“I promise.”
“Repeat the whole thing, please, and I want to see both hands. No crossed fingers.”
Her lips trembled into a smirk, and she lifted her fingers from the steering wheel, repeating mechanically, “I promise I will not run away.” She blinked back the lingering tears, and the two of us sat collecting ourselves. After a few moments, she brought up a new subject. “We’re gonna have to get on the computer and see if the Culps answered our e-mail. We could also try looking for a home address or phone number for her daughter. We can’t just start tracking down libraries and asking for Amy Culp. They have city libraries all over the place in big towns like Houston, and tomorrow’s Sunday, anyway. They’re probably not open. We’ll have to find a place to stay tonight, too.”
I contemplated the problem. “Well, fortunately for us, I know a bit about Houston. I spent part of my career at the Johnson Space Center.”
“Awesome.” Twisting around, she stretched into the backseat and came up with the computer bag. “You want me to look for addresses, or do you want to do it while I drive? As long as we can get cell phone service, we can use the Internet.” She balanced the computer on the console, waiting for me to choose. “I can tell you how to look stuff up.”
“I think I can manage it,” I told her. “It’s not rocket science.”
The corner of her mouth twitched upward. “I guess if it was, we’d have it made, since you’re the rocket man.”
I felt my lightness of spirit returning as she put the car in gear, and I took out the computer and set it on my knees. Epiphany guided me through the process of starting the software and connecting the hardware to the thumb-size Internet transmitter/receiver. When I didn’t take instruction quickly enough, she reached across the console, pointing and trying to type.
The car swerved lazily onto the shoulder, then back. “Hands on the wheel, eyes on the road,” I reprimanded. If I could be outpaced by a sixteen-year-old computer operator, at least I knew more about driving.
We continued along while the computer hummed and I studied the screen, taking in the tiny icons and trying to remember exactly which one was for the Internet. For a man who’d been in the consulting world not so long ago, I’d grown surprisingly rusty—proof that, after my heart trouble had led to a doctor’s recommendation that I leave behind the stress of consulting, I’d spent far too much time sulking around the house, watching television and reading old books. Undoubtedly, I hadn’t been much fun for Annalee to live with.
I selected an icon or two, and within moments I was playing music and I’d managed to take a photo of myself. Another frame opened, revealing a live-action shot of a confused-looking old man peering at the computer, his eyes in a squint. Me, of course.
Epiphany craned sideways to see. “What are you doing?” She reached for the computer again. I turned it away and scooted into the corner by the door.
“Hands on the wheel, eyes on the road.” I selected another picture, tapped the receiver pad, and opened yet another frame. I suspected I was recording myself. Or dialing China.
“Click the little red ‘X’ to close the window,” Epiphany instructed, somewhat less than patiently. “You want me to pull over and do it?”
“I have it under control.” I leaned even closer to the computer, so that the old man on the screen and I were almost nose-to-nose. “I don’t see an ‘X.’”
“At the top corner on the window.”
“There is no ‘X.’ ”
“There is, too. The top corner on the right. The red ‘X.’ ”
“There is no ‘X,’ I tell you.”
She reached over from the driver’s seat, and I pulled the computer away. The car drifted onto the shoulder again.
“Attend to the driving,” I barked, sounding more like the old Norman than the new kinder, gentler grandpa version.
Epiphany yanked the steering wheel, swerving and causing the two of us to wobble in our seats like the tines of a tuning fork. “Well, bite my head o . . . Uhhh-oh.” She spotted the oncoming vehicle before I did—a white sedan with the telltale flashing light on top.
My pulse ratcheted up, and Epiphany drew a quick breath, then held it, her eyes wide, her face slack.
“What if he saw me swerve off the road? What do I
do
?” she hissed, her body frozen in place, her head stiff on her neck, as if she were afraid to move.
I found myself gripping the console on one side and the door on the other. “Just keep driving at the same rate of speed. Not too slow, not too fast.” I noted her foot sliding off the gas pedal. “Don’t brake. It’s a sign of nervousness.”
