Embarrassed hell out of both of them.“
”How about Reece? He ever show up again?“
Donaldson shook his head. ”Nope. I heard he got in some kind of jam in New York and he might be doing time.
But he hasn’t shown up around here anyway.“
”Okay, any last known address?“
”Just the house here.“
”Can you give me that? I’d like to talk to the parents.“
”I’ll drive you over. They’ll be a little easier if I’m there. They’re old and they get nervous.“
”I’m not going to give them the third degree, Donaldson, I’m just going to talk to them and ask them if they know anything more than you do about Donna Burlington.“
”I’ll go along. They’re sorta shiftless and crummy, but they’re my people, you know? I like to look out for them.“
I nodded. ”Okay, let’s go.“
We got into Donaldson’s black and white and drove back up the main street past the row of storefronts and the sparse yards. At the end of the street we turned left, down toward the river, and pulled up in front of a big shanty. Originally it had probably been a four-room bungalow backing onto the river. Over the years lean-tos and sagging additions had been scabbed onto it so that it was difficult to say how many rooms there were now. The area in front of the house was mud, and several dirty white chickens pecked in it. A brown and white pig had rooted itself out a hollow against the foundation and was sleeping in it. To the right of the front door, two big gas bottles of dull gray-green metal stood upright, and to the left the remnants of a vine were so bedraggled I couldn’t recognize what kind it was. The land to the side and rear of the house sloped in a kind of eroded gully down to the river. There was a stack of old tires at the corner of one of the lean-tos, and beyond that the rusted frame of a forty-year-old pickup truck, a stack of empty vegetable crates, and on the flat mud margin where the river lapped at the land a bedspring, mossy and slick with river scum.
I thought of Linda Rabb in her Church Park apartment with the fresh jeans and her black hair gleaming.
”Come to where the flavor is,“ I said.
”Yeah, it’s not much, is it? Don’t much wonder that Donna took off as soon as she could.“ We got up and walked to the front door. There were the brown remains of a wreath hanging from a galvanized nail. The ghost of Christmas past.
Maybe of a Christmas future for the Burlingtons.
An old woman answered Donaldson’s knock. She was fat and lumpy in a yellow housedress. Her legs were bare and mottled, her feet thrust into scuffed men’s loafers. Her gray hair was short and straight around her head, the ends uneven, cut at home probably, with dull scissors. Her face was nearly without features, fat puffing around her eyes, making them seem small and squinty.
”Morning, Mrs. Burlington,“ Donaldson said. ”Got a man here from Boston wants to talk with you about Donna.“
She looked at me. ”You seen Donna?“ she said.
”May we come in?“ I said.
She stood aside. ”I guess so,“ she said. Her voice wasn’t very old, but it was without variation, a tired monotone, as if there were nothing worth saying.
Donaldson took off his hat and went in. I followed. The room smelled of kerosene and dogs and things I didn’t recognize. The clutter was dense. Donaldson and I found room on an old daybed and sat. Mrs. Burlington shuffled off down a corridor and returned in a moment with her husband. He was pallid and bald, a tall old man in a sleeveless undershirt and black worsted trousers with the fly open. His face had gray stubble on it, and some egg was dried in the corner of his mouth. The skin was loose on his thin white arms and wrinkled in the fold at the armpit. He poured a handful of Bond Street pipe tobacco from a can into the palm of his hand and slurped it into his mouth.
He nodded at Donaldson, who said, ”Morning, Mr.
Burlington.“ Mrs. Burlington stood, and they both looked at Donaldson and me without moving or speaking. American Gothic.
I said, ”I’m a detective. I can’t tell you where your daughter is, except that she’s well and happy. But I need to learn a little about her background. I mean her no harm, and I’m trying to help her, but the whole situation is very confidential.“
”What do you want to know?“ Mrs. Burlington said.
”When is the last time you heard from her?“
Mrs. Burlington said, ”We ain’t. Not since she run off.“
”No letter, no call, nothing. Not a word?“
Mrs. Burlington shook her head. The old man made no move, changed his expression not at all.
”Do you know where she went when she left here?“
”Left us a note saying she was going to New York with a fellow we never met, never heard nothing more.“
”Didn’t you look for her?“
Mrs. Burlington nodded at Donaldson, ”Told T.P. here.
He looked. Couldn’t find her.“ A bony mongrel dog with short yellow fur and mismatched ears appeared behind Mr. Burlington. He growled at us, and Burlington turned and kicked him hard in the ribs. The dog yelped and disappeared.
”You ever hear from Tony Reece?“ It was like talking to a postoperative lobotomy case. And compared to the old man, she was animated.
She shook her head. ”Never seen him,“ she said. The old man squirted a long stream of tobacco juice at a cardboard box of sand behind the door. He missed.
And that was it. They didn’t know anything about anything, and they didn’t care. The old man never spoke while I was there and just nodded when Donaldson said good-bye.
In the car Donaldson said, ”Where to now?“
”Let’s just sit here a minute until I catch my breath.“
”They been poor all their life,“ Donaldson said. ”It tends to wear you out.“ I nodded.
”Okay, how about Tony Reece? He got any family here?“
”Nope. Folks are both dead.“ Donaldson started the engine and turned the car back toward the town hall. When we got there, he offered me his hand. ”If I was you, Spenser, I’d try New York next.“
”Fun City,“ I said.
CHAPTER NINE
WHEN BRENDA LORING GOT OUT of a brown and white Boston cab, I was brushing off an old man in an army shirt and a flowered tie who wanted me to give him a quarter.
”Did you autograph his bra, sweetie?“ she said.
”They were here,“ I said, ”but I warned them about your jealous passion and they fled at your approach.“
”Fled? That is quite fancy talk for a professional thug.“
”That’s another thing. Around here I’m supposed to be writing a book. My true identity must remain concealed. Reveal it to no one.“
”A writer?“
”Yeah. I’m supposed to be doing a book on the Red Sox and baseball.“
”Was that your agent you were talking with when I drove up?“
”No, a reader.“
She shook her head. Her blond hair was cut short and shaped around her head. Her eyes were green. Her makeup was expert. She was wearing a short green dress with a small floral print and long sleeves. She was darkly tanned, and a small gold locket gleamed on a thin chain against her chest where the neckline of the dress formed a V. Across Jersey Street a guy selling souvenirs was staring at her. I was staring at her too. I always did. She was ten pounds on the right side of plump. ”Voluptuous,“ I said.
”I beg your pardon.“
”That’s how we writers would describe you. Voluptuous with a saucy hint of deviltry lurking in the sparkling of the eyes and the impertinent cast of the mouth.“
”Spenser, I want a hot dog and some beer and peanuts and a ball game. Could you please, please, please, pretty please, please with sugar on it knock off the writer bullshit and escort me through the gate?“
I shook my head. ”Writers aren’t understood much,“ I said, and we went in.