Impulse (12 page)
Frank woke up feeling like Conan the Barbarian spent the night rampaging around in his skull. He still wore his slacks. He’d shed his coat, shirt, and tie and they lay in a heap on the floor. He shook his head and sat up. Somewhere downstairs he heard his grandchildren arguing. The aroma of bacon and coffee filled the room. Sunday morning breakfast, the meal that surviving the week made worthwhile. The trick this morning was to survive waking up. He pulled on a sweater, made a quick trip to the bathroom and went downstairs. His daughter looked at him like he was three-day-old fish.
“Good morning,” he said, ignoring the look. She mumbled something he couldn’t make out.
“What are we going to do today?” Tooth asked.
“You’re not supposed to ask,” his brother said and punched him on the arm.
“Ow. Mom, Jesse punched me.”
“Jesse, stop punching your brother.” A mother’s reflex.
“Can you take us to the ball game?” Tooth asked and this time managed to avoid his brother’s fist.
“What time?” Frank asked. A ball game might be just the thing. Would Rosemary go? Why did he care if she did or didn’t?
“Three o’clock.”
“Let me make a call first, but yeah, we can go to the game.”
“Yay,” Tooth cheered.
“Not so fast,” his mother said. Her tone sounded ominous. “I need to talk to your grandfather first.”
Tooth scowled. “But—”
“No buts. Go get ready for church—now.”
The kids scuffled out of the room, leaving the field clear for whatever major engagement their mother had in mind.
“Dad, it’s none of my business, but where were you last night?”
“You’re right, it’s none of your business. Look, if I’m in your way here, I’ll move out. The plan was for me to leave today, anyway. I can still do that. Solving the school’s mystery can be left to someone else. Or, I can move into a motel.” His head still throbbed. If it hadn’t, he might have been a little more civil. But he was beginning to resent his daughter’s insistence he be treated like a naughty boy.
“Or move in with Mrs. Mitchell?”
Frank studied his daughter. He supposed she had a right to be upset, what with her mother’s whereabouts still in limbo, but she should also know her limits.
“I don’t have any plans to cohabit with Mrs. Mitchell,” he said, his voice hovering on the thin edge of anger. “If I had, I wouldn’t have come home last night at all, if you must know. I’ll get a motel room. That way, you won’t have to worry about what time I go to bed.”
“Or with whom.”
It was his turn to give her a look. Their eyes locked for a moment and then, feeling foolish, he started to leave the room.
“You haven’t eaten your breakfast,” she said.
“No. Thanks, anyway. I’ll be out of your hair in an hour or so.” He left.
“Grandpa, are we going to the game?”
“Not this trip, guys. Sorry.”
Frank went to his room and rummaged in his coat pocket for his cell phone, retrieved it, and called Rosemary. Sometime during the past two days her number had made it into his speed dial program.
“Hi. I seem to have your car in my daughter’s driveway.”
“No problem. I hoped you’d take it. I worry about you.”
“I’m flattered but I’m fine. Look, I need to get the car back to you and then I want to book into a motel while I work on this project for Scott.”
“We.”
“What?”
“While
we
work on the project for Scott. Nick and Nora, remember? And why a motel? Why aren’t you staying with your daughter?”
“Long story. How about I pick you up—”
“And take me to church and to lunch afterward?”
“Ah…well, why not. In an hour?”
“Yes.”
He hung up and called his home number, entered his code, and listened to the messages in his voice mail. The fifth and last changed the expression of bored attention to concentration. He frowned, pushed the appropriate button, and listened again.
Important I speak to you as soon as possible. There’s been a development. Call me.
Frank knew the number but hesitated. What kind of development? What had Ledezma turned up now? No need to get panicky, at least not yet. They didn’t know where he was, and until he knew what had developed, they wouldn’t. He snapped the phone shut and began making a pile of his clothes on the bed.
“Dad?” Barbara stood in the door, hands clasped, face worried. “I’m sorry. I spoke out of turn. I didn’t want to upset you. I…please don’t feel you have to go.”
