Spare Change (25 page)

“Mister Porter’s storage bin;
he’s got a lot of good stuff—”

“The storage bin in the
basement?”

Ethan nodded and passed down
another piece of sausage. “He’s got a hockey stick, and some shotguns, and—”

“You broke into Seth
Porter’s storage bin?”

“I didn’t
break in
; I
just pried the door open enough to squeeze through.”

“You were hiding in there.”
Olivia said, perching her hands on her hips, “…and didn’t bother to answer when
every last soul in this building was calling out your name?”

“I was asleep. I didn’t hear
nothing.”

“Asleep?  In the storage
bin?”

Ethan nodded, “Mister
Porter’s got a whole bunch of furniture in his bin and I figured he wouldn’t
mind none if I borrowed the sofa for a bit.”

“You shouldn’t be helping
yourself to other people’s belongings!” Olivia said with an artificial air of
disdain; then she let go of the issue, happy that the boy had enough sense to
stay inside out of the cold.

There and Gone

S
am Cobb figured the kid was gone and that was that.
Driving down to talk to Tom Behrens was probably a waste of time; but he jumped
at the chance because it was an opportunity to work with a detective on a
double murder, which was something that didn’t come along every day. Sam was
tired of patrolling a town with very few crimes other than the vandalism of run
amuck teenagers; and he had been looking for a way to prove himself for well
over a year. He was ready—more than ready—to make detective, to be assigned
homicides on his own, not simply because he happened to be the patrolman on
duty when the report of a double murder came in.  “We’d be better off
questioning the neighbors,” he said as if he were the voice of authority,
“chasing after that boy’s a waste of time. If he wants to run off, I say let
him go. The probability is a kid like that won’t talk even if he does know
something.”

“Could be you’re right, but
I’ve got this feeling…” Mahoney said. 

They arrived at the ESSO
station shortly after lunch on Thursday.   Mahoney stepped out of the patrol
car and walked toward the attendant, “Tom?” he asked, extending his hand in a
real friendly way.

“Yep,” Tom answered, “and
you gotta be Jack Mahoney.”

After Mahoney introduced
Patrolman Sam Cobb, the three men went inside the office and sat down. Tom
poured the last of yesterday’s coffee into paper cups and handed it to his
guests. “Sorry,” he said, “I’m fresh outta cream.”

“Coffee’s not much good
without cream,” Cobb replied, then took a sip of the coffee which was thick as
mud and gave off the smell of burnt rubber. “Whew…ee,” he grimaced, “You can’t
be expecting I’d drink this!” 

Without a word, Tom Behrens
took the cup from Cobb’s hand and set it to the side of the counter. After that
there was an edgy bit of a silence until Mahoney started chit-chatting about
how the weather this year seemed to be unseasonably cold. “Before you know it
we’ll be looking at frost,” he said. “Frost, before the end of September, can
you believe it? Newspaper claims we could get snow early as November!”

They hadn’t yet gotten
around to the issue of Ethan Allen, when a farm truck pulled up to the pump. “I
got a customer,” Tom said and stepped outside.

As soon as he was beyond
earshot, Mahoney looked over at Cobb and growled, “What’s with you? Are you
deliberately trying to tick this guy off so he won’t give us anything on where the
kid went?”

“Of course not,” Cobb
answered, “but that was the worse coff—”

“You think I give a crap? If
he comes back in here and hands you a cup of warm piss, you better drink it
down with a smile on your face!”

  Tom, a man unaccustomed to
hurrying, left them sitting in the office for almost fifteen minutes. When he
finally did return, there was more chit-chat, another customer interruption,
and a half-hour of telling bits and pieces of the tragedy which occurred at the
Doyle house. Eventually, Mahoney was able to ask, “The boy who came by here,
you think you’d know his face were you to see it again?”

“Sure. We sat nose-to-nose,
right there,” Tom waggled his finger toward a spot at the far end of the curb.
“Talked for a good half hour, then I closed up shop and drove him over to the
truck depot on Route Thirteen.”

