The Third Hill North of Town (6 page)

But Samuel knew. Other than Sam himself, Elijah was Mary’s only weak spot. Their son had his share of quirks, but he was a good boy, through and through. He was sweet, smart, and loving, and he was the very best part of Mary’s life. Sam’s, too, for that matter, but if someone ever harmed Elijah it wouldn’t be Sam they’d have to worry about. Mary Hunter would go to hell and back to keep her son safe, and God help anybody who tried to take him away from her.

 

Elijah woke with a throbbing headache and a layer of sweat all over his body. For a moment he didn’t remember where he was, and he stared blankly at the tan underside of the Edsel’s roof, trying to get his bearings. There was a thin strip of cloth tied around his head and his hand drifted up to inspect it, probing the tender bump over his left eye.

“Ow,” he muttered.

Memory came rushing back: He’d banged his head while trying to get away from the crazy lady. Full awareness of his surroundings returned with this recollection and his eyes darted to the front of the car.

A larger shock followed as he registered a young white guy with short black hair now sitting in the front passenger seat. The guy’s head was resting on top of the seat and he seemed to be asleep.

Elijah goggled at this new threat.
Who the fuck is THAT?

The windows were steamed over and the car was uncomfortably hot. Elijah sat up gingerly, and only then noticed his shirt was in shreds. He fingered it with dismay. The collar and short sleeves were intact, but the only other fabric left in front was the pocket covering his left breast. He felt like he was wearing a cape.

He flushed with embarrassment as he figured out where the bandage around his head had come from, and who must have torn up his shirt. He crossed his arms over his chest, feeling naked and vulnerable.

Elijah never went to the town pool (even though he loved to swim) because he didn’t want other people to see him without clothes, and he loathed gym class since he had no choice but to shower with the other boys. Sometimes he’d take his shirt off when he was working on the farm with his dad, but the instant he saw the mailman or somebody else coming down the driveway he’d bolt for cover. It bothered him to know that while he’d been unconscious the woman and the stranger in the front seat had both seen him partly undressed.

There were groceries on the floor beside him, and as he stared at the Pepsi bottles and candy bars in one of the bags he realized how thirsty and hungry he was.

“Oh, good!” Julianna’s cheerful voice made him jump. “Welcome back, sleepyhead.”

Their eyes met in the rearview mirror.

Elijah frowned. “How long have I been asleep?” Keeping one arm firmly pressed to his sternum he wiped condensation from a side window with his free hand and peered out at the world. The weeds on the side of the highway were wet from a recent rain, but the sun was peeking through the clouds again.

She shrugged. “Several hours, I should think.”

The stranger woke at the sound of their voices and raised his head. He looked at Julianna for a minute before turning in his seat to study Elijah. His face was guarded, but not unfriendly.

“Hi,” he said.

Elijah was not in the best of moods. His head hurt, his shirt was ruined, and he was apparently hours away from his home. Worst of all, he was still a captive of the lunatic woman, and this guy might be her accomplice, for all he knew. Frustration and fear overrode his usual good manners.

“Who the hell are you?” he demanded.

The stranger blinked. He had a black stubble of beard on his chin and cheeks, but he didn’t look much older than Elijah.

“Benjamin Taylor!” Julianna chided. “What on earth has gotten into you?” She dropped her voice to talk to the newcomer. “You’ll have to forgive Ben. He’s been acting strangely all day.”

She spoke louder to address Elijah. “This is our new friend Steve, Ben. Say hello.”

In spite of himself, Elijah felt a little abashed. His arms tightened over his exposed torso. “I’m Elijah,” he muttered, looking at the floor.

Julianna’s voice fell to a whisper again. “His name is Ben,” she said, sounding distressed.

“No, it isn’t,” Elijah snapped, glaring at the back of her head. “It’s Elijah.”

In the mirror he could see her big green eyes rolling.

Jon Tate looked from one to the other of them, confused. “Uh, I’m Steve.” He held out a tentative hand. “Nice to meet you.”

Elijah stared with suspicion at the offered hand for a few seconds before taking it in his own. Both boys were sweating and Elijah let go promptly. He didn’t like touching other people, especially when perspiration was involved.

