Kitabı oku: «Cold Tea On A Hot Day», sayfa 2

Two

Looking in the Wrong Direction

“How long has he been missing?” Principal Blankenship demanded of the teacher standing before her.

“Since lunch recess,” Imogene Reeves answered, wringing her hands. “I don’t care if he is retarded and looks like an angel. He knows how to slip away. He is not just wanderin’ off.”

The principal winced at the word retarded spoken out loud. There were so many unacceptable words and phrases these days that she couldn’t keep up, but she was fairly certain the term retarded fell in the unacceptable category. She checked her watch and saw it was going on one o’clock.

She headed at a good clip out of her office, asking as she went, “Has anyone spoken to Mr. Starr…checked the storerooms?”

It could very well be a repeat of that first time, she thought, calming herself. It had been Mr. Starr, the custodian, who had found Willie Lee the first time. That time the boy had been all along playing with a mouse in the janitor’s storeroom. This had been upsetting—a little fright that the mouse might bite and the boy get an infection—but it was better than the second time, when the boy had gotten off the school grounds and all the way down to the veterinarian’s place a half-mile away. That time Principal Blankenship had been forced to call the boy’s mother, because the veterinarian was a friend of the boy’s mother.

Oh, she did not want to have to tell the mother again. Marilee James wrote for the newspaper. This would get everywhere.

Imagining what her father, a principal before her, would have said, would have yelled, Principal Blankenship just about wet her pants.

The storeroom had been searched and the custodian Mr. Starr consulted; involved with changing out hot water heaters, he had not seen Willie Lee since the beginning of the school day. The closets were searched, and the storerooms a second time, and the boys’ bathrooms.

At last the principal resorted to telephoning down to the veterinarian’s office.

“I haven’t seen Willie Lee,” the young receptionist at the veterinarian’s told her. “And Doc Lindsey has been out inoculatin’ cattle since before noon.”

The principal, with a sinking feeling, went along the corridors of her small school, peeking into each classroom, searching faces, hoping, praying with hands clasping and unclasping, for Willie Lee to appear.

In her heart she knew that Willie Lee had escaped the school grounds a second time, but she did not want to think of such a failure on the part of one of her teachers. Or herself. And truly, she didn’t want anything to happen to the child.

She did wish he could go to another school.

At last, with pointy shoulders slumping, she broke down and spoke over the school intercom: “Attention, teachers and students. Anyone who has seen Willie Lee James since lunch recess, please come to the office.”

In Ms. Norwood’s fourth-grade class, Corrine Pendley heard the announcement of her cousin’s name. Face jerking upward, she stared at the speaker above the classroom door. Then she saw all eyes turn to her.

Her face burned. Bending her head over her notebook, she focused her eyes on the lined paper in front of her and concentrated on being invisible.

The teacher had called her name several times before Corrine was jolted into hearing by Christy Grace poking her in the back with a pencil. “She’s callin’ you.”

Corrine looked up at the teacher, who asked if Corrine had seen Willie Lee. Corrine said, “No, ma’am.” She wondered at the question. Maybe the teacher thought she was a little deaf. Or else she thought Corrine would lie.

Why didn’t everybody mind their own business and quit looking at her?

Bending her head over her math problems, she made the numbers carefully, trying to concentrate on them, but thinking about her cousin. Willie Lee was only eight, and little for his age.

He was slow, but this did not mean he didn’t know about some things. One thing he seemed to know was how to get away when he wanted to. Corrine wished she had gone with him.

Her anxiety increased. She felt responsible. She should have been looking out for him. She was older, and he didn’t have any brothers or sisters, just like she didn’t.

All manner of dark fantasies paraded through her mind. She hoped he didn’t get run over. Or fall in a muddy creek and drown. Or get picked up by a stranger.

Her pencil point broke, startling her.

Carefully, she laid the pencil down, got up and walked as quietly as possible, so as not to become too visible, to the teacher’s desk to ask in a hurried whisper to go to the rest room.

In the tiled room that smelled strongly of bleach, she used the toilet and then she washed her hands. She kept thinking about the front doors. When she came out of the rest room, she turned left instead of right and walked down the hall and right out the double doors. She did this without thinking at all, just following an urge inside.

