Damaged Goods: A Jack McMorrow Mystery Read online

  “Morning,” I said.

  “Morning? It’s afternoon, isn’t it? Some of us are ready to knock off, day’s work done.”

  I smiled. “If you call tinkering and puttering work,” I said.

  “Got to have my saws tip-top. I slow down out there, that’ll make two of us.”

  “My section, the trees were all tangled up.”

  “Always an excuse,” Clair said. “You sure you were never in the Army?”

  “For tough guys, you Marines are awfully petty.”

  “Comes from having to carry everybody else.”

  I grinned, walked over. “I’m going to Galway for a few hours for work,” I said.

  “If you can call it that, scribbling in a little notebook,” Clair said, filing the chain. “What a racket.”

  “Roxanne and Sophie will be home, just hanging out. Can you keep an eye on the road?”

  “Sure. What is it?”

  I told him about the devil people, the kids in the trash cans. The guy in Roxanne’s face.

  “She doesn’t scare easy,” I said, “but these people shook her up.”

  “I’ll keep an eye on her. I’ll tell Mary, she’ll have them come for lunch.”

  “No big deal,” I said, as the music stopped. Clair reached for the CD player and clarinet notes floated through the shop.

  “If Roxanne’s worried, it’s big enough,” he said.

  “She’s better today.”

  “Where in Appleton?”

  “She didn’t say. And it’s probably nothing. They’re probably back down in the cellar in their Halloween costumes.”

  “Take somebody’s kids, they don’t tend to forget it.”

  He loosened the jaws of the vise and lifted the saw out.

  “I could let these dirtbags know, they come over here, they’re playing with fire,” Clair said, his voice low and flat, the way it got when he was slipping into combat mode. Forty years after Vietnam, a switch flipped in his head and he was again the emotionless Force Recon Marine.

  “I know you could.”

  “Just say the word,” Clair said.

  “We’ll see,” I said.

  Chapter 3

  Good stories didn’t usually walk up to your desk. It didn’t happen at the Times, in the thick of Manhattan, and it sure as hell didn’t happen here, reporting from the Maine woods. You had to always be moving, eyes and ears open. Ready to stop at the whiff of a story.

  Like a predator.

  Of course, there were real predators in the woods in Waldo County: coyotes, some big enough to be called wolves; bobcats working the ridges and alder thickets; mountain lions, at least according to a few trappers and loggers who claimed to have seen the big cats bounding across a road at dawn.

  From the truck, I called the mountain lion guy, left a message on a machine at his house in Swanville, north of Galway. The trick would be convincing him to tell a few hundred thousand people that his neighbors thought he was crazy.

  My job was one-third writing, two-thirds sales. As I drove, I was gearing up.

  The route to Galway wound over wooded hills, past small ponds, through intersections named for farmers who were dead and gone, their pastures mostly grown up, their barns sagging to the ground. As you closed in on the coast, the signs of money began to appear. New houses, shingles unweathered like untanned skin, with new cars and trucks parked in front of big garages. Closer to the bay, the boats began to appear. Big sailboats on spindly metal stands, lobster boats parked by stacks of traps.

  I pulled over in front of one of the lobsterman’s houses, shut off the motor, and opened my folder. I took out the page from the Waldo County News. Started at the top.

  I called Amber, who offered “playtime.” Left a message with a robotic voice on a cell phone. I called Mercedes, who offered “two-girl specials.” A guy answered, interrupted when I started to talk, said to call another number, which he recited, then hung up. I called that number, and a woman answered.

  “Mercedes?” I said.

  “Who’s this?” she said, her voice raspy, a smoker.

  “My name is Jack McMorrow. I’m a writer for newspapers. I saw your ad in the Waldo County News and I’m hoping to—”

  Mercedes hung up, too.

  After Mercedes was Katrina, then Destinee. Katrina had a real answering machine, with a sultry voice promising she’d call back. Destinee’s voice mailbox was full. Finally, it was on to Mandi, the one who offered “companionship.”