Mahoney reached into his
pocket and pulled out the photograph he had pried loose from the Doyle
scrapbook shortly after Ethan Allen disappeared. It was a photograph taken two
years ago, a photograph taken when they’d obviously had better times. Ethan
Allen, Susanna and Benjamin were all wearing smiles as they lined up along the
front step of their house; Dog was on the far side of Ethan Allen. “Is this the
boy?” Mahoney asked, passing the photograph across to Tom.

“The one who come by here
could of been a mite older,” Tom said squinting at the picture, “but that dog
is sure as hell the same one.”  

“The boy, you say you drove
him to the truck depot?”

Tom hitched up the right
side of his mouth and gave a nod. “Sure did. He had me believing every word
that came outta his mouth; felt right sorry for him with his having a sick mama
and all.” Tom hesitated a moment then with the sound of sadness woven through his
words, added, “Of course, nowadays the truth’s so scarce a man probably ought
to question his own name.”

“And, the boy told you he
was headed to his grandpa’s over on the mainland?”

Tom nodded again. “He had
this way of saying things, so truthful sounding, you’d swear them words was
coming from his heart. When he told me the story about his poor mama, I could
see the hurt leaking out of his skin. Some folks might be able to turn their
backside to a sorrowful situation such as that, but I’m a man who remembers
when my own mama was deathbed sick. If you ever been there, you
know
what it’s like!”

Mahoney, who had a way of
making folks feel he was in complete agreement with whatever they were feeling,
gave a sympathetic nod. 

“Anyway,” Tom said, “I took
it on myself to help the boy. I never once figured his story was a bunch of
bare-faced lies.”

“So, you got him a ride to
the Mainland?”

“Yep. Just call me a fool
and stick a dunce cap on my head.”

“And did he give you the
address of where he was headed?”

“Nope. Just said his
grandpa’s.”

“He mention the grandpa’s
name?”

“Uh-uh,” Tom mumbled, shaking
his head side to side, “The boy had it writ down on the back of a folded up
envelope, but I can’t for the life of me picture what it was.”

“Doyle?” Mahoney suggested,
“…was the name Doyle?”

“Can’t say it was or wasn’t.
But, I do recollect the name of the town—Wyattsville. It’s a little place,
maybe fifty miles northwest of Richmond.”

Mahoney smiled.  “Well now,
at least we’ve got somewhere to start.”

“You’re going after him?”
Tom Behrens asked, “Way over there?” He wasn’t usually a suspicious man, but it
did seem somewhat strange for two police officers to be chasing a runaway boy
clear across the state. “How come?”

“Mostly to make sure he’s
okay,” Mahoney replied, “but we also have a suspicion that the night of the
murders he saw something.”

“Saw something? Like what?”

“Who knows,” Cobb, who felt
he’d been pushed aside on the questioning, grumbled. “A kid like that ain’t
likely to tell you—”

“We’re almost done here,” Mahoney
cut in, “Sam, why don’t you wait in the car.”

Cobb stood so abruptly, his
chair almost tipped over; then he walked out shaking his head, to show his
disdain for such an obvious waste of time.

“I got an uneasy feeling
about that fella,” Tom said, once Cobb had gone. “Ain’t many I take a dislike
to, but him…”

“Sometimes I dislike him
myself,” Mahoney said with a smile. “Now, this fellow who gave the boy a ride
to the mainland, you think he might—”

“His name’s Wheeler. Butch
Wheeler.”

“Any idea where we can get
hold of him?”

“Butch?” Tom shook his head.
“He’s one of the few who does a run on Sunday. Sundays and Tuesdays. He
generally stops at the depot on thirteen for a fill-up before heading over to
Richmond; other than that, I got no idea.”

“Sundays and Tuesdays, huh?”
Mahoney got a description of Butch Wheeler, then reached over and shook Tom’s
hand, “Thanks,” he said, “you’ve been a real help.”

