8:30 A.M., Monday, August 24, 2009
Moose Island, Maine
‘You gonna sleep all day?’
Harlan figured the question, spoken by what sounded like a young female voice, was directed at him. He opened one eye, then the other, and saw Tabitha Stoddard kneeling over him, peering down from only inches away, examining his face as closely as if he were a strange genus of insect she’d never seen before. Magnified by the thick lenses of her glasses, her brown eyes seemed enormous.
It took a couple of seconds for Harlan to remember where he was and why. They were hiding out in Toby Mahler’s grandfather’s house. Which was, as Tabitha said, pretty much a dump. A four-room cottage not much bigger than his single-wide in Whiting. Both Harlan and Tabitha had slept on the floor, since neither was willing to lie down on the single thin mattress they found rolled up on the iron cot. The mattress was dotted with urine and blood stains and, here and there, a burn hole or two where Toby Mahler’s grandfather’s cigarette ash must have fallen when he was smoking in bed. The floor where they’d slept wasn’t clean but at least it didn’t seem like anybody had peed or bled or died on it. Tabitha slept in the sleeping bag. Harlan on his ground cloth using his pack for a pillow.
‘What time is it?’ Harlan asked.
Tabitha looked down at the phone in her hand. ‘According to my iPhone,’ she announced in an official voice, ‘it’s exactly eight-thirty-seven.’
‘In the morning?’ he asked sleepily.
‘Of course in the morning.’
Suddenly Harlan sat bolt upright, awake and alert. He looked at the phone in her hand. ‘How long have you had that thing turned on?’
‘Just a minute or two.’
‘Turn it off.’
‘Soon as I check my emails.’
‘No. Turn it off now.’ He reached up and pulled the phone from her hand. Found the on-off button and pushed it in. Slid the ‘Power-Off’ bar on the screen.
‘Why did you do that?’
‘Because people can track you through your cell phone. Home in on your signal and find out where you are.’
‘What people?’
‘The police.’
‘Don’t we want the police to know where we are? Then they can help us.’
‘No. There’s a very important reason we don’t want the police to know where we are.’
Tabitha frowned. She didn’t approve of what he was saying. ‘What is it?’
Harlan decided he’d better let her know what was going on. She was smart enough not to be fooled by a pile of comforting bullshit and he’d get more cooperation if she felt she was part of the decision-making process. A democracy. Well, sort of a democracy. He got two votes. She only got one. He was the squad leader. She was the troop.
He needed a minute to sort out the best way to explain things to her. He also needed to pee. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you. Soon as I get back from the bathroom. Do we know if the toilet’s working?’
‘You’ve got to pour a bucket of water in it to make it flush. There’s a bucket right next to it. No toilet paper, though.’
He went to the small bathroom and stood for a long minute, urinating into the rust-stained bowl, planning how he was going to frame the discussion. He zipped up. Figured he’d wait before fetching a bucket of water from the stream out back.
He came back and eased down next to Tabbie, who was sitting cross-legged on the sleeping bag. He leaned against the frame of a sofa. The cushions were almost, but not quite, as dirty as the mattress. At least there didn’t seem to be any blood or piss on them.
‘Are you hungry?’ he asked, playing for time.
‘Kinda.’
‘Do you know if there’s any food in the house?’
‘There’s some cans of stuff in the pantry but it’s got mouse turds all over it.’
‘We could wash ’em off.’
‘I’m not eating anything with mouse turds on it even if you do wash ’em off. Why don’t you just quit stalling and tell me why we don’t want the police to know where we are.’
She stared at him through those big glasses of hers. She looked determined. In her own peculiar way, he decided, this kid was tough.
‘Okay. I told you last night I was a friend of Tiff’s.’
‘You didn’t say you were a friend. You said you loved her.’
‘Yes. I did love her. I do love her. But what’s going on is that Tiff was doing some stuff she shouldn’t have been doing.’
