August 2014
They set out for Henson Point at seven the next morning. On the console between their car seats were foam cups of coffee and a bag of doughnuts.
Steam rose from a dewy field of soybeans to their left. Seagulls circled above a county landfill to the right. As they crossed the Choptank River, the expansion joints of the bridge thumped beneath the wheels. Across the water, low-slung white boats patrolled the shallows. Watermen in ball caps and overalls hauled up crab pots and trotlines, already well into their workday.
“What happens if we find him?” Anna asked. “Merle, I mean.”
“I’m guessing we won’t. Or maybe hoping is the better word.”
“Why?”
“Well, if he did have something to do with this, don’t you figure he’s gone by now?”
“Unless he’s more disturbed than my brother.”
“In which case we’ll have to tread carefully, try not to stir him up.”
“But you think he’s gone?”
“If he had a part in it, yeah. But we should keep an open mind on that.”
“For seventy-five a day aren’t you’re supposed to have tunnel vision?”
“Plus expenses. Which reminds me, hand me another doughnut.”
“Keep the receipt or you won’t get reimbursed. Glazed or powdered?”
“Glazed. Always. Sharpens the mind.”
Pulling into the Walmart lot they spotted a group of about twenty men gathered at the far end, where it bordered the lot for a Home Depot that was already doing a brisk trade. Henry stopped and let the engine idle as they watched from a distance.
“See any likely suspects?” he asked.
Most were dark-haired and wore jeans or canvas pants, with work gloves stuffed in their back pockets. Ball caps and paint stains. Stubbly faces. Some held coffee cups, or carried water bottles. Most of them looked Mexican or Central American, plus a few African Americans. Slouching off to one side were a couple of pale outliers, more like Merle’s type, although both were too young and too short to fit the Washam foreman’s description of a fiftyish guy over six feet tall, and neither fellow had a salt-and-pepper beard. Clear brown eyes, the foreman had also said. Never bloodshot.
“No Merle,” Anna said. “That’s a good sign, right? I mean, if we think he was involved.”
Henry nodded, threw the car into drive, and eased toward the laborers.
The men looked up in interest as the car approached, and crowded closer as it braked to a halt. With the windows down you could hear a low rumble of Spanish, and smell the soap from their morning showers. One fellow, moving with an air of brisk authority, forded the crowd to the window on the driver’s side as the others made room. He was tanned and fit, late thirties, and spoke with barely a trace of an accent.
“How many?” he asked.
“We’re looking for someone,” Henry said.
“Just one? What’s the job?”
“It’s not a job. We’re looking for Merle. He’s supposed to be a regular here.”
The man turned aside to say something in Spanish to the others. Their postures sagged and they began to drift away.
“Go,” he said, waving them forward like a patrolman directing traffic.
“He’s an Anglo in his early fifties. Six feet, a beard. You know him?”
“Go! These men need work!” He whistled loudly, and the men cleared a path.
Henry rolled forward.
“Who made him boss?” Anna said.
“I suppose somebody has to, or it would be total chaos. I’m guessing he decides who gets what, then takes a cut for himself.”
They pulled into a spot thirty yards away and watched a white panel van approach the workers, who again converged like paparazzi at a Hollywood premiere. The same guy leaned into the window, and emerged holding up three fingers.
“Carlos!” he shouted. “Paquito! José!,” pointing as he went. His selections walked toward the back of the van. A door flew open and they climbed inside. The van drove away.
“One-stop shopping,” Anna said. “That van was just over at the Home Depot. Bought his supplies then popped over here for a crew.”
“And all of it tax-free. Wonder what the boss man would do if we got out and tried to talk to some of them? How’s your Spanish?”
“I’m good at food. That’s about it.”
“Same here.” He popped open his door. “I’ll try the two Anglos. Take the wheel, and keep the engine running.”
Both of the men standing off to the side wore white T-shirts and jeans, and both were smoking. As Henry approached, the heavier one tossed his cigarette to the pavement and pointedly crushed it with a steel-toed boot before turning his back on Henry. The second one wasn’t exactly welcoming, but at least he looked Henry in the eye.
“Looking for a guy name Merle. I’m told he’s a regular.”
“Sorry, man. Can’t help you.” He kicked at the ground and turned away.
“But you know him, right? Older guy with a beard?”
The first guy, the bigger one, wheeled and spat at Henry’s feet.
“Fuck off, man. We need work.”