All the way down the front walk, she felt certain a yell was going to hit her in the back. But it didn’t. Then she was running free, running from school and then running from herself, scared to death to have done something that was very wrong and would make everyone mad at her.

She would have to find Willie Lee, she thought. If she found him, no one would be mad at her. The sun felt warm on her head and the breeze cool to her face.

At that very instant, when finding her cousin and being a hero seemed totally possible, she looked down the street and saw her Aunt Marilee’s brilliant white Jeep Cherokee coming.

The Jeep’s chrome shone so brightly, Corrine had to squint. Still, she saw Aunt Marilee behind the wheel. Corrine stopped in her tracks, and her life seemed to drain right out her toes.

Likely she was going to get it now. And she deserved it. She never could seem to do things right.

The vehicle pulled up beside her, and the tinted window slid down. Aunt Marilee said, “Where are you goin’?”

Corrine, who could not read her aunt’s even tone or blank expression, said slowly, “They announced ‘bout Willie Lee being missin’. I was goin’ to find him.”

Her aunt said, “Well, that makes two of us. Get in. I have to go see the principal first.”

Corrine opened the door and slipped into the seat in a manner as if to disappear. Carefully, she closed the door beside her. In the short drive to the school parking lot, she tried to read her aunt’s attitude but could not. She had never seen her aunt look like this. She thought desperately of what her aunt might be thinking, in order to be ready for what to say or do.

But all Aunt Marilee said to her when they got to the school was, “Come on back in with me. You’ll need to get your stuff from class.”

Aunt Marilee went to Corrine’s class with her and told Ms. Norwood that she was taking Corrine home early. Corrine, who was used to moving from an entire apartment in just a few minutes and therefore was not in the habit of accumulating needless trifles, stuffed all her books and notebooks from her desk into her backpack in scarcely a minute. As she lugged it to the classroom door, she could feel everyone looking at her, but it didn’t matter. She was leaving, at least for today.

The heels of Aunt Marilee’s Western boots echoed sharply on the corridor floor all the way back to the principal’s office, where Aunt Marilee said to her, “Sit right here. I don’t want to lose you, too.”

Without a word, Corrine sat. Aunt Marilee disappeared into the principal’s office.

The secretary, who had bleached blond hair teased up to amazing heights, looked at her. Corrine looked around the room and swung her feet that only brushed the floor.

Aunt Marilee had not fully closed the door, but even if she had, the voices would probably have been heard. Aunt Marilee had the furious tone she used when she and Corrine’s mother got into their fights. Corrine imagined her aunt was standing how she did when she meant business: feet slightly apart and eyes like laser rays.

Aunt Marilee wanted to know how people supposedly educated in child development could not manage to keep track of one little boy who was diagnosed as learning disabled and not able to think above five years old. The principal answered that the school was not a prison and did not have guards.

“We are trying to mainstream Willie Lee to the best of our ability,” the principal said. “We do not lose normal children, who are taught to participate.”

Corrine held her breath, afraid that her Aunt Marilee was going to reveal finding Corrine halfway down the block. And maybe, since she had gotten away—since she had even attempted to leave—maybe she was not quite normal.

“We are doing the best we can with your children, Mrs. James,” the principal said in a low tone.

Corrine saw the big-haired secretary’s eyes cut to her, as if thinking, You’re one of those troublemakers. Corrine swung her feet and looked at the wall, feeling the empty hole in her chest grow until it seemed to swallow her.

“Arguing will not find Willie Lee. I apologize. Now, tell me when and where my son was last seen.” Aunt Marilee’s voice, sounding so very calm and firm, enabled Corrine to draw a breath.

“I’ll tell you,” Aunt Marilee said when they got back in the Cherokee, Aunt Marilee slamming the door so hard the entire vehicle rattled. “Willie Lee knew exactly what he was doin’. I don’t care how dumb people think he is.”

“He is only dumb in some things,” Corrine said.

Aunt Marilee didn’t seem to hear her. She started off fast, gazing hard out the window. “Oh, Willie Lee,” she said under her breath, and for an instant Corrine thought her aunt might cry. This was very unnerving to Corrine, who instantly turned her eyes out the window, looking hard, thinking that she just had to find Willie Lee. She had to make everything all right again for her aunt.

