pranksters in the Woodstock State Correctional Facility, all in short order.
All that was according to the official written report, tailored for public consumption and rendered in such obtuse pseudo-legalese that I had trouble translating it. There were three remaining sources of information I could use to dig into the case: the court records, located upstairs in the derelict, sauna-like bathroom; the police case file, a bound logbook stuffed with additional odds and ends scribbled on napkins, paper placemats, and what have you; and the officers’ notebooks, those small black jobs we all carry around to make personal notes and which don’t belong to anyone but ourselves. The notebooks are usually the most telling, of course, assuming the owner has kept them and can still decipher his own handwriting, but they are sacrosanct-some of what’s in them could get a cop into serious trouble. Had the head guy on the job been Murphy, I might have gotten some access to his notebook. Considering that man was actually my dear friend Kunkle, I wasn’t going to waste time worrying about my chances.
The case file was the logical first step, but it too demanded some deciphering. Many of the items thrown into it were comprehensible only to the throwers, and since Frank wanted me to act invisible, I was in a bad position to ask for favors.
So, for the moment, the court records were the only road I could travel. I closed the written report before me, returned it discreetly to the filing cabinet in the main office, and lumbered my way back upstairs to the Clerk of Court.
The girl behind the counter was her usual summery self. “Two days in a row? I thought you didn’t like the stair [ike' les.”
“I’m working on a medical disability. I need your indulgence again.”
As before, she glanced at the door behind her and lowered her voice. “Shoot.”
“Are you the only person from this office who goes upstairs?”
She nodded. “You’ve obviously never seen my boss.”
I had. It was a rhetorical question. “What would you do if you found someone going through those files without your clearance?”
She pursed her lips. “Other people have junk up there.”
“This would be your junk-like, say, in a bathroom.”
“If he was someone I knew,” she smiled, “and he wasn’t removing anything or making a mess out of the filing, I think I’d just say ‘Hi’ and maybe offer him a fan.”
I smiled back. “Thank you.”
The first thing I did was search the upper floor for a light with a stronger bulb than the one hanging from the middle of the bathroom ceiling. The best I could manage was seventy-five watts. I then stripped to the waist, shifted the boxes into a rough beginning-middle-end order, and settled as comfortably as I could on the toilet seat. I opened the first file from the first carton and began to read.
Gail lived on Meadowbrook Road, north of West Brattleboro, actually not far from Orchard Heights. But where the latter had appeared as if by the wave of a Realtor’s wand, Gail’s neighborhood had followed an unrushed evolution from countryside to farms, and from farms to large family homes. Lately, the occasional one-and-a-half story modern ranch-style was starting to appear, but with discretion-even lending a certain democracy to the street.
Her house had been an apple barn once, a small part of a large area still referred to as Morrison’s Farm. No one named Morrison lived on the road anymore, and perhaps predictably there wasn’t a real farm anywhere in the vicinity. But the apple barn remained, high at the top of a field facing east, overlooking where the main house had once been and where a long uncared-for driveway now struggled up the slope to meet it.
That, of course, was unplowed. Every year I reminded her to set up a contract with someone to plow the drive regularly, and with equal consistency she forgot about it until she’d been snowed in several times. Her stubborn absent-mindedness had become an early winter rite for both of us, a demonstration of her reluctance to let the fall slip away without protest. Sentiment aside, I thought it was a pain in the butt.
I made as good a try as I could at the hill, fishtailing like crazy, bald tires whirring like dynamos, and ran out of steam about half way up, as usual. With a world-weary sigh-always good for the soul when no one else is around to lend sympathy-I got out into the early evening darkness and trudged the rest of the journey in my ancient, half- laced boots. I saw her watching me from behind the sliding-glass door of the porch, a mug of something hot cradled in both hands. She was wearing blue jeans and a work shirt, and they and the soft [anhe backlighting from within the house showed off her slim, almost skinny outline. She turned on a light as I reached the porch steps, and drew open the door.
“When are you going to put on snow tires?”
“Ha, ha.” I got to the top and she carefully wrapped her arms around me and gave me a kiss. I lifted her slightly off her feet, swung her into the house, and closed the door.
“I think I just poured tea down your back,” she whispered in my ear.
“Then it’s probably on your rug, too.”
We separated and looked at the small dark stain on her rug. She shrugged. “One of thousands. That’s why I put it in front of the door. You want some?” She proffered her cup.
I sniffed suspiciously. “What is it?”
“Sleepy Time.”
I wrinkled my nose. “How about some nice, sweet, artery-clogging cocoa or something?”
“You got it.” She headed for the kitchen, and I went for the huge, overstuffed couch in front of the fireplace. I settled in its buxom embrace, stuck my stockinged feet out on the coffee table, and laid my head back on the pillows. I loved this woman, if not for herself then for her truly unique sofa. High above me a shiny aluminum mobile turned slowly in the air currents near the cathedral ceiling. The house was a mishmash of open levels, bare beams, and narrow staircases; you couldn’t walk ten feet without climbing up, stepping down, or fighting vertigo at some railing-free edge. Even then, it paid to watch your step. Dozens of little knickknacks-pots, wooden boxes, statuettes, rocks, sea shells, and God knows what else-lurked like frozen pets all over the house, hiding on the stairs and around corners as if waiting for dinner.
She came back in, handed me a mug, and wedged herself in the opposite corner of the couch, wriggling her toes under my thigh. She looked beautiful with her long hair spread out against the pillows.
“I’m glad you’re back.”
She took a sip of her tea and smiled. “Did you miss me?”
“Yes. A lot.”
She was quiet for a while and I just lay there, trying to melt through the pillows to the floor. The crackling of the fire massaged my brain.
“Sounds like you’ve been busy.”
I rolled my head on the pillow to look at her. “Oh?”
“The shooting. It’s all I’ve heard about since I got back.”
“Yeah. It’s still up in the air. We’ll see.”
“You want to talk about it?”
“The shooting?”
“That or whatever is causing that furrow on your brow. It always gets deeper when you’re thinking about something.”
Involuntarily I touched the permanent crease [aneingbetween my eyebrows. My father had sported one too. When he got mad it had given him the look of a wrathful Zeus-used to scare the hell out of me.
I smiled at the memory. “I guess it’s time for a vacation.”
“You just had one.”
“Wasn’t long enough.”
She laughed and put her cup down. “Okay, let’s hear it.”
I was a little embarrassed. The urge to share my thoughts quarreled with the stiff-upper-lip image I had of myself. She’d also made me feel I was on a psychiatrist’s couch, which was not somewhere I ever yearned to be. “Do you charge for this?”
“Maybe-but not money.” She gave me a friendly leer.
“Well, hell. Let’s pay now and talk later.” I stretched my hand up the inside of her thigh.
