War at Home: A Smokey Dalton Novel Read online

  Jimmy and Malcolm were watching as if they had never seen anything so fascinating.

  “You guys ready for dinner?” I asked as I crouched beside them.

  “Not really,” Jimmy said. “We don’t want to lose our spot.”

  “Your spot?” I asked.

  “Free concert,” Malcolm said. “We thought maybe we’d stay for it, if you don’t mind.”

  “What kind of concert?” I asked.

  “I dunno,” Malcolm said. “The kind my mom would’ve liked, I guess.”

  I studied him for a moment. He rarely mentioned his mother. He was still devastated by her death.

  “What kind of music would that be?” I asked. “Jazz?”

  “Classic,” Jimmy said.

  “Classical music,” Malcolm said softly, as if he were embarrassed by it. “My mom made me listen. I kinda…It’s snotty, but cool….Mom always wanted me to…”

  His voice trailed off. I wasn’t going to push him to continue. I remember what it was like mourning parents; sometimes the memories became too much to deal with, and so you just had to stop.

  But Jimmy didn’t have that compunction. “Your mom wanted you to what?”

  Malcolm looked up at Jimmy as if he had forgotten that Jimmy was there. “She, uh, loved music, and wanted me to be as musical as she was.”

  “Were you?” Jimmy was interested. So was I. I suddenly realized how little Malcolm talked about himself.

  “I liked church choir.” Malcolm shrugged. “I taught myself a little piano. I’d heard that college…”

  His voice trailed off again. I was going to put my hand on Jimmy’s shoulder, to silence him, but didn’t reach him in time.

  “You heard that college what?” Jimmy asked.

  This time Malcolm didn’t look at him. This time, he was staring at the makeshift stage. “College sometimes loaned you instruments, so that you could learn. At least for piano. Drums, too.”

  There was so much longing in his voice that even Jimmy heard it. Jimmy looked at the chairs, lined up on the Green, then back at Malcolm.

  “How come you never told Althea? She’d get you into choir.”

  A little boy’s solution, with a little boy’s simplicity. Malcolm gave Jimmy a fond look, and that seemed to break the spell.

  “Could you imagine me practicing vocal scales in that house?” he asked. Then he sang one, revealing a voice that had incredible purity. “You guys would’ve laughed me out of there.”

  “I wouldn’t have.” Jimmy was looking at Malcolm with as much awe as I felt.

  I’d had musical talent as a child, enough to sing a solo at the very last concert I’d performed in, the weekend my parents died, but I’d never had the dream that Malcolm seemed to. Malcolm seemed to have set aside that dream and accepted that he would never achieve it.

  Yet here, sitting on this long lawn, with trees three times older than all of us combined, and churches hundreds of years old along the edge of the common, Malcolm’s dream resurfaced. I couldn’t deny him an evening of music.

  “I’ll get some takeout,” I said. “You guys stay here.”

  They did. I left, and stood in a long line at a nearby diner that offered a Concert on the Green picnic special. I brought it back, and we spent the warm summer evening listening to the New Haven Symphony Orchestra playing, mixing crowd-pleasers like Anderson’s “Bugler’s Holiday” and less common pieces like Gottschalk’s “Night in the Tropics.”

  For the first time, it seemed like a vacation, even though I knew the feeling wouldn’t last.

  * * *

  On the drive back, I asked Malcolm if he thought Daniel was violent. Malcolm leaned his head against the back of the seat, as if he was thinking hard.

  Then he shrugged. “I’ve never seen him do anything violent. But then, the thing about Daniel is that he’ll do what it takes.”

  “What it takes to do what?”

  “Whatever he wants. If he wants a scholarship, he’ll study his ass off. If he wants some girl, he’ll charm her until he gets her.”

  “What would he gain from violence?” I asked.

  Malcolm sat up, looking at the road ahead of us. “I don’t know,” he said softly. “Daniel usually works with his brains. I can’t imagine him walking around beating people up.”

