Out Cold (19 page)

With his eyes still on the TV, he said, “I got money on this basketball game.”

“So what about McKibben?”

“Jesus Christ,” he muttered. “I'm just trying to enjoy my beer and watch my game, okay? I don't want to talk to nobody. I just wanna relax, because pretty soon I'm gonna have to go home and have supper with my wife, and it's for damn sure that I'll have to talk to her, and then I won't be all that relaxed.”

“I'm sorry I bothered you,” I said.

Jerry shrugged. “Don't worry about it.”

Nick wandered back to my end of the bar. “Hey, Boston. You ready for something to eat?”

I glanced at my watch. It was a few minutes before six. “Good idea,” I said. “Let's see your menu.”

She shook her head. “No menu. Most folks who come here to eat know what we got and what they like. What do you like?”

“What do you recommend?”

She smiled. “This isn't exactly your Boston gourmet dining experience, you know. This is just your basic roadside café out here in the sticks. We got chicken and pork chops and steaks. Ribeyes and New York sirloin. You pick your meat, we can fry it or bake it or broil it, rare, medium, or well. Nice big salad, choice of dressings. Peas or carrots or green beans depending on what night it is. Beans tonight, I think. Fries or mashed. Or pasta or rice, if you prefer. Or we can make you a sandwich.”

“A ribeye sounds good,” I said. “Medium rare. Fries, Russian dressing on the salad.”

She shrugged. “You got it. I'd grab a booth if I were you. Sometimes it gets pretty cramped and rowdy at the bar on a Saturday night.”

“Nick,” I said, “you didn't answer my question about Dr. Judson McKibben.”

“You didn't ask any question that I remember,” she said. “You said you were looking for him, and that doesn't matter to me one way or another.”

“So would you know how I might find him, then?”

She looked at me, and at that moment somebody from the other end of the bar yelled, “Hey, Nick. We're gettin' dry down here.”

She touched my arm and said, “Catch you later,” and she went to take care of them.

I picked up my coffee and took it to one of the booths against the wall. A couple of minutes later a slender dark-haired girl came over and put a paper placemat and some silverware wrapped in a napkin in front of me and filled a glass with water. She was wearing a long-sleeved yellow jersey and tight black jeans tucked into cowboy boots. She looked about fifteen.

“You ordered the ribeye, right?” she said.

“That's right.”

“Ready for some more coffee?”

“I'm all set for now,” I said. “Are you Nick's daughter?”

She smiled. “You think I look like her?”

I held up both hands. “That's a trick question, and I refuse to answer it. She mentioned that she had a daughter, that's all.”

“I wouldn't be insulted if you said I looked like her,” she said. “I think she's gorgeous, don't you?”

“She's very attractive,” I said. “You both are.”

“Hey, thanks. You were right. Nick's my mom. Most people don't see it because she's blond and I'm a brunette, you know? I'm Gaby. Gabrielle. I help out on weekends. She won't let me work during the week. She says my full-time job is school. Let me go see about your salad. I'll bring you some bread, too.” And before I could open my mouth, she was gone.

I went into the men's room to wash my hands. When I came back, a man was sitting in my booth. It was the big guy with the bald head and the bushy mustache who'd been playing pool.

He was holding a can of Coke. His big hand went all the way around the can.

I slid in across from him. “How you doing?” I said.

He nodded. “I'm good. Name's Harrigan. Nate Harrigan.” He held out his hand.

I reached across the booth and shook it. “Brady Coyne,” I said.

“Haven't seen you in here before.”

“Nope,” I said. “First time. Nice place.”

“On your way through,” he said, “or staying for a while?”

“Staying overnight.”

“You got business here in Churchill?”

“Actually,” I said, “I'm looking for somebody, and—”

“Dr. McKibben, huh?”

“Yes. That's right.”

“So you got business with the doctor?”

I shrugged. “You could say that.”

“What kind of business?”

“It's personal.”

“Between you and him, huh?”

“That's right. That's pretty much what personal means.”

He stared at me for a moment. “So, you and him old friends or something?”

“Not exactly. We have mutual acquaintances.”

“Mutual acquaintances,” he said. “You said you were looking for him?”

I nodded.

“Meaning you don't know where he is.”

“That's right. I don't. I hoped I'd find him here in Churchill. I know he's from here, and I know he owns property here. Assuming he's here now, I figured I'd give him a call, set up an appointment, transact our business.”

