"My next column is about fishing restrictions on George's Banks, so I think you're clear."
"All right." He hunched over the beer bottle, like he was protecting it or something, and he said, ''I've decided to risk ridicule and everything that goes with it by telling other people what I've been up to. So that's what I've done, talking to folks."
"Like who?"
"Like an anthropology professor up at UNH. Like the head of an Indian awareness group, over in Porter. Like the retired curator of the Tyler Town Museum, living up in Conway."
"Why those three?"
He took a careful sip from his beer. 'Way I figure it, if the Vikings came here when I think they did, and if somewhere on a plot of land there were Viking remains, then somebody else might know about it. Thing is, they might have evidence and not know what they have. Like the Indians. Maybe there were old tales, old legends that they've kept to themselves. Or a strange artifact that doesn't make sense. Same thing with the anthropology prof, and the old curator. Maybe they have something that doesn't make sense to them, but would make a hell of a lot of sense to me."
"And what have you been able to find out?"
"Hmmm," he said. "Let's just say I've got a nice lead I'm following, and leave it at that."
"Really?"
"Really," he said. And like he did so often when he didn't want to go any further, he changed the subject. He swiveled on the stool at the countertop where we were eating. From the small kitchen, the view gave to the sliding glass doors out to the rear deck, my living room and stone fireplace with brick chimney heading up through the ceiling. "Hard to believe that this was actually officers' quarters, back when the artillery units were up and running. Man, there sure was a lot of reconstruction work since then, though. I doubt if much of the original woodwork is here. What's the basement look like?"
"Small, and dirt. Why? Want to take a look?"
He grinned. "Thought you'd never ask."
The door to the cellar was underneath the second-floor stairway, and we made our way down the steep steps, not going far before we reached the cool soil. I had a flashlight in my hand, for the basement light consists of a solitary sixty-watt bulb hanging from a cord. Before us, on concrete blocks, was my oil furnace, and further beyond was the oil tank. That was about it. But Jon wasn't interested in my heating system; he was interested in something else. He looked up and sighed and ran his fingers across the beams holding up the first floor. They were rough-hewn, pockmarked with worm holes, and didn't look like they had arrived here from a local lumberyard.
"There you go," he said. "Nice, original wood. When these timbers were felled, my friend, we were still a nation half slave and half free. Imagine that."
I did, and it made me shiver, made me think of just how old my house was. Jon then knelt down and let his fingers trace through the cold dirt. "Ever find anything in here?"
"Like what? Viking rune stones?"
He shook his head. "No. Old bones. Broken bits of pottery. Coins."
"No, I haven't, but then again, I really haven't dug around my house."
He brushed the dirt off his fingers. "You should. You might be amazed at what you find."
"Shouldn't I let somebody else do it?"
Jon stood up, being careful not to knock his head against the beams. "Like who? A professional? Look, Lewis, the state of archaeology being what it is here in New Hampshire, I doubt anybody has any particular interest in what's around your house, except for you. The students and the state are looking at bigger, more important sites, especially places where a highway's going through or there's other work that's going to permanently change the landscape. Like a gas pipeline or something. So don't be afraid of history, especially when it's on your land. It belongs to you just as much as anybody else. Remember, the first settlers came here in the 1620s. Think of that. Almost four centuries ago. There's a lot of history buried out there, and if you want to poke around in what's on your grounds, go right head."
"And if I find a Viking coin?"
"Oh, by all means, let me know," he said.
"Deal. But only if you let me in on it when you find what you've been looking for."
He seemed to think for a moment, and then stuck out his hand.
I shook it.
"Deal," he said.
And that was the last time I ever saw him alive, standing there, a smile on his face, in the tiny basement of my old house.
Now the ceremony was over and my throat got thick, as the priest turned away and so did the funeral crew. Standing under an old maple tree, its fall leaves of orange and red and yellow still hanging on, were two men in work clothes and yellow rain slickers, ready to do their work. I took a breath, felt it catch, rubbed at my eyes. That was it. Done. And very shortly Jon was to be returned to the soil that he had such delight in exploring.
I rubbed at my eyes again, rainwater now dripping down the back of my neck.
And so it happened, on a late afternoon when I decided to catch a movie at the Tyler Cinema, a four-screen theater near the center of town. One of the many advantages of being a magazine columnist ---- besides working out of the home and having a very liberal monthly deadline --- was the ability to have a schedule that let me do pretty much anything I wanted to do, day in and day out. On this particular day, one of the screens of the Tyler Cinema was being dedicated to a re-release of a great old science fiction film from 1950, Destination Moon. I sat by myself in the middle of the theater, sharing it with about a half-dozen other moviegoers scattered around, and cheerfully munched on popcorn and drank a Coke and admired the half century-old special effects, which still held up pretty well.
After the movie let out, I joined a copy of that day's
New York Times
with a light dinner at the Mooring Line, a fine old restaurant right next door to the movie theater. Dinner was a crock of French onion soup, a salad, and three jumbo shrimp, a glass of merlot, and a healthy dose of attitude from the
Times'
s editorial page. And then I left for home, and when I got there, about fifteen minutes later, I spotted the blinking green light on my answering machine, and the solitary numeral one. I punched the play button and after a long
whir-whir-whir
, from the tape, Jon's voice came up from the tiny speaker:
"Hey, Lewis ... It's about five o'clock ... Hey, you're not going to believe it, but I found it! I've got the evidence!"
