Third Rail (18 page)

“Why'd you call 911?”

Thom clomps forward. “There's something down in the mill. I don't think it's anything, but this annoying teacher made me call. I'll take you inside.” He nudges the heavy door open with his shoulder and cool air billows out. They walk down a hallway to the dank mill chamber.

Thom picks up a lantern from the floor and clicks on a flickering bulb designed to look like candlelight. The wet rock walls of the small room glisten in the dim light, and the hair on the back of Harkness's arms rises. The town mill is just as creepy as it was years ago when he came here on school field trips.

The narrow wooden stairs creak as they walk down them. A school class gathers in stunned silence in the dim room. Their teacher rushes toward them.

“Thank God it's you, Edward.”

“What seems to be the problem, Mrs. P?”

Mrs. Pettengill points at the glistening wooden millwheel, the waters of the milldam rushing around its base and flooding across the floor. “We were in the middle of our tour and I saw something strange in the millwheel.” The class stands in silence, boldest near the millwheel, timid pressed against the back wall.

“I assured this fine teacher of children that a stick, or perhaps a barrel stave, is miring the millwheel,” Thom says in his faux-Colonial accent.

“I'll handle it, Citizen Garrett.” Harkness takes his lantern and walks toward the waterway and the still wheel. There's a roll of sod clogging the works.

Mrs. Pettengill stays back. “I don't like the look of it, Edward,” she says.

Harkness smells the familiar sweet rot he remembers from alleys, vacant lots, and car trunks.

Thom holds a long finger aloft. “Perchance there are some tree branches lodged in ye olde millwheel.”

“I think you need to take the kids outside, Citizen Garrett, okay?” Harkness says. “Now.”

Thom leads the class toward the entrance.

“Probably sod or a bag of leaves, Mrs. P,” Harkness says to calm her down. “Just stuff a landscaper dumped in the river.”

“I don't think so, Eddy.”

“I'll check it out. You go on outside.” At the millwheel, Harkness reaches out to try to move the clog. In the dim light from the fake lantern, it's green and slick, bobbing awkwardly in the water, half trapped. Harkness pushes it to shift its clammy weight, then pulls his hand away. Water splashes as the millwheel starts to turn.

Harkness holds the light closer. Wrapped with vines and leaves, the bloated body wants to break free of its green uniform. Harkness rolls the body over until the blanched face surfaces through the murky water and the captain's blue eyes stare at him.

***

Harkness's cell phone rings in the middle of the night, and he rolls over to keep Thalia from waking up.

“You awake, bro?”

“No.” A candle gutters on the kitchen table, where he and Thalia spent most of the night talking.

“Been out partying?”

Harkness pauses, decides to tell his brother to truth. “Look, George. I found Captain Munro floating in the town mill. Dead for a couple of days.”

“No way.”

Harkness says nothing.

“I remember him from when we were kids,” George says. “Really nice guy. Always kept us all out of trouble.”

“Right.”

“Got Dad off for DUI about ten times. And me for vandalizing the school and a bunch of other stupid stuff I did. He was a real friend of the family.”

“I . . .” Harkness wants to say more, about how Captain Munro alone took him in after the incident, about how he checked up on Nora and their mother every week. But he can't.

Thalia sits up on the futon and puts her hand on his arm.

“It's George,”
he mouths in the gloom.

Thalia gives a vigorous jack-off gesture.

“So what happened?”

“Not sure,” Harkness says. “Looks like he drowned. I'm checking it out.”

“I'm really sorry, Eddy. I know he wasn't just your boss or commanding officer or whatever they call it.”

“Yes.” Tears stream down Harkness's face. Thalia's nestled next to him now, running her hand along his back.

“Look, Eddy. I know it's not a good time to talk. But I just wanted to tell you something.”

“Then just say it, George.”

“The Revolving Gallery?”

“What?”

“The gallery your quote-unquote girlfriend told me about at dinner, you know, when you locked me in the trunk of my own fucking car, remember? Thalia said it was her gallery but it's been out of business for years.”

“Thanks, George. I'll correct my art walk map in the morning.”

