Another soft touch of the hand. "You find out yourself, and you help her, okay? Good night, Lewis."
"Good night, Diane," I said, watching her walk around to the rear of the pavilion, where her car had been hidden, and I stayed on the cold picnic table as she drove away, heading back to her warm condo and her companion, and when I thought enough time had passed, I got off the table and made my own way home.
It turned out to be a restless night, filled with periods of half dozing, when random dreams and thoughts would go slouching through my mind, like the defeated troops of some great army, struggling to find its way home, struggling to find some semblance of order and peace. I thought about Jon and our meetings and our friendship, I thought about his brother Ray and what Felix and I had done to him, and I thought about all the miles driven to see a college professor, an Indian activist, and an angry old amateur historian. I thought, too, of that dark night in the antique shop and the man who attacked me, and of the time my Ford Explorer went off the road in Durham.
Lots of thoughts, lots of nagging. I turned over and over again in bed, trying to get comfortable, failing every time. There was a point when I read and reread a copy of
American Heritage
magazine, to try to get my mind focused on something else, but that didn't work either.
And for a few moments, here and there, I thought about the red-haired woman who had driven me home, and a red-haired woman, years ago, whom I loved dearly and who was now dead.
Was that why I had earlier thought I had met Miss Wynn before?
Didn't make sense. And so I tried to sleep.
The next phone call came at seven a.m. sharp, and I rolled over in bed and grabbed the phone and grunted something into the receiver.
"Lewis?" came the slightly distorted voice.
"Yeah," I managed to say, rubbing at the sleep crusts in my eyes.
"Hey, it's Felix. How are you doing?"
I sat up in bed. “Where the hell are you?"
"In jail, where else?" Now I could see why his voice was distorted. There were voices in the background, the murmurs of other men, no doubt waiting in line to use the pay phone.
I said, "How's your hand?"
"It's been better. Look, this is charming and everything, but I don't have much time. I need to know how you're doing."
I rubbed at my eyes again. “I’m doing okay."
"No you're not," he said. "I know how the Lewis Cole mind works, and right now, it's filled with guilt. Am I right?"
"Felix, we were after the wrong guy," I said. "From a very good source, he didn't have anything to do with his brother's death. He was innocent."
"Then I guess he shouldn't have been acting guilty, right?"
"Felix... "
"Hey, don't get all mushy and sentimental over Ray Ericson, considering what he's done in his life. And what we were doing was trying to get information. Okay, so it turns out he was telling us the truth. We had to make sure. And besides, you weren't really going to have me take his pants down, right?"
I didn't say anything.
"Lewis, you're not answering me."
"Because I don't have much of an answer. I don't know what I would have done."
"Then you're an awfully poor judge of your own character, my friend. I don't care what you thought you were going to do, I'm positive about this. If those cops hadn't shown up when they did, you and I would have been out of that house within ten minutes, Ray Ericson would have been counting up some money for his troubles and cursing us for stopping by, and that would have been that. Damn cops. Always getting in the way."
"Speaking of getting in the way, what's your status?"
A brief laugh. "Still a prisoner, bail still up in the air, but don't worry, I'll be out of here soon enough. Okay? Look, the line behind me for this phone is getting pretty long and ---"
"One more thing."
"Make it snappy."
"When we were in your rental car, just before walking up to the house, you said something to me. Something important. But I can't remember it."
"Shit, Lewis, we were talking about a lot of things. About how we were going to approach the house. About what we had to do. About looking at the whole picture."
"There, right there."
"Hunh?"
"The last thing you mentioned," I said, now swinging my legs out of bed, sitting up, things clicking. "What did you say?"
"Cripes, I don't know. Something about having to look at the whole picture, everything that's out there. That's what I said."
Cissy Manning, my dear love, with her bright scarlet hair, dead, all these years.
And Miss Wynn, who took me home and offered me so much. And... damn it. There it was. Right there.
"Thanks," I said. "Thanks a lot, Felix. It's going to help a lot."
“Well, if you say so. You take care of yourself and don't fret about what we did to Ray. All right?"
"Sure."
"Good. Now, I've got to make another phone call, and see if these fine gentlemen behind me will grant me that boon."
Felix hung up, and so did I, and suddenly I felt better. Something had just snapped into place.
Time for a shower, breakfast, and to hit the road. I got up and did just that.
Chapter Eighteen
Just like the last time, I met up with Paula Quinn as she was sitting on the hood of her new Toyota Camry at the end of a driveway off of busy Route 1. And just like the last time, I got out of my Explorer and walked up to her, and she turned and gave me a look as I approached.
But everything else was different,
The fake Tudor English home of a New Hampshire poet named Donald Burnett was no longer there. At first I thought that Paula had pulled her plan off, but I saw how wrong I was when I got closer and saw the pile of timbers and wood and shingles and broken glass that had once been a house, and which Paula so desperately had wanted to turn into a home.
I sat on the cold hood of the car and put my arm around her, brought her close.
"Damn it to hell, I'm so sorry," I said.
"Not your fault," she said, voice quavering.
“Then whose fault is it?"
She wiped at her eyes and her voice got calmer, got stronger.
"Oh, a whole number of people, I guess, starting with the greedheads who sit on the board of selectmen. You remember, there was this deal, right? Buy the house for one dollar, get it the hell off the property, and Sy Hartmann from Lawrence could build his convenience store or QuickStop or whatever the hell they're calling it nowadays. That had been the deal." Then her voice lowered, to an anguished whisper. "Damn it, that had been the deal."
