Dennis Lehane - Moonlight Mile

Twelve years ago, I’d been wrong. Every day that had passed since, roughly 4,400 of them, I was sure of that.

But twelve years ago, I’d been right. Leaving Amanda with kidnappers, no matter how vested they were in her welfare, was leaving her with kidnappers. In the 4,400 days since I’d taken her back, I was sure this was true. So where did that leave me?

With a wife who was still certain I’d fucked up.

“This Kenny,” she said, tapping my laptop, “do we know where he lives?”

“We know his last known address.”

She ran her hands through her long, dark hair. “I’m going to step out on the porch.”

“Sure.”

We put our coats on. Out on our back porch, we carefully closed the door and Angie opened the top of the barbecue grill where she kept a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. She swore she only smoked a couple a day, but there were days I’d noticed the pack was a lot lighter than it should have been. So far she’d kept evidence of the vice from Gabby, but the clock was ticking and we both knew it. Yet as much as I’d love my wife to be vice-free, I normally can’t stand vice-free people. They conflate a narcissistic instinct for self-preservation with moral superiority. Plus, they suck the life right out of a party. Angie knows I’d love it if she didn’t smoke, and Angie would love it if she didn’t smoke. But, for now, she smokes. I, for my part, deal with it and stay off her ass.

“If Beatrice isn’t crazy,” she said, “and Amanda really is missing again, we’ve got a second chance.”

“No,” I said, “we do not.”

“You don’t even know what I was going to say.”

“Yes, I do. You were going to suggest that if we somehow manage to locate Amanda McCready, then this time we can make up for the sins of the past.”

She gave me a rueful smile as she blew smoke out over the railing. “So you did know what I was going to say.”

I took a vicarious whiff of secondhand smoke and planted a kiss on my wife’s collarbone. “I don’t believe in redemption.”

“I thought you didn’t believe in closure.”

“That either.”

“So what do you believe in again?”

“You. Her. This.”

“Babe, you’ve got to find more balance.”

“What’re you, my sensei?”

“Hai.” She gave me a small bow. “I’m serious. You can either sit around the house brooding on what happened to Peri Pyper and how you helped a classic d-bag like Brandon Trescott avoid any responsibility for his actions, or you can do some good.”

“And this is good, uh?”

“You’re damn right it is. Do you believe a guy like Kenny Hendricks should be around Amanda McCready?”

“No, but that’s not enough to go mucking around in people’s lives.”

“What is?”

I chuckled.

She didn’t. “She’s missing.”

“You want me to go after Kenny and Helene.”

She shook her head. “I want us to go after Kenny and Helene. And I want us to find Amanda again. I might not have much free time.”

“You don’t have any.”

“Okay, any,” she admitted, “but I still have mad computer skills, m’ man.”

“Did you say mad computer skills?”

“I’m reliving the early aughts.”

“I remember the early aughts-we made money then.”

“And we were prettier and your hair was a lot thicker.” She put both palms on my chest and stood on tiptoe to kiss me. “No offense, babe, but what else are you doing these days?”

“You’re a cold bitch. I love you. But you’re a cold bitch.”

She gave me that throaty laugh of hers, the one that slides through my blood.

“You love it.”

Half an hour later Beatrice McCready sat at our dining-room table. She drank a cup of coffee. She didn’t look quite as broken as she had the other day, quite as lost, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t.

“I shouldn’t have lied about Matt,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

I held up a hand. “Beatrice, Jesus. No apology necessary.”

“He just… It’s one of those things you know you probably won’t get over but you still got to function, go about your day. Right?”

“My first husband was murdered,” Angie said. “That doesn’t mean I know about your grief, Bea, but I did learn that having one moment in a given day, just one second, when you’re not grieving? That’s never a sin.”

Beatrice gave that a soft nod. “I… Thank you.” She looked around our small dining room. “You have a girl now, uh?”

“Yes. Gabriella.”

“Oh, that’s a pretty name. Does she look like you?”

Angie looked at me for confirmation, and I nodded.

“More me than him, yeah,” she said. She pointed to a picture of Gabby that sat atop the credenza. “That’s Gabby.”

Beatrice took the photo in and eventually smiled. “She looks feisty.”

“She’s that,” Angie said. “They say the terrible twos?”

Beatrice leaned forward. “Oh, I know, I know. It starts at eighteen months and it goes until they’re three and a half.”

Angie nodded vigorously. “She was a monster. I mean, God, it was-”

“Awful, right?” Beatrice said. She looked as if she were about to tell us an anecdote about her son but caught herself. She looked down at the table with a strange smile on her face and rocked a bit in her chair. “But they grow out of it.”

Angie looked at me. I looked back at her, clueless about what to say next.

“Bea,” she said, “the police said they investigated your claim and found Amanda in the house.”

Beatrice shook her head. “Since they moved, Amanda calls me every day. Never missed until two weeks ago. Right after Thanksgiving. I haven’t heard from her since.”

“They moved? Out of the neighborhood?”

Bea nodded. “About four months ago. Helene owns a house in Foxboro. A three-bedroom.”

Foxboro was a suburb, about twenty miles south. It wasn’t Belmont Hills or anything, but it was a tall step up from St. Bart’s Parish in Dorchester.

“What’s Helene do for work these days?”

Beatrice laughed. “Work? I mean, last I heard, she was working the Lotto machine at New Store on the Block, but that was a while ago. I’m pretty sure she managed to get fired from there just like every other place. This is a woman who managed to get fired from Boston Gas back in the day. Who gets fired from a utility?”

“So, if she’s not working much…”

“How’s she afford a house?” She shrugged. “Who knows?”

“She didn’t get anything from the city in those lawsuits, did she?”

She shook her head. “It all went into a trust for Amanda. Helene can’t touch it.”

“Okay,” Angie said. “I’ll pull the tax assessment on the property.”

“What about the restraining orders against you?” I asked as softly as I could.

Beatrice looked over at me. “Helene works the system. She’s been doing it since she was a teenager. Amanda was sick a couple years ago. The flu. Helene had some new guy, a bartender who fed her free drinks, so she kept forgetting to check on Amanda. This is when they were in the old place by Columbia Road. I still had a key and I started letting myself in to care for Amanda. It was either that or let her catch pneumonia.”

Angie glanced at the photo of Gabby and then back at Bea. “So Helene found you there and filed the restraining order.”

“Yeah.” Bea fingered the edge of her coffee cup. “I drink more than I used to. Sometimes I get stupid and drunk-dial.” She looked up at me. “Like I did with you the other night. I’ve done it with Helene a few times. After the last time, she filed for another restraining order. That was three weeks ago.”