“It’s for the best, Barbara. I love you, but you and I are not going to stay friends very much longer if I remain here. And anyway, there is a hotel near Scott. Then I won’t need a car, see. I can walk to the school to ask my questions. It’s near the Metro, too, so I can get downtown if I have to, and I have a ride if I need one.” He saw the momentary flash in her eyes and realized he should have skipped the last part.
She sighed and nodded. “You don’t have to, you know. Really, I feel bad about this…the ball game—”
“I’d still like to take them, if that’s okay,” he said.
She nodded again, searched his face, and then retreated back into the hall. He listened until her footsteps faded out of earshot. He redialed Rosemary.
“Church, lunch, then to the ball park with not one, not two, but three handsome men—one old coot and two rather dashing youths. Suit you?”
“It’ll be like a tea dance at the Naval Academy, so many men, so little time.”
***
Sunday. Against his better judgment Brad made up his mind to go to the woods. He reckoned nobody would be around, at least not in the morning. He hadn’t set foot in the woods since his return to Scott, but now it called to him, tugged at him, sirens singing from the rocks on some mythic shore. He tried to remember his mythology. Who were the sirens and who called whom? Jason and the Argonauts? What happened to them? He thought he remembered something about ear wax but couldn’t be sure. Or maybe it was Odysseus.
He showered and dressed. Judith still lay sprawled across their bed in the same position he’d left her the night before. He watched as a fly landed on her shoulder and started a pilgrimage across her chest. She brushed it away without waking. He rearranged the sheets again. In the raw morning light, she didn’t look quite as alluring, quite as desirable.
He made himself a cup of instant coffee and two slices of toast, slathering a glob of peanut butter on each. He stalled, picked up the Sunday paper, thought about reading. He stared at the wall, drummed his fingers. Then he realized if he didn’t go soon, before his wife woke, he wouldn’t go at all. He swallowed the last of his coffee, made a face, walked down the steps to the basement, and slipped out the sliding glass door.
It took him ten minutes to walk down the hill and into the woods. Ten minutes in real time, a quarter of a century in his mind. He hesitated, and then plunged in, afraid he might be sick, afraid of what he might remember, but mostly, just afraid.
***
The ME stared at the skeleton spread out on the table. He had a clipboard in his hand and checked off items as he counted. Early desert sunlight filled the dingy room, etching the peeling iron rafters with unforgiving light. He needed to be absolutely sure. In his world, every detail counted. Now cops, he thought, cops would skip over things. “Not important,” they’d say, “just give me the big picture,” they’d say, and then they would miss one small thing and some bad guy would stay on the street to kill again. This guy, Ledezma, impulsive, always in a hurry, can’t wait. Like some TV cop, “Just the facts, ma’am.” And he never asked the right questions,
He scratched his bald spot with latex-gloved fingers, pulled his eyebrows together to squint at the bones again. Only three bones, some phalanges, interested him now. Left or right ring finger? He picked them up, one by one, and replaced them. He checked the articular facets of the adjoining carpel bone just to be sure. Definitely the right hand. He would check with the state’s forensic anthropologist to be sure, but he felt absolutely certain he had it right.
“I guess she wasn’t praying after all,” he said and made a note on the clipboard.
Rosemary swung the car into the hotel’s portico. No eager bellman leapt to open the door or handle luggage. Frank had spent the trip from the ball park looking at her out of the corner of his eye. He thought she looked tired. The lines on her face were deepened with fatigue. Her face had also started to turn pink from the sun—except around her eyes where she’d worn sunglasses. The heretofore missing freckles had finally surfaced. In an hour she would look like a reversed-out panda. “Frank, is it okay if I just drop you off? I am exhausted. Too much fresh air, too many hot dogs, and too much fun for this old lady to take in, in one day.”
“Not old, Rosemary. Old is like—for castles. Old is for sea tortoises, old is for Methuselah. Do you know how they describe a used Mercedes in my part of the world?
