Buried Dreams (9 page)

I clasped her hand, let it go. "Good for you."

She moved a bit on the hood of her car. "Here I am, blathering to you the moment you showed up. You did good at Jon's funeral on Saturday."

"Thanks."

"Story will be out this afternoon," she said. "Anything going on I should know about?"

Silently, I thanked her for that little phrase, 'I should know about.' Aloud I said, "I'm going to try to meet up with Diane Woods this afternoon, see if I can get an update, but I'm not holding my breath."

"From Diane the detective, I can see why. Need anything from me?”

"How about a picture of you in your favorite bathing suit?"

A nice smile and another nudge in the ribs. "No, not today, I'm afraid."

"Okay," I said. "Guess I don't need the town counsel checking on my property tax status. Look, I'm thinking of doing something about Jon and what he did in the town for the magazine. Do you know who the past curator of the Tyler Town Museum was, before Jon?"

"That I do," she said. "Brian Mulligan. Practically set the place up himself, back in the seventies."

"Still alive, I hope?"

"That he is, but he doesn't live in Tyler anymore. There was some political feud a couple of years before you showed up, and he moved up north, to Conway. Guess he developed a hate for the ocean and wanted to be up in the mountains. Why do you want to talk to him?"

"Jon had mentioned that he had talked to Brian about... well, about something Jon was looking for."

"The mysterious Vikings, am I right?" she asked.

So much for Jon's deep dark secret. "I didn't realize you knew." She crossed her legs, a maple leaf stuck to the sole of her boot.

"Oh, I've known for a while. You see, every now and then, Jon would come in and go through the bound back issues of the Chronicle. We really prefer people go to the library to do research work like that, but for Jon, we made an exception. A sweet older guy with an obsession, and you know what? God bless him. Better he was out looking for Vikings than writing letters to the newspapers about conspiracies and UN black helicopters and the Zionists. The thing is, I can't believe what happened to him. Apparently murdered the same day he found the artifacts." She shook her head. "One of these days I want to write a novel, and something like that makes me feel like the day I get a book contract, a tree will fall on my head."

"Did he say anything about what he was looking for, or where he might be going?"

"Well, can I give you a name?"

"Another name? Sure."

"Olivia Hendricks."

"Nice name," I said. “What about her?"

"About a month ago, Jon was in my office, trooping around, carrying these big binders of old newspapers, and he spotted my UNH coffee mug on my desk. We got to talking and he wanted to know if I had any contacts up there, and I mentioned a friend of mine that worked in the alumni affairs office. Seemed like Jon wanted to talk to someone about old New Hampshire, a professor of anthropology, and a few phone calls later on my part, Olivia Hendricks is the name that came up. She's an associate or assistant professor of anthropology up at UNH, specializing in pre-colonial New England."

"Did Jon say anything about talking to an Indian activist from the area?"

"Nope, not at all," she said, glancing at her wristwatch.

Two out of three, I thought. God bless you, Paula, you've given me two out of the three people that Jon had said he was going to talk to. "Late for something?"

"Late for an early lunch," she said. "How does that sound?"

"Sounds reasonable," I said. "Thanks, thanks for everything. You've helped a lot."

She dug car keys out of her coat pocket. "I sense another Lewis Cole column coming up for
Shoreline
magazine, a column that will never appear in print. Am I correct?"

"You do know my methods," I said. "True, but be careful. All right?"

"Sure," I said, and just for the hell of it, I leaned over and kissed her. I think I surprised us both, and her eyes got shiny and she said, "Get going, before your tax bills get audited."

"All right, but one more thing."

"I can hardly wait."

I took out my wallet and removed a single dollar bill, which I placed in her hand. "I've just paid for your house, Paula. And if the Tyler Cooperative isn't helpful, give me a call. Maybe I can help you out."

Her small hand squeezed the dollar bill tight. "Thanks for the dollar, and your vote of confidence."

"You're welcome," I said, and I headed back to my vehicle, leaving behind the young woman with the big dreams and the old house.

About twenty minutes later I was in the parking lot of the Tyler police station, which is about a hundred yards away from the sands of Tyler Beach. If the police chief and the voters of Tyler reached agreement next spring, during town meeting, this was probably the last winter for the police station, which is built of cement blocks and looks like a storage facility for nerve gas or some damn thing. It was too warm in the summer, too cold in the winter, and instead of being just right in the fall, heavy rains and wind from the ocean often meant flooding in the dispatch area.

Diane was back in her office, the cement blocks now painted a pale yellow. Her desk was clean and neat, unlike the desk next to hers, which is used in the summer by a patrol officer temporarily assigned to her to assist in the heavy upswing of felony cases. That desk was piled high with file folders, newspaper clippings, and packets of photos. During those months that don't fall between Memorial Day and Labor Day, she is the entire detective force for the town of Tyler.

I sat down across from her and said, "That desk looks like it could use a clean-up."

She smiled at me, the scar on her chin faded, a good sign. "Tell you a secret?"

"Secrets from cops are the best ones. Sure, go ahead."

She was leaning back in her office chair, hands folded against her slim waist. "That mess over there, that all belongs to me. This desk is just fake. All those files are cases I'm working on."

"Then why are you sitting here, and not there?"

"You know how depressing it is, to walk into an office first thing in the morning and look at a mess? Thing is, you come and sit at a clean desk, you start the day in a good mood. Sets the whole tone."

"Sounds too weird to work," I said.

"Well, it does," she said. "Guess you're here looking for an update on your friend Jon."

