The Cure (13 page)

Riley had to will himself not to edge toward the door. He awaited accusations with a pounding heart, but as the footage of him faded, no one seemed to recognize the silhouetted image of the man in the shadowy back seat of Bill Hightower’s Mercedes. Then on the screen came a face he knew from the shelter. The female reporter’s voice-over continued. “In a bizarre twist, it seems the suspect in Ms. Newdale’s disappearance is a local hero, at least to the homeless people of this small New England town.”

The camera shifted to a man from the shelter, who said, “Uh, yeah, he healed me. I been a drunk as long as I can remember, but Stanley healed me, and a bunch of other people too.”

The screen now showed a montage of homeless people gathered in small groups at various street corners and public places around Dublin. The woman spoke over the footage. “Officials estimate perhaps as many as one hundred homeless people have arrived here in tiny Dublin, Maine, drawn by spreading rumors of a cure for alcoholism. Molly Henderson is one such person.”

A woman with wild hair, bad teeth, but clear and piercing eyes stared directly into the camera. “I come last August. Heard about it in Oklahoma and hitched all the way up here. Took a couple of weeks after I got here, but one day I just knew I was cured. That’s all. Just cured. And that was . . . maybe mid-October? You have to understand, I used to drink anything I could get, but now I’m working at the bowling alley and they got a bar but I ain’t had a drink since, I guess, more than a month? I lost everything to drinkin’ and now I never even think about it, except to count my blessings.”

The reporter’s face filled the screen as she said, “We found over a dozen people in Dublin with similar stories. Some attribute their sobriety to Stanley Livingston, some don’t seem to have any idea how or why the urge to drink has vanished. All of them, however, claim they have been freed from a habit that had driven them, quite literally, to life in the gutter. This is Julia Armstrong, reporting for CNN from Dublin, Maine.”

The television screen next showed five well-dressed people behind a large curved desk in a studio, three men and two woman. One of the women said, “Fascinating story. What do you think, Ken?”

One of the men said, “Imagine if it’s true. A cure for alcoholism. Imagine what that would be worth.”

“And apparently a homeless man has the secret,” said another man.

The female moderator said, “Makes you think about panhandlers a little differently, doesn’t it?”

Everybody laughed.

The second woman said, “Seriously, what if one of the homeless people we pass on our way home tonight has the cure for alcoholism? What would that be worth?”

“Millions,” said one of the men.

“Billions,” said another.

The first woman turned toward the camera. “Obviously we’ll be following this story very closely, but in other news tonight—”

Hope hit the mute button.

“Wow,” said Bree. “We’re on CNN.”

Dylan said, “Do ya think that stuff about a cure for alcoholics could be true?”

“Of course not,” said Hope. “How could it be true?”

Riley, saying nothing, slipped his right hand into the pocket of the corduroy trousers borrowed from his ex-wife’s lover. He wrapped his fingers around the folded slip of paper there. He had lost the note somehow, but he still had the paper with the formula. His mind drifted as the others spoke about the story—his story—and he thought about his hope to be a comfort to his ex-wife and daughter. He thought about Hope’s troubles as the mayor of Dublin. All those drunks, shutting down the town. All the citizens blaming Hope. Slowly, a plan began to form. When they were done talking Riley kept the hidden piece of paper firmly in his grasp all the way back down to the basement.

Alone again with Dylan he said, “So, you’re a lawyer?”

“Ayuh.” Dylan stooped to lift the water heater.

“Do you know anything about patents?”

“A little.”

They set the tank in its proper place. Hope’s lover began working on the connections as Riley passed him tools. Riley had another question. “If someone wants to hire you, and they tell you something, you can’t tell it to anybody else, right?”

“Ayuh, ‘less there’s intention to commit a crime.”

“But except for that, lawyers can’t talk about their client’s secrets, right?”

“Be awful hard to give fair representation if we couldn’t keep a confidence.”

