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  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and events are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to real person, places, or events is coincidental.

  The Weight of Living Copyright © Michael Stephen Daigle 2017 Publisher: Imzadi Publishing LLC ImzadiPublishing.com All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, without permission in writing from the author. Scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or by any other means without permission are illegal and punishable by law.

  Daigle, Michael Stephen. The Weight of Living (The Frank Nagler Series Book 3) . Imzadi Publishing, LLC.

  Table of Contents

  Copyright Page

  The Weight of Living | By | Michael Stephen Daigle

  PART ONE | The Long Way | CHAPTER ONE | Dirt so thick her skin shed water like plastic

  CHAPTER TWO | Sometimes people don’t want to be found

  CHAPTER THREE | Tank

  CHAPTER FOUR | I always know, Francis

  CHAPTER FIVE | I think I’m being followed

  CHAPTER SIX | Where did all that pain go?

  CHAPTER SEVEN | 6

  CHAPTER EIGHT | Randolph Garretson is not dead

  CHAPTER NINE | What if they don’t find me?

  CHAPTER TEN | You still have what I want

  CHAPTER ELEVEN | The ghosts be talkin’ and we be listenin’

  CHAPTER TWELVE | Another part of the curse

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN | All I could do was stroke his hair, the pain was so bad

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN | That had to be some troubling incident

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN | Did I tell you he’s originally from Jersey?

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN | The woman who escaped

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN | Sarah Lawton

  PART TWO | THE CHASE AND THE TRAP | CHAPTER EIGHTEEN | Seen Dawson?

  CHAPTER NINETEEN | A pillar of the community

  CHAPTER TWENTY | Victims teaching victims

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE | Where is Alton Garrett?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO | The tweed hat

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE | Who has no name, Frank?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR | The golfer, the elephants and the compound

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE | Union Iron, Ironton NJ

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX | God has given me many tasks, Francis. This is the last.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN | Tank watch

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT | Maybe she is stronger than they are

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE | Your last thought is that you died alone in the middle of nowhere

  CHAPTER THIRTY | A thing

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE | Number fourteen

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO | Give Leonard his day

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE | You don’t get to hurt in private

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR | Shows how optimistic we were

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE | I’m all used up

  The Weight of Living

  By

  Michael Stephen Daigle

  “People lie to one another all the time, Frank. Wear masks. I look at this little group and wonder who is lying, who will eventually tell the truth, and who will pay for it.” — Calista Knox

  PART ONE

  The Long Way

  CHAPTER ONE

  Dirt so thick her skin shed water like plastic

  She seemed hollow, the girl did. Breathing, hearing, touching, but absent. Small, dark dots sunk into an ashen blank face, eyes impossibly dull for someone so young, eyes that stared straight ahead at the faded green wall; hard, eyes so hard that did not seem to register the color of the wall, the brown of the tabletop, the lightbulb above her head or the presence of anyone else; eyes lightless, passages not to a dark soul, but to one seemingly hidden or removed; spaces missing life. Eyes not filled with pain, but absence.

  Robotic. From the police car to the police station and into the back office she walked with slow, short steps, and once in the room without being told, she slipped sideways into the green vinyl chair with the tear in the seat that exposed the white cotton batting inside; the chair that engulfed her, hips too small to fill the worn indentation in the center of the seat as she faced the wall, folded her hands on the table and sat upright.

  Her hair was raggedly cut and filthy, as was her thin, damaged body. Grime lived in her skin folds, under her fingernails, on and in her skin so deeply its color changed from white to brown-gray; dirt so thick her skin shed water like plastic.

  She had been sitting in the back office at the Ironton, New Jersey police station for an hour after patrol removed her about ten o’clock that night from a grocery store garbage bin. She had neither offered words, nor responded to questions, not even a nod or a shake of her head. A bottle of water sat on the table untouched.

