Free Revenant by Allan Leverone

Gordie.”
    “Yeah, Sharon, we just got a call about a missing person. We need you to go out to Old Mill Road and take the complaint.”
    “I’m on it. What’s the name and address of the complainant?”
    “Address is Forty-Seven Old Mill Road.”
    Sharon’s heart skipped a beat. Forty-Seven Old Mill Road. That was an address she knew from a lifetime ago, when her entire being revolved around drugs and alcohol and sexual favors. Her stomach seized and she thought she might be sick.
    The dispatcher continued. “The complainant is the victim’s mother. Name of the victim is Earl Manning.”
    ***
    Sharon rolled the cruiser to a stop in the dusty driveway outside a run-down mobile home that had probably not seen any significant maintenance in forty years. Threadbare roofing shingles covered a home tilting precariously to one side, as if the concrete foundation was simply crumbling away, which was probably exactly what was happening. Ancient aluminum siding, warped and cracked and weathered, covered the exterior walls, and the windows appeared not to have been washed since the Nixon Administration.
    An old Ford F-150 pickup was parked next to the home; a vehicle Sharon remembered all too well from her high school days. It had been creaky and rust-dotted and ready for the junkyard back then and she could hardly believe the thing was even safe to drive now. Based on her memories of its owner, that wouldn’t have stopped him. She sat staring at the truck, stomach churning, until it occurred to her that it might look odd to be seen sitting motionless inside her cruiser staring in horror at a rusted hunk of metal.
    She sighed nervously and exited the car, glancing in all directions as she approached the broken-down trailer. The area seemed deserted, which was unsurprising since this address was remote even by Paskagankee standards. Sharon rapped once with her knuckles on the flimsy door and it swung open before she had a chance to knock a second time. It was obvious the trailer’s occupant had been waiting for her to approach and she wondered briefly if her reluctance to exit her cruiser had been observed.
    Standing in the door was a fleshy woman who might have been fifty or eighty or anywhere in between. The woman didn’t strike Sharon as grossly overweight; she was just large . Her arms hung from her sides like they had been tacked on after the rest of her body was sculpted from a chunk of Maine granite. Deep crevasses lined her haggard face and sagging jowls made it look as though she might be storing food in her mouth for her next meal.
    “’Bout time,” the woman said by way of greeting.
    “Hello, Mrs.Manning. You called about a missing person?”
    “That’s right. My boy’s disappeared. Someone goes missing and the best the cops can do is send a tiny little girl?” The woman gave a snort that sounded like the air being let out of a balloon and threw the door open the rest of the way, retreating into the trailer’s tiny kitchen. “Come on in, then.”
    Sharon pulled a small notebook and a pen out of her breast pocket. “This is about Earl?”
    The woman dropped onto a tubular aluminum chair with a padded seat covered in garish orange vinyl that had to have been manufactured in the 1950’s and swiveled her head, looking up at Sharon suspiciously. “You know my boy?”
    “Uh . . . yes. We . . . uh, we went to school together, Mrs. Manning. Earl was a couple of years ahead of me but I . . . uh, knew him.” She knew she sounded like the village idiot and mentally kicked herself. She was here to take a missing person’s report, not to review her long history of poor life choices.
    “How long has Earl been missing?” she asked, determined to rebound from her poor first impression.
    “Well, let’s see,” the woman answered, placing her massive chin into one cupped palm. “I’d say it’s been over a week now.”
    “Your son has been missing a week and you’re just getting around to reporting it