Rumble Strip - A Blackstone Valley Mystery Novelette by Alena Gouveia
Part of me was searingly disappointed that he didn’t hold the key – while another part thrilled with joy. There was still something here to solve!
A yawn escaped from my lips, and I promptly put my hand over my mouth to stifle it.
His brow drew together as if he were seeing me for the first time. “Do you need to get to work or something?”
“No, no,” I assured him. “I was driving home from Boston about two a.m. when I first came across your message here. I tried to sleep, couldn’t, and came out. I’m just tired, that’s all.”
A slight distance came into his gaze. “Oh, out drinking in the city?”
I shook my head with a laugh. “Hardly. I work at the law library there. I was finishing up a case.”
A shine returned to his eyes. “Oh? Doesn’t your husband mind when you’re out that late at night?”
I held up my bare hands. “No husband, no boyfriend. I’m afraid I get a bit … obsessed … when I work on a project. Doesn’t bode well for a relationship.”
He gave a dry laugh. “Yeah, well, try being a cop. The women crawl all over you because they think a cop’s exciting and dangerous. And then, once they’re married to you, the stress of you being out every day burns away their stability. They end up seeing spiders climbing up their covers and hearing voices murmuring in the heating system.”
“It takes a special kind of partner,” I agreed. “My Mom got through it by being a devout Catholic and going to mass every day.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Your dad’s a cop?”
“Was,” I automatically corrected. “Got gunned down by Gunter Holzer, a heroin dealer, back in ‘96. My mom never really recovered.”
His look shadowed. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
I shrugged. “My father sacrificed his life to protect his partner. If he’d failed, it would have killed him in a different way.”
I nudged my hand at the pad in my hand. “How about we go over to the Blackstone Café, get some coffee and donuts, and see if we can figure this out?”
He raised an eyebrow at me. “Sure you wouldn’t rather head back to sleep? This isn’t your puzzle to solve.”
I gave a laugh. “Did I mention I get obsessed? There’s no way I could sleep. I’d see the dots and dashes in my dreams.” I drew a grin onto my face. “C’mon. You’re a cop. Surely you’d like some donuts.”
His smile mirrored mine. “Normally I’d take offense, but as you’re an honored cop’s brat, I’ll let it slide. All right, then, but it’s my treat.”
My grin grew. “Of course it is. It’s my finder’s fee, for discovering this message.”
His gaze grew serious at that. “I owe you far more than donuts, to pay back that debt.”
I nodded. “Well, then, we’ll start with the donuts and go from there.”
Yet another loop, and soon we were pulling into the parking lot of the Blackstone Café. Not too long ago this had been a popular Honey Dew Donuts, back when the Jersey Barriers hadn’t divided Route 146 in a Mason-Dixon line of unbroken strength. Donut lovers had easily been able to move to and fro to fetch their torus goodies. But without warning Millbury had plunked those concrete barriers into place, and Honey Dew had seen their business dry up faster than a rose plant in a brown thumb’s kitchen. I was curious how this new café would fare in the same location. Especially since they served only breakfast and lunch but were positioned on the southbound side of the road – the side heading away from busy Worcester.
We settled into a booth and soon a waitress came by to take our orders. In short order we had our donuts, our coffee, and the message was laid out between us.
I stared at it again, the way I’d look at a Sudoku puzzle or a New York Times crossword puzzle.
The Saturday edition.
For TFC Jack Drago. Sutton yib kath dinen. Fond memories. You were right. Love you, Screwy.
I looked up at Jack. “Tell me about your brother. Was he really named Screwy?”
He shook his head, taking a sip of his black coffee. “His name was Tony. We were typical brothers, I suppose. Rough-housed, fought, made up. Played football together in the back yard. My mom ran off with a bartender when we were young so it was just us and our father. He was old-school Italian and thought a man had to be made tough. He didn’t pull any punches with us.”
Jack stared down at the paper between us. “My brother had problems reading and writing. I think they’d figure he was dyslexic or something nowadays, but back then, my father thought he was just lazy. Called him Screwy and told him to work harder. Would beat him if he brought home bad grades. My brother hated the name – but you know how it goes. After a few years he rebelled and claimed it as his own.”
His shoulders rippled with tension. “At last Tony gave up on school. He dropped out at fifteen and joined a local construction crew. Found a new family.”
I pressed my lips together. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Yeah, well, I’m sure constantly being compared with his ‘perfect’ older brother probably didn’t help things. It got so bad that when my pop died of a heart attack, when I was at the Academy, Tony wouldn’t come to the funeral. I was furious. It was hard for me to see Tony’s point of view.”
He poked at the paper. “The last year or so, especially with my divorce, I started looking at things different. I saw how my wife fell apart, living with the stress of my job every day. How it made her disintegrate. I started to think about my brother, just a young kid, really, must have felt. So I tried to reach out to him a number of times. But he just ignored me.”
