Purgatory Chasm: A Mystery Part 3

I thought about calling Charlene. Decided not to. Instead: made sure I'd left the front door unlocked, headed up to shower.

Ten minutes later I came downstairs, followed sound to the big kitchenfamily-room combo where we spend all our time. The sound was a Hogan's Heroes rerun. Sophie was sofa-splayed, sunburned nose, spray of freckles. Her tank top and her Popsicle were lime green. I looked at the TV for a few seconds. Sophie and I both laughed at Schultz. I said, "My father loved that show." First time I'd thought about my old man in years.

"Was it on when you were a kid?"

"Yeah, but past my bedtime," I said. "Not sure when your mom's coming home."

"By seven. She texted me."

"We should make dinner, have it on the table when she gets here."

"Oh ... oh my!" Sophie had finally peeled her eyes from the set, had spotted the b.u.mp on my head. She sprang up and bounced on the sectional, beckoning me over. "What happened?" she said. "Jeez, it's near your good eye. Can you see all right?"

A few years back, someone tried to put my left eye out. Didn't, but wrecked it. The eye tracks okay, so people don't realize it's useless.

"I'm fine," I said. "How about I tell my story over dinner, so I only have to say it once?"

"Conway Sax, always tight with the words." She smiled as she said it.

When Charlene came home she got to watch Sophie and I finish grilling chicken, peppers, and onions. She kissed Sophie and asked about school. She didn't make eye contact with me.

Not even over dinner, while I told them the whole thing. Charlene was interested-she was a Barnburner and she knew Tander Phigg-but cool. Mad at me.

Sophie was too smart not to notice all this. She filled conversation-s.p.a.ce, kept everything smooth. It was her default role, always had been. I felt bad for her. I wanted to say Knock it off; let your mother be mad at me, but that would make everything worse.

I was bad at families.

Later, as the dishwasher ran, Charlene and I drank seltzer on the deck. She watched me sc.r.a.pe clean the grill. The day's heat faded quickly; we switched off the AC, opened the sliding-gla.s.s doors.

"You're mad because I slept in Framingham last night," I said.

Charlene sipped, looked over her small backyard. Everything was full-throttle green, the chain-link fence to the back neighbor's yard barely visible. She said, "It's a symptom."

"Symptom." I sc.r.a.ped.

"A symptom of your inability to commit." She set her gla.s.s on the deck railing. "You said you wanted to spruce up the Framingham house and flip it. But you're taking your sweet time, and you're pumping in money you'll never get back. You sleep there at least half the time. When you do, you don't even have the guts to call and tell me. You text me instead."

My throat felt tight. I sc.r.a.ped, said nothing.

"Conway, if you're unhappy here, just say so and go. Batch it up. Live by yourself in your s.h.i.tty neighborhood in Framingham."

I sc.r.a.ped like h.e.l.l.

"Sit there all alone watching TV every night," Charlene said. "Watching TV and wondering why you feel like a clenched fist all the time."

I whipped the grill brush to the deck, slammed shut the grill cover, spun. "Don't call me that. You know I hate that."

Charlene looked at me over her seltzer, held out a hand, made a fist, tightened until the hand was white and shaking. Then she opened it like a magician showing me my quarter. "Unclench," she said.

I wanted to tell her I knew she was right. I wanted to tell her it was hard. I wanted to ask how to do it.

Instead, I wiped my hands on my pants. I stepped into the house. I closed the screen door quietly, precisely. I walked through the hall and out the front door. I climbed into my truck and drove to Framingham.

The next morning at eight, I sat outside Dot's Place in Rourke. My stomach felt lousy-had since I left Charlene's-and I didn't want to face the grease-and-burned-toast smell until I had to.

I was in the handicap-equipped Dodge van my friend left me along with the house. It was barely roadworthy anymore, but I'd left my F-150 in a gla.s.s-shop parking lot with a note taped to the steering wheel.

No sun today-thick gray mugginess instead, the kind where you hope it'll rain soon but it doesn't. I watched townies go in and out of Dot's.

At ten past, I called Phigg's cell. I got no answer, left voice mail.

At twenty past I dug through my wallet and found the sc.r.a.p of place mat Phigg had given me. For an address he'd written only Jut Rd., no house number. He'd said it was on a river. The river had to be the Souhegan. It defined Rourke and all the nearby towns; you couldn't miss it.

I fired up the van and tracked the same road I'd used yesterday to follow Phigg, looking to my left more carefully this time. Finally came to a dirt road I hadn't noticed before. There was no street sign, but it seemed a little too wide and a little too tamped to be a driveway, so I turned and eased down a steep hill, hearing the river before I saw it. I cut hard right, felt scrub oaks sc.r.a.ping both sides of the van, and popped into a clearing.

