Black Tide (34 page)

"Why's that?" He smiled, and I saw that his teeth needed brushing.

"Easy, my man. I can count. It's been five years. Anniversary time. About a year after that shit happened, all you guys called me up again and asked me a ton of questions, since it was the year anniversary. When two years went by, nothing happened, and I figured I was free. This year, though, I thought, well, it's been five years, you'll probably get some hotshot reporter or writer stopping by, try to squeeze you for info, and here you are."

I shifted some, trying to look relaxed and not as nervous as I was. "So you must have about five more years of memories to share with me."

Then Craig showed me he was a quick-change drunk. There are happy drunks, who get more and more joyous with each drink and swallow, and then there are the mean drunks, who look for vaguer and vaguer excuses to punch somebody's lights out with every sip that passes through their lips. Craig was the third category, the quick-change drunk, who can bounce from either one of the previous categories with liquid ease.

"Hah," he said, and he wasn't smiling anymore. "Five years. You want to know what it was like, those five years? I'll tell you what --- it was five more years of cleaning up after people, working late shifts and trying to keep awake while guarding a million dollar piece of machinery that's not going anyplace. That's what those five years have been like"--- he picked up my business card and squinted at it ---"Mr. Lewis Cole, columnist for
Shoreline
. Five years of unrelenting shit, all because my nitwit partner let two guys into the museum after we were closed, after I told him it was against regulations."

"Reports I heard said he thought he recognized them."

Craig took a long swallow of his beer. "Yah, that's what the old geezer said. We were on duty that night and it was dull and boring like every other night, 'cept, of course, I got to look at all those paintings and pieces of sculpture for free. Can you believe that? For free."

"Really?" I asked.

His bleary eyes focused on me. "Yeah, I know what you're thinking. Blue-collar kid from a small town, going to school to get his criminal justice degree, maybe become a cop. What does he know about art? Well, I knew what was there. I remember once as a kid being taken into a museum in Boston on a class trip, and I almost missed the bus back to New Hampshire ‘cause I didn't want to leave. I wanted to stay and look at all that wonderful stuff. It made my eyes tear up, that's how wonderful it was."

He looked down at the beer can in his hand. "In fact, I couldn't believe how I lucked out in getting the job at the Scribner. I got paid to be in that museum and keep an eye on things. I thought I had the greatest job. Walk through that big museum at night, nobody there ‘cept for Ben Martin, just walk on those wide floors, all by myself. It was like those paintings were more alive after hours, without all the visitors poking around and walking up and asking dumb questions. Lots of times, on my breaks, I'd go out and sit there in the dark, looking up at the paintings, and the streetlights, they'd make them look fresh, like they had just been painted. Man, I had a plan, you know that? Work there after school, make some money, get some experience, and then get my degree in criminal justice and get a real cop job and study art in those adult ed classes, go to Europe for a month or two, visit some he museums, it was a hell of a plan…."

His voice dribbled away and he stared down into his open can of beer, as if he was fighting back some tears, and said, more slowly, "That night, old Martin thought he recognized one of the cops at the door. Hell, he was such a big-shot veteran, he thought he knew everybody in the Manchester PD, and he said we should let 'em in. Give 'em a break, he said. They're just doing their jobs. What could I say? So we did, and just like that, everything bad that could possibly happen, happened, and there was no way I was ever going to work as a cop, Mr. Cole. Not ever."

Craig looked up, his eyes red-rimmed, face set with fury. "So they came in and guns were poked in our ears, and we were taped up and blindfolded and dumped in a corner, and I was so scared I pissed and shit in my pants, and the next couple of months all I heard from the Manchester PD and the FBI was 'Why did you do it? Who were you working with?' Can you believe that?"

I nodded in his direction. "You've got to admit, it's a logical place to look. Inside job maybe, with the two guards helping out."

"Hah." He swallowed off the rest of the beer and then bent over, his gut hanging out, hands scrabbling around for another can of Budweiser, from which he pulled off the plastic ring. "Logical, but think this one through. When the cops undid me, I stank so bad and I was so scared I was shaking and crying, but they thought I was such a good actor that I could soil myself like that. They even laughed at me, you know? They laughed at me, 'cause I shit in my pants. Jesus. Me and Ben Martin. They jumped all over us like we were instant suspects, like we were the only two guys who worked at the museum."

"You think they should have picked on somebody else?"

He popped open his beer. "Sure. There were other candidates, other guys who worked there. It could have been anybody."

"Like who?"

He just eyed me as he tipped the can up to his mouth. I said, "How about Justin Dix?"

The Budweiser can came back down fast, as if he had tasted something foul in the beer. "Justin Dix? What do you know about Justin Dix?"

"I know he had money problems. You know any more than that?"

He slowly smiled and held up his can in a salute and said, "I think I'll use a phrase I read about once in a magazine article. No comment. Is that right?"

I thought that over for a bit and said, "Seems like you and Justin had a couple of things in common. Like money problems, Craig. You just told me you paid everybody off yesterday, including your landlord. Get lucky lately in Tri-State Megabucks, or are you trying to clean up your trail? Where'd the money come from, Craig? And why did you move here? Someone helping you out?"

Then his manner changed a bit, as if he had reached another plateau of intoxication, and he said, "Man, if it weren't for that, I wouldn’t have had a job all these years… You think having something like the museum screw-up on your record helps you get job interviews, you're wrong… Guarding computers ain't much…  Jeez, why should I even bother telling you shit."

I stood up from the car and repeated myself somewhat.  “Where'd the money come from, Craig? Who's been helping you?  Justin? Has he been watching out for you?"

He shook his head, finished off the beer. "Mister, screw you and get off my property. I’m tired of talking to you, and if you aren’t gone I'm calling the cops. Let's see how your magazine likes shit like that."

