Thomas Prescott Superpack (11 page)

Chapter 18

I spent the next two hours canvassing the neighborhood talking to neighbors. Evidently, the G-Agents, or
Gents
as I like to call them, had been telling the truth. Not one person saw an iota of suspicious activity by land or by sea. The last people I talked to were the parents of the curfew-breaking-pot-smoking-teen and when I asked where their son was, they said he was doing research for a paper at the library.

If I remembered my misfit adolescent days correctly, “Doing research at the library,” translated roughly into drinking a Colt 45 on a rooftop or trying to get the neighbor’s daughter’s clothes off. Again on a rooftop. The key word here was rooftop, and I knew the exact rooftop I would find our teen in question.

I walked up the beach about two hundred yards until I came to an inlet home to the Surry Breakwater Lighthouse. Leading up to the lighthouse is a stretch of granite boulders jutting three quarters of a mile into the bay. Each boulder was easily five by five by five—we’re talking feet here—and the walkway was stacked three high, five wide, and a par five long. There were about a thousand gulls lined up along the breakwater, and each would fly a small circle when I passed, only to return to their perch.

The walk took about five minutes due to the large gaps between the rocks. Let’s just say the lighthouse was not exactly wheelchair accessible. As for the lighthouse, it was built in late 1879 and appeared not to have been renovated since early 1880. From the back, the lighthouse resembled a small two story, which sadly; should have been condemned sometime around the Reagan administration. All the windows were boarded up, the paint had long been washed from the exterior, and there were more nails poking out than poking in.

I could hear strained voices stretching from the lighthouse annex’s quasi-shingled rooftop. I didn’t want to induce a mad scramble and after much debate, I settled on, “I’m coming up there, if you run you die.”

The voices fell silent. Using the guardrail, I catapulted myself onto the roof, ripping my pants on a nail that had long ago retired from active duty. Come to think of it, I don’t think I could design a more perilous location for a teenage hangout.

There were four of them sitting Indian style on skateboards with blank expressions on their jewelry studded faces. The two girls had all their clothes on and I wondered if I needed to have a quick chat with the boys and explain the objectives.

I walked to their little group sitting on the dining table expanse of flat roof, taking the liberty of stealing a beer from the case hidden behind the farthest boy.

The four of them sat in stunned horror as the hipster doofus cracked the beer and brought it to his lips. I stopped short and said, “There are a couple rules of etiquette when it comes to beer.”

They all nodded, or it’s possible they each rolled their eyes so violently their heads appeared to nod, and I continued, “There is an unwritten rule that you never drink someone else’s beer unless they’re drinking with you.”

The group looked a shade puzzled and I asked, “This is your beer right?” One of the girls nodded and I said, “That means all of you have to drink a beer so I can drink this beer. And I really want to drink this beer.”

The four of them looked at one another and slowly one by one took a Keystone Light from the box and cracked it open. They tried valiantly to act thirty-five but it’s difficult when you can’t stop giggling and are on the verge of peeing your pants. After they’d each taken a couple sips, I asked, “How old are you guys?”

A girl with pink and green hair spoke up, “Thirteen. We’re seventh graders. Why, how old are you?”

“Eighteen. I’m a senior in high school.”

A boy with about seven earrings said, “Liar, you can’t be in high school, you’re like fifty.”

Ouch. If this had been my second beer rather than my first, I would have given the kid a wedgie. My neighbor looked like the only one not enjoying himself and I said, “Listen, I’m not going to say anything to your parents, I was doing the same thing when I was thirteen.” Give or take five years.

He nodded and took a sip of beer. I pushed fast-forward, “I need your guys help with something. Were you guys up here last night?”

My neighbor, the monkey off his back, said, “Yeah, we were up here.”

I made them all stand and pointed to the coastline near my house. “I know it was dark, but does anyone remember seeing a boat?” A boat in these parts was a rarity. I’d seen two boats in all of ten months.

