The Keeper (8 page)

I
t was six o’clock on that same Thursday in March, and if Danny Willow had to name the one place he did not want to be right now, it was at the police department. He hadn’t slept well last night, and his eyes were narrow slits reading small words in blurry type. He sighed, pushed his six-inch-deep pile of paperwork aside, and looked out his window.

The rain was heavy now, and cold enough to cramp his fingers. Cars drove slowly down Main Street, and already runoff from the hill was collecting in the valley. He guessed that with record snowdrifts this year, the flooding would be severe. Maybe the worst in Bedford’s history. Danny rubbed his eyes. He was sick of this. Sick of the whole damn thing.

When he was born fifty-six years ago, Bedford had already started its decline, but still, the town he’d grown up in was a different place than the one he was watching right now. In those days Clott had still been operational, and there had also been a pretty successful textile mill on the other end of Main Street. People who put in their time at factory jobs had raised kids who wound up moving to Corpus Christi, or else to the top of Iroquois Hill. In church and at town meetings those same people had all been on their best behavior because their reputations had mattered.

Even when he’d first started as sheriff fifteen years ago, things had been quiet. He’d mostly kept his head down, surfacing every once in a while to lock a rowdy drunk overnight in the clink, or else to direct lost New Yorkers driving BMWs to the nearest deer hunting reserve (and hope to God they didn’t get drunk and shoot each other within town limits). But now every day seemed worse than the last. Kids didn’t sneak their parents’ whiskey or their big brothers’ pot; they huffed spray paint under the bridge. Gangs of them wandered stoned through Main Street like zombies. And then there were the twenty-year-olds who’d never left Bedford, but discovered crystal meth. Danny could spot those poor slobs a mile away, because for some reason half their teeth were always missing, and the other half were broken and soft as rotten fruit.

He got a domestic abuse call at least once a week. And he didn’t break up benign lovers’ spats, and take husbands out for walks to cool down, reminding them that raising a hand to a woman is probably the lowest thing you can do. No, not so easy. Now he saw women and even men with eyes swelled shut, and furniture broken to bits, and no matter how many times he saw these things they never ceased to shock him.

He sometimes wondered why this was happening to Bedford. Why the people seemed to have soured right along with the land. He couldn’t say. He only knew it made him tired. There were people who liked to blame Susan Marley. But he didn’t hold to that kind of superstition. She was just a girl after all, and things had started getting bad long before she was born.

He would have quit this job long ago if there had been someone willing to take his place. But people were leaving Bedford in droves, especially now that the mill had closed, and he felt a little like the captain of a sinking ship. It was his duty to make sure that every last man safely reached dry land, which, given the circumstances, could be taken literally.

Danny sighed. At least summer was on its way. At least he and April would soon take a vacation. He liked Florida, because at night they could watch giant sea turtles lay their eggs in the sand. She liked Saratoga Springs, so she could see her sister’s children. She went there at least once a year and when she got home she would tell him:
They’re such trouble. Thank golly we never had kids.
In return he’d ask her, “Then why do you go?”
I like to see what I missed.

April had a little problem. When she was a kid, around fifteen, she got put in the family way by a boy named Kevin Brutton. She’d been too young to know any better, and had waited until the thing was seven months along. She never got very big around the middle, which he guessed was how she’d been able to convince herself that she’d only gained a few pounds until pretty late in the game. And then one night, while her parents were at a recital of Handel’s Messiah at Colby College, she stole a bottle of their Tennessee whiskey. She drank half of it, and she was a tiny thing back then. Then she jumped out her second-story bedroom window. She landed stomach first on the snow below. Somehow, she didn’t wind up breaking a single bone. Hardly any bruises. It must have been a terrible feeling. Thinking that one way or the other, her problem was going to be solved. And then, after all the courage it took; sitting on the sill of her bedroom window, wondering if she might die right along with the thing she carried, and finally jumping out, only to stand back up again, the lump in her stomach still present, ready to raise its hand and say,
Howdy.

