“Claudia’s not very happy about Bement being involved with Justine Kershaw. How do you feel about it?”
“I envy him,” Mark said softly, gazing out the window again. “He’s happy. To hell with the rich bitches his mother wants him to date. To hell with Stanford. None of that will make him happy. Believe me, I know what I’m talking about. I’m just hanging on by my fingernails. If it weren’t for Danielle, I’m not sure I’d be making it at all.” Mark shot a quick look at her. “We’re not involved, if you’re wondering. Danielle’s like the sister I never had. She lets me talk. She believes in me.” Mark trailed off, his eyes puddling with tears. “I fell in love with a woman of great beauty and privilege. Eric married a Sheetrocker’s daughter who absolutely no one would mistake for Angelina Jolie. And yet I’d trade places with him in a second. He has work that gives him great satisfaction. And a goodhearted woman who is truly there for him when he…”
Des’s pager beeped at her now from her belt.
“I’ll have to take this,” Des said, grateful for the interruption. She was starting to feel suffocated by the man’s warm, wet blanket of selfpity. “You’ve been real helpful, Mr. Widdifield.”
He shrugged his soft shoulders, sorry to be losing his audience. “I hope I didn’t go on about myself too much.”
“Not at all. You did good.”
“Trooper, you’re a terrible liar.”
She reached for her cell phone as she darted out the door. It was Luke Olman who’d paged her. She got through to him while she was heading back down the promenade toward her cruiser. “What do you know, Oly?”
“How much that Gullwing is worth, for starters,” the investigating detective replied. “The Hemmings Motor News website has one listed for-get this-$325,000. This isn’t a car. It’s a highend antique. Nobody’s going to return that thing by nightfall. Or ever. It’s gone.”
“Color me down with that. Pick up anything on canvass?”
“One tidbit from the guy who drives the recycling truck. Know that commuter parking lot on Old Shore Road next to the I95 onramp? When he was on his way to the town garage early this morning he saw a huge tractortrailer idling there. This was at maybe a quarter past six.”
“The longhaulers pull in there sometimes to catch a few zees,” Des told him as she reached her cruiser and got in. “As long as they’re gone by rush hour, I leave ’em be. Did he notice any markings on it?”
“He didn’t, no. Think it might connect up?”
“It might,” Des said, mulling it over.
“Des, I ran that criminal background check you asked for. How did you know?”
“I didn’t.” She felt her pulse quicken. “Just had a hunch.”
“Well, this is something we definitely need to pursue. I’m heading back up there now. Would you mind sitting in? You know these people.”
She rang off and started her cruiser back toward Four Chimneys, thinking she wouldn’t mind stopping by Eric’s farm to see if the Kershaw brothers had shown for work. If they hadn’t, it would lend a whole lot of credence to the idea that they’d suddenly gotten a few thousand ahead.
The sun was starting to burn through the morning fog as she eased her way back up through the gentlemen’s farm country. The trees alongside the road were still iron gray and bare, the wild lilacs and blackberries nothing but brambles. But the sunlight on her face felt warm through the windshield, hinting tantalizingly at spring for the second day in a row.
As Des slowed down to make a left into the driveway of Four Chimneys, she noticed a ray of that sunlight glinting off of something shiny in the roadside brush. Her first thought was that it was an empty beer can that a thoughtless passerby had tossed in there. Her second thought was that it looked like something bigger. More like a bicycle. She didn’t have any current stolen bike reports. Wrong time of year. Still, she pulled onto the shoulder and got out for a closer look.
It was a beatup old mountain bike with two grocery carts chained to its rear rack. She recognized this odd little conveyance at once-it belonged to Dorset’s Can Man. Although why old Pete would ditch it in the brush near the driveway to Four Chimneys she could not imagine. The grocery carts were empty. Typically, he’d have himself a pretty full load by the time he made it this far up Route 156. Yet there was no sign of his haul. Or, for that matter, of Pete himself.
Des was standing there in the ditch, trying to puzzle it out, when she noticed the trampled, slushy mud beyond the bicycle. Someone, it appeared, had dragged something deeper into the woods. She stepped her way carefully through the thicket for a better look.
And that’s when she found Pete.
CHAPTER 9
Last winter, on the night I turned fourteen, my two older brothers got me high on Jose Cuervo and weed and took turns raping me. They raped me pretty much every night after that. At first, I tried to fight them. But I was much better off if I didn’t resist or cry for help. Because if I did stuff like that they’d beat me so bad I could barely get out of bed the next day. So I would just lie there and let them do what they wanted. They had me outnumbered. And there was noone to answer my cries for help. My mother was dead. My father was always passed out drunk pretty. And it wasn’t like he cared anyway.
Besides, I could take it.
That’s one thing I can do like nobody else. I can take it.
After a few weeks, when the thrill of banging me wore off, they started passing me around. Every day after school, their friends would come by the house and do me in my room. Sometimes a half-dozen or more of them would line up outside my bedroom door. Before long, I’d done pretty much every guy in their class. My not-so-secret nickname around school became She’ll Do Ya. That’s what they called me.
Me, I stayed high pretty much all of the time.
My brothers did this to me for the coolness of it. And they did it for the money. They collected off of me, all right. If the guy was a friend of theirs, I cost twenty. If he was some rich jerk, and believe me there are lots of those in this town, I was fifty. Condoms were mandatory. I got none of the money they collected. Not one cent.
This town is really small and proper and New Englandy. You would die if you saw how pretty it is. Anyway, it didn’t take long before word about me got out. One of the rich jerks told his father, who is this big-time state judge. The judge didn’t get in my father’s face about it. He went right for my brothers. And now here’s the part that shouldn’t have surprised me but totally did. The judge didn’t come down on them. He just wanted in on it for himself and his own friends.
So now I’m doing the dads.
I’m trying to think if there’s a single upstanding do-gooder in this town who I haven’t done. Nope, can’t think of one. Not unless you count my pediatrician because that would be even too weird. I’ve done every big shot in town government. I’ve done my minister, whose whole thing is preaching Moral Values. I’ve done my history teacher, who’s always lecturing us on how we all have to stay vigilant against terrorists and other such evildoers. Guess what? The evildoers are already here. They’re passing themselves off as upstanding, freedom-loving citizens. Which they’re not. I can tell you that they’re not.
A lot of them own boats. One of their favorite things is to take me along on their fishing trips. Maybe four men go. All of them rich and important. My brothers collect a hundred apiece from them. Even more for overnighters. I don’t like the boat trips very much. I’m always afraid they’ll throw me overboard and leave me out there to drown. They all trust each other. But me they aren’t so sure about. I’m the one they fear. If I ever decided to out them, I mean. Actually, it amazes me they haven’t thrown me overboard by now. But I’m still here. I guess the reason I am is they’d miss doing me. Plus, they probably figure no one would listen to me anyway, right? Why would they? I’m just some underage skank. If I did try to make trouble they’d probably just shove me in a hospital somewhere for drugged-out teen nymphos. Absolutely no one would believe me.
You believe me, don’t you? The reason I’m asking is that there’s more I want to tell you. I’ve been kind of
