Page 12 of The Pact

“No number on the mailbox,” I murmur.

“Convenient.”

I make the turn. The Explorer bumps over uneven road, mounds of earth, and ruts deep enough to swallow a tire. My headlights slice through a wall of darkness and snow and I try not to think about two kids out in the cold without shelter. We pass a large Quonset hut made of galvanized steel that’s gone to rust. An overhead garage-type door demarks the front. A window the size of a shoebox. I wonder what the hell O’Neil does with all that dark interior space.

I continue on and a mobile home looms into view, the windows glowing. The exterior is robin’s-egg blue striped with rust. A porch lamp throws a dome of light over a wood deck covered with Astroturf. The yard is unkempt and littered with junk. An old swing-set frame with a rickety slide sits in the side yard.

I park next to a beat-up Toyota pickup truck and we get out. It’s quiet back here; I can’t hear the highway. The trees offer a thousand hiding places. An owl hoots from somewhere at the back of the trailer.

“Creepy place,” Tomasetti says.

“Creepy guy.”

He looks at me. “Eyes open.”

I hit my lapel mike and hail Dispatch. “I need a ten-twenty-eight,” I say, using the ten code for vehicle registration information. I recite the license plate of the Toyota.

“Stand by,” Mona tells me.

A moment later she confirms what I already know. The truck belongs to O’Neil.

Tomasetti and I cross to the deck and ascend the steps. The blare of a TV sounds from inside. I see the curtains twitch at the window to my left.

“He knows we’re here,” I say quietly.

“I saw it,” Tomasetti replies.

Standing slightly to one side, I knock. “Painters Mill Police Department!” I call out. “Kenneth O’Neil. Can you come out here and talk please?”

The door swings open and I find myself facing O’Neil. The first thought that strikes my brain is that he looks far older than fifty-two. Rheumy blue eyes shot with capillaries, something crusty in the corners. His hair is grizzled and unkempt, his beard yellowed. His complexion is the color of a ripe tomato. I can smell the alcohol on his breath from two feet away.

“Mr. O’Neil?” I have my badge at the ready and show it to him.

He squints at it; then his eyes sweep past me to Tomasetti and back to me. “What’d I do now?”

“We’d like to ask you a few questions,” I say. “May we come inside?”

An instant of hesitation. His eyes flit left. In the back of my mind I wonder what he’s doing in there besides drinking.

“We won’t take up too much of your time,” I add, keeping my voice conversational.

“I got all night.” He moves to the door, obstructing my view, blocking our entry. “I think I’ll just come out there.”

He passes through the doorway and steps onto the porch. I move back, keeping a prudent distance between us in case he does something stupid. I’m glad I’ve got Tomasetti with me.

O’Neil is holding a beer bottle in his left hand, a smoldering cigarette in his right. Both are annoying me, so I say, “Would you mind setting that beer down and putting out that cigarette?”

He cocks his head, thinking about arguing, but wisely opts not to. “Whatever you say.” Bending, he sets the bottle on the grill behind him, flicks the cigarette into the weeds off the deck.

“Are you alone tonight, Mr. O’Neil?” I ask.

“Just like last night and the night before that. That okay with you?”

“Would you mind telling us where you were today?”

His brows furrow, as if he has to think about it. “I was here.”

I pull out my notebook and jot down something meaningless, watching his hands, the windows. “Is there anyone who can substantiate that?”