Cold Rain

Chapter 22

We heard a car coming off the pavement late the following afternoon. It was too soon for Lucy to be home from school, so I went to the window and looked down on the driveway from the third floor.

In summer you could not see who was coming until the car burst out of the heavy foliage and pulled into the circle before the house. In late fall, the leaves almost all gone, I got a glimpse of the vehicle as it crested the hill. Two men sat inside a brown and tan late model Jeep Wagoneer. I didn’t know them. By their age and the clothing they wore, I was fairly sure they were not selling religion. In fact, I was fairly sure they weren’t selling anything at all.

Molly and I went downstairs together and met them as they were getting out of their vehicle. I thought cops, though I could not have said why. Maybe it was the way both men locked in on me. Most men noticed Molly first. I offered the standard country greeting,

‘Help you?’

They reached into their jackets slowly at the same time and pulled out badges with picture IDs. I felt no satisfaction in being right. I looked at Molly for some kind of explanation, but she was looking at me. I think we both thought of Lucy at the same time. Supposed to be in school, out for a drive instead: a parent’s worst nightmare.

‘Is something wrong?’ Molly asked, an unfamiliar tremor in her voice.

The older man shook his head, apparently understanding our fear. ‘We’d just like to ask Professor Albo a couple of questions, if that’s all right. I’m Detective Dalton. This is Detective Jacobs.’

As he said this, he extended his badge and ID for me to inspect.

I took a long hard look at his identification, trying as I did to figure out what they might want to talk to me about. Harassment? Stalking? An assault charge from the funeral home? What came next?

Kip Dalton was about average height, pleasantly thick through the middle, with neatly oiled black hair just starting to turn. In his late-forties, I guessed. He had the tranquil brown eyes of a preacher or a psychologist, a confidence I would have associated with a prosperous businessman.

Dalton’s partner, whose identification I just glanced at, was easier to comprehend and less interesting. He was so ramrod straight and uptight he might as well have been wearing a uniform. In his mid-thirties with thinning light brown hair, Detective Jacobs was a couple of inches over six feet and exceedingly thin. His eyes were deep set, small and quick. He had a jaw you could break your fist on.

Molly stepped forward aggressively the moment Kip Dalton announced their purpose. What did they want to talk about? Dalton was reluctant to explain himself in the driveway. It would just take a few minutes.

Molly looked at me as she might have in the old days, reading my expression at a glance. Why not? She smiled at both men, the good country wife who has just remembered her manners. ‘You care for some coffee?’

Dalton said that sounded like a mighty fine idea.

We took them through the back porch and into our kitchen. Molly made coffee while Dalton complimented us on the restoration. He was especially interested in the enormous fireplace where the cooking had originally taken place when the house was newly built in the 1820s.

‘Functional?’ he asked.

I answered with the first lie that came to mind. ‘Oh yeah! A couple of times a year we have people out and cook the meal right there, pioneer-style.’ Dalton, who clearly enjoyed antiques smiled fondly at the notion. I said next time we would invite him. I glanced at Jacobs, who exuded all the warmth of an andiron.

I included him in the invitation as well. Why not? It didn’t cost me anything. As I spoke I was fairly sure Kip Dalton wasn’t buying my line, but I didn’t care.

I continued talking about the old cookware we used and the flavour of coffee boiled on an open fire. I said it was quite a sight to see everyone standing around a fireplace like this all dressed up in early nineteenth century costumes.

Molly, who was used to my nonsense, didn’t bother telling the men I was lying. Usually, she enjoyed it, what I could spin out on short notice, but I expect she thought it wasn’t a very smart thing to do with a couple of detectives. After I had run down a little, Dalton moved about the kitchen, inspecting the old plank board table, the original brick floors and walls, the bric-a-brac on the various shelves.

‘I was out here about ten years ago,’ he said. ‘Place didn’t look anything like this.’

‘It was all here,’ Molly answered, ‘but some fool thought he ought to modernize it.’ She was talking about her father and his ill-conceived attempt to turn Bernard Place into an apartment building.

I asked what had brought him out to the house ten years ago. He had been on patrol, he said. He and his partner had found a party and had run the kids off after putting the fear of the law in them.

