“I don’t believe you. Do you know why?”
“No. Why?”
“Because,” she said, “you’re not a vain man. And it takes a lot of vanity for a man to notice a girl’s after him. I think they were following you, all right. But I don’t think you even saw them.”
“What makes you think I’m not vain?”
“Because,” she answered, “whenever Dan or Billy mention they’ve seen your name in the papers, you always change the subject.”
“They’re boys. We were talking about girls.”
“Have you got a comb?”
Silently, I handed her my comb. As she combed her thick tawny hair with slow, deliberate strokes, her eyes held mine with a soft, playful intimacy. Her mouth was curved in a quiet smile. I’d always liked to watch her comb her hair—liked to share this little ritual, somehow so gravely feminine. As the moments lengthened, I saw the special lilt fade slowly from her eyes. Now her expression was pensive.
Her voice was low in the silence: “Did you meet your wife in college?” It was a quick, seemingly casual question—but carefully asked.
Momentarily I hesitated, reluctant to answer. We almost never talked about the past—about her husband, or my wife. Yet I sensed why she wanted to know. These last few hours we’d spent together had evoked something special between us—something that, to be confirmed, must be sealed with a confidence shared.
“I met her two years after I graduated,” I said, looking away as I spoke. “I played with the Detroit Lions. That’s how I met her. I was in Detroit, I mean. Playing ball.”
With a final, chin-raised twist of her head, she finished with the comb. She carefully pulled hair from the teeth, and passed the comb to me.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
For a long moment we looked at each other. She was waiting for me to go on—hoping I’d continue, without being urged. I could see the questions in her eyes—questions she would never put to me directly.
Once more looking away, I spoke slowly, regretfully. “We never should’ve gotten married. It’s that simple. I’d never done anything but play a game for money, so I never had to decide who I was. And Carolyn—my wife—was a socialite. She was rich, and she was beautiful. So she’d never had to decide either. But we made a handsome couple. We knew, because we read it in the gossip columns. So we got married, and her father gave us a Lincoln Continental for a wedding present, and the key to a house. Later, when I couldn’t play football any more, he gave me a job. I had a corner office and a secretary with a B.A. in Economics. But I didn’t have anything to do.” As I spoke, I could hear my voice hardening. I could feel bitterness rising like bile.
“The worst part of getting divorced,” she answered, “is the realization that you can sum up your whole marriage in just a few sentences.” She spoke very softly. “It’s so—so pat. So damn easy. It’s like describing something that happened to a stranger.”
“Yes.” I looked at her. She was staring past me, lost in saddened memory. I studied her profile: the rounded curve of her forehead, the angle of her small, straight nose, the determined chin beneath a firm, self-sufficient mouth. After the first time we’d made love, I’d propped myself on my elbow beside her and watched her as she slept, her profile outlined against the soft rectangular glow from the sliding glass doors that opened on my small bedroom balcony. In my memory, away from her, I could recall her profile perfectly.
But did I know her? Did she know me?
Would it ever happen that, someday, our story could be summed up in a few pat sentences?
She was turning to face me, and when I saw her eyes I realized that, momentarily, her thoughts matched mine.
Slowly, with grave affection, she kissed me.
“Good night, Frank. Enjoy the cabin, you and Darrell.”
I held her close, then let her go. I watched her walk to her door, turn the lock and swing the door open. She stood briefly in the doorway, waving to me. Then she stepped quickly inside.
Nine
“THERE IT IS”—I pointed—“Long Valley Road.” I flipped my turn indicator, slowing the car. Behind us, a recreational vehicle loomed in my rearview mirror like a huge aluminum box, following too close. Cautiously eying the van, I braked for the left turn.
“How far do we go on this road?” I asked.
Darrell unfolded the map Ann had drawn for us. “Seven-point-eight miles. Then we turn to the right.”
I glanced at the odometer. “The mileage is two-point-three now, so …” I frowned, then decided to say, “You figure it out.”
