By comparison with the old man, Mr. Root was spanking clean and even smelled of Aqua Velva, or maybe it was Old Spice, for there was a faint aroma of alcohol and cloves. I only knew about men’s lotions from studying the cardboard displays in Souder’s Drug Store. I frankly thought it was a little sissy, and took note of the fact that the Sheriff never smelled of cloves or alcohol, just soap.
Mr. Root was wearing a nice blue shirt, really starched up, and wide red suspenders. I asked him if he was waiting for a cab or going someplace.
“No, I ain’t. Just thought maybe I’d go over to Greg’s for my dinner later on.”
Greg’s was the worn-out tavern over there, and I couldn’t imagine having dinner in it. The most I’d ever get was a cheeseburger (if I was starving) and a Coke. Will and I liked to go there so he could play the pinball machine. He hit them up and slapped them something awful, until Greg had to shout at him to stop.
“Ain’t seen the Wood boys,” said Mr. Root, looking around and behind him to the dirt path that led away from Britten’s, the one that the people who lived back in that direction took to get to the store.
He seemed to think we would be forever meeting here and making plans. “No, I haven’t seen them today, either.”
“You read about they found that woman over at Mirror Pond? Said she must of either shot herself or got herself shot by somebody. If you can countenance
that.”
Slowly, his mouth worked around his plug of tobacco.
Mr. Root was the type to read the
Conservative
cover-to-cover, even the personals. But I also figured things slipped his mind pretty easily, for he was of an age where you probably like the past a lot better than the present. That was why it didn’t really bother me too much that he would bring the subject up, as I knew he would, of course. It was the only hot news we’d had all year.
“Yes, sir, I did,” I lied. “Every word. It was exciting—I mean, it was too bad.” I tossed in that business about reading “every word” just in case he did remember a lot of the details. Now he would not feel it necessary to fill me in on whatever I didn’t want to know.
He said he agreed, and how terrible it was, and asked, “You think it all had something to do with that little Devereau girl?”
I was really taken aback; I hadn’t expected
that
kind of question. I wrinkled up my face at him. “Why?”
“Well, they both of ’em drowned in the water around here. Maybe she throwed herself in.”
For some reason, my heart lurched, for there was something of the truth in what he’d said. Mr. Root, not having (I guessed) a very complicated mind, just took one event all those years ago and one right now and, because there were one or two similarities, just punched them out and put them together, like fixing clothes to a paper doll, and overlooking the enormous differences. I was sort of stunned. I said, “Well, but . . . the police said she was
shot.”
“Yeah. I guess. Paper don’t tell you much.” He sat, leaning forward, forearms across his knees, like a slightly younger version of the stubble-bearded old man who had just left.
I was glad to hear the paper didn’t tell him much. I chewed the inside of my cheek and debated tossing out a detail or two, testing to see if he’d agree with them or not. “Someone said she was from Hebrides.” I was working up to mentioning Ben Queen.
“Where all’d they hear that?”
“Said they got it out of the paper.”
He shook his head. “Well, they didn’t. Police never said where she’s from because they don’t know.”
I felt disappointed. I wanted the dead woman to be from any place
at all except Cold Flat Junction. But, of course, I was sure that detail hadn’t been in the paper, either. “In there they said”— and I turned to nod towards the store—“it was someone named Louella somebody. From Hebrides. It was Luke who said it.”
“Luke.” Mr. Root snorted and dragged his hand across his mouth, as if the saying of the name made him want to wash it out. “Lot he knows. That Luke Hazel fella, he always wants you to think he knows more’n anybody. Wasn’t nothing like that in the paper. Police said plain as day they
did not know who she is.”
He emphasized those words.
“I remember now it said that.”
“Said it mighta been accidental but ‘foul play cannot be ruled out.’ ” Mr. Root repeated this slowly. “That’s what it said, ‘foul play cannot be ruled out.’ I guess they’ll have to do a whatchamacallit—an autopsy?” He turned to look at me to see if I agreed.
I tried to look wise.
“Who do you guess they’ll get to do that, then?”
I shrugged. “Dr. Baum, I suppose.”
“Well . . .”
As if I’d only just thought of it, I snapped my fingers. “You know what I think? I think we just should take a ride over to White’s Bridge. Maybe the Wood boys can take us in their truck.”
I was surprised when Mr. Root shook his head. “Their trucks is in Cabel Slaw’s shop, being worked on.”
