Borderlines (15 page)

“Enough. go after the people responsible for Julie’s abduction. We’re not the y party here. And if you’re tiptoeing around them because you’re d you’ll get sued, let me warn you-I’ll end up doing the suing and Il never know what hit you.” He looked down at his wife. “Godn it, Ellie, stand up,” he said, dragging her to her feet. It occurred to me that both Wingate’s sudden bluster and his handling his wife were reactions to his inability to control me; she become my surrogate.

Despite her obvious discomfort, I was quite fied with the way things were going.

I stayed put, my voice calm and my posture relaxed. “Mr. Winif we were to do our job the way you’d like, you’d be the one in ight now, not Sarris or any member of his organization. You seem rget that we are not investigating your daughter’s dropping out of ge, but the deaths of five people in a fire in which you are a primary ect.” “Oh, come on.” His mouth fell open in indignation, but his eyes back and forth again nervously. “You started the fight with Fox.” “He threw me out the fucking window.” “Bruce.” Ellie Wingate stared at her husband. “And you screwed up the lie detector test.” For a moment, he seemed disoriented by his own excessive lane. “You, you people-” “And you own a 9-mm, semi-automatic pistol.” Wingate’s expression froze. I couldn’t suppress a smile. I’d hit a home run to center field. I felt that if I’d leaned forward and sneezed just then, I could have dropped them like bowling pins-pure Hollywood.

“What?” he finally said in a strangled voice. “You’re a law-abiding man. I’m sure Massachusetts has a tile on it somewhere.”

Neither one of them moved. “Where is that gun right now?” “I… I don’t know. I lost it.” He was staring at the floor, as if mesmerized by one of the mysterious stains there.

“When?” “I don’t remember.” “How do you know you lost it?” “I looked for it. I couldn’t find it.” “At home?” “Of course at home.”

“Why were you looking for it?” He hesitated. “I was going to practice with it.” “When?” “A few months ago.. a year ago.” He scratched his head nervously.

“No… wait, several years ago.” I found the confusion interesting.

“When did you buy the gun?” “What’s the point of this?” he said, making a halthearted attempt to assert himself.

“The file will indicate when you bought it, Bruce.” “It… it’s been years. I don’t remember the dates. It’s got nothing to do with all this.” I noticed his forehead was shiny with sweat.

I let that sentence hang in the air for a while. “So, tell me about Gorman.” Ellie Wingate was looking bewildered, staring at her husband. I half-expected him to invite me out again, but he just set his jaw.

“What about him?” “How did you meet?” “An ad in the paper.” “And you called him up?” “No. He flew in the window.” He tried for a sarcastic smile with minimal results.

“Then what?” “We offered him lemonade.” “Steady, Bruce.” He glared at me, suddenly hot again. It reminded me of fishing a e tension, a little slack in the line-the fish alternately fighting and ding.

“Do you meet one on one?” “We meet in a group. I told the State Police all this.” “We repeat ourselves. It helps cover our tracks, keeps us from sing things, like the gun. How many were in your group?”

“I don’t know; maybe ten.” “All couples?” “No; some.” “What was Gorman’s role?” “He was the discussion leader.” “All the time, or did he have associates who ran the meeting, too?” “No. It was always him. “What did he charge?” There was a hesitation. “Two-fifty.” “Two hundred and fifty bucks a session? How long were the ions?” Wingate’s tone became a little defensive-the banker being called for spending too much. “Two hours, sometimes more. He didn’t it by the clock, and we could call him any time, day or night. And elped in other ways… He’s no con artist; we got our money’s th.” “What other ways did he help you?” “He put us in touch with the private detective who found Julie.” “What was the detective’s name?” “John Stanley.” “Out of Boston?” Wingate nodded, his resistance reduced to a sullen expression.

“Did he find Julie?” “He found out which group she’d joined, and traced her here.” “You definitely saw her?” He glared at me a moment before finally nodding. “When?” “We already told you.” “What about the second time?” He froze at the implication. “I only saw her that once.” Well, it had been worth a try. “What else does Gorman offer?” “He gives us support, emotional support…” His voice trailed off.

