by Gideon, John
A smile—this one was anything but avuncular, from impossibly old lips. “Oh, yes, Ianthe, he will be all right. In fact, he will do nicely. Nicely indeed.”
“Then you have chosen well?” she asked, her almond eyes brimming with sadness.
The doctor’s smile grew broader, darker. “Chosen well, yes. And very soon I’ll have the proof of it, I daresay.”
3
A few minutes after noon on February 8, 1986, the day after Lorna Trosper died, a Boeing 737 ascended from National Airport near Washington, D.C., and set out for the city of its birth—Seattle. After a journey of more than seven hours, with intermediate stops in Minneapolis and Billings, it touched down in a perfect instrument landing at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, a short drive south of the massive Boeing manufacturing complex. Carl Trosper got off the plane and, since he had checked no luggage, went directly to the Avis counter, muscling along his expensive leather carry-on bag. He used his American Express Platinum Card to rent a metallic-brown Olds, which he picked up in the subterranean rental car terminal. Minutes later he was on Interstate 5, northbound for the Washington State Ferry Terminal in the heart of Seattle.
By now the winter dusk had deepened to night, and the Saturday rush hour was in full swing. The ferry terminal was clogged. Weekenders who lived on the west shore of the Puget Sound were homeward bound after a day of shopping and frolicking in the city. Carl Trosper fell into the long, slow-moving queue for the ferry to Bremerton, feeling alone amid the throng, listening to the thrumming rain and swishing windshield wipers, thinking sadly of the countless times he and Lorna had waited together in this very spot for the ferry.
He followed the taillights of the car ahead of him into the cavernous maw of the huge vessel, and a crew member directed him to a spot near the bow, meaning that he would be among the first to get off on the Bremerton side. He cut the engine, locked the Olds, and climbed the stairs from the parking deck to the passengers’ lounge. A glance at the nearly deserted observation deck told him that that was where he wanted to be, despite the chill and steady beat of winter rain, a place where he could think and reflect—alone. So he turned up the hood of his blue Henri Lloyd parka and leaned against the cold rail, face into the wind, eyes slitted against the rain. Through the soles of his boat shoes he felt the churning of huge engines as they imparted their energy to propellers, and the ferry began to move. The whoot of a powerful whistle sliced through the sharp air, announcing departure, and the rush of excited waters came to his ears.
So it’s come down to this, has it, Old Carl? said the voice in his head—his father’s voice, from the depths of a long-dead boyhood. His father had always called him “Old Carl,” even when “Old Carl” was an infant with fat, unflawed cheeks and bright red hair. So it’s come down to this, has it? You bugged out on your pretty young wife, leaving her to handle Jeremy alone, and she couldn’t make a go of it without you.
No, it wasn’t like that at all. We broke up because that’s what we both wanted. Jeremy had nothing to—
The lie. Once again, the lie. The same one he had told his mother when his divorce became final, the one he had told himself so often. The same smelly, implausible falsehood he thanked God his father had not lived to hear.
Jeremy had nothing to do with it.
The ferry, engorged with motor vehicles and human beings, lumbered away from the docks, away from the sting of auto exhaust and the clamor of the city, into the blackness of the Puget Sound. The rain slackened, and strings of jewel-like lights popped through the mist from the opposite shore. Carl glanced at his watch: just thirty-five minutes to Bremerton.
So it’s come down to this, has it, Old Carl? The big-shot political consultant—or whatever you call yourself these days—is coming home, wearing his fifty-dollar haircut and his oh-so-casual yachting clothes, to bury his pretty little wife, who killed herself because he deserted her.
For the love of God, Dad, cut it out!
For a horrible moment Carl worried that he had blurted the words aloud. A young couple had come through the doors of the passengers’ lounge onto the observation deck, carrying Styrofoam cups of hot chocolate, braving the weather for a little privacy. He stole a quick look at them: They were leaning over the rail, faces close together, cooing to each other, paying him not the slightest heed. The ferry slowed, honked its arrival, and insinuated itself into the pier, nudging the dock and halting. The ramp clanked into place; car engines gunned in anticipation of freedom; and the wave of a crewman’s hand caused the ferry to disgorge upon the floodlit shore. Greely’s Cove lay less than twenty-five minutes away, a leisurely drive northward on Highway 16.
