Adermoor Cove Part 3: Many Sleepless Nights - 6. Chapter 6

For as long as Carlos could remember, his father had lived in the house on Maggerly Hill. To get there you had to take Donovan Road to the western parts of the island, turning right on Maggerly Road. The road rose slightly before careening off. If it wasn’t for the big PRIVATE PROPERTY sign Carlos suspected no one would have known the house was there. Enzo had always been a man who valued his privacy and prying eyes were the last thing he wanted. Now Carlos found himself driving up Maggerly Road with the full intention of confronting his father on what he had found at the Stanton lighthouse.

The house came into view, a one story home with a screened in porch. The house had been built in the mid 1850s. Sitting next to the house was the old outhouse. Carlos remembered many nights, feeling adventurous, rather than use the bathroom in the house, he would run outside and use the outhouse. Back then it had been easy to transport himself to another time, before people had the modern conveniences of indoor plumbing. Now, looking at it through burning eyes, Carlos couldn’t understand why his father had never torn it down.

The day had turned into a blistering sauna. The summer sun beat down on Carlos without mercy. Already he could feel the sweat beginning to drip down his forehead. His mind spun ceaselessly, running through the script he’d come up with on the way here, but every time he thought he might have a handle on it, emotion took the words away: Anger, betrayal, confusion, the need to understand.

He remembered everything. He remembered everything now. It was like remembering who you were after wandering around aimlessly, like waking up after so long being asleep. The fog had finally been lifted. He now remembered how Misses Dandridge had grabbed a hold of him, her eyes black as night. There had been black gunk coming out of her mouth, the same color as her beetle-shell eyes. She had tried to hurt him, tried to infect him with whatever it was she was sick with but somehow he’d gotten away, wriggling free from her grasp and running up the stairs to the main level of the school. He remembered collapsing in the middle of the hallway, sobbing, and then being found by the school principal at the time, Robert Larson. He remembered telling Larson his story, how he’d snuck out of class to sneak down to the boiler room, how Misses Dandridge had tried to hurt him. He remembered Larson calling his father and Enzo coming to the school, and he remembered Enzo driving him home that day, saying, Don’t you worry about a thing, Carlos. Everything will be taken care of. She won’t hurt you ever again.

Now, as he approached the screen door with his eyes burning from sleep deprivation, his polo stained with sweat and sticking to his chest, Ramona’s words from the car repeated in his head like a broken record: Your father had to come and take you home because you said she attacked you...and then after that she just disappeared and was never heard from again.

People disappear a lot from this town…

It seemed to take forever to reach the door; Carlos knew he should be at home trying to catch up on sleep, it was his day off after all, but the horror he’d discovered at the lighthouse wouldn’t let him be. With the Ziploc bag in his hand he opened the screen door with the other. He let himself into the house through the main entrance with his copy of the house key. The inside of the house felt cool with air conditioning.

The inside of the house looked just how he always remembered it. The same two threadbare armchairs his father seemed incapable of parting with, the rickety old coffee table, and wooden entertainment center. Only instead of the clunky television there was now a slimmer fancier flatscreen. The TV trays they used to eat their meals on as they watched the Red Sox games were still leaning up against the wall, next to the framed pictures of Carlos and his dad. The photographs went from when Carlos was a baby, on through his toddler and teenaged years, to the day he got his high school diploma, and then the day he left for college. In the photos with his dad in them, Enzo was always dressed in his officers uniform. He never smiled but Carlos supposed there might have been a glint of love and pride in Enzo’s dark eyes,

There were no pictures of his mother, Juanita.

“Dad?” he called. He thought he could hear the sound of running water coming from the bathroom. He followed the sound through the living room down the hallway. The bathroom door was open. He peeked around the door and found Enzo standing at the bathroom sink, facing the mirror. He’d lathered the lower half of his face with shaving cream and was now carefully scraping it away with a razor blade.

“Dad?” Carlos said again.

To his surprise Enzo jumped. “Mierda!” He spun around with a towel bunched in his hand. Blood had begun to flow from a cut on his chin. It was strange to see the old man startled. Carlos had always thought him incapable of being afraid.

“Mal contigo!” Enzo shouted. “You shouldn’t sneak up on a man while he’s shaving.”

“Sorry,” Carlos said. “ I called for you but you didn’t hear me.”

“How could I hear you over the running water? I was just stopping by the house to shave and have a beer before I went back to the station. I have a press conference about Vanessa Stanton’s death and then I have to pick up her autopsy records from the morgue. Want to join me for that beer? I got the good stuff. Modelo.”

Carlos opened his mouth to ask the questions he’d come here to ask but reconsidered. There was a part of him reluctant to his confront his father, to throw questions and accusations in his face. It had been a long time since they’d had a father-son moment. Years in fact. What could one beer with the old man hurt?

“Okay,” he said.