Phigg's car and the beginnings of a big timber-frame house told me I'd found Jut Road.

As I parked next to an outbuilding, I checked out the dream-house-in-progress. Or formerly-in-progress. I'm no contractor, but the skeleton told a story.

First, I saw it wasn't genuine timber-frame construction. It was a hybrid: impressive old rough-cut timbers at its center, where they'd be visible in the house's public s.p.a.ces, but conventional two-by-four framing for the outside walls. When finished, the house would seem like a genuine timber-frame job, unless you knew what to look for. But deep down, it'd be a dime-a-dozen stick-built house.

I half smiled: That suited Phigg perfectly.

It would have been a cool home, I thought, turning to look at the Souhegan. The outbuilding in front of me would be knocked down, I a.s.sumed, to clear the view. And it was a d.a.m.n good view, especially this time of year, with White Mountains runoff rushing and forest as far as you could see.

The thing was, though, this house never would be finished; the framing and the site had "ran out of dough" written all over them. The two-by and the presswood flooring were warped and grayed by weather. The electricians had started their rough-in but had up and quit, disgusted one day, leaving a spool of cable. To my right, at the edge of the woods, a three-foot-tall stack of additional presswood-probably for second-story flooring that never got installed-sat waterlogged, a blue tarpaulin having blown off months ago.

It was easy to see why Tander Phigg had stopped bragging about his dream house.

I called his name, quieting bugs and frogs for a few seconds.

Called again, with a question mark at the end this time.

Then I turned to the shack, thinking this couldn't be where he lived. He'd said he was living at the construction site in a guesthouse, but this was more like an outbuilding. Twelve feet by twenty, built over the bank of the Souhegan. There were no windows on the narrow side I was looking at, and the two good-size windows on the front were boarded up. The door, a rough-cut plank job with a Z brace, sagged open.

I called Phigg's name again.

Nothing.

Over the years, the woods had closed in too much for any river breeze to chase bugs away. Mosquitoes sniffed me out and strafed me.

Underfoot it was dank clay, not like most New England soil. I stooped, picked up a handful, looked at the river, figured things out. I bet there had been a house here, years before. A nice home, a river house like the one Phigg had begun. But the original house was built too close to the Souhegan. It wouldn't take much rain to push the riverbank up there. After a couple hundred years, whoever owned the house got tired of cleaning up after floods and abandoned the place. If I walked ten yards past the stack of presswood, I'd probably find the remains of that house. The outbuilding had to be a mill or storage shed. It survived because it was built on brick piers high enough to stand clear of most floods.

If Tander Phigg lived here he had fallen further, faster, than any of us knew-and was too proud to tell anybody, to ask for help.

I stepped toward the shack and spotted something odd on the downriver side. I checked it out and saw a couple of toothed wheels, cast iron, the bigger one as large as a hula hoop. Click: Back when the original house stood, they likely used the river for power, making their own electricity. The outbuilding was a primitive generator. Good idea.

I shoved open the sagging door, called Phigg's name again. Nothing.

I stepped in. Felt the floor sag-not creak, but sag-beneath me, and thought how easy it'd be to drop straight through into the river.

Inside, it was dark as h.e.l.l. I paused, let my eyes adjust. I wrinkled my nose at the smell-your grandfather's bas.e.m.e.nt multiplied by ten. It seemed you could reach for anything in this room, tear off a chunk, and ball it up like a sponge.

I thought all this for maybe twenty seconds, slowly turning clockwise, finally looking past the door to the north side.

Tander Phigg was hanging from a stub of cast-iron pipe that came through the wall.

He'd dressed up, then hung himself by his necktie. One of those preppy striped ones, orange and black.

His khaki pants were stained with p.i.s.s.

He'd kicked over a double stack of milk crates. Not far from the crates was a green sleeping bag on an old door supported by a cinder block at each corner.

Home sweet home.

Atop the sleeping bag was a blue hard-sh.e.l.l Samsonite suitcase. It was open. Both halves were filled with folded clothes. Topping the stack was the yellow polo shirt he'd worn Monday, a thin black wallet, a wrist.w.a.tch, the key to his s.h.i.tbox Sentra. I looked at Phigg's blue-black face. "Oh h.e.l.l," I said.

CHAPTER THREE.

I stepped outside. Realized I'd stopped breathing when I saw Phigg, gulped air. I squatted at the riverbank, splashed double handfuls of cold water on my face. It felt good. Helped me think.

My gut said vamoose. My head said that would be a bad move. I rose, looked around the back of the van. Sure enough, I'd left strong tire tracks in the clay. Plus the locals had seen me and Phigg in Dot's Place Monday. Plus me and Phigg were all over each other's cell phones. Plus the guy at the Exxon would remember us, would remember my truck.

