"
Goodnight, Simon,
"
was what she said.
The next day was Sunday
and for Simon that meant church, or more precisely, church choir. The choir was singing in the ten o'clock service and Simon got there at quarter to, just in time for warm-up. The choir director at St. Joseph’s was a short balding man, with the biggest, whitest teeth Simon had ever seen. His name was Ryan Orwell, and Simon considered him a friend. He also considered him gay, though he wasn’t absolutely sure.
"
Simon,
"
Orwell greeted him,
"
I’m glad you’re here. We’re short baritones today.
"
Simon pulled on his choir robe and looked around. He didn’t see any baritones at all, with the exception of himself.
"
Don’t tell me I’m the whole section again.
"
Orwell smiled at him from behind the piano.
"
Simon, old man, you're all I want.
"
It was Orwell's stock line, invariably delivered with a quirk of one eyebrow.
Simon was capable of carrying the baritone part himself and didn’t half mind doing it, even if he pretended he did. In fact, one of the reasons he liked St. Joseph’s choir was that it was small--twenty people at full strength, and they were never at full strength. In Ryan’s choir you had to be able to sing, had to be able to read music, and had to be able to carry your part alone if need be.
In that way, it was very much like life.
In fact, t
he only negative Simon really saw was that the church choir was, well, a church choir. Meaning you had to go to church to sing in it. So far he’d managed to use his job as an excuse for leaving before the sermon. Three years it had been now.
At first
,
St. Joseph’s pastor had gotten after Ryan, positing that it looked bad for choir members to up and leave at the start of each sermon. Ryan had prevailed on Simon’s behalf, arguing that Simon was the best baritone he’d ever had and, besides, fifteen minutes in church singing God’s praises was better than nothing. Especially considering what Simon did the rest of the week.
So it came to pass that after a rousing rendition of
"
God is Great,
"
Simon rose from church and descended into the Hardee’s next door. Over four cinnamon raisin biscuits, extra frosting, and a large black coffee, he tried to read the op-ed section of the Sunday paper. Instead, he thought about Wendy Jacobus.
Capable, responsive--professionally and personally, judging from last night. Nice little body.
There was something wrong, though, and Simon had realized last night--in his bed, alone--that although she had asked him if he was married, he had never asked her the reciprocal question.
His ex-wife, Dianne, used to say that Simon needed to be the center of his own universe. Simon didn’t quite see what was wrong with that. Everyone should be the center of his own universe, shouldn’t he? Or she?
Still, he should have asked Jake about herself--specifically, if she was married. She didn’t wear a wedding ring, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. If she
was
married, that would explain what had happened last night in the control room. And the explanation was more to his liking than that she just wasn’t interested.
Whatever the reason, it was for the best. Since his divorce, Simon had made it a habit not to make women a habit, or to become a habit for one of them. His job gave him enough to deal with, and he had his big screen TV to keep him warm
and his house to keep him busy at the odd times
his job didn’t.
The house, an old Victorian-style fixer-upper right on Lake Michigan, had been the one thing both he and Dianne fought for in the divorce settlement. It was set picturesquely on a bluff that probably wouldn’t erode in his lifetime. The "probably" was the reason they had been able to afford it in the first place.
Simon had worked on the house most every Sunday for the two years
he and Dianne
had been married and every Sunday since. First the exterior, then the interior--stripping off layers of paint and wallpaper, sanding hardwood floors, and exterminating colonies of rats, ants and yellow jackets. He was on the last room now.
The study was on the first floor at the back of the house. Before Simon had removed the wainscoting, three of the walls had looked pretty much like you would expect them to look in an old-style den: dark, masculine, lots of bookshelves.
The fourth wall, though, was as spectacular as it was unexpected. The previous owner had knocked out the entire east
side
of the room and put in floor-to-ceiling glass, exposing the room to the lake. Although Simon was enough of an architectural purist to cringe at the thought of 1979
"
improvements
"
to a
n
1890s house, he had to admit the view was magnificent.
And it was his.
Throughout the divorce proceedings he had pursued possession of the house single-mindedly and ag
ainst all reason. And,
the advice of his attorney.
He knew Dianne had been surprised at his tenacity. Until then, Simon had been extremely easy-going about the divorce and the property settlement.
"
Things
"
didn’t mean much to him, probably the result of seeing so many
"
things
"
burnt to a crisp. Still, he had to have the house--not so much for what it was, as for what it represented.
And what it represented was Simon, of course. You didn't need a shrink to tell you that. By coming out of the marriage with the house, he was affirming that he was still intact. That he had recovered his investment and then some. The fact that he’d given up everything else in order to get it didn’t matter. Dianne was, after all, an attorney. And Simon, for all his stubbornness, was a realist.
He drained his coffee cup and folded up the still unread newspaper. He had to stop for a gallon of paint on the way home.
After days of scraping and steaming
,
Simon had finally gotten all the wallpaper and glue off the study walls and primed them. He was ready to paint. Problem was he couldn’t decide what color.
It was almost a ritual. Every Sunday
morning, Simon
stopped to pick up a can of paint on his way home from Hardee's. Every Sunday
noon
he painted a swath next to the door and stood back to look at it. Every Sunday
just after twelve
, he stowed the can of paint in the basement.
