Gone, Baby, Gone - Dennis Lehane [138]
She nodded, and I almost winced to see how easily she bought Ryerson’s lies.
“Lionel helps a friend of his who sells antiques. Ted Kenneally. He and Lionel have been friends since grade school. Ted owns Kenneally Antiques in Southie. Every month or so, they drive to North Carolina and drop some off in a town called Wilson.”
Ryerson nodded. “The antiques center of North America, yes, ma’am.” He smiled. “I’m from those parts.”
“Oh. Is there anything I could help you with? Lionel will be back tomorrow afternoon.”
“Well, sure, you could help. Mind if I ask you a bunch of boring questions I’m sure you’ve been asked a thousand times already?”
She shook her head quickly. “No. Not at all. If it can help, I’ll answer questions all night. Why don’t I make some tea?”
“That’d be great, Mrs. McCready.”
While Matt continued to color, we drank tea and Ryerson asked Beatrice a string of questions that had long ago been answered: about the night Amanda disappeared, about Helene’s mothering skills, about those early crazy days after Amanda had first disappeared, when Beatrice organized searches, established herself as media contact, plastered the streets with her niece’s picture.
Every now and then Matt would show us his progress on the picture, the skyscrapers with rows of misaligned window squares, the clouds and dogs he’d added to the paper.
I began to regret coming here. I was a spy in their home, a traitor, hoping to gather evidence that would send Beatrice’s husband and Matt’s father to prison. Just before we left, Matt asked Angie if he could sign her cast. When she said of course, his eyes lit up and he took an extra thirty seconds finding just the right pen. As he knelt by the cast and signed his full name very carefully, I felt an ache creep behind my eyes, a boulder of melancholia settle in my chest at the thought of what this kid’s life would be like if we were right about his father, and the law stepped in and blew this family apart.
But still, the overriding concern remained strong enough to stanch even my shame.
Where was she?
Goddammit. Where was she?
Once we’d left, we stopped at Ryerson’s Suburban as he peeled the cellophane from another thin cigar, used a sterling silver cutter to snip the end. He looked back at the house as he lit it.
“She’s a nice lady.”
“Yes, she is.”
“Great kid.”
“He’s a great kid, yeah,” I agreed.
“This sucks,” he said, and puffed at the cigar as he held the flame to it.
“Yes, it does.”
“I’m going to go stake out Ted Kenneally’s store. It’s, what, like a mile from here?”
Angie said, “More like three.”
“I didn’t ask her the address. Shit.”
“There’s only a few antique stores in Southie,” I said. “Kenneally’s is on Broadway, right across from a restaurant called Amrheins.”
He nodded. “Care to join me? Could be the safest place for both of you right now with Broussard out there on the loose.”
Angie said, “Sure.”
Ryerson looked at me. “Mr. Kenzie?”
I looked back at Beatrice’s house, the yellow squares of light in the living room windows, thought of the occupants on the other side of those squares, the tornado they weren’t even aware of circling their lives, gathering strength, blowing and blowing.
“I’ll meet you guys.”
Angie gave me a look. “What’s up?”
“I’ll meet you,” I said. “I got to do something.”
“What?”
“Nothing big.” I put my hands on her shoulders. “I’ll meet you. Okay? Please. Give me some room here.”
After a long look in my eyes, she nodded. She didn’t like it, but she understands my stubbornness as she understands her own. And she knows how useless it is to argue with me at certain times, the same way I recognize those moments in her.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Ryerson said.
“Oh, no,” I said. “Not me.”
It was a long shot, but it paid off.
At two in the morning, Broussard, Pasquale, and a few other members of the DoRights football squad left the Boyne. By the way they hugged in the parking lot, I could tell