She heard the door open behind her and felt someone approach. A man. She smelled his cologne, a deep musky scent. She glanced up and saw his profile. It was a good profile. He had a large, shapely nose, a stern jaw, and a thin, well-maintained mustache. His complexion was smooth, almost polished. What was such a refined fellow doing in rural New Hampshire? Then he looked at her and smiled. A chill of recognition ran through her. Was he the man from the photograph? It couldn’t be, could it? Certainly not.
“Hello,” he said, extending his hand and flashing his straight, perfectly white teeth. “I’m Thomas.”
12
CEOLA
For several days, questions spun through my head as I built up the nerve to confront Jay with the first page of Lily’s letter that I’d found in his room. I considered the places she had mentioned—DC, the Howard, Carroll’s, the Showboat, Croc’s—and the people she had mentioned—Teddie B. and Billy, and in the second page of the letter, George and Aunt Kathy. I wanted to know, I had to know, what these places really meant and who these people really were. So finally I set off for the Greenwood farm to find Jay.
Like a diligent Blue Hearts Club member, I checked for an encoded message as I passed by the dead tree. The hollow was empty. I took the shortcut over a ridge, the way Ceola often took, but one I usually avoided because of the scraggly underbrush and the steepness of the grade.
On the climb up the ridge, I grabbed tree limbs above me to hoist myself over the outcroppings of limestone bedrock. Toward the top of the climb, I noticed a bright yellow piece of paper caught in a mesh of blackberry bushes. I would’ve dismissed it as trash if it had been in a more frequently trafficked area, but here it was out of place.
I plucked it from the bramble. It was a flyer for the Amazing Zelkos Carnival. On the back, Jay had written: “Cee—Do you want to go?” I stuffed the flyer into the pocket of my dress and quickened my pace.
When I arrived at the house, I threw open the door to Jay’s lair in an impulsive, almost cavalier gesture. Again, I had been left out. I wanted Jay to pay attention. But to my surprise (and I was quite startled), Letitia was there on his cot, a faint outline in the semidarkness of the room. She didn’t bother to look up.
“Mrs. Greenwood?” I said rather loudly, fear registering in my voice. She didn’t respond. I repeated myself, but more softly this time.
“He’s gone,” she said.
“Where? To the carnival?” I held up the flyer.
She raised her head, and a thin bar of light fell across her face. Her watery blue eye blinked. For an instant, I felt certain she knew everything. I stepped forward.
“Stop!” she said, and I stopped.
“I don’t understand.”
“These shoes aren’t your shoes?” In her lap were the ribbon-bowed Ferragamos.
“They don’t fit. I already showed you.”
“You did. Yes, you did.”
“They belong to a dead woman.”
She looked away.
“Mrs. Greenwood, do you know anything about Lily Vellum?”
“I couldn’t say.”
“Jay knew her.”
“And you believe the shoes belong to her?”
“Yes.”
“You’re wrong about that.”
“Why?”
“Get out of here. Leave me alone.”
“Who do they belong to? Who is FL?”
“Ask my grandson. Now, get out of here!”
“Please.”
She reached behind her and pulled her shotgun across her lap. The end of its polished black barrel caught the light from the door. One of the shoes fell from her knees and clattered on the tiles, the FL R showing on its sole. She didn’t move to pick it up.
I backed out of the room, keeping my eyes on her and clutching the side of the doorframe as a guide. Even out in the sunlight again, I could still see Letitia’s pale form through the open door, a slumped crescent on the bed. I was unsure what to do, so I just backed away, eventually turning and springing forward, wanting to break into a run but afraid to admit I was that frightened.
If I lose someone at a concert or a flea market or a public event of any sort, they have to find me, not the other way around. I simply can’t spot individuals in a crowd. Often, however, I do find what I’m not looking for. That, it seems, is my talent.
This time it was Bob Bliss. I saw him because, like me, he was going against the current, both of us looking at the carnival-goers, not at the attractions.
His face was flushed and puffed out at the jowls, and his hands were balled into tight fists. I ducked behind a kiosk plastered with clown faces and anthropomorphized circus animals, all glowering back at me, grinning, jeering. As Bob blazed through the crowd, I followed him, searching for Jay and Ceola as I went and hoping to locate them before he did.
My father knew something of Bob Bliss’s temperament. When news of Robbie’s death had come, Bob had asked for two weeks off of work, and Father, who was sympathetic, told Bob he could take a few days off, but not weeks. He had told him, “A man needs to keep working, especially during these dark times, or he’ll lose his way in grief.” Bob had sneered at him, called him a tyrant, and stormed out of his office. Within a week, Bob had spread word of his grievance. He went as far as to have several of the other men sign a petition on his behalf.
“In ordinary circumstances,” Father had told us over the dinner table, “I would fire an employee for such behavior, but the man has lost his son.” He looked at me. “I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose a child.” Bob simmered down eventually and the angry petition evaporated, but my father remained wary of him.
On the fairway, Bob looked up and stopped, as if he had suddenly grown roots. The carnival-goers flowed around him, giving him a wide berth, as if they too sensed his volatility. His eyes were bright, and his hands came together, fingers interlocking—a disingenuous supplicant, rage nearly splitting his false prayer in two. The top of the Ferris wheel was in his line of sight.
