Nine Lives(44)

“You live around here, huh?” Fischer said.

Donald told him that even though he lived less than a mile away, Teri, the bartender, always took his keys when he came in.

“Like you couldn’t drive one fucking mile after a few beers,” Fischer said, incredulously.

“Right. That fucking bitch.” He looked toward the bar to make sure she hadn’t heard him.

Fischer drove Donald back to his place that night, a small farmhouse he’d inherited from his parents after they were both dead. Inside, there was wallpaper peeling off the walls, and it smelled like cigarette smoke and rotting flesh. They drank fireballs, and Fischer said, “I lied to you, good buddy, about why I’m here in Maine.”

“Oh, yeah?” Donald lit a cigarette, then flicked the spent match onto the floor. The chair that Fischer sat in was covered in some kind of plaid synthetic material, and there were several darkened, rippled patches in the upholstery where a match had been left to smolder. He was amazed that Donald Bennet had somehow gone this long without burning himself to death in his own house.

“Look, I’m only telling you because you’re a good guy, and maybe you can help,” Fischer said. “I can even pay you, man, I’m flush right now. My girlfriend’s living down here in Port Clyde. She dumped me about three months ago and took about fifty thousand of my money with her.”

“What the fuck, man,” Donald said, waving the tip of his cigarette.

“Yeah, no shit. Thing is, she might have spotted me, and she knows my car, and now I’m wondering—”

“You want some help getting that money back from her because I’ll help you do that.”

Fischer, who’d really just wanted a place to sleep for the night, and maybe a different car to drive tomorrow, thought about what Donald had said. Maybe this waste of a human being could be more helpful than he’d originally thought.

“Why’d she take your money, man?” Donald said, his voice high, and genuinely curious, as though he couldn’t quite fathom how anyone would want to hurt his new best friend.

Fischer was thinking and didn’t immediately answer. And when he moved his eyes from the Styrofoam drop ceiling back down to Donald Bennett, he wasn’t surprised that his new friend had passed out, still sitting up, cigarette smoldering between his fingers. Fischer put out the man’s cigarette, then draped an old granny square afghan around his sleeping form and went to check out the rest of the house.

As he poked around, careful not to leave his fingerprints on any hard surfaces, he thought some more about possibilities for the following day, and the ways in which Donald Bennett might be helpful. The house had three small bedrooms on the second floor. One had clearly been the master bedroom, where Donald’s parents had slept, and it looked unchanged, the windows covered by heavy brown drapes, the bed covered in a chenille bedspread, and another homemade afghan comforter. A thin layer of dust had attached itself to everything in the room.

Donald was clearly sleeping in his own childhood room, unchanged, apparently, as well. There was a Nickelback poster on the wall, and a futon mattress without a sheet on it. Next to the mattress was an overflowing ashtray and several wadded-up tissues. The third upstairs room was the source of the house’s bad smell. It was entirely filled with bags of garbage, some of them split open and leaking. Fischer stepped inside enough to quickly flip the light switch and heard the scurry of some kind of rodent finding a place to hide. Who had started to bring the trash upstairs? He assumed it had been whichever parent had survived the other. Donald seemed just bright enough to know where trash went, but he’d yet to clear out this room.

After texting his wife to say goodnight and let her know the power tool conference in Ohio was going well, he settled down, fully dressed, on top of the made bed in the Bennetts’ master bedroom and managed to get six solid hours of sleep.





13





THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 10:43 A.M.


She didn’t know much about the person who’d written the list, the person who’d so far killed at least three people, but she did know that he wasn’t randomly shooting his victims in the street. At least not yet. So far, he had drowned Frank Hopkins in shallow water on a public beach, shot Matthew Beaumont from behind in an isolated location, and poisoned Arthur Kruse with an elaborate contraption. In all three cases there had been no witnesses. Because of that, Jessica felt relatively safe drinking her morning coffee on a bench outside of the Port Clyde General Store.

It was a cold, sunny morning, and she gripped the to-go cup with both hands to keep them warm. Her body was shivering but she was worried less about that than she was about her numb hands. Her Glock was in her side holster, and she might need quick hands to get to it.

There was a constant but slow-moving stream of cars coming and going through Port Clyde. Passengers were gathering on the dock to take the ferry to Monhegan Island, and small boats were coming over from nearby islands, some people just to get coffee or breakfast and head back. The sun came out from behind a three-story bed-and-breakfast, and Jessica moved along the bench to sit in its ineffective light. It was then that she saw the car she’d been waiting for, the dark gray Chevy, pulling into the ferry parking lot, then pulling out again to head back up the incline that led out of the village.

Leaving her coffee cup behind, Jessica raced to her own car, starting it up and speeding away from the curb, scattering gravel. She told herself to slow down, that they were on a peninsula, and there were limited places to go. After cresting a small hill she spotted the car up ahead, heading northeast. Between them was a FedEx truck. She would have liked to keep the truck right where it was, but it was trundling along under the speed limit, and she lost sight of the Chevy, so she accelerated around it on a corner, and kept up her speed until she could see the car again. She followed at what felt like a reasonable distance; in some ways she didn’t particularly mind if she was spotted. She had a gun with her, and if he figured out she was trailing him, then let him try to get the drop on her.