Experienced
, not used, not old, but experienced. That’s us. We’re not old, we’re just experienced.”
“Well, this extremely experienced woman of indeterminate age is experiencing the effects of severe exhaustion.”
Frank got out, removed his bags from the trunk, and was surprised to see what he assumed must be a bellman. Hotels, in his experience, did not usually provide such frills. He handed his bags to the man, who, shirt unbuttoned and worrying a toothpick in the corner of his mouth, accepted Frank’s dollar tip with a grunt and disappeared into the hotel carrying only one of the two bags. Frank walked around to the driver’s side door.
“Tomorrow,” he said, “I’ll check with Elizabeth Roulx in the archives. That will take most of the morning. How about you work your charms on your connected people and see if you can get your hands on the police reports.”
She nodded and then wagged her finger at him, to come closer. “Thank you for a wonderful day. I think your grandchildren are adorable. Do you think they liked me?”
“They thought you were spectacular. Tooth wanted to know where you got your hair dyed white. He said he’d like to have his dyed that way, too. I think he wants to be a trend setter.”
“What did you tell him?” she said, grinning.
“That he’d have to wait until he was older. He pouted for a while. Apparently that’s the answer he gets for everything he wants to do—from skydiving to scuba. Jesse told him he was dumb. That you didn’t have your hair dyed, you just had ‘old hair.’”
“Experienced hair. Well, I’m flattered, but if I could exchange this mop for his chestnut curls, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Okay, I’ve got to go.” She leaned toward the open window. He hesitated, smiled, and kissed her. She kissed him back.
“Tomorrow. We’ll meet back here for lunch and swap information.”
“What time tomorrow? Never mind, call me.” She drove off.
Frank watched her roll down the ramp and onto the street, picked up his remaining suitcase, walked into the lobby, and checked in. The clerk took his credit card, fussed with the computer keyboard, and frowned. Frank hoped that didn’t mean anything. Clerks have a habit of studying their computer monitors like they’re on the brink of discovering the unified theory of the universe. The clerk raised his eyes, head nodding like a bobble head doll, and assigned him a room. When Frank asked, he assured him that they did indeed have a business center where he could use a computer. Instructions on how to use his key card to access it, the faxes, and the Internet were printed on the inside of the key folder which he handed Frank. There would be a charge of course. He raised his eyebrows slightly when Frank asked for two key cards, but swiped them without asking any questions.
Rooms in motels and hotels, particularly chains, have a predictable sameness that for travelers on the road for long periods can sometimes cause clinical depression. A hotel can be a Sheraton one year and a Ramada the next as its owner plays franchise checkers, but that fact will go largely unnoticed by his guests, unless they prefer one shampoo choice over another. Frank inspected his room. He found it unremarkable from dozens he’d stayed in before. It had two double beds, a television set on cable with pay per view movies, a small refrigerator, a coffee maker, and a safe. He figured they all might come in handy. He would give Rosemary a shopping list and stock up on goodies. He might save time and a little money eating in once in a while.
He dug his phone charger out of his bag and plugged it in. He opened the phone. A phone call might just shake something loose. Could they trace a cell phone call? He couldn’t remember. He wrote about that in one of his books,
Lying Distance,
and at the time, you couldn’t, but time changes things. He unpacked and flopped full length on the bed and immediately fell asleep.
The phone woke him.
“You’re in and settled?” Rosemary, sounding a little fresher.
He cleared his throat and tried to sound wide awake. “I’m good,” he said. The clock read nine-thirty. He hadn’t had dinner and his stomach sent him angry messages about it. “I’m just going out to get a bite to eat. Sorry you can’t join me.”
“I’m still working on those hot dogs, thank you. I may be at it all night. Next time you decide to invite me to one of your Boy Scout outings, remind me to pack a lunch.”
He chuckled. “Everybody needs a stadium dog at least once a year. They are a metaphor for life in the twenty-first century. They taste wonderful, you’re sure you can manage any and all on your plate, and five hours later, you have heartburn for decisions made without reflection.”
