Island of Bones(24)

Diane blinked. “Forever. I mean, it’s old. I remember I used to watch him clean it when I was little. He would take it out of the case, lay it out on a towel on the kitchen table, and spend hours cleaning all the parts and then put it all back together again. He never took it out except to clean it.”

“He didn’t hunt?”

She shook her head. “He wasn’t interested in the outdoors. I never saw him use it. Not once. I always got the impression it was an heirloom or antique or something and that was the only reason he kept it. He never said.”

“Do you know what kind it was?”

She shook her head.

“Think. Did he ever call it a Savage?”

“I don’t remember. I don’t care. I hate guns.”

Louis’s eyes scanned the bedroom once more. There was a desk crammed in one corner. “Is that where you found the articles?”

Diane nodded and went to the desk, pulling out the top drawer.

“They were in here,” she said, handing him a leather binder. “I put them back after I made the copies I gave you.”

Louis flipped through the book. It was an old date book from 1983, but most of the pages were blank. There was an occasional reminder of an appointment, but nothing out of the ordinary.

He sifted through the stack of papers under the book. Utility bills, receipts from local stores, statements from the Lee County Library Credit union  , a dry cleaner’s claim stub for three pairs of men’s slacks.

He found a receipt dated yesterday. It was from Seven C’s Bait and Tackle Shop in Fort Myers.

“Does your father fish?” he asked.

“No.” Diane’s brow furrowed. “He won’t even eat fish. He’s allergic to it.”

Louis glanced into the untidy bathroom and turned back to Diane. “Show me the rest of the house.”

She led him to a small second bedroom that she said used to be hers as a child. The room was as neat and orderly as a lawyer’s reception area. They ended up in the kitchen.

It was a mess. The Braun coffeemaker still had a cup or two left in it. There were dirty dishes in the sink and an egg- encrusted pan on the stove. Louis glanced around, and seeing a door, walked to it. It opened into a small garage. Small slits of sunlight squared the garage door. He tried the light, but it was burned out. Stepping down into the shadows, he used the light from the kitchen to maneuver the two steps. He spotted a flashlight and turned it on, shining the beam over a cluttered tool bench, storage bins, and the garage walls. The light flashed on something metal in a corner and Louis went to it.

It was a fishing rod, hung on two brackets. It was an old rod, coated in dust. But from the little Louis had learned about fishing, he could tell the rod was expensive, not something your average pier-dangler would have in his garage.

There was a second set of identical brackets below the rod, empty.

Louis took a step and something crackled under his foot. He trained the light down and it picked up several large white plastic bags with the red letters TAL BRODY’S SPORTS CITY. He started going through the bags.

Diane came up behind him. “What are you looking for?”

Louis didn’t answer. Finally he pulled out a small paper and trained the flashlight on it. It was a sales receipt. The first item was a Coleman Sundome tent.

“He’s gone camping,” Louis said.

“Camping?”

Louis held up the receipt. “In a brand-new tent. And with a new lantern, first-aid kit, water bottles, the works. Six hundred and eighty dollars’ worth.”

Diane took the receipt and shook her head slowly. “My father has never spent a night outdoors in his life.”

“You said he doesn’t fish either.” Louis shined the beam up on the rod and empty brackets.

Diane was staring at the fishing rod. “That can’t be. He doesn’t even like being near water.” Her voice was soft, like things were just now coming back to her. “I remember once, when I was little —- I must have been little, because it was just after my mother died —- we were down by the pier and there were these boats. I asked him if we could go out on one. But he said we couldn’t. He said he didn’t like the water because he couldn’t swim.”

She turned abruptly, heading back to the kitchen.

Louis found her standing in the center of the living room, eyes vacant.

“I thought I knew him,” she said softly.

Louis stopped a few feet from her. He felt like telling her the first thing that had popped into his head -- that no one really knew their parents. You only knew the idealized version —-dependable, de-sexed and devoid of human failings. If you were lucky. If you weren’t lucky, you saw your parents in all their ugliness. Like the sad woman he remembered withered in her addiction. Or the faceless man in the faded photograph, the only image he had of his father.