“I doubt if he'd appreciate that,” said Nate Harrigan.

“Oh? Why's that?”

“Dr. McKibben likes his privacy, that's all.” Harrigan's mustache was so bushy that you couldn't see his mouth move when he spoke. “He likes to be left alone, and we here in Churchill, we all respect that.”

“You're telling me I should leave him alone.”

Harrigan smiled and nodded. “That's it.”

“Why does he want to be left alone?” I said. “Is it because of his daughter?”

“You're pretty nosy, aren't you?”

“I just want to talk with McKibben. What's the big deal?”

“The big deal is simple. He doesn't want to talk to you. He likes his privacy.”

“And you're—what? His guardian?”

Harrigan nodded. “You might say that.” He reached into his hip pocket, took out a leather wallet, flipped it open, and showed it to me. It held a badge.

“You're a cop?”

“Chief of police,” he said.

“Okay,” I said. “Let me tell you why I want to talk to Dr. McKibben.” I took out the photo of Dana Wetherbee that Shirley Arsenault had given me and slid it across the table to him.

He looked at it, shrugged, then arched his eyebrows at me. “Who's this?”

“Her name is Dana Wetherbee. She was here in Churchill last month.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes,” I said. “She mailed her brother a Christmas card. It was postmarked from Churchill.”

“I don't recognize her,” said Harrigan. “Anyway, what's this got to do with Dr. McKibben?”

“I don't know,” I said. “Maybe nothing. His name came up, that's all. I'd just like to ask him about her. Take another look at that photo. She was just a young girl. Sixteen. Now she's dead. She had a miscarriage and died in the snow in my backyard in Boston a week ago Tuesday.”

“She's dead?”

“Yes.”

Harrigan touched the photo with his fingertip. “Jesus,” he muttered. “In your backyard?”

I nodded. “My dog found her. She was covered with snow. I carried her inside, laid her on my sofa, put a blanket over her, called 911. But it was too late. It's not clear whether she bled to death or froze to death. I feel kind of responsible.”

Harrigan looked up at me. “That's a rough one, all right.”

“Yes, it certainly is,” I said. “Very rough. And since then, two other women have died. Murdered, actually. They seem to be connected to Dana.” I tapped the photo. “So now maybe you can understand why I'm so anxious to get ahold of Dr. McKibben. All I need is his phone number or an address.”

Nate Harrigan pushed the photo across the table to me. “Sorry,” he said. “I don't see what good it would do. All it would accomplish would be upsetting Dr. McKibben. I'm pretty sure talking to some stranger from Boston about the death of another pretty young girl wouldn't make him very happy, and next thing you know, the chief of police who let it happen finds himself back where he started, driving a fork lift at Sullivan's lumberyard.”

I took the printout of the Ursula Laboratories logo that Gordie had given me. “Do you recognize this?”

He looked at it and shrugged. “Sure.”

“You do?”

“Dr. McKibben's old business. That was his logo. He sold the company three or four years ago.”

“I saw a truck with this logo on it in Boston a week ago,” I said.

“So?”

“I don't know. There's a connection, but I don't know what it is. That's why I want to talk to Dr. McKibben.”

“I'm telling you,” he said, “just leave it lay.”

“I was hoping, in the interest of truth and justice, you'd want to help me here.”

“All I want,” he said, “is for you to leave Dr. McKibben in peace.”

I shrugged. “I guess I'll have to find another way, then. When I talk to him, I'll be sure he knows that you did your best to keep me away.”

“I guess you don't get it.” Harrigan leaned across the table. “Let me put it this way. Stay away from Dr. McKibben. How's that? Clear enough? Get it?”

“I get it,” I said.

“Good.” He put his hands on the table and pushed himself into a standing position. “So we understand each other?”

“I understand you,” I said. “But I don't think you understand me.”

“No? How's that?”

“I don't do well with threats.”

“I don't remember threatening you,” he said.

“Excuse me, then,” I said. “I guess I didn't understand you after all.”

“I gave you an order,” he said. “It wasn't a threat.”

“Ah,” I said. “Well, in the spirit of clarifying our understanding, let me explain it to you this way. I don't do well with orders, either.”