  But guns and bombs weren’t about beating people up. They were distance weapons, and someone with a brain could make a plan involving them.

  I felt very unsettled as I drove. Until this afternoon, I had felt like I was gaining an understanding of Daniel Kirkland. Now I wasn’t sure I knew who he was at all.

  TWENTY-TWO

  That night was filled with sirens. They seemed to go on forever. Every time one ended, another began.

  Sirens — fire, police, ambulance — were a way of life in Chicago, and I hadn’t noticed they were missing here until they ran from about eleven P.M. until about two A.M.

  I had late-night guard duty, and I was especially watchful. If another major crime had gone down, I would be prepared this time for Sanford and Prauss. And this time, they wouldn’t get into the hotel room. In fact, this time, they’d get more than they bargained for.

  But no cops showed up, despite my vigilance. We spent a goodly part of Saturday morning in the hotel room while I made my phone calls to Grace’s list—which I was beginning to think was worthless—and to the Whickam house and office.

  No answers, of course. I tried to reach Grace, too, but no one answered at her place either.

  We headed out, making sure we left nothing in the hotel room, and after some luscious pastries at a local bakery we went back down to the Green.

  I dropped the boys at the library, and then I went out to see if I could find the address Claire had given me. The address was on the corner of DeWitt and Putnam, in an area of houses that had been condemned.

  The building I was looking for was an old sprawling Victorian. Outside, the building looked like one good wind would knock it over, but someone had fixed up the interior. The stairs had been repaired with new boards supporting the old. Holes in the wall had been patched but not painted, and a number of the apartment doors had shiny new deadbolt locks on them.

  The door to the third-floor apartment was open. Someone had placed an old table fan on the floor, blowing air into the hallway. The heat up here was intense.

  A slight clanking made me understand why: The radiators still worked, and they were on. No one had shut them off for the summer. Maybe no one knew how.

  The entire place smelled of dirty clothes and human sweat. I was getting tired of those odors. At least the scent of marijuana didn’t overlay them.

  I knocked on the door, leaned in, and called, “Hello!”

  No one answered, and my voice echoed enough to make me worry that the apartment was empty. I shoved the door open the rest of the way, and stepped past the fan into a messy kitchen. Dirty dishes sat on the counter, and had been there so long that they no longer had an odor. Water dripped into the sink, leaving a rust stain.

  A table with a broken leg was propped against the only wall without cupboards. Sunlight poured into the hallway from the rooms beyond. I shouted hello again and still got no answer.

  The apartment got hotter the farther in I went. A window was open in a bedroom off the kitchen. Dust bunnies covered the hardwood floor, and a shirt lay crumpled in the corner. To my right was a bathroom. Another door opened into it, probably from the next bedroom.

  I opened the door to that second bedroom. This room looked lived in. Clothes strewn everywhere, an unmade bed, and papers on every surface. I was about to step inside when I heard the floor creak behind me.

  I turned. A white woman was standing at the very end of the hall, her arms crossed. She was young, maybe twenty, her long hair going all the way past her hips.

  “Who the hell are you?” she asked.

  “My name is Bill,” I said. “I’m looking for Daniel Kirkland.”

  “Danny’s not here,” she said.
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br />   “When will he be back?” I asked.

  “Not ever,” she said, then raised her eyebrows for emphasis. “And I’m moving out, too. This building’s been condemned.”

  “I know,” I said. “Look, I’m here from Chicago. I’m searching for Daniel for his mother. There’s a family emergency, and she can’t seem to find him.”

  “Should’ve called the police,” the girl said, obviously not buying my story.

  “She did. Then she called me. I specialize in finding things.”

  “Danny’s not a thing,” she said.

  “He’s not easy to find either,” I said. “If he doesn’t live here anymore, where is he staying?”

  “Why should I tell you? I don’t know you. You make claims, but I have no clue if they’re correct.” She hadn’t moved from her position at the end of the hall.

