Fadeaway Girl (24 page)

I nodded.

Donny grunted and helped himself to another doughnut. “They find her?” he asked, obviously indifferent to Agatha's fate.

“She reappeared in a hotel somewhere, or was it in some baths? Anyway, she wouldn't say what happened.” I grew fake thoughtful. “Speaking of disappearing—wasn't that your uncle that was in charge of that case twenty years ago about the baby disappearing from the Belle Ruin hotel?” My mouth was dry and I wished for a glass of water. I hadn't thought to buy a drink for myself, since I didn't have to bribe myself. “I think Great-Aunt Aurora knew Sheriff Mooma. Yes, I recall she mentioned him, first-rate policeman, Carl Mooma. Smart as a whip is what she said.”

Donny gave a pleased snicker. “Gotta get up pretty early in the morning to beat Carl, and that's the truth. I tell you he's writing his memoirs? Yeah, he is. Got himself a publisher and everything.”

Memoirs? This was better than I thought. “A publisher? Like in New York City?”

“Nah. Place in Cleveland—”

I frowned. “Cleveland? It has publishers?”

Irritated, Donny said, “Well, just you listen and you might learn somethin' for a change. This publisher, the author pays the cost of printing it up and marketing it and the author—in this case Carl—gets the profits. Pretty neat arrangement.” He made that click-click sound, tongue against teeth, in the way people do when they're pleased with themselves.

“That's really exciting.” I snapped my fingers as if I'd only now thought of it: “Listen, you know some of what I'm writing for the paper is about that baby disappearing; do you think Sheriff Mooma”—I wanted to sound respecting of his former position—“would be willing to be interviewed? I didn't even know he was still around; it's why I never thought of it, I guess.”

Donny clearly thought any Mooma was deserving of attention, as I expected he would. He started pacing again, thumbs hitched in his Sam Browne belt, sidearm riding his hip. “He sure as hell is. Now, I can't answer for Carl, but no reason Gumbrel couldn't put out feelers. . . .”

As if the wire services were just waiting for a word from Carl Mooma.

Maureen was sitting back there, rolling her eyes.

“Oh, good,” I said. “Where's he living now?”

“Over in Rawlins.”

Rawlins wasn't much of a town, just a dirt-grooved little place made up of a couple dozen houses, a bar, and a gas station. The bar was in the station. Even Cold Flat Junction was more substantial. Rawlins was just before Hebrides.

Donny added, “Lives on Blackbird Road. Number fourteen Blackbird Road's his spread.”

Blackbird Road! It seemed a sign. But “signs” didn't happen to people like me, only to ones like Romeo and Juliet, or Moses, or Ree-Jane. To hear her tell it, she was always getting “signs” as to her career or love affairs (of which she had neither), as if stars littered her path by divine command.

I wondered why I'd never thought of Carl Mooma as a source of information before. Well, I guess I had supposed he was dead. Probably because there was such a rich supply of events and detail, I hadn't really thought about him.

“How much of this book has your uncle written?” I wanted to know how long and hard he'd thought about the event. “Did he make notes at the time?”

Donny grunted in mock disbelief. Could I be that stupid? “Just shows to go ya how much you know about po-lice work. Course he made notes.”

I dropped the note taking and repeated my first question: “Then how much of his memoir has Sheriff Mooma written?”

Donny considered. Then he winked and tapped his temple. “Got it all right in the old bean. You don't start writing all helter-skelter, just tossin' facts and details around—”

As far as I was concerned, helter-skelter was the only way any book got written, including the King James version.

“—no siree, you got to have your material in order, marshal your thoughts, get 'em lined up like a dress parade, let 'em march one-two, one-two and salute!” He actually did. “Yes sir, that's—”

Maureen said, “Oh, shut up, Donny.” She'd lit up a Lucky to have with her coffee and was looking at him through the smoke. “You don't know any more about writing a book than fishing off a moonbeam.”

He whirled around toward her quick as a dervish. “What? Now, just how in hell do you know, anyway?”

“I know it comes hard.” To my surprise, Maureen held up the book on her desk. It was
The Great Gatsby
. “Ask him.”