“Let me clarify, too, then.” He put both hands flat on the table, bent down, and pushed his face close to mine. “When you wake up tomorrow morning in unit four in Bruce and Joanne Sweeney's motel, mister lawyer, you will pack up your stuff, climb into that green BMW of yours, and you'll start driving south, and you won't stop until you get to Mt. Vernon Street, and—” He stopped and glanced over his shoulder.

Gaby, the waitress, was standing there with a bread basket in one hand and a bowl of salad in the other.

“Sorry, honey,” said Harrigan. He stepped back.

Gaby put the bread and the salad in front of me. “You want more coffee? A drink, maybe?”

“More coffee would be good,” I said. “Thanks.”

“I'll be right back.” She turned and walked away.

Harrigan watched her go, then turned to me. “Just go home, Mr. Coyne. Best for everybody.”

“I appreciate the advice,” I said.

He held out his hand. “Sorry how I spoke to you. People tell me I'm not very tactful.”

“You're not.” I shook his hand. “How do you know those things about me?”

He smiled through his mustache. “I'm a cop. It's my job to know things.”

“And you're good at your job.”

“I am.” He touched his forehead with the side of his forefinger, a little mock salute. “Enjoy your ribeye,” he said. Then he turned and walked away.

I watched Chief Nate Harrigan lumber over to the door. He waved at Nick behind the bar, patted a couple of men on the back, shrugged his beefy shoulders into his coat, and stomped out of the restaurant.

The place was filling up. The booths along the wall and the tables by the front windows were occupied—couples of all ages, the young ones with two or three kids—and more people were milling around the bar and the pool table and in the entryway.

Saturday night at Nick's Café. I suspected this was it for excitement in Churchill, New Hampshire.

I finished my salad and was munching on a hunk of bread when Gaby delivered my ribeye. She slid it in front of me, picked up my empty salad bowl, turned to leave, then hesitated.

She was looking down at the table where I'd left Dana's photo.

“Do you know her?” I said to Gaby.

“Huh?” She looked at me. “Oh, this girl? No, I don't think so. Should I? Who is she?”

“Her name is Dana.”

“She your daughter or something?”

“No,” I said. “She's a friend of a friend. She ran away from home a while ago.”

“And you're looking for her? Is that it?”

I shrugged. “Kind of, yes.”

“You think she's here? In Churchill?”

“She might have been.”

She smiled. “Here? Really?”

“I don't know.” I picked up the photo and handed it to her. “Take a good look.”

She frowned at it. “She's cute.” She shook her head and handed the photo back to me. “I guess not. Sorry.” She glanced over her shoulder. “I gotta go. We're getting busy. Can I get you something else? Steak sauce?”

I shook my head. “All set.”

“Okay. Enjoy your meal.”

I did. It was a good ribeye, thick and juicy, marbled with fat, and cooked perfectly. The fries were crispy, and so what if the beans came from a can.

I was sopping up steak juice with the last fry on my plate when Nick slid into the booth across from me. She took an idle swipe at the tabletop with her bar rag and cocked an eyebrow at me. “So how was your ribeye?”

I nodded. “Good. Excellent.”

She looked down at the table, then up at me. “You were asking about Dr. McKibben.”

I nodded.

“Get any answers?”

“Not many.”

“Nate Harrigan give you a hard time?”

“Threatened to run me out of town.”

She smiled. “You scared?”

“No. Curious.”

“Nate's a pussycat. He thinks, because he's a cop, he's supposed to be tough, but it doesn't come naturally to him. He's actually a pretty good officer. He's fair, he's good with kids, he cares about people. He just wants things to be peaceful.”

“Protect and serve,” I said.

“Really,” she said. “Don't worry about Nate.”

“I wasn't. It's just, you mention Dr. Judson McKibben around here and the air suddenly gets chilly. Makes you wonder.”

“It's not a secret,” she said. “Just small-town stuff, you know?”

“No,” I said. “I really don't know.”

Nick slid out of the booth. “You want some more coffee?”

“Sure.”

“Sit tight. I'll be right back.” She gathered up my empty dishes and walked away.

She was back a minute later with two mugs. She put them on the table and resumed her seat across from me. She picked up one of the mugs, took a sip, and looked at me over the rim. “The McKibbens are an old Churchill family,” she said. “Settled here right after the Civil War, bought up a big hunk of land, grew apples, raised sheep, built the cider mill down on the river, did better than most. Over the years they gave a lot of money back to the town. People around here have always felt obligated to the McKibben family.”

