Felix was now sitting, arms folded across his chest, and I shrugged. "Just trying to find out who killed my friend."
Felix said, "Oh, you're doing much more than that, and we both know it. My question is, what's driving you? I know you said it's personal but please, Lewis. The man was not family. He was just a friend. And no offense, but from what I can tell, he hasn't been a friend of yours for that long. Am I right?"
"Maybe."
"So. What's going on?"
I looked at Felix and recalled the times we had shared, the blood we had seen spilt during some unusual circumstances, and saw his quiet eyes, knew the usual evasiveness on my part wouldn't work. The sensation in my chest was still there, like heavy cement, slowing everything down.
"It's hard to explain."
"Try me," Felix said.
"He's just... well, he was older and we had the same interests... and... Look, he wanted to do something in his life, accomplish one goal. That's all. One goal. And when that had been reached, somebody killed him... Right after reaching his dream, he's dead... And... I just can't let that stand."
Felix leaned over the table. "Lewis."
"Yeah."
"Time for a personal question, so here we go. Something you've never talked about, something I've never asked, figuring you could use the privacy. But here we go. Your parents. Are they alive?"
The sudden memory made my eyes blink, and for a while I was a college student again, at Indiana University, wondering why the phone in my dorm was ringing at such an ungodly hour. "No."
"When did they die?"
"You mean, when were they killed?"
A nod. "All right, when were they killed?"
"When I was a senior in college. They were... um, it was wintertime, and they were taking a commuter flight to Indianapolis, to visit some family. It was raining. The wings on the aircraft didn't have the proper deicing equipment, and they were delayed getting in and were told to fly in big circles around the sky. Which they did, until the ice on the wings caused the plane to flip over and bore a hole into an Indiana cornfield. My parents and nineteen others."
"Jesus," Felix breathed.
"If you say so."
"You're an only child, correct?"
"Correct."
Felix nodded and he unfolded his arms and moved his hands some across the table. "Explains a lot, then."
"You don't seem to be the kind to psychoanalyze, Felix."
"No, but I am the kind to see things, and what I see is this guy being a father figure to you. Older gent, retired, taking an interest in you and your home and having things in common. Makes some sense, especially after he's been murdered."
I started to say something and he raised his hand and said, "Look, let's just leave it at that, okay? That's all I needed to know, and that's fine. No more pushing on my part. I now have my answer."
The waitress came by, put the check down, and Felix moved quicker than me and said, "And now I have the check. Let's get out of here."
I made a suggestion and Felix thought I had really gone around the bend, but I managed to say that it wouldn't be that bad, so we headed dawn to the Porter traffic circle, flipped around, and found ourselves back on Route I-A again, heading into Maine. Felix swore as he saw the flashing blue lights up ahead and tapped his fingers on the steering wheel and said, "If somebody recognizes this car and we get hauled in, you can get your own damn lawyer to bail you out. Okay?"
"Sure," I said. "A small price to pay to satisfy my curiosity."
Felix moved us over into the left lane, to leave plenty of room for the little sideshow that was taking place at Seacoast Antiques. There were two Porter police cruisers parked there, with an unmarked vehicle that had flashing lights in the grill. What little traffic out here at this hour had slowed down some, taking in the show, and I saw two uniformed cops, talking to each other, while a plainclothes cop --- the detective, no doubt --- was working around the edge of the broken window. The chair was still in the paved area out front, on its side, as well as a shower of broken glass. The detective looked up and I quickly sank down into the seat.
"Problem?" Felix asked.
"Yeah. I know the detective."
Felix swore and said, "Did he see you?"
"I don't think so."
The traffic moved ahead some, and then I raised my head and said, "You and the contact in the police department still on speaking terms?"
"You could say that."
"Well, find out if there was a blood trail they found at the store. Maybe my stabbing victim ended up at a hospital or something."
"Unh-hunh," Felix said. "And what are you going to do in the meantime?"
I yawned, sat back in the seat. "Get the Sunday newspapers and crawl into bed, that's what."
We were silent for the next twenty minutes as Felix drove us south, back to Tyler Beach. By the time we reached Atlantic Avenue the sun was rising out there, above the cold and wide waters of the Atlantic Ocean. I kept watch of the changing patterns of pink and red and blue, as the sun rose up over the ocean, thankful that at least the damn rain clouds had moved on. Felix pulled into the parking lot of the Lafayette House and said, "I'd drive you to the door, but I'm afraid I'd lose the transmission on some of the rocks in your yard."
"Fair enough," I said. "Thanks for your help. And for breakfast." "No problem," he said. "We'll talk."
"I'm sure we will."
I got out into the cold morning air, but before closing the door,
I leaned back in and said, "Felix."
"Yeah?"
"What about your family? Your own parents. What about them?"
Felix smiled. "You've never asked me."
I nodded. "That's right. I never have."
He said, "It's cold out there. Get on into bed with your newspapers, all right?"
"Sure," I said, and I slammed the door shut. He backed his way out of the parking lot and then was back on Route I-A, heading north, driving safe and sure, like he always did, like he knew exactly who he was and what he was doing, a trait of his that I've always envied.
I stood for a moment, watched the sunrise, and then trudged across the street to the Lafayette House, as promised, to get the Sunday newspapers.
Chapter Five
On Monday the storm clouds had returned to the New Hampshire seacoast, and the bruise on my chest was turning an impressive green and blue. Getting dressed took some time, as moving my arms caused my chest to throb and tighten up, and I spent a few minutes before the mirror, trying to decipher what in hell I had been struck with the previous night, back in Porter, whether it was a tire iron or golf club or cricket bat. By the time I buttoned up my shirt, I had given up on my quest. I was just glad that whatever had hit me hadn't gone into the back of my skull.