They drove slowly down to the veterinary clinic, looking into yards as they went. They went into the veterinarian’s office, where two people waited with their dogs, a yippy little terrier and a trembling Labrador.

The girl behind the counter told them that Doc Lindsey had been out most of the day, was at that moment tending a sick horse at some ranch but was expected back any moment.

Dr. Lindsey was Aunt Marilee’s boyfriend. Parker Lindsey, which Corrine thought was a lovely name. He was so handsome, too. Clean and neat, and he smiled at her and Willie Lee. He smiled at just about everyone, and had very white, even teeth. Sometimes, although she never would have told anyone on this earth, Corrine imagined having a boyfriend just like Parker Lindsey.

Aunt Marilee did not want to take the office girl’s word that Willie Lee wasn’t there. Corrine, who never took anyone’s word for anything, was glad to accompany her aunt and search along the outside dog runs and look into the cattle chutes and pens. Corrine even called Willie Lee’s name softly. He might come to her first, she thought, because Aunt Marilee was getting pretty mad now.

They got back inside the Cherokee and drove around a couple of streets surrounding the school. Aunt Marilee said that they should be able to spot Willie Lee’s blond hair, because it shone in the sun. They stopped and asked a couple of people they saw in yards if they had seen Willie Lee. At one falling-down house, a man sat in his undershirt on the front step, drinking a beer. Aunt Marilee got right out of the car and went up to ask him about Willie Lee, but Corrine stayed rooted in the seat, watching sharply. She made it a point not to talk to men with beers in their hands.

Then Aunt Marilee headed in the direction of home, saying out loud, “Maybe he’s on his way home.”

Corrine, who was beginning to get really scared for her cousin and for her aunt and for her whole life, scooted up until she was sitting on the edge of the seat, looking as hard as she was able.

It was a long walk to home, but only about a five-minute drive. Maybe Willie Lee knew the way, and he wouldn’t have to cross the highway or anything. Still, no telling where he might go, and again all sorts of fearful images began to race across her mind, such as cars running over her cousin’s little body, and snakes slithering out to bite him, or maybe a black widow spider like in the movies, or maybe a bad man would get him, or a bunch of big, mean boys.

At one point she said, “Willie Lee doesn’t like school. Some of the kids tease him and call him dumb and stupid, and it’s hard for him to sit still all day.” She didn’t want her aunt to make Willie Lee go back to school.

Aunt Marilee said, “I know.”

“I don’t like school, either,” Corrine said, quietly, in the manner a child uses when she has to speak her feelings but does so in a way and time that she believes the adult might not hear. Then her throat got all thick, and she hated herself for being so stupid as to risk making Aunt Marilee mad. She would die if Aunt Marilee got mad at her.

Aunt Marilee, her gaze focused out the windshield, said, “We’ll talk about it later.” And a moment later, she whispered, “God, help us find Willie Lee.”

They searched the streets on the way home, following the route Aunt Marilee took when driving them to and from school. Again Aunt Marilee questioned several people who were outside.

A man who was roofing a house said, “Yeah, Marilee, I saw him over there on the corner. I’m sorry, I didn’t recognize him as your boy. And I didn’t see what direction he went.”

At least when the man had seen him, Willie Lee hadn’t been dead yet, Corrine thought.

Aunt Marilee drove the rest of the way home, where she went immediately to the backyard and checked to see if Willie Lee might be there with his rabbits or up in his tree fort. Corrine climbed the ladder to look in the fort, even though no one answered when they called. “He’s not here,” she called back to her aunt.

Aunt Marilee went to the front yard and hollered, “Willie Lee! Willie Lee!”

There was no answer.

Aunt Marilee unlocked the front door and went inside and straight to the answering machine on her desk in the corner of the living room. There were no messages. Aunt Marilee immediately picked up the telephone and called the school, asking if Willie Lee had been found there. He had not. Next Aunt Marilee telephoned the sheriff’s office to ask for help.

Afterward, she snapped the receiver back on the hook and looked at Corrine. “He’s all right. God watches over all of us, and most especially little ones like Willie Lee.”

Corrine, who had reason to doubt God watched over her, thought her Aunt Marilee was speaking to calm herself. She felt guilty for the thought.

“Well, we’ve done all we can,” Aunt Marilee said, rising straight up. “We’ll wait here and let God handle it.”