I sipped my coffee and nodded.

“Up until recently,” she said, “a kid from Churchill who actually graduated from high school was considered some kind of prodigy. A few of them might go off to the state college in Plymouth. Once in a while somebody got accepted at the University in Durham or maybe lucked into some school in Florida or California that's looking for geographical diversity. Mostly they quit school and joined the army or went to work for their uncle or got married and had babies or had babies without getting married, or they took off for Boston or New York and never came back again. So when Judson McKibben got into Harvard—medical school, no less—well, he was pretty much a hero.”

“Local boy makes good,” I said. “Nice story.”

She nodded. “He said he intended to come back, be a family doctor here in town, and I supposed that's what he did plan to do originally.” Nick paused, sipped her coffee, looked up at me.

“Didn't happen,” I said.

“He got married, had a child,” she said. “And then his wife died, and he had the little girl to raise, and I guess he felt he had to make some money. So he set up his business down there in Massachusetts. But he kept the family homestead after his parents died, and he came back to town every now and then, him and his little girl. He'd come in here, have lunch, shoot the breeze with the locals, and little Ursula, she was cute as a button. Skinny, pale little thing, with these great big blue eyes, blond hair practically white. Sometimes, if it was a nice day, she and Gaby would go outside and play. They were about the same age.” Nick shrugged. “Anyway, Ursula died, terrible thing, drowned in somebody's pool at a birthday party, and pretty soon after, the doctor, he moved back into his old place and made it clear that he just wanted to be left alone. We respect that. It's been three, four years now. I suppose he's still grieving. No one ever sees him. We just steer clear of his place, and try to protect his privacy if some stranger should come snooping around.” She looked up at me and smiled.

“Lots of strangers come snooping around?” I said.

“Far as I know,” she said, “you're the first.”

I picked up the photo of Dana Wetherbee and showed it to Nick. “Did Ursula look anything like this girl?”

She took it from me, held it up, and frowned at it. “This the picture that Gaby was talking about?”

I nodded.

“Mm.” Nick was shaking her head. “I mean, there are similarities. Both fair, blond, cute. Ursula might've looked something like this girl if she…had she not died.” She looked up at me. “Who is she?”

“It's a long story,” I said.

“Are you looking for her? Is she missing?”

“I'm trying to figure out where she's been. I was hoping somebody might've seen her.”

Nick shook her head. “I'm not sure I'd remember her if I did see her.”

“Is there a bus line or a train near here?”

She nodded. “There's a bus.”

“Where does it go?”

“It comes down from Quebec, goes to New York and D.C. Stops at about a hundred places along the way, if anybody's waiting.”

“It doesn't go to Boston?”

“Nope. You want to go to Boston, you get off in Springfield and change buses. The bus stop's right there across from the post office.” She reached across the table and touched my arm. “Do you feel like telling me what this is all about?”

“Sure.” I told Nick about finding Dana in my backyard. I told her about the Christmas card that had been postmarked from Churchill. I told her about the truck with the bear logo that I traced to Ursula Laboratories in Cambridge, owned and operated by Dr. Judson McKibben, who was now living in seclusion in Churchill.

I did not tell her about Sunshine and Misty being murdered.

“Dana was pregnant,” I said. “She died of a miscarriage. I feel like I should have saved her life. But I didn't. I feel responsible.”

Nick was shaking her head. “That's a terrible story. I'm sorry.”

I nodded.

“Maybe she was on a bus passing through, and when it stopped across from the post office…”

I nodded. “That's when she mailed the Christmas card. Maybe that is what happened.”

“I don't know what to say.” Nick shook her head. “It just makes me want to go hug my daughter, you know?” She blew out a breath, smiled quickly, and stood up. “Anyway, I really gotta get back to work. How about a piece of pie? We got apple and banana cream. Fresh today. The apple's still warm.”

“Warm apple pie,” I said. “Perfect.”

 

It was around eight o'clock when I stepped outside the restaurant. It had been snowing for a while, and it was still coming down, big soft flakes drifting down in the floodlights that lit the area out front and mounding over the parked vehicles.

I zipped my parka up to my chin and went over to where I'd left my car. Two or three inches of fluffy new snow covered it. When I went to the door to get in, I noticed that a patch of snow had been cleared off the driver's-side window. I pictured Chief Nate Harrigan's gloved hand brushing away the snow, then Harrigan bending over and shining his big cop flashlight around inside my car.

