Rath drove south on New Hampshire Interstate 93, the fog hampering progress.
New Hampshire was a peculiar state, the joke being that Vermonters were forced to drive through it to get to Maine and back. The Granite State had a lot of, well, granite, so its trout streams, though cold, clear, and dazzling to the eye, also tended to be devoid of the insect life brook trout needed to thrive, the trout scrawny and stunted. Racers. The motto, Live Free or Die, was a bit hyperbolic, too; yet what did one expect from a state that for decades had strapped its identity to a rock outcrop, the Old Man of the Mountain, and slapped the Old Man’s image on any tchotchke that took ink. Five years ago, the Old Man had crumbled into the forest below, and the populace had mourned as if for a beloved grandfather. The state’s license plate still bore his image.
Rath took the next exit.
Timothy Glade lived with an elderly aunt. Hopefully she wanted him there; Glade wouldn’t be the first violent ex-con to persuade an elderly family member to offer room and board.
Rath turned left into the Old Man of the Mountain apartment complex.
Most of the vehicles in the lot were at least a decade old. A bulb in one of the parking lot lights was out, the glass fixture shattered.
No one was around, at least not that Rath could tell in the dark and fog.
From out on the highway, an eighteen-wheeler’s horn blared.
Rath walked to the door of 64A and knocked.
A dim light shone inside, visible through the shade. From the way it flickered, the light was from a TV screen.
The aunt was likely asleep. A risk of dropping in at random was you might not find your target as planned. Rath knocked louder.
A brighter light flicked on inside.
The door opened.
An elderly woman answered, as brittle and jaundiced looking as dried summer grass, fingers gnarled with arthritis, barely able to work the storm door latch.
“What’d he do?” she said.
She knew.
Yet she helped her nephew anyway. Or abided him. Perhaps abetted him. Old age did not equate to innocence.
“Nothing,” Rath said.
“You’re not here for nothing,” she said.
Yes. She knew. Rath wondered how many generations of this woman’s male kin had been in and out of scrapes their entire lives.
“Is he in?” Rath said.
“You could find him sleeping on the couch at noon, if you tried then.”
“Expect him back anytime soon?”
“I don’t expect anything from Timmy. He left four hours ago to run to the drugstore ten minutes away for me.”
“To pick up a prescription, or—”
“I know better. Lady nighttime diapers.”
The throaty growl of a rotted muffler rose behind Rath.
“Speak of the devil,” the aunt said.
A car with a headlight out sped into the lot, rocked over the speed bumps, its underbody grinding and shooting sparks despite the damp asphalt.
It whipped in next to the Scout. A Ford Escort. Late ’80s.
Its exhaust backfired, a flame blasting out the tailpipe.
Timothy Glade got out twirling keys around his finger, took the steps two at a time, his head down.
He stopped fast, as if he’d scented Rath.
His head jerked up. At the instant his eyes caught Rath’s eyes, he turned and bolted.
Rath chased as Glade fled across the lot toward the woods on the far end. Woods that stretched for miles. If he made it, he’d be gone. Maybe for good.
Rath dug in, gaining fast; too fast.
Glade had stopped and now wheeled around and swung his arm, catching Rath square in the windpipe.
Rath hit the pavement hard, his knees and palms scraping on the asphalt just as his face struck the pavement.
A boot kicked him in the lower back.
Rath reached for his sidearm. He should have drawn it at the start. Been ready.
The boot kicked him again. Rath rolled away, grabbing for Glade’s ankle. Rath’s throat felt collapsed, as if he were breathing through a reed.
Glade’s eyes went wide as he saw a pile of bricks a few feet away. He lunged and grabbed a brick, stood over Rath with it and reared back.
Rath crabbed backward, trying to scurry under a car, but the car was too low for Rath to use to protect himself.
Glade swung the brick down hard. Rath kicked Glade’s knee. The knee buckled and the brick struck the car’s bumper and glanced off Rath’s head.
Rath was pinned against the front of the car.
He reached for his sidearm again.
Glade straddled him, the brick raised, ready to bludgeon.
