Authors: William G. Tapply
It was the same female voice. “Listen carefully, Mr. Coyne,” she said. Then I heard the deep, slow, recorded male voice. His directions were detailed and precise, the threat in his message unmistakable. This time he did not repeat it.
When I heard the click that terminated the recording, Julie said, “I got it.”
“Okay. See if you can reach Stern.”
I lit a cigarette and waited. I had stubbed it out when Julie buzzed me again.
“Okay. Put him on.”
When I told Stern about the phone call he said, “Tomorrow at noon, huh? Well, do it then.”
“What about—?”
“We’ll take care of our part. You just do yours. Just like the man said.”
“But—”
“It’s called division of labor. Okay? Like an assembly line. Everybody does his little part, and in the end the whole job gets done. That’s all you need to know. You go to the place and wait. And hope to hell there’s a little boy waiting for you there.”
“All things being equal,” I said to Stern, “I doubt if you and I would turn out to be real pals, you know?”
“That’s one thing we see eye to eye on, Mr. Coyne.”
I studied the directions until I had them memorized. I followed Route 3 past Route 495, heading north toward New Hampshire. I found the numbered route that took me across the Merrimack River, then the dusty side road that led me into the countryside. Precisely four-point-seven miles beyond the sawmill I pulled to the side of the road and stopped. I found the old roadway hidden by overgrown brush and the two stone pillars at the end of it joined by a rusted chain. I checked my watch. High noon. The sun smoldered through a thin summer haze. I started walking.
The road sloped gently upward. After a hundred yards of clawing through the alder and poplar growth that crowded against it, it leveled off and I stepped into an abandoned quarry. I was standing in a kind of dusty amphitheater that had been carved out of the hill. At the far end a curved wall of sheer granite rose about a hundred feet straight up into the sky. Great slabs of rock lay tumbled all around as if a giant had scattered a couple of basketfuls of twenty-foot dominoes. It looked like a vandalized graveyard. Stunted birch and pine struggled to send their roots into the crevices among the stones. Weeds and grass sprouted against them. The humid noontime air was trapped in there like a steaming bowl of soup. My shirt was pasted to my back.
In the shadow of the cliff lay a dark pool of water, cut roughly square and as big as a basketball court. Beside the pool nestled against the rock wall stood an old wood and tarpaper shack with a rusted corrugated tin roof. I picked my way among the slabs of stone until I stood in front of the shack. The wooden door hung open a slit. Through the crack I could see darkness inside, broken by a narrow beam of sunlight where dust motes hung suspended.
I hesitated. My instructions had been to wait. I stepped close to the door and whispered, “E.J.?”
There was no answer. I pulled on the door until it groaned open. I stepped into the doorway and waited for my eyes to adjust to the dim light. I looked around. Nobody was there. “E.J.”, I called again. “Are you here?” My voice echoed hollowly in the empty room.
I moved away from the shack and picked my way among the rubble along the base of the blasted rock cliff. I stopped beside the pool, squatted on my heels, and lit a cigarette. I’d wait, then.
I stared into the water. It was faintly tinted, the pale amber of bourbon, but it looked cool and potable. Despite the discoloration, the water was clean and clear, and I peered down into it as far as the refracted light would allow. The green sides of the pool descended straight down. I picked up a slice of shale the size of a silver dollar and dropped it into the pool. It sank slowly, tilting from side to side. I watched it for a long time before it disappeared without having reached bottom.
I was intensely aware of the gathered summer heat that had collected, unrelieved by any breeze, in the granite bowl. I edged into the shadow against the cliff and rested my back against it. The rock felt cool through my damp shirt. I watched a chipmunk scurry among the weeds and rocks. In the high branches of the trees beyond the edge of the quarry half a dozen crows settled, and I could hear them arguing.
It was a desolate, godforsaken place. As the perspiration on my back dried I shivered. I glanced at my watch. I didn’t know how long I was supposed to wait. I settled myself as well as I could into my position beside the pool and prepared to exercise patience—not normally my strong suit.
I waited exactly an hour there, smoking several Winstons and scanning the perimeter of the rock-strewn quarry. The only life I saw belonged to the chipmunks and birds that lived there.
