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Authors: David Daniel

BOOK: Goofy Foot
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The outburst surprised both of us. She looked pained, embarrassed. “No, that stuff is your business,” I said, “not mine. I gather that you liked him.”
“I didn't get to know him too well, but he seemed like a nice guy. Decent … and smart. I saw that right away when we first talked. It's why I was willing to go with him.”
Her words had to compete with the swishing of waves on the rocks below, and the wind was blowing her hair awry. She asked if we could go back. In the Daytona, she reached for the CD player, thought better of it, and sat back. “When we were at the beach house, I was in the bathroom at one point, and the phone rang. He took it and went out on the deck. He shut the slider door, but the bathroom window was open. I overheard some of what he was saying. He was pretty upset. It was after that I said I should maybe leave. But he said no, he just needed to relax. I said did he want a
back rub—you know, to relax him. We went to bed.”
I didn't need the details. It made the world go round, sure; but we had to walk upright in that world, too. “Did he say what had upset him?”
“No, and I didn't hear the other side of the talk, obviously, but it sounded like it was maybe a business deal. He kept saying, ‘That wasn't the arrangement.' Something like that.”
“‘Arrangement' could mean other things, too, no?” I found myself thinking about a domestic arrangement. “Could you tell if the speaker was a man or a woman?”
“No. All I know is he seemed angry and a little … spooked.”
“Scared?”
“Just a feeling I got. Anyway, he made plans to meet.”
“Meet the person he was talking to?”
“I think so.”
“Did he say when?”
“No. He mentioned the beach.”
“To meet?”
“Seemed like it. He said ‘surf'?”
“Was anyone else mentioned?”
She hesitated. “I … don't know.”
I had the idea that she might. “Any names at all?”
“No, not that I heard. Anyway, after that's when he said he was uptight. I brought out my stash.”
“And you both lit up?”
“Yeah. Wait. I didn't have any matches—well, I did, I mean, but I collect matchbooks, kind of a hobby, but they have to be like virgin, no matches gone. So I looked in a drawer, and I see a gun in there. That shook me.”
“A handgun?”
“Yeah. In the kitchen counter, by the stove.”
“Did he take the gun out?”
“He didn't have to. A person you've only just met and he's got a gun there … that's a little random.”
“Did he seem scary to you?”
“No, that's just it—he was nice. Personal. Person
able
.”
“And you didn't stay all night?”
“Uh-uh. He said he had to go out later.”
“For his meeting?”
“Sounded that way. I left just before midnight.”
“Did he mention his daughter at all? Or his ex-wife?”
“You keep asking me that. No. Now—I'm going to cultivate the art of silence.”
I thanked her and opened the door and stepped out. She leaned toward me. “Look, this won't get … back to Ben, will it? Or anyone else?”
“Like who?”
“I just mean … can you keep my name out of it?”
“I promise. Speaking of which, is it Jillian or Caroline?”
“It's both.”
Farther down the row of parked cars, a motor started. A van, I saw. She noticed it, too, and watched the van a moment, but it was soon gone. She checked herself in the mirror, patting her hair, then tossed me a jaunty little wave. The music came like offshore blasting. Seconds later she was slinging gravel as she swerved out onto the paved coast road. Even after her taillights had gone from sight, I still rocked in her wake.
I found a quick mart and bought a few provisions for the morning. Back at the house I put the groceries away, except for a bottle of tonic water, a lime, and a pint of Beefeater. I needed to do some thinking. I got a good-sized glass from a cupboard and fisted in some ice cubes. As I was cutting the lime, there was a rap on the screen door. Out past where moths were swarming the deck light, Ted Rand raised a hand in greeting. “I saw your light. I hope I'm not interrupting you?”
“Only if you're from the temperance union. I was just about to fix a drink. Join me?”
He waved at the moths, slid open the screen and stepped in. I'd lost track of the time. The kitchen wall clock showed it was almost ten. Rand was wearing a Dartmouth sweatshirt and a pair of orange swim trunks, a white towel slung around his neck. With his deep tan and white hair, he looked like an old lifeguard.
“I was just over checking on my mother.”
“How is she?”
