He went back to Bugsy’s van and climbed in the driver’s side. The heat was suffocating, with an underlying stench of dead meat and chemicals permeating the air. Ortiz glanced back at the multitude of plastic containers and wondered how many of them had dead animals in them. The thought of how nasty Bugsy’s job was made Ortiz feel a little better about what he was doing. Laying traps and spraying for bugs wasn’t so bad, it was the picking up of the roadkill that turned his stomach. He re-focused his thoughts on the front of the van. There was a stack of folders and papers on the passenger-side seat, under several empty beer cans. Ortiz began flipping through the pages. Mostly work orders and receipts, nothing of any help to explain what he might have been doing out here last night. The last folder was different.
There were handwritten notes on many pages that looked like they were torn out of a notebook, and also a map of Haven. Ortiz studied the map and tried to make sense of the notes scrawled along the margins. Bugsy seemed to be keeping track of all the places he had to pick up roadkill. He even had them dated. There was a red line drawn along Hillview Street, West Border Road, and Chestnut Street where there seemed to be no markings to indicate he had any pick-ups. Ortiz frowned, his mind kicking into high gear, totally oblivious to the furnace he was sitting in. He went back to the pages of notes and started correlating some of them to the map. Once he figured out Bugsy’s process, it was pretty easy to follow. From what Ortiz could see Bugsy had been doing a bit of detective work on his own. The result of that seemed to conclude that there was an unusual lack of roadkill being reported along the roads that bordered the lake. What significance could that have? Could the wildlife that lived in the thick woods be responsible for eating any of the animals hit by cars? Ortiz figured Bugsy would have thought of that right off and not bothered doing any of this. He found another page of notes stuck in the back of the folder. Bugsy had made a matrix of all the years going back to 1960. Very detailed and methodical, Ortiz thought. Along the top were simply Hillview Street, West Border Road, and Chestnut Street with the years running down the left hand column. Scrawled across the very top of the paper were the words “March through May counts.” Ortiz quickly scanned the numbers filled in across the fields. Bugsy must have kept very detailed records throughout the years, Ortiz thought with a bit of admiration. He looked at the numbers again, thinking he had missed something the first time. Going back over it, he was coming to the same conclusion that Bugsy did, as was evident by the underlined numbers on two of the rows of data. One was for this year, where the numbers were in the teens for the total number of pick-ups on those streets. The data was fairly consistent for almost every other row, with the counts generally in the high thirties to low forties. All the way down the page until he was almost at the bottom, where Bugsy had underlined another row of numbers in the low teens. Without even looking to the left margin, Ortiz knew what the year would be. What could this all mean? His eyes wandered to the left and confirmed it: 1961.
At the very bottom was a single word underlined in red. While Bugsy had compiled a nice set of data, he too had no resolution. The word was simply, “why?” He gathered all the papers and stuffed them into the folder, taking it with him back to his car. This warranted a visit to Bugsy’s house. Maybe there was something more there that led Bugsy to come out here at night with a gun and empty it, but into what? He had seen no evidence of blood, granted he hadn’t really looked for it. Tonight he would swing by the Witch’s Hat and talk to some of the regulars that Bugsy hung out with. Hopefully, Bugsy himself would be there to answer all of the questions he had, but his instincts told him not to expect it. Maybe he had shared his theories with some of his drinking buddies. Which begged another question: was Bugsy out here alone last night? There was only one flashlight and all of the empties and the folders were on the passenger seat, leading Ortiz to believe Bugsy was alone. He pulled out of the parking lot and started down the driveway, one hand on the radio. Should he report in or check out a few things first? He tightened his lips and slowly slid his hand off the radio. He couldn’t fill in Crawford yet. There was something very strange going on. But what if Bugsy had wandered into the woods and was still alive but hurt? He couldn’t live with that possibility, even though every bone in his body told him Bugsy was dead, in the lake. He grabbed the radio and called in a missing person report, requesting a search party. At least it wasn’t a little kid, he thought to himself, followed by a prayer.
(40)
The old man sat motionless on the bus, ready at any moment to jump out of his skin. The bus itself sat motionless in the Callahan Tunnel, mired in Boston’s infamous traffic. At first he thought it was the fact that he hadn’t had a drink in over eight hours that was making him jumpy, since this was the first time in half a lifetime he had gone that long without a drink. At least while he was conscious. Strangely, though, he did not even want a drink. It was the immobility that was driving him crazy. The need to get back to Haven was overwhelming. The impending sense of dread that had overtaken him since reading the article about Gunlinger and the murder in Haven was unbearable. The worst part about it was he didn’t know why.
He had scoured the newspapers looking for any news concerning Haven, and finally found what Gunlinger’s mysterious suicide note had alluded to. There was a grisly killing that took place: a boy and his dog were dismembered while swimming at the lake in Haven. Greymore was mentioned as being in custody, but the details were sketchy and the article mentioned an earlier disappearance where the missing child turned up safely. He would get the story straight when he got there. Either way, he was not able to draw any connection between any of this and a reason for Gunlinger to eat a bullet.
His memory of life before being a street person had faded to the point he could not distinguish real events from alcohol-induced hallucinations. But the fog was strangely beginning to clear. Bits and pieces of reality were slowly rising from the haze. He knew he had been in the military because of Gunlinger and the tattoos on his arms. Now he remembered the base in Haven. There was more, though, more to his life in Haven than just being stationed there. But he couldn’t pull it through. Exhaustion began to take its toll. He had walked most of the morning to get to the bus terminal and had to wait there for three hours for the first bus to Haven. He had felt exhilarated, a sense of purpose. But the adrenaline was wearing off and his head pounded with the effort of trying to recall the life he had drowned in decades of cheap booze. His head nodded forward as sleep overtook him.
When he awoke he was unsure of his surroundings. He had dreamed fitful dreams of laboratories and experiments. Of being in the woods, running, a huge explosion echoing behind him. He looked out the window and noticed the smoggy city stench had been replaced by fresh country air, the buildings by trees. He also noticed his memory was becoming as clear as the air around him. That’s when he began to wonder if he was making a big mistake. The incidents he was remembering, if they were true, were worth burying in his mind. The bone-deep chill he felt told him that they most certainly were true and that there was more where they came from.