She got up off the ground and went back inside her parents’ house. Ate a sandwich. Got hungry the way you sometimes do when you’re drunk, only she didn’t know she was drunk. She said she hadn’t been sure which was scarier, that dizzy sick feeling in her head, or the other feeling in her stomach. She wound up throwing up right there in the kitchen, hunks of peanut butter and jelly on Wonder Bread. She got all kinds of upset when he asked her what bread and what jelly (grape), and did the peanut butter have chunks (nope, creamy), and what was she wearing (a blue pleated skirt and yellow blouse under her pea coat), and even what kind of day was it (a sunny winter day with birds chirping), but he couldn’t help it. Told her it was the detective in him. Hated, actually, the idea that she had gone through it alone, and with those details he’d wanted to follow her there in his mind.

After she threw up, the pangs started. She called them pangs. Told him it came from the drinking. She tried to take a nap, sleep it off, but wound up sitting on the toilet for five hours, full of cramps that came in waves. Never labor pains, she never called them that. The thing came out and she told him it was too big to flush. What was it? He asked.
Nothing, it was just a lump,
she told him. No matter how many different ways he asked, she always said the same thing:
It was nothing.

She put it in a Hefty bag and buried it in her backyard. Managed, tiny as she was, to dig right through that frozen dirt behind her garage. She told him it was born dead. And he believed her. Well, why not believe her? What would have been the point in doubting?

He married her twenty years later. She was a gossipy town librarian who’d never been able to get past more than two months dating a man before her phone stopped ringing, or some fight brewed and she wound up saying the kinds of things that most people can never forgive. She had a habit of running off at the mouth and making comments, delivered innocently enough, that you could never quite shake off. “You really shouldn’t eat so much,” she told him on their first date at the Beefsteak Charlie’s that was now a Weathervane in Corpus Christi, “You’ve got a belly as it is.”

Never the most clever of men, a man who admittedly could not follow half of what Paul Martin was saying on any given day, Danny had still learned a few things by the time he took April out to dinner. He understood that she did not mean to cut him down. It was how she made conversation. People who say the wrong kinds of things are not always bad people. Sometimes, and this was a feeling with which he could identify very well, they were just lonely, and so unaccustomed to having people look them in the eye that they got overwhelmed. “Glad you noticed,” he told her. “I was hoping you’d be looking at my belly.” She blushed that day, and it had surprised him that, aside from when he spilled food on his shirt or licked his fingers in public, he could make any woman blush. They were married within the year.

Since she was in her mid-thirties and he in his late forties, they immediately tried to conceive a child. When nothing happened, she told him the story of her pregnancy. He was the only person she’d ever told. Not even Kevin Brutton knew that buried behind her parents’ old house was a child that with one spank might have cried.

After that, they just kind of gave up on kids. April never went to a gynecologist, and he never pushed her because he knew she didn’t want to have to explain. She did not want to know for sure what had happened to her body that day she drank too much and hurled herself out a window.

So it made him feel pretty low when she got back every year from taking care of those spoiled kids in Saratoga Springs who complained about her cooking and laughed at her Maine accent. It made him feel pretty low. If they’d had kids of their own, April would never have let anyone treat her that way.

When she got back last night, April had been pretty upset. She’d talked about the kids, how they were growing up, how one day she expected they’d get married and have children of their own. He’d tried to keep the news from her but it had been impossible. “Where’s Benji?” she’d asked.

“Taking a stroll,” he’d told her.

“Where?”

“I don’t know.” Too tired to accompany the old mutt, he’d let it out the back door earlier in the day to conduct its business, and mysteriously, the damn thing never returned. Five minutes later they were wandering the streets searching for Benji. April shouted his name until her throat was hoarse. They didn’t get home until after midnight. If he’d slept peacefully straight after that, he might not be feeling so badly today. But April had tossed uneasily next to him for a good couple of hours, and when he finally did fall asleep, he’d had a nightmare about Susan Marley. And now here he was, so sleepy he’d had to swallow five cups of coffee this afternoon just to keep from nodding off.