Aunt Marilee let God handle it for about the length of time it took to make a pot of tea and fix a cup with lots of sugar for Corrine, and search for a pack of cigarettes, which she didn’t find, and then she went to telephoning people.

From the chair at the table, where she could look clear through the house to the front and watch her aunt hold the phone to her ear while pacing in long strides that pushed out her brown skirt, Corrine felt helpless and desperate.

Three

Your Life Is Now

Tate Holloway drove into Valentine from the east along small, bumpy roads because he had taken a wrong turn and gotten lost. He never had been very good at directions. A couple of his city desk editors used to say they hated to send him out to an emergency, because he might miss it by ending up in a different state.

He slowed his yellow BMW convertible when he came into the edge of town. He passed the feed and grain with its tall elevator, and the car wash, and the IGA grocery. Anticipation tightened in his chest. Right there on the IGA was a sign that proclaimed it the Hometown Grocery Store.

This was going to be his own hometown.

Driving on, he entered the Main Street area and spied The Valentine Voice building. He allowed it only a glance and drove slowly, taking in everything on the left side of the street, turned around at the far edge of town and took in everything on the opposite side of the street.

He had seen the town as a child of nine, and surprisingly, it looked almost as he remembered. There were the cars parked head-in on the wide street. There was the bank, modernized nicely with new windows and a thorough sandblasting job. There was the theater—it had become something called The Little Opry. There was the florist…and the drugstore, with the air conditioner that dripped. The air conditioner was still there, although he could not tell if it dripped, as it was too cool in April to need it. He imagined it still dripped, though.

There were various flags flying outside the storefronts: the U.S. flags, the state flag of Oklahoma, what appeared to be the Valentine City flag, and a couple of Confederate flags, which surprised him a bit and reminded him that people in the west tended to be truly individualistic. There was a flag with flowers on it at the florist, and at least one person was a Texan, because there was a Texas flag flying proudly.

Tate thought the flags gave a friendly touch. He noted the benches placed at intervals. One thing the town needed, he thought, was trees. He liked a town with trees along the sidewalks to give shade when a person walked along.

Back once again to The Valentine Voice building, he turned and parked the BMW head-in to the curb. Slowly he removed his sunglasses and sat there looking at the building for some minutes. It sat like a grand cornerstone of the town, two-story red brick, with grey stone-cased windows and The Valentine Voice etched in a granite slab beside the double doors.

Emotion rose in his chest. Tears even burned in his eyes.

There it was—his own newspaper.

It was the dream of many a big-city news desk editor to become publisher of his own paper, and Tate had held this dream a long time. A place where he could express his own ideas, unencumbered by the hesitancies and prejudices of others less inclined to personal responsibility and more concerned with being politically correct and watching the bottom line dollar. Newspaper publishing as it once was, with editors who spoke their fire and light, drank whiskey from pint bottles in their desk drawers and smoked big stogies, with no thought of the fate of their jobs or pensions, only the single-minded intent to speak the truth.

The good parts of the old days were what Tate intended to resurrect. Here, in this small place in the world, he would pursue his mission to speak his mind and spread courage, and to enjoy on occasion the damn straight wildness for the sake of being wild.

Yes, sir, by golly, he was on his way.

Tate alighted from the BMW, slammed the door and took the sidewalk in one long stride. A bell tinkled above as he opened the heavy glass front door and strode through, removing his hat and taking in the interior with one eager glance: brick wall down the left side, desks, high ceiling with lights and fans suspended. Old, dim, deteriorating…but promising. A city room, by golly.

“Can I help you?”

It was a woman at the front reception desk, bathed in the daylight from the wide windows. A no-nonsense sort of woman, with deep-brown hair in a Buster Brown cut and steady black eyes behind dark-rimmed glasses. Cheyenne, he thought.

“Hello, there. I’m Tate Holloway.” He sent her his most charming grin.

“You’re not.”

That response set him back.

“Why, yes, ma’am, I believe I am.” He chuckled and tapped his hat against his thigh.

She was standing now. She had unfolded from her chair, and Tate, who was five foot eleven, saw with a bit of surprise that he was eye to eye with her.

“You aren’t supposed to be here until Saturday.”

“Well, that’s true.” He tugged at his ear. He had expected to be welcomed. He had expected there to be people here, too, and the big room was empty.

