Free Redemption Street by Reed Farrel Coleman Page B

had fitted, holding the plaques in place. These days, however, in lieu of brass were two plywood placards held to the rock with duct tape. Their message was simple: “KEEP OUT.”
    I did not.
    Just like the driveway at the Swan Song, the pavement was chewed up and neglected. The approach was a steep uphill climb, and the entire driveway was an impressive semicircle around what would have been the great lawn. I stopped my car at the stone-and-concrete footing where the main house of the old Fir Grove had once stood. I tried imagining it in its mid-century splendor, but since I’d never actually seen the old place, all I could picture in my mind’s eye was the dilapidated main house of the Swan Song. I wondered where the workers’ quarters had been and realized I was probably going about this all wrong. I should have gone to the library first and done a little research. But should-haves are like ifs, they’re both tremendous wastes of time.
    I drove a little farther on down the driveway, until I spotted a left turnoff. Ahead of me, the snow marked out a huge, slightly sunken rectangle. The guest parking lot, I suspected. I continued to the very back edge of the lot, which was marked by wildly overgrown hedges. Now out of my car, I stepped through the tangle of hedges, its branches slapping my cheeks as I went. On the other side of the thicket, I finally got my first glimpse of what had become of the old place.
    I was atop a hill. Several feet ahead of me were concrete steps leading down to where the pool had been. A moot fiberglass slide and a set of rusty metal bars that had once held the diving board helped delineate opposite ends of the pool. To the right of the pool, rising out of the snow, stood two ten-foot-high poles. A half-moon backboard dangled off the top of one of the poles, swinging in the wind like the blade of the executioner’s ax. These days, my surgical knee ached at even the thought of playing hoops. No one had played ball here in a very long time. Looking out at the impotent equipment, I found myself thinking of Coney Island. Once the world’s playground, it, too, had been abandoned, the frames of its disused rides rising out of the earth like metal and wooden bones of vanquished dinosaurs. But it was neither the pool area nor Coney Island that currently captured my attention.
    I managed to descend the steps without breaking my neck. No small feat, given the state of the wrought-iron guardrail. About half a football field beyond the pool area I saw smoke rising above yet another hedgerow. As I approached I could smell it. It smelled of pine resin and bacon. And, perhaps for the first time in sixteen years, I imagined the horror of the night the workers’ quarters burned to the ground, the panic and terror. I’d seen the ugly things fire did to people. But it was the smells of fire that stayed with you, particularly the smell of burnt human hair. I thought of the flames licking at Andrea and shuddered.
    Stepping through the second hedge, I was still preoccupied with the image of Andrea’s charred body. So I was unprepared for the thud of heavy paws against my chest that sent me sprawling in the snow. Scrambling to stand and reaching for my .38, I slipped back down. As I continued to fumble for my gun, I caught sight of the thick-chested Rottweiler that had put me down in the first place. He came at me again, a string of white saliva dripping from his blunted snout. As I raised my pistol into the best shooting position I could manage there on my ass in the snow, two things convinced me to lower my weapon. One was the rattle of the heavy chain which I noticed would prevent the dog from actually getting to me. The other, and by far more convincing, reason was the unmistakable chicking of a round being chambered into a pump-action shotgun. In fact, I did more than just lower my weapon. I tossed it into the snow and raised my hands way, way up.
    “On your feet, asshole!” the man with the shotgun