He looks where I’m pointing, where I’ve laid my finger across the case file, at the list of suspects. Marcus Norman, Julia Stone, Annabelle Demetrios, Frank Cignal.
“Palace.”
“Of all the girls’ names in all the songs in the world?”
“Palace.”
“Even all the girls’ names in all the Beatles songs? Who picks Julia?” I jab my finger at the page. “Who but a man with a woman on his mind?”
“I’m not really a Beatles man,” says Culverson, stirring honey into his oatmeal. “You got any Earth, Wind, and Fire related clues?”
“Come on, Culverson.”
“I’m teasing you.”
“I know. But do you think it makes sense?”
“Honestly? No.” He grins. “You have gone for a walk, my young friend. You have wandered so far from the available evidence that I cannot see you anymore, tall as a telephone pole though you may be.”
“Maybe,” I say. I cross my arms. “But I’m right.”
“It’s possible,” he says. I’ve known Culverson for longer than anyone now living, except for my sister. Long ago, when I was still a child, it was Detective Culverson who solved the murder of my mother. “And hey, you know what? The world’s about to blow up. So, you know, knock yourself out. You have a last-known address for young Julia?”
“Yeah,” I say, tapping the file. “Durham.”
“Durham?” he says.
“Yeah. At the time of the incident, she was a rising junior at UNH.”
“So her last-known is on the grounds of the Free Republic. You’re ready to go door to door down there?”
“No. Maybe.” I grit my teeth. This is the hard part. “I actually know someone who might be able to help.”
“Oh yeah?” Culverson raises an eyebrow. “Who’s that?”
I’m saved by the bell. The door chimes, and McGully comes in with an old Samsonite suitcase like a traveling salesman. We look at him, Culverson and I, and Ruth-Ann looks over from her spot at the counter, at old McGully with his suitcase and his boots. No one says anything. That’s it—it’s like he’s already gone, fading from full color to black and white before our eyes. He stands at the threshold of the restaurant, in the antechamber by the cash register where the pictures still hang of the owner, Bob Galicki, shaking hands with various politicians, where there’s an old-fashioned gumball machine. The gumballs are gone now, the glass sphere shattered a long time ago.
Culverson leans back in his seat; McGully stares back at us in silence.
“Wow,” says Culverson. “Where to?”
“New Orleans,” says McGully. “I’m going to hoof it to 95, look for a southbound bus.”
Culverson nods. I don’t say anything. What is there to say? In the corner of my eye, Ruth-Ann is ramrod straight at the counter, carafe in hand, watching McGully in her doorway.
“You tell Beth?” Culverson asks.
“Nah.” McGully flashes his monkey’s grin, real quick, and then looks down at the floor. “I’ve been telling her, you know, we should get outta here, we should make a change, but she’s… she’s settled, you know? She’s not leaving the house. Her mom died in that house.” He looks up, then down again, mutters into his shirtfront. “I left her a note, though. Little note.”
“Hey,” I say. “McGully—” and he says, “No—no, you shut up,” and I say, “What?” and then suddenly he’s hollering, furious, stalking across the diner toward me. “You’re like a little kid, you know that?”
He leans over me in the booth. I shrink back.
“In your tidy little universe, with your notebooks, and the good guys and the bad guys. That shit is moot, man. That shit is over.”
“Easy,” says Culverson, half rising, “take it easy now,” but McGully keeps his finger in my face. “You just wait until the water runs out. You just fucking wait.” He’s snarling, showing his teeth. “You think this trooper you’re looking for, you think he’s a bad guy? You think I’m a bad guy?”
“I didn’t say that,” I murmur, but he’s not listening. He’s not talking to me, not really.
“Well, you wait until the taps stop working. Then you’ll see some fucking bad guys.” He’s bright red. He’s out of breath. “Okay?”
I don’t say anything, but he seems to want an answer. “Okay,” I say.
“Okay, smart guy?”
“Okay.”
I meet McGully’s eyes and he nods, eases off. No one else says anything. The boots squeak on the linoleum as he turns around, Ruth-Ann tsk-tsking at the scuff he’s leaving on her floor. Then the door chimes, and he’s gone: off and running. We look at each other for half a second, me and Culverson, and then I stand up, my oatmeal untouched on the table.
“So,” says Culverson mildly. “UNH, huh?”
“Yeah. Just a day, I figure. There and back.”
He nods. “Yup.”
“The only thing is, there’re these kids.” And I tell him about Micah and Alyssa, the business with the sword, and he says sure, he says he’ll look into it. We’re talking quietly, carefully, not moving much, McGully’s angry energy still buzzing around the room.
I tear the relevant piece of paper from my notebook, and Culverson tucks it into his shirt pocket.
“Go on ahead, Henry. Solve your case,” he says. “Get it right.”
I sit on my bus bench across the street from Next Time Around, the vintage clothing store, for thirty seconds, a minute maybe, gathering my nerve. Then I stand up, march over there, and knock on the front door.
No one answers. I stand there like a dummy. Somewhere farther down Wilson Avenue there’s a loud, muffled clang, like someone banging two trash can lids together. I knock again, harder this time, loud enough to rattle the glass panes of the door. I know they’re in there. I’m bending to peek in the curtained window when the door is jerked open and here’s the fat young man with the greasy hair, wearing a wool cap despite the heat.
“Yeah?” he grunts. “What?”
“My name is Henry Palace,” I begin, and Nico rushes over, rushes right around this guy’s hunched frame to hug me like a maniac.
“Henry!” she says. “What the hell?” But she’s happy, grinning, stepping back to look at me and then forward to hug me again. I take a look at her, too, take her in, my sister: a man’s white undershirt and camouflage pants, an American Spirit hanging like a lollipop stick from the corner of her mouth. Her hair has been cut short and choppy and dyed black; the change is dramatic and entirely for the worse. But her eyes are the same, twinkling and wicked and brilliant.
“I knew it,” she says, looks up at my face, still grinning. “I knew I hadn’t seen the last of you.”
I don’t reply, I smile, I peer past her into the cluttered room, the rolling racks and overspilling bins of clothes, the mannequins arranged in a variety of obscene poses. There’s a man in there on the floor asleep, shirtless, in a tangle of sheets, a woman sitting Indian-style, dealing herself a hand of cards. There’s an ersatz table, just a piece of plywood laid across two sawhorses, strewn with drawing paper and old newspapers. The store smells like must and cigarettes and body odor. The squat man in the wool cap leans across the prone body of the sleeper to reach a Bunsen burner and light his cigarette on its blue flame.
“So, what’s up?” says Nico. “What do you want?”