Just then the phone rang in Danny’s office and he moaned. “Who is it, Val?” he called to his secretary.
Please,
he thought,
not an accident.

“Your wife,” Val answered.

He picked up the phone. April immediately began jabbering in a voice so shrill he thought maybe only harpies could understand it. She told him that Benji was nowhere to be found. She’d phoned all over, put notices up on the bulletin board of the church and some of the lampposts in town, but no one had any news. “You think he maybe got run over?” she asked. “Somebody ran him over and buried him?”

“Naw,” Danny said, rubbing his temples, “Everybody knows Benji. He’ll be back. Probably just met a pretty little she-dog.”

“I think you should put out an APB,” April said.

“Now, April. You know I can’t do that.”

She sighed for a moment, a funny sigh that sounded like a shriek. “You think maybe Susan Marley has him?”

“No,” Danny said. “We’ll find him. I know we will.”

“You never know what people are like on the inside, Danny. You’re too kind. You think everybody else is the same way. But that girl is different. And Paul Martin, too.”

“They’re just down on their luck, April.”

There was silence on the other line. “I know it’s crazy, Danny, but would you check for me? Would you see if Susan has my Benji? I heard she goes to Montie’s Bar in the afternoons.”

“April, this is daft.”

Her breath hitched, and he felt himself melt. Foolishness, he knew. But she sounded so sad. And he really should have put the dog on a leash. Partly, this was his fault. “Well, I’ve been meaning to say hi to Paul, and he’ll probably be at Montie’s, too.”

“Oh, please, Danny.” She brightened.

“Yeah, after work I’ll drop by.”

“Ask about Benji,” April whispered excitedly.

“Yes, dear,” Danny had said before hanging up.

In a way it was a relief. He knew he wouldn’t sleep tonight with this rain, and he’d rather worry about a mutt than the people who might get hurt this week, or the feeling in his gut that told him something bad was about to happen. He looked over a few more reports, gulped down two more bitter cups of coffee (his secretary brewed it like syrup, hoping that he would stop asking her to make it), and drove to Montie’s Bar.

T
he windows at Montie’s Bar were taped over with double-layered Hefty bags. The inside of the place was dark, as if no one’s eyes could possibly adjust to the light emitted by a sixty-watt bulb. By the time Danny Willow got there, Paul Martin had been slugging scotch for the better part of two hours.

Danny grabbed a stool and parked himself next to Paul. They sat together in companionable silence, or what passed for it. Danny was a broad, soft man with tufts of white hair that sprouted in a circle around his head. He lit a cigarette, a Captain, the cheapo kind, and took a short, nervous drag. A layer of smoke drifted a few inches above eye level like visible ozone.

“I like the Dugout better,” Danny said.

“Then why are you here?”

“Thought I’d stop by and say hi.”

“Hi.”

Danny grinned. “Howdy.”

“Aloha. April’s in Saratoga, huh?”

“Springs. No, she got back yesterday. Benji’s missing. She’s wound up tight as a clock.”

“Your problems started when you named your dog Benji,” Paul said.

“Started when I met you.”

“Benji, come home,” Paul whined in an uncanny impression of Danny’s wife April. Danny grinned.

Montie, the bartender and owner, poured Paul a scotch and soda without having to be asked. Then he returned to his seat behind the bar to watch the local news.

“You sure you should drink that?” Danny asked after Montie was gone. “It gets Cathy all upset and then she goes to April and I have to hear about it for days.”

Paul took a gulp. “So look. April send you to look?”

“Yeah, I got that much free time.”

When Paul finished his drink, he clanked it against the bar and called over to Montie, “Honey, I’ll take another.”

“You shouldn’t,” Danny answered him.

With an old man’s grunt, Montie got up and poured Paul another drink. Paul often thought Montie looked like an angry Buddha with his stocky body, round stomach, and small arms. He smelled like an alcoholic—that stale, sour smell, but still, Paul liked him. Well, sort of liked him. The way smokers liked the friendly folks at R. J. Reynolds.

