Max Collins - Midnight Haul

He sipped his coffee. Waited for some of the eyes to stop staring. Then he smiled at her. Calmly. “It’s not that. I’m frightened, if that’s what you want to hear. I personally agree with you that somebody, those truckers or your ex-husband or somebody related to Mary Beth’s ‘suicide,’ took that camera out of your Datsun while we slept a few feet away, and it further frightens me, it frightens fuck out of me in fact, to think that we might never’ve stopped sleeping, if whoever it was had come those few feet closer.”

“I’m glad you’re finally looking at this rationally.”

“Rationally? I’m telling you my emotional reaction, Boone. Gut feelings. My mind tells me, rationally tells me, that the camera was probably stolen by some doper looking for something to hock.”

“Shit!” she said.

People were looking at them again. Crane glared at them and they stopped looking.

She was leaning against the tabletop, her hands on her forehead.

“You know I’m right, don’t you?” he said.

“You’re not right. Somebody wanted that film destroyed. That’s why the camera was stolen.”

“Maybe. I’ll go as far as probably. But we can’t prove it. That’s the point I’m trying to make. We have nothing , Boone. Not a goddamn thing.”

They sat in silence for a while. He finished his coffee and biscuits. She drank two cups of tea. Then without a word she rose, picking up the check and paying for it, and walked out to her car. He followed her. She acted as if he weren’t there.

They were well into New Jersey before she acknowledged his presence again.

“I’m still going to Princeton this afternoon,” she said, driving.

“I don’t know that it’ll do any good.”

“I want to tell the Strike Force what happened. What we saw. That we took pictures and our camera was stolen.”

“Okay.”

“It might be enough to make them go out and check the landfill. See what sort of shit is in those drums.”

“Boone, if the truckers did see us leaving the site, and followed us, don’t you think they’d have gone back and dug the drums up and hauled them away?”

“Maybe. But I have to try, Crane. Do you understand that?”

“Of course. I’m on your side, you know.”

She smiled over at him. Reached over and touched his face. “I know. I don’t mean to treat you like the enemy.”

“Assuming there is an enemy,” Crane said.

“Are you starting up again?”

“No. I’m not going to Princeton with you, though.”

“I know. You’re going to look after Billy for me, and talk to a few people.”

“Right.”

“I should be back by midnight.”

“Good. Uh, Boone.”

“Yes?”

“Nothing.”

He took the gun out of his jacket pocket and put it back in her glove compartment.

Mrs. Paul Meyer lived in a pale yellow house in the same housing development as Mary Beth’s family. Just a block down, in fact. The major difference between the two houses, other than color, was the For Sale sign in the Meyer lawn.

Mrs. Meyer had told Crane on the phone that he was free to drop by any time after lunch and before her children got home from school. It was now two in the afternoon.

He knocked on the door.

She opened the door slowly and looked at Crane the same way. She was slender, about thirty, with short dark hair and piercing, pretty eyes as dark as her hair; her lips were a thin red line as she appraised him, tilting her head back a bit so she could look down on him, a hand poised at the base of her neck, around which hung a thin gold chain, which settled comfortably in the soft folds of silk of her cream-colored blouse.

The glass of the storm door still separating them, she said, “Yes?” and he told her who he was and she gave him a small twitch of a smile and let him in.

This split-level house was built from the same plans as Mary Beth’s family’s home, and it was disturbing to be in a living room so much like the one he sat in with Mary Beth’s mother a few days ago. Even the furniture was similarly arranged — the couch was opposite the front door as you came in — but on a closer look it began to look quite different. The furniture, here, was antique: walnut, mostly. Expensive. Tasteful.

Like Mrs. Meyer, who stood in front of him with a glacially polite smile, one hand on a trim hip (she wore rather clingy black slacks), the other gesturing toward the brocade couch.

He sat. So did she. Across from him, in a love seat.

“I’m sorry about your fiancée, Mr. Crane,” she said.

You couldn’t tell it by her voice.

“Thank you,” he said. “I appreciate your willingness to see me.”

“I don’t understand why you want to talk to me, actually. I do understand that we have something in common.” She got up and walked to the coffee table between them, where she took a cigarette from a silver box and lit it. Pulled smoke into her lungs, let it out, sat down again. “My Paul killed himself. Your Mary Beth killed herself. Tragic. But not uncommon.”

Not in Greenwood, anyway , he thought.

“Could I ask you a few questions, Mrs. Meyer?”

“If you like.”

“When did your husband die?”

“Six months ago. He shot himself in the temple.” She smiled. “That’s a punch line you know.”

“Pardon me?”

“Punch line of an old ‘sick’ joke. One man says to the other man, did you hear about Jones? The other man says, no I didn’t. The first man says, killed himself. The second man says, no! how did it happen? The first man says, shot himself in the temple. And the second man says, that’s funny — he didn’t look Jewish.” She smiled again. A forced smile. Her eyes were a little wet.

“I shouldn’t be intruding. I can go...”

“You can go if you like. That little story is as close to coming unglued as I’m going to get. So you don’t have to worry, Mr. Crane.”

“Mrs. Meyer, you and I have more in common than just having someone we loved commit suicide.”

“You presume quite a bit.”

“Pardon?”

“You presume I loved Paul.”

“Didn’t you?”

“Yes. But what does that have to do with you?”

“I better go.”

“If you like. I don’t mean to be rude. Really. I’ve invited you into my home. I’ve agreed to talk with you. It’s just that I want to make clear that I’m not a person to turn to in your hour of grief. I have no free advice for you on how to handle this situation. Just because I happen to be somebody else whose... loved one died of self-inflicted wounds, doesn’t mean...” She stopped herself. Her eyes were getting wet again. She waved some smoke from her cigarette away from her face.

“Mrs. Meyer. I’m not here for that. I’m not here for... group therapy, or something.”

She looked surprised for a moment. “Why are you here, then?”

“As I started to say, we have more in common than just the suicides of Mary Beth and your husband. Or rather I should say that they had more in common than suicide.”

“What do you mean?” The words were clipped.

“They both worked at Kemco.”

“So?”

“Are you aware that there have been five suicides in Greenwood, in not much more than a year? And that all five victims worked for Kemco?”

“A lot of people around here work for Kemco.”

“Five suicides, Mrs. Meyer. Ten times the national average.”

She thought about that a moment. “That’s an interesting random statistic. But I don’t see your point.”

“It just seems suspicious to me, is all. My fiancée was not the type of person who would commit suicide. I doubt she did commit suicide. I think it was something else.”