“A perfect gentleman,” the father repeated.
It wasn’t justice for Maggie Pine, but maybe it would save the next girl. With no witnesses and a dead victim, Keller decided it would have to do.
CHAPTER 35
MATT PINE
Matt slept nearly the entire flight. He’d spent several hours at the Cancún airport, killing time by dispatching texts to his friends, and eating terrible Americanized Mexican food at an overcrowded chain restaurant in the center of the departure gates. The margaritas were good, though, and the waitress packed him a giant slushy tequilaed mess in a Styrofoam to-go cup for the plane. That ensured that he was out cold until he hit the Dallas/Fort Worth airport, and again on his connection to Omaha.
He cracked his neck as the plane taxied to the gate.
As he waited for the passengers to deplane, the usual jackasses had marched from the rear of the plane and stood in the aisle out of turn. He imagined for a moment his mother saying Rude! under her breath. After helping the old woman in the seat in front of him pull down her carry-on, Matt sauntered out.
Adair, Nebraska, was about an hour and a half’s drive from Omaha. His aunt had offered to pick him up, but he declined. Aunt Cindy meant well, but she was a bit much. It’d be expensive, but he’d take an Uber （they had Ubers in Nebraska, right?） and maybe Cindy could lend him his grandfather’s old station wagon.
At eight o’clock the Eppley Airfield terminal was quiet. It was a haze of fluorescent lights and tired-looking TSA workers. He followed the signs to ground transport, plodding past the kiosk for Omaha Steaks and down the escalator with the rest of the herd. Some familiar faces from the plane—the guy with the bad tattoos, the old lady he helped with the bag, the pretty young woman who kept stealing looks at him—were standing by the luggage turnstile. And then he saw it. The curly-haired man with bloodshot eyes. Matt ambled over to him.
“You look like shit,” Ganesh said after the two man-hugged.
“What are you doing here?”
“Your texts from Cancún were pathetic, so I thought you could use some company.”
He was right about that.
“You got a bag?” Ganesh said, looking at the luggage conveyer belt.
Matt shook his head. He’d left his duffel in Hank’s car on that rural road in Tulum.
“Then let’s get the fuck out of here.”
They proceeded to the parking garage, where Ganesh clicked the key fob on his rental. The lights on a massive Escalade flashed.
“Trying to blend in, I see.” Adair, Nebraska, wasn’t known for its luxury vehicles.
“What’s the problem? It’s American made.” The sum total of Ganesh’s understanding of rural America was from the movies. Matt had introduced him to a favorite, My Cousin Vinny, which was set in Alabama, but it was all the same to Ganesh.
The SUV smelled of cheap air freshener.
Soon they were heading out of the garage, through downtown Omaha and its tiny skyline, and onto the interstate, which turned to a dark highway and an expanse of flatland. They flew by errant farmhouses, stray windmills, and pretty much nothing else for miles.
“There’s so much space,” Ganesh said, scanning the emptiness. “In Mumbai there’s no land left. The only way to go is up.”
“Are the rural areas of India any better?”
“Haven’t seen much of the country, to be honest.”
Matt filled him in on his trip to Mexico. The bizarre encounter with Hank. The scare in the woods. The hostile Mexican cop. The imposing consular officer, Carlita Escobar.
“You, my friend,” Ganesh said, his Indian accent more prominent than usual, “had one fucked-up week.”
“You can say that again.”
“You, my friend, had one fucked-up week,” Ganesh said with a big grin.
It was another hour before the water tower for Adair appeared on the horizon. Ganesh said, “It’s like from the documentary.”
Matt recalled the opening credits from “A Violent Nature,” which included an aerial shot of the town. The voice on the GPS said to take the next exit, and Ganesh took it too fast, the Escalade nearly careening off the ramp.
“You’re going to kill me on the way to a funeral,” Matt said.
As they made their way into town, Matt didn’t look out the window. He didn’t want to face the memories or the nostalgia or whatever would flood through him at the sight of his childhood hometown. He just closed his eyes and waited for Ganesh to take them to the Adair Motel.
The establishment’s name fit the town: no frills, straightforward, matter-of-fact. It was one of the few places that wasn’t named after the proprietor who’d started the business. Places like Parker’s Grocery, Sullivan’s Ice Cream, Anne’s Diner, and so on. Matt supposed no one wanted their legacy to be a low-end motel.