The night was velvety black, for the sky was without its moon. A new moon, Carl had read in the Minneapolis Tribune during the long flight from Washington, D.C., so the night would have been dark even without its thick blanket of rain clouds. The town of Greely’s Cove began to materialize from the darkness on both sides of the highway. Amberish streetlights peered through the dank branches of pines and cedars. Traffic signals flashed yellow in all directions, since traffic was nearly nonexistent despite the early hour. Neon signs announced Safeway, McDonald’s, and Gunderson’s Chevrolet-Subaru. Carl knew every streetlight, every sign, every crack in the cement sidewalks of Greely’s Cove, for here he had launched his life. Here he would make his new beginning.
His plan began to form as he steered into the drive of the Old Schooner Motel, where a “Vacancy” sign shimmered in pink neon, and he felt better than he had all day.
“I’m going to make a suggestion, Sonny Butch, so listen up.”
Liquid Larry, who called nearly every man and boy he met “Sonny Butch,” leaned across the bar until his beefy face was mere inches from Mitch Nistler’s. “You go ahead and finish up that triple threat, you hear? Then you ease off that stool and get your ass down the road while you can still drive. What d’ya say?”
Mitch raised his glassy eyes and tried to return the barkeep’s diplomatic smile, but his facial muscles weren’t cooperating. “You cuttin’ me off, Liquid? ’S that what I’m hearing?”
“Like I said, Sonny Butch, just a suggestion. I don’t want to lose any of my best customers.” The diplomatic grin widened. “Besides, I expect your boss is probably waiting for you over at the chapel. I hear you boys got yourselves a suicide last night.”
Mitch cringed at the mention of his boss, Matt Kronmiller. It was indeed likely that the old batfucker was waiting at the Chapel of the Cove, no doubt cussing his assistant embalmer with every passing minute and working up a good case of mad to hurl at Mitch when he finally showed up. “’S that what you hear?”
“That’s what I hear,” said Liquid, “suicide. Artist lady who lived with her weird kid over on Second—ran that little art store next to the Mariners’ Bank. Used to be married to the Trosper boy, Carl.”
“Matt doesn’t like his employees to talk about the decedents,” said Mitch, downing the last of his drink. “It’s not professional. Just like saying ‘body’ in front of the bereaved isn’t professional. You’re s’posed to say ‘Mr. Smith,’ or ‘Mrs. Hansen,’ but never ‘The Body.’” He thumped the mug down on the bar. “Do me one more time, Liquid. Then I’m out of here, I promise.”
The barkeep’s smile fell away, and his beefy face hardened. He drew himself up to his full height, which was six-three, and sucked in his gut. Though well over fifty, Liquid Larry was an awesome sight behind his bar, surrounded by sparkling glasses and mugs hung upside down in long racks. Few rowdy patrons ever argued with him if he requested their absence.
“I’m tryin’ to be reasonable with you, young fella,” he said to Mitch in a low voice. “I’m not throwin’ you out, you understand, but I don’t want you to embarrass yourself, either. Four triple threats is enough booze for anybody.”
Mitch Nistler chuckled hoarsely and plugged a Pall Mall into his lips. “You of all people should know that I’m not just anybody,” he said, coughing out smoke. “I’m a pro
. I could suck down eight or ten of these things and shave your wife’s snatch with a straight razor, and she’d do nothin’ but smile, smile, smile!”
“Now I’m throwin’ you out, Sonny Butch.”
Liquid Larry didn’t mind rough talk, and God knows he’d heard enough of it through twenty years in the Marine Corps and another fifteen running a blue-collar roadhouse. In fact, he could go toe-to-toe with the raunchiest bos’n and cuss the son of a goatfucker blue. Only one subject was off limits: his family. If you talked about his wife, kids, or mother, you didn’t cuss, a lesson that Mitch Nistler learned the hard way.
The Old Schooner Motel was rich in middle-class tackiness, but it was also comfortable and quiet. In fact, quiet was not the right word, thought Carl; tomblike was more accurate, which was not surprising in the dead of the off-season. His room had vinyl-covered furniture, ham-handed seascapes on the walls, and fake wood paneling in the kitchenette. But the TV worked well, and everything was spotless, if not slightly antiseptic.