“Have you been in touch with him lately?” “Why?” That struck me as an odd response. “To bring him up to date.

Seems like you’d want to tell him you located Julie, ask him what to do next.” “No.” “When was the last time you spoke with him?” “By phone or in person?” Another strange answer. I could sense the interview winding down, but I still wanted to reel in everything I could-the trash fish along with the catch. “Your last contact with him.” “I called him when we spotted Julie, the night of the fight.” “And not since?” “No.” “Not after the fire?” He hesitated. “There was no point. Julie wasn’t in the house.” I was puzzled that he was so sure of that fact, even before his visit to the fire scene. “The State Police will be checking the Inn’s phone logs.” He smiled-bad sign. “Be my guest.” Ah, I thought, pay phone. “We’ll also be talking with Gorman.” “That seems to be what you do best.” I’d finally lost the edge here. I stood up. “We do what we have to do, Mr. Wingate. And we usually end up with the right people in jail.” I crossed the room, opened the door, and left on that note. Not a bad night’s work, I thought.

When I returned from the Rocky River, I found Buster in the kitchen, in his bathrobe, cleaning up the dishes before heading off the bed. For half an hour, I sat with him, nursing a coffee I knew would keep me up half the night, trying to get a feel for what was left of the town that had done so much for me as a kid. I was in better spirits than I had been earlier. My interrogation of the Wingates had made me keen for the task ahead. What I’d gotten from them hadn’t broken the case, or even changed things dramatically, but it had been progress-something valuable to be used later, like bricks for a future house. Now I was sitting in the near dark of the living room, seeing only the dim hall light upstairs, which filtered down the staircase around corner. Buster had left it on for me after he’d gone to bed, some o hours ago. I could hear him snoring in his room above. I’d been very touched when Laura had told me Buster kept a apbook about me. It had been tangible evidence of the affection I’d ays sensed was there.

The feeling was mutual, in fact, which exined why I didn’t find it odd.

Buster had been for me, even long fore my own father died, the man to whom I naturally looked for otional support.

My father had been a farmer. My first and last memories of him of an earth-soiled man, slightly stooped from his labors, working land. I used to stare at him at the table when we shared breakfasts d dinners, not only because he struck an impressive figure, which he with his huge, gnarled brown-stained hands, but because those were e only times I ever got to see him up close. The rest of the time he out there in the fields, in the barn, among the animals-working. worked consistently, constantly, mostly by himself, and mostly thout a word. Every year, there were times he hired extra hands to there the crop. Then, suddenly, briefly, the farm resounded with ghter and coarse voices, the kitchen was crowded with men and ise at mealtime. Leo and I tore around, watching, listening, helping mother, reveling in it the way other children revel in Christmas rols in late December. And theh the silence would resettle around the use.

It wasn’t oppressive, because there was nothing to fear in it. It was my father’s way. He was older-over forty when he married my other-supporting his family in the classic mold, through the Depresn, through the war, through the bad years and the good. He did so th the same metronomic doggedness as a cave drip building a stalagite. He never yelled at us, never lost his patience as he taught us our ores, never showed anything but quiet pleasure at our company. rely, I caught him glancing at Leo or me and smiling privately. But at was it-that smile was the extent of his emotional volubility. My mother picked up the slack, caring for our emotional needs, couraging us, nurturing us.

Realizing that we needed a father who also a friend, and realizing my own father’s limitations in that partment, she had merely substituted him with Buster during our mmers in Gannet.

It was a perfect example of her inborn genius at mothering. Father our father-the point was never denied nor denigrated. Indeed, we nsed she worshipped him, albeit from afar and without demonstran. But Buster was fun, and while as a year-round influence he proba bly would have ruined us, as a summertime dad, he was as necessary for us as the occasional candy-bar hinge is for a ten year old.

If my father had his fields to till and make flourish, Buster paid just as close attention to the human spirit. Nowdays, he was given to drinking too much and giving marginally coherent lectures on the human condition, but back then he was a hands-on soul massager, as eager as a young school teacher to expose his charges to the ins and outs of life.

