WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 23, PRESENT DAY
Russ took the morning Cossayuharie patrol so Hadley could meet with the town lawyer. He was pretty sure she’d have rather walked the route barefoot than spend the time with an attorney, but they were all making sacrifices these days. Midweek after what passed for the morning rush hour in the country, his was practically the only vehicle on the road, and he was preparing to turn back toward town when his radio cracked on. “Fifteen-fifty-seven? Dispatch.”
He keyed the mic. “Dispatch, this is fifteen-fifty-seven, go ahead.”
“Shirley Bain’s called a couple times. Thinks a drug gang’s moved into the old Cunningham place.”
Russ rolled his eyes. “That’s at least two miles from her house. Usually she goes for something closer to home.” Mrs. Bain was a sweet old lady who called the police several times a year, convinced she was being menaced by vagrants, thieves, and criminals. The calls inevitably happened when her son, who lived in Manhattan, had failed to check in with her for a few months. They had a standard form saved for her; just change the date and the particular bump or rattle that had set her off and she was ready to forward it to her negligent offspring, who would up stakes and visit for a weekend to make sure she was okay. Lather, rinse, and repeat.
“I’m still in Cossayuharie, Harlene. I’ll take it.” He decided to check out the long-abandoned Cunningham house first, so when he stopped by Mrs. Bain’s, he could assure her that no, the farmhouse up the road wasn’t being used as a drug depot, or biker gang headquarters, or brothel. Actually, that last was a possibility, in that some teenagers might have discovered the shuttered house was the perfect sheltered spot to play a little slap-and-tickle.
His first glimpse of the place made him wonder if Shirley Bain had seen something that wasn’t just in her imagination. The heavily overgrown drive had been cut back, and a double row of squashed and dirty grasses showed where a vehicle or vehicles had passed through to the house. Russ bumped slowly up the ruts, emerging through the hedgelike tangle of bramble and saplings into the sunny meadow surrounding the house. There were no other cars at the end of the long drive, but the house had clearly seen visitors recently. Several windows were propped open with squared-off sticks, and old sun-faded drapes were puffing and flapping in the warm summer wind. One of the front steps had been pried clean off, the punky boards tossed in the grass next to a hammer and a can of nails. Russ tested the step above before putting his weight on it. The porch planking had also been decimated, empty spaces gaping, a handsaw left near the edge. Russ could see fresh cuts where someone had been sawing off the ragged, pulpy ends of the still-intact boards.
Balanced between the gaps, he knocked on the door. No answer. He tried the handle. It turned. He swung the door open onto a wide center hallway containing a sixty-pound bag of plaster, mixing buckets and drop cloths, and a box filled with measuring tapes, a level, and assorted paddles and draggers for plastering. The place was clean of dust and cobwebs, the floor swept and the windows clean. He turned back toward the door and spotted a cooler with a travel mug resting on top.
Either the house was the hangout for super-neat Girl Scouts getting their wall repair badges, or it had been sold. He’d tell Mrs. Bain and she could come over with a bag of her chocolate-chip cookies and meet the new folks. When he got back to town, he’d double-check with Roxanne Lunt—if the Realtor hadn’t sold the property herself, she’d know who had.
He was on the porch, watching his steps to keep from falling through, when he heard the voice.
“Hey, there. Find what you were looking for?”
Russ almost stumbled. He glanced up just long enough to see an old man in jeans and a plaid shirt. Keeping his eyes on his feet, he crossed the remains of the porch. “Sorry to trespass. Your neighbor up the road saw some activity and asked us to check it out.” He jumped off the steps and headed toward the man. “I’m Russ Van Alstyne, chief of—” The old man was grinning at him. Washed-out blue eyes, heavy grooves, thick-set shoulders—“Chief Liddle!” Russ felt himself straightening like a rookie at parade drill.
“Nice to see you again, Russell.” Liddle held out his hand. “Nice to see you in the uniform. Suits you.”
Russ’s right arm twitched with the effort of not saluting. He took Liddle’s hand and shook. “It’s a pleasure to see you again, Chief. What are you doing here?”
Liddle looked up at him. “Is that question personal? Or professional?”
“Oh.” Russ gestured toward the house. “Shirley Bain lives down the road. Winton Bain’s widow, you know?”
“I know Shirley, ayup.”
“She gets a little, uh, gun-shy when she sees or hears something amiss. So I came out to check everything over, let her know she didn’t have anything to worry about.”