  She had not resisted the efforts of the patrol officer, but stood obediently at the rear car door as the light snow fell while he completed his quick interview with the grocery store manager, forgetting the car doors were locked.

  “What do we do with her?” the patrolman asked the night shift officer, Sergeant Bob Hanrahan.

  “What’d she do?” Hanrahan asked.

  The patrolman scratched his head. “Nothing, as far as anyone at the store could tell. They were closing, and an employee dumping a load of trash found her. She was just sitting in the Dumpster. But it’s near freezing and she had no coat. She wouldn’t take mine. Believe that? Couldn’t leave her there.” The patrolman shook his head and looked back at the girl one last time. “Who leaves a kid like that out in the cold without a coat, in a garbage bin?”

  Hanrahan sighed. “No idea,” he whispered. He leaned over again and peered through the narrow window. Not since he was kid, Hanrahan thought, a kid on the north side in the old industrial ghetto, had he seen a girl so dirty, thin, and neglected. They’d sit on the porch wearing stained white dresses, straps held by knobby shoulders, eyes like hollows. It was the end of the mining days and what few jobs there were paid little, but ten men wanted them because it was all the work there was; Hanrahan shivered, facing a ghost of his past and the months he went shoeless.

  “See if she’ll eat or drink something,” he told the patrol officer. “I’ll call social services and maybe No Boundaries, that mental health place. And I’ll call Nagler.”

  ****

  Detective Frank Nagler limped into the office, trying to keep weight off his left foot. “Plantar fasciitis,” the doctor had said. “Stay off your feet.” Yeah, right.

  But after a day like that one — a court session, a shooting on the north side and making a presentation at a community development meeting — his foot cramped up every time he stood.

  “Whatcha got, Bob?”

  “Don’t know, Frank. A kid. Take a look. It’s a little strange.” He paused. “Troubling.”

  His red puffy face coiled and folded into a worried frown, his mouth twisting as he sought more of an answer. Hanrahan had twenty years in the department on Nagler, so if he thought something was troubling, it mostly likely was.

  Hanrahan nodded for Nagler to peek through the narrow wired glass in the door.

  “She hasn’t moved or drank the water or touched the crackers we gave her, or said a word,” Hanrahan said. “I can’t tell if she’s mute, deaf, or you know, retarded, cause she just doesn’t respond to anything.”

  Nagler flinched as he glanced through the window. She was so small, and so dirty. He tapped on the glass, and she did not move. How old was she? Eleven, twelve?

  “That was what she was wearing?” Nagler asked, astonished. He glanced back through the window to assure himself he had seen her clothes correctly. “A tank top and shorts?” />
  “And no shoes,” Hanrahan said.

  Nagler looked at the floor under the table to see for himself. “Damn, it must be below freezing out there, and with the recent snow... Jesus, Bob.”

  Hanrahan nodded, and screwed up his mouth. “Yeah. If they hadn’t seen her...”

  Nagler puffed out his cheeks and let out a long, slow breath and then brushed his hair back. “Alright, um, where’s that vending machine? Let me get a candy bar, and I’ll see what I can find out. Send in social services when they get here. We obviously need to find some place for her stay tonight.”

  He scratched his ear and frowned. “Who puts a kid like that out in the middle of the night?”

  Hanrahan’s face hardened, his eyes dark and certain. “The devil.”

  ****

  Nagler slowly slid the metal door open and held the inside handle while it whispered shut. He coughed to expel the taste of her dry, stale odor.

  The girl stared straight ahead.

  Then Nagler deliberately scraped the metal chair loudly on the floor tiles as he sat opposite her. Just to see. She didn’t react, but kept her back rigid, hands folded and eyes straight ahead, looking through Nagler to the wall.

  He smiled and offered the candy bar. “Thought maybe you’d like this instead of those old dry crackers.” He tore open the wrapper and the chocolate aroma infused the cool, sterile air and made Nagler’s mouth water.