“But here I am.” He stuck out his hand. “And who might you be, ma’am?” he drawled in an intimate manner. It had been said that Tate Holloway could charm the spots off a bobcat.

This long, tall woman was made of stern stuff. She looked at his hand for a full three heartbeats before offering her own, which was thin but sturdy. “Charlotte Nation.”

“Well, now…nice to meet you, Miss Charlotte.”

She blinked. “Yes…a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Holloway.” She wet her lips. “I’m sorry I didn’t say that right away. It’s just that Marilee said you weren’t coming until Saturday.” There again was the note of accusation in her voice. “We aren’t prepared. We are…” She looked around behind her at the room and seemed to search for words. “Well, everyone is busy working for the paper, just not here.”

“I’m glad to see that,” Tate said. “I didn’t expect a welcoming committee.”

A spark of suspicion about that statement shone in her eyes, before she blinked and said, “I’m assuming you know that Chet Harmon, Harlan Buckles and Jewel Luttrell have all quit in the last month. June Redman has taken on the layout, and she’s out gettin’ her mammogram this afternoon. She used to just work part-time, anyway. Imperia is out on some sales calls. Leo and Reggie and Tammy are on stories, and Marilee’s had to go find her little boy.” She paused, then added, “Zona’s here, of course.”

“Marilee James? Her little boy is missing?” He recalled the woman’s voice on the phone, deep and soft, like warm butter. He had been anticipating seeing her and felt a bit of disappointment that she wasn’t here. Actually, saying that he didn’t want a welcoming committee was a fib, as this woman recognized. Tate had anticipated being greatly welcomed…at least, he had expected to be received with some enthusiasm.

The woman nodded. “Willie Lee. He’s wandered off from school again. He’s eight years old but learning disabled.”

“I see.”

“He is sweet as the day is long, but he tends to drift away. And he is not afraid of anybody in this world. That’s the worry…so many strangers come down here these days from the city.”

He felt vaguely guilty, since he had just driven in from a city. “Well, I’ll just have a look around.”

The woman blinked, as if surprised.

Just then a door from an office down on the left opened. A person—a small woman—appeared, saw Tate, and stepped back and shut the door. It happened so quickly that the only impression Tate had was of a small, grey-haired mouse of a woman. The office had window glass, but dark shades were drawn.

Tate looked at the brown-haired woman, who said, “That is Zona Porter—no relation—our comptroller.”

Tate waited several seconds to hear more, to possibly be introduced to this woman, but just then the phone on the desk rang, and the brown-haired woman immediately snatched it up.

“Valentine Voice, Charlotte speaking.” She gripped the telephone receiver. After several seconds, she told whoever was on the other end, “I’ll have Marilee call you back about that. She’s had to go out after Willie Lee. He’s wandered off from school again.” Her eyes lit on Tate. “Oh, wait! Mr. Holloway, the new publisher, is here. You can talk to him. Hold on a minute while I switch you over to another line…yes, he’s the new owner, Ms. Porter’s cousin…. I know it isn’t Saturday, he came early. Now I’m switching.”

She said to Tate, “It’s the mayor. They’ve landed the detention center after all, and he wants to give you the story.”

He stood there staring at her, and she stared back. Then a ringing sounded from a room behind Ms. Nation.

“Go on and get it in Ms. Porter’s office,” the woman ordered, shooing him with her hand. “I have to keep this phone clear in case anyone calls about Willie Lee.”

Tate turned and strode down the wide reception area to the opened doorway, the office he remembered as his uncle’s. Two long strides and he reached the enormous old walnut desk. Almost in a single motion, he tossed aside his hat and answered the phone, at the same time pulling a pad and pen from the breast pocket of his brown denim sport coat.

His journalist’s instincts had kicked in. He was a newspaper owner, by golly.

The mayor, a meek but earnest man with extremely thin fingers and hair, drove Tate out to see the site for the new detention center that would employ a hundred people right off the bat.

There was a lot of controversy over the center, the mayor admitted. He stuttered over the word controversy. Tate listened to the man’s explanations and read a bit between the diplomatic lines. Many people didn’t want what they thought of as a prison in their midst.

