The Railroad (34 page)

People had started to turn to look at us but I didn’t care. She had gone too far, as she always did when she had a point to make. She was about to shoot a salvo back at me when Dennis intervened.

“Okay, boys and girls!” he half shouted. “No more of this. Barbara, you’re being an asshole yourself. Do you think Eileen wanted this to happen? Why do you think she’s running now?”

“Why are you taking his side? Don’t you know that he’s going to go out there and get himself killed?”

“Barbara, I don’t know what he’s going to do. He’s a grown man. You can’t stop him.”

“Then why don’t you try to talk him out of it instead of supporting his fucking delusions of grandeur?”

She’d screeched the last bit and I saw the owner walking toward our table. I held up my hand. “We’re leaving,” I told him.

We paid the bill and left. Barbara stood red-faced and shaking the whole time I was paying, and then she stalked out ahead of Dennis and me. When we got to the street she just stared at me. Then her jaw tightened and she turned and walked away.

*

Two days later Dennis saw me to my car in the parking garage around the corner. He looked like a little boy as he followed me, silently carrying one of my bags. We walked up to the car and put all my stuff in the trunk. He hugged me just before I got in the car.

“I want to be mad at you,” he told me. “I want to tell you that this is just more of the same shit that happened after the towers went down. Maybe it is, but maybe I can’t protect you anymore. If I stopped you from doing this, you’d hate me.”

I just nodded.

He shook his head. “Don’t do anything stupid. Use the cell phone and don’t go…don’t enter any building if you get a funky feeling. You’re not equipped to handle anything violent. Do you understand?”

“I do. Don’t worry. I’ll probably be back in a week because I doubt I’ll find anything. But I have to try. If I can even get a message to her…”

“I know. Just leave the message and just come back. Don’t let it stretch out. Call me if you need me.”

“I will.” We exchanged forlorn looks. “Dennis, I’ll be back.”

“Yeah. I know.” He took one more look at me and walked down the ramp.

Chapter Seventeen

It had occurred to me that I could short circuit the whole postcard chain and just go straight to place that was featured on the last one I’d been sent. This would be done on the assumption that that was where Eileen and Megan had ended up, but that would be too simple. For all I knew they’d changed locations ten times since then. It seemed best that I check at all the addresses in the slim hope that I might find someone who knew where they were or could get in touch with them.

So it would be Boston first. I’d spent very little time in Boston and knew almost nothing about it. I decided to leave early because it could take me hours to find the address once I’d gotten to the city.

Boston was as I remembered it: grittier than New York in the outlying areas, cute and very white in the upscale urban parts of town. I remembered walking in the gentrified areas when I was a teenager and wondering what was missing. I’d finally realized it was ethnicity, in the people, the restaurants. There was little variation. If anything it had become more ‘yuppified.’

It took only an hour and a half to find the return address from the postcard. To my relief it wasn’t in a bad neighborhood; I’ll admit that my recent experiences had made me more of a chicken than I’d been back in my rough and ready Wall Street raider days. 470 Pensacola Street was in an older middle class section of the city. The houses had that strong feeling of “otherness” a New Yorker encounters when he comes across architecture that’s vastly different from New York. There was a porch with oddly shaped hexagonal columns. You could actually see a good part of the living room from outside the house through the bay window.

The bell made a deep resonant bong as I rang it, setting two dogs to barking. A middle aged woman opened the inside door and stared at me through the screen.

“Yes,” she said warily.

I looked through the screen and saw some children’s toys on the floor. In the back, against the wall, were some bowling trophies and

some pictures of children with a black Labrador Retriever. The house looked homey and lived in.

I hadn’t really considered what I was going to say and I knew at that moment that that had been a mistake. If this woman knew anything about Eileen and Megan, she wouldn’t be likely to trust me and I had no story prepared. Some detective.

“Hi,” I said, testing the waters. She didn’t seem to find my friendly greeting reassuring so I pushed on. “I’m sorry to bother you. I got your address from some friends of mine. I’m wondering if they’re here.”

She made no move to open the screen door. “What friends?”

I sighed. “Look, I don’t know how to come out with this.” I pulled out the postcards and shuffled through them until I found the Boston one. “This is the postcard I received. I believe it’s from a little girl who wanted me to know where she was.” I held out the card.

Just then a man came out from the kitchen and did a good job of glaring at me. “What’s this about, Susan?”

