"Try
to take it easy," I advised lamely.
"Has
Howard McColl contacted you?"
"He's
tried. I was away from my desk."
"So,
he hasn't fired you then."
"Nope."
"Good."
"Good?"
"I've
been out of it for a few days." Another pause.
"Quite
understandable," I threw into the void.
"What's
not understandable to me is that the estimable Mr. McColl should take
it upon himself to reorganize my affairs."
"Oh,
I assumed he was lending a hand."
"What?
I'm just some poor dearie who can't manage without the strong,
guiding hand of a man. Is that it?"
She
was rolling now. I didn't want to interrupt with an answer.
"I
don't want to disillusion all you strong silent types but Sea
Sundstrom was—is—my creation. Whatever wonderful other virtues
Heck may have possessed, and God knows—" She paused to collect
herself. When she started again, it was with measured control. "And
God knows I miss him. But corporate
life
was just not his cup of tea. Way too many i's to dot and t's to cross
for him. Too many people saying one thing and meaning another. Heck,
God love him, couldn't even be hard enough on the guys in the
warehouse. He just didn't have it in him. This is mine. I did this."
She stopped.
A
beep. One of us had another call coming in.
"I
never doubted it," I said with conviction.
"I
want you to keep at the investigation," she said.
"Okay,"
I said. "This is it, anyway."
"What
is?" she asked.
"If
this little trip I'm gonna take doesn't pan out, we'll have to
discuss what to do next. It may be time to try the cops or maybe just
hang it up."
Another
beep.
"Is
that yours or mine?" she said. "No idea." "Hang
on." I hung.
"It's
Howard. D6 you want to listen in while I fire him?" "I'll
pass," I said.
"I've
got to be sure about all of this."
"I
understand," I said. "You want a full report?"
"Stay
at it, Leo."
Hmmmmm.
We'd
covered nearly thirty miles before Harold cracked the silence. As we
crested the small rise before the Marysville exit, he leaned forward
and read my mind.
"This
is Marysville, huh? Isn't this where all that stuff was being dumped,
you know—back when Buddy got killed?"
"Yeah,"
I said. "This is it. About eight miles west of here. Out on the
Tulalip reservation."
I
thought that was going to be it, but I was wrong.
"You
shoulda known, Leo," Ralph said suddenly.
I
knew what he meant. I'd had this same conversation with myself
more often than I liked. "Yeah, I know," I said.
"We
talk about it a lot," said Harold. "You done all the right
things, Leo. I mean you told him all the right stuff, no denying
that. But you still shoulda known how he was."
"Ain't
like he was gonna do what you told him," George said from my
right.
"He
never did what nobody told him," Ralph added.
"You
shoulda known," Harold repeated. "I know," I said
again.
This
time, they let it ride. George and I briefly locked eyes as we
searched the air between us for silent signs of Buddy.
They'd
been waiting at the curb like refugees when I'd pulled up in the
borrowed van. Norman, a huge khaki sack thrown over his shoulder,
towered above the others in a gray tweed overcoat. Ralph had covered
several turtlenecks with an aged madras sport coat. He looked like
the Michelin Man gone plaid. In spite of the bright blue sky, George
and Harold wore matching yellow rain slickers like the Bobbsey twins.
The Speaker stood lone sentry on the porch, his lank hair hanging
straight down, wearing his sandwich board—still "Ozone
Schmozone"—as mute and impassive as the post he was
leaning on. "All aboard," I shouted.
The
sheer volume of luggage should have alerted me, but I was hassled and
hurried and not paying much attention. They would have pulled it off
if Ralph hadn't missed the seat with his Hefty bag, which slipped to
the floor with a crack of broken glass. The sickly sweet smell of
peach schnapps spread like airborne honey through the interior air.
"Hold
it. Hold it," I hollered. "Everybody out. Get the bags out
too. Obviously we need a reality check here."
"What's
the problem?" demanded George. "What," I demanded.
"You don't smell it?" "Smell what?" asked Harold.
"I don't smell nothin'," said Ralph. "Harold, you
smell anything?"
"I
think maybe you busted your aftershave," tried Harold. "Ralph
doesn't shave," I said. "I meant mouthwash," said
Harold weakly as they dragged themselves and their luggage out onto
the narrow grass strip. "Open all the bags."
"Who
the hell are you, U.S. Customs?" George snapped "That's
right, and the custom is that I'm holding all the booze."
"Cram
it, Leo. Nobody appointed you God or nothin'."
I
ignored him. "Open up. Come on, open up." No movement. I
undid the safety pin securing the nearest bag.
They
stood forlornly in the street as I went through the assortment of
sacks, baskets and Hefty bags they used for luggage, picking
carefully through the sodden clothes and broken glass of Ralph's
green Hefty cinch sack. In the end, the tally was: four fifths of
assorted whiskey, the shattered half-gallon of peach schnapps, two
pints of hundred-proof vodka, and one large can of Sterno.
"Sterno?"
I couldn't believe it. "Sterno?" "We might need to
impress the natives with fire," said Norman. I confiscated all
of it.
"Maybe
you better go inside and get some dry stuff," I suggested to
Ralph. "This stuff is pretty wet."
He
shrugged. The minimalist approach. Simplify. Simplify.
"Well,
leave the bag open. It'll dry."
George
sat up front with me. Ralph and Harold commandeered the second seat.
