“When does she have the ECT?” The signal broke completely, and I waited for the crackling to subside.
“-Saturday morning, eleven o’clock! Bennie? You there? You okay?”
More crackling. It was maddening. When it stopped I yelled, “Why so soon? Can’t it wait until I’m there?”
“You worry about yourself! Your momma’s fine!”
“Make them wait, Hattie! You can’t do it alone!”
“She can’t wait!” she shouted, before the signal broke for the last time.
It was inconceivable that cops had followed me here, I couldn’t have followed myself here. I was utterly and completely lost. I sat in the bananamobile with the ignition off and the car light on. Rain pelted the roof, and I turned the homemade map this way and that. As best I could tell, I was in the middle of the woods, in the dark, in a thunderstorm.
There were no streetlights in the magic forest because there were no streets, just skinny, unmarked roads that snaked through the woods. I’d passed a nature preserve an hour ago, but since then the roads meandered around forgotten ponds and alongside endless stretches of trees. Trees were even less help than corn, and they all looked the same. Brown with green at the top. I wished for a match.
I grabbed the Keystone AAA map I’d found in the glove box and held it next to Mrs. Zoeller’s map. I would’ve called her if not for the cell phone records. I didn’t want to leave a paper trail, especially one consistent with the cops’ theory of me as Eileen and Bill’s accomplice. Besides, I should be able to figure this out myself. I stared at one map, then the other. Damn. I should be close.
Fuck it. I felt like I was close; I’d rather drive around and find it. I threw the maps on the mustardy hot dog wrappers, snapped off the light, and slammed the car into reverse. When I clicked on the high beams, they shone on a tiny sign through the trees. 149. What? I rubbed a hole in the foggy windshield with the side of my hand. 149 Cogan Road. That was it! The cabin. Holy shit!
I turned off the ignition and climbed out of the car, covering myself with an Eddie Vedder CD. Rain spattered through the tree branches and onto my suit. I tramped through the underbrush in leather pumps, finding my way in the darkness with an outstretched hand. If I planned ahead I would’ve kept the headlights on, but if I planned ahead I wouldn’t be wanted for a double murder.
Light shone like a yellow square from the cabin through the trees, guiding me as I trudged on. Luckily there were no creepy animal noises. I like my wildlife on leashes, with faces you can kiss. I picked up the pace and bumped into a branch, pouring rainwater onto my padded shoulder.
Shit. I stepped over a fallen log, shoes soggy and shrinking at the toe. I was in sight of the cabin, but could make out only its outline. The block of light looked bigger, closer. I slogged through mud and wet leaves and in ten minutes arrived at a clearing. There it was. The cabin. It was made of wood, weathered and ramshackle, and stood one story tall and barely twenty-five feet wide.
My heart lifted. I would see Bill and get to the bottom of this. I went to the door, also of wood and bearing a Z brace it clearly needed. I stepped on the ratty doormat and knocked.
“Bill?” I called softly, too paranoid to shout even in Timbuktu. There was no answer.
“It’s Bennie. Let me in.” I knocked again, louder this time. Again, no answer.
“Your mom sent me. I want to help you.” I reached for the doorknob, but there wasn’t one, just a metal latch and hook that had rusted years ago. I gathered security wasn’t an issue up here in the wholesomeness.
I pressed open the door. Suddenly, something clawed at my ankle. “Aaah!” I yelped. I flailed and shook it off. The CD clattered to the ground.
“Miaow!” came a thin, high screech, and I looked down. Cowering in the yellow slice of light from the room was a tan kitten with a spiny back. Jesus. I swallowed hard, picked up the kitten, and told my heart to stop pounding. I went through the door and inside the cabin.
“Bill, look what the cat dragged in,” I called out, but there wasn’t a sound except for the rain’s patter on the roof. I stood motionless in the living room, which was empty and still. It contained a tattered couch, a lamp with a dim bulb, and a spartan galley kitchen. Hunting fatigues hung on an industrial rack against the wall. There was no TV, phone, or radio. Bill was nowhere in sight. Nobody was. Nothing looked out of order, but I was getting the creeps.
“Miaow?” The kitten jumped from my arms, her tail curled like a question mark.
“Don’t ask me, cat.”
The kitten padded into a dark adjoining room I presumed was the bedroom. I followed, edgy, and groped on the bedroom wall for a light switch.
I flicked it on and gasped. The sight was horrifying. There, stretched out on the bed in shorts and a T-shirt, was Bill.
Dead.
21
Bill’s eyes were wide open in a face that looked frozen, and his skin had the unmistakable gray-white of a corpse. Blood caked in a parched river from his nose and dried over his child’s freckles, staining his shirt brown and soaking stiff a shabby plaid bedspread. I couldn’t believe my eyes, even as they moved down his body.
A twisted pink balloon was wrapped around his upper arm like a tourniquet. It was jarringly out of place, cheery and bright, next to a lethal syringe still stuck in the crook of his arm. The balloon was still taut, so Bill’s forearm was the only part of his body that had blood in it. It was red and grotesquely swollen to the size of a club, rendering his fingers shapeless and puffy. Lying beside him on the bed was a plastic Baggie.
I backed against the bedroom door. My eyes smarted but I couldn’t look away. Bill, on drugs? An overdose? Was it possible?
“Miaow?” asked the kitten. It had jumped to the bed and was futilely rubbing against Bill’s too-pale leg.
Bill hadn’t been the type to do drugs. Had he just become despondent, or made a mistake? Maybe whatever happened with Eileen and the CEO had set him off. I remembered Mrs. Zoeller. Bill was her only child. If only I’d gotten here sooner. If only I hadn’t gotten lost.
Why had he died?
I forced my brain to function. I flashed on Bill at the stationhouse, his arms flabby and white in his jumpsuit. Weren’t his arms clean when I saw them? I’d had a client, a former heroin addict, and he’d showed me his arms once. They were so bumpy with scar tissue they looked like Amtrak’s eastern corridor.
“Miaow?” said the cat, pacing back and forth on the bed.
I fought back my emotions and leaned over Bill’s body, catching a scent of blood and feces. His arms lay stiff at his sides, and I squinted at them. No needle tracks on either one. It didn’t make sense. Was it the first time Bill had tried heroin? How likely was that? What about Eileen, did she have something to do with this? Who else did Bill know?
“Miaow!”
I looked around the bedroom. There was a bare night table and a cheap dresser with some paperbacks on top, next to an Ace comb. There was no sign to reveal what had happened. Beyond the dresser was the bathroom, and I crossed to it and peered inside. A tube of toothpaste and one of Clearasil sat on the tiny, dirty sink. There was no medicine chest, just a toilet and an old frameless mirror, its silvering wrinkled.
I faced the bedroom and poor Bill’s body on the bed. My heart felt heavy, my chest tight. From all outward appearances, he had sat at the end of the bed, mixed himself his first hit of heroin, then flopped backwards, dead of an overdose.
“Miaow! Miaow!”
“Oh, shut up,” I shouted at the animal, instantly regretting it. It was Bill’s, after all. I picked it up from the bed. It felt frail and bony, but I found myself hugging it. It gave more comfort than I expected, or knew I needed. I took one last look at Bill and a fruitless look around the cabin, then retrieved the CD and left.
I struggled back through the woods with the kitten’s flimsy claws stuck in my suit. Rain drenched us until I finally got a bead on the glow-in-the-dark Camaro. I headed toward it herky-jerky, confused and distracted, thinking about Bill. I’d have to call Mrs. Zoeller. To hell with my cell phone records, her son was dead. I dreaded