  The girl made no move toward the candy bar, or visibly acknowledged that Nagler was in the room. Her gaze did not vary, even though Nagler’s body in the opposite chair filled her vision.

  “Are you cold?”

  Nothing.

  “Can you tell me your name?”

  Nothing.

  “My name is Frank. I’m a police officer. We’re going to find a place for you to stay tonight.”

  Wow, Nagler thought. Hanrahan was right. I should try to touch her hand. No, bad idea.

  Nagler pushed the chair away from the table and stood up slowly. He took two steps to stand at the edge of the table just to see if her eyes would follow his movements. They didn’t. What’s going on inside her head?

  Silence filled the room; the girl’s chest barely rose as she breathed.

  “We just want to help you,” Nagler said softly.

  He looked up in response to a soft tapping at the door.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said.

  In the hallway, Hanrahan stood with Grace Holiman, a county social worker, who was holding a coat and a pair of shoes.

  “Who is she?” Holiman asked.

  Nagler shrugged. “Haven’t a clue. They found her in a Dumpster. No coat, no shoes. She didn’t answer a single question. It was like I wasn’t even in the room.”

  Holiman peered through the window for several moments then turned to the officers.

  “She knew you were there. She was just measuring you,” she said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “We see this in victims of severe trauma, or survivors of long-term abuse. A withdrawal, sometimes deeply, yet at the same time, a heightened awareness, an almost supernatural consciousness of their surroundings, like an invisible wall or ring for protection.”

  “Sexual abuse?” Hanrahan asked.

  “Possibly. Maybe the loss of parents, siblings. It’s about coping, surviving. Where did they find her?”

  “At the grocery on West Blackwell, in the trash,” Hanrahan said. “The patrol officer said she was just sitting there, not working through the trash or anything. Just sitting.”

  Holiman shook her head. “I don’t believe I’ve seen her before. Maybe newly homeless, but that wouldn’t account for the dirt. There has been a slight rise in the number of homeless families.”

  Nagler nodded.

  “Think her family abandoned her?”

  “Anything is a possibility,” Holiman said. “Let me get her out of here. No Boundaries has space in their shelter. Let’s get her cleaned up, fed, and dressed and we’ll see.” She shook her head again. “What do we have? I’ll call you, Frank.”

  At the front desk, Nagler told Hanrahan, “Bob, have patrol do a quick walk-through on West Blackwell, just to make sure that there aren’t more kids out there. I’ll get a full canvas in the morning. Maybe the shop owners have seen something. Know what? Have patrol swing through the old stoveworks wreck, just in case.”

  Grace Holiman emerged from the room and held open the door. “It’s okay,” she said sweetly, and when girl did not follow, more firmly, “Come, please.”

  Slowly, the girl, wearing the coat and the shoes which were at least two sizes too large, entered the hallway. She stood stiffly next to Holiman and stared at the floor, her face as blank as before.

  “Please come with me,” Holiman said and placed a hand lightly on the girl’s elbow to lead her out of the station lobby. As they passed Nagler and Hanrahan, Holiman nodded briefly and grimly whispered, “Thanks.”

  Just as they left the building, two pairs of officers entered, the cops staring in mild shock at the condition of the young, dirty girl, then looking away and then at Hanrahan for some silent explanation. “Who?” “Never mind.”

  One officer stood in the door a moment longer and watched Holiman and the girl walk through the parking lot.

  “Hey, Alton,” Hanrahan asked. “You know that girl?”

  Patrolman Garrett Alton pulled the door shut and turned toward his sergeant.

  “No, sir. She was just so, um, dirty. What’d she do?”

  Hanrahan stared at Alton a moment then glanced at Nagler. “Nothing. She’s just a kid.”

  ****

  The Westend Supermart was a new addition to West Blackwell. The grocery opened about a year before, filling the space vacated by a car dealership, whose brand names still peeked out from under the rows of grocery shelves, so shoppers buying cereal walked down a linoleum Chevrolet lane, stepping on the twenty-foot spikes of an insignia Impala.

