The Drifter (Peter Ash #1)(20)

“It’s not the money,” said Dinah. “It’s crossing that line.” She shook her head. “It was better when I didn’t know about it. But now I do, and I can’t have that money sitting around. Or I’ll spend it. Because I damn well do need it. And then where will I be?”

“Okay,” said Peter. “So we’ll find out whose money it is. And give it back, if that’s what you need to do. Maybe we can get a finders’ fee. Maybe get your house refinanced.”

“You would do that,” she said. “Wouldn’t you?”

Her shoulder was almost touching his. Almost, but not quite. He could feel it anyway, the way the earth feels the sun.

“Sure.” He said it casually, with a shrug.

As if he didn’t need it as badly as she did.

As if the ghost of Jimmy wasn’t standing right there staring at him.

The dog trotted over and knocked the bag of cut sausage from Peter’s hands. It tried to stick its nose into the bag, but with the length of oak in its mouth, the dog just pushed the bag across the sidewalk. Peter got up to help.

Dinah said, “I don’t want to be around when you take that stick out of its mouth.”

Peter pushed sausage bits past the fangs with the tips of his fingers while the beast’s throat worked. “Jeez, lady. Where’s your sense of adventure?”





9



It was late afternoon and starting to get dark. The wind blew hard through the bare trees. Thin plastic shopping bags caught in the branches rattled like distant machine-gun fire. Along the streets and sidewalks, paper trash skittered and danced as if alive and in a hurry.

“So what happens next?” she said.

Peter wiped his hands on his pants and collected the dog’s leash. “I’ll start with Jimmy. Look at his life. Talk to his friends. See what stands out.”

“I have a box,” she volunteered. “With some of his things.”

Peter put the dog in the truck and followed Dinah inside the house. He felt the walls and ceiling with jangled nerves, the static reminding him of all the time he’d spent inside already that day.

Because she was next of kin, the police had given Dinah the things Jimmy was carrying with him when he died. She’d put them into a cardboard box with things Jimmy left at the house and pushed the box under the bed. She pulled it out now and set it on the kitchen table with the lid still folded shut. As if she was afraid of reopening those memories.

Peter put his hand on the lid. “May I?”

Dinah nodded and Peter opened the flaps.

There was a musty smell, like time itself had been shut away. The box was too big for the contents, as if whoever had packed it was expecting more life to fill it.

Peter had a box like this in his parents’ house, and another from the war years tucked away in the back of his truck. The catchall box for things you wanted to remember, or couldn’t bring yourself to forget.

The house was getting to him. His chest was tight, his breath coming harder. The hairs prickled on the back of his neck.

“I’m going to do this outside,” he said. Dinah gave him a look as he picked up the box, but followed him out the door into the cool November air.

At the picnic table in the backyard, Peter excavated Jimmy’s box and laid out the things he found, attempting some sort of chronology. There was a scattering of old photographs. Jimmy and Dinah impossibly young. Jimmy in purple choir robes, looking like some kind of prince. Jimmy in his wedding suit with a thousand-watt smile. Jimmy with his boys at various ages, a baseball mitt on his hand or basketball under his arm. The family at a picnic, paper plates on a blanket.

The wind came up and tried to take the photos. Peter held them in place.

Jimmy trying to look cool on Manny Martinez’s motorcycle. Jimmy in uniform, looking deadly serious. Jimmy with the platoon, with his squad, with the other sergeants. Jimmy with an Iraqi goat, goofing for the camera. Jimmy trying to get a baseball out of the mouth of the stray dog he’d adopted in Baghdad. The dog got killed when someone shelled the compound. Jimmy was broken up for weeks.

A high school graduation tassel. A tall stack of letters in their envelopes, tied up with string. An expired military ID, an old watch with a cracked face, a small wooden box. Inside were Jimmy’s medals.

Peter set the box atop the pictures to keep them from blowing away.

“His military paperwork? VA paperwork?”

“In the file cabinet,” said Dinah. She had her arms wrapped around herself because of the cold. The wind smelled like rain. The bare trees waved overhead. “It takes up a whole drawer.”

Peter didn’t know what the paperwork might tell him. He certainly wasn’t going to go through it out here in the wind.

The last item was a bulky manila envelope with JOHNSON, JAMES written on it in neat black marker. A business card stapled onto the corner, with the Milwaukee police logo on it. A detective. Peter looked at Dinah, asking for permission. She nodded. Peter upended the envelope and slid the contents out on the table.

Keys, a wallet, a rolled leather belt. Nothing else.

Was this all Jimmy had with him when he died?

Peter picked up the keys. Four of them, on a plain ring. A Toyota key with a black plastic grip, a key printed with the Green Bay Packers logo, and two others, maybe for a padlock or a cheap door lock. He looked at Dinah.