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“Where are you now?”
“Somewhere in Massachusetts.”
“And when do you expect to be in Maine?”
“Hard to tell. It depends on how many stops everyone needs to make for food and potty.”
“Call me when you get to wherever it is that you’re going.”
“Yessir.”
“I miss you,” Morelli said. “Try to stay alive.”
“I’ll do my best.”
I was driving in the dark, taking directions from the navigation lady.
“Keep right at the fork to continue on I-295 North,” she said to me. “Follow this road for fifty-two miles.”
“Fifty-two miles,” Lula said. “Is this trip never going to end? My ass is asleep. I need a bacon cheeseburger with onion rings and slaw. I need coconut layer cake and ice cream. I need a drink. Vodka straight up. I need to get out of this car. Tell me we’re almost there.”
“We’re almost there,” I said. “We’re in Maine.”
The next time we heard the navigation lady’s voice, she told me to merge onto I-95 North.
“Continue on I-95 for eighty miles,” she said.
“Omigod,” Lula said. “Eighty miles. Do you know how far eighty miles is? It’s freaking far. It’s forever. Just shoot me. Get it over with. Make this misery end. I can’t feel my legs anymore. I’m numb from the waist down. I wasn’t meant to sit. I’m one of those women who’s gotta go. I’m a mover. Let me out of this car and I’ll walk the rest of the way. Oh crap. I can’t do that. My extremities are dead. I’m a cripple.”
“Look on the bright side,” I said. “When we get back to Trenton you can get a handicap sticker for your car.”
“I always wanted one of those,” Lula said. “You get good parking spaces. A handicap sticker is worth gold.”
“Merge now,” the navigation lady said.
“I hate this bitch,” Lula said. “She’s not telling me anything I want to hear. I want to hear we’re at our destination.”
I loved the navigation lady. She knew where we were going. This was a wonderful thing since I hadn’t a clue. She never sounded tired or annoyed. Her voice was pleasant and calm and confident. It was a small piece of sanity in my currently unpleasant circumstances.
It was close to eleven o’clock when I cruised down the main street of Alberton. The main street was named Main Street, and from what I could see at night the town looked like a movie set. White church with steeple. Hardware store. Grocery store. Real estateoffice. Rosey’s Bakery. The Champion Bar and Grill. There were streetlights, but that was the only sign of life. No lights in any of the businesses. Mine was the only car on the road.
“This is it?” Lula said, looking out the window. “Is it charming? I can’t tell in the dark. And my powers of observation aren’t as good as usual because I’m weak due to my sugar level is all off on account of I never got a bacon cheeseburger.”
“We stopped for dinner, and you got the Thanksgiving in October Special. Turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce, herb stuffing, pumpkin pie, and ice cream.”
“That was a long time ago,” Lula said. “I’m a big girl. I need to eat at regular intervals. I have an active metabolism.”
I drove past a small park with a kid playground. A gas station was across the street from the playground, and next to the gas station was the Haggerty Inn.
“This is it,” Lula said, reading from Connie’s notes. “The Haggerty Inn. A three-star accommodation that’s dog friendly and has free breakfast. From the picture it looks like it’s got three floors and it says it’s got two hundred fifty rooms. It doesn’t say anything about room service or a bar.”
I parked in the lot, and we got out of the car and stood for a moment letting our joints adjust.
“It’s frigging cold here,” Lula said. “It’s wintertime cold. My nipples are all shrunk up and frozen. We don’t have weather like this in Trenton. I didn’t bring clothes for this. I don’t even own clothes for this.”
I zipped up my sweatshirt, popped the hatch on the Explorer, and grabbed my duffel and Bob’s food. “I’ll race you to the front desk.”
Lula hauled her suitcase out of the SUV, and we hustled across the parking lot to the lobby.
