Page 119 of Whistle
Until he gave up. As best Harry could tell, there wasn’t a single governmental agency in the US that knew one damn thing about Edwin Nabler, because Edwin Nabler did not exist.
If he wanted to nail Nabler for something, all he’d have to do is spot him driving that van around town one day, pull him over, ask for his license and registration, and when he couldn’t come up with anything, bring him in. Ask him who the fuck he really was.
Harry could do that.
But it wouldn’t get him any further ahead in trying to figure out how—and if—Nabler was linked to those bizarre events. Harry couldn’t move precipitously. He needed to watch the guy first, see what he was up to, learn his routine.
He’d like to enlist Stick’s help, or maybe Nancy’s. A twenty-four-hour surveillance couldn’t be conducted solo. But what would he give for a reason? What would Harry say when Stick asked whether Nabler was a suspect? Yeah, well, maybe. And what was it he was suspected of doing?
It would be a short conversation.
Nor would Harry get authorization to tap Nabler’s phone. Not when all he had was a gut feeling that was impossible to articulate. Harry was going to have to do this alone, at least for now. And there wasn’t a damn soul he could talk to about this, not even Melissa, because instead of trying to help him out, they’d be picking up the phone and calling the guys in the white coats to take him away.
Harry was going to have to do this on his own. He’d start tomorrow.
Through the day, keeping tabs on Edwin Nabler was simple.
When his shop was open, he was there. He had no employees, so it wasn’t like he could take off for a couple of hours without closing.
In the morning, Harry went into the diner for a take-out coffee and sat on the bench where Gavin had once been a fixture. He’d wait until theopensign came on in the window of Choo-Choo’s Trains, finish his coffee, and then go about his duties, checking back occasionally to make sure Nabler hadn’t closed early or taken a long lunch.
What struck Harry was that Nabler didn’t come from some other location when it was time to open up. The man was living in his store, sleeping in his store, presumably in some room at the back. Allhe’d need, Harry figured, was a bed, a bathroom with a shower, a mini-fridge, and a hot plate. The question was why Nabler chose to live that way.
A man that age—and now that Harry thought about it, he really had no sense of how old Nabler was—would at the very least have an apartment, wouldn’t he? It was true some people chose to live frugally. They were not concerned with material things. Maybe Nabler was like that. There was no sign of a significant other. He had what he needed, and no more.
Nabler’s shop had been open for fifteen minutes and, so far, had attracted no customers. Harry drank the last of his coffee, tossed the paper cup into a nearby trash bin, got in his car, and backed out of the angled spot. Rather than head to the station, he opted to patrol. Drive around with no particular goal in mind, although he was always hoping he might come upon Gavin, that maybe he’d been on a bender, had busted into a vacant house, taken a few days to sober up, and finally decided to rejoin the world. But in his gut, Harry didn’t expect to see Gavin again. Not alive, anyway.
After half an hour of wandering, he made it to the station and dealt with the paperwork piling up on his desk. Figured out the next three weeks’ worth of schedules for the staff. When it got to be eleven, he walked down the street to the deli and bought a tuna sandwich with a dill pickle on the side and a Diet Coke and brought it all back and ate lunch at his desk.
At half-past the hour, he got back in his car, found a parking spot on Main Street, and found a spot on a bench across, and a little ways down, from Nabler’s shop.
Just as he put his butt on the bench, the sign at Choo-Choo’s went fromopentoclosed.
Hello.
If Nabler was closing for lunch, was he staying there to eat it, orheading out? Harry got back into his car, backed out of the spot, drove a block, and turned around, waiting to see whether Nabler’s van would appear from the alley that separated his business from Featherstone’s next door.
After two minutes, the front of the van nosed out onto the street, made a right, and drove up Main. Harry followed, staying well back. He wasn’t too worried about losing Nabler. This wasn’t like tailing a car in New York City—not that he’d ever done that, but he could imagine. There wasn’t dense traffic in Lucknow. There weren’t stoplights every block.
Nabler made a right, heading north. Harry stopped for a moment at the turn, waiting for Nabler to get far enough ahead that he wouldn’t notice Harry in his rearview mirror. Nabler’s van rumbled over the same railroad crossing where Harry had been delayed the other day. This time, Harry made it through without having to take any chances. But as he crossed the tracks, he glanced to the west and saw the distant headlight of an approaching freight. Once he was through, he heard the familiar clang and, looking into his driver’s-door mirror, saw the lights begin to flash and the gates descend.
Up ahead, the white van’s right blinker had come on. Nabler steered the vehicle into the parking lot of the Lucknow Community Center and Arena, a multifunctional municipal structure where everything from bake sales to hockey games to day care took place.
What the hell was he doing here? Or was he using the parking lot to turn around, see whether he was being followed?
Harry kept on driving. As he went past, he saw Nabler getting out of the van and heading for the front door. Another hundred yards on, Harry slowed, did a U-turn, and idled on the opposite shoulder.
Fifteen minutes passed before Nabler’s van reappeared, during which time a multi-engine freight train of mostly tanker cars passed by up ahead. The van headed back in the direction it had comefrom. Harry followed. Nabler drove back down the alley to the rear of his shop. Harry waited until he saw the sign go back toopen, then turned around and went back to the community center.
At the office he found someone he recognized, a woman in her forties named Pam, sitting at an electric typewriter.
“Hey, Pam.”
She looked up and smiled. “Hey, Harry. What’s up?”
“You had a guy in here a little while ago? Engineer’s hat, railroad patches all over his vest?”
“Yeah, right. He met with Susie.” She pointed a thumb over the shoulder. Susie Mince was the general manager. “Just go on in. She’s not doing anything so important she can’t be interrupted.” She flashed a sly grin.