“I
am
nervous.” Her voice quavered, and suddenly she seemed very young, a little girl, all her bluster and bluff gone. “Oh, man, what if we get stopped, J. Norm? What if he knows it’s us? What if there’s an APB out for this car, and—”
“Just be calm.” My mind sped ahead. Had Deborah continued to pay the insurance bills, now that the car wasn’t being driven? Was there a proof of insurance in my glove box? I didn’t dare look now. I was afraid to know the answer.
I pictured the two of us being hauled off to the pokey in whatever tiny town was ahead on the horizon. What did they do when they discovered an uninsured driver on the road? Certainly not give him a slap on the wrist and let him drive off to continue his offense.
“Steady behind the wheel,” I soothed, but the comfort rang hollow. Was it possible that we’d become the subjects of an allpoints bulletin—one of those sad news reports about an addled senior who’d wandered off from his life, confused and disoriented?
Be on the lookout for a dark blue Cadillac driven by a man in his seventies. Family members report that J. Norman Alvord suffers from dementia. . . .
Ahead, the oncoming car swung toward the shoulder, no doubt preparing to U-turn and fall in behind us to make the collar.
“J. Norm . . .” Epiphany whimpered. “I don’t wanna drive anymore. I wanna get out.”
“Steady,” I advised. “Just . . .” The cruiser pulled farther off the road, rolling slowly up to . . . a mailbox?
Epiphany leaned over the steering wheel, her mouth dropping open as we drew close enough to see the driver reaching across the front seat. An instant later, the lettering on the side of the car became visible. Epiphany’s lips moved slowly as she whispered the words, “U.S. Mail . . . J. Norm, that’s the stupid mailman!”
I caught a breath, and a nervous snort pushed through after it.
Epiphany sank against her seat. “Don’t
even
laugh. I think I’m gonna pass out.”
Another chuckle escaped. I pictured the two of us, white knuckled in the front of the car. “Frightened to death by the mailman. Some team of outlaws we are.”
“I still think I’m gonna pass out.” Epiphany wiped her forehead with shaking fingers.
“Let’s find a place to pull off for a bit.” I pointed to the town ahead. “I think a little break is in order.”
Epiphany nodded, sinking deeper into her seat. “Yeah, I think so, too.”
We ended up at the Dairy Queen, exiting the car on shaky legs. Once inside, the two of us sagged against the ice-cream counter side by side.
“Make mine a double,” Epiphany said.
“This calls for the whole banana split.”
The woman behind the counter gave us curious looks as she took our order. While she was ringing up the total, a commotion in the parking lot caught Epiphany’s attention. A group of boys in high school baseball uniforms were on their way in, jostling and carrying on with one another as they went. It occurred to me that we’d left the computer in the car. “Go on over by the front glass and watch the car. We left the windows open.”
Shrugging, Epiphany crossed to the front of the room, standing left of the trash can as the boys bulldozed through in a tangle. They noted her as they passed by, and she surreptitiously watched them, as well. Behind the counter, the clerk hurried to fill my order, calling out to the new customers, “You boys just simmer down and make a line. Marvin’s workin’ on your order.”
After they were past her, Epiphany hurried back to the counter. She grabbed my arm and leaned close to my ear. “J. Norm, look at their jerseys. Guess where we are.” She didn’t wait for me to actually read the jerseys, but quickly added, “Littlewood. Don’t you remember? That’s the place where the guy moved to after he got run out of Groveland for publishing Mercy White’s book. Mr. Nelson at the soda shop said he bought the newspaper. What if he still lives here? Maybe he could tell us about her—like, whether the things she said were true, and if she said stuff that wasn’t in the book. We should look him up.”
Epiphany’s quick mind never ceased to amaze me, and like her mind, the rest of her was quick, as well. When the clerk returned with our food, Epiphany wasted no time in asking, “Hey, can you tell me who owns the newspaper here now? My grandpa might know him.”
The clerk slid our frozen confections across the counter. “Well, small world, isn’t it? Leland Lowenstein runs the newspaper now, if that’s who you were thinking of. His office is down on Main and Second.”