Jacobs spoke now, his first words since muttering ma’am at the introductions. ‘Seems like they had a lot of trouble selling this place. Sat empty for years.’

‘That wasn’t the reason. There were two owners, a brother and sister. One wanted to sell the place. The other didn’t.’

Jacobs nodded at Molly’s explanation. ‘A squabble over the family inheritance?’

‘Isn’t it always?’

When she asked them their business with me Kip Dalton pretended it wasn’t very urgent. ‘We got a call from the university this morning. One of the graduate students up there in your department is teaching a couple of courses, and she didn’t show up for her classes yesterday. Some people checked around. The usual. They went by her house, called her parents, contacted the hospitals. She just disappeared.’

Molly looked at me, as certain as I was, I think.

‘Johnna Masterson?’ I asked.

Dalton tried not to look surprised. ‘One of her friends said she was going to talk to you about some kind of complaint she filed earlier this semester.’

‘I haven’t spoken to Johnna since early October.’ I thought about leaving it there, but the instinct for self-preservation saved me. ‘Two nights ago she called here and wanted to meet me in town. I drove in and she stood me up. You mind telling me who the friend was?’

Detective Jacobs stepped on my line. ‘Where exactly were you supposed to meet her?’

I turned toward Dalton as I gave my answer. ‘The Denny’s on Washington Avenue,’ I said. Jacobs had succeeded in upsetting me without doing very much besides staring at me with his arms folded across his skinny chest.

‘What evening was this?’ Jacobs asked.

‘Tuesday,’ I answered, ‘the day of Walt and Barbara Beery’s funeral.’ I wondered what had moved me to tell them about a funeral I hadn’t even attended.

Kip Dalton pulled a tiny notepad from his shirt pocket. Using a cheap ink pen, he wrote down the information. Jacobs asked about times. Molly said Johnna had called at about ten-fifteen. ‘I remember because I was expecting a phone call, and I answered.‘

Molly glanced at me. I took it from there.

‘She sounded upset,’ I told them.

From beyond our intimate triangle Detective Jacobs intruded again, ‘Why would she be upset?’

‘I don’t know. She said she wanted to talk to me about a mutual acquaintance, one of the teaching assistants. Buddy Elder. He wasn’t the friend who told you she wanted to talk to me, was he?’

Kip Dalton answered that in fact he wasn’t. Someone else. He didn’t offer any names. I knew how rumours could float in an environment like that. Pass a story to a couple of sources and it would come back to you as fact within the hour. Buddy Elder was the source of this information no matter where they had picked it up. I didn’t think it was a good idea to press my cause too aggressively. Let them find Buddy on their own, I thought, and they’ll believe he’s involved in this.

‘She didn’t speak to you again?’ Dalton asked.

‘No.’

‘What time did you get home?’ Dalton asked.

‘Around three-thirty.’

They pushed around the edges as if they were not really very interested. How well did I know Johnna?

Was she the kind of young woman who might decide to disappear for a few days? Prone to depression?

Flighty? What did I know about her friends?

Boyfriends? I did not go into speculations. I told them the truth. She had impressed me as an extremely dedicated, level-headed student. She had dropped by my office a couple of times, presented one story in my class. ‘When I first met her,’ I said, ‘she seemed a bit prudish, but the first short story she wrote was hilarious. It was called “Sexual Positions,” a total knock-down-drag-out comedy.’ Kip Dalton wanted to know if I thought she was promiscuous. I told him I thought she was talented. I got a look from Molly at this, but I didn’t care.

As we walked both detectives back toward their Jeep Detective Dalton gave Molly and me a worldly smile: ‘I’m inclined to think a young woman that age probably met the love of her life and just took off without telling anyone.’ He shrugged indifferently.

‘She’ll probably get around to calling her friends in a day or two and wonder what all the fuss is about.’

‘Not Johnna Masterson,’ I said. Kip Dalton looked at me questioningly. He wanted to hear my theory.

‘She was committed to her work,’ I said. ‘Taking off without saying anything would cost her too much: her teaching assistantship, her future prospects for a teaching position, and a semester of coursework with the grade of F. That kind of stuff happens with undergrads who haven’t invested their own money in their education, but not with a graduate student, certainly not someone like Johnna Masterson. Even if she found the love of her life, they could wait a couple of weeks until the end of the semester.’