This week it was
"
Creme de la Creme.
"
He had just set the can down in the
front foyer
when the phone rang.
The caller was Pat Firenze.
"
I'm sorry to bother you on a Sunday, but Angela is going out of her mind. Is there any word on Ray?"
Simon, who had checked on both the search and the lab results before church, could
believe that. "Sorry, but no. And...well, i
t's been thirty-six hours, Pat. If Ray was picked up by a boat, or floating on debris or something, we should have heard by now."
"Unless he drowned, you're saying. Jesus. How in the hell did this happen to us?"
Pat sounded dazed, and who could blame him? His whole world had literally exploded in a second.
Simon chose to answer Pat's question in practical rather than rhetorical terms. "The lift charge didn't detonate, just as we suspected. The timing fuse to the shell lighted, though, so your guess is as good as mine as to the cause. There just wasn't much left on the barge to go on: Some chemical traces we're having analyzed, canvas, silica, sand, string, brown paper..." he trailed off.
Pat didn't say anything.
"Pat?"
"Sorry," Pat said. "I was just thinking how twisted it is that paper and string survived the blast and my father didn't."
Explosions were like that
, Simon thought.
The bombing of the Murrah Federal Building
in Oklahoma City
had killed
168 people,
19 of them under
the age of six.
Yet
toys
were found in the building's day care center
still ...
"Why don't you come for dinner, Simon?" Pat said out of the blue.
"Come where?"
"My parent's house. We can talk," Pat said. "And besides, my mother cooks to forget. You'll be doing us a favor by giving her another mouth to feed."
Right. Pat apparently had something to say, but he couldn't--or wouldn't--say it over the phone. Simon agreed to six-thirty and hung up.
He was still puzzling over Pat's sudden invitation as he painted a stripe of "Creme de la Creme" on the study wall just to the right of "Ivory Tower" and below "Ecru To You." The ecru he'd bought more for the name, than the color. Or the absence of color. He stepped back to look.
Nope. Still not right.
Simon tapped the lid back on the can and carried the paint and brush down to the basement, where he stacked "Creme de la Creme" on top of a gallon of "Suddenly Sudan." The brush he stuck in a can of thinner to soak.
He checked his watch. Just after twelve.
Simon
needed to track down any footage the other stations had shot of
the finale, just in case they'
d captured something TV8 had missed. Normally, it would be tough to get hold of station officials on
a Sunday, but he figured they migh
t
jump at a chance to be part of the investigation. And say so on the air.
All in all, he shouldn't have any trouble getting that done, paying a courtesy call to the mayor, and
still
getting to the Firenze's for dinner by six-thirty.
*****
Stroke/kersplat...stroke/kersplat...stroke/kersplat...
The sound followed Jake up-and-back, up-and-back, like the tick...tick...tick of the alarm clock inside the crocodile in Peter Pan.
Nuts. Swimming was supposed to be therapeutic, a place where you let your mind wander, thinking the great thoughts you only think as you swim up-and-back thirty-six times. And have nothing to write them down on.
Stroke/kersplat...stroke/kersplat...stroke/kersplat...
Today, the man--or the Croc, as she'd taken to thinking of him--was in the lane next to her. Each time she kicked off from the shallow end, he'd do likewise and swim like they were racing. Each time he finished ahead of her. Each time he stood and waited in his lane for her to finish. And, each time, he'd start the whole thing all over again for the next lap.
Although people like Doug often swam alongside her, this guy was different. It was like he was taking pleasure in beating her over and over and over again for thirty-six laps. It
gave
Jake the willies.
She grabbed the end of the pool and turned, avoiding eye contact with the Croc, who again was waiting in the next lane.
Stroke/kersplat...stroke/kersplat...stroke/kersplat...
He was behind her at the half-length. At her heels at the turn. Passing her at the three-quarters mark.
Stroke/kersplat...
Another non-eye-contact turn. Jake started her last lap.
So if this guy was the Croc, that would make Jake Captain Hook wouldn’t it? Funny, she’d always fancied herself more the Tinkerbell type, everybody clapping hard as they could, to save the flighty little Tink.
Stroke/kersplat...stroke/kersplat...stroke/kersplat...
Or Tiger Lily, an assertive female if there ever was one.
Stroke/kersplat...stroke/kersplat...stroke/kersplat...
Jake had never identified with Wendy Darling. In addition to having a stupid name, she was a fool for giving up Peter Pan in order to grow old and die.
What was the point of
that
?
Stroke/kersplat...
Thirty-six.
Finished.
Jake pulled herself up and out of the pool, waving over Doug, who had just walked in, to take her lane.
She felt badly sticking him next to the Croc, but it was time to fly.
*****
The other local TVs had been a washout
for Simon
. None of the three had more than one camera on the scene and they were all too far away to catch anything significant. No matter, you had to check these things out, even if it did waste the better part of the afternoon.
It was nearly five when Simon arrived at Shore Park. Mayor Clementine Cox had left word that she could be found at the Lake Days headquarters tent there. Simon liked talking to politicians almost as much as reporters, but he'd found keeping local officials informed was the best way to keep them out of his hair. Mostly.