There they were, legs dangling against the sky. Time seemed to slow and expand, and details flashed before me: first, Jay’s blond hair, a feathery, flame-tipped corona in the sun. Then, his arm bent loosely, almost languidly. His shirt, denim blue and thin over his shoulders, held in place by a pair of brown suspenders. His body—a man’s body—moving toward Ceola, covering her. Her white sailor dress, billowing with the breeze, its navy middy collar turned back against her neck. Her small hands by her sides, an elbow and forearm still exposed to the light. The bucket seat gently swaying.
Although concealed in a shadow, what I saw was clearly a kiss.
Bob’s knuckles reddened. Veins stood out on the tops of his hands and down his forearms. His jaw muscles rippled.
I could only stand there and take it in, my jealousy of Ceola and my love for Jay locked in a furious stalemate. I was angry with Jay, but I was confused too. What did it mean, his kissing her? I felt certain he did have something to do with Lily’s disappearance and death, but as the cliché goes, it didn’t add up.
As the Ferris wheel began to rotate again, I saw Bob move toward the base. I went after him and called out: “Mr. Bliss! Mr. Bliss!” He didn’t respond. I caught up to him and grabbed his arm.
“What!” he growled, and whirled around. He glared at me, his whiskey breath hot on my face, and shook my grip, knocking me backward. My heels caught in the dirt, and I stumbled into a mother and her daughter, the girl’s cotton candy sticking to my blouse. The mother caught me by the elbows and propped me up.
“That awful man!” she said. “Are you okay, sweetie?” I saw the little girl’s face; she must’ve been just five or six. Her eyes were round as quarters.
“I’m fine,” I said, finding my footing. Then to the little girl, “I’ll be just fine.”
By this time, the wheel had deposited Jay and Ceola at the bottom. I began searching for them but couldn’t find them. Bob had vanished too.
13
CEOLA
>
As we drove—houses passing by, pastures passing by, trees passing by—my poor brain was still numb from the episode on the Ferris wheel. It was like Jay had dangled a pocket watch in front of me and hypnotized me, like I was at his command, but instead of sticking a new thought in my head, he had only left it blank.
When we started up the mountain, the station wagon took the sharp switchbacks hard, slinging me across the cracked leather seat, chafing the backs of my legs. I slammed against the door on a steep curve and, waking from my stupor, said, “You’re driving too … fast.” Were we running from something? It sure felt like running. Had I really seen Billy in the funhouse? Had Jay spotted him from the Ferris wheel? I sat up, feeling a little queasy, and let out a groan.
Jay smiled. “Do you know how to drive?”
“When would have I learned to do that?”
“I thought Robbie might’ve taught you.”
I shook my head, wishing you had.
My stomach was doing somersaults, and I needed a break something bad. So when we made it to the top of the ridge, Jay pulled the wagon off the road at an overlook. We got out to take in the mountain air, which was lighter and cooler than the humidity that had settled in the valley. We walked to the edge of the overlook, leaned against a crumbling stone barrier, and peered down at the soupy haze clinging to the sides of the mountains. A hawk drifted into view, circled far above the valley, and then glided toward Jitters Gap, down and down until it vanished.
Jay suddenly hopped on the barrier and stepped to the edge, pieces of mortar flying into the valley and striking the rocks and bushes below. He peered down into the haze. He even seemed to lean into it, like he was giving into the pull of gravity, like he wanted to go headlong into the valley.
“Jay,” I said, frightened for him. But he didn’t reply. “Don’t get so close to the edge.”
I reached out and grabbed the back of his leg. He flinched when I touched him and lost his balance, his arms twirling like a cartoon, and then he fell—not forward, but back on me. I threw out my hands and deflected his clumsy collapse to the ground. He emerged out of a cloud of dust, grinning and gripping his bad leg.
“That was a close one,” he said.
I glared at him, stomped back to the car, and slammed the rickety door with a metallic screech.
He followed me, leaning on the door and poking his head in the window. “It’s time you learned to drive. Besides, my leg is no good for the next little bit.”
“Where are we going?” I demanded, refusing to look at him.
“Just wait and see.”
“I’m not going to drive, and I want to know where we’re going, and I want to know who we’re running from.”
I looked up at him. He was smiling at me, handsome and bright-eyed and all charm. I seemed to be entertaining him.
“What sort of detective can’t tail a suspect because she doesn’t know how to drive?” he said. “Besides, if you’re driving, you’re a lot less likely to get sick.”
I wasn’t convinced. Besides, it wasn’t his driving that was making me sick.
“At the end of this,” he said, a pall of seriousness falling over him, “you’ll know all I can tell you. I promise.”
“Even what happened to Lily?”
“I’ll tell you everything I can.” He smacked his hands together. “Okay, it’s driving lesson time.”
I thought he was crazy. I was tall for my age, but how could I press down the clutch and the gas? Jay had a solution. He took off his beat-up black boots and his thick socks, and stuffed the socks in the toes of the boots, and then told me to put them on. I felt like a drunk horse clopping around in them, but they were what I needed to push the pedals to the floor. He also rummaged in the back seat and pulled out an old blanket, which he folded into a square and wedged between the seat and my back.