"What happened?"
"Sy sweetened the pot, though everybody denies it. He said he couldn't afford to wait for a buyer --- namely me --- to get the financing and get a moving company located and do everything else to get this house safely out of here. Claimed that bad weather would come and he didn't want to spend extra to have to build his place when the snows start up. So he offered a deal, making a donation to a local youth charity, in exchange for the selectmen changing the deadline as to when I could get the house out of here."
"A youth charity?"
"Yeah," she said, and I could see the tears trickling down her face, though her voice remained clear and calm. "A goddamn youth charity, and guess whose wives serve on the board of directors for this little charitable effort? Nothing like a little pork slung their way to move government along."
I gave her shoulders another squeeze. "When did they start tearing it down?"
"Yesterday afternoon. The fuckers. I'm sorry... it's just, well, you know, they almost arrested me here, you know that? I was putting up a protest, I was about ready to throw myself in front of the bulldozer, when a couple of Tyler's finest showed up and tried to calm me down."
She wiped at her eyes but the tears kept on rolling. "Then... I made a deal. Give me fifteen minutes inside the house and I'd stop fighting."
"What did you do with the fifteen minutes?"
"Oh, took a little last stand, I guess. I took my camera and went through the rooms and took all these photographs, thinking that one of these days, when Philistines aren't ruling the town, there would be a need or something for evidence of what was once here. When a poet with the heart of an Englishman lived here. Before progress came along and ripped this piece of history out of the town, and replaced it with a gas station."
I sat with her as the wind kicked up some leaves. A couple of shingles hanging loose from a piece of the destroyed roof flapped in the breeze. "Go on," she said. "You know you want to ask the question."
"None of my business," I said.
"Maybe so, but still, yeah, the first phone call and many subsequent calls I made were to my dear boy, one Mark Spencer, the town counsel. I won't bore you with the play-by-play except to say that there was nothing he could do. His hands were tied. He worked at the pleasure of the town and they were within their rights to do what they wanted with this property. Even if it meant screwing me over and destroying a part of our past. There was nothing he could do."
"Sorry again," I said.
"Men," she said, and that was a comment that was impossible to address. So I sat there and looked at the ruins of the house, and Paula patted me on the leg and said, "I need to get back to the paper. I'm going to try to do my best to write a calm, dispassionate story about how the selectmen --- with the support of the town counsel, who supposedly represents the town --- did something awful here yesterday."
"Your dear boy won't like that."
She smiled through the tears. "Then I'll tell him my hands are tied. That I work at the pleasure of my publisher, and they are within their rights to publish anything they damn please."
"Good for you."
Then she brushed away some of her fine blond hair and said, "And you, my friend. What have you been up to lately?"
"Stuff," I said.
"Stuff? That's one word that can mean a hell of a lot of things. Still on the quest?"
"Yes, I am," I said.
"Has it been a good one?"
I thought back to everything I had done these past several days, the people I had visited, the people I had hurt, from William Bear Gagnon to Ray Ericson.
"No, it's been a lousy one."
She smiled through her tears. "Then why keep it up?"
"Because... I owe somebody something."
"Jon Ericson?"
"Yeah," I said. "I owe it to him to get the facts straight, to get the story straight, to get the history straight."
She nodded and said, "Good for you. I just hope you wrap it up soon, Lewis. Sometimes, history... well, it grabs hold of you. Like this damn house. And if it doesn't work out, it has the potential to break you, break you in a very bad way."
Paula wiped at her eyes and said, "Enough of philosophy this morning. And I have a newspaper story to write. And you?"
"I have a quick question for you, if you don't mind."
"After listening to me here, you've got your question," she said. "Go ahead."
"Jon Ericson's funeral."
"Yes?"
I said, "I pretty much knew everybody there. You and Diane and Felix Tinios and a few members of town boards. Except there was this one couple, sitting in the front. Young couple. She had red hair, her friend had a beard. Do you know who they were?"
"No, but I bet I know who does."
"Who?"
"Carl Threadgold. Threadgold Funeral Home. I'm sure he'll be able to tell you everything you need to know."
“Why?"
She went around to the front of her car, opened up the door.
"Because Carl loves to know the locals, loves to know who they are and where they live. Oh, he'll talk to you, Lewis, but be careful. He'll try to sell you a funeral package before you head out the door."
"Maybe someday, but not today."
"That's the spirit. Hold on." She leaned over and did something inside her car, and then came out, holding a dollar bill in her small hand. "Here. I won't be needing this."
I gently took her hand and clasped it tight. "Keep it. You never when you might need it."
"A dollar?"
"Sometimes a dollar is just enough."
She smiled again and kept the dollar bill, and I leaned forward and kissed her on her forehead, and she said, "Thanks. Take care."
"You, too."
And I guess the noble thing would have been to stand there and watch her drive out, and mourn for a bit over the ruins of the house and Paula's dream, but I had things to do, so I got into my Ford and followed her out to Route 1.
Carl Threadgold was about ten years older than me, wearing a dark suit, white shirt, and blue necktie, and he had the cheerful persona of a man who knew that his line of business was recession-proof, depression-proof, and immune to almost every business cycle known to mankind. His hair was carefully groomed, as were his fingernails, and I had the sense he followed some internal guidebook on How to Look to Comfort the Grieved. He led me into his office and he said, "Sure, I remember you. You gave that nice reading at Jon Ericson's service."