Gatekeeper

Chapter 10

Gail checked her watch again. She'd arranged to have brunch with Debbie Holton an hour ago, and still the young woman hadn't appeared or left word. Gail was sitting at the window of Walker's Restaurant, on Brattleboro's Main Street-and once again had consumed enough coffee to set her nerves up for a week.

"More coffee?"

Gail started and turned to look at the waitress holding a thermos and a sympathetic expression-a veteran of broken dates plainly yearning to share her advice with the lovelorn.

Gail smiled and shook her head. "No thanks, I think a bathroom and a walk is what I need now."

She paid her bill, used the bathroom, and stepped out onto the sidewalk, lost in the effort of remembering the West Brattleboro motel Debbie had referred to as home for the time being. Debbie had said the name the day before when they'd gone for lunch at the Food Co-op after meeting for the first time on the wooden staircase between Elliot and Flat Streets. But she'd tossed it off incongruously, Gail had thought, since it hadn't been in any context. As a result, it had drifted into the darkness of Gail's subconscious.

Which wasn't a place from where it would likely be retrieved. In Gail's present state of mind, only the here and now, along with a barely hopeful future, were holding sway. She was bent on righting the imagined wrongs of the past and wasn't inclined to cast a reflective glance over her shoulder. Not at the moment. Maybe later, once she'd found some footing in an act of redemption, might she truthfully face her responsibilities regarding Laurie. But right now it was full speed ahead on a tank full of guilt.

At least it was a beautiful day, sunny but not hot, and the weather seemed to imbue the pedestrians she passed with a lightness and grace. And there were a fair number of them. Brattleboro's heart, unlike those of other, more spread out downtowns, is almost channeled in its layout, forcing its frequenters to be corralled down a sloped, slightly curving length of road between two walls of sturdy, dependable, embracing red brick buildings. Throwbacks to an earlier commercial might, garnished here and there with now quaint architectural flourishes, these stolid, flat-roofed buildings, none much higher than five stories, had exchanged an older muscular aura for something gentler over time. Soot-stained, slightly worn, and more filled with reminiscence than relevance nowadays, these side-by-side behemoths had gently sideslipped into something softer-like grandparents whose authority had yielded to bulk and wrinkles and the impression of wisdom and protectiveness.

Suddenly recalling her destination's name against all odds, Gail continued on Main Street across Elliot and descended the steep sidewalk leading to the town's primary "malfunction junction," where four arteries and a large parking lot commingled in anarchy. Shy of that, however, just beyond the Army Navy store, she cut right onto Flat Street to retrieve her car.

She took the backstreets to what the locals called West B, avoiding the major bridge linking the town's halves-sliced by the interstate as surely as by a canyon-and tucked into Western Avenue by Living Memorial Park. There she stayed, clocking the miles, watching the town peter out, until she finally came abreast of the battered, threadbare motel whose name Debbie had mentioned.

Gail parked, got out of the car, and tentatively approached a shedlike office. Given the whole place's appearance, she had no doubt the rates were reasonable and the rooms available by the minute or the month.

Her hand was barely on the screen-door handle when a woman's voice asked, "Who do you want?"

Gail saw a vague, heavyset shadow in the darkness of the office. She didn't open the door. "Debbie Holton."

"Eighteen," came the immediate response.

Gail was about to retreat but then suddenly asked, "How did you know I wasn't looking for a room?"

All she heard was a throaty, incredulous laugh and the slamming of an unseen inner door.

She walked along the ranks of cheap, hollow-core doors, imagining the lives they'd barricaded only poorly. She finally stopped and knocked loudly on number 18.

The door opened after a minute to reveal a thin young man, his eyebrow pierced with a silver post, his cheeks swathed with a wanna-be beard, wearing an expression that changed instantly from surly to lascivious as his half-opened eyes took her in. "Hello, Mama," he said, drawing out the first word.

Both the look and the line were hammy enough that Gail felt none of the fright she'd experienced in meeting the late Roger Novelle. Also, this one had a joint dangling from his lips, which tended to ruin his Lothario image. Nevertheless, this wasn't whom she'd expected to see, and so she stammered as she admitted, "I'm sorry. I think I made a mistake."

Debbie's voice circled around the young man, who was taking his time admiring their caller. "That you, Gail? Come on in. That's Nelson. He likes to be called Kicker, but no one calls him that."

Nelson opened the door wider but didn't move back. He was probably close to twenty, maybe older, but his demeanor remained pure teenager. Gail placed her hand against his chest and gently shoved him out of the way, broadening his smile.