My duffel still sat on the passenger seat. I'd left it half unzippered so I could easily reach my .38 revolver—a silly and unnecessary precaution, of course. Careless of me not to zip it up tight when I went into the restaurant.

I wondered if Harrigan's flashlight had shone on the checkered end of the revolver's butt protruding from the socks and T-shirts I'd buried it in. And if he did see it, I wondered if he recognized it for what it was, and if he did, what his reaction was.

If he wanted to, Chief Harrigan could stop me, search my car, find that gun that he already knew was there, and run me in for a firearms violation.

I unlocked the door, slid in, and pulled the duffel onto my lap. I shoved the gun down toward the bottom and zippered the bag all the way shut, which I realized amounted to latching the kennel door after the dog had run away.

I got the car started, turned on the defroster and the wipers, popped the trunk, picked up the duffel, and got out. I went around to the back of the car and shoved the duffel in behind the spare tire. Then I brushed the snow off the windows, headlights, license plates, and brake lights.

I would drive slowly and carefully, violate no motor vehicle laws, and give Chief Nate Harrigan no cause to stop and hassle me. But if he did, my duffel would not be sitting there in plain sight where he could legally search it, and he couldn't force me to open my trunk without some kind of probable cause.

I pulled out of the lot and onto the road. A fresh layer of snow covered the pavement. I crept along in third gear, following the snowbank on the righthand side, and after about fifteen minutes the Motel sign loomed up on the right, its red lights fuzzy in the swirling snow. I put on my directional, slowed way down, recognized the driveway by the rounded snowbanks, and crept up the incline to the parking area in front.

The Sweeney's motel appeared to have twelve units—six in front and six around back. There were three other vehicles parked out front. The office was down on the end. The neon pink Office light in the window was lit, but the room behind the window was dark.

I parked in front of unit four, got out, retrieved my duffel from the trunk, and went to the door. The key, as promised, was under the mat. I unlocked the door, flicked the light switch inside the doorway, went in, shut the door behind me, and hooked the security chain.

Typical motel room. I'd stayed in a hundred just like it. Standard double bed against the inside wall under a large framed print of round-topped New England mountains and autumn foliage, a table in the corner with a good-sized television set on it, a small chest of drawers, an upholstered chair in the other corner, a bedside table with an alarm clock and a lamp on top and a Bible in the drawer, a big front window with heavy orange curtains pulled shut over it, a small bathroom with a plastic shower stall, no tub.

There was a little four-cup coffeemaker on the counter in the bathroom, with half a dozen coffee bags, a handful of packets of artificial sweetener and powdered creamer, two ceramic mugs. No minifridge, but I'd noticed a Coke machine in front of the office.

I set my duffel on top of the chest of drawers, tossed my parka on the chair, kicked off my boots, and flopped down on the bed. I found the remote on the bedside table, flicked on the television, surfed through the channels, and stopped at a basketball game. The announcer's voice was familiar and comforting, although I knew nothing and cared even less about the Providence and Seton Hall teams that were playing.

I watched for a few minutes, then muted it. I wanted to talk to Evie. I reached over to the bedside table and groped for the telephone.

Right. The room had no telephone.

I fished my cell phone from my pants pocket and checked the screen.

“No service,” it said.

I closed my eyes and saw, beside the Coke machine, a pay phone on the outside wall under the overhang beside the motel office.

I pulled on my boots, hunched into my parka, made sure my room key was in my pocket, and went outside.

The wind seemed to have picked up, and the snow was still coming down, hard little kernels now, blowing sideways and biting the backs of my hands. At the pay phone, I faced the wall, putting my back to the storm. I pecked in the numbers from my calling card, then the numbers for my house in Boston, and a minute later Evie said, “Hello?”

“Hi, baby.”

“Hey, it's you,” she said. “Are you all right?”

“Sure. I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be?”

“I just sort of expected to hear from you before now. That you'd arrived safely. That you hadn't gone skidding off the road somewhere in the White Mountains. It's been a stormy day.”

“I'm sorry,” I said. “There's no cell-phone signal up here. This is the first crack I've had at a pay phone.”

“It's stupid to worry,” she said.

“It's sweet and loving to worry. But I'm fine. No problems. I'm at a motel in Churchill.”

“Sounds exotic.”