Epiphany cut a sideways look and arched a brow, undoubtedly thinking the same thing I was thinking. We’d heard that name before.
“He’s probably at the feed store, hanging out with my dad, though,” one of the high school boys offered. “That’s where he gets most of his news.” A push-and-shove competition broke out in the back of the line, and he turned to yell at a smaller boy who’d bumped into him.
We quickly secured directions to the newspaper office and the feed store, thanked the clerk, collected our purchases, and hurried toward the door.
“Feed store, here we come,” Epiphany remarked on the way out. “Good thing I had the idea to stop at the Dairy Queen, huh?” Shoving a bite of ice cream into her mouth, she smiled around the spoon. I opted for a sip of my ice water, rather than pointing out that the Dairy Queen was actually my idea.
Following our short ice-cream break, we had no difficulty finding the newspaper office. It was closed, so we proceeded on to the feed store. The enormous grain silos, by far the tallest structures in town, would have clued us in nicely, even without directions. We found Leland Lowenstein perched on a stool in the office, just as we’d been promised. A friendly man of rather generous proportion, he was happy enough to make our acquaintance, until we mentioned Mercy White’s book. His look turned decidedly sour at that point.
“Listen, I don’t want anything more to do with that book. Or any book. That book and that publishing company nearly cost me everything I owned. I’m out of the publishing business, except for the newspaper, and we only print facts. No memoirs, no gossip column, no long, drawn-out stories from sweet little old ladies who swear it’s the truth. You know that woman, Mercy White, had terminal cancer, and she was aware of it when she wrote the book? She knew she wouldn’t be around to defend that thing, and I’d be left holding the bag. If you’re here to try to sue me for defamation of character, don’t bother. I dissolved the publishing corporation. It’s done. It’s over. There’s no money to be had from me, and Mercy White donated all her estate to the American Cancer Society. So there.”
“We don’t want your money.” Epiphany stepped forward, as if she felt the need to defend me. At the sales counter, the clerk and her customer paused, then politely tried to pretend they weren’t listening in. “All we want is to ask you some questions.”
Leland Lowenstein shifted backward on his stool. “Listen, all I did was go through the stuff she wrote and try to condense it down to something readable, and”—he stabbed a stubby finger into the air, glaring at Epiphany and then at me—“folks oughta have thanked me for that instead of running me out of business. There was a lot more dirt that I convinced her to take out of the book. A lot.”
My hopes rumbled like an Atlas/Centaur rocket making ignition, ready to lift off the ground. “Was there anything more about the night of the VanDraan fire, about the children and what happened to them?”
Brows tightening, he licked his lips, tilting his head back and peering through his glasses, as if to get a better look at me. “Why do you want to know? Because if you’ve got ideas of saying you’re one of the long-lost VanDraan kids so you can get your hands on the family fortune, don’t bother.”
His cool reception suddenly made more sense. “I wasn’t aware that there was a family fortune.”
“Well, there’s not,” he snapped, and I decided he was quite an unlikable fellow. No wonder he was willing to print a book in which an embittered old woman sought revenge on her family members and the whole of the town. “At least eighty-five people already tried it, after the book came out. A few even wanted to exhume old VanDraan’s body, but anyone who knows about him knows he isn’t buried under that headstone. The man fell off a fishing boat in the Gulf, drunk, or else somebody pushed him, but he was never seen again. There wasn’t any kin, and he was pretty near broke by then, anyway. He was a drunk and a bad gambler. His ranch got sold for taxes, and any other readily available assets he had were dunned for debts. There was enough of his estate left to put the dates on his tombstone, and that was about it.”
My mind became a jumble, the pieces I had been putting together lying like a box of punch cards dropped on the floor. The woman Epiphany and I were trying to track down, Clara Culp, could be nothing but a fraud. Mercy White’s story could be a fabrication, and the truth, perhaps, was that my entire family had perished in the fire. I felt a loss that caused me to stagger slightly.