  “I have identification, if that helps.” I reached into my back pocket.

  “A license?”

  “Not a detective’s license. Grace didn’t want anything that formal or that expensive. She doesn’t have a lot of money.”

  The woman’s eyes narrowed. I pulled out my wallet, removed my driver’s license, and held it between two fingers so that she could look at it.

  “You can at least see that I’m being truthful about my name and my address,” I said.

  She didn’t leave her position at the end of the hall. I suddenly realized that she was afraid of me. Her position gave her courage: it covered her back and gave her two doorways to escape through, should she need them.

  We were alone in this apartment; her behavior told me that.

  I took two cautious steps toward her, then leaned forward so that she could take the license from me. She did, looked at it, then handed it back.

  I slipped it inside my wallet and replaced it in my pocket.

  “I don’t deal with narcs,” she said.

  “I’m not a narc. If you can get him a message, that would be fine.”

  She didn’t make any promises. Instead, she raised those eyebrows again, as if she were encouraging me to continue.

  “Tell him that Bill Grimshaw’s looking for him. I’m at the Motor Court across from the Yale Bowl, and I’ll be there at least through Monday. I need to talk to him about his family.”

  “If there’s a family emergency, then shouldn’t he just phone home?”

  “That’ll do, too,” I said, although it wouldn’t resolve my work in the case. A phone call from Daniel might put Grace’s mind at ease, but I wasn’t happy with all of this talk of bombs and guns. I wanted to find Daniel myself if I could.

  She shook her head, then held up her hands. “I’m not involved in his stuff any more, to be honest. You’d be better off talking to someone else.”

  “Is there someone else to talk to?” I asked.

  “I’d head to the Barn, if I were you,” she said.

  “The Barn?”

  “Out by Branford. That’s all I know. That’s all I want to know.”

  Something in her tone alerted me. “What’s the Barn?”

  “Don’t be a square, man,” she said. “Just head out there, take care of your business and leave. And I’d bring some backup with you. They might take you for a cop.”

  “What kind of place is this Barn?” I asked.

  “Frickin’ dangerous, man,” she said. “I wouldn’t get near it. I don’t even know exactly where it is, only that most of the group moved there in May. Maybe BSAY knows or the SDS down on campus. But I’m not telling you anything else.”

  “Is Daniel in some kind of trouble?”

  She laughed, but the sound had no amusement in it. “When isn’t Danny in trouble?”

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “You know he nearly killed a guy last fall, right?”

  “Yes,” I said, and she started with surprise.

  “Then you probably know that he’s only gotten worse,” she said. “I was glad when he left, him and his friends. I was glad to have this place to myself.”

  She flushed, then bit her lower lip. She didn’t want me to know she was alone. Maybe she wasn’t planning to move out after all. Maybe she was squatting here.

  “Why?” I asked. “Was it the guns that bothered you?”

  “You know about the guns?” she asked, sounding surprised.

  I nodded.

  “That isn’t good.” Her voice was soft, and I doubted the comment was meant for me. She grabbed her long hair, gathered it into a ponytail, then let it fall down her back.

  I waited. The warmth and the quiet of the building made us seem like the only two people in the world.

  “It wasn’t the guns or the….” She paused, as if she caught herself. “Or the rhetoric. It was…it was me. I couldn’t take it any more. I got clean, and once you’re clean, if you want to stay that way, you have to change some habits, get rid of the people around you who use.”

  “I heard that Daniel didn’t use.”

  Her smile was bitter. “Maybe not drugs, at least he didn’t take them. But he used them with other people. He bought, then doled them out, so that other people would do what he wanted. And when you used, man, that seemed like the best thing. Free cake, free ice cream, no real cost. Until you find yourself doing things you don’t want to do.”

  “Like what?” I asked the question softly so that I didn’t startle her and stop the confession.

  “Getting stuff. Components…doing stuff you wouldn’t normally do just for favors. Things I don’t want to remember.”