I gave it an extra fifteen minutes, then I decided no one was coming. I stood, groaning at the stiffness in my legs and back, and walked over to the shack. I hesitated a moment, then stepped inside. The air tasted cool and musty and smelled of wet earth. I paused once again to allow my eyes to adjust to the dim light. Black shapes gradually took form. Against one wall stood a row of fifty-gallon drums. Four wooden boxes were set out in the middle of the single room as if they had once served as table and chairs.
“E.J.? Are you in here?”
There was no answer. I went over to the barrels and peered behind them. I kicked one and it pinged hollowly. In the corner I saw several six-packs of rusting beer cans. Another object caught my eye. I picked it up and carried it outside to examine it in the daylight.
It was a sneaker. A small, leather Nike. With a red stripe.
“Oh, Christ,” I whispered. I wandered back to my seat by the pool and sank to the ground. I didn’t like what I was thinking. I held the little sneaker—Eddie had called them “running shoes,” I remembered—and pictured E.J. Donagan’s grin.
I lit a cigarette and willed my hands to stop trembling. I assumed the sneaker had been left for me to find. They had been too careful, too precise, for it to have been an accident. But what did it mean? It was a message.
I hoped I misread it.
I stepped on my cigarette butt and made my way back to my car, E.J.’s sneaker clutched in my hand. I drove to a gas station I had passed on my way, dropped a quarter into the slot of the pay phone I found there, and punched out the number Stern had given to me, where he was waiting close by for my report.
“Yeah, Stern,” he answered.
“He wasn’t there. Nobody was there. But—I found his sneaker.”
“Slow down,” said Stern. His voice was low and calm. “Start over.”
“E.J. wasn’t there. I went and waited. Like they said. I found a sneaker in the shack. It’s his. I’m sure it’s his.”
“Nothing else?”
“No.” His businesslike patience was annoying me.
“Look. There’s this deep pool of water. It looks bottomless. It—”
“You’re jumping to conclusions.”
“You know what I’m saying, then?”
I heard him sigh. “Yes, I know what you’re saying. Look, okay. We’ll get up there. You go home.”
“Divers?”
“Yes. We’ll bring divers.”
There was a heavy lump in my chest. “That’s what I was thinking,” I said.
“Just go home, Mr. Coyne. You did fine.”
“What about the sneaker?”
“Bring it with you. We’ll have to show it to Mrs. Donagan. Unless you want to do that.”
“No. No, I don’t want to do that. And I’m not ready to go home. I’ll meet you there.”
“You’ve done your part. You’ll just be in the way. Division of labor, remember?”
“Up yours,” I said, and I hung up.
Stern arrived at the roadway a few minutes after I did, followed in short order by several more vehicles, including two State Police cruisers, each manned by two uniformed officers, and a panel truck containing two hefty guys with diving gear. I gave Stern E.J.’s sneaker, which he dropped into a Baggie and locked in the trunk of his car.
We trekked up the road to the quarry, then made our way among the tumbled granite slabs to the shack beside the pool. There the men gathered around Stern, who spat out his orders. Most of the men, including the state cops, he directed to explore the floor of the quarry to search for footprints, tire tracks, anything. The two divers moved toward the pool. I took Stern into the shack.
He flicked on the big flashlight he was carrying and probed methodically through the darkness into the corners of the room. “I suppose you’ve touched everything,” he muttered.
“Not really. As soon as I found the sneaker I went outside.”
“Humph.”
The dirt floor was caked too hard for footprints to show, but Stern nevertheless knelt down and studied it closely. Then he examined the heap of empty beer cans near where I told him I had found the sneaker. After a few minutes we went back outside and Stern called to one of his men who was heavily armed with camera gear.
“In there, Soderstrom. Get everything.” He turned to me. “I couldn’t see anything in there.”
We walked over to the pool. One of the divers, wearing the top of a wet suit, bathing trunks, a facemask, and a pair of big metal tanks strapped to his back, was just lowering himself in. He carried a big square waterproof flashlight, and had a rope tied under his arms. The other man knelt beside the pool, holding the rope.
“What’s going on?” said Stern.
“No purchase. The sides are pure vertical and slick as a whore’s thighs. Algae growing all over them. Nothing to hang onto. I’m gonna lower him down. It looks deep and dark. No fun.”
