Тимоти Уилльямз - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 126, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 769 & 770, September/October 2005

The big man clasped his hands together and lowered his great head as if deep in thought. “Well, one of our boys, Officer Boychuck, I believe, came acrost you round about mid May. It’s late October now, so...” He threw open his hands. “’bout five and one-half months, that would make it,” he finished apologetically.

Desmond felt the words like physical blows as they entered his consciousness and were swept away down the dark, winding corridors of his mind. The sense of loss was sharp and surprising.

“Was I on a tear?” he asked sheepishly, shame making his face hot and sweaty.

Again, the big man patted his arm like a schoolchild and chuckled. “Yeah, partner, I reckon you were, least by some accounts. You were noticed around the tracks and mission area sharin’ a bottle with some of the tramps and such that pass through here. Didn’t cause no trouble, though,” he noted approvingly. “Stood out a bit, however,” he added with a wink. “The clothes... don’t get too many hoboes wearing expensive duds round here. ’Course you weren’t wearin’ those duds when we found you. All they left you were your skivvies. From the looks of it, you fell off a loading dock and cracked your skull on the tracks. Lucky for you one of our boys spotted you before that mornin’ freight was due.”

He took a long pause to study the effect of his words. “You’ve been in a coma all this time, and ain’t spoke one word till this day.” The nurse, squat and froggish, shouldered by the large man and took a few swipes at Desmond’s forehead with a cool, damp cloth. The merciful saint was not how he had pictured her — nothing, it seemed, could be taken at face value.

He recalled leaving the hotel with a good buzz on after an hour or so of visiting the bar. Desmond remembered the raggedy men clustered outside the mission, their faces drawn, weathered, bewhiskered — prematurely old; their clothes reeking of old sweat and the acidic tang of dried urine. He also remembered luring them away from a night’s shelter with a bottle of Seagram’s Seven. It had seemed like an adventure then, good-natured and generous, and he had felt a bit like Tom Sawyer venturing down to the river after dark — a little dangerous, yes, but promising excitement. With the passing of the bottle, each man had become his Huck Finn, comrade-in-arms and fellow adventurer. He had just intended lightening their daily struggle with a few welcome snorts. This was all he remembered.

“Is my wife here?” He could hear the plaintive whine of his own voice and prayed that he would not begin openly weeping.

The big man looked suddenly uncomfortable. “Well, now... I guess that’s the problem, you see. We wouldn’t know who she might be, as we didn’t have any idea who you were... are,” he corrected himself.

“She doesn’t know I’m here?” Desmond felt a loneliness as deep as death settle over him and tears flowed down his cheeks unnoticed.

The big man sighed and sat back. “That’s about the size of it, I’m afraid. Till now we didn’t even know you were married. You mentioned a boy.” He consulted a small notebook. “Justin, is it?”

“My son,” Desmond sobbed unashamedly. “No one’s come looking for me?” he persisted.

“You may be listed as missing out of your home state, I don’t know. But without a name and date of birth, I’m afraid you match ’bout a thousand other missing men.” The big man gave a shrug and brought his pad to the fore. “All right, then, let’s get started settin’ things straight, how ’bout it?”

Desmond nodded weakly.

“What’s your name?”

Desmond Mercer had never been reported as missing by his wife, nor had any inquiries been made of the Cumberland Police Department. These were things that the kindly Lieutenant Bowie had refrained from saying over the last few days of Desmond’s convalescence. Rather, he had allowed Desmond to arrive at these conclusions on his own, and in his own good time, based on the bare facts of his department’s investigation. These facts had spoken for themselves, Desmond found, in insinuating whispers during the long quiet evenings between visiting hours and breakfast. But the scream had lain at the end of a telephone line, when on that first day of awareness he had called home, heart pounding, only to find a recorded message that the number was changed and unlisted.

His memories of his arrival and stay in Cumberland only served to deepen the mystery of the circumstances of his misfortune. The police found the record of his check-in at the hotel and... his departure. The day clerk had not seen the man who checked into Room 217, only the one who had checked out, and his hazy memory of that unremarkable event provided a description that could easily be applied to Desmond himself. No belongings had been left behind. A check of the parking lot only served to show that his car was no longer there. Whoever had stripped him of his clothes, money, and credit cards had also discovered his room key.

Lieutenant Bowie had only begun to puzzle over how the mysterious double had been able to determine which room the plastic key card went to (as no room number was printed on them for security reasons), when Desmond was able to supply the answer. He had been given a receipt when he had charged his meal to his room. This he had dutifully folded into his wallet. Clearly this was no master criminal at work, but some tramp that had seized his good fortune with both hands and made the most of it. In one bold move, he had become Desmond Mercer — robbing the original of everything he ever was or ever would be.

As Desmond sat in the bus depot in an ill-fitting suit donated by a kindly member of the C.P.D., he was sure of only two things. One: Whoever had done this to him could not possibly have foreseen the consequences for Desmond. Two: If it were humanly possible, he intended to find and kill this man.

Desmond felt funny burglarizing his own home, but not funny enough to stop. As he had conjectured, the garage door into the kitchen was left unlocked (Linda was always forgetting her house key) and he felt confident that he could go about his business for several hours, if need be, before she returned home from work. Their small dog had initially put up quite a ruckus as he walked up the drive, but now leapt and leapt for his attention. He knelt and stroked her sleek head for a moment as she tried to lick his face, and a sickening, unwelcome sense of homecoming made itself felt in his belly. He shoved her away, rising quickly to get about his business. The dog followed him at a puzzled distance.

Desmond snatched a wicker basket from atop the refrigerator and slammed it onto the counter. It was overflowing with bills and receipts that he began to rifle through, tossing the ones that held no interest for him into the air. The dog made sport of it by leaping up to snatch those that fluttered enticingly and shredding them with rapid shakes of her head.

In just a few moments, Desmond had reduced the welter of paper to a small pile. These were credit card bills beginning with his trip the previous May. It was those transactions that had occurred after his checking into the hotel that interested him. He leaned over the counter and studied these like a road map leading to his quarry. Disappointingly, there were only a few. The first was for gas in Hagerstown. He was traveling east, Desmond noted. The second was for a nice, big meal at a Denny’s in Frederick that same day.

He started to relax the farther he got from Cumberland, Desmond mused.

The third and final entry threw him. It was a five-hundred-dollar purchase from a Home Depot in Gettysburg the following day.

“By God, he’s doubled back and turned north,” Desmond exclaimed, the excitement of the hunt thrilling him. The dog’s ears swiveled in his direction and she began to scent the air, as if she, too, sensed prey.