Five more minutes passed with Riley thinking hard. He had Hightower’s hundred dollars in his pocket, and another couple of hundred he had earned working as Henry’s stock boy. It might be enough for a start, especially since Dylan wasn’t making any money lobstering. But what if things went wrong? Things always went wrong.

One moment Riley thought he ought to try, in the next he recognized his plan for the pathetic delusion it must surely be. He wavered between the preposterous and the possible as Hope’s lover finished the job, packed his tools, and headed for the stairs. Riley sensed if he didn’t do it then and there, he would never find the courage later. In five more seconds they would be with Hope and Bree again and it would be too late.

Of course it was nothing but an idiotic fantasy, the usual stuff of drunks and dreamers. Yet underneath an overpass had he not dreamed of miracles in Maine? And had he not lifted Brice on his back and begun a journey that had led him to the cure?

Then again, Brice was dead. Things always went wrong.

Climbing the stairs behind Dylan, longing to save Hope as he had once longed to save Brice, Riley wavered. He was terrified of unknown consequences and terrified of missing that one chance. Hope’s lover put his hand on the basement door. It was Riley Keep’s last chance.

C
HAPTER
F
IFTEEN

W
HEN THE REPORTER ON THE TELEVISION SAID
, “The chief of Dublin’s small police department revealed that they had the man in custody yesterday, but released him . . .” Chief Steven Novak stopped chewing. Staring at the indistinct image of the man in the car, he crushed the sandwich in his fist and listened with a growing sense of futility as the reporter continued. “. . . the police here in Dublin failed to obtain the usual arrest photographs of the suspect.” At that, Chief Novak threw the remains of his Italian at the television with a curse, splattering the screen with dressing, lettuce, and salami. The woman had as good as told the entire country he was nothing but a bumpkin fooled by an alcoholic bum. Good for writing parking tickets, maybe, but not up to serious police work. The chief cursed again, more loudly.

Agnes Miller opened his office door. “You okay?”

He scowled at his assistant. “No, I ain’t okay! Tell Dave to get in here!”

Moments later, as the chief picked up a tomato slice from the floor, a lanky man with thinning wheat-colored hair entered the office. Dave Henson had been on the Boston force for twenty years, retired with a pension, married a girl half his age and moved to Dublin. He worked part time as Dublin’s only police detective. The rest of the time, he mostly fished or hunted anything in season. His bushy moustache had always annoyed Steve Novak. A serious police officer did not wear a moustache, especially one that hid his lower lip. The chief looked at him. “I just heard ‘em say we failed to get a photograph of that fella. Heard ‘em say it on the national news! How’d they find that out?”

“I got no idea, Chief.”

Steve tried to speak calmly. “It’s one thing not to fire Billy for messin’ up the memory or whatever he did with the camera. I understand the technology’s kinda new and all, and everyone makes mistakes. But I want ya to find out who told the press about it, because I am absolutely gonna fire
that
person over
that
!”

“Okay.”

“Okay
what
?”

“Okay, I’ll try to find out who spilled the beans so you can fire ‘em.”

“We can’t have people givin’ information to the press!”

“I agree.”

The chief sat in the chair behind his desk, somewhat mollified. “What’re ya doin’ right now?”

“Still processing the drug store evidence.”

“It’s been two days! How long ya gonna drag that out?”

Henson’s cheeks turned red. “There’s nearly thirty suspects, Steve.”

The chief sighed. “I know it. And I don’t mean to be so hard on ya. It’s just, I really need a hand on this Willa thing. We’re lookin’ like a bunch of idiots here.”

“Well, I should be done by eight. Sally and the kids are doin’ somethin’ at church tonight anyways, so I could put a couple of hours towards it if you’ll approve the overtime.”

“Oh, there’s no problem with that. Just go give the shelter another look-see, will ya? I keep thinkin’ we must of missed somethin’ over there.”