Stern nodded. He and I squatted beside the pool and watched the diver sink slowly down. The man beside us paid out the rope a foot at a time. We could still make out the fuzzy image of the diver when his partner muttered, “Fifteen feet.”
One of the uniformed State Police officers approached. “Sir?”
“What is it?” said Stern.
“We found these.” He handed Stern a plastic bag. “Cigarette butts. Fresh, from the smell.”
“They’re mine,” I said.
“Jesus Christ,” Stern muttered. “Okay. Keep looking,” he said to the policeman.
“Twenty-five feet,” announced the man holding the rope. From the depths of the water I could see the shimmering rays of the light. The diver had disappeared from sight. “Thirty feet.”
At fifty feet he turned to us. “He’s coming up.” He began to haul slowly on the rope. After several minutes the diver hoisted himself out of the water. His partner helped him take off the tanks, and he pulled his mask off.
“Man, it’s cold down there,” he breathed. He toweled his face and legs with a balled up sweatshirt.
“See anything?” said Stern.
“Nothing. I didn’t hit bottom. About thirty feet down there’s an opening that goes back under. Looks like a big cave. There’s current under there, it feels like. About fifty feet there’s another big hole in the side. Looks like a tunnel that curves in and back. I looked down with the light and all I could see was more water and a lot more of those ledges and caves. I figure somewhere down there there’s an underground river. We’ll need better gear if you want us to really explore it.” He raised his eyebrows at Stern.
“No signs of anything, then?”
“Nope. Anything that fell in there could get sucked into one of those tunnels. Or maybe just go straight down, God knows how far.”
“These quarry pools,” the other man said. “Kid drowned in one in Quincy couple of years ago. We went down, found some old auto bodies. Couldn’t find the kid. Finally they drained it. Still couldn’t find him.” He shrugged. “Something about these quarry pools.”
Stern nodded. “We’ll get the proper equipment in and try to do it right.” He turned to me. “Look, Mr. Coyne. You’re in the way, okay? It’s going to be a long, boring afternoon, and I doubt we’re gonna find anything very dramatic. You’re thinking the boy’s body is down there. Well, if it is we may not find it. Okay?” He snatched his dark-framed glasses from his face and jabbed at me with them. “So why don’t you go home and do whatever it is you do to make a living, and let us do what we do?”
I stared at him for a moment, then nodded. “You’ll let me know?”
“Sure. You’re involved, okay? You’re an important part of this investigation. I’ll keep in touch. Don’t call me. I’ll call you. So run along, now, huh?”
I stood up. “Let me know if you ever decide to run for public office, will you, Stern?”
I walked back to my car and drove home. I needed a shower.
J
AN WAS LYING ON
her stomach on a big beach towel spread out on the concrete apron by the pool. By her head a paperback book sat on its open pages. The white bikini she wore contrasted with the deep bronze of her skin. It looked as if she had been investing considerable time—and whatever sort of energy it took—into acquiring her tan.
I dragged an aluminum folding chair close to her and sat in it. Her face rested on her left cheek, turned away from me.
“Watch the rays, will you?” she said without moving her head.
“Sorry.” I moved back. “How are you?”
“How do you like my tan?” she mumbled into the towel.
“Real nice, Jan. It’s a good one.”
“They said you were coming. I told them you shouldn’t bother. I had to put a top on because you were coming. Now I’ll get lines.”
“Lines?”
“On my back. Oh, hell. You don’t mind if I take this off, do you? I really don’t want to get lines.”
She reached around and unsnapped the top of her bathing suit. It fell away and she lay spread out in front of me naked except for the little patch of white cloth across her rump.
“You should see my breasts. No lines at all. I had a little problem with them at first. The nipples get burned, you know? They’re very sensitive. I had to put a lot of lotion on them. Rub it in thick. This is the best tan I ever had.”
“Jan—”
“Let’s have a drink. There’s a cooler over there in the shade. Vodka and tonic. All mixed. We’ll have to share. Only one glass. You don’t mind sharing a glass with me, do you?”
I took the glass over to the cooler and filled it. I took a sip. It was mostly vodka. I put it down beside her, and she lifted herself up on her elbows to take a drink. Her breasts, I noticed, were indeed well tanned.
“Jan, we have to talk.”