2. He's Missing
Missing Julian (2 of 7)
(Maria came back to find Julian, among other reasons. Many people are looking for Julian. Every man makes a presence, and their absence leaves a hole. This is the second to last section of Milestone.)
Light had abandoned the island. The clouds hung just out of reach, with a wet north-east wind flapping the grass, cracking the pines, and setting the power wires humming.
Inspector Coffin and his partner had parked next to the windmill.
Danny turned a page.
The old man shifted in his sleep.
Both Abraham and Coffin had dressed warmly for the night. Danny was in a dark blue sweater vest that had “Nantucket Police” on the left breast. Henry was in a gray hoodie sweatshirt. Half of the stuff the old man wore, Danny thought, looked as if it had pulled from the “Take it or Leave it” pile at the dump.
The old man had wanted to park by the DeSalvo house. Not in view, but not out of sight either.
“Why are we here?”
“We go where the trouble is.”
“The trouble here is over.”
“Not yet,” Coffin spoke.
Within minutes, the old man had leaned his head up against the window and fallen asleep. Behind him, Pip had all four legs out and snored.
Two hours later, a dark green Toyota Tundra drove up Prospect Street, slowed near the mill, and pulled into the parking lot where the police were “stationed.” Danny folded the corner of his book and set it down. The truck parked next to them and in the shadow. With his old city reflexes, Danny put his foot near the accelerator and his hand on his gun.
A tall man in a tan work jacket knocked on his window. Danny lowered it.
“Yeah?” He growled.
“Officer?”
“Yeah?” Danny was annoyed and professionally worried.
“Is Coffin with you?”
Danny looked at the still-sleeping Inspector. Good thing this wasn’t an ambush. “He is a little indisposed.”
“I wonder if I could talk to him.”
“You can talk to me.”
“Well, he knows me.”
Danny knew he would always be a Black man on this island.
“Go back to your car, and I will send him over.”
“Thanks.”
The sergeant rolled the window up.
He took his hand off the gun and nudged the Inspector. Henry Coffin’s eyelids fluttered. He sat up, blinked, and was happy for once not to be traveling at 80.
“A man came to visit you.”
“Who is it?”
“No idea.” Danny said. “All of you White people look the same.”
“Where is he?”
“Parked behind us with a shotgun waiting for you to open the door.” Coffin smiled at his partner.
“Okay, no funeral, just dump the ashes off the ferry.”
“Can I put them in my garden?”
“Sure,” he said. “I don’t really care at that point.” Coffin opened the door, stepped out, and stretched.
No shotgun blast.
He moved back to the pickup truck and opened the passenger door.
Steven Graves was a young man who had the curse of looking just like his father. His father, also Steven Graves, had been a fantastically good heating and ductwork contractor. In the late eighties, he had had twelve guys working for him, and six red-panel trucks going from building site to building site. He also loved to bet football and to snort cocaine by the tablespoon. When the bubble burst, the old man flew to the Cape, rented a car, and disappeared. Avis found its Taurus in Tampa.
His son had been eighteen; full of piss, Coors, and kind, kind bud. The creditors came calling two days after his Dad disappeared, then the sheriff came, then the banks.
Coffin and an earlier partner had stopped the boy on Milestone Road with a zip-lock bag on the passenger seat, a bottle of Jack Daniels between his legs, and a shotgun. Coffin had driven him back to his house, broke the seals on the door, and let the kid sleep it off for one last night as a child in his father’s house.
In the ten years since, the boy had cut his father loose in bankruptcy court, kept what the old man had taught him about heating and hard work, got his ticket, and just kept working. He bought a house in Tom Nevers, rebuilt it, and parked his trucks there.
This Tundra was new and clean. Sand hadn’t even built up on the floor. It had a club cab, but the Quaker hadn’t even glanced behind his seat before he sat inside. You got to have faith in something.
“It’s late, Steven.”
“No shit. Why don’t you work normal hours?”
“I would have to stay awake.”
“You could sleep better.”
“I would have to work, though.”
“I hear that.”
They both looked forward.
“My brother, what’s on your mind?”
The young man hesitated.
“I’m missing a guy.”
“What guy?”
“A guy who works for me.”
“Maybe he went home.”
“No, I doubt that.”
Coffin looked at the man, but Graves wouldn’t look him in the face. This concerned the Inspector.
“You don’t want to file a missing person report, do you?”
“I thought I would ask you about it.”
“Why is that?”
Graves looked at the older man. Coffin smiled.
“We haven’t found anybody, but we’ll keep our eyes open,” Henry allowed. “What’s his name?”
“I don’t know.”
“The guy works for you, and you don’t know his name?”
