Drift (18 page)

The first sip tasted harsh and raw and smooth and warm, sliding down my throat and curling around in my stomach, getting comfortable. I followed it up with a nice long gulp, and that tasted even better. They kept getting better after that.

The storm was approaching from the west, and it looked like a good one. It wasn’t raining yet, but the wind was picking up. The lightning itself was too low on the horizon to see, but its reflection lit up the clouds.

The plan was to sit out on the porch, drink too much from the square bottle, and watch the storm. But before long, I remembered all those open windows. When I went upstairs to close them, I was stunned by the view from the hallway. Out over the roof, thunderheads were rolling in, each flash of lightning illuminating the countryside below.

I climbed out the window and onto the lower roof. The sky was dramatic, and maybe the whiskey was already clouding my judgment, but after a few minutes of watching and drinking, I looked up at the upper roof behind me and wondered what the view would be like from there. As I pulled myself up, lightning flashed, casting my silhouette against the roof, just like the stun grenade the day before. My body tensed as I waited for the concussion, and I felt a moment of panic before I realized it was just thunder. Still, I almost dropped the bottle.

Once I got up there, the pitch wasn’t bad, but the wind was fierce and there was plenty of lightning.

I was drunk, but not so drunk I didn’t know it. I kept low and moved cautiously until I was comfortable, lying back with my hands behind my neck, relaxing and watching the storm.

The wind got up even more, surging and swirling around me. Occasionally, a volley of heavy raindrops would blow over from somewhere it was really raining, splattering loudly on the tarpaper shingles, and on me.

I figured I would stay up there until it started raining hard. I don’t know how long I’d been out there, but the bottle was empty and the storm was still approaching when I heard a crack of thunder that didn’t sound like a crack of thunder. There was no rumble or roll, just a single sharp crack so brief and so familiar it could have been my imagination.

Propping myself up on an elbow, I looked out over the countryside and tilted my head, listening. All I could hear was the wind and the rain and the slow, distinctly different rumble of thunder in the distance.

As I was lying back down, I saw a string of lights in the distance, four of them, like little dots, snaking through the fields behind Nola’s farm. The lightning was picking up again, and between that and the darkness and the swell of the undulating fields, it was impossible to tell how big the lights were or how far away. It was only when one of them stabbed into the sky that I recognized them as flashlights. My brain seized that bit of information, filling in the blanks to give them scale and distance and meaning.

A blinding flash of lightning made them disappear for a moment, but then they were back, four flashlights in the distance, moving at a decent clip. As I watched, they spread out, from a single column to a single row, now sweeping across the field. The lights were flickering now, maybe sweeping back and forth.

I stood up to get a better look, and the roof seemed suddenly steeper than before. Maybe it was the whiskey, or maybe it was the storm, but I had a hard time keeping my feet under me.

The wind was howling now, and it finally started to rain in earnest, but I stayed up there on the roof, watching the light show playing out across the fields. The lightning was getting closer and brighter. Each flash erased my night vision, causing the lights to disappear again, and as the rain intensified, it became harder and harder each time to find the flashlights again.

An impossibly bright flash of lightning was accompanied almost simultaneously by an explosion of thunder that sounded like it was right on top of me. I dropped to the roof, clinging to it, cowering and fighting the urge to clench my eyes shut. The bottle slid down the roof and wedged in the gutter. The flashlights changed formation yet again, the two in the middle holding steady while the two on the edges moved forward and closed in, forming a box.

They held steady like that, and I realized I was holding my breath. When I breathed again, I caught a strong whiff of ozone and my skin started to tingle. I dropped down, trying not to take my eyes away from those four points of light. But then the world exploded in brilliant white light and a clap of thunder that drove the air out of my lungs. My eyes clamped shut, and I pressed myself against the roof.

When I opened my eyes, the four lights were gone. I stared without blinking, my eyes sweeping the darkened landscape, probing the spot where I thought I had seen the lights. I lay there soaking wet as the storm moved away and the night turned dark and quiet, my eyes straining into the darkness until eventually, they closed.