The Surprise

O
n the Monday that happened along three days after
Ethan Allen had gone missing all night, Olivia’s doorbell rang. She could hear
the crowd rustling about and whispering, long before she reached the door—thinking
herself about to be evicted, she cracked it open barely wide enough for an eye
to peer through. “Yes?” she said apprehensively when she saw the group of
residents congregated outside the door. “Did you wish to speak to me?”

“Not actually,” Clara said
with a grin tugging at the corners of her mouth, “We’re here to see Ethan
Allen.”

“Clara!” Olivia exclaimed,
flinging the door open to its full width. “You of all people! I thought you
were my friend!”

“I
am
your friend!”
Clara responded—trying valiantly to hold onto a straight face, even though the
corners of her mouth kept curling. “Now, we would like to speak with Ethan
Allen.”

“You most certainly will
not!” Olivia defiantly perched her hands on her hips. “He’s
my
guest and
he’s staying until he’s good and ready to leave! If the Rules Committee has
decided to evict me because I have a guest, then so be it! But, I’ll not allow
you to harangue the boy. Have you no shame?  Have you—”

Ethan, who by now had come
to see what was causing the commotion, popped his head out from behind Olivia.
“Hi,” he said.

All of a sudden the word “
Surprise!”
rang out with such force, Olivia jumped back clutching at her heart, landed on
Ethan’s foot and almost tumbled to the floor. The group of people standing at
the door split apart like an eggshell and in the center, where a person would
expect to see the yoke, was a brand new blue bicycle. “This here’s for Ethan,”
the crowd said in unison and the boy broke into a grin that stretched the full
width of his face.

Everyone started to talk at
the same time.  “I know you had your heart set on red,” Clara said, “but, this
one’s got a horn!”

“And a basket,” Fred added,
“…so you can fetch groceries for your grandma.”

“We took a collection…”
someone said.

“A boy
needs
a
bicycle.”

“Remember the school’s ten
blocks away!”

“But, I don’t understand,”
Olivia stammered, tears of relief rolling down her face.

“It’s simple,” Clara answered,
“we decided if Ethan’s to live here, he ought to have a bicycle for errands and
travelling to school.”

“Live here? But, the Rules
Committee…”

“We met with them yesterday
and they’ve agreed to make an exception for Ethan and his dog. Seems,” Clara
said sheepishly, “they’ve known he was here all along.”

“Do I get to have the bike
now?” Ethan asked apprehensively, “Even if my birthday ain’t ‘til next month?”

“Next month?” Olivia
repeated. “Your birthday is next month?”

He nodded. “But, they
said
I could have the bike now.”

“You mean,” Olivia
qualified, “that next month you’ll be turning twelve?”

He nodded again, “…on the
fifteenth!”

“Well now,” Olivia said with
a smile, wider even than Ethan’s, “I suppose being twelve years old is cause
for a party.” Yes indeed, she thought, a very big party!

Detective Jack Mahoney

I
pride myself in understanding people, but Sam, he’s
beyond understanding. I know he’s looking to make detective, but damn, he jams
his foot in his mouth every time he opens it. He might have a valid point in
thinking the runaway kid’s not worth chasing after, but the way he says it sure
as hell rankles me.

Besides, I saw something
in that boy’s face, it could be he’s just registering the shock of finding his
parents in such a state, but my gut tells me different.

Working the Lead

M
ahoney didn’t speak for the first twenty minutes of
their drive home, neither did Sam Cobb. There seemed to be little to say. The
two of them, although they’d worked together twice before, were used to having
disagreements. Most times those disagreements were about procedural things—how
something should or should not be handled. True, Sam was generally
short-tempered, but never before had he been so openly antagonistic. “What’s
the problem?” Mahoney finally asked. “It seems like you’re deliberately trying
to sabotage any chance we’ve got of finding this kid?”

“It ain’t that,” Sam
grumbled. “But, how am I ever to make detective if you hold me down every time
we’re working together?”