The porch door flung open, and a big-boned, sturdy, middle-aged woman bundled in flannel and dungarees, bulled down the unpainted steps. “You can’t be here!” she barked, marching toward me, meaty paws rolling over a dishtowel.
“I’m looking for someone,” I said.
“Well, this ain’t the place to be looking!” She grabbed my elbow and began dragging me off the grounds.
“Hey!” I said, trying to shake free. “What are you doing?”
She didn’t answer, didn’t stop, just plowed ahead like a determined, gruff tugboat. When I planted my boots and refused to take another step, she clamped onto my forearms and drove her shoulder into my flank, like she planned to check me into the boards. I’d had enough.
I shoved her away. “Get your fucking hands off me!”
The girls on the porch gasped, trembling like Amish virgins who’d never seen a man before.
“Go inside, girls,” the woman said, calmly but firmly, as though practicing a rehearsed fire drill.
The girls remained frozen, gawking with spooked eyes, skittish as underfed alley cats. I wondered if this was a home for mentally handicapped people or something.
“Go inside,” the woman repeated, only this time more firmly, and, one by one, the timid things shuffled through the door like pious church mice.
I felt bad, although I didn’t know why. I hadn’t done anything wrong. This woman had practically assaulted me. Still, I felt the need to explain myself.
“I’m looking for a friend of mine,” I said. “If you could tell me-”
“You made a big mistake coming here. You have ten seconds to get in your truck and drive off before I call the cops!”
“Call the cops? For what? Asking if somebody is home? What the hell is your problem, lady? I’m just trying to find my brother’s ex-girlfriend. He’s missing. I thought he might be staying at the boarding house with her. Or that she might’ve at least seen him.”
Lips pursed, hands at the ready like she was prepared to take a swing at me, the woman cocked her head, curiously. The anger slowly drained from her red, pudgy face. “Boarding house?” she said, dropping her shoulders. “What do you think this is, 1940? This is a battered women’s shelter.”
“Oh, shit.” Showing up in a giant, rumbling truck, storming up the walkway, barking that I wasn’t leaving. The exact scene these women needed sheltering from. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Now you do. So, please, leave.”
I showed my hands. “Listen, my brother really is missing.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said, “but you still need to leave.”
“He has a drug problem.”
“That’s terrible. A lot of these girls are fleeing that world. But I need you to leave, now.”
“They just found a friend of his dead at the TC truck stop. He’d been murdered. I don’t know where else to look. Please. Help me.”
The wind whipped around us as the last glimmer of light disappeared behind the tall trees.
“Can we sit in my truck for a few seconds and talk?” I immediately backtracked. “I’m really not looking to cause any problems. I’m a nice guy, I swear. Maybe you know my brother? Chris Porter? I dropped off his girlfriend here once. A long time ago. Like, maybe two years. It’s why I thought this was a boarding house. That’s what they told me. And I believed them.”
“Son, I’m sure you’re a nice guy. It was a misunderstanding, okay? No hard feelings. But you have to leave. I can’t tell you who’s here. Don’t you know that’s the whole point of a house like this? Nobody should know it exists. Why else would we be in the middle of nowhere? I don’t know who would’ve asked you to bring them here, since that girl should’ve known that.”
“Her name was Kitty.”
The name must’ve registered, because her expression instantly changed, though for better or worse, I couldn’t say.
I pulled out my wallet. I carried business cards for hauling that Tom had had printed. They showed a cartoon man in a hard hat, standing beside a dump truck, giving an enthusiastic thumbs up. I hated the damn things, but passed one along anyway. She reluctantly plucked it from my fingers, squinting down at the goofy logo.
“I know you can’t tell me if she’s here.” I started backing up to my truck. “But maybe you can have her call me? I swear, I’m telling the truth. I’m not some domestic-abusing jerk or anything like that. I’m just a guy looking for his brother. I’m worried about him. If you see Kitty, give her my card, okay? Use it to check out who I am first. Call the Ashton PD. They’ll verify everything I’ve told you.”
As I threw my truck in reverse, I saw her tuck away the card and stalk back into the house. She didn’t wave goodbye.
Driving back, darkness strangling the countryside, no moon, not a single star in the winter sky to guide my way home, I lit a cigarette and watched my breath cloud in the glowing dashboard lights.
I felt terrible for how I’d acted at the women’s shelter, like some knuckle-dragging troglodyte. I started rehashing all my other stupid missteps and cringe-worthy lapses in my life, which is how things happened: one mistake begetting another, building a lifetime’s worth of regret-a snowball effect.
I realized now why I’d snapped at Charlie over lunch. He was right. I hadn’t been doing my best to find Chris. I knew I resented my brother, but I didn’t appreciate just how much I’d grown to hate him. I hadn’t bothered trying to track down Kitty or any of his other friends because a part of me wanted him to stay gone.
When I got back into town, without really thinking about it, I headed for Lamentation Bridge. I stood in front of my truck. Engine rumbling, high beams backlighting me, midnight winds howling. I skimmed rocks off the ice and felt the big clock winding down.
By the time I pulled into Hank Miller’s lot, I’d smoked half a pack of cigarettes and pinched a nerve in my neck throwing too many stones. Too scatterbrained to see the police cruiser waiting for me until I was practically on top of it, I had to hammer on the brakes to keep from rear-ending Turley.
As soon he stepped out and I saw his face, I knew it was about Chris.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Tried calling you,” said Turley, tugging on the furred earflaps of his brown police hat. “Someone spotted your brother.” He jammed his hands into his coat pockets.
“He’s okay?” I asked, although it was less a question for Turley, and more for my own ears to hear. “Where is he?”
“On the run,” said Turley. “Got caught breaking into Gerry Lombardi’s house.”
“Gerry Lombardi?” Why the hell would he break into his old wrestling coach’s house?
“Lombardi’s wife, Camille, called it in. Gerry’s with the team down in Manchester for the tournament. Regionals.”
Of all the houses to break into. “She’s sure it was Chris?”
“Yup. Startled the hell out of her too. Knows your brother well from his days wrestling with Adam. She’d been having dinner with a friend in town, came home, saw the light on in Gerry’s office, walked in and caught your brother, red-handed, rifling through Gerry’s desk. She said he looked like a wild animal. Filthy, smelled bad, like he’d been sleeping in the woods.”
As if anybody could last a night in this cold. “Why would Chris be rummaging through Mr. Lombardi’s desk?”
“Gerry’s pretty old,” said Turley. “Got that bad back. Chris must’ve thought he had some painkillers lying around.” Turley pointed into the night. “Got a car prowling Elton Drive and Axel Rod Road right now. Can’t imagine he’d get far. I’ve been camped by your door in case he showed up.”
“He’s not coming here with you guys looking for him.”
“Probably not,” said Turley. “But I figured I could at least let you know he’s alive. Thought you’d like to hear that.”