And Debbie Holton came to the Harmony drug outreach center for a regular appointment.
A thin, nervous girl with dirty blond hair and rumpled, baggy clothes appeared from inside the center and paused on the doorstep, taking in the parking lot before her. The Harmony lot is a unique and well-known Brattleboro icon. A large, tree-filled courtyard, accessible through an arched porte cochere at one end and a gap between two buildings at the other, it is wholly reminiscent of a medieval marketplace, walled and protected. Surrounded by buildings both commercial and residential, it is perforated by the back doors of retail businesses and thus allows for a multitude of discreet avenues to the busy streets beyond the walls.
A drug peddler's dream.
Over time, the surrounding merchants had complained and been answered with stepped-up police patrols, surveillance cameras, neighborhood meetings, and hot tip phone numbers for the reporting of suspicious activity. All to little avail. Like rodents reacting to bright light, the pushers would vanish until things settled down, only to reappear as before.
Debbie Holton stepped away from the center's threshold into this familiar territory, instantly blending into a small group of similarly dressed young people who were sitting on the curb chatting and smoking cigarettes.
Gail watched her carefully as she cadged a smoke, shared a few laughs, and took a sip from someone's Coke before finally standing up and shuffling toward Elliot Street, visible between two building blocks.
Gail got up, left a generous tip, and followed her.
Elliot is one of the town's funkier streets, especially here, in close proximity to Main. It hosts one of Brattleboro's quaintest restaurants-a tie-dye, sixties throwback named the Common Ground-right opposite Peter Havens, one of the ritziest. It has bookstores, bars, music stores, an Indian eatery, the fire department's central station, and one of the town's more dilapidated rooming houses. It also boasted the retail birthplace of Tom and Sally's Chocolates, a typically Vermont phenomenon. Akin to Ben amp; Jerry's ice cream-where two people blended a high-class product with the aura of its down-home, romantic home state-Tom and Sally's made a success of selling, among other things, chocolate cow patties.
Elliot is an anthropological snapshot of what makes Brattleboro the unique Vermont landmark it is.
Gail followed Debbie Holton west, studying her drooped shoulders, the way the bottoms of her jeans dragged behind her heels. She looked like a waif, only vaguely connected to the world around her, and even, Gail now realized, a little like her niece, Laurie, also pale, thin, and blond. That similarity, made Gail all the more resolved in her quest.
Holton suddenly cut through an opening in the railing to her left and made for a long, steep, open-air flight of stairs that connected Elliot to the Flat Street parking lot some forty feet below. All of Brattleboro covered or bordered three significant waterways and was, as a result, spread across a topsy-turvy of hills, gullies, steep slopes, and ravines.
Liking the relative privacy afforded by a staircase hanging between two busy streets, Gail took advantage of her quarry's choice of routes to make her move.
"Debbie," she called out, she hoped in an upbeat voice.
The young girl turned and glanced up, her expression mute at the sight of a complete stranger. Gail read in her eyes the look of a refugee-hungry, fearful, resigned, but also faintly feral.
"What?"
Gail approached, meeting her on the first landing, where the stairs doubled back on their journey to the bottom. She stuck out her hand in greeting, mostly to force Holton to make physical contact with her.
"My name is Gail Zigman. I'm Laurie Davis's aunt."
The girl barely touched Gail's fingertips with her own, which were damp, warm, and seemingly without musculature. "Hi."
She had a soft, high voice, clearly lacking in curiosity.
Gail was caught slightly off guard by the bland reaction. "Well, I just wanted. . I mean, I got your name. ." She laughed self-consciously. "Let me start again. I heard you and Laurie were good friends."
"Yeah."
After a long pause, Gail continued. "So I wanted to meet you. Find out how you were doing."
"Fine."
"It must've been a shock, though. I mean, I didn't know she was in such a jam."
Debbie was starting to look around, as if hoping for a distraction. "Yeah, well. . whatever."
Gail pulled at an earlobe. "Look, Debbie. I know this is kind of weird, but I feel a little responsible for what happened. I am her aunt. I should've looked out for her."
"She talked about you."
The statement came out matter-of-factly, without inflection.
"Really? What did she say?"
"That she had an aunt. A big-deal politician. That you?"
To her own surprise, Gail was disappointed. "Not really, but I suppose I'm who she meant. What else?"
"That was it. That's all there was, anyway, right? You doin' your thing, Laurie doin' hers. What's more to say?"
A silence fell between them. Gail usually prided herself on an ability to speak with anyone. This girl was proving to be an exception.
"Do you want to see her?" she finally asked.
Debbie shook her head. "See myself in someone else's body? Don't think so. I'll get there quick enough on my own."
Gail was startled at both the depth and the starkness of the comment. "Is that what you want?" she asked.
Now it was the young girl who seemed caught off guard. She looked straight at Gail-the first time she'd actually done so. "Sometimes."
Gail pursed her lips for a moment, trying to think of the right way to respond, knowing a misstep now could break the wispy, hair-thin bridge they were building toward one another.
"It must be hard."
Debbie smiled just barely. "It's what it is."
Gail nodded. "If I promise not to bug you about it-not even talk about it, if you want-could I buy you lunch?"
"Now?"
"Yeah."
Debbie Holton looked uncertain. "I don't-"
"I promise," Gail repeated, holding up her hand, as if in a pledge.
Debbie laughed a little. "You gonna put that on a Bible or something?"
She didn't actually accept Gail's invitation, but the two of them started down the stairs side by side.
* * *
"What were you doing in there?"
Bill Dancer was clearly put out, trailing behind Sammie Martens as she walked quickly toward their car.
"Getting an address on Johnny Rivera," she said without looking back.
"That's his name? Rivera? I never heard of him. That can't be good. The guy must be a punk."
She circled to the passenger side and opened the door, getting in. He joined her in the car, his face closed down with frustration and anger. He was supposed to have been the main operator here-the guy to depend on. The guy who got the girl, even. Now he didn't know what the hell was going on.
"He might've been a punk once," Sam agreed, "but lover boy in there says he's come into his own as of late."
The reference fired Dancer up again. "What the hell was that, anyway? What did you do with him?"
Sam laughed. "What d'you think, Bill? A fast fuck against the wall? I asked the man a few questions. I stroked his ego. Made him feel like a real dude. You gonna give me shit for that? So we can drive back to Vermont with nothing but the shit on our shoes? That's not why I came down here."