“Both of them? Both trucks?”
Mr. Root turned his head to the right, away from me, and gently spat a stream of tobacco. “Yeah, so they said. Funny, ain’t it? When one goes bad, so’s the other.”
I sighed. That sounded typically Wood-like. I was so disappointed, for it seemed the perfect solution to getting a ride.
Mr. Root and I sat there for a few quiet minutes, as I watched the old man, who’d crossed the highway and was still creeping up the hill towards Greg’s. There was a sadness that clung to old people like cobwebs—Mr. Root, Miss Flagler—something sticky that a person could keep wiping at, but that wouldn’t wipe away. I was reminded of the unused rooms above the kitchen that once were servants’ quarters, now just storage space and hardly ever visited, except by me. I would go in them for no particular reason and wedge my way between wooden chairs stacked, legs up, on tables, washstands, dressers with swing mirrors, all layered under dust, joined sometimes by misty
stretches of cobwebs or delicate spider webs. Cobwebs clung to the window frame that the sun would hit and whiten and a draft of air would lift, so that being lifted and let fall they were like shreds of cotton or silk, taking on a material weight, and I found this beautiful but unbearably sad. I would be stuck there watching the corners and windows of those rooms, sometimes shadowy and still, sometimes light and moving. It would be like the sunlight striping Spirit Lake, or the mist and fog rising from its surface. And I imagined cobwebs clinging to my mother and Mrs. Davidow, even as she sat on the salad table swinging her legs. And it was like a web of mist that had hovered for a long time and had finally come down, settling quietly. Through the cobweb layer they talked and even laughed and fluttered the cobweb veil like the draft seeping in through the window cracks in the unused rooms upstairs. I guess it wasn’t enough that something be beautiful, not enough at all. For the light would fade and the air draw in to a suffocating closeness.
Was it always like this, to grow old? I sat on the bench and studied the ground at my feet and felt sunk. Not that my life was anything to write home airmail about, but at least I was not old. But I was sure I would not be one of the ones to escape this fate, if anybody ever did.
After a while, I brought my mind back to the problem. I thought about what the one called Jude had said that had sent me flying out of Britten’s.
“How long you been living here, Mr. Root? In Spirit Lake, I mean?”
He enjoyed this question, obviously, for he sat back to scrunch up his face and really meditate upon it. “It’d be twenty-six years come next September. That’s right,” he added, as if I were challenging him, “twenty-six years.”
So he’d been here a long, long time; but he’d said he’d never known the Devereaus, and the whole affair would have had nearly another twenty years to die down by the time he came. So my question was probably safe. “You ever hear of a man named Ben Queen?”
This was even more enjoyable to him, for he could truly pretend to put on his thinking cap. I didn’t think he knew anything about Ben Queen (which, the way I was going, made him safe to ask); but in casting about for the name, he just might come up with something else, something related. I was totally caught off-balance when he said:
“Ben Queen. Queen . . . Now there’s someone I used to know
married a Queen, I think.” He smiled shyly. “I was kinda sweet on her my own self. Sheba Otis, her name was then.”
I was surprised. “She married a Queen? Which one?”
“Can’t say.” He sighed. “Her name’s Bathsheba, but she never liked that much.” He turned to look at me. “That’s one of them Bible names.”
I stared, blinking. I hardly knew how to reply. Then I asked, “Well, where is she? Or where do the Queens live?”
He spat out tobacco, carefully turning his head away from me. “Don’t know, anymore. I ain’t seen Sheba in a good fifteen years or more.”
And he stopped with that. Why did adults do this? They could yammer on about nothing at all for hours on end and then say something terribly important and just clam up.
“Where
did
she live, then?”
He crooked his head sideways, pointing down the highway. “Vista View, when I knowed her. But she moved.”
I sat there feeling really frustrated. Out on the highway, Axel rode by in his empty cab. He honked and waved and we waved back. Even from up here on the bank, I could see Axel was grinning. He was always grinning. I guess I would be too if I didn’t have to take anyone anywhere.
When I asked Mr. Root the time, he looked at his watch and shook it, held it to his ear, finally said it was near three o’clock. If I was going to go into La Porte, I had two and a half hours before I had to get the salads ready. It was too bad I hadn’t tried to flag Axel down, but he wouldn’t have stopped. I would have to walk.