‘That’s pretty much what everyone told us,’ Dalton said, apparently still not convinced.

The two men thanked us again for our help and climbed into their Jeep. After Dalton started the car, they sat for several seconds. Finally, Jacobs rolled down the passenger window. ‘You care if I ask you something, professor?’

He spoke softly and I walked toward him, so I could hear him better. No, I didn’t care.

‘Just now you were talking about Miss Masterson in the past tense. I was wondering, why you did that?’

I said I wasn’t aware that I had. I smiled like the killer. I felt a twitch in my neck kick in. Detective Jacobs assured me I had. ‘I’ve been on leave the past few weeks,’ I said finally. ‘Johnna was in my class, but since I’m not teaching it now, I guess I was thinking back. She was committed.’

Jacobs smiled at me sceptically the way people do when they’re standing in the front of a lying used car salesman. ‘You think she still is? Committed, I mean?’

‘Hard to say,’ I offered. ‘People change, don’t they?’

I heard myself talking without being able to stop. I was desperate for them to leave, and they just sat there listening while I told them Johnna could have had a secret life for all I knew. Call girl, drug addict, any damn thing!

Molly walked up. ‘I think you’ve asked all the questions you need to.’

Jacobs, who apparently thought he was about to get a confession, was not really happy about Molly stepping into it, but he hunched his shoulders and grinned.

‘Now I’ll kindly ask you to get off our property,’

Molly told him, ‘and next time call us before you come driving out here.’

Detective Dalton leaned down so Molly could see his guileless eyes. ‘We’re not sure we need to see you again, either of you, Ms Albo, but we’ll make sure to call ahead if we do. Thanks again for the coffee.’

Molly stood close to me as we watched them swing around the circle and drive down the hill.

Molly whispered to me as if they might actually hear her. ‘They think you killed that girl, David.’

I couldn’t answer her. Truth is I could barely breathe.

‘Did you see Johnna Masterson the other night?’

Molly asked when we were inside the house again.

‘I told you what happened.’

‘Yes, but we both know you have issues with the truth.’

I smiled as if Molly had missed the whole point, which I guess she had. ‘Can’t you see what’s happening?’

‘I can see you looked like hell when that Detective Jacobs started pushing you around.’

‘I didn’t care for his attitude.’

‘Do you want me to stay?’

‘Stay?’

‘Cancel my flight. Until this gets resolved, I mean.’

‘You do whatever you want, Molly. I’m not in trouble with these people.’

‘David, those two aren’t finished with you. If I leave now they’re going to think it’s because I know something.’

‘There’s nothing to know, nothing connecting me to that woman.’

‘You went to see her.’

I shrugged indifferently. ‘Other than that.’

‘She charged you with sexual harassment.’

‘She was misinformed about statements I had made.

It wasn’t her fault.’

‘You think the cops will buy that?’

I thought about another lie, but stopped myself. ‘No.

Not after what happened at the funeral home.’

Molly stared me without speaking.

‘It would mean a lot if you stayed,’ I said finally.

‘I’ll make some calls.’

Lucy came home from school while I was in the barn. We talked for a while, and then she went into the house. She and Molly were upstairs in Lucy’s bedroom when I found them.

‘We’re going out to dinner,’ Molly said.

‘Great,’ I said.

‘Just the two of us.’

I went upstairs to my third floor monk’s cell to change clothes and watched from my window until they appeared. They took Lucy’s Toyota. Later, I rummaged around in the pantry for something to eat.

There was plenty of food. The trouble was I hadn’t gotten a supply of beer, and I wanted something to drink. Food was optional, drink the staff of life.

The truck drove itself to my old haunts. I had the meatloaf special with a couple of beers, followed by three shots of whiskey at the next stop. Three bars, three more drinks. Everyone asked where I had been.

I had a different answer at each bar. I said I’d had a consulting gig in Poland. That was at the first bar. At the second I said I’d been born again for a while, off booze entirely. At the next I said I had been in the Peace Corps in South America. At another, I said I had gone to Texas for a couple of years to work on a ranch busting broncos. The only story they called me on was the born again nonsense. They could believe the religion, nothing wrong with that, and I certainly needed it, but they knew I wasn’t about to give up drinking!