Susan didn’t answer right away. Her eyes were glued to the postcard. “This man’s got a postcard.” She didn’t say anything else; she just looked at him.

He came to the door and eyed the card. “My handwriting,” his wife murmured. He looked me dead in the eye for a good five seconds. “What do you want?”

“I know you have no reason to talk to me,” I told him. “But I think we both know that the little girl was here and...”

“I think you better leave, mister. I don’t know you and I don’t know any little girl. You’re scaring my wife.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, backpedaling quickly. “She sent me this postcard. I have to see if she and her mother are okay. She sent me this postcard for a reason. If I don’t find them, there might be trouble. I only want to...”

“Fuck off,” was all he said before he slammed the door.

I had considered a lot of outcomes for my first foray into investigation, but that hadn’t been one of them. Looking back on it, it made some sense that having an agitated man appear on your doorstep with a postcard asking about a little girl probably wouldn’t inspire confidence.

I couldn’t see going back there, unless all the rest of the postcards proved to be dead ends, so I decided to chalk that one up to experience. But I did come away with what seemed like some useful information: it was clear from Susan’s reaction that she had written the postcard. I couldn’t be sure that they weren’t involved with someone behind the murders, but somehow they didn’t strike me that way. So my first hypothesis was that this couple had seen Megan and Eileen and that Susan had helped her write the postcard.

Which left me with an even bigger question: if they hadn’t gone with the underground railroad, who found the places for them to stay?

I nursed my failure over some decent Fra Diavolo in an Italian restaurant near the motel I’d found. Though the food was good, it couldn’t compete with my depression. I wondered as I started my second glass of wine, if all my other attempts at finding Megan and Eileen would end the same way. I was sure there was a talent needed for investigation; a confident personality, the ability to make people trust you. I doubted I had the talent; I was a Wall Street bullshit artist and it wasn’t in my blood.

As I drank my coffee, I realized that it would probably be a good idea to do some research before going to my next stop. I doubted that the folks of Boston would know much about the Merkison Crafts Festival, but I supposed our great friend the Internet would.

As I paid the bill, I asked for the name of any local Internet cafes. I was directed to a place only ten blocks away called Cyberspice. The name immediately irked me; even in my rabid yuppie days I’d been annoyed by anything that was self-consciously trendy. Cyberspice lived down to my expectations, from the dark Goth interior, to the utter disdain with which my waitress directed me to my table. On the way, I passed a young woman who was typing furiously, mouthing her side of the chat she was engaged in. She caught me looking at her and shook her head despairingly as if we shared the same disgust with whatever she was discussing.

After ordering a cappuccino and some biscotti I dived right into the browser at my table. The postcard placed the crafts festival in Covington, New York. Covington didn’t seem to ring any bells for the search engine I was using, but the Merkison Crafts Festival did. It seemed that the festival had turned a sleepy Upstate New York town into a sort of mini-Woodstock. While the festival had started as a public relations gimmick to get more tourist dollars into Covington, it had grown and so had the town. Now it boasted four bed and breakfasts, a couple of four star restaurants and the standard arts and craft shops.

I had no way of knowing where Megan and Eileen had gone in Covington so I started to get creative, typing in Merkison and the word “child”, then “Merkison” and the word “toys”. I also found the address of the local McDonald's, thinking that Megan would make a point of stopping there. What I found was a toy store specializing in stuffed animals and another shop that sold dolls. There was also a craft store that featured children’s craft kits and daily workshops for children.

I figured I had enough ammunition, so I gulped down the rest of my coffee and returned the browser to its home page. As I turned toward the register I found someone blocking my way. It was the young woman I'd seen furiously typing earlier. I gave her a quizzical stare.

“You like crafts?” she asked.

“Uh...what?”

“I’m sorry; I was looking over your shoulder. I saw you seemed to like crafts.”

“I like the country. I like festivals.”

“Are you on vacation?”

“Yes.”

There was an awkward pause and she immediately rushed in to fill the silence. “I’m sorry. I tend to be a little intrusive sometimes. I come here almost every night and half the fun is watching what other people are looking at.”

“I’m sorry but I’m just passing through.”

She rocked on the balls of her feet. “I guess I’m lonely. You know?”

I did, but I didn’t want to discuss it with her. “I’m sorry.”