Forlornly—at least it felt so to me—I walked back to the hotel, scuffing up gravel and bits of hard earth. And to make matters worse, I remembered Ree-Jane’s birthday was coming up. That meant a present, that meant all kinds of stuff—a special dinner, probably a party with what Ree-Jane called her “older friends.” I could just go into Souder’s and get a bottle of dusty old cologne. I wondered what Will and Brownmiller would do. Probably make up a skit or something. And then a few steps farther along I stopped. Her car! Hebrides! Ree-Jane liked Will and even Brownmiller. If
Will
asked her if they could use her car, Ree-Jane just might let him. Brownmiller was one year older than Will and old enough to drive. Well, almost. He had a permit, but he was supposed to have a licensed driver with him. But
Ree-Jane didn’t have to know that. Will and Mill could lie if she got suspicious. They could lie the wallpaper right off the wall. I walked on with more spring in my step. All Will would have to do is tell her he wanted to go to Hebrides to pick up her present and could they borrow her car?
Will and Mill were hard at work on one of their “productions,” which took up every waking minute of their lives except for those Will had to spend bellhopping. He was very good at his job, mostly because he was so flirty. I don’t mean just with girls; he was flirty with everybody he wanted something from, whether a tip or a ride to town or getting fancy old clothes out of my mother’s trunks that he could turn into costumes. (The only person who seemed to have his number was Aurora, but then she had everybody’s number, so that didn’t count much.) Or persuading Mrs. Conroy to let Brownmiller stay up later than his bedtime. Poor Mill. Imagine being sixteen years old and still having a “bedtime.” Here was I, four years younger than Mill, and I didn’t even have one. I don’t recall my first reaction to Brownmiller’s name. But I often wonder what some parents can be thinking of, saddling helpless little babies with first names that could only ruin their chances for a decent life. However, knowing his mother Edna, I guess I wasn’t surprised.
No matter how many times he got something out of me with his flirty ways, Will could still make me think he was sincere and truthful. I was the one person who knew Will was
never
sincere or truthful, and if that sounds contradictory, well, that just goes to show you how he could take people in. I suppose he was sincere with Brownmiller, but then Mill was his co-producer, and I guess he was forced to shoot straight with Mill. Or perhaps it was that Mill was so much
like
my brother—not in looks, for Will had it all over Mill there; not in talent, for Mill had much more talent than Will; but in their love of scheming. Probably that was one reason they produced such clever shows.
I thought about all of this on my walk from Britten’s to the hotel, wondering if I could get them to undertake this White’s Bridge trip in Ree-Jane’s car. I had high hopes that they would, simply because it was a scheme, not because they’d want to do me any favors. I liked to believe that Will would undertake this scheme because he’d give anything to put one over on Ree-Jane. But Ree-Jane didn’t count any more than anyone else. That is, Will was so busy in his own mind with his own ideas, he hadn’t any mental space left over in which to
loathe Ree-Jane. Unlike me, whose mind was lazy and had plenty of free time to devote to loathing.
So tricking Ree-Jane wouldn’t be payment enough. No, he’d probably exact some promise from me to play one of the really little roles in their production that no one else would play. Two summers ago, I’d had to play Igor in their production of
Frankenstein.
It was horribly embarrassing, to have to clump across the stage as a hunchback. But I had to admit, the effects were very smart. Will was extremely bright when it came to electricity and trapdoors and anything that involved somebody hanging in midair. He seemed to have been born knowing all of that.
Halfway down the dirt road that led through the back acres of the hotel grounds, I heard screaming. Short, kind of gulping screams coming from the direction of the big garage. The reason I didn’t start running in some rescue attempt was because I figured Will and Brownmiller had Paul in there and this was all part of their extravaganza.
The garage was huge. At one time it could house as many as twenty cars, back in those days when the Hotel Paradise was considered quite swank. Now it wasn’t used for much except as a theater, for which you could believe it had been intended originally once you got inside and saw the stage that Will and Mill had built at one end and all of the folding chairs set up for the audience. The big doors were of course closed (the rehearsals always being a deep secret), so I had to knock. No one answered. I heard all sorts of shuffling around, sounds like huge objects crashing and low laughter, and now all was silent. This was so irritating that I started pounding. With all of that noise, did they really think they could fool somebody into thinking no one was inside? Yes, probably. Will and Mill seemed to think they inhabited an extra world, one that ran alongside of mine, and to which they escaped whenever they wanted. Their world did not operate by any of the laws of ordinary people.