A co-ed was curious about what had happened to me at school. She had fabulous breasts, almost in Johnna Masterson’s league, and a bright-eyed innocence I found disconcerting so late into a good binge.

I told her I just needed some time off. She answered,

‘I heard you were fired.’

‘I’m taking some time off until they fire me,’ I said.

Having got what she wanted, and just a little accidental rub against my arm while she operated, she drifted off to join a younger drunk. I had persuaded myself she was interested in nailing a prof before the end of the semester and almost out of time. Of course, ex-profs don’t really count. I left feeling old and foolish, like my friend and mentor Walt Beery. In my truck I considered the temptation: those wide innocent eyes, those great, round breasts. I swore at my folly. I had been playing her along with the cool indifference of a mature man, imagining it was just for fun, knowing I could resist if she wanted something more than a little flirtation. But if it hadn’t been just the gossip she had wanted, I knew we would have ended up in the cab of my truck. Beth Ruby all over again.

I was faithful because I hadn’t been tempted. All I wanted at that moment was a good excuse. In fact I wanted more than an excuse. I wanted to kick up a little dust. Fortunately, I knew where to find plenty of dust.

I walked into the glass Slipper around midnight. Buddy Elder was not there. Neither was Denise. The doorman didn’t remember my face, or he didn’t care. I watched several dancers, picked my favourite and bought a lap dance. She was the very opposite of my wife, compact hips, hardly any breasts at all, dark hair, a small red mouth. I guessed her to be nineteen or twenty. She was just plain enough that she had to work to make a living, just proud enough that she substituted athleticism for sexual wiles. I liked that. Sexual wiles feel like an act if they’re not done well. You can’t fake a body slam. She made hard, repeated contact against my torso. She pressed her flat chest against my face with bony enthusiasm. Her eyes were distant, unfocused, completely at odds with the vitality of her young body, as if to say, nothing personal here. It was just the thing I needed, and I bought a second dance. I thought she might spot a sucker and play me a bit more skilfully, at least until she emptied my pockets, but I got the same thing. Slap, slide, breast-bone to nose bone, staring off into the distance, wagging her buttocks over my crotch.

As she was slipping her skimpy top over her practically nonexistent breasts, I asked her if Denise Conway was still working here. The girl focused. ‘How do you know Denise?’

I could see I had made a mistake, but I couldn’t understand what it was. Old habits die hard. In a tight spot, I always conjured up a true statement. The ghost of Tubs. ‘She was a student of mine this fall,’ I said.

‘She said if I came out here and saw her dancing it would embarrass the hell out of her.’ I gave the dancer a nasty leer, ‘So I thought I’d try it. Only I get here and I don’t see her around.’

The girl relaxed. I had served up enough truth for her to buy it. Who knows, maybe she even thought I looked like a professor. Good diction, straight teeth, chalk dust under my fingernails, or maybe it was that I was a horny old goat. ‘Denise don’t dance under her real name is why I asked.’ She laughed. ‘I guess I should say she don’t dance at all no more. She got married.’

‘Married?’ I expect I blinked. I know my mouth hung open Wade-style.

‘Right before Thanksgiving. The guy she married used to come in here all the time, but now he don’t want anyone looking at her no more. You know how it goes.’

‘Buddy’s friend? Roy, Ray? Something like that?’ I asked.

‘Roger. And he used to be Buddy’s friend. Buddy and Denise broke up because of him. They had this big fight in here because of her. Everybody was like… how? Turns out Denise is like no dummy. Turns out, Roger is rich.’

‘Lucky Denise.’

‘Me? I’d rather have Buddy.’

I drove by Buddy’s house. He was home. I drove by the Beery residence. The place was dark, the newly-weds apparently already in bed. At the farm I found Molly’s rental and Lucy’s Toyota parked side by side in the shed.

I showered and went to my room, but I couldn’t sleep. Married, right before Thanksgiving. Walt had told me they were going out of town to meet friends of hers. An alibi? With five million-plus in play it was just was too neat for coincidence.

I lay awake working through the possibilities, but it always came down to Buddy Elder. I could imagine Roger falling under his spell, the three of them, Roger, Denise, and Buddy, working up a double homicide and making it look like domestic violence.

What still did not make sense was the disappearance of Johnna Masterson.