“Deep, very deep. Who knew how my life would be enriched when I met the famous author? But if it’s all the same with you, I’ll skip the metaphors for the nonce and say goodnight. See you tomorrow.”
The hotel did not have a restaurant but it did offer a continental breakfast. Otherwise, guests were on their own, to drive to the mall a half-mile away, or to any of the several eateries in the area, or use the chain restaurant next door. Frank hoped it was still open. The thought of eating out of vending machines did not appeal to him.
It wasn’t.
He managed to extract a limp Danish packaged in a cellophane wrapper from a vending machine, made a pot of in-room coffee, and washed it down without cream. He sighed, realizing that with the caffeine and the hours he’d slept since he checked in, the likelihood he’d go to sleep was remote. He took the elevator to the lobby and found the business center.
The computer beeped to life after he swiped his key card in the slot on its monitor. He stared at the screen and then found a search engine that would take him to the Arizona newspapers. He tried the latest editions of several. None mentioned anything about him or Sandy. The development must have been too recent, he thought, to make the Sunday edition. He’d have to try the next day. He remembered Rosemary’s complete set of print-outs about the missing boys. She said she got them off the Internet. He probed the
Arizona Republic
web site for an hour, trying to find a way into their archives without any success. How did she do it? He thought about calling her. Half past ten, too late. He’d have to ask her tomorrow.
Back in his room he spread the reports she’d downloaded on the bed. He arranged them in chronological order and began to read. He concentrated on the pages for two hours, stopping only to visit the vending machines for more drinks and crackers. From time to time he jotted a note, a short sentence constructing a rough outline of the events that afternoon long ago. At midnight, he pulled the papers back into a single pile, folded them, and put them in the shallow safe with his notes.
Somewhere in the thousands of words he’d read there had to be a clue, something that would steer him in the right direction. He turned on the television, keeping the volume low, and switched to the headline news channel. He noticed that as he grew older, the news seemed to have become repetitive. Politicians postured and pointed fingers. People were shot, robbed, raped, and abused. Folks wrecked their cars or other people’s cars. They did so because they were drunk, too old to be driving, too young to be driving, or just plain stupid. He wished the newscast would run a stupidity index with stories instead of attempting to make them into an investigative exposé. A man nearly killed himself diving off an eighty-foot rock ledge into a lake somewhere. The ledge stood at least twenty feet back from the water’s edge, another ten from water deep enough to dive in. Clearly, a candidate for a Darwin award. Guys like that couldn’t be good for the gene pool.
The international news included a report from some polling company indicating the popularity of the United States had waned significantly in France. Nothing new there—Freedom Fries, that’s the answer. Frank watched with glazed eyes, feeling sleepy but still hungry.
The carefully coifed and smiling anchorman reported on the results of the latest government study which showed that one quarter of the United States population suffered from mental illness at some level. Frank snorted. “That,” he said to the TV screen, “is six dollar bullshit. It is the inevitable outcome of a self-absorbed society wallowing in self-diagnosis and excuse making. Fifty years ago….” He stopped in mid-rant. Old age speaking. When would he learn that this generation did not care what happened fifty years, thirty years, even ten years ago? History held no meaning for them—that was then, this is now—the mantra for a generation who, Frank believed, would be well advised to learn Chinese.
The talking head, expression earnest, smile sincere, went on to declare that in Elkhart, Indiana, two boys were nearly killed when some scaffolding they were climbing on collapsed and left them dangling fifty feet in the air. They’d broken into a deserted construction site and saw the rigging as a huge jungle gym. Only the quick thinking of a third boy, who called 9-1-1 on his cell phone, kept the incident from becoming a tragedy. Frank had been eight years old before his family had a telephone at all, and it was a party line at that. But this kid had his own cell phone? What kind of society thinks it needs to equip a nine-year-old with a cell phone? I am getting old, he thought, old and bitter. I need to lighten up. The effects of an afternoon in the sun finally hit him. He stabbed the remote at the television to turn it off and went to sleep.
