Three Can Keep a Secret by Archer Mayor Read Free Book Online Page B

commandeering one of the few National Guard helicopters for an overview of the damage, and about FEMA, the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, and others setting up command centers and shelters to help the dispossessed, the homeless, and the simply stunned.
    But what they saw as they crisscrossed toward Waterbury was less organized relief efforts, and more individual evidence of that older, less official, rural New England code that tended to respond to catastrophe stoically. Things were what they were, such a philosophy dictated. And then you got on with it.
    It was close to the end of day when they reached their destination, and Joe was happy that he'd called ahead instead of relying on serendipity to supply them with room and board for the night. On the map, the town's main street was ruler straight for over a mile, with the Winooski River hanging like a droopy clothesline from each end, outlining a half-oval parcel containing the office complex, a large field, and one perpendicular street with its bridge at the bottom. By and large, that whole section of land, roughly seven thousand feet long by two thousand at its widest, had been plunged underwater.
    Waterbury had received the proverbial shellacking.
    "Damn," Spinney said as they crested the hill heading down into the floodplain at the center of it all. "I'm impressed they're only missing one person."
    Traces of recovery were plentiful, as they had been all the way here, along with defiant hand-lettered signs adorning mud-clogged front yards and semi-destroyed homes, but the brutality of what had occurred lingered in the faces they saw as they drove by. This was a community funeral of sorts, and there was no amount of thumbs-up or spirit-rousing rallying that could alter it.
    The man Joe had phoned was Bill Allard, the director of the VBI, who — along with the squad that handled this portion of the state — had been evacuated from the public safety building while inspectors checked it out. This made Allard at once a busy guy, making sure that his other units were up and running smoothly — by whatever means they could muster — and someone with time on his hands. He'd been the one to ask Joe to handle this missing person case.
    Bill lived on Winooski Street — located within that flood-prone bulge between Main Street and the river. Fortunately for him, his address was near Main, and thus on higher ground. Those closer to its far end had run the gamut from getting their basements flooded to having their homes washed away. Turning right to reach Allard's house, Joe was again reminded of his family's good fortune. A second call to Thetford had recently revealed that Leo and their mom had suffered nothing beyond being cooped up indoors on a terrifically rainy day.
    As Joe and Lester emerged stretching from their vehicle in the driveway at last, a square-built, muscular man approached from the adjacent Greek Revival home.
    "Rough trip?" he asked, extending a hand in greeting. "I didn't have a clue when you'd get here."
    "Would've been sooner," Joe told him. "We rubbernecked some on the way. Wanted to check out the damage."
    Bill shook his head sorrowfully. "I wish I'd had to do that to see worse than what we got here. But this was about as bad as it gets. They're saying over two hundred homes have been either badly hit or totally destroyed." He waved a hand down the street, adding, "Including a couple almost within sight of here. My own backyard was flooded. It stopped just shy of the place." He indicated his home. "It feels so random, you know? Fluky. I've been watching the news. They've got footage of a streamside house that looks so good, even the garden's okay, but the next-door neighbor — not a hundred yards away — is off his foundation and sitting in a field of mud. Makes me feel guilty, almost. You got more bags?"
    The three of them entered Allard's home and settled in the kitchen as he prepared them something hot to drink. His wife came down to meet them and