"Andrea Hagner - Dead End Street" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hagner Andrea)

DEAD END STREET
By
Andrea Hagner

It was the sort of street that people come from - not a place they dream about getting to. Short and straight, it was a street that didn't go anywhere. It ended abruptly at the railroad tracks.

The houses, never built to last a lifetime, had already seen three generations of children go from birth to graduation. Crammed together, with barely breathing room between them, each one sagged a bit more than the next.

On the corner house, an all-weather porch had been added - it's jalousie windows rusted in the half open stages of a wet Spring. The house next door had bravely painted porch rails of shiny silver, but spots of the old black paint (or maybe it was mildew) poked through the blisters. It was the third house I was looking for. The brown house with two small windows under the eaves. Windows with shades pulled most of the way down so that it looked like an old man, dozing in the sun. The door, placed dead center on three squat steps, was protected by a flimsy aluminum storm door. The Plexiglas rattled in its frame when I knocked.

It took a minute, but the door eventually opened. A man, as brown and squat as the house, stood there mutely, filling the open space. Light flooded the room behind him, shadowing him from my eyes. He could see me clearly, however. I showed him my ID. He nodded and stood aside for me to enter. Fat sofas and overstuffed beige chairs lined the edges of the square room where we were standing. In the harsh glare of dozens of lamps - floor lamps, table lamps, overhead fixtures and brightly burning reading lamps, every upholstery snag and worn spot was clearly visible. The room was clean, though; light colored wood floors were shiny enough to bounce back the light that was being thrown mercilessly at them.

"I still don't know why you came," my reluctant host waved me over to a particularly lumpy chair. He sat in the matching one nearby, taking off his glasses and rubbing his eyes as he did. "I told you on the phone, I don't know nothing about the boy."

"He's not a boy any longer, Mr. Dawson. Your son is twenty-five years old. When was the last time that you saw him?"

"Last year, maybe. He don't come by too often any more. Never did, truth be told. His Mama and me, we didn't get along. He only showed up here when he was mad at her. Or wanted money that she wouldn't give him."

"How old was he when you and his mother divorced?"

"Bout six or so. She just up and moved out one day. She always hated this neighborhood. Said it depressed her. She didn't want to waste her life on a dead-end street. Can't see that she ended up any better off, though."

I nodded and took out my notebook. I rested it on my knee, looking at Jack Dawson, while I clicked open my pen. He saw me looking at him and avoided my eyes.

"Shouldn't you be out looking for him? Checking with his friends?"

"We're doing that, sir. Trouble is that we can't locate anyone who seems to know him. His employer says Matthew is a real loner. The landlady gave us the same description. We were hoping you could give us some names. Someone who might have some idea where we can find your son."

"Nope. Fraid not. Like I said, I don't see the boy anymore. I have no idea who his friends are."

My pen stayed poised above the notebook. Dawson still avoided my eyes.

"If it was the other way around, if you were looking for me, the boy wouldn't be able to tell you the names of my friends, either, you know. We don't keep track of each other that way. Not that I have that many friends, you know. But the point I'm trying to make is that I have no idea where Matthew might be."

"You said that, sir. And I appreciate that you're trying to be helpful. But, you see, we're coming up empty handed in this investigation. Last Tuesday we got an anonymous call directing us to your ex-wife's apartment. When the officers arrived at the scene, we found her body in the bathtub. The coroner says she'd been dead for at least a day by then. The whole apartment was in disarray, but there was no sign of her son - your son - Matthew. His bedroom was torn apart, too, so it's hard to tell what's missing."

"I always knew the boy would come to no good. Always complaining that life isn't fair. Learned that from his mother. Did the neighbors see anything?"

I shook my head. "Didn't hear a thing, either. They'd only lived there a little over a year. None of the neighbors knew much about her. She kept real private, they say."

"Yep. That's how she was. Never happy anywhere. Always finding fault with every place and everyone. I can see where you got a problem, but I can't help you any. Maria and me haven't spoken to each other for more than twenty years."

"Yet you are named as the beneficiary on her life insurance policy."

"Still? Well, I'll be damned. Her lawyer made us both take out big, fat policies when the divorce was final. So the boy would always be taken care of. In case, you know. But you'd think she would have let that lapse by now. As you pointed out, the boy is all grown up."

"She paid her own premiums, then?" I asked, knowing full well that Dawson had written a check to the insurance company just weeks before.

"I dunno. I guess the bill for her policy might be included with mine. I don't read fine print too good any more. That's why all the lights, you know. Old age is creeping up on me. I remember laughing at my old Granny for needing to sit in a sunny window with a hundred-watt light bulb aimed straight at the sewing in her lap. Now I understand. Wish I had the chance to tell her I'm sorry for laughing, but she's been gone for better than forty years now,"