37

When I opened my eyes again, the sky was beginning to pale and the birds were making a racket. It felt like they were talking about me.

I was cold and wet and stiff and sore. And on the roof.

The buzz from the whiskey had long since worn off, replaced with an ominously throbbing headache. Lying there for a moment, I thought about the strange procession of lights and wondered if I had dreamed the whole thing.

As I rolled over, the headache flared with an intensity that made me feel nauseous. The rest of me hurt, too. I crawled toward the edge of the roof, gulping air and clenching my jaw against the urge to be sick. I paused at the edge and got to my feet, trying to keep my balance as the roof swayed under my feet. I looked out at the land rolling gently in the morning haze. Once I had fixed in my mind the general area where those lights had been the night before, I slowly slid over the edge of the roof.

Stiff and sober, climbing down off the roof was much scarier than climbing up had been.

I lowered myself over the edge, to the slightly pitched lower roof. For an instant, my arms went wide, making goofy little circles until I regained my balance.

The window was still open, and I shook my head; the reason I had come upstairs the night before was to close it. I pulled the window open a little more and half-crawled, half-tumbled inside to the second-floor hall. I had just closed the window when I turned and found myself face-to-face with Moose, coming out of his room.

He stopped and looked at me, down and then back up. “You look like shit.”

“Fuck you, too.”

“No, seriously. You look awful. What, did you sleep in your clothes?”

“Something like that.”

“Are you okay?”

“Rough night. I’m fine.”

“Okay.” He said it like he didn’t believe me. The corner of his mouth tugged up into a slight smile. I gave him a look that made the smile go away.

“Okay, then,” he said. “I have to run some errands for Nola. She’s still in Harrisburg. Then I’m supposed to help Squirrel with something. You should maybe try to get some rest.”

I answered him with a grunt. As soon as he was out of my way, I headed straight for my room, where I peeled off my wet clothes and climbed into bed.

It felt like only a few minutes had passed, but the sun was brighter when Moose woke me up again.

He seemed agitated, and sounded like two people talking at once.

I held up a hand. “Slow down a minute. What are you talking about?” My voice sounded croaky, and my throat was sore.

He plopped down on the side of the bed. I sat up and gave him a look to let him know he was crossing a line.

“It’s Squirrel,” he said. “He’s missing.”

“Missing?”

“Yeah, I was supposed to meet him at his place this morning, and he wasn’t there. I can’t find him anywhere, and he’s not answering his cell phone.”

I sank back and laughed. “Moose, your friend is a junkie. They’re not really known for being reliable.”

“Doyle, that’s bullshit. This is serious.”

“I am serious. Your friend’s a goddamn junkie. And I don’t know if you’ve been watching the news, but six drug dealers were killed right here in Dunston. Now, maybe Squirrel didn’t have anything to do with those guys, but he probably wasn’t too many steps removed from them, either.”

“Jesus, for the last time—Squirrel’s not using drugs. What is it with you?”

I glared at Moose in reply, but he took a deep breath and continued. “His car was missing, too—”

“So? He probably went out—”

“I found it.”

That stopped me. “You found it?”

He nodded.

“Where?”

“Not far. On the side of the road.”

“Did you check the gas gauge?”

“What?”

“The gas gauge. Did you check it?”

He looked at me like I was crazy. “No.”

“Well, maybe he ran out of gas.”

“Oh.” He sat there for a moment, thinking about that. “All right, that’s true. Well, we can check it.”

“We?”

“Yeah, come on. I need you to come with me to check it out. Give me your cop-ly take on the situation.”

“I can tell you that much right now. Your friend’s a junkie, which means he’s a fuck-up, which means he blew you off and he’s probably out dozing off his latest fix.”

“Doyle.”

I’d met retired cops who spent their lives looking for mysteries to solve: wondering whose dog was crapping on their lawn or which neighbor was stealing cable. Sure, some of my suspicions had turned out to be right, but I had also spent the better part of three days doing background checks on a vegetable patch. I didn’t want to become that guy. But the look on Moose’s face told me he wasn’t going to drop it, and I was curious about whether Squirrel’s whereabouts maybe had something to do with Roberts and Arnett. My cop-ly instincts were intrigued.