He took a pencil from the glove compartment and began marking numbers on one corner of the map. Finally: “Ten-point-one, it would be.”
“Ten-point-one,” I repeated, glancing at my watch. The time was almost seven-thirty, and already the shadows were lengthening. We hadn’t finished packing until almost noon. Hamburgers at a crowded McDonald’s had taken almost an hour, and we’d lost another two hours at Napa, buying gas, food, camping supplies, film and, finally, ice-cream cones. A four-hour drive from San Francisco had turned out to be seven and a half hours, and we hadn’t yet arrived at Ann’s cabin, still almost ten miles away. Now, driving at reduced speed along back roads, we wouldn’t arrive until eight o’clock, with less than an hour of daylight left in which to get settled. On the back of her map, Ann had listed what had to be done: fill the kerosene lamps, fill the white gas stove, pump enough water from an outside well to last until morning and—finally—“check the outhouse for T.P.” After that was accomplished, we could cook dinner: baked beans from a can, steaks and corn on the cob—assuming I could get the “tricky” stove to function. Then it would be necessary to reclaim the cabin—and the beds—from mice, Ann had warned. But the real problem, she’d continued solemnly, was rattlesnakes. Because the snakes ate the mice. So, every morning, we were to hang our sleeping bags outside, upside down …
“Look.” Darrell was pointing down a long, gentle slope that stretched to a small stream on our right. “Deer.”
Following his gesture, I saw a doe and three fawns. The four deer were going single file toward the stream that flowed beside the road. They were walking with high, delicate steps through the underbrush.
“Have you ever seen deer before?” As I said it, I glanced in my rearview mirror. With Keller on my mind, I’d been watching my backtrail for a white Chevrolet—especially now, traveling this narrow county road, where he would be exposed. But, behind us, the road was deserted.
“Sure, I’ve seen deer,” Darrell answered. “At Camp Tawonga, we saw deer almost every morning.” There was a faint note of vexation in his voice, as if I’d suggested some deficiency in his experience. Earlier in the day, first packing and then, later, buying supplies, he’d been communicative, plainly excited by the prospect of the trip. He’d talked especially of fishing—of catching enough fish for all of our dinners. But since leaving Napa he’d hardly spoken. For the past several miles, sitting silently beside him, I’d tried to remember whether I’d said anything to offend him—whether, unconsciously, I’d criticized Carolyn. I’d discovered, years ago, that Darrell wouldn’t listen to any criticism of his mother, however veiled—however justified. He was right, I realized—which made me wrong. I only hoped that he was even-handed listening to Carolyn’s inevitable attacks on me.
On the road ahead, a jeepload of hunters rounded a curve and came toward us. Each man held a rifle. Glancing at the carelessly pointed weapons and at two of the men sitting with legs dangling over the jeep’s side like children on a holiday, I thought of Ann’s comment: boys, playing war. One of the men, riding behind the driver, gestured toward the four deer. Instantly, the driver braked, stopping on the pavement. As we passed them, I saw the driver lift a pint of whiskey to his mouth. He was a big man with burly shoulders and a huge, bulging stomach. He wore a red cap and a cartridge belt slung diagonally across his white, hairless chest. I wondered whether he knew that drinking in or around
an automobile was a misdemeanor—or whether he cared.
“What kind’ve guns have they got?” Darrell asked.
I looked back over my shoulder. “I don’t know exactly. But they look powerful. Too powerful, for terrain like this.”
Darrell twisted in his seat, watching the hunters until the jeep disappeared around a curve. Then he asked, “Have you ever shot a rifle?”
From the particular tentative tone of the question, I knew that he was really asking whether I’d ever used a rifle in the line of duty.
“No,” I answered. “Rifles are very seldom used in police work. And, when they are used, they’re always fired by specially trained men.”
“Why?”
“Because a rifle has enormous power. So you’ve got to be very sure that you’re going to hit what you’re aiming at. You’ve got to be sure of your background, too. Otherwise, someone’s in for trouble.”
“What about pistols, though? They’re powerful, aren’t they? What about a .357 Magnum? Canelli said one of them could go through a car.”