Three of them shook their heads, but I saw my neighbor was nodding. I prodded him and he motioned for me to follow him. He walked to the edge of the lighthouse roof and said, “I came up here to take a whiz.” He showed me the flow urine would be likely to take with his hand and continued, “And I saw this boat floating way, way, out there. I remember because it’s the only time I’ve ever seen one of them small boats around here.”

I asked him what it looked like. He thought it had two sails and was, “Medium sized.”

I had each of them program my number into their cell phone and directed them to call me if they saw the boat again, or anything else suspicious for that matter. I finished off my beer and after an inner strife, thought better of smoking a doobie with them.

Once safely back on the granite, I ran through what I’d learned over the course of the last half hour. One, kids started drinking beer and smoking pot at thirteen. Two, I could no longer pass for a senior in high school. And three, there was a boat drifting close to shore on the night of Jennifer’s murder.

All were equally interesting. All equally disturbing.

Chapter 19

I stopped at a liquor store on the way to Caitlin’s apartment. I was in the midst of opening her front door when I thought better and rang the doorbell. Caitlin opened the door and threw me a look, which I decoded as, “Are you trying to piss me off.” Or something in that general vicinity.

I followed her into the living room and saw Conner and Lacy sprawled on the blue sofa. I hadn’t seen Conner’s Camaro and asked, “Where’s your car?”

Lacy said, “I made him walk. It’s a perfect fall evening.”

Apparently, young women never get killed on perfect fall evenings. Conner butted-in in before I could threaten his life, “Your sister is quite persuasive.”

Lacy had her hand clamped in a fist and said, “I held his dick hostage.”

As much as I love to hear about my sister’s sexual exploits, I retired into the kitchen. I put the case of Corona in the refrigerator and asked Caitlin if she needed any help with a meal preparation. She threw me a look similar to the one at the front door and riding its coattails was the phone book. She said, “Here’s your meal preparation.”

I did a quick survey and it appeared Caitlin, Conner, and Lacy all wanted Chinese, whereas, Thomas Prescott wanted a pizza pie. Sometimes you have to take one for the team. I dialed a number and said loud enough for everyone to hear, “Is this China Dragon?”

“No, this is Domino’s.” Oops.

The doorbell rang twenty minutes later and I let Caitlin grab the door. She came back with two pizza boxes, my credit card receipt, and an expression of the utmost annoyance. She said, “Chinese huh. By the way, you just tipped the delivery boy seventy-four dollars.”

Interesting play, I hadn’t seen that coming.

If the three of them didn’t like the pizza, they faked their aversion well. After we fought for crusts we quickly cleaned up. It was common knowledge when the four of us drew together we would play a laggard game of Trivial Pursuit. We split up into what used to be Couple vs. Couple, but was now labeled politically correctly, Adults vs. Children. Caitlin begrudgingly sat next to me on the couch, choosing to ignore my hand patiently awaiting a high five.
What kind of team camaraderie is that?

The four of us spent the next two hours drinking beers, getting questions predominately wrong, and basically reliving happier days. Caitlin either forgot about her grudge, a combination of her competitive spirit and the beers, and we had a nicely choreographed end zone dance by the time we’d picked up half our pie pieces.

Lacy and Conner jumped out to an early lead, then folded, leaving the door open for the team of Prescott/Dodds-Adults to claim victory. Conner was considerably razed about the loss and exited stage left to cool off. Lacy followed him out, and in the heat of the celebration, I may have accidentally bumped lips with my partner. Okay, we made out. Heavily.

I assumed Conner and Lacy walked home because they didn’t interrupt Caitlin and my heavy petting and weren’t sitting on the front stoop when I went to check on them an hour later.
I’m not sure if I were thirsty for Caitlin or for the touch of a woman, but either way, I was parched.

The next couple hours were a blur of skin, couch cushions, bed sheets and shower tile. Accompanied by a cacophony of pants, moans, and sighs. Lots of sighs.