“Timmy! He’s police! Timmy, please!”
Glade glanced behind him.
Rath pulled back his leg, his knee to his chest, then drove the heel of his boot into Glade’s ankle.
A bone cracked. Glade howled. Rath drove his boot into Glade’s shin and ankle again.
Glade collapsed.
“Timmy,” the old woman cried.
Rath found his feet and pounced on Glade, flipped him over onto his stomach and drove a knee into his back, cuffed him. Yanked him up.
Glade wailed as he limped in place. “You broke it. You broke it.”
I’ll break the other one, too, Rath thought as he shoved Glade up to the top apartment step and pushed Glade down to sit.
“I didn’t know you were a cop,” Glade whined. “My fucking ankle.”
The aunt stood near, gaping.
“Go inside,” Rath said. “It’s cold out here.”
“I’m fine.”
“Go inside. Now.”
The aunt disappeared into the apartment.
Rath looked down at Glade. “Who’d you think I was?”
“People.”
“I’m not people. I’m one guy.”
“I didn’t know if there were others.”
“Who?”
“People that want to hurt me.”
“That you owe money or—?”
Glade shook his head and stuck his leg with the wounded ankle out straight, winced and moaned. “I wish. No, I don’t owe nobody nothing. I don’t even know who it is. But they know what I done and where I live. They call the house, they leave notes, they break headlights on my aunt’s car and the streetlights, one took a shit on our porch and left a copy of my mug shot splattered with blood. What looked like real blood, with my face all hacked up.”
“Because of what you did?” Rath said.
“I got no control over it,” Glade said. “No. That ain’t true. Most times I do. Like ninety percent. But I’m like a alcoholic. Gotta keep temptation away. I don’t own a cell phone or a computer or nothing, because then it’s all right at my fingertips, man. I gotta keep busy, keep my mind busy, keep my body busy, off tempting thoughts of that shit.”
“Of boys.”
“And girls. I need to do the meetings. That’s where I was. Way over in Nashua. They don’t have enough meetings ’round here. I need to go like once a day. I need support. I don’t want to hurt no one else. But they come and trash my aunt’s car. Break her windows. Vandalize her place she worked hard to retire here. I brought this shit. Disgraced her.”
Rath crouched beside Glade. “I don’t give a shit about your sob story about broken windows after what you broke. I don’t give a fuck if you need to go to meetings. All I need from you is to know the relationship you had with Ned Preacher while you were inside.”
“What? Are you crazy? Preacher? I didn’t know the guy. Didn’t want to know him.”
Rath took Glade’s ankle in his hand and cranked it sideways so it made a popping sound.
Glade went rigid with pain. “Jesus. What the fuck?”
“What the fuck?” Rath said. “Two minutes ago you want to cave my skull with a brick. Murder me in your aunt’s parking lot, in front of her, a police officer, and now you ask me what the fuck? You knew Preacher. You shared his cell block for three years.”
“That doesn’t mean I knew him. I didn’t even talk to him. We weren’t girlfriends, that’s for sure. I broke the asshole’s nose because he wouldn’t stop his bullshit praying after lights out. You want to talk to someone who knows the guy, talk to Shelly.”
“Who’s she?”
“Not she. Man. Shelly. Sheldon. Clay Sheldon. Those two were tight as a ball of snakes. They had some shit going on I’ll tell you what. You want to talk to someone who was close with Preacher, really fucking close, Shelly’s your guy.”
“Get up,” Rath said. “I’m going to uncuff you. Try anything, I’ll break your other ankle.”
“I need medical attention. I need to get to the hospital.”
“Then go.”
“My ankle’s busted.”
“Call an ambulance.” Rath leaned close. Glade was rank with stale sweat. He could have stood to have some namesake air freshener sprayed on him. “I suggest you tell doctors you slipped on the wet walkway. Unless you want to be charged with assaulting a police officer and head back into the joint. If I had time to waste on you, that’s what you’d do, but I don’t have time to waste.”
In his Scout, Rath dialed Test. “We need to get to the North Star.”