“Good.” Liddle slapped his arm. “That’s good, old-fashioned community policing.”
Russ felt his face warm from the praise.
“As to why I’m here, my mother was a Cunningham before she was wed. This was my grandparents’ house. It went to my aunt, and when she passed, to her grandkids. My cousins once removed? Second cousins? Anyway, the four of them never could agree on what to do with the place. None of ’em even live on the East Coast by now. My wife died last year and I was looking to leave Florida—never liked the place, only moved there ’cause Dorothy wanted—and they offered to let me have it for a fair market price less the back taxes owed.”
Russ tilted his head to look at the roof. Both chimneys were marred by cracked bricks and the asphalt shingles were curled and mossy. “So … about fifty bucks, then?”
Liddle laughed. “Not much more! I like working with my hands, though.”
“I remember.”
“I never did settle to the sort of hobbies everyone else does in retirement. I figure this place’ll keep me busy from now until the day they carry me out feet-first.”
“You should pay a visit to my mother. Talk about not settling for hobbies. I had to arrest her once for an unpermitted demonstration.”
Liddle laughed. “That sounds like M—your mom.”
“Have you been to see her? How long have you been in town?”
“’Bout a week. I’ve got my RV over at Lockland’s Whispering Pines, been busy trekking back and forth between here, there, and that new Home Depot they’ve got over to Fort Henry.” A gust of wind swept over the meadow, shivering the grass and the Queen Anne’s lace. The leaves on the maples and ash trees reversed, showing their paler undersides to the sky. “I didn’t know if I ought to look her up. I don’t want to make her uncomfortable.”
Russ shook his head. “No, no, no. She was never anything but grateful for the way you treated my dad. And for what you did for me.”
Liddle smiled sideways. “I saw you on the news last night. Speaking of doing for you.”
Russ winced. “I’m not a great public speaker.”
The older man grew serious. “Is it true, then? There’s been another death? Like before?”
“Identical. To both times. I’m treating them as connected.”
Liddle frowned. “Bit of a stretch, considering the first girl was found—what, fifty-five years ago?”
“Thereabouts. You treated the cases as related.”
“Except there wasn’t much to go on from the ’52 death. Chief McNeil did the best he could, but he was hog-tied by that piss-poor state investigation.” He looked up at Russ. “Have you questioned anyone working at the county fair?”
“You mean the carnies? No. I didn’t think it was a likely avenue. First, it’s hard to imagine anyone still working those rides who had been here in 1972. And second, you never got anything definitive from them.”
“I never got anything definitive on anyone, Russell, which is why you’re still listed as a person of interest in that old file.”
Russ pinched the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses.
“Chief McNeil had a theory that the girl might have come from the traveling show,” Liddle went on. “Now, Natalie wasn’t with the carnies, but she was as in the wind as it was possible to get back then; no last name, no fixed residence, no past, no future plans.” He sighed. “Not that she had a future.”
“You remember her.”
Liddle pierced him with a look, and Russ realized the old man’s eyes weren’t faded as he had first thought. Not faded at all. “I remember every detail of the ones I couldn’t save. Don’t you?”
Russ thought of the dumpster in Stuttgart, and the bag, slick with rancid lettuce and potato peelings, and the baby inside the bag. “Yeah,” he said. “I do.”
“Have you got an identity on your victim?”
“Not yet. That’s why I made an ass of myself on TV. I was hoping getting the girl’s picture out might open up a lead.”
“Try the midway and the county fair. It’s damn hard for anyone to slip between the cracks these days, but those folks can come pretty close.”
Another swirl of wind stirred the leaves. The ancient curtains fluttered out the open windows. “I will.” Russ turned to go, the words “see you around” in his mouth, when he realized that wasn’t enough. “Come to dinner Friday night.” He could count on one hand the number of times he’d spontaneously invited someone to his home. “I’d like you to meet my wife and my son. Well. He’s not like a grown son. He’s a baby.”
Liddle’s eyebrows went up, but he didn’t say anything.
“We’ll have Mom over. Trust me, with Clare there, you won’t feel awkward for more than a minute.” He could feel himself smiling without meaning to. “She has a way of lighting everything up.”
Liddle rubbed the back of his neck. “Well … it does sound better than another can of Dinty Moore in my RV. And you can give me the lowdown on this resolution the town’s putting up for vote.” He looked Russ up and down. “I’d hate for you to be the last man to put on that uniform.”