They sat at the kitchen table across from one another with their beer. It was nice and cold, refreshing after being at the mercy of the sweltering heat outside. It was strange to be drinking with his father like this. Since moving back to his hometown from Boston, Carlos and Enzo hadn’t really had a real father-son moment. He realized with a sinking feeling in his chest, Carlos didn’t know his father anymore. Maybe I never really did, he thought.

“How’s the beer?” Enzo asked, a weak attempt at trying to make conversation.

“It’s good.”

“Good. It’s the only beer I really like.”

A moment of awkward silence.

“I’m sorry we haven’t had a chance to do this,” said Enzo. “Being sheriff isn’t easy. I’ve always got my plate full.”

No, Carlos thought, taking a swig of his beer, you keep your plate full.

“And I’ll be honest, when you came back to Adermoor Cove it was kind of surprising. When you were a teenager you were so hellbent on getting away from this town. Then again...” Enzo chuckled. “...you know the saying.”

They repeated the saying together: “People who leave Adermoor Cove always return one way or another...”

“Why did you return?” Enzo asked. “Did the city life become too fast for you?” You came out sounding like ya.

“I guess that’s one way to look at it,” said Carlos. “I guess I just got tired of the killing and raping.”

“The killing and the raping happens everywhere, even here, son. This town ain’t perfect. Boston however is a whole hell of a lot bigger than our little island and has a lot more people so it happens more frequently. I can’t imagine the things you must’ve seen there.”

For the past minute or so a question had been nudging at the back of Carlos’s head. He’d tried to clamp a lid on it because he already had an idea what Enzo’s answer would be, but the question wouldn’t stop nudging him because it came from a place of hurt and resentment. “Why did you never come and visit me when I was in Boston?”

Enzo shifted slightly in his chair, looking uncomfortable. “Like I said it takes a lot to be sheriff, even in a town of this size.”

“I was in Boston for over fifteen years. You mean to tell me in all that time you couldn’t come and visit me just once?” Carlos’s voice had become sharper than he meant it to be but there was no going back; he’d taken the lid off a jar that had been trying to burst open for quite some time. He thought about all the phone calls he’d made to his father: You should take some time off and come to the city ol’ man. You can relax and have a blast. In the end his father always said, Sure...I don’t know when...You know how busy work gets...And every time, with a sinking feeling in his chest, Carlos knew his father was blowing him off, that he would never come to see him in Boston. And with every missed event, graduation, getting accepted in the police academy, the resentment grew.

“Did you come here just to fight with me?” Enzo asked. “Because you know today is not the day for it.” His voice was calm mostly, but underneath there was a wariness Carlos had never heard before; it only fueled his anger towards his father.

“When will there ever be a time to say the things we really want to say to each other?” he snapped. It was a fight to keep his voice controlled. “Because like everything else on this fucking island our nice cheery father-son relationship is nothing but bullshit.”

“If you’re worried about not having seen each other in fifteen years then let me make the point you could’ve come here to see me,” Enzo said in that same infuriatingly monotone voice.

“That’s not the point I’m trying to make. How many times did I offer to pay your travel expenses to get there? You remember when I graduated from Harvard top of my class? When I got accepted into the police academy or when I got my big promotion from beat cop to detective? I offered to pay your way each time just because I wanted you to be there but you weren’t there for any of those things.”

Enzo stood up from the table. “I’ve got too much to do today to be getting into an argument with you. You’re goddamn near forty years old - act like it...”

Carlos slapped the Ziplock bag down on the table and said nothing.

Enzo looked down at it with wide eyes. “What is that?”

“I went to the lighthouse last night and found this. It attacked me last night in the tower...almost killed me. Now you can pretend and lie all you want but I know you know Lane Hardy is telling the truth about what happened between him in Vanessa. There’s something wrong about this town, there always has been.”

He watched his father step away from the table, shaking his head. “You don’t know what you’re saying. That man killed Vanessa and you know it...threw her right off the tower.” He began to walk towards the front door.

“Don’t you walk away from me!” Carlos screamed after him, jumping to his feet. “I remember what happened to Miss Dandridge! She was infected with whatever this...this is!” He threw the Ziplock bag with the insect in it at his father. He watched his father flinch slightly and take a step back, confirming what he knew to be true. He panted, trying to catch his breath. “She attacked me...and you did something to her, didn’t you? Ramona remembers. Miss Dandridge...was never seen again after that day...”

Enzo shook his head with a sad look on his face. "It's just like when you were a kid...when you couldn't sleep, after Miss Dandridge tried to strangle you. The doctor said it was trauma from what happened in the boiler room. He had to give you medication just so you could sleep."

"No." Carlos shook his head, stabbing a finger in his father's direction. "Don't you fucking patronize me." But already he could feel the doubt beginning to creep over him, his conviction fading like water seeping through his fingers.