His stomach growled and he gazed with longing at the bags of groceries next to his feet. His throat felt raspy as he raised his head and looked at the woman again. “Can I have some of your food?”

Julianna realized she was hungry, too. “Of course you can, silly. I could use a bite myself. Find me a chicken leg, will you?” She smiled over at Jon. “Momma always packs the best picnic lunches. Would you like to try some of her delicious fried chicken?”

Jon was starving and his mouth started watering. “That would be great.”

He watched the top of Elijah’s head as the other boy dug around in Edgar Reilly’s grocery bags. Jon was trying to figure out what the connection was between Elijah and Julianna. It seemed odd that a middle-aged white woman and a young black kid would be traveling together, but the woman acted as if the two of them were old friends. The kid was bent out of shape about something, but maybe it was just because he’d hurt his head, like the lady said.

Elijah handed up a couple of bottles of Pepsi and a bag of potato chips and Jon thanked him, then asked if Elijah had a bottle opener. When Elijah shook his head, Jon shrugged and said “No problem,” and promptly pried open the bottles with the latch of his seatbelt, impressing Elijah in spite of himself. Jon grinned and explained he’d learned to do this trick on beer bottles, then he passed one of the sodas to Julianna and tried to make conversation as he waited for Elijah to find the chicken.

“So how long have you guys known each other?” he asked.

Hearing this, Elijah abruptly straightened in the backseat, realizing that the older boy wasn’t with the woman after all.

Maybe he can get her to stop the car!
he thought in excitement.

“Oh, forever,” the woman answered, taking a sip of warm Pepsi and smiling appreciatively at its sweetness. “We grew up together.”

Elijah poked his head between Julianna and Jon. “We did
not,
” he said emphatically. He thrust a bag of Chips Ahoy! cookies at the other boy as if he were presenting him with a sworn affidavit. “Honest to God, I’ve never seen this lady before this morning. I don’t even know her name!”

Jon ignored the offered cookies. Julianna’s assertion of having grown up with somebody who was clearly forty years her junior was bad enough, but her hospital wristband had now caught his attention, as well. He was eyeing it with concern.

“She doesn’t have any chicken, either,” Elijah added sullenly.

Julianna pursed her lips, worried. “Oh, Ben, how could you possibly forget my name? We’ve been best friends since we were babies!”

Jon’s mouth was hanging open, revealing a partially digested potato chip on his tongue.

“She’s out of her goddamn mind,” Elijah muttered to the other boy.

Julianna overheard this, but before she could chastise him for his rudeness a flashing red light appeared behind them on the highway, distracting her.

 

Gabriel Dapper answered the phone in the office of his downtown Bangor hardware store.

“Dapper’s Tool Emporium,” he said.

The office was small and cramped (especially for Gabriel, who was six foot four and weighed nearly three hundred pounds), but the piles of paper on his desk were stacked in tight, neat piles, and the catalogs and ledger books on the wall shelf were plainly marked and alphabetized. The desktop itself was clear, save for a notepad, a compass, and a pencil, all of which Gabriel had been using when the phone rang.

Edgar Reilly’s polite, pompous voice came through the receiver. “Gabriel? It’s Dr. Reilly.”

Gabriel had been drawing interlocking one-inch diameter circles on the notepad with the compass; a closer inspection of the pad would have revealed dozens of virtually identical pages, with seven circles per page. Gabriel loved circles, and was also rather fond of the number 7.

“Hey, Doc,” he responded cautiously. He knew better than to hope Edgar was calling to tell him Julianna’s condition had improved, but he made himself ask anyway. “Is Mom doing any better?”