After a long and languorous shower, he argued with himself about whether he was too hungry to sleep or too tired to eat. He had started the day on Eastern Standard Time and was ending it on Pacific, having gained three hours during the flight from Washington, D.C. In Greely’s Cove it was a few minutes after 7:00 p.m., but Carl’s bioclock insisted it was past ten. He was tired as hell since he had slept only fitfully on the plane, but he was also ravenous: the airline’s food had proved inedible except for a pathetic little bag of cashews that a flight attendant had dropped in his lap between Minneapolis and Billings.
His gnarling stomach won the argument, so he decided to trot down the street to Bailey’s Seafood Emporium, a rustic establishment founded long before his birth and renowned for its steamed mussels. He threw on a fresh shirt, a gray corduroy sport coat, and his parka, because a glance out the window told him that the rain had resumed with a vengeance.
“Carl!”
The voice stopped him as he was about to push through the glass door from the motel lobby into the downpour.
“Carl Trosper!”
He turned around and saw a plump, fiery redheaded woman behind the registration desk, not the young, gangly girl who had waited on him when he checked in. This woman had snapping green eyes made enormous with eyeliner and a blue denim jumpsuit that flowed over an amply curvaceous body.
Carl took a halting step toward the desk, openmouthed. The woman smiled hugely, and Carl was transported back to his school days at Suquamish High, when the owner of this dazzling smile wore the school’s colors. She had been a cheerleader with flaming pigtails, a spanking high-kicker in her bulky green sweater, tiny silver skirt, and satiny green panties.
“Sandy?” he breathed, scarcely above a whisper. “Sandy Cunningham, is that you?”
She laughed sweetly. “It used to be, but it’s Sandy Zolten now. My husband, Ken, and I own this place. We live in the big old house across the alley. Carl, you’ve hardly changed at all—except for the beard, of course!”
Carl felt his face beginning to flush. In high school he and a close buddy, Renzy Dawkins, had worked on the school newspaper as photographers. During games and pep assemblies, they had taken pains to position themselves in front of Sandy, as close to floor level as possible, supposedly to get action pix of the cheerleaders for the paper. What they really wanted, however, were “beaver shots” whenever Sandy kicked especially high—outtakes, of course, that never made the paper. Only the photographers’ wallets. Carl’s skill had earned him a nickname that he hoped no one still remembered.
“It’s nice to see you, Sandy. You—uh—you look terrific. I mean it.”
“Oh, come on! I’m three sizes bigger than I was in high school. I guess that’s what motherhood does for you.”
“I don’t care what size you wear; the years have been good.”
“Still the charmer, I see.”
“Me? A charmer? Since when?”
“Since always! Every girl in the school would’ve killed to go out with you, and you know it!”
“God, I must’ve been deaf, dumb, and blind. I wish someone would’ve had the human decency to tell me what a hunk I was.” They laughed loudly. To Carl, laughing seemed like something he’d not done in a century.
Further chitchat revealed that Sandy had married her college boyfriend, an accounting major from Spokane. They had lived and worked in Portland, Oregon, for six years—Ken as an associate in an accounting firm and Sandy as a real-estate agent—before deciding to go into business for themselves. Sandy’s mother had written to say that the Old Schooner was up for sale and within the Zoltens’ reach, a nice little business that was manageable by a hardworking couple.
The rest of the story hardly needed telling. Two daughters, Teri and Amber, sixteen and thirteen. An English setter, neutered. Kiwanis, PTA, summer vacations in Colorado. Middle-class story, predictable as hell, but easy on the ears. “I envy you,” said Carl during a pause, meaning it. “You’ve got the life most of us dream about. I’m glad for you, I really am.”
“I’d ask how you’ve been, but I already know,” she said, fixing her gaze on the countertop rather than on Carl’s face. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am. Everybody in town loved Lorna, and even though you guys were divorced...” She stammered, not knowing what to say next. Finally: “If there’s anything we can do, all you have to do is ask.”
“Thanks. I appreciate that.”
