He
turned to where Hakkala was putting away his phone. "Well, I think that's
about it. Time to go find Everett, take me back over. You think of anything
else about Merrill Libby's girl, you let me know, okay?"
"Kenzie,"
I said, but John Stone didn't hear. He set down his clipboard and headed into
the next room. Gryffin went with him.
I
looked at the table. Stone's ballpoint was lying on top of the papers he'd
filled out. It was a nice pen, dark blue with gold lettering on the barrel. I
picked it up and read PASWEGAS COUNTY POLICE DEPARTMENT: PROUD TO SERVE. I
glanced to where Stone and Gryffin were talking, their backs to me, then slid
the pen into my jacket pocket.
"Sorry
again for your loss," the sheriff said. He shook hands with Gryffin,
stepped over to have a word with Hakkala. Gryffin walked back tome.
"Well,"
he said.
"I
better get going too." I shoved my hands in my pockets and stared at my
feet. "Look, I—"
"Stop."
He turned to the window, blinking away tears, then glanced back at me.
"How're you getting back to Burnt Harbor?" '
"Toby,
I guess. If he'll take me."
"Oh,
he'll take you. If you can find him. Know where he lives?"
"Yeah,
I think so."
I
stared at him, that green-shot eye, and, inexplicably, thought of Christine.
Grief took me, the irrevocable knowledge that I was seeing him for the last
time and I would never, ever be able to make it right.
I
looked away. "I better go get my things. Will they let me go
upstairs?"
"I
already brought them down."
He
ducked into the next room, and I had a flash of panic, recalling the turtle
shell with my film in it. Before I could say anything, he'd returned.
"Here."
I tried to look grateful as he handed me my bag and camera. "Hope you get
home okay."
"Yeah,
me too. Gryffin—I'm really sorry."
I
turned to go. He stopped me and drew me to him. For just an instant he held me,
his chin grazing the top of my head. Then he pulled away and walked into the
next room.
I
zipped my jacket, grateful I still had Toby's sweater, slung my bag over my
shoulder then looked up to see Hakkala watching me.
"You
re leaving?" Unless you need me for something."
"Is
there a way to contact you—cell phone, local number?"
"I
don't have a cell phone. I'm going to Burnt Harbor to get my car and drive back
to New York. You have my number there."
He
nodded. "Thanks for your assistance," he said and rejoined the
others.
And
that was it. As abruptly as Aphrodite had dismissed me during our aborted
interview, I'd been cut loose. I really was free to go.
The
realization should have been a relief. Instead I felt a stab of hopelessness
that not even speed could blunt. I took a deep breath, went outside and started
walking, stooped against the frigid wind. I'd buy another bottle of Jack
Daniel's and then find Toby. As I headed through the evergreens I scanned the
trees, looking for signs of the animal I'd seen earlier. But there was nothing
there.
19
There
was a little crowd inside the Island Store when I arrived. Five young guys in
Carhart jackets stood by the beer cooler, talking. As the door slammed behind
me they glanced up. One of them was Robert.
"Hey,"
Suze called as I approached the counter. "What's going on up there? I
heard Gryffin's mother died."
"Yeah,
n'she probably killed her," muttered Robert.
Suze
glared at him. "It's Sunday! No beer till twelve!"
"Isn't
that one underage?" I cocked my thumb at Robert.
"What,
just because he's still in high school?" She shook her blond dreadlocks
then lowered her voice so the others couldn't hear. "They're looking for
trouble. Actually, they're looking for you. So stick around here after they
leave, okay? You guys ready?" she yelled.
They
shuffled over. They were all built like Robert, heavyset and leaning toward
muscle, with cold, challenging eyes. They bought cigarettes and Slim Jims and a
couple bottles of Mountain Dew, took their change and left, brushing past me as
they headed for the door. After they'd gone, Suze's big black dog ambled out
from behind the counter, tail sweeping the floor m a lazy wave, and snuffed at
me.
I
scratched his ear and looked at Suze. She wore a lime green hooded sweatshirt
and baggy cargo pants, earcuffs shaped like silver lizards.
"So
you heard," I said. "She died in the night, I guess. Gryffin found
her when he got up. It looks like she fell and hit her head."
"Poor
Gryffin. I never really knew her. She didn't come in much, and she wasn't real
friendly when she did. Like I said, a bitch. Want some coffee?" She filled
a Styrofoam cup. "Here. You look like you could use it."
"Thanks."
"Yeah,
I saw John Stone go up there, and that state cop. It's no surprise—you know
that, right? She was a mean drunk; she got picked up a few times over the years
when she'd go over to Burnt Harbor and drive. She finally had her license
revoked. I think Gryff got the car."
She
went into the kitchen. A moment later I heard PIL coming from the boombox.
I
wondered what she did for fun around here. Wait for people like me to show up?
I drank my coffee and glanced down toward the harbor. Robert and his cronies
stood beside an abandoned building, smoking.
"What's
his problem?" I said when Suze came back out.
"Robert?
He thinks you had something to do with Kenzie taking off."
"What?"
She
raised her hands. "I know. But that's Robert. He's not the sharpest knife
in the box."
"She
his girlfriend?"
"Nah,
they're just friends. All the kids here, you know—they fight like cats, but
they look out for each other. And people from away, they're not too popular
here. I mean, the lobster fishery's in trouble from shell disease, there was a
red tide last year killed the clamming season. The Grand Banks are fished out.
I saw some underwater pictures this guy took, an urchin diver? The whole bottom
of the ocean's scraped clean. Like a fricking desert— nothing's there. Scallop
trawlers did that. So the fish are gone, and the paper mills are shut down, and
everyone's buying their timber from Canada 'cause it's cheaper. You see those
logging trucks heading south, they're not from here. Ten years ago, MBNA came
in, hired people to work as telemarketers, and everyone thought that was the
best thing ever happened. Then MBNA pulled out and everyone's out of work
again, only now they're carrying a shitload of credit card debt. It sucks.