The mayor drove him all around, giving him a guided tour of the town and surrounding area. He took him into the Main Street Café and introduced him around, and then over to Blaine’s Drugstore and introduced him to Mr. Blaine, the only person in the store at the time and who seemed reticent to break away from his television. His only comment on the detention center was, “They’ll need a pharmacy, those boys.”

After that Tate walked with the mayor, who shyly requested being called Walter, up and down both sides of the street, the mayor introducing him to various shop owners, who all said more or less, “Hey, Walter,” and slapped the mayor’s back fondly and got a warm backslapping in return. The mayor was generally beloved, Tate saw.

When he finally begged off from a supper invitation by the mayor and returned to the newspaper offices, Miss Charlotte was on her feet.

“I’m glad you are back. It’s after five o’clock, and time for me to go home. Leo took the disks for the mornin’ edition up to the printer. We didn’t think we could wait for you,” she added in the faintly critical tone Tate was beginning to recognize. “Harlan used to handle it. Since he quit, we’re all just sort of filling in for the time being.” There was an air of expectancy in that comment, too.

“That’s just fine. I didn’t realize it was after five. I’m sorry to hold you up.”

“I waited because I wasn’t sure you had keys. I didn’t want to lock you out.” She pulled a purse as big as a suitcase from beneath the desk.

Tate felt a little embarrassed to tell her that he didn’t have any keys. She strode out from behind her desk, and he stepped out of her way, having a sense she might walk right over him. She continued on into his cousin’s—his—office, reached into the middle drawer of the desk and pulled out keys that she handed over to him.

She was through the front door when he thought to ask, “Did they find Marilee James’s little boy?”

She looked over her shoulder at him. “No. I’m going over to her house now and take some fried chicken.”

The door closed behind her, and Tate watched through the big plate glass window as she walked away down the sidewalk and turned the corner. Miss Charlotte wore an amazingly short skirt and high heels for a prim-and-proper woman. And she didn’t walk; she marched.

He went out to the BMW that he’d left right there with the top down, his computer in full sight. He had figured a person could do that in Valentine.

Making a number of trips, he carted the computer, monitor and then a few boxes into his new office. After he’d set the things down, he stood smoothing the back of his hair. That he ought to be doing something to help in the search for little Willie Lee James tugged at him. He felt helpless on that score. There didn’t seem anything he, not knowing either the child or the town, could do.

He left the boxes in a stack and started to connect up his computer, but then decided he was too impatient to see his new home. He wanted to get a look around while the light was still good. He locked the front doors and was one step away when he stopped, remembering the small grey woman he had earlier seen appear. Was she still in there?

He didn’t think she could be, since Miss Charlotte hadn’t said anything about her. Still, the thought caused him to go back inside to check.

On the door glass of the office was printed: Zona Porter, No Relation, Comptroller. He did not hear sound from beyond the walls. He knocked. No answer. Very carefully he turned the knob and stuck his head in the door. The office, very small and neat, even stark, was empty.

Well, good. He felt better to have made certain.

Back at the front door again, he locked the door of his newspaper, wondering if one even needed to bother in such a town. Whistling, he strode to his BMW, where he jumped over the door and slid down into the seat. He backed the BMW out of its place and had to drive the length of town and turn around and come back to the intersection of Main and Church Streets. His cousin Muriel’s house, which he had bought sight unseen since he was nine years old, was on the second block up Church Street, on the corner. He heard Muriel’s clipped tone of voice giving him the directions.

The town was pretty as a church calendar picture in the late-afternoon sunlight that shone golden on the buildings and flags, houses and big trees. Forsythia blooms had mostly died away, but purple wisteria and white bridal wreath were in full bloom.

It struck him how he knew the names of the bushes. He had learned a few things from his ex-wife, he supposed. He experienced a sharp but brief stab of regret for what he had let pass him by. He had not cared about houses and yards during his married years; he had not valued building a home and a family.

Then he immediately remembered all that he had experienced in place of domesticity, and he figured his life and times had been correct for him. In fact, that was what Lucille had told him: “You need to be a newspaperman, Tate, not a married man.”

Funny, he hadn’t thought of Lucille in a long time. Her image was fuzzy, and her voice came only in a faint whisper from deep in memory. She had been a rare woman, but neither of them had fit together in a marriage. Set free, she had blossomed as a psychologist, mother, political activist.