The room was predictably awful-small, cluttered, and messy. The walls were decorated with some magazine pictures and a couple of stolen road signs. The furniture was sparse and in need of a trip to the dump, the bed was a stained, bare mattress. Debbie sat in its middle, her legs crossed, her back against a pile of clothes and pillows. She, too, was holding a joint and a lazy smile.

"Welcome to home sweet home," she said cheerily, a watt and a half too bright to be believable. "Grab a piece of floor and take a load off."

Gail glanced around, feeling Nelson still standing too close for comfort. "That's okay. I just dropped by to see how you were. I thought we were going to have brunch today. I started getting worried."

"No worry" Debbie said. "Everything's A-okay"

"Yeah," Nelson said from right behind her. "Stick around. Want some weed?"

She shifted her weight, leaning away from him, keeping her eyes on Debbie. "No. Should you be doing that?"

The young woman's eyes grew round. "What? This?" She brandished the joint.

"Doesn't it violate the agreement you have with the treatment center?"

Debbie laughed. "God. I guess so. But what they don't know won't hurt them, right?"

Here her eyes narrowed slightly so Gail would get the message.

Nelson moved a couple of inches closer and said in a seductive near miss, "Yeah. Our little secret. Sure you don't want a hit, at least?"

She faced him squarely, giving in to her growing annoyance. "Sit down, junior." She turned toward the bed. "And listen up. This is not about my being your buddy and winking while you ruin your life. I've got one too many on my conscience already. But I can help, and I will help if you meet me halfway."

Nelson had moved across the room, his expression closed.

"Chill out, Gail," Debbie said tiredly. "I'm not ruining my life. You want to know the truth, I'm getting it back together." She dangled the joint between her fingers. "This is nothing-it's like you having a beer. I am getting counseling. You said that yourself. I'm fine."

Gail had a sudden memory of herself at nearly the same age, sitting in a similar setting, albeit on a farm near Marlboro, smoking pot and spouting the same nonsense. To her, as to Debbie right now, the comparison between alcohol and marijuana had been benign and reasonable. But Gail had grown up, become a teetotaler, and no longer saw any benefit to either substance. If weed was a gateway to more addictive drugs, then beer was a gateway to liquor, in her hardened view.

But she knew she couldn't take that line with this girl, especially given the company she was keeping. Nelson might have been as big a threat as he was a ladies' man, but Gail seriously doubted he had Debbie's best interests in mind.

"I'm not going to argue the point here," she said instead. "Not with him around, and not with that crap in your system. I have something to offer you-I can be a guide to the other side, if you like. But you're going to have to come to me next time, and you better be clean."

With that, she turned on her heel, left the room, and slammed the door behind her, making sure they could hear the slap of her heels on the sidewalk as she retreated toward her car.

But her heart wasn't in it. She knew some of the techniques, had seen them used in her volunteer counseling, and didn't need telling that what she'd just laid down was part of a tried-and-true process. But none of it held against her mental snapshot of Laurie lying in that hospital bed-along with the caption that Gail had played a role in putting her there.

She knew full well that if Debbie didn't seek her out in short order, Gail would be back at this motel trying something else. It might be an obsession in the making, but a worthwhile one.

Or so she told herself.

* * *

Joe hung up the phone on Gail's machine without leaving a message. He'd already left two, and worried he was back where he'd been before his midnight visit. Her niece had affected her like a tectonic shift. Gail may have still been walking and talking, albeit under stress, but who knew what had changed underneath?

He was still in Rutland, the meeting having run for hours. They had hashed out everything from procedures and responsibilities to how to prosecute any arrests they might make. They'd even talked about various forfeiture strategies, in case they picked up any money, cars, or valuable property along the way. Notes had been taken, graphs produced, deadlines established, communication webs and chains of command. The most satisfying aspect of it from Gunther's perspective was that the VBI would be playing the support role he'd asked for, across the board, from the Rutland PD, to the state police drug task force, to merely picking up slack where necessary. In all things concerning Sam and whatever she might encounter, however, they were autonomous, free to act spontaneously and instinctively, the only proviso being that McCall be kept inside the circle.

Which was both good and bad news. For, beyond a couple of unsolved homicides, a governor's political pressure, and the overall goal of denting the drug trade, they were primarily responsible for the care and welfare of a single cop. What Sam had done of her own volition now made her the top of the proverbial iceberg, leaving them all to make sure she stayed upright.

Their hopes were that she might open the doors through which they could complete most of the tasks before them. But Joe Gunther's biggest fear was that, were the slightest thing to go wrong, everything could collapse, and he could lose someone as close to him as his own flesh and blood.

He stared at the phone again, thinking back briefly to Gail, wondering what she was up to.

So many loose strings, he thought. So much at risk.