The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers: A Novel by Thomas Mullen

Author:Thomas Mullen [Mullen, Thomas]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781588369710
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2010-01-20T05:00:00+00:00

XVI.

It was a long, dull drive to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, the sun growing bored and slipping off to sleep somewhere in Wisconsin. The headlights cut a narrow path through the thickening woods and finally illuminated the small sign for Cedar Grove. Jason remembered the name of the town where Owney and his wife had a hideaway, but that was the extent of what he knew. He drove down a winding road and found a small general store, which likely doubled as the post office. Whit waited in their newly stolen Chevy as Jason walked in and smiled at the portly shopkeeper, asking her assistance in locating his “cousin.” Jason used Owney’s alias and offered descriptions of the couple, noting that they had a place nearby. It was a risk, he knew, to show himself like this, and to bring such attention to Owney. As the woman mentioned that the couple did sound familiar and were probably renting from the Marshalls at 32 Tamarack Lane, Jason knew this busybody would remember him, and that if one day the police did drag their rake of suspicions through the U.P. beaches her memory would be the precious gold watch lying in the dunes. He thanked her and left.

Tamarack Lane was nothing but a pair of narrow ruts worn into the impressionable earth, winding a trail between a marsh to the left and the lakefront homes to the right. Beyond the marsh was a forest of cedar and black ash and maple, filling the air with a spicy richness unlike anything Jason had smelled in his recent weeks in the dry, lower Midwest. The cottages were modest one-story structures, and although cars were parked in every drive there was no activity. All the brothers could hear was the thrumming of frogs, low and ominously loud.

Jason killed his lights as he approached No. 32. The half-moon and its reflection in the lake provided a surprising amount of light. Neither he nor Whit recognized either of the two cars in the sandy driveway, but of course they shouldn’t have, if Owney was smart. The front lot was not large and through the partially drawn curtains they had a view of the parlor. They could see only the blond back of a head. Jason drove on. The road soon dead-ended, and Jason turned around. There was no sign of cops or any other kind of stakeout.

“Let’s wait a bit,” Jason said. He parked on the side of the trail, the Chevy half obscured by two dogwoods and spiny explosions of sea grass. Already mosquitoes were gleefully entering the Chevy’s cabin, overjoyed at the scent of new blood.

Jason thought he recognized a face through one of the windows. Before he could say anything, Whit had thrown open his door. So much for caution.

By the time Jason had walked into the house, Whit was standing in the middle of a sparsely decorated room surrounded by silence and by Owney, his plump wife, Beatrice, Veronica, and, wobbling a bit but undeniably standing on his tiny, one-year-old feet, little Patrick.

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