He laughed on the tape and I looked down at the little speaker, hearing the syllables come pouring out, listening to the excited and happy tone in his voice, as he went on and on: "All these long years... man, I've got it in my hands, Lewis. No doubt about it... Two carvings, an ax blade, a spinning stone… real, live Viking artifacts, found right here. Jesus!"
Another bout of laughter. "Look, call me when you can. I'm gonna put 'em in a safe place and give somebody else the news... time to show somebody I knew what I was doing. Call me... Jesus! Can you believe it? I finally found it!"
With each sentence that he threw out, the hair was rising on the back of my neck. By God, he had done it. Jon had actually done it. I checked the clock in the kitchen, saw that it was 7:30 p.m. I picked up the phone and dialed Jon's number, and got a busy signal.
Another busy signal at 7:35 p.m. And more at 7:40 and 7:45 p.m.
Viking artifacts. Here in my hometown. And my friend had just proved it.
I decided life was too short to spend on busy signals, so I got in my Ford Explorer and drove up the bumpy driveway, out to the parking lot of the Lafayette House, and within about ten minutes, I got to the neighborhood of Jon Ericson's house.
A whole lot of people had gotten there before me.
I pulled over and got out and just felt like I couldn't move, could not move a single limb. Yellow police evidence tape was stretched out all around his house, there were four Tyler police cruisers and the unmarked Ford LTD cruiser that belonged to the department's sale detective, Diane Woods. There was an ambulance there as well from the fire department, the blue-uniformed firefighters resting on the rear bumper, waiting. It was a horrible sight, seeing their relaxed casualness. Neighbors of Jon were clustered in tiny little groups around the perimeter of the yellow tape, talking to each other, pointing, wondering, discussing.
I found myself by the tape barrier, facing a Tyler police officer.
His nametag said STYLES and he nodded at me like we were old friends, but for the life of me, I could not even remember anything about him. "Hey, Lewis," he said.
"Hey, yourself," I said, knowing how weak my voice sounded.
"What's going on?"
He shook his head. "Crime scene. That's all I can say."
"What kind of crime?"
Another head shake. "Sorry. Can't say."
"Diane Woods. I need to speak to her."
"You know she's busy in there."
"I know," I said. "But I've got information about what might have happened."
Styles looked at me suspiciously. "You're not shitting me, are you?"
"No."
"Because if you are... "
"It's the truth. Tell Diane that I'm out here, that I have some information."
He seemed to ponder that for a moment, and I kept looking at the house, hoping that maybe it was just a burglary, maybe a theft or simple assault or something, anything other than what I knew exactly had happened. Styles stepped away and spoke into his radio's microphone, "Unit twenty to D-one."
I heard the crackle of static. Nothing else. He tried again. "Unit twenty to D-one."
Then Diane's voice came out. "D-one, go ahead."
"Have a witness here to speak to you. Says he has information."
"I'll be right out."
"Okay," Styles said, returning to the crime scene tape. "Now we wait."
We didn't have to wait long. Diane came out of the front door, clipboard under her arm, wearing rubber gloves. Her brown hair was longer now, tied back in a simple ponytail, and she had on black sneakers, jeans, and a blue windbreaker with the Tyler Police Department insignia on the side. When she saw me she didn't look happy, and the short scar on her chin-from a drunk who fought with her once long ago in the station's booking room when she was a patrol officer-was blazing white, always a danger sign.
I beat her to it when she got close enough. "This is legit," I said. "I'm not spoofing you."
"Good," she said, her brown eyes glaring at me. "Because I'm not in the mood. What's going on?"
"Please," I said. "Jon, is he... "
Then the look in her eyes faded away and she said, "A buddy of yours, wasn't he? Yeah, I'm afraid so. Shot, Lewis."
"Shit," I said.
She opened up the metal lid on her clipboard. "Lewis, the investigation is just starting, so if you've got something, let's get to it."
"He was alive at five p.m."
She started scribbling on the clipboard. "How do you know that?"
"He called and left a message on my answering machine. He said it was five p.m. I'm sure phone records will back that up."
"Unh-hunh, okay, that's good," she said. "What kind of message did he leave you?"
A secret, he once said. Can you keep a secret?
But the time for secrets was gone. "Okay, this is going to sound crazy, but Jon's a treasure hunter. He's been looking for artifacts for all these years, looking for Vikings."
She looked up from the clipboard. "What?"
"Vikings. I know it sounds crazy, but he was convinced that Vikings had settled here, almost a thousand years ago. He's been looking for those artifacts, ever since he got out of the army."
"Still not spoofing me?" she asked.
"Still not spoofing you. And that's what the message said. That he finally found the artifacts, after a decade of looking."
Diane looked up from her clipboard and said, "Hell of a thing, to find something you've been looking for, all these years, and get murdered right afterward."
"Yeah, it's a hell of a thing, and I think I know who you might want to talk to."
"Who?"
"His brother, Ray Ericson. Runs an antique store up in Porter, ex-con. Not very friendly and the two of them have had words before."
"What kind of words?"
"While looking for Vikings, Jon also manages to find other things. Like coins, old nautical artifacts, stuff like that. What he didn't like or didn't want to keep, he passed on to his brother to sell. But his brother thought the whole Viking thing was a waste of time."
"Unh-hunh," she said, scribbling some more in her clipboard. "I'm going to need to talk to you later, Lewis. After we clear the scene and figure out where we're headed."
"Look, can I come in and ---"
Diane took a hand from the clipboard and gently touched my shoulder. "My friend, there's nothing you can do in there for him. It's my job now. Please let me do it. You've already done enough, giving me that phone information. Just let me be and we'll talk later, okay?"