“I am.”
A zillion brain cells clamored that it was a bad idea. I waited for opposing views. Heard none.
“I drive,” I said.
North Carolina is loaded with little pockets that have managed to remain on the far side of rural. Fries had found one of them. Or someone had found it for him.
Following Galimore’s directions, I’d taken the outer beltway, then gone east on NC 24/27. Just before Locust, I’d cut north on 601, then made several turns, ending up on a stretch of gravel that hardly qualified as a road.
For several minutes we both assessed the scene.
If Galimore’s information was correct, Eugene Fries lived in the seediest trailer I’d ever seen. Its hitch rested on a boulder, keeping the thing more or less horizontal.
The trailer had no wheels, its flip-open windows were rusted shut, and a mound of debris rose halfway up the side facing us. BOLER was barely legible on its sun-fried aluminum.
A brand name? The owner’s name? A name given to the trailer itself? Whatever. I suspected Boler had been parked sometime this millennium and never again moved.
The trailer occupied most of a small clearing surrounded by hardwoods and pines. Along its perimeter I could see more trash heaps.
Behind and to the trailer’s right stood a shed constructed of haphazardly nailed two-by-fours. A dirt path circled from the trailer’s door around the hitch and boulder toward the shed. Straight shot to the can. Though gray and weathered, the outhouse seemed of more recent vintage than Boler.
To the trailer’s left loomed an ancient oak whose trunk had to be eight feet in diameter. Its gnarled limbs stretched over both trailer and shed. In its shadow, the earth was dark and bare.
Four feet up the oak’s trunk, I spotted two bolts. Clipped to each was a chain, now hanging slack. The stainless-steel links looked shiny and new.
My eyes traced the chains downward, then out across the bare ground. As I feared, each ended in a choke- collar clip.
“There might be dogs,” I said. “Big ones.”
“Yeah.” Galimore’s tone suggested he shared my apprehension.
As one, we lowered our windows.
And heard nothing. No birdsong. No barking. No WKKT Kat Country music twanging from a radio.
I sorted smells.
Damp leaves. Moist earth. An organic pungence that suggested garbage rotting in plastic.
Galimore spoke first. “You stay here. I’ll see if anyone’s home.”
Before I could object, he was out of the car. Couldn’t say I was unhappy. My mind was conjuring images of Rottweilers and Dobermans.
Galimore took two steps, then paused.
No slathering canines came charging forth.
Looking left and then right, Galimore headed across the ten feet of open space between the road and the trailer. A backward crooking of his right elbow told me he was armed.
Striding with purpose, he went directly to the trailer’s only door. His voice broke the stillness. “Mr. Fries. Are you in there?”
No response.
Galimore called out again, louder. “Eugene Fries? We’d like to talk to you.”
Nothing.
“We’re not going away, Mr. Fries.” Pounding the metal door with the heel of his left hand. “Best you come out.”
Still, no one answered.
Galimore stepped back to recheck his surroundings. And made the same observation that I had. The only path in the clearing was the one leading to the outhouse.
I watched Galimore circle the boulder and hitch, then disappear behind the trailer.
Time passed.
I checked my watch. Three-twenty-seven.
How long had Galimore been gone?
My eyes roved the clearing. The edge of the woods. The trailer.
Three-thirty-one.
I drummed anxious fingers on the wheel. Where the hell was he?
Three-thirty-four.
A yellow jacket buzzed the windshield, tentative. Landed. Crawled, antennae testing.
The tiniest breeze rustled the leaves overhead.