“She's got a bunch of things wrong, none serious enough to kill her. She'll outlive me for spite. I heard you were looking for me earlier.” Rand must've read my surprise, because he laughed. “No,
my mother didn't remember, but it's a small town.”
“Actually, that's the reason I was looking for you, hoping you might be able to shed some light on Ben Nickerson's visit to Standish. I didn't mention it yesterday, but I'm a private investigator.”
“I heard that, too. And the answer is, certainly. If I can help, I'm glad to. What's up?”
“Gin and tonic okay?”
“I'll pass. I've got something else in mind.” His blue eyes twinkled. Was he a closet doper? “It's Mr. Rasmussen—have I got that right?”
“Alex is fine.”
He crooked a finger. “Come with me, Alex.”
I followed him out and down the steps to the sand, away from the house. Over the ocean, the moon was a half-shut eye. Picking up its glow, tiny waves lapped the beach. “Isn't that pretty?” he said. “It's like a golden road to somewhere.”
“It is pretty,” I agreed.
“Let's swim.”
“Now?”
“There's nothing more refreshing. The tide's about to turn, and there'll be fog later.”
“I'm not much of a swimmer.”
“The sea will take care of you. It's the mother of us all.”
“Then my excuse is I haven't got a swimsuit.”
Rand's shoulders bobbed with a silent laugh. He stretched out a hand. “‘The Sea of Faith was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.'” He looked at me. “Know it?”
“Shakespeare?”
“Listen. ‘But now I only hear its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, retreating, to the breath of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear and naked shingles of the world.'” He paused, giving me another chance. “Matthew Arnold. ‘Dover Beach.'”
“Off by only a few centuries,” I said.
“You're an educated man, Mr. Rasmussen. Alex. I had a feeling an investigator would have to be. Most folks wouldn't have a clue. Do you remember how the poem ends?”
“Let's go back to the part about me being an educated man and leave it there.”
He laughed. “What did you want my help with?”
“I've got some information that Ben Nickerson may have been working on a business deal in town. You seem to be the local burgomaster. Any idea what he might have been up to? Or with whom?”
“Well, I'm flattered you consider me a credible source. Burgomaster, huh? And here I've been thinking I was just a bumpkin.” His smile lingered a moment, then his expression grew serious. “A business deal. Hmm. Here in town?”
“I'm not sure.”
Rand tipped his head in a gesture that said he wished he could be more helpful. “I saw him only once, and he didn't say much. Though that doesn't mean you're not right. There's opportunity in Standish. Have you spoken with Vin Delcastro?”
“Briefly, yes.”
“Well, I'll certainly keep my ears open.”
“Nickerson evidently had a surfboard made here for his daughter.”
“And you're coming to
me
to get information?” Rand chuckled. “You seem to know more about our little town's goings-on than I do. Sorry I don't have much to offer. I keep myself pretty buried in my project.” He gestured toward the dark sweep of Shawmut Point off to the left. “That's all mine,” he said, with a note of half-surprise. “Not literally. Some of it is. But I possess it in my imagination. I've envisioned what it can become and have taken steps to make it happen.”
“I heard something about it. Point Pines, right?” He glanced my way. I lifted a shoulder. “As you say, it's a small town.”
“Understand that not everyone is happy with the idea. I'd like them to be, of course. I try to spread things about and make it good for all. I can't worry too much about folks who choose not to see it that way. There'll be some attempts to block me. Obscure zoning laws or EPA rules no one ever noticed before will come up, but I'm prepared for that. You see, I've got a vision for Standish.” He gave a low laugh. “I didn't come by to bend your ear.”
“Then we're even,” I said.
“Well, it's getting a bit late for a swim. The fog is on the move.” Sure enough, the bank that had shimmered on the horizon earlier had drifted closer to land. “And you don't want to be out there in the fog,” he said. “It invites monsters.” He laughed.
“The bar's still open.”
He said he had to get back home; he lived on the other end of town and was an early-to-bed-early-to-rise type. “Next time,” he promised. “We'll swim and then have a drink. My treat.” He started away, then stopped and came back. “In fact, I'm having a little soiree at my house tomorrow night. Kind of a meet-and-greet for some of the wash-ashores who've bought homes in the phase one of Point Pines, plus a few town folk. Why don't you come? It'll give you a chance to meet some people.”
