Page 32 of Whistle

“Just thought I’d mention it so you’d know what you might be up against. Osama’s minions right here in Vermont.”

“You have a good day, Gavin.”

Harry stepped out of the way to let a woman in a dark green pantsuit exit the diner, then went in. Jenny had already filled his mug and had it on the counter in front of the stool closest to the cash register. Harry hauled his butt up onto the padded cushion, reached for the sugar dispenser, poured in a generous amount, and gave the black liquid a stir.

“You’re an angel from heaven, Jenny.”

“And you look like hell,” she said.

Jenny had always been one to give it to him straight. She’d been slinging bacon and eggs and hash browns since Harry’s dad brought him here for the occasional breakfast back in the seventies. Jenny was pushing that magic number herself, still working at an age when most had retired, but she showed no signs of slowing down, except for the odd complaint about her aching feet.

“Can I get a bacon sandwich or something for Gavin out there? He’s not lookin’ all that great. Put it on my tab.”

“Tab? You gotta tab?”

“Just put it on there.”

“How about you?”

“Just coffee.”

“Bullshit. You need something to eat. You’ve lost five pounds this last month.”

More like eight or nine, he thought. There was a tossed copy of theLucknow Leadertwo stools over. Harry grabbed it, unfolded it to see the front page, ignoring the egg yolk stain across the banner. The lead story was not, for a change, about the two Lucknow men who had been missing for more than a month now. Angus Tanner, a fifty-two-year-old maple syrup producer, married thirty years, father of two. It had been a Tuesday, and sometime between leaving the factory and heading home, he vanished. And then a couple of days later, Walter Hillman, twenty-five, single, assistantmanager of a Business Depot, didn’t come to work one day. Someone finally went to his home—he lived on his own in a one-room apartment in a rooming house—and he was gone.

In both cases, there was no sign of foul play, but nor was there any indication that they had voluntarily walked away from their lives in Lucknow. No charges to credit cards, no withdrawals from cash machines. And in both cases, their cars—Tanner’s 1996 Dodge minivan and Hillman’s 1984 Toyota Celica—had been left behind.

But a story like that, of two town men disappearing, didn’t stay on the front page of the local rag without developments. There’d been updates for the first ten days or so, then a story every couple of days, then maybe one a week. There were theories; chief among them, and without any supporting evidence, was that the two men had run off together. Hillman was gay, but if Tanner was, he’d kept that part of his life a secret.

Harry wasn’t buying it. Not that he had a theory that was any better. And then came that call in the middle of the night—just a few hours earlier—about something suspicious being found in a ditch on one of the county roads about ten miles out of town. He didn’t know how long he could keep a lid on that. Especially since there’d been a local in attendance who wasn’t likely to stay quiet.

“I’ve been hearing some things,” Jenny said, putting in front of him a plate with two pancakes stacked on it. She leaned in close enough to whisper. “Out Miller’s Road way. Lots of flashing lights.”

Well, there you go, Harry thought. Word was already getting around.

“People talk,” he said, shrugging. “Thanks for the pancakes. Got some extra syrup?”

She reached down the counter, brought back a bottle, and set it in front of him. “I heard you found something. Or somebody. Emphasis onbody.”

Harry was about to reply when the woman in the green pantsuit, who had left moments earlier, came back in and asked Jenny, “Did anybody turn in a lipstick?”

“What’s that, sugar?”

“A lipstick. Thought I left it on the table, but it’s not there.”

“Sorry. If somebody finds it I’ll hang on to it, give it to you next time you’re in.” The woman left, and Jenny focused again on Harry. “You were going to tell me about a body.”

“Youaskedabout a body,” he said. “I can neither confirm nor deny what you’re saying.” He lifted up the top pancake so he could pour syrup on the bottom one, then drenched the top one, too.

“When you say that, you’re basically confirming it,” she said.

“Not true,” he said, cutting the pancakes with the side of his fork and taking a bite, then washing it down with coffee.

“Okay, suppose I asked whether it was true that Osama bin Laden is hiding out in Lucknow, serving ice cream down at the Frostee Freeze. Would you say the same thing, that you can’t confirm or deny, when we all know it’s a crock of shit?”

“Jenny, if you have information that bin Laden is working at the Frostee Freeze, you have an obligation to come forward with that. If you don’t want to tell me, then you should get on the phone ASAP to Homeland Security. There might be a reward.”

“Oh, forget it,” she said, then grabbed the coffeepot and went to refill someone else’s mug. On her way back, she pulled a bacon sandwich from under the heat lamp and set it next to his plate after slipping it into a white paper bag. He’d already killed off one of his pancakes and was downing the last of his coffee when he dug out his wallet. Jenny said, “You got a tab,remember? Just go. We’ll settle up later. Go sort out that shit you can’t confirm or deny.”

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