Sandy wondered aloud whether he needed help at the house that had once been his and Lorna’s. Cleaning, maybe, or cooking. Someone to look after Jeremy.
“I’ll know more tomorrow,” he answered. “I talked to Lorna’s sister on the phone this morning, before I left D.C. She and her mother have come over from Seattle, and we’re getting together first thing in the morning. Jeremy’s staying with them.”
“I know—down the street at the West Cove.”
Carl smiled: no secrets in a town this size. He had picked the Old Schooner because Lorna’s sister and mother, two people he had disliked thoroughly from the very moment he met them, were staying at the West Cove Motor Inn. Though he was anxious to see his son, he wanted no part of his former in-laws, at least not tonight. Tomorrow would be soon enough.
Suddenly the front door whooshed open, admitting a bounding teenaged girl who wore a slouchy camouflaged jacket over a man’s dress shirt, the shirttails of which flapped below the jacket with her every stride toward the reception desk. A second look told Carl that this was the same gangling kid who had been working the registration desk when he arrived, but now she was costumed in New Wave grub, replete with Cuisinart hairdo and heavily made-up eyes, ready for a night out with a pair of chums who waited outside in a car. Despite the studied dishevelment and the layer of cosmetic goo, she was a remarkably pretty girl, blessed with her mother’s huge green eyes and rusty hair.
“Mom, I need twenty dollars. Can I—”
“Teri!” Sandy’s tone carried a mother’s rebuke. “I’m having a conversation with a guest.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” said the girl, her cheeks growing suddenly red. She cast a lightning-quick glance at Carl, who smiled.
“Teri, this is Mr. Carl Trosper.”
“I know. I was behind the desk when he checked in.”
“Mr. Trosper and I were friends in high school, back before the Civil War.”
“Hi, Teri,” said Carl, offering his hand. The youngster shook it ever so briefly, as though it were a rubber glove full of worms. For a split second she seemed on the verge of offering condolences for the dead Lorna, like a grown-up would have, but adolescent bashfulness intervened and choked off her words.
“Now, you said something about money?” asked Sandy. “Yeah, Gina and Leah and I are driving up to Kingston to see The Karate Kid, and we’re going to stop at the Pizza Hut on the way back, and I only have six dollars and seventy-five cents, and I’ll pay you back out of next week’s check, and—”
“Honey, twenty dollars seems a little stee
p for a movie and a pizza. Besides, you’ve already seen The Karate Kid.”
“Mom, we’ve seen it twice, but we want to see it again before Karate Kid II comes out. Can I please have twenty dollars? I owe Gina and Leah, because they bought the food last time we went out.”
The muscles in Sandy Zolten’s face tightened with apprehension, and she asked who was driving.
“Leah,” answered Teri. Leah Solheim was seventeen, went the prepared statement, and a very good driver. She had gotten an A in driver’s ed, or her mother would never have trusted her with the family’s brand-new Toyota.
“Okay,” said Sandy with stiff reluctance, digging into the till for a twenty. “But I want you to come right home after the Pizza Hut. And remember: no beer, no dope, and no chasing around in boys’ cars—”
“Mother!”
“—and stay away from strangers, you hear? We’ve had more than our share of weirdness in this town lately.”
“Mother, please.” Teri cast a darting glance at Carl, who pretended disinterest in this mother-daughter tête-à-tête. “It’s not like we’re going to Miami or something. Kingston’s not even ten minutes from here and we’re only going to see a movie and eat some pizza. There’s absolutely nothing to worry about.”
She snatched up the twenty and crammed it into her camouflaged jacket. “Thanks, Mom. Nice to see you again, Mr. Trosper.” She bounded to the front door, turned and blew a kiss to Sandy, and was gone.
“Seems like a great kid,” said Carl, a comment that hung feebly in Teri’s aftermath.
“She is a great kid,” said Sandy. “Gets good grades, puts in a shift every day here on the desk, doesn’t drink or do dope that we know of. Oh, we had a minor incident with marijuana about a year ago, but I think she learned her lesson. As teenaged girls go, she’s good as gold.” But the look of taut apprehension still had not left Sandy’s face. “I just hope I can get through her high-school years without ending up in the state home, that’s all.”