“No poetry quiz?”
His shoulders bounced with silent laughter again. “I can't promise that, but it will be fun.”
I said I'd be glad to come, and he gave me directions. “Anytime after nine. Bring swim trunks.”
Inside, I completed my bartending chores and then sat in the semidarkness, sipping the drink and allowing my mind a slow access to the events of the day. So far, I knew that Ben Nickerson had ordered a surfboard prior to coming east, probably as a gift for his daughter, but he hadn't picked it up yet. What he had picked up was Jillian, or Caroline, depending on who was talking; and she had left by midnight. I also knew that Michelle Nickerson hadn't been in evidence at the beach house that night. Ben had argued on the phone with someone. Who? Remembering something, I checked the top drawer in the counter by the stove and then the other drawers. No gun. So that's what I had: details that, thus far, netted out to zero.
In sports, people talk about impact players, athletes who can enter a game when the chips are down and make things happen. That's what I was supposed to be. Impact Investigator. I added that to a mental list of possible ad copy to run by Fred Meecham if I ever decided to take his counsel and shill my wares. I checked my
answering service, hoping that Sergeant Ed St. Onge had called. He hadn't.
I looked at my watch. Ten-twenty. I rinsed my glass, got my keys and headed for the car. By Ted Rand's measure it might be late, but I had to figure that young folks on summer vacation used a different clock.
The Beachcomber was a mile south of the town center. When the kids playing Haki Sack on the common had told me that it was a twenty-one-and-under place, with soft drinks and sandwiches and live bands, I was having a hard time imagining it, but I thought it was worth a look. The parking lot was full of cars, including a Standish prowl car. Sitting at the wheel was the same shaggy-haired officer I'd seen in town with Chief Delcastro that afternoon, with the mirror sunglasses. He still wore them at 10:45 P.M. It's possible he was snoozing behind them, but in case he wasn't, I parked where he wouldn't notice me and got out. Muted music and the crickets mingled in the salt-fragrant air.
I moseyed up to the door. I might have been a parent looking for a tardy teen. In fact, I'd more or less decided on some sort of cover—friend of the family, who were away for a few days and asked me to check in with their daughter—but I'd wing it. Feeling only slightly self-conscious, I went inside. I needn't have worried. The doorman stamped my hand without a second look.
But any idea of wandering around bracing people about whether or not they had seen Michelle Nickerson was out. The place was so crowded and humid with bodies and smoke, I could barely see or
move. On a low stage three guitar players had their amps cranked up full. The audience seemed happy enough, though. In front, lots of kids were thrashing around in jerky movements, which were to dancing what the noise coming from the stage was to music. I made my way to the bar, where several college-age youth were fetching sodas and working an exotic espresso machine. After several attempts, I made one of the youths understand that I wanted information, not caffeine. He looked at the photograph of Michelle Nickerson and then at me, and I think he had the idea I was looking to pick her up. He shook his head. I tried several other people, but got the same response. Finally, with no new information to go with my ringing ears, I went outside.
In the parking lot, a broad fellow with longish hair and wearing a Hawaiian shirt and jeans was leaning against an old pickup truck moored alongside my car. He was older than any of the people inside, though not yet my age. He listened to my canned intro and took the photograph. Clamping a cigarette in his lips, he held the photograph at a distance, squinting against the smoke, as if attempting to draw a bead. “I think I saw her once.”
“When?”
“I'm trying to recall.”
He seemed a little spaced. “Recently?”
“Yeah. Not here, though. This isn't my scene.” He made a brief effort to remember, then shook his head and handed the photograph back. “Who is she, anyway?”
“Her name is Michelle Nickerson.”
He straightened up and waved his fingers in a “gimme” gesture. He gave the photo another look. “Is this Ben Nickerson's girl?”
“His daughter, yeah.”
“How old is this?”
“A few years.” I was watching him closely. “Do you know Nickerson?”
“I'd like to find him,” he said.
“So would I.”