I knew all of the cops in Tyler and most in North Tyler and Falconer, but I only knew the name of the chief in Exonia. I didn't think that little fact would help me if Craig came through on his promise. I tried to think of something snappy to say as I went back to the Rover, and I was still thinking about it when I drove to Tyler.

In my drive home I succumbed to an urge to visit Tyler Beach on this hot Saturday afternoon. I parked the Rover at the Tyler police station, having thrown my "Press Parking" sign I the dashboard, and I walked up to the Strip, not feeling very proud about myself. The lot had been empty of Diane Woods' Volkswagen Rabbit, and I had a feeling of relief that I wouldn't feel compelled to go into the station to see if she was there. There was still that strong memory of our last get-together, and how sourly it had ended, so I went out of the station's lot without looking back. I had that cold queasy feeling you get when your mother sends you to the nursing home to visit Grandma and you go to the mall to play video games instead.  Out on the Strip the summer games were continuing, and the sidewalks were pressed so full of people that they were even strolling out on the road. Tyler cops wearing orange safety vests were walking down the center of the slow-moving traffic, trying to keep it moving, and I saw how their eyes kept glancing down at the cars as they passed by. The casual observer might have thought that they were checking out the youth and sex of each car's passengers, while the not-so-casual observer would know that they were checking for open containers of alcohol or joints or mirrors or plastic Baggies full of green leafy matter.

At the Tyler Beach Palace the arcades seemed louder than usual, and there was an unyielding crowd around the ticket booth for the Palace Ballroom. Some rock group was playing there tonight, and there were to be a lot of  T-shirts and jeans around. I crossed the street and went over to the sidewalk bordering the wide white sands of Tyler Beach. I sat down on a park bench and watched the people for a while. There were young couples holding hands, whispering to each other as they went by, and older couples who strolled with a sense of contentment that something stronger than hand holding was bonding them together. A lot of kids, out by themselves, and even younger kids were scampering around under the watchful eyes of their parents or older siblings. There are bad days on the beach, when there are too many young people, whirling in and out of gangs and fights and accusations and thrown bottles, but this wasn't one of those days. And out on the sands there were still a lot of sun worshippers, all exposing their skin to the great sun god and cancer-giver Ra.

Beyond the sand were the shapes of the Isles of Shoals, and there was a freighter out on the gray waters, heading up north and to Porter, and I thought again of my visit to Cameron Briggs. I hadn't disturbed him, and I was thinking that maybe it was time to give what I knew to Paula Quinn, and let the Fourth Estate train their big guns on him. Then I'd do that damn column for
Shoreline
about something, talk to Felix some more about the Scribner Museum theft and do nothing else except get ready for the Perseid meteor showers next week.

In the meantime, I crossed my arms and waited for nothing in particular, just enjoying the show, and especially enjoying the bathing suits the women were wearing this summer. There was a combination of factors that I liked in seeing the women going by ranging from the skimpiness of the suits to the amount of flesh exposed to the self-confidence and self-assurance in how they walked.

Tyler Beach wasn't a perfect place, for sure, but it would suffice for now.

After pretending to be a philosopher for a while, I got up and walked around for another half hour or so, and at every expired parking meter that I saw, I pumped in a quarter. Then I went home.

Dinner was takeout from the Lafayette House again. This night it was a sautéed mixture of sirloin tips and lobster meat, which I ate outside on the back deck of my home, with a glass of wine and my own self to keep me company. It took about ten minutes to clean up after the meal, which is a cleaning average that I like, and then I went back outside with another glass of wine, carrying the phone with me. I called Felix's house and left a message on his answering machine, and sat back and thought some about Craig Dummer. Disappears for a few weeks, even though Justin Dix had implied that he was under constant surveillance. Then he reappears and this time he has some money. Pays off bills, even his old landlord, which took some effort. So. Is he paying off bills because it's the right thing to do, or because wants to eliminate anybody out there looking for him?

And where did he get the money? It couldn't have been that much of a windfall, based on his current living arrangements. So why the move?

The wine felt good easing through my mouth and then through the rest of my body. A lot of coincidences in a short time span. I didn't like it. The whole issue of Winslow Homer paintings comes alive after five years, Felix starts getting postcards, his cousin gets dumped in the ocean, one Tony Russo gets killed in front of us and Craig Dummer pays off all of his bills, quits his job and moves to Exonia.

I could talk to the Manchester police, but I got the feeling from Diane Woods that they weren't particularly enthusiastic about people asking questions regarding the museum theft, and with Diane and me currently on the outs, there wasn't much I could do in the law enforcement area.

Still, there was the FBI. They were in on the theft right from the beginning, and were probably still actively involved, up to a point. Right. I took another swallow from the wine. That's a bright one. Go up to a federal police agency, give them your name and address and start asking questions, and who knows what roads they'll go down, trying to find out stuff about one Lewis Cole, stuff that should never be made known. Maybe it was time to see if Justin Dix's financial situation had also suddenly improved. I sat out there for a while, thinking things through, as the sky darkened and the first stars started coming out into the early evening sky. Only a few running lights were out on the dark waters, and it seemed as if even the boaters knew that summer wad drawing to a close, and that it was time to put away the toys for the fall and winter. Only a few weeks to Labor Day. The nights were coming sooner and the evenings were getting cooler. There's a difference between a cool evening in June and one in August. In June, the coolness is just the last gasp of spring and winter; you know that the hot and pleasurable nights of summer are approaching. But a cool night in August tells of a summer drawing to an end, with the cold fingers of September and October waiting to touch you.

The phone rang and it was Felix returning my call.

"How's it going?" he asked.