He did so using his garage, the surrounding hills and streams, and his wife Liz’s tolerance at having their house and kitchen perpetually invaded by boisterous, ravenous kids. Under his guiding eye, we fished and hiked and worked on cars, painted and repaired houses, and worked as willing slaves at the fire department. We were taught the value of everyone’s private dignity.

Only when I was much older did I realize the price Buster had paid for his generous excess. Like a rich man desperate to make an impression, he had exchanged his wealth for friendship. By the time Liz died and most of the town’s younger citizens had either grown up or moved to greener pastures, Buster had found little left in his reserves with which to holster his own spirit. He’d begun to drink more, to reminisce, and to hold court among people who, barring a few exceptions like Laura, didn’t give much of a damn what he had left to offer.

In that, he’d become much like the land around him. Listening to him talk earlier, as I sat sipping my coffee and watching him do the dishes, I had my concerns for the Northeast Kingdom confirmed as he elaborated on what he’d said during the celebration at the Rocky River.

When I was younger, the Kingdom had been much as the name implies-a magical other world, removed from the mainstream and endowed with a specialness in the minds of those who knew of it. Its topography, both rugged and cursive, could reject and embrace, kill and nurture. It was a place where land and weather ruled, where the beauty came less from the majestic mountain views found farther south, and more from the perpetual surprises that lurked behind the low, ever-present hills.

Even at its harshest, the Kingdom was seductive, as when its omnipotent sky darkened with boiling blue-black clouds, low slung and pregnant with threat.

Its people, like those of Gannet, clung to this mercurial terrain mostly out of choice. It was not a place to come to work, for jobs were few and far between, and demanding on the body when found. It was not a vacation retreat, since it offered no glitzy ski slopes or lake-side spas. Even during deer season, outside hunters were forced to work for their kill, finding shelter in uninsulated hunting cabins or weather-worn motels with no TVs.

Native Northeasterners preferred it that way. They were indepen self-supporting, proud, and generally uninterested in what was ning outside their boundaries. Ignoring the police and social ies, they turned to themselves or their neighbors for help and e, and scorned whatever innovations the rest of the state touted aluable.

ut, obviously, the fabric of the Kingdom had begun to strain and The Gretas, Rennies, and Busters, with the modern world pressdemands, were no longer envied for their conservative selfiency, but rather seen as quaint and out of touch, even gullible. arketplace began to put a price on all they’d taken for granted, n many cases transformed an unimportant poverty into grinding y. It went a long way in explaining Greta’s anxiety about keeping n, and her xenophobic view of the Order and its practices. It also d to explain a new bitterness I sensed lurking beneath Rennie’s worn friendly exterior, working like an infection from the inside hat, of course, was purely an impression on my part; I hadn’t had I chance to sit down and talk with him. But he seemed tired, his ter was harsher and more brittle, and his eyes, once clear and mined, tended to look away. He struck me as a man running d.

I was sitting in Buster’s exhausted armchair in the living room, my clotted with thoughts of Gannet, before and now, with fire and I felt an overwhelming need to share what was bottled up inside espite the late hour.

The idea of calling Gail was instinctive, more natural to me than oncern about the present strain between us. This is not to belittle tter-it was real and painful and not to be taken for granted, but sis was in a friendship temporarily gone awry. I knew in my heart z n a time of need, even now, neither one of us would be unavailable e other.

I’d used the image of two seesaw riders to describe us to a. In my mind, it had gone without saying that a seesaw without people, no matter how out of balance, was a choice with no options. The only phone in the house was located in the hallway, as the phones had been of old. Buster had never seen the need for cy on the phone, especially since he rarely used one in the first I dialed in the gloom, the number known by heart.

The answering voice was sleepy. “Hi. It’s me.” “Hi.” There was a pause. I tried to gauge her mood from that one -just a sound, really-and got nowhere. “Sorry to be calling so late.” “It’s okay.”

Again, the brevity left me hanging. There was no hostility in the voice, but no encouragement either. She was letting me stick my neck out.