“All right, I think I understand,” she said. “What are you looking for then?”
“I was hoping to get some information on residences and businesses on these streets,” I said, sliding over a sheet of paper.
She peered down at the list. “An interesting collection of roads. How did you get it?”
“Random, that’s all.”
Abby looked down, hesitated.
I said, “I always thought tax records like this were public information.”
“Oh, they are,” she said, head still lowered.
“Then maybe I should talk to the tax collector, or the assessor?”
That brought forth a laugh. “Sweetie, you don’t know Osgood, do you?”
“True enough,” I said. “But it seems like a nice town.”
“Oh, it is, it is. But it’s a poor town. Besides being the town clerk, I’m also the tax collector and the secretary to the selectmen, the planning board, and the zoning board of adjustment.”
“Sounds busy.”
“Oh, it keeps me jumping.” She took the paper and said, “You’re absolutely right: this is public information. Give me a few minutes, but just so you know… ” She paused.
“Yes?” I asked. “What’s that?”
Abby seemed apologetic. “You’re not a town resident. I’m afraid I’m going to have to charge you a dollar a page.”
“Best deal I’ve heard today,” I said. “No problem.”
Within ten minutes I got photocopies of what’s called the tax cards for each property listing, paid the Town of Osgood twenty-one dollars in cash, with a receipt for expenses for my nonexistent magazine article. In the parking lot next to my pickup truck was the Osgood police cruiser with Officer Templar sitting inside. He gave me a cheerful wave and I returned the favor. I got in the truck, drove down a block to Osgood Finest Pizza. Before going in, I popped open the glove compartment and memorized the truck’s owner: Bedford Pleasant Farms. I wasn’t going to give Officer Templar an opportunity to trap me with an inopportune question.
Osgood Finest Pizza, like most pizza places in New Hampshire, was owned and operated by Greek-Americans. Not sure why, but the food was always good. A chubby young lady with a thick black ponytail and a cheerful smile in a white uniform with red apron took my order, and within ten minutes I was sitting in a booth by myself eating a hot steak-and-cheese sub, with a nice cold Coke. Feeling a bit concerned about my current diet, I had decided to splurge, so I also had some low-fat baked potato chips.
The sandwich was hot, the steak well cut and tasty, and the Coke did its usual fine job of quenching my thirst. Unfortunately, my diet experiment didn’t end well, since the low-fat chips tasted like pressed cardboard sprinkled with salt.
A few minutes later, I was in my borrowed truck again. I started up and drove east, and I came upon a low-slung motel called Peak’s Paradise. I pulled into the parking lot. Waited. Looked around the lot and the building.
No.
Officer Templar seemed pretty interested in my activities. I didn’t want to be stationary in one place, to pen myself in one location to have to answer a lot more questions. Instead I backed up and drove down one narrow road, and then another. I found a hunting trail or path and backed the truck in, moving slowly and easily, a few branches scraping the side.
I sat and took stock of the tax cards I had received. There were twenty-one names, twenty-one addresses. Where to start? I started culling by going through the list, being brutal in eliminating properties that I couldn’t see Curt Chesak staying in. Each property card, besides listing the owner, address, and value of the property, also gave a description of the building: everything from number of bathrooms and bedrooms to a photograph. So residences that consisted of mobile home trailers, double-wide trailers, or distressed properties that had the cliché front yard of bathtubs, old cars on blocks, and truck tires were discarded.
Not fair, but I wasn’t looking to be fair.
After that first pass, I ended up with eleven possibilities. I checked my watch. About three hours before dusk came my way. Plenty of time to do a recon and see what I could learn. I started up the truck and started out on my quest.
All of the roads were built the same. A single-lane paved country road, with no sidewalk, no center yellow line, not much of anything except asphalt and drainage ditches on each side. Just like the roads back in Lee, where I’d had that wonderful encounter with Mister Marvel, philosophy expert. As I took my time going up and down the various roads, I made it a point to slow some as I went by the properties. There were a couple of working farms, with wide pastures, barns, with cows, sheep, and horses, and a couple of access lanes blocked by metal gates. Most of the other homes were single-family residences, up close to the road. There were kids at play, tossing balls around, riding bicycles or horses. It was a fine fall day. Halloween decorations were out on porches and at mailboxes, from skeletons to ghosts to witches to bundles of corn stalks.
And on the mailboxes were names from O’Halloran to Finch to Dupuis.
Nothing that said Chesak.
Nothing shouting out that Curt Chesak resided here.
Nothing.
Driveways and homes and everything so innocent and up-front. Hard to believe that a killer was out there somewhere, and as the hours slipped away, my frustration started to build. Maybe he wasn’t out here. Maybe he’d just happened to be in the area when he had made those phone calls.
Maybe.
The last house had the name Smith. In other circumstances, I would have found it hilarious. It was a nice-looking two-story home, on a slight rise, and in the front yard mom and dad and two young girls bounced around with a soccer ball while a white German Shepherd barked along and played with them.
No evil there.
I turned around and left.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Back to the little lane where I’d hidden out before. The Peak’s Paradise motel once again beckoned to me, with the siren song of a hot shower, soft bed, and free HBO, but I manned up and decided to continue on my own. After the truck was backed in, I lit up a small gas lantern that I had purchased from EMS earlier today and, with flashlight in hand, I strolled down to the country road. I turned around and was pleased to see no light escaping out to the road.
Back to the truck, I unrolled a mattress pad and sleeping bag. I sure hoped it wasn’t going to rain tonight. Huddling in the cab wasn’t my idea of fine sleeping.
With sleeping arrangements set, I started up a gas stove and, working carefully and following directions, I heated up a freeze-dried meal of beef stew. If I hadn’t eaten in a week, it probably would have tasted pretty good. I washed up, went into the woods to do my business, and then took the tax cards and crawled into my sleeping bag. With a headlamp perilously balanced on my forehead, I examined each one and looked again, to see what I was missing. The numbers were all there, and they weren’t adding up.
They weren’t adding up.
I was getting sleepy.
In a little bag near my head, I took out my cell phone. Dialed the number for Kara Miles. It rang and rang.
No answer. Didn’t even go to voicemail.
Hung up. Put the phone back in the bag.
It was getting colder. I put my hands in the sleeping bag, stared up at the sky. Looked for stars. Didn’t see a single one. Thought a lot about Diane, over there in Exonia. Wondered if she dreamed in her coma. And if so, what did she dream about? Her long years at the Tyler Police Department? The bad guys and girls she had put away? Me? Kara Miles and the other loved ones in her life? Or did she dream, over and over again, of those last few minutes of the violence, when Curt Chesak and the others were coming at her, pipes and lumber in their hands, rising up, knowing that it was too late to reach for her weapon, the blows falling and falling…