“A pistol is designed for stopping power at close range,” I answered. “A pistol cartridge has a large bullet, compared to its powder charge. A rifle is just the opposite. It’s got a relatively small bullet propelled by a huge powder charge. So a rifle has three or four times the range of a pistol.”
“What’s ‘range’ mean?” Darrell asked.
“It means the distance at which the weapon can kill someone,” I answered quietly.
“Oh.”
We rode for a half-mile in silence. The road was narrowing; its asphalt surface was rough and uneven. The terrain was changing, too, the farther we went north into Long Valley. Tall oak and pine trees grew close beside the road, blocking out the evening sun. The odometer read seven. We’d gone almost five miles on the county road.
“You know a lot about guns,” Darrell said. He spoke casually. It was a comment, not a compliment.
“Guns are my business.”
Another silence, until finally he said, “Mom won’t let me have a gun. She won’t even let me buy one with my own money.”
I hesitated, then decided to say, “She’s probably right, Darrell. Guns are dangerous. Thousands—millions—of people would be alive right now, if it weren’t for guns.”
“Not you, though.”
“What?”
“You wouldn’t be alive if you didn’t have a gun.”
“I don’t use a gun from choice, though. I use one for self-protection, because everyone else can get a gun. Anyone in San Francisco with two hundred dollars can go down to the Tenderloin and buy a gun, no questions asked. That’s why I carry a gun.”
“In England, Mom says, the police don’t carry guns.”
“That’s true. Or, anyhow, mostly true. But England is a lot more civilized country than America. It’s a sad commentary, but it’s true. And America is getting worse, not better. In San Francisco, in the last ten years, the homicide rate has doubled.”
“Maybe it’s TV.”
I shook my head, “A lot of people blame TV. But if you’ve read your history, you know there’s always been violence. In the eighteen hundreds, everyone carried a weapon. There might not’ve been as much meaningless crime as we have today, but there was a lot of robbery, and a lot more just plain assaults. It was the way they settled things then. If you read a biography of Lincoln, for instance, you’ll see that fights and knifings and shootings happened constantly. They were a way of life. You couldn’t take a stagecoach without worrying about getting robbed. And if you were the wrong color—or even if you weren’t—you could get lynched. We criticize some Arab countries for cutting off a thief’s hand. But a hundred years ago, we lynched people for stealing a few head of cattle, or a horse.”
“Canelli says the trouble is that people are unhappy. So then they start taking heroin. And then they’ve got to rob people so they can buy heroin.”
I smiled. “That sounds like Canelli.”
“Is he wrong?”
“No, he’s not wrong, especially. He’s probably right. Except that people have been trying to figure out how to be happy for a long, long while.”
“Canelli says there’s no more”—momentarily he hesitated—“no more family life. That’s why people are unhappy, he says. Because of all the—” His hesitation was plainly painful. “All the divorce and everything.”
“I can’t argue with that,” I said quietly.
After another silence—another uncomfortable two miles—Darrell offered: “Canelli is a pretty good shot. He scored eighty out of a hundred yesterday, shooting.”
Recalling the scene in the reception room the day before, with Keller seated next to Darrell, I said, “Do you remember that older man who was sitting beside you when you and Canelli were waiting for me yesterday?”
“The skinny one, with the real pale face and the funny eyes?”
“That’s the one. Did he talk to you?”
“He only said something about policemen and police stations. He was mumbling, sort of, to himself. Like he was crazy, or something.”
“He didn’t talk to you, though. Is that right?”
“Yeah, that’s right,” Darrell answered. “He was just talking to himself, like I said.”
“What’d he say? Do you remember anything particular?” As I spoke, I glanced at the odometer. We were within a half-mile of the last turnoff.
“No. But Canelli and me, we were talking about fishing, so I didn’t pay any attention. Canelli was telling me how he catches catfish. Him and Gracie. She’s his girlfriend. You just use bread dough, Canelli says.”