“Paul,” Danny said, “slow down.”

“Fucking inbreds,” Paul mumbled.

What?”

“Cathy, she’s inbred, ya’ll are. Everybody’s a cousin. That’s why my kids can’t pass their math midterms. Their parents are siblings. You and April are probably cousins.”

“Something happen today, Paul?”

“Yeah. Something always happens. Something or nothing.”

Danny sighed. “Fine.”

“Pain in the ass,” Paul mumbled at him.

Danny looked down at his beer. Paul looked straight ahead. A reporter on the local news announced that the rain over the next week would be relentless, and that Bedford would be hardest hit. Danny sighed. He seemed despondent and sad sitting there, and Paul wondered if this was his special gift to the world, making everyone (even his only friend, pitiful as that was) miserable.

“Hey, Danny,” Paul said, clapping him lightly on the shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

“You always are, aren’t you?”

“Are you going to take my apology or not?”

“I’ll take it.”

“Buy me a drink?”

“No.”

Paul smiled winningly at this expected reply. Danny, at first grudgingly, and then freely, smiled back with crooked yellow teeth. “It was worth a try,” Paul told him.

P
aul noticed that, after drinking two Miller Lites, Danny was on the road to joining him in the land of the inebriated. The three of them were talking about the 2004 Red Sox. Having been raised on Long Island, Paul was a Met fan to the bone. “What about eighty-six, Montie? Remember Buckner in eighty-six?”

Montie’s eyes widened and he smashed his fist against the bar so hard it must have hurt his hand. Yes, Paul thought, people in Bedford were very stupid. Instead of telling Paul to get the hell out of his bar, Montie looked in the direction of the back of the room where a couple of underage kids were shooting pool. He smiled. Paul followed his gaze, and saw Susan Marley. She was leaning against the back door while some hick who looked like he was from one of those nontowns up north and thought of Bedford as a city fumbled through his pockets, searching for a light for her Marlboro Red.

Paul hadn’t seen Susan in a while. Not that that was a bad thing. Ending it with her was the smartest thing he’d ever done in his not-so-smart life.

“Crazy bitch,” Montie said, nodding at Susan. “Dreamed about her last night. Swear to God it felt like it was really happening. My wife thinks she’s the devil.”

Right now, Susan was swaying to Stevie Ray Vaughn’s “I Like the Way You Walk.” Her hands were clasped around the hick’s shoulders. She wore a long, sopping wet spring dress that showed off her headlights. Paul made a motion to stand. Danny caught his wrist. “Leave it alone. You know she makes you nuts.”

Paul ignored him and walked over to her. He glared at the hick until the hick, fists clenched, asked what he wanted. “Spend your money someplace else,” Paul said.

The hick asked Paul if they could take their problem outside. He puffed out his chest like a rooster, and Paul knew that this hick could probably take him. These days a tough cheerleader could probably take him.

“Sure. See that guy over there?” Paul asked, pointing at Danny. “He’s a cop. This is a bust. Go home before you get in trouble. We’re not after you.” Paul winked.

The hick took another look at Danny. Danny waved, and when he did, his uplifted arm exposed the .357 slung across his chest. The hick picked up his coat and left the bar.

Paul was left standing next to Susan. Though the music had stopped, she was still swaying. It occurred to him that she hung out here late at night after he’d gone home, because she seemed like a regular. She was skinny, but her face was bloated from drinking or, more likely, because Paul had seen this kind of bloat before, from strange living habits. From sleeping most of the day. From having nothing to do for long stretches of time. Boredom bloat. She wore little sandals, her toes painted pink, and shivered.

Paul put his hands on her shoulders and stilled her movement. “How’d you get here?” he asked.

She grinned.

“You sick or something?”

She wrapped her arms around him, smelling musky and sour, like she hadn’t showered in at least a week, and put her ice cold lips to his neck.

The sensation was both erotic and repulsive.

He gave her his coat, told Danny to keep his mouth shut, and drove her home.