He thought about what I’d said for a while before reluctantly agreeing. “OK.”
A moment later I said, “The old Buchanan mill.”
“You think that’s where Bernard is?”
“The evil he left behind.”
“What if it is there, what do we do then?”
I looked back at the house, at the past. “We end it.”
CHAPTER 30
The plan was set, but still twenty-four hours away. Rick went to work and I decided to kill some time at Harry’s, a quiet lounge I sometimes went to a few blocks from my apartment. I’d been drinking a lot more heavily than I normally did, but it took the edge off my constantly wired nerves, and although the results were only temporary, I needed the reprieve from anxiety liquor provided.
I recognized some regulars huddled at the bar, and since I wasn’t in the mood for conversation, I ordered a drink and sat instead at one of the tables along the opposite wall. The bartender was a summer-hire I didn’t recognize. He brought my drink along with a little white napkin, placed it before me and hung his hands on his fleshy waist. “Hot enough for ya?”
I was certain if one more person asked me that I’d snap. “Rain’s coming.”
“Yeah, any minute. About time, huh?” He scratched at the stubble along his chin. “You believe the shit going on?” He lowered his voice. “Scary, huh?”
I nodded, sipped my whiskey. “Sure is.”
“You hear the shit he did to them poor girls? Christ. Sick mental fucking bastard.”
I gave an obligatory smile and wondered if this was the way Bernard had felt when he was alive, knowing something no one else did, carrying around knowledge of things others could only speculate about and all the while pretending he was as clueless as the next guy.
“Anyway,” he said, motioning to my drink, “you need another one gimme a holler.”
I thanked him and he went back behind the bar. I sipped my drink and tried to clear my mind, but everything was piling up, streaming through me as if a floodgate had burst. Even stronger than what had happened in the house were the things Claudia had told me. I could hear her voice in my head. I could see her face, her body, her feline-like movements and dark eyes. We could not have been more different as people, and yet, I felt an undeniable bond between us. We were both isolated, in pain and afraid in our own ways. Truth was, I hadn’t stopped thinking about her and all she’d said since we’d met, and wasn’t certain I ever would.
A thunderclap shook the bar.
The rain had finally arrived, but all I could think about was Claudia, and whether she’d left town yet.
I finished my drink and signaled the bartender for another.
By the time I reached my car I was soaked to the bone.
The rain was falling in torrents, bringing with it the darkness of night and pouring from the heavens with a steady ferocity that made driving more of a challenge than it should have been. The downpour had begun to cool things down almost immediately, but the heat was still high.
With three whiskey and sodas under my belt, I took the highway to New Bedford.
Visibility was low, and by the time I reached the city limits the rain had become even heavier. Occasional forks of lightning split the black horizon, and thunder exploded every few seconds, as if in timed intervals. No one was on the street, and even the normally busy interstate was eerily empty.
I pulled onto Milner Avenue, which was deserted as ever, and followed it to Claudia’s cottage. The entire area was pitch black. I remembered there had been a light bulb above the front door, but it too was dark. Between the rain and darkness I couldn’t even make out the building until I turned toward it and crept closer with my headlights on high beam. The dirt lot was flooded, a mass of puddles and rivers as the rain continued its assault. I checked my watch, holding the face close to the lighted dash. It was only a little after nine. Claudia was a night person, so it seemed doubtful she’d be in bed at this hour. Odds were she had already left town.
Still unsure of exactly what the hell I was doing there, I wiped some rainwater from my face and neck and sat watching the cottage, as if for some sudden revelation.
It came to me in the form of a slight flicker of light.
I sat forward and squinted through the rain and swing of the windshield wipers. A tiny patch of light wavered in the darkness.
I dropped the headlights down to low beam and waited. After a moment the front door opened a few inches. I leaned out of the car, into the rain. “Claudia?”
“Who’s there?” she called from behind the door, her voice barely audible above the storm.
“It’s Alan.”
“Who?”
I shut the car off but left the headlights on. “Plato,” I said. “It’s Plato.”
The door opened a bit wider, and I could see her eyes reflecting the light. “What are you doing here?”
I stepped out of the car. Thick raindrops pelted me like water-bullets. “I was hoping maybe we could talk.”
“Didn’t we already do this?” She raised a hand to shield her eyes from the headlights, so I reached in and shut them off. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw that Claudia was holding a candle. She opened the door wider still, but I couldn’t see much of anything beyond her face. “What do you want?” she asked.
“Getting out of the rain would be nice.”
“So go home, you got a roof there, right?”
“I need to talk to you.”
“Again?”
“Yes, for Christ’s sake—obviously.”
She may have smiled a bit, but I couldn’t tell for sure. She watched me a few seconds then motioned with her head for me to come inside. I tramped through puddles and mud to her front door. Rain dripped from my hair to my eyes and across my face. My clothes were drenched and pasted to me like a second skin. Claudia held the candle higher for a better look at me.
“I wasn’t sure I’d still find you here,” I said.
“Well I wasn’t sure I’d still be here.” She swung the door enough for me to pass and stepped back out of the way. Once I was through the threshold the door closed behind me and she was at my side, the candle providing enough light to reveal pieces of the front room and bits of us. Claudia was wrapped in a large white towel and nothing else. Her hair was nearly as wet as mine. “What do you want? What are you doing back here?”
I stood dripping on her floor. Rain spattered against the windows and gushed from gutters along the roof, splashing into puddles in the mud. “I just—I was hoping maybe we could talk for a while.”
“You’ve been drinking, I can smell it on you.”
“Yeah, a little.”
“You one of those guys who grows a set once he’s had a few?”
“I’m not sure what kind of guy I am right at the moment.”
She shook her head, both annoyed and amused from the looks. “Look, I thought I made this clear before. I’m not in the business anymore.”
“I understand that.”
She spun away, walked over to a battered couch and sat down. Darkness closed around me, the light encircling her as she placed the candle on a rickety coffee table in front of her. “I was soaking in the tub, chilling out and trying to groove with the rain, and I’d like to get back to it if you don’t mind. In case you haven’t fucking noticed, it’s nighttime, this is my place and you’re here uninvited again. So I’ll ask one more time. What do you want?”
I moved closer to her, closer to the flame. “Why don’t you have any lights on?”
“They turned the electric off. I’m leaving tomorrow, so who cares?”
Lightning blinked, washing the room in blue for an instant.