  “Yes,” a young woman said.

  “Is this Mandi?” I said.

  “Who is this?”

  She sounded youngish, twenties. I could hear music in the background. Acoustic guitar, a woman singing.

  “This is Jack McMorrow,” I said. “I’m a reporter. I live in Maine and I write sometimes for the New York Times.”

  For a long moment she didn’t answer, and then she said, “What do you want?” She sounded frightened but stayed on the line.

  “I’m hoping to talk to Mandi.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s nothing to worry about,” I said. “I’m just interested in what she’s been doing.”

  “Since what?” It was an odd response.

  “Not since anything. Is this Mandi?”

  A long pause, and then she said, “Yes.”

  “I don’t mean to bother you. I just was curious about the companionship thing. I wondered about how it works, who takes you up on it.”

  “Why me?”

  “I saw your ad in the paper.”

  “There are lots of ads in the paper,” she said.

  “I know. I called all of them.”

  “What did they say?”

  “I left messages. One of them hung up on me.”

  “I think I better hang up,” Mandi said.

  “Wait,” I said. “Let me buy you lunch. We can just talk about talking.”

  I heard her exhale, a long deep breath.

  “Well,” she said. “Maybe. But it’s only eleven o’clock. Where are you?”

  “Outside of Galway. Where are you?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Mandi said.

  Another pause. The woman had stopped singing in the background and an announcer had come on. Public Radio. Then there was traffic sound. A truck, beeping as it backed up.

  “You there?” I said.

  “Yes. But I don’t know about this.”

  “No commitment. Just a preliminary chat. I promise.”

  “You don’t have a camera, do you?”

  “No. I just write the stories.”

  “And you don’t take pictures?”

  “No. I just have a notebook. But I won’t even write anything down. Not unless you say it’s okay.”

  “What was your name again?”

  “Jack. Jack McMorrow.”

  Another pause, the woman singing again in the background.

  “It’s usually fifty dollars for an hour,” Mandi said. “For this, it’s a hundred.”

  “It’s more to talk?”

  “Talking’s harder,” she said.

  I hesitated, reached for my wallet, and flipped through the bills. A hundred and eight dollars, some change in the ashtray. I considered it. I wondered if I could get a receipt and expense it.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “There’s a pizza place in Galway, right downtown. As you come into town, it’s on the left on the corner. It’s called Big Mamma’s.”

  “I’ll meet you there,” I said. “When?”

  “It’ll take me a while to drive there,” Mandi said. “Say twelve.”

  “Okay.”

  “What do you look like?” she said.

  “Forty. Dark hair. No beard, no glasses. Not big, not small.”

  “So now I know what you don’t look like.”

  “Jeans and tan Topsiders and a dark blue polo shirt. I’ll put my reporter’s notebook on the table. The page will say, ‘Jack.’”

  “Okay.”

  How will I know
you?” I said.

  “You won’t,” Mandi said, “unless I want you to.”

  Big Mamma’s was as Mandi described, on the left on the main street headed downhill to the harbor. I parked across the street, adjusted the mirror to watch the restaurant. It was early, and I was, too, and the shop was just opening, no big mamma, though. Just a skinny guy in shorts and a black T-shirt unlocking the doors.

  I looked down the block toward the water. The shops had awnings. There were two new pubs, a couple of cafes. Facing me was a gallery that sold paintings of the harbor, the real thing just down the street. I wondered if they’d done paintings of the harbor when it had a smelly fish-processing plant, with its cloud of hovering gulls. That was a painting I might buy.

  The fish plant was gone, closed then razed, antique shops built in its place. The idea was to change the town into what summer people thought Maine should be, so now there were restaurants with chefs who had worked in New York, and only one of the old bars left, a place for the locals to drink and commiserate.