  Nagler thought it had been quite a gamble, given how sluggish the local economy was in Ironton. It had been five years since the flood and still the city was pockmarked by empty houses, shuttered stores and piles of rotting debris. The last census said the city had lost about eight hundred residents. Imagine the surprise when a local banker put together a consortium of other business owners — a meat distributer, a trucking company, an international foods wholesaler and a couple of the larger local farms — and opened the grocery.

  It was even more of a surprise for Nagler to find himself pushing a shopping cart through the fresh food section waiting for Lauren Fox to sniff and squeeze enough tomatoes to fill a bag. It was almost an alien experience, he had told her one day.

  “I haven’t been in an actual grocery store in years,” he said, smiling at his own astonishment.

  “Well,” she said, as she placed a hand on his chest, “Most of us require a diet that is more extensive than Barry’s lunch special.” Then she reached up and kissed him and softly caressed his cheek, after which there was little to say.

  After she stepped away to examine some mushrooms, Nagler weakly said, “But I like Barry’s.”

  ****

  As he knocked on the glass front door of the grocery to get the attention of the man he saw stacking cans on a shelf, in his mind he saw Lauren put down the paper bag she was filling, and in mock anger grab her head with both hands, release it, and with eyes wide, then shake them in the air. He could still hear the fake explosion sound, the whoosh of air released from her fattened cheeks.

  The shelf stacker at first waved Nagler away. “We open at six,” the man yelled.

  Nagler then rapped on the door again with his police badge, and the man rose slowly and strode to the door, fumbled with a key ring and unlocked it.

  “Sorry,” he said. “We get people knocking on the door all night long. We’re here to stock the place and clean up. I’m Joe Marin, the night manager. I guess you’re here to ask about the girl. Come on in.”

  Nagler stepped thr
ough the door and held out a hand which Joe Marin grasped. “I’m Detective Frank Nagler. Yeah, had some questions.”

  Joe Marin was young, Nagler thought, quite young to be the night manager. He was wearing a white short-sleeved shirt, with a skinny purple tie dangling from the collar along with yellow earbuds, bright green pants, and red Converse Chuck Taylors.

  “How old are you, if you don’t mind my asking?” Nagler asked.

  “Twenty-two,” Joe Marin said. “I’m a business major at the state college and do this at night to pay the tuition.”

  “Hey, good for you,” Nagler replied. “What can you tell me about the girl?”

  Marin shook his head. “It was a good thing we found her. The trash guys come in the morning, back in and hook up the bin, sometimes they don’t even look. You know, if she had laid down, or got stuck ...” He shrugged, helpless as anyone else to explain the girl in the Dumpster.

  “I can guess. Who found her?”

  “Nate, one of the cleaners. We have two stockers and two cleaners overnight, the produce guys and the butcher show up about five and a cashier at six when the store opens. Hey, can we talk while I work? Got a schedule.”

  “Oh, sure. Anyone recognize her?”

  “No,” Joe Marin said. “We get a few people rapping on the door at two a.m. for milk, but other than the condos, there isn’t a lot of housing in the immediate area.” He slipped a few cans of corn onto the shelf, then leaned back and bit his lip. “We get a few homeless guys going through the trash, but we donate expired food so there isn’t much out there. And the meat scraps are stored inside and collected by a rendering company, you know?” Joe Marin hunched his shoulders, as if a chill had crawled down his back. “She was just sitting there, right in the garbage. Barefoot, wearing a tank top? I mean...”

  “Did she say anything, like a name, anything?”

  “No. Nate came and got me, and I asked her what her name was but she just looked straight ahead with a blank face. Asked if she wanted to come inside and we’d call someone. Nothing. Then, I told her she needed to get out of the bin, but she didn’t move. But then your guys showed up and lifted her out and had her stand next to the police car. Never saw anything like it before. She okay?”