For Gabriel’s entire life, his mother had been more sane than anyone else he knew. Living in the same town as they did, he had seen her at least once a week for years, and prior to setting the fire in her neighbor’s garage a month ago, nothing in her behavior had warned him that her mind was preparing to desert her. On the contrary, she had seemed sharper than ever, reading book after book in preparation for the literature classes she taught at Shelby Cabot Grammar School; she had recently begun tutoring several students privately, too, in every subject from algebra to Latin. Ever since the garage fire, though, she had referred to him as “Lars, the blacksmith,” and whenever he looked in her eyes the woman he had known as his mother was altogether absent. It made his heart hurt just to think about it, and for the last few weeks he’d found himself on the verge of tears at the oddest moments: standing in line at the grocery store, tossing a steak on the grill, sharpening all his office pencils until they were a uniform length.

On the other end of the line, Edgar Reilly held the phone in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Before dialing Julianna’s son, he’d placed an open bag of lemon drops in front of him on the desk, for courage.

“I’m afraid I have some very bad news, Gabriel.” Edgar did his best to sound calm and professional but he was unable to keep a tremor from creeping into his voice. “I’m very sorry to have to tell you this, but it seems your mother has escaped.”

A prolonged silence followed this announcement and Edgar’s forehead began to sweat. He popped a lemon drop into his mouth and waited anxiously.

Gabriel cleared his throat at last. “I don’t understand.” His voice was quiet, but ominous. “Where did she go?”

Edgar explained as quickly as he could, recounting all he knew about Julianna’s escape from the hospital, her theft of his Edsel, and the subsequent police hunt for her. Then, sucking hard on the lemon drop every few seconds, he shared the information Deputy Oakley had given him only moments ago:

“Late this morning, a young black man was seen assaulting a white woman in what was almost certainly my car, in southern Maine.” He forced himself to go on. “The physical description of the victim was vague, but I fear it could all too easily have been your mother.” His voice shook. “I’m so sorry, Gabriel, but the police think it’s likely she’s been kidnapped.”

Gabriel stared into space, not seeing anything in his orderly office.

“Christ,” he whispered. “Sweet Christ in heaven.”

Everybody believed Gabriel was older than he was. His size and his seriousness made him appear almost the same age as Julianna, but he was only thirty-six years old, and in many ways he felt even younger than that. He had never been in love, for instance, and his sole romantic relationship of any consequence had been with Tammy Sue Ogilvie, when he was a junior in high school. The time he spent with Tammy Sue was sweet and fun, but to be honest she hadn’t meant much to him. And no woman had since come along, either, that he felt was worth the trouble of more than a single night.

The simple truth was that none of them could hold a candle to his mother.

Gabriel’s father, William Dapper, had been kicked in the head by a horse and killed when Gabriel was only three years old, in a tiny town called Veteran, Maine. Gabriel had no memory of his father, nor of Veteran. Julianna had been a very young schoolteacher when William died; they were married for less than four years, and his premature death broke her heart. She couldn’t bear to continue living in Veteran, and so she and Gabriel relocated to Bangor to start a new life.

They knew no one in Bangor when they arrived, but Julianna was a gifted teacher and soon found work at the school where she still taught to this day—or
had
taught, until her recent psychotic episode. She never even dated another man; losing William had hurt her too badly, and she frequently told Gabriel—who thought she should remarry—that she had experienced more than her fair share of that sort of pain for one lifetime, and didn’t care for any more of it. She felt it was much safer to pour her entire heart and soul into her teaching, instead.

And into her only child, of course.

If Gabriel were forced to come up with an anecdote from his childhood that would best illustrate why he adored his mother as much as he did, he would have chosen a memory from when he was sixteen, shortly after America had just entered the second World War. In addition to her teaching, Julianna had begun volunteering as a nurse’s aid at the Bangor hospital; she worked long hours each night, taking care of wounded soldiers who had been shipped back to the States, and she often didn’t get home until after midnight, exhausted. Gabriel soon became worried about her, and he asked why she was working so hard when she didn’t have to.

She’d turned to him with a tired smile. “Because I made a deal with God.”

“What are you talking about?” Gabriel had smiled back warily, thinking she was pulling his leg. Julianna was far less religious than Gabriel, and often teased him for being what she called “too churchy” for his own good.

Julianna had shrugged. “Well, since you’ve decided to enlist in the army next year, I promised God I’d help out at the hospital for the entire war. All
He
has to do to hold up His part of the bargain is to bring you back in one piece.”