Donny corkscrewed his neck out, squinted. “Who? Gatsby?”

“No. F. Scott Fitzgerald.”

Donny flapped his hand as if he were chasing away pigeons. “For God's sake, Maureen, he's one of the greats, him and . . . Shakespeare and them. Course, they work different.”

“Well, there's Emma, who's writing for the paper. Why don't you ask her?”

No no no no. While Donny was looking at Maureen, I shook my head violently. For all I appreciated her being on my side, I didn't want her on it right then. “Well, but Donny's got a point, Maureen. I think you write better if you ‘marshal' your thoughts first.” I'd have batted my eyelashes at him if I'd had battable lashes.

Donny just hitched up his pants and gave her the pigeon wave again.

I could tell, though, that he was somewhat appeased by my words. I said, “I'll talk to Mr. Gumbrel about the interview. Thanks, Donny. This is going to be a really good piece. Do you think you could let Sheriff Mooma know the
Conservative
will be in touch?”

Donny scratched his neck. “Well, yeah. Yeah, Carl, he'll need to work it into his schedule.”

I nodded. “I'll talk to Mr. Gumbrel right away.” I got up and tossed my crumpled napkin in the wastebasket.

“Yeah, once we get the ball rollin,' ” said Donny, “I wouldn't be surprised if the big newspapers didn't pick up the story.”

It was becoming, already, Donny's own success story.

I said good-bye to him and Maureen and let him dream on.

In case Donny called Mr. Gumbrel, and he probably would, just to jaw about his uncle's book, I headed for the newspaper office.

There were several people there, including Suzie Whitelaw and the freelance photographer, but not Mr. Gumbrel. I left my message with the girl in charge of want ads, since I knew her to be the most reliable person there.

Then I was ready for Rawlins.

T
he train didn't stop in Rawlins, it being such a no-account little place, so I had to take a cab from Hebrides to get there.

It was a town I'd never been in and I wondered why I thought Cold Flat Junction was a much better place, when the whole point of the Junction was its unconnected life. It was lonely, it was silent, it wasn't on the way to anywhere, despite its famous railroad station. I thought at times Cold Flat Junction, unattached to anything, floated in my mind. Yet it didn't have this strange quality of Rawlins; Rawlins felt more like it was the tag end of nowhere; it was, actually, where the Hebrides road ran away to a mere trickle.

Blackbird Road was a treeless street with only thinned-out hedges defining properties, the dark little shingled houses studded about like cloves. Number 14 was at the end.

It was a brown-shingled bungalow with a shadowed, white-pillared porch up a narrow walk. Thin rows of red and orange geraniums were planted evenly along each side.

A man sat on the porch and I wondered if this was Carl Mooma, sitting in a rocking chair in the deep shadows, smoking a thick cigar.

“ 'Lo,” he said, in a quite friendly tone.

“Sheriff Mooma?”

He laughed, a dry sound, forced as if his chest were resenting the effort. “Been a long time since anybody called me that.” The chair creaked a little as he leaned forward to see me better. “You look kinda young to be looking for a sheriff.”

I was walking up the three butterscotch-tan-varnished steps. “My name's Emma Graham; I live in Spirit Lake. I tried to call, but couldn't find a number for you.”

“Don't have a phone. Hardly anyone calls.” He cocked his head to the right. “Fella next door takes messages for me.”

“Oh. Then you haven't heard from your nephew Donny about the interview?”

“No, ma'am. I ain't heard from Donny, but then he never was Mr. Reliable. Go on, sit.” He indicated the rocker next to his own.

I thought about defending Donny here, given the little time that had passed since I'd talked to him. But I managed not to. As it was, Carl Mooma was turning out to be a lot different from what I'd expected. But then I remembered I'd gotten most of my information from Aurora Paradise, and she never was handy with the compliments.

I sat. We rocked. Everything was mournfully peaceful. I looked out over Blackbird Road and felt the failure of the place. It was where you ended up if you were not awfully careful. I had no doubt but that it was where I would end up, being about as careless as they come.