  Big Mamma’s was a holdout, still the kind of place real locals would go. I watched them in the car mirror: shopworkers, high school kids, an older man and woman in shorts and sneakers, the guy toting a camera. Rare tourists on a budget.

  I waited until noon, then got out of the truck and crossed the street. The pizza shop was half full and I went in and took a seat at the back, away from the window. I sat facing the door and the skinny kid brought me a glass of water and a menu. I took my notebook from my back pocket. I scrawled my name on a blank page and left it out, like a chauffeur’s sign at an airport.

  And then I waited. Waited some more.

  At 12:15, a woman came in alone, but she was in her thirties, ordered takeout, and left. At 12:25, a young woman came in with a guy—Mandi and her bodyguard? They sat two booths away, the woman’s tank-topped back to me, a butterfly tattoo on her shoulder blade.

  Or maybe it was a moth. They talked; she never turned around. And then, at 12:35, another woman came in. Alone.

  She was in her mid-20s. Tall with dark hair pulled back, wearing a denim skirt and leather sandals, a long-sleeved knit pullover, cream with thin blue horizontal stripes. Her straw bag was slung over her shoulder. Stopping in front of the counter, she glanced up at the menu on the wall.

  Then she turned and looked across the restaurant. Our eyes met. She smiled and headed over. I slipped the money—four twenties and two tens—inside the notebook, then stood. She approached and quickly sat. I sat, too, and she said, loud enough for the next table to hear, “It’s so nice to see you, Jack. It’s been a long time.”

  “Yes, it has,” I said. “Too long.”

  “I’m glad you called. It was such a fun surprise.”

  I looked at her. Pretty face in an old-fashioned sort of way, like a movie star from the forties. Big dark-brown eyes, a broad nose, and a wide mouth with full lips. She was big, not heavy but solidly built, like she’d played high school basketball. Her makeup was a bit obvious—dark eyeliner, up and down, bluish eye shadow—like a young teenage girl would wear. There was a tiny gold stud in her nose.

  “I’ve been meaning to call,” I said. “Just never got around to it.”

  “Oh, I know. We’re all so busy,” Mandi said. “How’s Lucy?”

  “She’s good. She’s going to have a baby.”

  “Oh, my God. Tell her I’m so happy for her.”

  She smiled. I did, too, feeling like I was in a play. The kid came with another menu and a glass of water and put them in front of her. She didn’t acknowledge him and when she looked up at me, the curtain had just fallen.

  “I Googled you,” Mandi said softly, picking up the menu.

  “So you know about Jack McMorrow, the Scottish physicist.”

  “You really are a reporter.”

  “Yes. I’ve been doing this for a long time.”

  “Why would the New York Times care about me?”

  “It’s an interesting story,” I said.

  She raised an eyebrow. I tried again.

  “It’s an aspect of small-town life you don’t think about much.”

  “It may not be what you think,” she said, still staring at the menu.

  “Most stories aren’t. That’s what I like about doing this.”

  “People are complicated, you know what I’m saying?” she said. “They aren’t what they seem.”

  “I know that,” I said. “It’s the one thing you can count on.”

  She looked up at me.

  “The clock’s ticking,” Mandi said.

  I slid the notebook over, the bills sticking out. She lifted the page and slipped the money out, tucked the bills in her bag. She slid the notebook back.

  “I’m not hungry,” she said. “Let’s go for a walk.”

  We left the pizza shop and started down the street toward the water. The sidewalk was busy on a summer Saturday, and we stepped around people as they paused to look into shop windows. A couple of guys outside a pub turned to glance at Mandi. She ignored them and didn’t talk to me, either.

  We walked to the end of the street, past a big seafood restaurant that overlooked the harbor, lobsters traps screwed to the restaurant roof like they’d been blown up there in a tornado. There was a boardwalk, ramps leading down to the floats. A couple leaned against the railing as their young kids tossed chips to squawking, squabbling gulls. We detoured around them and I was beginning to wonder what I was going to get for my hundred dollars. I could see a receipt was not in the cards.