I woke up to an amazing dream involving me and a woman. And as much as it pains me to admit it, the woman was not Caitlin Dodds. The dream had ended with one Miss Alex Tooms and I doing extremely naughty things. It took me a moment to register the correlation of the naughtiness in my dream and the naughtiness being performed by unnamed party at said moment. I have to admit, I preferred this to the blaring of an alarm. Had I somehow given Caitlin the wrong impression by sleeping with her last night? If so, whoopsy-daisy.

There was a clash of philosophies between Big Thomas and Little Thomas and after a long debate, Big Thomas prevailed as top Nietzsche. I wrestled LT from Caitlin’s grip and rolled out of bed. She lifted the sheets from over her head and revealed her stark naked form, giving rise to an unscheduled October caucus. I found my boxer briefs and pulled them on before Paddington could get in his closing argument.

Caitlin gave me an arbitrary glance and said, “You seem to be in a hurry to get out of here.”

Yes, one does not dilly-dally at the scene of a crime. I thought about those lucky black widow males, cleared my throat and said, “You know how it goes, early bird catches the sadistic serial killer.”

She furrowed her brow and said, “I see.”

I see
are two words that have never in the history of the world led to anything good when spoken from the mouth of a woman. Caitlin was suddenly Eve, covering all her fun parts with the bed sheet. I glanced around for a discarded apple core or a slithering snake, but saw neither.

Caitlin languidly hunkered into the bathroom and I was left to ponder my position. Whatever emotion I felt, somewhere between guilt and entrapment, I knew it wasn’t love. Caitlin and I would have to chat. I’d see if she had an opening sometime in February.

I heard the shower turn on and pulled on my ensemble (96 hours for anyone counting). I knew Caitlin, and I knew she wasn’t in the shower. She was sitting on the toilet with her face buried in her hands. I also knew the bathroom door wasn’t locked. I could walk in, pull her to me, and erase all her troubles. I threw on my clothes and left before the notion crossed my mind.

Chapter 20

I was penciled in to meet the task force at nine, a meeting I—and at least one other person—knew I would be absent. I wasn’t a vigilante, but I preferred to march to the beat of my own drum, or less perfunctory, the plunk of my own cowbell.

As for Tristen, it was my move and I had an inkling Mr. Grayer was the type of guy who needed a view of the board, needed to watch me move my bishop firsthand. I tried to brainstorm a place that would make me especially vulnerable to a tailing and decided on the Kittery outlets. The Kittery outlets are east coast famous, more than a half mile littered with close to three hundred retail outlets. I was squeaky clean, a silver lining to Caitlin and my Lever 2000 enhanced copulation, but I did need some new duds.

I headed south on I-95 for Kittery, a small town just north of the Maine-New Hampshire border. During the hour drive my phone rang three times. The first call was from Jennifer’s father notifying me Jennifer’s funeral was set for the following Monday. I told him I’d be there. The second was from Conner warning me everyone was pissed at me for ditching the meeting. I told him I was in a car accident and would be there shortly. The third was from Todd Gregory apprising me I had no such accident and to get there ASAP. I told him I was inside the Federal Building but my ID badge had somehow been programmed incorrectly and I kept going to BB4.

I bought a pair of shoes and some running gear at the Asics outlet, two suits at the Armani Exchange, a couple costumes from Kenneth Cole, and a bunch of sailing gear from Nautica. If I thought most of the stores were barren for customers it was because they were all hanging out at the food court. All twelve of them.

The girl behind the Panda Express parapet looked of oriental origin and for some reason I knew my orange chicken would taste better because of this. I washed it down with Dr. Pepper and traded glances with a group of girls a couple tables away. None of the other clientele caught my eye, which doesn’t mean none of them were Tristen Grayer. It would be much easier if these serial killer types would wear their work clothes out. A blood soaked cardigan usually drew my attention.