‘Stuff like what?’
‘Selling illegal drugs. Your sister got involved in a business deal with a guy named Conor Riordan.’
‘The December Man.’
‘Yes. The December Man. Tiff arranged for Conor Riordan to use your father’s boat. He took it up to Canada and stole a huge pile of a drug called Oxycontin. You ever hear of that?’
Tabitha told him of course she’d heard of Oxycontin. Everybody had heard of it. There were kids at school, especially some of the older kids, who talked about it all the time. She didn’t think any of them took it, though she wasn’t real sure, because a lot of them didn’t talk to her except to tease her about being semi-fat and funny-looking and not having any boobs yet.
‘Anyway,’ Harlan said, ‘Conor Riordan brought the drugs back here to Eastport and he and Tiff and some other people started selling them. But Tiff didn’t think Riordan was giving her her fair share of the money they were making. They argued about that a lot. Sometimes when they argued he would hit her. Hurt her.’
Tabitha didn’t say anything. Just thought back to the bruises on Tiff’s face in the schoolyard when she gave her the package.
‘Naturally getting hit as well as cheated made Tiff even angrier. Conor Riordan used to go away on business sometimes so Tiff got this idea that the next time he left town for a few days she would take what she thought was her fair share of the drugs and leave.’
‘Get the hell out of Dodge,’ said Tabitha.
‘That’s right. Get the hell out of Dodge. She wanted me to go with her and I would have too, except I didn’t want to get involved in selling illegal drugs. Told her to leave the drugs. Forget about them. But she wouldn’t listen. Next time Riordan went away, Tiff took some of the drugs. But Riordan came back sooner than he was supposed to. Maybe he was suspicious. I don’t know. Anyway, Tiff had to get rid of the drugs fast. She asked me if I would hide them for her. I told her no. Told her just to throw the damn things away. Dump ’em in the ocean, where they couldn’t hurt anyone. But she wouldn’t listen. Instead she got this nutty idea to drive up here and give them to you to hide. I told her it was nutty but she thought it was brilliant. Thought Riordan would never dream an eleven-year-old kid would have his drugs. But you do, don’t you?’
‘I guess so.’
‘You guess so?’
‘Tiff asked me to hide a package for her the same day she was killed.’
The two of them, man and child, sat side by side for more than a few minutes thinking about what they ought to do next. It was Tabitha who broke the silence. ‘Anyway, what’s all that got to do with not letting the police know where we are?’
‘Conor Riordan is the man who killed Tiff. He also killed your parents, though I haven’t figured out exactly why he wanted to do that. I also think he may be a policeman. A state cop. One who tried to kill me before I came up here.’
‘A cop tried to kill you?’
‘Yeah. I beat him up before he had a chance to finish the job. But he’s looking for me. And, I think, he’s looking for you. That’s why you can’t use your phone. If we let the police know where we are, we’ll be letting Riordan know.’
Tabitha remembered the voice calling to her in the woods last night. Tabitha, leave me Tiff’s package and I’ll leave you alone. I promise I won’t hurt you. I want Tiff’s package. Not you. The December Man was a cop. Jesus Christ.
‘So why did you come to our house last night?’ asked Tabitha.
‘To tell your parents you had the drugs. Convince you and them to give them to me. Then somehow let Riordan know I had them. Get him to come after me to get the drugs back.’
‘He’d come alone?’
‘Yes. He wouldn’t bring other cops because then he couldn’t keep the drugs for himself.’
‘My whole family’s dead over a bunch of stupid pills.’ Tabitha was crying again.
‘Yes. They’re worth a lot of money.’
‘And then what?’ she asked. ‘What were you going to do after Conor Riordan found you?’
‘I was going to kill him.’
Tabitha stared at Harlan for a minute and seemed to be thinking about what he said. The morning sun pouring in through the window lit her tear-stained face.
‘Good,’ she said. ‘Let’s kill him.’