Enzo continued as if he hadn't heard his son. Still his voice was calm, soothing. Enzo had never been one to shout. "Miss Dandridge was psychotic. She refused to take her meds. Why do you think her husband divorced her and her only daughter daughter wanted nothing to do with her? And this was over twenty years ago."

The seed of doubt had been planted. Now Carlos was so tired he wanted nothing more than to sleep; at this point laying right down here on the floor would have been fine with him. "What happened to her?"

"She was placed here in the local insane asylum. Unfortunately she committed suicide not long after she was put there."

How convenient, Carlos thought.

Enzo walked up to Carlos and put his hand on his shoulder. "I have to go Carlos. I suggest you stay here and get some sleep. You can use my bed if you want to. Okay?"

"Okay," Carlos said.

He watched his father leave through the front door. The house was completely silent and cool now. He went back into Enzo's bedroom and fell into the bed. He realized he'd left the Ziplock bag with the evidence in it on the floor where he'd thrown it as his father.

I'll pick it up later when I wake up, he thought, and fell asleep.

                                                       ...

He snapped awake at four o' clock and remembered the Ziplock bag. He staggered out of bed, feeling drunk with grogginess. I need to get back in bed and sleep some more, he thought. But there was no time to sleep. There was too much to do, too much going wrong.

When he went back into the hallway the baggie was gone. Carlos stood there for a long time, staring at the spot where it landed, halfway to the front door, and wondered if it had been a part of some dream he’d forgotten; in reality his mind was just trying to jump into gear. The bastard took it, he thought. He waited until he thought I was asleep and took it so I won’t be able to prove anything. He’s probably chucked it into the ocean. And he emotionally manipulated me. Yeah, Dad, you’re such a standup guy.

The anger he felt was a distant thing. In many ways he knew it was going to happen; he’d known for a long time Enzo was a big part of what was wrong with this place: Instead of dealing with the forces on the island he covered it up so the outsiders who came to the island during the summer wouldn’t notice. It was like a cheesy cliche straight out of a horror movie.

He checked his pockets to make sure he had his car keys. He left the house without bothering to lock the door. As he drove towards the center of town he tried to think of another plan. There had to be something he could do to expose Enzo’s lies. I’m not ready to give up just yet.

Carlos pulled to a stop in front of a red light on Maine Street. It seemed half of the town had gathered on the lawn of the courthouse. His father stood at a wooden podium, dressed in his sheriff’s uniform, with the mayor of Adermoor Cove, Peter Richardson, standing behind him in his expensive three piece suit, his greying blonde hair combed over and glued into place with hair mousse. Carlos always thought Richardson looked like an extra straight from an 80’s movie. All of the reporters and photographers from The Adermoor Cove Chronicle were there, and of course Lucille Farmsworth, Annabelle Farmsworth’s grandmother was there in all her Christian fanatic glory along with the rest of her church posse.

But there was only one person standing several feet away from the crowd, leaning casually against a tree that interested him.

Lane Hardy.

Carlos parked the car, got out, and crossed the lawn towards Lane. He could hear his father’s voice saying, “The evidence indicates her death was a suicide...” followed by the shouts from several of the reporters trying to catch his attention.

Lane Hardy saw Carlos and began to walk away, a canvas bag swinging at his side. He walked at a stolid pace, not moseying along but not hurrying either.

“Wait,” Carlos said, jogging to catch up. “I want to talk to you.”

“Well I don’t want to talk with you. I never liked cops before but now I fucking hate them.” The younger man’s voice trembled with barely suppressed anger.

“I’m not a cop today. I left my badge at home.”

Lane stopped, turned to Carlos. “Look, I don’t want to talk right now. I’m done talking. The longer I’m on this shitty fucking island the more I just want to vomit.”

“I know the feeling. Try being from here.”

“Technically I am from here.”

“Right,” Carlos, unsure whether or not he believed the fact.

Lane must have picked up on the tone because he said, “I have proof in this bag, not that I need to prove anything. You know what, never mind. I’m out of here.”

“No, wait, please.” Before he could stop himself Carlos grabbed Lane’s arm. Lane pulled his arm free, a hand clenched into fist. It seemed he was getting ready to hit Carlos. This was not going at all how he’d wanted it to go. He dropped his voice to an octave above a whisper. “Listen I believe you, okay? I believe you didn’t kill your aunt and I believe something infected her and made her attack you. Something similar happened to me when I was a kid.”

Something like understanding might’ve flashed through Lane’s eyes. “So? Why should I care?”

Is he always this much of an asshole? Carlos thought. He struggled to keep his patience. “Look, I want to help you if I can but I also need to know what you know. Can we go somewhere and talk? All I want to do is talk - but not here, around all these people.”

Lane tapped his foot thoughtfully for a few seconds. “Okay,” he said, “You get me a cheeseburger and I’ll make you a deal. I’m starving.”

Carlos smiled. “I can do that.”