that’s still the case. Almost like a low-pitched hum, no matter what you’re doing, that’s always there in the background.
I thought about what he was like, the things we did together. Moments. Mental snapshots. Some of the memories were pleasant, some less so. Some of them were like signposts along a journey.
When Scott was eight, the school called because he’d been in a fight with another boy. Donna couldn’t get away from work, but I was between jobs, so I headed over. I found him sitting on a bench in the office, staring down into his lap, his legs just barely long enough to touch the floor with the tips of his sneakers. He was swinging his feet back and forth.
“Hey,” I said, and he looked up. His eyes were red, but he was not crying at that moment. I sat down beside him, our thighs touching, and he leaned into me.
“I thought I was doing the right thing,” he said.
“Start from the beginning.”
“Mickey Farnsworth threw a rock at a car and I told the teacher. She told me she was busy and I guess she forgot to do anything about it and at recess Mickey said I was a tattletale and started beating me up and we got into a fight and now we’re both in trouble.”
“Where’s Mickey?” I asked.
“His mom came and got him. She called me a tattletale, too.”
That really pissed me off, but I had to let it go. The thing was, Scott had some history here. Of tattling. He didn’t like to see others getting away with things, but seeing that justice was done often had a way of backfiring for him.
Welcome to the world.
“It’s wrong to throw rocks at cars, right?” he asked.
“It is.”
“And you and Mom say it’s wrong to do nothing when people break the law. Isn’t it against the law to throw rocks at cars?”
“It is.”
“So why am I being suspended?”
I put my arm around him and patted his shoulder. I couldn’t think of anything to say that wouldn’t make me a hypocrite. I gave it my best shot.
“Sometimes doing the right thing hurts.” I paused. “Sometimes, doing the right thing is not always worth doing. It’s hard to be right all the time. It’s not an easy way to live your life.”
“Don’t you always do what’s right?” Scott asked, turning his head to look at me.
“I’ll always try to where you’re concerned,” I said.
He rested his head against my chest. “The principal wants to talk to you.”
“Okay.”
“And you have to take me home.”
“Okay.”
“Am I going to be punished?”
“You have been already,” I said. “For the wrong things, for the wrong reasons.”
“I don’t understand, Dad.”
“Me, neither,” I said. “Me, neither.”
* * *
As
I went in search of the Skilling residence, I gave more thought to what I was doing, and why I was doing it. I needed to know Claire Sanders was okay. I needed to know, having been dragged unwittingly into this mess, whether my actions had put her at risk. If they had, I’d have to see what I could do about it. I didn’t like to see kids in trouble.
Yeah, but you don’t mind scaring the shit out of them when it suits you
.
I was confident I’d find her. I couldn’t recall, offhand, how many times I’d been hired to track down missing kids—easily twenty—and only once had I failed. And that was because the kid—a twelve-year-old boy—came home on his own before I could find him.
When I finally did find Claire—at a boyfriend’s place, a kids’ hostel in L.A., some beach down in Florida—what would the plan be then? Drag her back to Griffon?
Hardly.
But I’d tell her that people back home were worried about her. I’d recommend that she call her folks. I’d give her shit for getting me involved.
That’d be it for me.
Sean Skilling would lead me to Hanna, and Hanna would lead me to Claire. One way or another.
I found the Skilling residence about half a mile away, on Dancey. It had been dusk when I’d arrived at the Rodomskis’, but by the time I got to the Skillings’ night had descended completely. I drove slowly down the street, looking for numbers, marveling at how many people don’t make them easy to spot. If they didn’t want to do it for the fire department, you’d think they’d at least do it for the pizza delivery guy.
The house was even numbered, so it had to be on the left, and I figured I was only a couple of doors away when I saw a car’s headlights come on in a driveway just ahead. It had been backed in, so the lights intercepted my path. I glanced over as I passed by, blinded briefly. Brass numbers were affixed to a large decorative stone set by the curb. This was the place.
It wasn’t a car after all, but a pickup. A black Ford Ranger. Once I had the headlight glare out of my eyes, I was able to spot a young man in a ball cap behind the wheel.
I pulled over to the opposite curb as the truck roared onto the street, accelerating so quickly it fishtailed, and tore off in the direction I’d come from. I executed a fast three-point turn and hit the gas. The pickup had disappeared beyond the bend, so I thought it was unlikely he’d noticed me turning around to come after him.
A left turn, then a right, and we were on Danbury. I had a hunch where he might be going.
Four minutes later, it proved right. The Ranger crossed the street and wheeled into the parking lot behind Patchett’s. I pulled over to the shoulder so I could get a look at him as he got out of the truck and walked briskly into the bar. While he wasn’t running, there was a sense of urgency in his stride, and he moved like an athlete. He was six feet, hundred and eighty pounds, with dirty blond hair falling out from beneath a cap branded with two broad horizontal stripes across the front. A Bills cap. He wouldn’t be the only one in Patchett’s wearing one of those.
Once he’d disappeared inside, I put the Honda in park, leaving it behind a couple of Harley-Davidsons with raised handlebars, crossed the street and entered the bar. Patchett’s was like a thousand other bars. Dim lighting, loud music, railings and chairs and tables made of heavy oak, the smell of beer and sweat and human longing hanging in the air. There were about a hundred people in here, some standing at the bar, others at the tables working on ribs and wings and potato skins along with their pitchers of beer, about a dozen hanging out around the pool table.
