Authors: R. D. Rosen
Dead Ball (28 page)
“I don’t think I’ve ever been so attached to a set of tires.”
“I feel like giving you a hug.”
“Well, get off your ass and give me one.”
He rose, and they held each other for thirty seconds in the middle of the floor, swaying like two pummeled prizefighters in a clinch, too tired to throw punches.
A week later, alone in the house, he received a phone call from Snoot Coffman’s widow, Cindy. What could he say to her? Sorry your husband was decapitated? Just about everything in his life seemed better left unsaid. He waited for her to state her business.
“Sorry to bother you, but you’re the only private detective I know.”
“What’s on your mind?”
“My daughter Tara,” she began.
Harvey pictured the two teenagers in halter tops on the field in Providence, waiting for Moss Cooley to get out of the batting cage.
“The older one,” Cindy Coffman said.
“Go on. I’m here.”
“I think she’s run off with her black boyfriend. She’s been incredibly upset, as you can imagine. She’s been in counseling and on sedatives. She left me a note saying, ‘Don’t worry, Mom, I’ll call you in a few days. I need some time alone with Bryan.’ That was three days ago.”
The dominoes were beginning to fall. “And you’ve talked to Bryan’s parents?”
“They haven’t heard from him, either.”
“Have you reported them missing to the police?”
“Not yet.”
“Your other daughter?”
“Tiffany’s here with me.”
“Is there any reason to suppose she’s in danger or has no intention of getting in touch with you?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. I’m just so worried. So are Bryan’s parents. I certainly don’t want to make the mistake of not acting.”
“Understood.”
“How would you feel about coming down to Providence tonight and sitting down with me and Bryan’s parents? Just to help us organize our thinking. You could decide then if you wanted to do more. Wanted to help us find them.”
“If that would make you feel more comfortable.”
“It would.”
“Under the circumstances, you know, I can’t take any money from you.”
“Of course we’d want to pay you.”
The fact was that Harvey didn’t want anything at all to do with Cindy Coffman and her daughter’s disappearance, yet he felt a twinge of obligation. He felt like someone at the end of an unsuccessful blind date: a good-night kiss seemed preferable, even if it falsely implied further interest, to not kissing her at all and hurting her feelings on the spot.
“All right,” he said, “I’ll meet with you and the boy’s parents. Beyond that, I can’t make any promises. Perhaps I can refer you to someone else.”
Later that afternoon, Harvey was getting in his Honda in his garage when a shudder went through him. He spun, feeling that he was being watched. But it was only the lawn jockey’s head, on the shelf where he had put it three weeks ago next to a bunch of paint cans. The head lay on its side, smiling insincerely at him.
He turned the head around so that it faced the wall. Then he got settled behind the wheel of his car, backed out of the garage, and started yet another journey to Providence, the city that, as if by some obscure law of the universe that applied only to him, drew Harvey back again and again.
A
MONG THE MANY WORKS
I found helpful in the writing of this novel were:
James Goodman’s Stories
of Scottsboro
Stephen J. Gould’s essay “The Streak of Streaks” in
DiMaggio: An Illustrated Life
Tony Horowitz’s
Confederates in the Attic
Joel Kovel’s
White Racism: A Psychohistory
Richard Ben Kramer’s
Joe DiMaggio: A Hero’s Life
James M. McPherson’s
The Battle Cry of Freedom
Karen Simpson’s independent research on the history of lawn jockeys
Bill Stanton’s
Klanwatch: Bringing the Klux Klan to Justice
Diann Sutherlin Smith’s
Down-Home Talk
Joel Williamson’s
The Crucible of Race
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 2001 by Richard Dean Rosen
cover design by Connie Gabbert
ISBN 978-1-4804-0583-7
This 2013 edition distributed by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media
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