  I shivered. I didn’t like what I was hearing. “Why did he leave?”

  “Two reasons,” she said. “He thought the cops were on to us, which wasn’t the main thing. The main thing was that I’d come back from the drug clinic, and there’s Danny, offering me junk again. And I lost it. I mean, lost it. I grabbed one of his guns and threatened him with it. Chased him out of here so damn fast, he didn’t know what hit him. When he tried to come back for his stuff, I wouldn’t let him in.”

  “What about his friends?”

  She shook her head, as if the memory bothered her. “They didn’t want to live with a crazy woman. And some of them didn’t want to be junk-free. So some of them went with Danny. A few came with me to the clinic. We’ve been pulling it together. I’ve got a job now, and enough saved so that I can get a real apartment come fall. Maybe I’ll even be able to go back to school next year, if I can stay off the stuff. The pressure gets to me, you know?”

  I nodded, mostly to encourage her to continue.

  “So there you have it,” she said. “That’s why I don’t want to give Danny your message, why I don’t know exactly where the Barn is, and why I don’t ever want to see him again.”

  Without waiting for my response, the girl disappeared into one of the side rooms.

  I stood there for a moment, looking at the dust floating in the sunlight-filled hallway. Her shadow crossed the floor, growing large, then small again as she checked to see if I was still there.

  I was, but only because my stomach was churning. Guns and bombs and using people. If all that I’d been hearing was true, Daniel was planning something.

  But what?

  TWENTY-THREE

  When we got back to the hotel, I called Grace. This time, she was home.

  “Did you find him?” she asked.

  “I have some leads.” I wasn’t sure how to broach the topic of Daniel’s violence. I didn’t want Grace to get angry at me, but I needed some questions answered.

  “Good ones?”

  “Ones I’m not sure I believe,” I said.

  Malcolm and Jimmy, who were sitting on the edge of one of the beds, looked at me questioningly. I hadn’t yet told them about my day.

  “What did you hear?” Grace asked.

  “I’ve heard twice now that Daniel’s violent. Has he ever hit something when he lost his temper or gotten into fights?”

  “Daniel?” Grace laughed. “He’s always said that anyone who can’t talk h
is way out of a fight is stupider than he looks.”

  That was my sense of Daniel as well.

  “Has he ever condoned violence?”

  She didn’t answer me. I wished I could see her. I didn’t know if she was thinking or if the question had disturbed her.

  “After the convention,” she said slowly, “he said something about how this country only understands violence. But it didn’t sound like he was condoning it.”

  “Did he buy a gun then?”

  “Daniel?” She sounded shocked. “No, of course not.”

  I sighed, but not loudly. I didn’t want her to hear me. “If you remember anything, would you let me know?”

  “What’s he done?” she asked.

  I had no answer for her. So I told her the truth. “I don’t know yet, but I’m doing my best to find out.”

  * * *

  When I hung up, Malcolm wanted to know what I had learned.

  “Let’s get some dinner,” I said, “and I’ll tell you.”

  We ended up having pizza in the park, sitting outside because I didn’t want to talk about Daniel anyplace we could be overheard. I had to relay part of what happened the day before, because I hadn’t had a chance after the concert. As I told them about the first apartment, I mentioned the reference to weather.

  “Oh, man,” Malcolm said, “we’re getting in way over our heads.”

  I looked at him. The sun was going down, casting shadows through the trees that surrounded us. The three of us were sitting on the merry-go-round. Jimmy was the farthest back, leaning on the very center. Malcolm and I sat in opposite slices of the metal pie, cross-legged and facing each other. The pizza — or what remained of it — was on Jimmy’s section, sitting uneasily on the bumpy metal top.

  “This weather reference means something to you?” I asked.

  “Oh, yeah,” Malcolm said. “I saw the damn document.”

  “What document?”

  “ ‘You Don’t Have to be a Weatherman to Know Which Way the Wind is Blowing.’ ” He said that with great contempt.