I wasn’t the oldest guy in the room, but the crowd was mostly made up of men and women in their twenties. And, knowing Patchett’s as I did, probably several in their late teens. They were easy to spot, and not just because they looked younger. They were the ones trying the hardest to look cool while drinking. Holding the necks of their beer bottles between their index and middle fingers, like they’d been drinking this way their whole lives.
I scanned the room for Skilling, spotted him talking to a man at the bar. With the speakers blaring the 1969 hit “Proud Mary” by Creedence Clearwater Revival—there couldn’t have been a person here who was alive when that came out, and even I’d only just made it—I couldn’t make out what he was saying. I’m no lip reader, so I sidled up to the bar, behind him, caught the bartender’s attention and ordered a Corona, all the while trying to hear what the kid was saying.
It wasn’t that hard, once I got close, considering everyone had to shout to be heard over the music. The man Sean was talking to yelled, “Haven’t seen her, man. When’d you last talk to her?”
“Saw her last night!” he shouted.
“She not answering her cell?”
He shook his head. “Look, if you see her, tell her to call me, okay?”
“Yeah, no problem!”
Sean Skilling moved away from the bar and crossed the room to talk to someone standing in a group of three by the pool table, where a couple of overweight bearded men in black leather jackets, who didn’t look like they were from around here, were thoroughly engrossed. I kept my position for about thirty seconds, then took my beer and ambled in that direction.
There was a pillar about two feet away from him. Taking the side that would put my back to him, I leaned against it, but there was too much noise to pick up anything he had to say, even though his voice was raised. So I pushed myself off and wandered close to the group, pretending to watch the two bikers play pool. I thought they were wannabes, guys who didn’t make the cut for Hell’s Angels but wanted to look the part.
“Sorry, man!” I heard a girl say. “I saw her here, like, yesterday? I think it was yesterday, or it might have been the night before!”
Did Hanna know her boyfriend was so interested in finding Claire? Was Sean Skilling the guy in the pickup Claire was trying to get away from? But would Hanna have helped Claire pull a disappearing act so her own boyfriend would stop stalking her? Did that make any sense at all?
“Okay, well, if you see her, call me?” Sean asked.
Nods all around. A young man in a black T-shirt with a Batman insignia on it asked, “Hey, can I place an order with you for Saturday night?”
“Not right now, man.”
Sean spotted someone else he knew in the far corner of the room. I didn’t see much need to eavesdrop on another conversation that was going to be the same as the previous two, and besides, there was no place over there where I could lurk undetected.
I watched Sean ask some questions of a young man who was sitting at a table, wiping chicken wing sauce off his fingers with a moistened napkin. The man shook his head, and Sean nodded. Then he turned, scanned the room for anyone else he might know. Spotted a waitress, stopped her as she was crossing the room with two pitchers on a tray that she was balancing just above her shoulder. She shook her head, moved on.
Sean Skilling stood there, as if wondering what to do. He dug into his jacket for his cell phone, probably checking for a text or message he might not have heard come in, then shoved the phone back into his pocket.
He headed for the door.
I set my beer on the closest table and went out after him.
He was about to round the corner of the building when I called out to him. “Sean!”
He whirled around, squinted at me. “Yeah?”
“Sean Skilling?”
“Who the hell are— Do I know you?”
“I’m Cal Weaver.”
He cocked his head at a funny angle. “Weaver?”
“That’s right.”
“Scott’s dad.”
“Yeah,” I said.
“You’re, like, the private dick guy.” Emphasis on the word you’d expect.
“Yeah,” I said.
He shook his head violently and raised a hand, palm out. “I don’t know anything about anything.”
“You don’t even know what I want to ask you about.”
“It’s about Scott, right? I got nothing to tell you.”
“I’m not here about him. I’m trying to find Claire Sanders.”
His mouth opened, but nothing came out for a second. “What the hell have you got to do with that?”
I heard the bar door open and close behind me, a couple laughing as they walked across the street.
“Sean, listen to me. I need to talk to Hanna. I think Hanna might know where Claire is. The police are trying to find her.”
He waved a hand at me. “Fuck you, pal.”
I took a step toward him. “I’m not out to cause trouble for you. I just want to make sure Claire’s okay. Where can I find Hanna? Is she with Claire?”
I heard the door open again behind me, the brief cacophony of voices and music spilling out into the night air.
“Come on,” I pleaded. “We’ll go someplace quieter, get a coffee, you can fill me in.”
Sean Skilling laughed. “Yeah, like I’m going to go someplace with you, you fucking psycho.”
I thought I caught him looking past my shoulder for half a second. I glanced that way as someone yelled, “Take off, man!” I didn’t move quickly enough to stop the fist from connecting, though I did get an arm up in time to partly deflect it. But the blow still caught me in the side of the head, and I went down before I could get any kind of look at my attacker.
As I hit the ground, non-celestial stars swirling before my eyes, I heard two sets of footsteps running off in opposite directions.
“Fucking hell,” I muttered, putting a hand to the side of my head. I’d landed on my back. I rolled over and brought myself up to my knees, making sure the world wasn’t rotating too speedily before I got to my feet. From the parking lot, I heard the growl of a pickup, then the squeal of tires as the truck shifted from loose gravel to pavement.
“You okay?”
Standing over me was a heavyset woman, mid-sixties, gray hair hanging straight down to her shoulders in a style she probably hadn’t changed in four decades. She gave me a grin.
“Looks like you just got your ass whupped. Why don’t you come in, we’ll see if you’re in need of medical attention. My name’s Phyllis. I own this dump. And I think I got a pretty good idea who you are.”