If I split now, the cops would pick me up before dinner.

I sighed, pulled my cell, started to punch 911.

Then a stray thought hit me and I stopped dialing. What if Phigg's body just went away? That might stir things up, might put pressure on whoever drove him to hang himself.

It would be interesting to make Phigg disappear, then keep an eye on Ollie.

But as I played with the idea I saw how stupid it was. Start with logistics. Even if I could get Phigg down from that pipe stub and clear all signs of him from the outbuilding, what would I do with his car? I'd wind up with his DNA inside the van. When somebody wondered where he was-and somebody would-Dot's Place and the Exxon guy would point back to me.

I shook my head. Dumb. Always looking for ways to outsmart myself. I punched 911 fast, before I could think of any other ideas.

A lot of the little towns up here don't have their own police departments, so I was probably waiting for a state trooper. Figured I had a few minutes-the troopers have a lot of ground to cover.

Phigg's car was unlocked. Its interior stank. A quick search found nothing good: a damp beach towel with a surfer on it, random magazines, cereal and cracker boxes, a jug of generic laundry detergent, half a twelve-pack of Sam's Club Diet Cola.

In the trunk, yard-sale c.r.a.p: a box of old Gourmet magazines, a snorkel, three mismatched golf clubs, a Hefty bag half full of aluminum cans, a pair of wading boots. Tander Phigg, sole heir of Phigg Paper Products, Incorporated, had been prowling roadside ditches for returnables to earn a nickel a pop.

I shook my head at that, slammed the trunk, went into the shack. Breathed through my mouth while I did a light search on Phigg's suitcase. I went through his wallet first and found a ten-spot, three singles, a driver's license that expired last year, and a dozen coupons. That was it.

Didn't want to mess up the suitcase, so I probed with gentle hands around the sides. I found something right away, slid it out. An address book, worn black leather. That made sense for a guy Phigg's age-you could convince him to use a cell phone, but you'd never get him to part with the hard copy.

I slipped the book in my pocket, then thought about the cops coming. I untied my right work boot, slipped the book into it, retied.

The address book made me think of Phigg's cell. I spotted a bulge in his left front pants pocket, patted. It was his phone all right.

I stared at the body. Getting the phone wasn't going to be easy. Phigg was hanging too high for me to get a hand up to the pocket, then down for the phone. I'd need to climb on something, and it'd have to be one of the milk crates.

While I balanced the info against the risk, I thought I heard something over the river-burble. I stilled, focused, definitely heard it-wide tires on a dirt road. The cops were here. I was glad I wasn't standing on a milk crate with one hand in Phigg's pocket.

As I stepped outside I tried to look horrified, then tried to look surprised at the copper-over-green Dodge Charger the New Hampshire Staties had been buying lately. I noticed the Charger was parked in the only spot where it blocked both Phigg's car and my van. Smart cop.

I started toward the Charger. A deep voice said, "Stay right there, please."

I stopped.

The door opened. A man unfolded, putting on a tan Smokey the Bear hat as he rose.

And rose. He was huge. Half a head taller than me, and I'm six-one. His shoulders were half again as broad as mine, and mine aren't small. His forest-green shirt tapered to a waist two inches smaller than mine, and I'm not fat.

He had deep-set eyes, blue. High cheekbones, acne scars from teen years I bet he wanted to forget. Take Abe Lincoln, shave the beard, add thirty pounds of chest and shoulders-you'd have this trooper.

He looked at me maybe five seconds. I wasn't sure how, but he made me feel small in every way.

He said, "You the caller?"

I nodded.

"What happened to your head?"

I fingered the purple lump I'd forgotten about. "Banged it on a Dumpster yesterday." I turned my head to let him see it wasn't a fresh wound.

He keyed a lapel mic on his shirt, talked code on his radio. Then he said, "Show me." As he pa.s.sed I read the name board pinned to his shirt: MCCORD.

Inside, McCord looked around with that unsurprisable nonexpression cops have. He faced the body. "You make sure he's dead?" he said.

"He's dead."

McCord turned and looked at me with a little more interest. He turned back to Phigg, pulled on a pair of purple rubber gloves, and ran a hand up Phigg's pant leg. Looking for a pulse at the back of the knee, I guessed.

McCord said, "He's dead," took notebook and pen from his shirt pocket, wrote. He stepped back and c.o.c.ked his head the same way Phigg's was twisted. "Huh."

"What?"

"The necktie," McCord said. "Dress up to kill yourself, okay. More likely with women than men, but I'll buy it. Once he had his necktie all done up"-McCord pointed-"he didn't have much tie left to work with, uh? But he made a st.u.r.dy knot that's held up for a bunch of hours. Hard to do."