The man sucked the last smoke from his cigarette, pitched it down and stepped on it. “What's your interest?”
“I'm trying to locate him or his daughter. What about you?”
He ran a hand across his mouth, watching me, like a man deciding whether or not to come clean. “You're not really interested in a board, are you, bro,” he said.
“A board?”
“Actually, I followed you. I went over to the place on the beach you're staying, but you were just splitting. I tagged along. I got your message.”
I wasn't expecting a tail, so I'd missed it. I hadn't been expecting company, either, but I made the connection now. “Are you Van Owen?”
“You're a private investigator, huh?”
Somehow I'd expected a lean, blond-haired guy, younger. “I've been hired by Nickerson's former wife.”
“What did Ben do?”
“He and his teenage daughter seem to be missing.”
“Hmm. Maybe why he hasn't picked up his stick. The blue one,” he added for my sake. “In the shop.”
“Deep Sea Ryder.” I was making all kinds of connections now.
“I saw him in town the other day, coming out of the bank. We only got to talk for a minute. He seemed hurried—so much for California laid-back. I told him his board was ready. He said he'd be by to get it.”
“What day was that?”
“Day before … three days ago, actually.”
“Is the board paid for?”
“On a custom job I'd generally take a deposit, but I know him.” Van Owen shrugged his thick shoulders. “He said he'd square with me when he got here.”
The cruiser I'd spotted earlier was back, doing a slow prowl among the rows of parked vehicles, coming our way. Van Owen reacted first. “I've got to rock,” he said. He was already climbing into the beat-up truck.
It was full dark now, the moon down, but in the light from the teen club I could make out the shine of the cop's reflective lenses. I went around to the other side of Van Owen's truck and climbed
in, too. He looked at me but said nothing. When the cruiser had crawled past, I said, “That looked like an instinctive shying away from the law.”
Van Owen grinned. “The chief sends a car out here on a regular run. Community-policing effort, keep the youth of Standish on the straight and narrow. Parents around here love him.”
“But you don't?”
“The chief and I are both townies. Let's say I'm warily respectful of him, but I believe policing works better if it's a cooperative arrangement. I don't think keeping people under constant surveillance and making them afraid is good policy. That spook in the car—Shanley—he can be a hassler.” He didn't elaborate. “That do it for you? Or do you want to ride awhile?”
We headed north. The truck's interior was pasted with decals for surfboard makers, the dashboard covered with tattered maps and papers, the floor littered with fast food wrappers and coffee cups, the remnants of gulped meals en route to secret surfing spots, I imagined. Van Owen checked his mirrors several times, but the road behind us was dark. He pulled a deck of Old Golds from the pocket of his island shirt and offered them. It seemed an oddly old-fashioned gesture, though I guess it could be considered hostile these days. I declined, and he tapped out a cigarette on the steering wheel and used the dashboard lighter. His arm was thick and muscular. I reeled the conversation back to Ben Nickerson and his surfboard.
“He ordered it by phone back in late winter. Wanted something a kid could learn on. I shaped it to the specs he gave me.”
“That design on it—the red logo—”
“He drew it in his letter and—” He snapped his fingers. “That's where I saw the girl. My boards are all about performance. I build them to the person, to their body style. Usually I like them to come in and I take measurements, but because he was in California, I asked him to send a photo. I've probably still got it in the shop. It's newer than what you have there.”
“May I see it?”
“Next time I'm there I'll look for it.”
“I'd like to see it now if possible.”
He glanced over. “Hell, man, it's late.”
“That's what I'm thinking, too. If the Nickersons have disappeared, it's getting later all the time.”
He was silent a moment, then he slowed and swung a U—turn. I thought he was bringing me back to the Beachcomber and my car, but he took a side road and turned inland. We rode awhile on roads winding through farm- and woodland. In the mild air I could smell mown hay and see fireflies winking in the meadows. Considering the crowding on the South Shore, I was surprised any open land still existed. Taking my cue from Van Owen, I kept silent. The old truck rattled along. Soon, we crossed the highway, and I recognized the Hanover Mall, night-lit and deserted. Actually, somebody was still inside the Wide World of Sporting Goods, doing inventory. The man recognized Van Owen and let us in with minimal explanation. At this hour, nearing midnight, the place had a strange feel: all this equipment for the active life seemed ghostly. Van Owen led me back to his fabrication area, and after a brief hunt among papers, he found what he was after.
