The Driver

“What’s she like as a person?”

“What do you mean?”

He searched for the right word. “Is she stable?”

“She gets bad mood swings. She can be happy one minute and then the whole world is against her the next.”

“You know why?”

He screwed the cigarette in the ashtray and lit another.

“Family.”

He explained. Madison had been born and raised in Ellenville. The place was up in the foothills of the Catskills, right up around Shawangunk Ridge, and it was on its uppers: the local industry had moved out and Main Street had been taken over by dollar stores and pawn shops. Madison had two sisters and a brother; she was the oldest of the four. Her father had left the family when she was five or six. Her mother, Clare — a brassy woman full of attitude — told the children it was because he was a drunk but Madison had always suspected that there was something else involved. She had no memories of her father at all and, whenever she thought of him she would plunge into one of her darker moods. Clare moved a series of increasingly inappropriate men into the house and it was after one of them started to smack her around that the police were called. He had been sent to jail and the children had been moved into foster care. Clare got Madison’s sisters and brother back after a year once she was able to demonstrate that she could provide a stable environment for them but she had left Madison with the family who had taken her in. She would run away to try and get back home and then be taken back into the foster system. There was a series of different places, several well-meaning families, but she never settled with any of them.

“Have you spoken to her mother?”

“Last night. She hasn’t seen her. Same goes for her sisters and brother.”

“Does she get on with them?”

“They used to go at it all the time but I think it’s better now than it was.”

“Why?”

“The others got to grow up at home and she didn’t. She hates that. She said felt like no-one wanted her. Always on the move and never where she wanted to be.”

“Why didn’t her mother take her back?”

“She never said. I think Madison was a little wild when she was younger, though. Maybe they didn’t know what to do with her. She has triggers like we all do, I guess — she’ll go off if she thinks somebody has lied to her, or if we’re ru

“Could that be a reason for what’s happened? Something’s upset her?”

“No,” he said. “She’s been really good with her mom for the last couple of months. They’ve been speaking a lot. Now she’s got money she’s been buying things for them — for her mom, her sisters, for her nieces and nephews, too. I’ve tried to tell her she shouldn’t need to do that but she likes it. They never had much money growing up and now she has some she likes to spread it around, I guess.”

“Alright,” Milton said. “Go on.”

He did. Around the time of seventh grade, Madison moved across country to live with her aunt in San Diego. The woman was young and Madison felt that they had something in common. It was a better town, too, with better schools, and she was encouraged to work hard. That was where her love of reading and writing found expression and she started to do well. For the first time in her life, he said, she felt wanted and useful and she started to thrive.

“Have you spoken to her? The Aunt?”

“No. I don’t have her number.”

Milton’s cellphone vibrated in his pocket. He scooped it up and looked at the display. He didn’t recognise the number.

“John Smith,” he said.

“Mr. Smith, it’s Victor Leonard from Pine Shores. We spoke last night.”

“Mr. Leonard — how are you?”

“I’m good, sir,” the old man said. “There’s something I think you should know — about the girl.”

“Yes, of course — what is it?”

“Look, I don’t want to be a gossip, telling tales on people and nonsense like that, but there’s a fellow who’s been saying some weird things about what happened up here the other night. You want to know about it?”

Trip raised his eyebrows: who is it?

“Please,” Milton said.

12

Milton was getting used to the forty-minute drive to Pine Shores. Trip was in the passenger seat next to him, fidgeting anxiously. Milton would have preferred to go alone but the boy had insisted that he come, too. He had been quiet during the drive but the mood had been oppressive and foreboding; Milton had tried to lighten it with some music. He had thumbed through his phone for some Smiths but then, after a couple of melancholic minutes, realised that that hadn’t been the best choice. He replaced it with the lo-fi, baggy funk of the Happy Mondays. Trip seemed bemused by his choice.

Milton drove to the address that Victor Leonard had given him and parked. It was eleven in the morning. They walked toward the house, a Cape-style cottage, raised high with a carport at ground level. Milton climbed up a set of steps that rose up beyond the level of the sidewalk and rapped the ornate iron knocker three times. There was a vertical panel set into the side of the door and Milton gazed inside: he made out the shape of a telephone table, a flight of stairs leading up to the first floor, a jumble of shoes against the wall, coats draped off the banister. It looked messy. A man turned out a doorway to the left of the lobby and came towards the door; Milton stepped away from the window.

The door opened.

“Dr. Brady?”

“Yes? Who are you?” Andrew Brady was very tall, with a plump face, greasy skin and a pendulous chin. His hair was chestnut streaked with grey and his small eyes had retreated deep into their sockets. He was unshaven and, despite his height, he was overweight and bore his extra pounds in a well-rounded potbelly. He was wearing a fuchsia-coloured windbreaker, a mesh cap and a pair of wading boots that were slicked with dried mud up to just below his knees.

“My name is John Smith. This is Trip Macklemore.”

“I’m sorry, fellas,” he said. “I was just going out. Fishing.” He indicated the waders and a fishing rod that was propped against the wall behind him.

“Could we speak to you? It would just take a moment.”

He glared out from the doorway at them with what Milton thought looked like an arrogant sneer. “Depends on what about.”

“The commotion around here the other night.”

“What commotion?”

“There was a girl. You didn’t hear?”

“The girl — oh, yes.”

“I understand you spoke to her?”

Brady’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Who told you that?”

Milton turned and angled his face towards the house diagonally opposite. “Mr. Leonard. I spoke to him earlier. Is it true?”

“No,” Brady said. “It isn’t.”

“Do you think we could have ten minutes of your time? It’s important.”

“What do you both have to do with her?”

“I’m her boyfriend,” Trip explained.

“And you, Mr. Smith?”

“I’m a taxi driver. I drove her up here the night she went missing. I’d like to see that she gets home safely again.”

“How honourable,” he said with a half-smile that could have been derisory or amused, it was difficult to tell. “A knight of the road.” The bluster was dismissed abruptly and Brady’s face broke out into a welcoming smile. “Of course, of course — come inside.”

Milton got the impression that this was a man who, if not exactly keen to help, liked people to think that he was. Perhaps it was a doctor’s self-regard. He bent down to tug off his boots and left them against the wall amidst the pile of shoes. As he led the way further into the house Milton noticed a small, almost imperceptible limp. He guessed he was in his early fifties but he might have been older; the greasy skin made it difficult to make an accurate guess.