He checked with me to see if I was comfortable. I told him I was, even though I wasn’t, not one bit. I was scared. But I didn’t want to disappoint him.
He adjusted the rearview and side mirrors so I could see out the back and the sides. I followed his instructions as he described the process for starting the car—hold clutch down, put car in neutral, turn key, release clutch, let engine warm up, press clutch again, and put car in gear. He walked me through downshifting, since we were heading downhill.
“Just ease off the clutch,” he directed.
I popped the clutch several times and the wagon lurched forward, coming dangerously close to the stone barrier. I felt like a fool, the awkwardness of the boots making me even more self-conscious.
“It’s all about balance,” he said, “finding the sweet spot between the clutch and the gas. You have to think about both.”
I’ve always had good coordination, so I caught on quick, even if at times awful grinding and clicking noises, barely muffled by the hood, reverberated through that old car. It sounded like the gears were going to shatter, but I was doing it.
The road hugged the rocky mountainside, twisting in and out of the ridge, dipping into and out of shadows cast by the sinking sun. The turns were terrifying at first. The edge of the cliff was only a foot or two from the asphalt, and the byway was trimmed with only a flimsy wooden guardrail. If I’d lost control of the station wagon, we would’ve plunged into the valley, tumbling side over side to the Jitters Gap city limits, a twisted mess of metal and glass, like Jay’s parents’ train-trampled Duesenberg.
Jay held the steering wheel with his left hand and called out instructions, calm as ice. The wagon galloped down straight stretches, and in the turns, it leaned, top-heavy, toward the valley on the left, and then back into the looming, water-slick limestone mountainside. My adrenaline was high. I was aware of Jay’s hand on the steering wheel, of him beside me, of his voice.
Suddenly, a truck—an old rust bucket—was coming around the bend smack in the middle of the road! I swerved, and the right fender of the wagon caught the side of the mountain, spraying the hood with dirt and ripping a leafy sapling out from between limestone slabs, which released the moist smell of earthworms into the car.
I screamed; Jay was laughing.
I remember being worried about the brakes. As you well know, those detective stories loved to bump off characters by a severed brake line. The car—usually a shiny new sports car—would speed down a lonely highway, its driver soon discovering that the brakes didn’t work. There would be a few frantic, heart-pounding moments, and then the victim would drive off the cliff and fall to the black ocean below, the expensive car—and it was always an expensive car—exploding on the rocks. Fantasy and reality had overlapped so much that day; anything was possible.
Luckily, the brakes worked, but for a split second at every turn, I wondered what it would feel like to shoot out over the valley and fall into it like the hawk I had watched minutes before. Down, down, down.
When we reached the bottom and came to a stop at a railroad crossing, I was sweating something awful, my white dress damp and stained at the armpits and collar. Jay ordered me to pull over, so he could drive. I screeched to a halt on the side of the road, dust billowing around the station wagon and drifting into the twilight.
Jay took the wheel again, and we drove into town. “We almost hit that truck,” he said. “You did a hundred-dollar job of avoiding disaster.”
“Your grandma’s going to be so mad at me.”
“She’s not going to notice.”
“She won’t?”
“She lost count of all the scratches years ago.”
We made our way through town, parked down the street from the Vellum home, and waited for nightfall. After a time, I became fidgety. I knew I would be late for dinner and Papa would want to know where I had been all day. Also, I was thinking about Billy, about that mad dog mug of his.
I was worrying the edge of my dress so bad that Jay touched my wrist and said, “Soon.”
“Who did you see at the carnival?” I asked, recoiling from him.
“What do you me
an?”
“Did you see Billy? I thought I saw him at the funhouse, in the hall of mirrors. Is he after us?”
“Don’t worry. We’re safe.”
I didn’t believe him.
“I’m tired of waiting,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest.
“It won’t be long,” he said. As if cued by his voice, a light came on in the bay window. The Victorian wedding cake of a house had been slowly vanishing in the twilight, the fading blues and grays in the sky making cardboard silhouettes of the entire scene. The living room lamp must’ve been close to the floor, because it cast long shadows up across the ceiling—shadows of figures, moving, then stopping, then jumping to life again, like crickets caught in a porch lamp.
“Why are we here?” I said.
“Just wait.”
“Not even a hint?”
“No.”
“Mama and Papa will be steaming mad if they find out I was with you.”
“After I show you what I need to show you, I’m going to tell you a story.”
“What sort of a story?”
“True crime.”
So we waited, and as we did, I became more convinced I was going to receive a beating when I got home. I tried to think up a good lie: “Sorry, Papa, I lost track of time. Sorry, Papa, I fell asleep while I was reading. Sorry, Papa, I got turned around in the woods.” But he wasn’t going to believe me. You know how he was—guilty men are always the most suspicious.
Instead, I began to think of ways I could defend myself. Could I catch his hand with mine? Could I duck in time? Could I sprint up the stairs and barricade myself in my room? If I stopped him initially, he’d probably back down and think better of it. But could I make him feel guilty before he did it?
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