  Mandi crossed to a bench on a patch of lawn across from the boat launch. She sat down and crossed her legs, pretty legs, with toenails painted red. I sat beside her, but not close. Pulled a small digital recorder, slightly bigger than a cigarette lighter, from my front pocket.

  “No,” she said. “You can write, but no recording. No voice.”

  I put the recorder away, took out the notebook and pen. I smiled, I hoped disarmingly. I was about to ask her a question when she beat me to it.

  “Why aren’t you a reporter for the New York Times in New York?”

  “I was. I left.”

  “Why?”

  “Something happened.”

  “They fired you?”

  “Something like that,” I said.

  “So you ran away to the boonies of Maine?”

  “Maybe at first. Now I like it here.”

  “What do you like about it?”

  “Who’s the reporter?”

  She smiled, looked out at the water.

  “You answer my questions, maybe I’ll answer yours,” Mandi said.

  She was right. People were not what they seemed.

  “I like the woods. I like the people. There’s something true about this place.”

  “I think truth is way overrated,” she said.

  I wrote in my notebook, kept one eye on her. She didn’t react.

  “Why?”

  “I think people spend most of their time trying to get away from the truth. Watching movies. Those reality shows on TV. You know they’re made up? Not true at all. That’s why I watch them. They’re acting.”

  “Are you acting?” I said.

  “Now?” she said.

  “When you do what you do.”

  She didn’t answer. I could see her biting the inside of her lip, the first hint of some sort of agitation.

  “We’re all acting, more or less,” Mandi said. “Life is just an act anyway, don’t you think? We pick out a part, who we’re gonna play, and then we try to be that person. If we get tired of that one, we try another one. You used to be the big-city reporter. Now you’re playing the country reporter. You just learn new lines.”

  She looked at the couple with the kids feeding the gulls.

  “They’re playing the parents.”

  “What part are you playing?” I said.

  She shrugged.

  “I’m playing the companion,” she said. “My character is a girl. Men pay her for my time.”
<
br />   “For sex?”

  Mandi glanced sideways at me.

  “Sorry, but I have to ask.”

  “That’s what it’s supposed to be,” she said. “But you know what?”

  “What?”

  “Mostly they pay me so they can tell me their troubles, have me laugh at their jokes.”

  She held my gaze for a three count, looked away.

  “I’m a good listener. I bet if we sit here long enough you’ll tell me why you really left New York.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But let me ask you another question. Why do you do this at all?”

  “Do what, Jack? Sit on benches talking to strange men?”

  “And everything else.”

  She stared out at the harbor, the boats, the gulls, the kids with the chips. I waited, let the silence linger.

  “You don’t waste any time, do you?”

  “You want me to beat around the bush?”

  Mandi shrugged. “It’s your nickel.”

  “That’s an old-fashioned expression,” I said.

  “I guess I’m old-fashioned, too,” she said.

  “So why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why do this?”

  She looked out at the boats.

  “You’d be surprised,” she said.

  Scribbling quickly, I said, “What about it would surprise me?”

  “How lonely people are.”

  “The men who call you?”

  “Yeah. If I had to describe them—I mean, if you asked me what they have in common, it’s that they’re all lonely.”

  “But aren’t they married, some of them?”

  “Sure. But they’re still alone.”

  “So your ad isn’t really a euphemism? A nice way of—”

  “I know what a euphemism is, Jack. I read books. For a hundred bucks you can ask me questions, but you don’t get to patronize me.”

  “Sorry.”

  We sat. For a while, we didn’t talk. She ran her hands over her hair, slipped it out of the scrunchy, and tightened it back up. Suddenly she started up again.

  “Sure, it’s partly that, euphemistic I mean. But not totally. You know what it does, my ad?”

  “No.”

  “It says this is more than an afternoon quickie, some guy can’t wait for his wife. This is temporary but it’s still a relationship.”