Nearly Normal Norman sat in back, facing the rear, clutching the
seat-back on either side, his huge maned head thoroughly obscuring
the rear window. Within a couple of miles, the rancid mist rising
from Ralph's bag had so permeated the interior air as to make it
possible, by simply closing the eyes and conjuring the sounds of
wheeling desert birds, to visualize oneself immediately downwind
of the Cairo dump. The rest, as they say, was silence.
I
dropped off the interstate at Burlington and took the Cascade Highway
east, winding through Sedro Woolley in silence, past the sign for the
Northern
State
Multi Service Center—what, until some time back in the early
seventies, used to be Northern State Hospital. For nearly seventy
years the state of Washington had used Northern State Hospital
as its repository for the seriously addled. Among Seattle's
informal community of screaming drunks, brain-fried druggies, and
muttering droolers, Northern State's medieval methods were the stuff
of street legend. Each of us knew somebody who'd taken the one-way
trip to Northern State. The walls seemed to be reaching out to us. I
broke the spell.
"Okay.
We're almost there. Here's the deal. You guys listening?"
I
checked the mirror. No eye contact. A couple of grunts.
"All
we want to know is, does anybody recognize the girl in the picture?
Nothing more than that. If you get anybody to hit on the picture,
come get me. I'll take it from there."
I
paused to let it sink in.
"What
did I just say?" I pushed. Nothing. I tried again.
"Hey,
I'm not kiddin' here. Somebody tell me what I just said."
"You
said we was too goddamn stupid to do anything except to show
some picture to the hicks, and if anything needin' a brain came up we
was to call you right away," George said from my right.
"I
just—" I started. Shit. He had a point. That had indeed been
more or less the message. "Okay, George is right." I
sighed. "I'm sorry. If you're going to work, you might as well
do the job. If anybody even seems to recognize the picture, find out
everything you can and then find me and report. We'll all figure out
what to do from there."
The
Timber Country Saw Shop came right before the turn to lyman. As I
turned right I spotted a sign a quarter-mile down the highway: EAT.
We wound down into the town. Main Street was five blocks long. The
first short block contained the only two public buildings. On the
left was the post office. On the right was the Lyman Tavern. Both
were painted a uniform white. The post office was entered at ground
level. A dark-haired young woman, big-time pregnant, wheeled a baby
in a stroller out the door. Her striated belly had rolled the top of
her blue stretch pants and now bobbed at large beneath an
orange-and-white maternity blouse. On the right, the Lyman Tavern was
three steps up to a narrow front porch supported by elaborately
turned posts. Half a dozen pickups nosed into the north side of the
building.
I
drove another three blocks and pulled over to the side of the road.
"Everybody out," I announced as I opened my door and got
out. I walked around to the double doors on the passenger side and
yanked them open. Another round of mumbling, bumbling, and stumbling
and I had them standing in the fine gravel that separated Main Street
from the lawn of the modest blue house behind me.
They
blinked disbelievingly at their surroundings as I passed out
pictures. I wanted to get them going before the bitching started.
"Okay.
We need to ask as many people as we can in the time we've got. The
longer they've lived here the better. You're gonna find that most of
these people have been here a long time. Be polite. Ask them for
help. Say something like, 'Excuse me. I was wondering if you
could help me.' For the most part, people will help if you approach
them in that manner."
George
waggled his hand like a schoolboy who needed to take a piss. I knew
better, but acknowledged him anyway.
"What?"
"Excuse
me, sir, but I was wondering if maybe you couldn't help us get the
fuck out of here." The other three almost smiled.
"As
a matter of fact, my good man, you've come to the right fellow. You
do just what I tell you and I'll have you out of this lovely little
hamlet inside of an hour."
He
wanted to respond, but I kept talking.
"Harold.
You go down there to the end of town." I pointed south. "This
is Third, so you do all up and down First and Second." I stepped
out from behind the front of the van and peered up and down the
street. It looked to go no more than three blocks on either side of
Main. "George, you and Norman do Third and Fourth. Ralph can do
Fifth by himself."
"Ralph
can always manage a fifth by himself," said Harold.
They
yukked it up. I went on.
"If
there's a No Trespassing or No Peddlers sign, skip the place.
Sometimes out in the country like this, people really, I repeat
really don't want to bothered. Sometimes out here in the sticks
you're gonna find types that have been waiting thirty years for
something that looks like you guys to show up on the front porch
so they can blow them away. Don't take any chances. Be safe. You guys
hear me?"
They
all let me know they understood.
"Don't
mess with any dogs. Thank everybody when you're done. If they want to
know how come you want to know, tell them the missing heir story like
we did when we found the Abrams girl."
Again
they agreed. I handed each man a folder of photos and a roll of
half-inch masking tape,
"Okay,
let's go then," I began. "We'll all meet back here in this
spot in an hour, and"—I waved a finger— "stay out of
the tavern."
"What
are you gonna do?" asked Ralph.
"I'm
gonna drive back out to the highway and talk to the people in the saw
shop and the people in the restaurant. Then, depending on what I find
out from them, I'm gonna come back here and see how you guys are
doing and then maybe take a lap around town. I want to see if there
isn't some place in town where folks hang business cards or maybe put
up announcements about stuff they want to sell. I'll put one of the
small pictures with a phone number up. If any of you guys comes upon
a place where you can hang one without pissing anybody off, then put
one up. That's what the tape is for. Each of you has a bunch of
pictures that have my number on the bottom."