Chapter 89
My rest was uneasy, which was usual for my first night in an unfamiliar bed, and I woke earlier than I’d have liked.
Each unit at the motel had a kitchenette, but I found eating in motel rooms depressing.
It was like glimpsing an alternative existence marked by transience and solitary meals taken in anonymous lodgings.
I walked across to Jimmy’s, filled my to-go cup with fresh coffee, and ordered a breakfast sandwich so big I might have injured myself had it fallen on my foot.
The young woman at the counter asked if I was in town for long, and I told her I didn’t know.
I was the only customer, and a stranger, and represented a diversion for her.
“So why are you here?”
“Business,” I said, “not pleasure.”
“It’s the wrong time of year for pleasure anyway,” she said.
“What’s the right time?”
“Summer; fall if you’re a leaf peeper or hunter, but I don’t equate hunting with pleasure; and winter if you like the snow. If you live here, the right time for pleasure is never.”
Behind her was a picture of Mallory Norton, with the usual police contact details underneath. I’d missed it the night before, when it was temporarily obscured by packs of cigarettes waiting to be added to the rack.
“Where do young people go for fun?”
“They go someplace else,” she replied, “and the farther away, the more fun it is. Don’t take this wrong, but you may be too mature to qualify.”
I showed her a copy of my PI’s license on my phone and assured her that I hadn’t even liked hanging out with young people when I was young myself.
“Is this about Mallory Norton?”
“Do you know her?”
“Not well, but it’s a small town,” she said. “Everyone knows everybody.”
“Where would she go for fun? And please don’t say ‘someplace else.’”
“I guess she did what most of us do: hang out at friends’ houses when their parents aren’t around, or head down to the river.”
With a few beers went unspoken.
“Does,” I said gently.
“What?”
“She does what most of us do. Not did, not yet.”
It took a couple of seconds for her to grasp my meaning. “Does, right.”
“You said you ‘guessed’ that’s what she does. I’d say you were close to her in age, and like you told me, this is a small town …”
“She kept—keeps to herself. Some kids just do, you know? Mallory’s nice, but quiet. I think that’s what most people here would say about her.”
The peace was broken by a flurry of arriving customers.
I thanked her for her time, told her I’d hold off on buying a house in the area, and ate my sandwich by the water.
I opened the tracking app to check on Kenney and Teal, but their vehicles hadn’t yet left home for the day.
I was going to be occupied in the Kennebec Valley for a day or two, so I called Tony Fulci and instructed him on uploading the app to his phone.
I gave him my log-in and password and asked him to keep an eye on Kenney and Teal.
I assured him he didn’t have to walk around with the app open, since it would advise him of any movement.
But if they deviated noticeably from their home-work-home routine, or if the two men met, I wanted him to call me in case I was working and missed the alert.
“How’s Faith?” I asked, once we were both satisfied that he knew what he was doing with the app.
“She has a sister,” said Tony.
“What does that have to do with anything? Wait, you’re not going to try dating both of them? I’m no expert, but that strikes me as a recipe for domestic disharmony.”
“Not for me, for Paulie,” said Tony. “They haven’t met yet, but Faith and I are working on it. I’d like Paulie to find someone, like maybe I have, and Faith thinks her sister is lonely.”
“And it also means you won’t have to face your mother alone when you tell her you’ve got a girlfriend,” I said.
“You know, I never thought of that,” said Tony, in the offhand manner of a man who had indeed thought of that.
“Your mother might even be happy for you.”
“Stranger things have happened,” said Tony, this time in the manner of a man who couldn’t conceive of what those things might be.
Of course, there was always the possibility that Faith and her sister would take one look at Mrs Fulci, make their excuses, and leave, but Tony would have taken that into account too.
It was why he’d wait as long as possible before any introductions, in the hope that Faith’s affection might have deepened enough not to be terminally rocked by her first contact with Mrs Fulci. I wished them all the best of luck.