The boss man approached, wagging his finger.
“No, no. I told you. Go!”
“And I told you, we’re just looking for somebody.”
“Only if you’ve got jobs. Then we can talk.”
“I’ve got a twenty, how’s that for starters?” He held out the greenback, and it took the guy only a second to snatch it.
“You said Merle? Anglo with a beard?”
“That’s him.”
“Mostly does chicken catching. Hates construction. But he hasn’t been here in at least a week, so there you go.”
“Know where he lives?”
“No idea. These other guys won’t know, either.”
“How ’bout if I ask them?”
“They don’t speak your language.”
“What about these two?” He nodded toward the white guys.
“They know better.”
“Than to cross you? How much do you get out of all this?”
He grabbed Henry’s forearm and led him back toward the car.
“Out of here! Now!”
By then a white pickup had pulled up to the crowd of laborers. The boss man released Henry’s arm and trotted toward the truck. Henry took out his notebook, scribbled his name, address, and cell number and tore out the page. He trotted back over to the white guys, approaching the less hostile one as he folded the scrap of paper and held it forward.
“Fifty bucks to anybody who can help us find Merle, and this is where you can reach me.”
He held out the paper. The shorter guy took it and then hesitated, like he was about to toss it aside. Then he stuffed it into the pocket of his jeans.
“Tell the others,” Henry said. “You can always take a cut, just like the boss man.”
There was a shout from behind.
“You still here, asshole?” The boss man, already trotting back toward him. “Get the fuck out of here!”
“I’m on my way,” Henry said. Anna pulled the car alongside him with the passenger door already ajar. Henry climbed in as a rock flew toward them from out of the crowd. It sailed across the hood before striking the asphalt.
“The proverbial shot across our bow,” Anna said as she accelerated away. “He’s worse than Simon Legree. What did you give to the down-and-outer?”
“My name and number. If anything comes of it, we’re in for fifty.”
“Fair enough, as long as El Jefe doesn’t get a cut.”
Back at the Shoats’ house the postman had just arrived. Atop the pile of junk and bills was an Express Mail envelope for Anna from the Employee Benefits Security Administration. There was a form to fill out, plus a list of the documentation she’d need to get the check.
“Want to help me round up some of this stuff?” she asked. “It’s as good a reason as any to start poking around in all my mom’s old junk.”
Just what Mitch would’ve wanted to hear.
“What have you already gone through?”
“Bills, mostly, like this crap. And farm stuff. A neighbor told me the beans needed spraying in another week. Now, if I just knew what to spray them with.”
“What will you do with this place?”
“Sell it. If Willard was around I might at least keep the house, find him a caretaker. But I guess the state will be handling his accommodations from here on out.” Then she turned away and opened the refrigerator, as if to hide behind the door. He listened to her rummaging through bottles and plastic containers. She heaved a sigh of exasperation and emerged holding a head of limp, rotting lettuce.
“Everything in there is turning five shades of green.” She kept her face averted as she turned toward the garbage bin beneath the sink. “The fridge, yet another chore. But that can wait. Mom’s things should be a lot more interesting.”
“You said she had an office?”
“Out in the barn. Her hideaway. The key’s right here.”
Anna rummaged through a wicker basket by the phone, and pulled out a plastic garage door opener attached to a silver key. He followed her out back into the mid-morning sun, the breeze smelling of manure and insecticide. The barn was a few hundred yards farther on.
“Did she call it a hideaway?”
“No. I came home at the end of my first semester and there it was. She liked to come out here whenever things got too hectic, or noisy. Once, during a big snowfall when I was home for Christmas, she spent the better part of a day out here. Her way of dealing with cabin fever, I guess. I think sometimes she just came out here to read and smoke.”
“She was a smoker?”
“That’s the funny part. She’d supposedly quit years ago, when she was pregnant with me. But whenever she’d come in from the barn I’d smell it on her clothes, and I’m sure Dad did, too. She’d be chewing gum so it wasn’t on her breath. Just like a high school kid.”
“Your dad never said anything?”
“That wasn’t his style. He figured that when she wanted to talk about something she’d let him know.” Anna paused as they reached the barn. “She could be that way about a lot of things. Keeping them to herself. Going off on her own.”
“Maybe the CIA gave her a taste for secrecy.”
“Or maybe a taste for secrecy is why she joined.”
Anna clicked the opener. The door lurched open and rose with a clatter, like a big aluminum curtain.