Part 8 (1/2)
The dream that I've been having, about my high-school sweetheart, is not really about my high-school sweetheart, when you get right down to it. It's not a dream about Alison Koechner and our lost love and the precious little three-bedroom house in Maine we might have built together, had things gone a different way. I am not dreaming of white picket fences and Sunday crosswords and warm tea.
There's no asteroid in the dream. In the dream, life continues. Simple life, happy and white-picket lined or otherwise. Mere life. Goes on.
When I'm dreaming of Alison Koechner, what I'm dreaming of is not dying.
Okay? See? I get it.
”I just wanted to go over a few things with you, Mr. Dotseth, just to let you know-this case, this hanger, it's got legs. It really does.”
”Mom? Is that you?”
”What? No-it's Detective Palace.”
A pause, a low chuckle. ”I know who it is, son. I'm having a little fun.”
”Oh. Of course.”
I hear newspaper pages flipping, I can practically smell the bitter steam rising off of Denny Dotseth's cup of coffee. ”Hey, did you hear about what's happening in Jerusalem?”
”No.”
”Boy, oh boy. Do you want to?”
”No, sir, not right now. Hey, so, this case, Mr. Dotseth.”
”I'm sorry, remind me what case we're talking about?”
Sip of coffee, crinkle of newspaper page, he's teasing me, me at my kitchen table drumming long fingers over a page of my blue book. On which page, as of four o'clock this morning, is written the name and home address of the last person to see my insurance man alive.
”The Zell case, sir. The hanger from yesterday morning.”
”Oh, right. The attempted murder. It's a suicide, but you're attempting-”
”Yes, sir. Listen, though: I've got a strong lead on the vehicle.”
”What vehicle is that, kiddo?”
My fingers, drumming faster, rat-a-tat-tat. C'mon, Dotseth.
”The vehicle I mentioned when we spoke yesterday, sir. The red pickup truck with the vegetable-oil engine. In which the victim was last seen.”
Another long pause, Dotseth trying to drive me insane.
”h.e.l.lo? Denny?”
”So, okay, so you have a lead on the vehicle.”
”Yes. And you said to keep you apprised if there was any real chance it's more than a hanger.”
”Did I?”
”Yeah. And I think there is, sir, I think there is a real chance. I'm going to swing over there this morning, talk to the guy, and if it looks like anything, I'll come back to you and we can get a warrant, right?” I trail off. ”Mr. Dotseth?”
He clears his throat. ”Detective Palace? Who's your detective-sergeant these days?”
”Sir?”
I wait, my hand still poised over my notebook, my fingers curling over the address: 77 Bow Bog Road. It's just south of us, in Bow, the first suburb over the city line.
”Down in Adult Crimes. Who is supervising the division?”
”Uh, no one, I guess. Chief Ordler, technically. Sergeant Sta.s.sen went Bucket List at the end of November, I think, before I even moved upstairs. A replacement appointment is pending.”
”Right,” says Dotseth. ”Okay. Pending. Respectfully, buddy: you want to follow the case, follow the d.a.m.n case.”
”Petey's not dead.”
”He is.”
”Just hung out with him. Couple days ago. Tuesday night, I think.”
”No, sir, you didn't.”
”Think I did.”
”Actually, sir, it was Monday.”
I'm at the bottom of a metal extension ladder that's leaned against the side of a house, a squat frame house with a sharp s.h.i.+ngle roof. My hands are cupped together, my head is tilted back, and I'm calling up through a light drift of snow. J. T. Toussaint, an unemployed construction worker and quarryman, a giant of a man, is up on the ladder, heavy tan work boots planted on the topmost metal rung, a considerable stomach balanced against the overhanging gutters of his roof. I can't yet clearly see his face, just the lower-right quadrant of it, turned down toward me, framed inside the hood of a blue sweats.h.i.+rt.
”You picked him up from his place of employment on Monday evening.”
Toussaint makes a noise for ”oh yeah?” but elided into one thick uncertain utterance: ”Ohuh?”
”Yes, sir. In your red pickup truck, with the American flag on the side. That's your truck right there?”
I point to the driveway, and Toussaint nods, s.h.i.+fts his weight against the rain spout. The base of the ladder trembles a little.
”On Tuesday morning he was found dead.”
”Oh,” he says, up on the roof. ”d.a.m.n. A hanger?”
”That's how it looks. Will you come down off the ladder, please?”
It's an ugly block of a house, wooden and dilapidated and uneven, like the torso of a soapbox racer left forgotten in the dirt. In the front yard is a single ancient oak tree, crooked branches reaching for the sky as if under arrest; around the side there's a doghouse and a row of thick, untended thorn bushes along the property line. As Toussaint descends, the ladder's metal legs jerk back and forth alarmingly, and then he's standing there in his hooded sweats.h.i.+rt and his heavy workingman's boots, a caulking gun dangling loosely from one thick fist, looking me up and down, both of us breathing cold puffs of condensation.