Meanwhile, the tourists come and think this is fucking Disneyland. You own
property here or Burnt Harbor, doesn't matter if your family's been there for a
hundred years. Our taxes went from one or two thousand bucks a year to ten or
twelve thousand. A lot of people don't make that much in a year. So they have
to sell their houses for teardowns, or their land, and all of a sudden you have
all these rich assholes complaining that they can't get a moccachino."
I
finished my coffee and tossed the cup into the trash. "Your point?"
"We
don't like people from away."
"What
about you?" I leaned against the counter. "You don't like me
either?"
Suze
set her elbows down and leaned forward until her forehead touched mine. I
cupped her chin in my hand, speed fizzing in me like champagne, then kissed
her, her mouth small and warm.
"I
like you just fine," she said in a low voice. "I was hoping you might
stick around for a while. But now—"
She
withdrew, glanced out the window and shook her head. "Those boys, they'd
just hassle you. And me. And
if
Kenzie doesn't show up soon, it could
get ugly. If I were you, I'd split."
"What,
frontier justice?"
"Pretty
much. Doesn't matter what the cops say. If they don't find her, they'll start
looking for someone else."
"Seems
like you'd have some likely candidates without going too far out of the gene
pool."
"We
hang together here. Like, we beat our wives and kids and shit, but we still
don't like people from away."
"What
about those flyers? And people disappearing and washing up on the beach? Did
they all run into someone from away?" Hey, it's nothing personal."
She
turned and climbed up the ladder. She had a cute ass, what I could see in those
cargo pants, anyway. I said, "While you're up there, get me another pint
of Jack Daniel's."
Sure."
She stepped down and over to the register. "That it?"
I
nodded. "I saw something back there by Gryffin's place. In those woods
leading up to the house, those pine trees? There was an animal up in one of
them."
"Did
it look like Robert?"
"No.
Really. I never saw anything like it before. It was about this big—." I
held out my hands. "Dark brown fur. Kind of a long fuzzy tail. It
was
fierce.
I thought it was going to attack me. It growled, and I could see
its teeth, these white sharp teeth—it was mean."
Suze
frowned. "That's weird."
"I
think it was a fisher. Toby told me about them—the ones that eat all the
cats."
"A
fisher?" She slid my Jack Daniel's into a bag and handed it to me.
"If you were over in Burnt Harbor, yeah. But not here. Fishers never leave
the mainland."
"Toby
said they can swim."
"Technically,
maybe. But they're pretty big, and their fur is so heavy that if they swim, it
just weighs them down. I know, 'cause one of my uncles used to trap them. You
take a rooster and cut its throat and hang it from a tree, alongside a steel
trap. It's illegal now. My uncle, he once saw one on the ground and it jumped,
like, twenty feet. From here—"
She
pointed to a far corner of the room. "—to there. Bang, like that. Jumped
right into the tree. Those things are vicious as a wolverine. What you saw,
that was probably somebody's cat. Was it gray? Maybe it was Smoky."
"This
was big," I said. "And it wasn't a cat."
"Well,
maybe. But I doubt it was a fisher. I've been here my whole life, and I never
heard of a fisher here. There's nothing for them to eat—no rabbits or
porcupines or anything."
"That's
why it ate Smoky." I picked up my bag. I was getting pissed off; I
definitely needed something to slow me down a little. "Is Toby around? I
need to talk to him about a ride back to Burnt Harbor."
"He's
probably still in bed." She peered down at the harbor. "Yeah, his
boat's there. You know where he lives, right? Just go round back and knock real
loud. He'll be bummed about Aphrodite—not for her, for Gryff They're good
buds."
I
stuck the bourbon into my pocket and said, "Gryffin was telling me about
that guy Denny Ahearn. He seems kind of weird. To me, anyway. Like, if this was
the United States of America, Homeland Security or
someone would be
asking
him
questions about this girl, and not me."
"Denny?"
Suze smiled. "Nah. He's pretty harmless."
"Do
you know him?"
"Sure.
I used to hang out with all those guys when I was sixteen, seventeen. Denny was
really charismatic. Plus, he always had the best dope."
She
laughed. "He was fucking crazy! The mirror game, that was one of his big
things. When you were tripping. Some people totally freaked over that shit. I
always thought it was fun. For a while, anyway. Then some sad shit came down,
Denny's girlfriend died. He never really got over that."
"How'd
she die?"
"Car
accident."
The
door banged open and the same woman with two small kids barged in.
"Listen," I said quickly to Suze. "You have a phone I could
borrow? It's long distance, but I really need to make a call down to New York.
Here—"
I
started to pull out my wallet, but Suze stopped me.
"Don't
worry about it." The kids started smacking the ice-cream cooler as Suze
handed me a phone. "Here, go upstairs, it's quieter."
I
hurried up to the second floor and dialed Phil's cell phone. It rang, I heard
the noise of downtown street traffic, then his voice.
"Phil
Cohen Enterprises."
"Phil,
it's Cass—"
"Hey
hey! Cassandra Android! How's it going up there?"
"Not
good." I paced the room nervously. "You sent me here. Why?"
"Why?"
His voice edged up defensively. "Whaddya mean, Cassie?" . "I
mean you told me that Aphrodite wanted me—that she specifically wanted me to
come up here to interview her. Then I got here and she says she never fucking
heard of me. Or you."
"No
shit." The background noise grew louder. Phil shouted at someone, then
said, "Well jeez, Cass, I—"
"Don't
fuck with me, Phil." I leaned against the wall and wiped sweat from my
cheeks. "She had no clue about any of this. She never even knew there was
an interview."