“Might want to ask her about it.”

“Why don't you stick with investing and I'll do the investigating.”

“All I know is this, bro. People don't tell just one lie.”

***

Lee unlocks the door and Harkness slips inside the Nagog Five and Ten, radiators ticking against the crisp morning. “Need another gun, Eddy?” Lee whispers, even though there's no one else in the store.

“Baseballs,” Harkness says.

“Getting back to your roots, are you?”

“Kind of.”

Lee runs down the narrow aisles and comes back with a baseball boxed in thin cardboard. “Like this?”

“Yeah, but a couple dozen,” Harkness says. “In a gym bag. Need a bat, too.”

“You were a pitcher in high school, right?”

Dozens of Nagog High ballgames replay in his mind in blurry fast-forward until Harkness shuts them off. “For two years.”

“Still like it?”

“Baseball? Sure.”

“Weird, then.”

“What?”

“That you end up getting hated by every Sox fan in the world.”

“Thanks for that, Lee.”

“Sorry.” Lee trots down the aisle again, coming back with a bulging red gym bag and a gleaming aluminum bat.

“How much do I owe you?”

Lee shakes his head. “Just knock one out of the park for me.”

“Oh, I will.”

***

In less than a week, Sergeant Dabilis has already colonized Captain Munro's office. Red leather chairs circle the big new desk and a Red Sox banner hangs next to the Massachusetts flag.

He waves Harkness into one of the new chairs, which creaks when he sits in it. “Listen, Harkness. I know you and the captain were friends.”

Harkness nods.

“He was a good man,” Dabilis says. “We go way back.”

Harkness stares, then traces the outline of the office with his careful gaze, imagines it filling up with black water.

“Turns out he was up to his eyeballs in debt,” Sergeant Dabilis blurts out. “That alone might be enough to send him over the edge. But there's this other thing . . . he had some kind of leukemia that was going to kill him in a couple of years. So we're classifying it as suicide.”

“And you and Ramble are running the investigation?”

“Investigation . . .” Dabilis rolls his hand in front of him.

“ . . . the investigation,
sir
?
”

“We think he jumped off the Carson Avenue Bridge. Found his car near there.”

Harkness used to jump from that bridge with his friends in the summer. It's only fifteen feet above the water even when the river's low. To drown, the captain would have had to force himself underwater. Harkness sends out a truth-inducing stare but Sergeant Dabilis just looks away.

“I know that you and the captain had some side projects going. Like investigating the town monument accident.” Dabilis pauses. “Anything else you were looking into?”

Harkness shakes his head, puts on his most honest face. “No,
sir,
” he says.

Sergeant Dabilis circles the room and stops next to Harkness. “From here on in, no side projects. No investigating—except for why a meter doesn't work. I don't want anything funny happening. Just do your shifts and empty the meters until I tell you to stop. Got it?”

“Yes,
sir
.”

“Until then, we'll try to get along. Like cops do, Harkness. Right?”

***

One of Dex's drug dudebros walks out of the hardware store, lips moving to voice some private complaint, biblical beard waving in the breeze. He's getting a lot of stares on the sidewalk and giving back plenty of sneers. Harkness rolls down the window of the squad car. “Hey, Mouse. It's Mouse, right? Want a ride?”

Mouse looks at Harkness and just shakes his head. “No, thanks.”

“Looks like rain,” Harkness says. The late-afternoon sky is dotted with dark clouds, air thick with the smell of the ocean.

“No thanks, really.”

Harkness trails Mouse along Main Street. “Look, I just finished my shift.” He points to his shirt and jeans. “Not even a cop this afternoon. Just a normal civilian. Nothing to be afraid of.” Harkness pauses. “Unless you have something to hide.”

Mouse stops walking and gives Harkness an annoyed look.

“I'm a friend of Candace's,” Harkness says. “She told me you were an interesting guy.”

“Sure she did.” Mouse laughs.

“The girl has a way with words.”

“Mostly
fuck
and
fucktard
and
assberger fucktard
.”

Harkness leans over to open the passenger door and gives Mouse his best smile, the one that says
Trust me
in every language.