“All right. Go make some coffee.”

38

Moose brought me two granola bars and a cup of coffee that I suspected was reheated, but that was fine. At this point I was just looking for the active ingredient.

When I got outside, he was sitting in the driver’s seat of Frank’s truck with the engine running. I gave him a look as I walked to my car and got in. Somehow I could tell Moose wasn’t the kind of driver I’d have the patience to ride shotgun with. And even though my car was beat up, it was running fine. I started the engine and Moose got in next to me, giving me some kind of look, but I didn’t look over at him.

Squirrel’s truck was barely half a mile away, so we went there first, to make sure it was still there and that Squirrel wasn’t asleep in the back.

Moose directed me down Pear Tree Lane, just off Valley Road. “It’s right up here,” he said as we came around a bend in the road.

I slowed down to look, and still had to jerk the wheel to miss it. Some kind of old panel truck, like a station wagon on steroids, rust–colored and beat to hell. It was parked between two trees, perpendicular to the road with its rear wheels resting on the edge of the embankment. The tailgate was down, jutting out into the road right at windshield level, like a blade.

“What?” Moose asked, apparently oblivious to how close he had just come to decapitation.

“Thanks for the warning.”

I pulled over just past it, and we got out.

“The Bronze Bomber,” Moose said with affection as we walked up, patting the side of the truck. “A 1983 Jeep Wagoneer. Thing’s just about indestructible.”

Not only did it look destructible, it looked halfway destructed.

The driver’s side window was partially open, and the seat was damp from rain. The gas tank was half full. In the back was some lumber and a couple of milk crates, one filled with empty canvas bags, the other with plastic tubing and a couple of beakers. I picked up a beaker and looked at Moose.

“That’s just supplies for making his squish,” he told me.

Nothing else looked suspicious. I put the beaker back and closed the tailgate, but a second later it fell open again.

Moose nodded sheepishly. “Yeah, the latch is tricky.”

I closed it again, this time with a little more force, but it fell open again. This time I ignored it. “So where else did you look?” I asked him. “And where else didn’t you look?”

*   *   *

We started at Squirrel’s house, a tiny square bungalow surrounded by a lawn that Moose informed me was not weedy but “native.” The tiny, unpainted wooden porch had no steps.

Moose had keys, but I knocked on the door twice and waited a couple of minutes in between. When there was no answer, I stepped back and motioned for Moose to have at it.

He stepped forward and raised the keys, but stopped. “You’re here as a friend, right?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I mean, you’re not here on official business, right?”

“I’m not anywhere on official business. I’m suspended, remember? Why?”

“Well, this is where Squirrel makes his squish, and I don’t want him to get arrested or in trouble or anything.”

“Don’t worry. It’s not even illegal unless he’s selling it.”

Moose gave me an awkward smile.

“Beautiful. Well, I don’t give a crap about any of that.” I wasn’t going in there hoping to find evidence of an illegal still. I was hoping to find evidence of his drug involvement. “But if we’re going in, let’s go in.”

With a shrug and a sigh, he opened the door and we stepped inside.

I was expecting a drug den, but the place was clean and about as tidy as my apartment back in Philly on a good day.

The furniture was old but solid, a mish-mash of styles, like a used-furniture showroom. In the middle of the coffee table was a note Moose had left, asking Squirrel to call him. We walked through to the kitchen, which was yellow and white, with a lumpy linoleum floor. The yellow Formica countertop was worn white in places.

In the bedroom, the bed was tightly made, the corners of the covers folded crisply under the mattress. Moose held up his arms. “See? He hasn’t been home all night. The bed’s still made.”

“He always makes his bed like that?”

“Yeah, ever since he got out of the army.”

“The army? That little flea?”

Moose nodded solemnly.

“Well, he probably made it again, right after he got up. That’s how they do it in the army.”