I pointed to Ann’s map, lying on the seat between us. “What do we do now?”
He picked up the map. “We turn right on a graveled road and we go for six tenths of a mile. And then we’re there.”
Nodding, I slowed the car. The odometer read exactly ten miles. Ahead I saw a break in the trees and the beginning of the graveled road. At the same moment, an orange pickup truck rounded the curve, coming toward us. As the truck approached, I saw two lever-action Winchester carbines in a rack across the cab’s rear window. Two men were inside the cab, both wearing Stetsons. As I signaled for my turn, the truck began to slow. The driver was adjusting his speed to match mine, so that we would inch past each other at the intersection. Inside the cab I saw two impassive, weatherbeaten faces. Both men were staring at me with expressionless eyes. I nodded, half smiled and made my turn. In the mirror, I saw the strange truck slowly disappear behind the screen of trees that lined the road.
“Those men look like they’re mad at us,” Darrell said.
“They’re probably local ranchers. Ann warned me about them. They’re on the lookout for hunters and trespassers, probably. And hippies, too. Ann says that during the past several years hippies have discovered Long Valley. They find an empty cabin, and break in and stay for a week or two. Then they’ll move on.”
“I know. That happens in Michigan. A neighbor of ours—Doctor Ralston—found eight people living in their summer cabin. They really wrecked the place.”
“Did he call the sheriff?”
“No. He shot at them.”
“What?”
“He did, no fooling.” For the first time in hours, I heard animation in his voice. “He had a shotgun with him, and he took it out of the car and shot at them. But all he hit was a big picture window, he said. It cost four hundred dollars.”
“That’s what happens when people take the law into their own hands. He should’ve gone for the sheriff.”
“Are they supposed to carry guns like that?”
“Your friend?”
“No. Those men in the orange truck.”
I nodded. “As long as they don’t conceal it, they can carry a gun.”
“Even a pistol?”
“If it isn’t concealed, yes.”
“Could they carry one in San Francisco, even?”
“Even in San Francisco—technically. If you carry it in
plain sight, in a holster, you aren’t breaking the law—provided that you’ve got a permit to own the gun. In practice, though, you wouldn’t get very far carrying a gun on your hip.”
As I spoke, I checked the odometer. We’d come almost five tenths of a mile down the narrow, rutted gravel road. According to the map, we’d almost arrived at Ann’s driveway, marked by a gate made of rough redwood timber. She’d told me how to unfasten the latch. Her family had discovered, she’d said, that a chain and padlock were targets for vandalism—a challenge, apparently.
“There’s the gate”—Darrell pointed—“but why’s it open?”
“Open?” I looked up. A narrow dirt driveway disappeared in thick-growing trees and underbrush. The gate was open wide. I drove through and got out of the car. As I’d feared, twilight was deepening to darkness among the trees that surrounded us; we’d be hard pressed to finish our chores before complete darkness descended. I swung the gate shut and checked the latch. There was no sign of jimmying, but the concealed spike Ann had described was missing, allowing the gate to swing freely open when the latch was tripped. Someone had solved the mechanical riddle. Had it been pranksters? Squatters? Hunters, perhaps?
I stood beside the car for a moment, looking around us. From the direction of the county road, a half-mile away, I heard the faint sound of a car. From overhead came the distant muttering of an invisible airplane. In the nearby underbrush, I heard the scurrying of an animal. Otherwise, the silence was complete. I could see nothing stirring, either on the narrow access road or down Ann’s dirt driveway.
“What’s wrong?” Darrell was asking.
“Someone discovered how to open the gate.” I slipped behind the steering wheel and put the car in gear.
We were moving slowly down the driveway. At the first turn, I saw the cabin: brown-shingled and redwood-trimmed, situated in a sizable clearing.
In the large window that fronted on the driveway, I saw the soft, orange-yellow glow of a kerosene lamp.
Ten
“HEY.” DARRELL POINTED. “LOOK. There’s someone in there.”
The Watcher (The Lt. Hastings Mysteries) Page 6