Blackbird Road. I looked for something wheeling across the sky, but there was nothing. The sky was cloudless, a slab of slate gray.

“So now, what's this interview you said?”

I explained about the story I was writing, the several murders, the kidnapping, my own near murder.

“Jesus H. W. Christ! I was going to say you're pretty young to be writing for a newspaper, as well as seeking out a sheriff, but I guess you've had a lot of life experience.”

“I guess,” I said, modestly.

He just kept shaking his head and giving Jesus Christ the same initials. I wondered what they stood for.

“Okay, so Donny told you I'm supposed to be writing my— what?—my ‘memoirs'?” he laughed. “Well, it's not the first time Donny was full of hot air. We was talking about this once and he said I should do it, should write up this alleged kidnapping of that poor Slade child and that he could be my agent and there were publishers who got your books printed for a fee. So I asked him, ‘Who's got the money for a fee?' He says, ‘Never mind, I can talk them down.' I says, ‘Talk who down?' He says, ‘Why, publishers, of course. There's places that print up your book and then sell it.' He goes on talking about it like it's a done deal.”

I laughed. I liked the way Carl Mooma talked. “You talk really well, Mr. Mooma. I bet you
could
write a book. Maybe you ought to try it.”

He smiled. He had a square head with thinning gray hair set on a thick neck and heavy shoulders. He did have steady dark blue eyes that had probably helped him when he was questioning suspects. You wouldn't want the eyes trained on you for too long.

“It's true,” he said, “that whole business is worth being writ about, and maybe you're the one to do it. I can't write worth a damn.”

I thought for a moment about the police investigation, or lack of it. “There doesn't seem to have been much of an investigation into that kidnapping, or disappearance, or whatever happened to that baby. I don't mean to offend, but there was talk that Mr. Woodruff bought off the law.”

He only laughed. “Yeah, I'm familiar with that talk. No money changed hands.” As if to make this understood, he wiped his hands down his thighs. “No, I agreed to hold off for a bit because he was a friend, that's all.”

“Why did he want you to?”

“Because he was afraid his son-in-law done it and he wanted time to get it out of him. I shouldn't have done that, I know, but the man was so overwrought.” His smile was slight. “And he also knew the governor.” The smile turned sly. “But he never tied Morris Slade to the kidnapping.”

“So the trail went cold,” I said, helpfully.

“You seen too many movies, little girl.” He grinned. “Trail was always cold. I was sliding on thin ice, and I knew it.”

I frowned. It sounded as if Carl Mooma almost knew before he started it was hopeless.

He went on. “Whole thing was fishy, I finally came to realize.”

“Fishy how?” I wondered if he'd come up with the same fishiness I had.

“That babysitter, for instance. What was her name?”

“Gloria Spiker. Now it's Calhoun.”

“Yeah. She said—finally, after I asked the girl a hundred times, for I knew she was holding back—”

He chose this moment to start in coughing and waved his cigar smoke away. “Bad lungs—” The coughing went on.

I hoped he didn't die at my feet before he finished his story. I pounded him on the back. I was surprised I felt free to do this, as if Sheriff Mooma and I had known each other for an age. Finally he quit.

“I gotta stop these things.” He held up the cigar.

“Later,” I said, unsympathetic as usual. “Go on about Gloria Spiker. What was she holding back?” I knew, but he might know more.

“She said the mother didn't like that baby. That was Imogen Woodruff, then Slade. The Spiker girl said she could tell in just the way the mother gave her directions, it was more like she was talking about a sick dog. She—Imogen, the mother—said to leave the baby alone, not to wake it up or do anything. Well, she'd never heard any mother be so cold toward a child.”

Well,
I thought. “How about the father, Morris Slade?”

“Oh. Gloria never said anything about him, much, except he was pretty nice. But I don't think he had much to do with telling her her duties. He wasn't in the room, if I remember right.”

Rain had started, a fine mist blowing onto the porch, but we stayed put and looked at it as though from another country. Bullets of rain could have peppered the porch, and us with it, and I wouldn't have moved.