“The guys call him Julian.”
“But you don’t think that’s his real name?”
“It’s not like I take W-2s.”
And there’s the game.
Coffin sighed.
“What does he look like?”
“Tall, thin, curly hair, about 150-170 pounds. Hispanic. Looks like he’s 18.”
“No photo?”
“Christ, no.”
“Well, this should be easy. We must have an entire soccer league full of these guys.”
“I know.”
“When did he go missing?”
“Last week.”
“He’s probably with a girl or he passed out in some house.”
“You don’t know these guys,” Graves said. “They don’t do any of that.”
“What do they do?”
“They work.”
A gust of wind rattled the car. Coffin was doing the math, but it wasn’t adding up.
A white mini-van, a cab, drove by on Pleasant Street.
“Steven, you need to tell me everything.”
“I’m trying to.”
Coffin thought through that answer.
“Why did you look for me at the windmill?”
“I knew you would be here.”
“We are never here.”
“You’ve been here recently.”
“Steven…” Coffin exhaled.
“I needed to find you.”
“Steven, Maria DeSalvo lives in that house. They saw each other, didn’t they?”
He didn’t speak.
“Be straight with me, my brother. It makes both of our lives easier. You come in the middle of the night to tell me about a guy who has been missing for about a week. You come here, to the windmill. You could have phoned this in, and we could have told you to wait another week.”
The younger man was silent for a long moment.
“These guys,” Graves said eventually, “They are great, great workers. None of them have missed a day. Not even an afternoon. Hardest workers I have ever seen. Brazilians. But they don’t talk to anyone but themselves. I talk to one guy, pay that guy, and he pays everyone else. They cook for themselves, don’t drink, don’t do drugs. They just work, lie low, kick a soccer ball, and watch TV. We have been working with Rick.”
“And that’s how Maria met Julian?”
He nodded.
“We thought it was cute. Young love. The old man was pissed.”
“Okay.”
Coffin nodded to the DeSalvo house. “So, about Maria?”
“They used to flirt with each other when we got lunch.”
“Did he tell you he was seeing her?”
“No, but…”
“But?” Coffin said.
He sighed. “We are missing a bike. And Julian.”
Coffin patted his knee.
“Maria doesn’t know where he is. She has had her set of problems.”
Steven sat in silence, looking away.
“Really?”
“She gave him a disposable phone. Some guys took it from him.”
Coffin paused.
“They made trouble for her. She has been off-island for a few days.”
Stephen set back.
“Bad trouble?”
Coffin didn’t answer him.
“These boys. They had the phone. They took it?”
Coffin nodded.
Steven was scared.
Coffin had missed it at the beginning, but here it was. Graves was deep down terrified at losing this guy.
“Julian gave her a Krugerrand. An old South African coin. An ounce of pure gold.”
“I know. I have seen it.”
The young man put his head in his hands. The terror rose in him.
“Steven, tell me more about your Brazilians. Krugerrands aren’t popular with law-abiding people.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. They are great workers.”
“Do they have a lot of gold coins? Do they play poker with them?”
Without looking at the Inspector, the young man shook his head.
“I have no idea.”
“Are they criminals?”
“I don’t know. They are great, great workers.”
“But they are afraid of the old guy?”
“He has one hand.”
“How did that happen?”
“I don’t know.”
Coffin watched the night open before him. Suddenly, there were more stars in the sky.
He patted the young man on his thigh.
“Let me have your cell number.”
After keying the number into his phone, Coffin stepped out from the cab, waved, and got back into the squad car.
The pickup truck drove away.
The Inn on Brant Point (Novella)
Milestone 1: The Boy Who Climbed the Windmill
Milestone 2: Remember
Milestone 3: Snitches Get Stitches
Milestone 4: Survival Ain’t Pretty
2. She Could Recognize Trauma When It Woke Up in her House.
Some of my writing…
Barr’s For Life: A substack of essays and claptrap
The Boat at the End of Lover’s Lane
(NEW) The Girl Who Ran the Polpis Road
The Inn on Brant Point (Novella)
Her Lover on Monomoy Road. (Novella)
Her Father Came Home to Deacon’s Way (Novella)
Love Letters (Novella)
The Fisher King (Novella)
The Costs of Faith (Novella)
Winter: A Collection of Island Living Essays set between January and April 1.
The Boys: A collection of essays about my two sons, written as they grew.
Rolling in the Surf: Essays on Teaching.
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I have just about left all of my AI art behind. I have a few pictures I will still use, since they fit particularly well, but I think with the Homer and the N.C. Wyeth here, y9u can see how the classic art ads depth to my little story.