I was also happy about another thing, my morning ritual, in checking my skin for any unusual bumps or swellings. There are four scars of various sizes and lengths over my body, where non-cancerous tumors have been cut away over the years, a recurring souvenir of my time in government service.
Satisfied that my body had gone through another day without betraying me, I went out into the bracing morning air and went looking for the second-best writer in Tyler.
I found Paula Quinn of
The Tyler Chronicle
not in her office, but at a small home on Lafayette Road, also known as Route 1. That's the problem with lots of roads around this part of New Hampshire; they end up having two or three different names, sometimes changing names in midstream, which goes a long way toward confusing visitors and out-of-towners. Not that confusing visitors is always a bad thing; it just means precious time wasted sometimes, giving directions to people who want to know how come the Tyler Road suddenly became the Exonia Road, and why couldn't somebody do something about it?
The home was set away some distance from the constant traffic of Route 1, which is a two-lane highway with a middle turning lane that runs from Falconer in the south, by the Massachusetts border, all the way up to Porter, just before the Maine border. I had seen photos of the highway at the end of the nineteenth century: narrow two-lane, with lots of homes, white picket fences, and large elm trees, overarching everything. But the elms are dead, the road is wide and busy, the fences are gone, and so are most of the homes. This house was an aberration, and I couldn't figure out why Paula was there.
She was sitting on the hood of her car, a new red Toyota Camry, and waved at me as I approached. It was another brisk day for October, the wind kicking up some, the chill in the air predicting a heavy and hearty winter. The home was brick and dark wood, with small windows, a narrow pitched roof, and it seemed out of place. It looked like it had been picked up from some English village with a name like Burberry-on-Kent or something, and dropped here intact. Maple and oak trees surrounded it, and the lawn was tiny but well kept. There were hedges marking the yard, and the home's immediate neighbors were a branch of Coastal Savings Bank, a car wash, and a condominium. And smack-dab in the middle of the door was a red and black sign: NO TRESPASSING.
"Hey," Paula said. She had on tight jeans, small black boots, and a short black leather coat.
"Hey, yourself," I said, sitting next to her on the Camry. "Are we both lawbreakers, young lady?"
She laughed. "You talking about the No Trespassing sign?"
"It certainly caught my attention."
She tapped me gently on my hand. "Not to worry, my friend. This lovely homestead is now considered property of the town of Tyler, and I have permission from the town counsel to visit it as much as I want."
"Knowing how the town counsel feels about you, I'm surprised he didn't give you permission to move in and take the place over. What's the deal? Tax lien?"
Paula said, "Among other things. Look, do you know who built this place? And who lived here?"
"No, but I'm sure I'm about to find out."
"You certainly are," she said. "Donald F. Burnett. Retired newspaperman and a poet, lived here right after the Civil War. Was in love with all things English, and had this home built to certain specifications. He said he wanted to live like a lord in Elizabethan times, which is what he did. Lived here and wrote some great poetry, and had a comfortable life, corresponding with authors like Mark Twain and Nathaniel Hawthorne and Walt Whitman. A minor celebrity here in Tyler, bit of an eccentric. Achieved a small part of fame before he died, peacefully in his sleep, just before the dawn of the twentieth century."
"Sounds like you're keeping his flame alive."
"Doing my best," she said. "And right now, I'm trying to keep his house alive." She nodded in the direction of the home. "The inside of the place is a dump, Lewis. Past owners really haven't taken care of it and the last owner was evicted back in the spring. The wiring, the plumbing, the insulation... all about twenty years out of date. The building inspector has said it could cost thousands to rehab the place into anything approaching livable, and even if you do that, who wants to move in next to a highway and car wash? The thing is, what's valuable here isn't the building. It's this nice high-priced lot, right in the middle of a commercial zoning district."
I said, "This is where I'm supposed to say, you have a plan, correct?"
She kept her view of the house, like she was waiting for the ghost of the old New Hampshire poet to quietly appear. "You're right about that. See, the thing is, the owner of the car wash, one Sy Hartmann, from down Lawrence way, he wants to purchase the land and take the house down and build what Route 1 desperately needs: another convenience store to sell beer, slurpies, and artery-clogging snacks. But for once in their life, the Tyler selectmen have decided to put the brakes on destroying a piece of the town's history, and have told Sy that yes, he can payoff the tax lien and secure the property, but he has to give somebody a chance to save the house. So that's the deal. See this pretty house in front of us?"
"Can't miss it," I said.
"Care to figure the asking price?"
Having gotten my own home for free from the United States government, and not one for keeping up with the real estate market --- all I know is that the prices are obscene --- I gave it my best guess. "Oh, maybe two hundred thousand. Maybe more."
She gently nudged my ribs with her elbow. "Not hardly. Lewis, this wonderful and unique piece of Tyler history is for sale for the magnificent sum of one dollar."
"A dollar?"
"One hundred pennies. And this is when you're supposed to ask me, 'What's the catch?'"
"Must be a pretty damn big catch," I said.
"Yeah. A catch the size of a blue whale. The purchaser has to agree to move the house off the property. Which means that the aspiring buyer needs to come up with a moving company, not to mention a piece of land to drop the house on once it gets picked up. I mean, most of these storage areas you see up and down Route 1 don't really have a locker big enough to hold a house."
"You really going through with this?"
"Like you said, I have a plan." She turned and smiled at me, her ears poking again through her long blond hair. "I love this house, Lewis, I love it to death. And I'm meeting with the Tyler Cooperative this afternoon, try to set up the financing. I'm tired of apartment living, of dealing with landlords and neighbors next door with loud stereos and neighbors upstairs with overflowing tubs. This is my one chance, and I'm going to grab it."