“I like guys who are passing through. So much to discover about someone new. I really find people fascinating.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can help you there.”

“Oh. That guy I was chatting with before. He tells me I’m strange. I met him once.”

“Uh huh.”

She looked at her worn sneakers. “Do you think I’m strange?”

“I don’t know you well enough to give you an answer.”

“Would you go out with me if you were hanging around in Boston?”

“I don’t know. I’d have to hang around for a while to know, and I’m not.”

“Oh. Well, sorry to bother you. “

“No problem.” I walked past her.

“I guess I am,” she said.

I spun around. “What?”

“I guess I’m strange.”

I suddenly felt very sorry for her. “No. You’re just you. I wouldn’t let people you meet on the Internet shape the way you think of yourself. You don’t know enough about them to take them that seriously.”

She smiled. “Thanks.”

“Take care.”

As I walked to my car, I imagined what I’d find if I stopped in a hundred places in the world, just as I’d stopped at Cyberspice. I saw myself meeting someone lonely and miserable as I had that night, variations on that strange girl, but similar in their isolation. The thought didn’t make me happy.

*

The next morning I headed west, making the trip across Massachusetts to the New York border. The only thing I knew about the area was that Stockbridge was just on the Massachusetts side of the border; that was the same town where Alice’s restaurant had taken place. Once I crossed into New York, things seemed to become almost perceptibly dingier, though that could have been my mood. The late spring air was pleasant, but there seemed to be more sprawling farms and fewer definable towns. I turned north and drove about sixty miles until I got to Covington.

The festival wasn’t just PR. There were any number of events going on when I got there and the town itself seemed to have grown to fit the festival. There was a conspicuous attempt to make the town seem homey: people selling apple fritters on the street. It worked; Covington looked like a happy small town.

I started my search at the toy store; I knew what stuffed animals were for Megan. My gambit this time was a bit more devious, but still vague: I was looking for the two of them because there was a “family matter” that they needed to be made aware of. I’d considered a death in the family, but that sounded dire and would test my acting abilities. If I seemed concerned, but not desperate, as a death would warrant, I’d appear unthreatening.

I also decided to bring out the photos of both of them I’d taken weeks before. Anyone who was close to a family member would have a photo of them, I reasoned. I had it all worked out.

Or so I thought.
The Right Stuffing
was right in the Woodstock mold, sporting an outsized stuffed bear resembling Teddy Roosevelt. An erudite touch, I thought, considering that that Teddy was the source of all stuffed bears. I walked past him and entered a world of plushness to outdo all plushness. Every manner of stuffed animal lay before me in what had clearly been a stable at one time. Women and children dressed in the day’s finest casual wear were strolling along the aisles, making oohing and aahing noises as the complexity and size of the animals increased.

I stood near the counter, fondling a child-sized stuffed dolphin, complete with glasses and a collection of books carried in a sling beneath its head. The saleswoman behind the desk caught my eye, anticipating a sale. “Can I help you sir?”

“I’d like to buy this for my niece.”

“Certainly sir!” she cried. I was sure that her enthusiasm for the merchandise had faded years ago, but her enthusiasm for the price tag hadn’t. “Is there anything else you might like?” she added.

I looked pensive; as though there was something I’d considered, but had wondered if it was feasible. I grabbed a manatee with a graduate’s cap and gown and plunked it down on the counter next to the dolphin. “My niece loves sea things. Actually I was wondering if you’d seen her.” I casually brought the photo out from my wallet. “I’m trying to find her and her mother. I think they’re in Cabot and I’ll probably find her there. She and her mother tend to take trips on the spur of the moment, but there’s a family crisis going on, and I need to tell them. I know they came through here. Do you remember seeing them?”

She took the picture in her hand. “Maybe I do. I think the little girl liked bears. She asked if we had any Billy Bears. To be honest we don’t sell anything so commercial.” She’d said it with a conspiratorial air, as though we were discussing pornography.

“I understand. She’s a child and that’s what she likes. Was she here with her mother?”

The woman looked temporarily confused. “There were two women with her, I think.”

“I think that’s her mother’s friend. You didn’t overhear them saying where they were going, did you?”

“No. I think I did hear the little girl say that she wanted a new toy to sleep with in the back seat of the car. But that’s about it.”

“Okay, thanks. She didn’t buy either of these toys, did she? I wouldn’t want to get her something she has.”