Mouse rolls his eyes and slides into the seat.

Just like a mouse, Harkness thinks.

“You play baseball?” Harkness asks when they drive by the town park. The playing fields are empty, the pool's drained, and the summer crowds are long gone.

“No.”

“Not even catch? You know, when you were a kid?”

“Of course,” Mouse says. “Everyone plays catch.”

Harkness reaches into the back seat and tosses a new glove to Mouse. “Well, here. Let's break this in a little.” He pulls up next to the fields where he spent almost every afternoon as a boy.

“Look, I have to get back to the farm.”

“Important things to do, huh?”

Mouse says nothing.

“Maybe Dex doesn't want you staying out without his permission?”

“That's not it.”

“So Dex doesn't tell you what to do? Seemed like he was the alpha dog.”

“You got that all wrong, dude.”

“So just spend a few minutes out on the field with me. A little catch. Some fresh air. No big deal.”

 

After the first dozen pop flies, Mouse almost gets the hang of it. He quits running up to catch the ball only to watch it fall yards behind him. He doesn't try to catch the ball with his glove turned the wrong way.

“Nice,” Harkness says. He tosses a ball in the air, and when it drops he sends a line drive heading right at Mouse. The ball knocks the mitt off and sends it rolling across the field.

“Shit.” Mouse circles with his hand jammed under his arm.

“That's right, walk it off.”

“Why'd you do that?”

“Because if I hit you with this bat, it's assault.”

“What?”

“But if you get hit by the ball, well, it looks more like . . . an accident.”

Harkness tosses a ball and fires another line drive inches from Mouse's head.

“What do you want, you psycho?” His screamed question echoes across the empty playing fields.

Harkness leans on the bat. “I want to know if your pal Dex had anything to do with the death of a town cop.”

“No way.”

“Ever meet a Captain Munro? Scottish guy, short gray hair, blue eyes?”

Mouse shakes his head.

“Someone drowned him in the Nagog River. Sound familiar?” Harkness sends another ball just to the other side of Mouse's head.

“Stop it.”

“Anything to say?”

“No.”

“Because you won't say, or because you don't know?” Harkness fires another line drive right at Mouse, and he drops to the ground, hands over his head.

“I don't know anything about it! I'm only out at the farm a couple times a week.”

“Did Dex say anything?”

“Dex doesn't say much.” Mouse stands and brushes off his skinny jeans.

“Well, here's something you can tell him,” Harkness says. “Tell him to get out of Nagog.”

“Why?”

“Because I know what you're doing out there,” Harkness says. “And pretty soon everyone will. So get out now.” Harkness sends a couple of bounding grounders toward Mouse, who twitches to dodge them.

“I'll tell him. I'll tell him!” Mouse says.

“One other thing,” Harkness says.

“What? What!”

“I'd start running if I were you. I'm just getting warmed up.”

Mouse's narrow back turns smaller and smaller as he runs across the playing fields, baseballs speeding toward him like white bullets.

P
ATRICK TURNS ON
the light a
nd backs against the office door when he sees someone standing at the window.

“Harky, what the hell are you doing here?”

Harkness holds up the red cell phone.

“
Shit,
man. I'm sorry. I thought . . .”

Harkness holds up his hand but Patrick keeps talking.

“They said I'd still have a job even if Fitzgerald gets elected mayor.”

“And you believed it?”

“I'm a walking, talking preexisting condition, Harky. Can't get health insurance anywhere else. Probably can't get another job. All I know how to do is track down drugs and money in Dataland.”

Harkness tosses him Pauley Fitzgerald's red phone.

Patrick stares at the floor. “I know this looks bad. But if there's a new commissioner coming in—”

“I don't want an explanation or an apology,” Harkness says. “I just need your help. And some gear.”

***

Mourners in black fill Our Lady of the Fields, the stale air smelling of wood polish, wet wool, and smoking candles. They sit in the back, Thalia in her black dress and Harkness in his dress uniform. He leans his forehead down on the empty pew in front of him. Harkness thinks of his father, and not for the first time today.