It was a Polaroid snapshot taken only a few months ago, according to the date stamp. It showed Michelle Nickerson standing under a tree. She was a pale, pretty girl, with short, jet-black hair. She was wearing a long black skirt, black T-shirt and a studded vest. A small ring glinted above her right eyebrow. Van Owen moved beside me to see it. “Under the goth garb,” he said, “she looks athletic enough, like she could handle a board. That's the kind of thing I'd look for in custom-fitting a board.”
“Can I hang on to this?”
“Take it. Do you think something happened to her?”
“I don't know. I hope not. Do you?”
“No reason to. Still …” He went over to the surfboard, Deep Sea Ryder. An instant classic, the salesgirl had called it. “I was hoping Nickerson would be eager to get it.”
“Did you know beforehand that he was going to be staying out there at the beach?”
“No. Not till you told me.”
“Do you know a young woman who drives a red Daytona? Jillian something?”
“Big hair and a brain no bigger than you'd expect?”
“Who is she?”
“A club rat. I don't know her last name. Does she figure in this?”
“I don't know. Nickerson seems to have picked her up in a place called the Sand Bar three nights ago. They spent some time together. What's her scene?”
“What else? Girls just want to have fun.”
I slipped the Polaroid into my shirt pocket.
“Are the cops in on any of this?” Van Owen asked.
“I've met with Delcastro, but they're not officially involved yet. Nickerson's former wife and her husband believe Ben and the girl will turn up, that maybe they've been away for a few days.”
“Off beachcombing?”
“Is that possible?”
He lifted his shoulders. “Nickerson was always poking around tide pools and marshes. He did tenth-grade science projects even the teachers couldn't understand.”
“So did I.”
“I hope that's what it is—his being off on a brainstorm.”
Something in the way he said it made me curious. He said, “There was a case five or six years back of a girl about that age, a runaway. Apparently she was hitching through town, supposed to meet some friends in Boston. Several people saw her because she'd camped out in a field along the Old Cape Road—but she disappeared. You got me thinking, that's all. But this doesn't sound like that.”
“No,” I agreed.
The outside air had cooled. He brought me back to my car and let me out. “I hope they turn up,” he said.
“Me, too. What are you out on the surfboard?”
“No big deal. I can find a buyer if need be.”
“There's a cute little salesclerk at the sports store who sounds as if she'd like some surfing lessons.”
He grinned. “Save it. She and I have been there. What she really wants is a ring on her finger—or through my nose.”
I handed him another of my cards, which he glanced at. “Is that how you spell it?”
“It's a misprint. Hang on to that; it's an instant classic.”
He laid the card on the cluttered dashboard, then gave me a hand sign, thumb and pinky finger extended. “Paddle easy, Dog. Old hodaddy's advice—keep one eye on the horizon and one on the shore. This is where the hungriest sharks are.”
When he had gone, I stood in the cool night. The Beachcomber parking lot was still packed, the club still going strong, rampant with teen hormones and metal music. I had a yearning for something to drink, but espresso wasn't going to do it for me. Out on the starlit sea, the mantle of fog had crept closer to shore. I could see the rhythmic sweep of the lighthouse farther up the coast, like a blurred and restless eye. The tide evidently had turned, bringing the tangy brine of ocean. In Lowell, once a year if the wind was right and you were lucky, the scent might carry upriver from Plum Island, make its way past the brackish currents at Newburyport and Amesbury, through the industrial stinks of Haverhill and Lawrence, sneak by the dank churn of the Duck Island wastewater treatment plant, and on a downtown street, thirty miles from the sea, you'd flare your nostrils bracingly and say “Smell that!” Then the wind would shift, and in fifteen minutes it was all a dream. Here in Standish, I was becoming aware that the sea was a constant, bearing change, moment-to-moment, oblivious to the tides of human affairs around whose puny shorelines it washed.
No wonder Matthew Arnold and Rod McKuen were poets.

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