Henson left the office. Chief Novak stared at the wall opposite his deck, turning things over in his mind. He stood. He put on his jacket and cap. Fifteen minutes later he was parking his new Ford Explorer in front of Bill Hightower’s house.

Hightower lived in Dublin’s largest historic home, built nearly two hundred years before by one of the tycoons who transformed the town from a minor fishing village into a major building center for the three-masted sailing ships of that era. The ship building days were long gone, and in Steve Novak’s opinion it was a sorry situation indeed when lawyers and bankers were the last ones left who could afford the upkeep on a foursquare Federal mansion built with the good old-fashioned sweat of an honest workman’s brow, especially when the township couldn’t even afford to fix the dent in his Explorer’s fender.

The black December sky sent a light snow flurry down on the chief as he opened the cast iron gate beside the curb and followed the brick walkway to Hightower’s front door. The snowflakes were small and icy, nearly like sleet. On the covered portico he wiped the back of his neck and pressed the doorbell and stamped his feet, staring at the Christmas tree alight with primary colors in a nearby window.

Hightower answered the door himself. The man looked brittle and bloodless in the porch light. He invited Steve in and escorted him across a tall entry hall and through an ornate cased opening to the front room on the left—a parlor, Steve supposed they used to call it. The two tall men sat on facing settees before a flickering fireplace. Four red stockings dangled from the mantel, the Hightowers’ names carefully embroidered on them in golden thread. William, Betty, Sam, and Sarah. Steve had stockings hanging from his mantel too, but the names were crudely applied with glitter stuck in Elmer’s glue. Bing Crosby sang carols in another room deeper in the house. Steve refused the offer of a drink. He knew Hightower was a teetotaler, and did not care for virgin eggnog or hot apple cider or whatever poor excuse for a proper highball the man might have in mind.

Hightower said, “Blowing up a little out there, is it?”

“Well, I guess prob’ly. Supposed to get five or six inches, what I heard.”

“First real good one this year.”

“Ayuh.”

“You still have that shelter closed, I guess?”

“It’s a crime scene.”

“I wish you’d hurry up and clear it. Henry’s got them sleeping in the sanctuary.”

“Bringin’ in the sheaves.” Steve smiled.

“It’s not funny. All those filthy vagrants on our pews, on the floor, must be Fifty or sixty of them, stinking up the sanctuary.”

“Speaking of vagrants, I’m here about the one ya picked up from the station the other day.”

“I see.” A lawyer’s noncommittal response.

“Henry tells me ya let him off at his place and then drove away with the fella in your back seat.”

“That’s true.”

“Where’d ya drop him?”

“Why do you want to know?”

Steve stared at the stick figure of a man for a full five seconds before answering. “He’s a person of interest in an ongoin’ investigation.”

“The riot at Henry’s store?”

“I ain’t gonna say, Bill. Just answer the question, will ya?”

Hightower turned toward the dancing fire. He spoke as if to himself. “You already know I’m aware of his arrest with the others at the store, so it can’t be that.”

“Bill, why don’t ya just gimme an answer?”

“It’s the Newdale woman’s disappearance.”

“Where’d ya drop him off, Bill?”

“You think she was kidnapped. Or murdered.”

“Bill.”

Hightower rose and used a poker to stir new life into the fire. “We’ve had a riot, and now maybe a murder. Twenty percent of my clients have gone out of business in the last eighteen months. Are you aware of that? Twenty percent.”

“That’s a lot.”

The thin gray man jabbed the logs, sending sparks swirling up into the chimney. “I don’t need the business. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m worried about all those poor people out of work, and with winter on us . . . our neighbors are in trouble, Steven. What are you going to do about it?”

“I’m not in charge of that. I’m just a policeman. Now, where’d ya drop that fella off?”

“If someone doesn’t do something soon, you’ll have nothing left to police.”

“What do ya suggest?”

“Run all the indigents out of town, of course.”

“How should I do that?”

“Any way you have to.”