His lips went thin. “I finally got an email from him, a few months ago. He said he was working on a rumble strip out on 146. That I should take a look at his fine work. I thought he was digging at me again, showing me just how rough his life was because of his screwed-up childhood.”
He shook his head. “It looks like he was trying to reach out to me, in his own way.”
“Why not just call him now? See what he meant by this?”
His gaze shadowed. “He’s been missing since mid-December. Not a word. His apartment in Worcester hasn’t been touched. Nobody at his construction job has any idea what happened to him. Claim he just didn’t show up for work one day.”
A chill ran down my spine. “Maybe he just decided to move South? Escape the snow? It’s been pretty brutal this year. Since we got that storm in December, I don’t think there’s been a hint of grass since then. Just this layer of white.”
Jack shook his head. “Tony loved the snow. Ice fishing was one of his favorite hobbies. He’d wait all year to go out to Merrill Pond and watch that hole in the ice. I think the solitude of it appealed to him. No teachers. Nothing to fail at. Just him and the silence.”
He gave a small smile. “Though he did love story-time at the local library. I think it’s because he could listen to the words, without having to sort them out. He’d sit there rapt for hours on end, completely at peace. I think it was the only other time he was truly happy.”
I stared at the words on the page, the letters swirling and mixing. “Can you write the Morse code dots and dashes beneath all these letters for me?”
He nodded. “Sure thing.” He took out a pen and in a few moments he had annotated my notes.
I looked again at the mystery words in the middle.
S U T T O N
… ..- - - --- -.
Y I B
-.-- .. -…
K A T H
-.- .- - ….
D I N E N
-.. .. -. . -.
I tapped my finger on the table. “You said he was dyslexic, right?”
His brow creased. “So you think it might have been Sutton biy? What could that mean?”
I shook my head. “He was writing in dots and dashes, not in letters. So for the letter Y he wrote dash dot dash dash. What letter would dot dash dot dot be?
“That’s L …” His voice trailed off as he stared at the paper. “Sutton lib. The Sutton library. Th
“All right then, I bet that’s what he meant. So then we’re left with Kath Dinen.” I racked my brain, but nothing came to mind. It sounded Hindu, maybe, or perhaps Turkish.
I looked to Jack. “What was Tony’s favorite book?”
He answered without hesitation. “Lord of the Rings. Especially the parts with Faramir. Faramir was the younger brother of Boromir, and the boys’ father thought Boromir was the golden child. That he could do no wrong. The father treated Faramir like dirt and even wished that it had been Faramir who died, rather than Boromir.” Shadows came into his gaze. “I think it’s pretty clear why Tony could relate to that.”
“All right, then, do you think Kath Dinen might have anything to do with Lord of the Rings?”
He shook his head. “It’s been a long time since I read those stories. I saw the movies when they came out, but it doesn’t sound familiar.”
I pulled out my smartphone and hopped over to Google. I typed in Kath Dinen.
The browser responded, Do you mean Rath Dinen?
I showed it to Jack. “What’s Morse Code for R?
He nodded in understanding. “K is dash dot dash. R is dot dash dot. I think that must be it. What is Rath Dinen?”
I clicked and read. “It was the House of the Dead. It’s where Faramir’s father, Denethor, tried to burn Faramir alive.” I paled. “Do you think your brother –”
I stopped. Clearly my lack of sleep was playing with my thought process. Tony had been very alive when he wrote this message, and, not only that, it had taken some effort. He had chosen to carve it into the road rather than simply send Jack an email. Why?
Jack seemed to be following my thought process. “This was his safety net. It was a way to get information to me in case something happened to him.”
Tension snaked along my shoulders. “Was he in some sort of trouble?”
Jack’s eyes were shadowed. “My brother was always in some sort of trouble. And when he left home, he only delved deeper. He became completely loyal to his new family, no matter what they were up to. Extortion, guns, drugs, I imagine there was a little of everything going on there. Jack didn’t seem to care much, as long as he was appreciated.”
“So, Sutton Library. Rath Dinen. Do you think he left more information for you there?”
He nodded. “That would be my guess. It’s not as if he could leave an essay carved into the road. And, if he did, anybody who happened along would be able to see it all. He tried to leave a clue only I would understand.”
I glanced at my watch. “It’s six a.m. The Sutton library doesn’t normally open for another four hours, but I know the head librarian. I’m in there all the time, as you might guess. I’m sure she’d open up early for us if you wanted to go take a look.”
His eyes shone with emotion. “I’d appreciate that a lot. I think waiting another four hours to find out what he was trying to tell me would burn a hole in my stomach.”
He finished off his coffee. “You ready?”
I smiled. “Absolutely.”