"l am."

"The investigation continues," she said.

I waited. There was one window in the office, heavily barred and screened, that overlooked the rear parking lot of the police station, the marshland beyond that, and a couple of miles away, the impressive bulk of the Falconer nuclear power plant. Diane sat there, silent, and I said to her, "You know, I haven't changed jobs."

"You haven't?"

"Nope. I don't work for the
Porter Herald
or
Tyler Chronicle
or even the
Boston Globe
. It's still me and my monthly column for
Shoreline
."

"I didn't think you've changed jobs," she said. "So why bring it up?"

"Because that crappy answer you gave to me back there, about the investigation continuing, is the kind of answer you'd give to anybody else. But not for me. What's going on?"

She slowly unfolded her hands and said, "What's going on is the investigation, Lewis. And you and I have the same goals --- to find the asshole who murdered your friend, and to put him away. But this case is an important one, and it's not one that I'm going to look the other way while you do your poking and prodding, pretending to be doing a story for
Shoreline
."

"It's not stopped you before."

"Times have changed."

"How?"

Then her face shifted, like some memories back there that she had kept quiet were suddenly coming to the foreground. "Two things, my friend, two things have changed. One personal and the other public. Guess it's time to hear some more secrets, eh?"

"I guess."

She looked over at the door and I got the signal, and got up and gently closed it. I sat back down and she said, "Okay, friend to friend. This is what's going on, and I'm sorry I wasn't upfront with you the other day, at Jon's house. First and foremost. Kara."

"Is she all right?"

A nod. "Yes, she's doing fine. The occasional nightmare but she's recovered well from last winter. But something's up. You've been reading the newspapers?"

"Every day."

"Sure, but have you been reading the business news?"

Oh. "Her job."

Another nod. "She was laid off from what's left of Compaq, about two months ago."

“I’m sorry, I didn't know."

Diane said, "It didn't seem to be a problem at the time. Kara is very good, she's very talented, and we were both convinced that she'd find another job in a matter of days. Well, those days have slipped by, and nobody's hiring. Now she's trying to make a go of it as a consultant, but the woods are thick with ex-computer analysts, trying to start up a consulting business. In a few days, my friend, she's moving out of her apartment in Newburyport and is moving in with me."

"Oh. Congratulations, I guess."

Outside a Tyler police cruiser, painted green and white, pulled up to the rear entrance. Diane sighed and said, "That's a good one. 'Congratulations, I guess.' I've always pushed her to move in with me, and she's always resisted. The usual tale about keeping one's space. Fine, I could handle that. But having her move in now... Well, it's tough. I always wanted her to live with me because of our love and our relationship. Having her move in with me because her bank account is draining away isn't quite the romantic fantasy I've always had."

"I see."

"Very good," she said. "Now, it's time for the public secret. And please do keep this a secret, especially from your girl toy Paula." Diane swiveled some in her chair and opened the center drawer to her desk, pulled out a triangular-shaped patch, green and black. She turned it over and I recognized the three chevrons of a sergeant rank.

"Really?" I asked, delight in my voice, and that seemed to please her. She smiled and twirled the patch in her fingers.

"Really and truly," she said. "In a few days time, if I keep my nose clean and keep my work up, this well-dressed and muscular woman sitting across from you will be known as Detective Sergeant Diane Woods, not just plain old Detective Woods. Even though it's a one-man detective bureau, Lewis. It's a very big deal."

I nodded and said, "Okay. Both secrets received, loud and clear. No time for loose cannon, no time for jeopardizing anything."

"You've got it, my friend," she said. "I've wanted this promotion for a long time, Lewis, and with it, comes extra money and a few more bennies. Stuff that I can really use with Kara now living with me. And truly, don't take offense when I say this."

"Okay, I won't.

A smile. "A sign of a true friend, saying yes before I say a damn thing. What I'm saying is that my first loyalty and first priority is to the woman in my life, and I'm not going to do anything to threaten that. And you may be number two and try harder, Lewis, but still, when you ask me about the Jon Ericson case, you're going to get the very basics. I can't afford to do anything else."

I got up from the chair, knowing what she said made sense, still not enjoying hearing it. "I understand, Diane. I really do."

She folded her hands back together. "I knew you would. But still ... if you do hear anything that might help me, please call, all right?"

My chest ached --- maybe it was guilt, maybe it was a memory of where Felix and I had been the other morning --- and I said, "Let me get this straight. You're not going to tell me anything, but if I hear something, I'm supposed to pass the information over to you."

"That's right."

"Sure doesn't sound fair." Which made my not saying anything about our little break-in at Seacoast Antiques seem just fine.

She leaned farther back in her chair. "Welcome to the realities of police work."

Outside, the wind had died down some, but cigarette butts and fast food wrappers and even fine grains of beach sand blew across the cracked pavement of the parking lot. Diane had just told me her priorities, about taking care of her life and her first priority, which made sense. No argument there.

The only argument I had was that she didn't ask me about my life, about my priority, and that was something I was going to take care of, no matter the realities of police work. I reached into my coat, rubbed at the sore spot on my chest. It still hurt.

I got into my Explorer and went home.

Before getting busy, the phone rang, and it was Felix, who got right to the point. "Talked to my Porter police contact, about a little event at Seacoast Antiques the other night."

"And?"

"Nothing to report. No evidence of who was in the building, how many people were in the building, and also --- I'm sorry to say --- no blood trail from whoever was in there that ran into an, um, knife."