Steve watched the man’s stiff back, noting the vicious way he used the poker on the logs. “What’d ya do to that fella, Bill?”

Hightower turned, surprise apparent in his face. “Do to him?”

“What am I supposed to think when ya won’t answer my question?”

“Quid pro quo, Steven. You haven’t answered mine.”

Steve sighed. “All right. I’m gonna uphold the law, whether that means arrestin’ people for vagrancy or for murder—” he paused, staring hard at Hightower— ”or for obstruction of justice.”

“But that’s not enough!”

“It’s all I got.”

“Then somebody else will have to do it.”

“What does that mean?”

“I left him at the intersection of Green’s End and Highway 3.”

Steve thought a moment. “Nothin’ out there.”

“That’s right.”

“Nothin’ even close to there.”

“True again.”

“Why there?”

“It’s a long way from here.”

“Transportin’ a person against his will is kidnappin’.”

“I made no threats and he didn’t object.”

“When I find him, he’ll verify that?”

“
If
you find him, and his memory of it differs, it’ll be his word against mine, and I’ll be taken at my word.”

The man was right, and Steve Novak hated it. “I guess the drive out there was your idea.”

“What if it was? As I said, he didn’t object.”

“Why would he object? I told him not to leave town. He’s a suspect in an ongoin’ investigation, prob’ly a first-degree felony. Way I see it, ya basically drove his getaway car.”

For the first time Hightower a seemed a little bit uncomfortable. “Nonsense.”

Steve waited a beat, letting it sink in. Then, “Did he mention any plans?”

“I think he said something about the bus station in Liberty.”

Steve stood. “I’ll let myself out. And Bill?” He waited until the cadaverous man turned his pale gray eyes toward him. “Don’t ya be doin’ something else about those people like ya said. Don’t do that.”

Outside, the wind tugged at Steve’s coat, propelling thicker snow at a sharper angle as he followed Hightower’s straight brick walkway to the iron gate at the street. He swung the Explorer around in a U-turn and headed out of town.

Halfway to Liberty his headlights started blinding him as they bounced back off the swirling wall of solid white. The windshield wipers barely kept up with the slush, even when he slowed to twenty. Snow flowed through the air so fast it seemed to leave a record of its progress, as if each snowflake had been transformed into a tiny frozen comet or a crepe paper streamer. Steve began to wonder if it was going to turn into the first blizzard of the winter. He thought about turning back. Then Dave Henson hailed him on the radio.

“Chief, I’m over here at the shelter.”

Steve set the radio for hands-free in order to maintain control of the truck. “Real good, Dave.”

“I got somethin’.”

Steve felt the familiar thrill of the hunt. “Go ahead.”

“It’s a note, handwritten on a little folded piece of paper. I found it under one of the bunks.”

“Read it to me.”

“Lemme put on my glasses.” After a pause, the detective’s voice came back on the speaker. “Uh, it says here, `May the Lord forgive me, I should have done this long ago. Whoever opens this, please give it to the pastor. He’ll know what to do. Tell him it will cure alcoholics, and . . .’”

By the time the detective finished reading, the chief had pulled to a complete stop. He sat staring out through his windshield at the nearly horizontal snow streaking across the Explorer’s hood. From the darkness a ten-point buck stepped into his headlight beam. It turned and stood as if paralyzed, with eyes glowing red and majestic antlers spreading up beyond the electric glow to disappear into the firmament above. The arctic wind ran icy fingers through the buck’s fur and then came to trail them with a hiss along the truck. The chief envisioned his cheek against a rifle stock, his eye unblinking down the barrel. The hunter in him longed to take a shot, but he knew how to wait.

Could those crazy rumors be true after all? Could the man who murdered Willa Newdale really have a cure for alcoholism? An actual cure? The idea excited him, not because it would mean the end of suffering for countless millions, but because it meant sooner or later the bum would try to profit from it, and to do that he would have to step out of the darkness, and when that happened, Chief Steve Novak would be waiting there to take him down.