F is For Fugitive

6

Just to fill in another blank, I pulled into the gas station in Floral Beach and asked the attendant to top off my tank. While the kid was taking care of the windshield, I took my wallet and went into the office, where I studied the vending machine. Nothing but Cheetos for $1.25. Cheatos, I thought. There was no one at the desk, but I spotted someone working out in the service bay. I went to the door. The guy had a Ford Fiesta up on the lift, whipping lug nuts off the right rear wheel with an air-driven lug wrench.

"Can I get some change for the vending machine in here?"

"Sure thing."

The fellow set the wrench down and wiped his hands on a rag tucked into his belt. "Tap" was stitched in an embroidered script on the patch above his uniform pocket. I followed him back into the office. He moved in an aura of motor oil and tire smell, giving off that heady scent of sweat and gasoline fumes. He was wiry and small, with wide shoulders and a narrow butt, the type who might unveil a lavish tattoo when he took off his shirt. His dark hair was curly, combed into a crest on top, the sides swept into a ducktail in the back. He looked about forty, with a still-boyish face getting leathery around the eyes.

I handed him two dollars. "You know anything about VWs?"

He made eye contact for the first time. His were brown and didn't show much life. I suspected car woes were going to spark the only interest I'd be able to generate. He flicked a look out to the pumps, where the kid was just finishing up. "You got a problem?"

"Well, it may not be much. I keep hearing this high-pitched whine when I get up around sixty. Sounds kind of weird."

"You can hit sixty in a tin can like that?" he said.

A car joke. He grinned, punching open the register.

I smiled. "Well, yeah. Now and then."

"Try Gunter's in San Luis. He can fix you up." He dropped eight quarters into my palm.

"Thanks."

He moved back out to the service bay and I pocketed the change. At least I knew now who Tap Granger was. I paid for the gas and headed up two blocks to the motel.

As it turned out, I didn't talk to Royce at all that afternoon. He'd retired early, leaving word with Ann that he'd see me in the morning. I spoke briefly with her mother, filling her in on Bailey's current state, and then went on upstairs. I'd picked up a bottle of white wine on my way through San Luis and I stashed it in the small refrigerator in my room. I hadn't unpacked, and my duffel was tucked in the closet where I'd left it. I tend, on the road, to leave everything in a suitcase, digging out my toothbrush, shampoo, and clean clothing as the need arises. The room remains bare and unnaturally tidy, which appeals to a streak of monasticism in me. This room was spacious, the designated bedroom area separated from the living/ dining/kitchenette by a partition. Factoring in the bathroom and a closet, it was bigger than my (former) apartment back home.

I rooted through the kitchen drawers until I came up with a corkscrew, and then I poured myself a glass of wine and took it out on the balcony. The water was turning a luminous blue as the light faded from the sky, and the dark lavender of the coastline was a vivid contrast. The sunset was a light show of deep pink and salmon shades, gradually sinking, as if by a dimmer switch, through magenta into indigo.

There was a tap at my door at six. I'd been typing for twenty minutes, though the information I'd collected, at this point, was scant. I screwed the lid on the white-out and went to the door.

Ann was standing in the corridor. "I wondered what time you wanted supper."

"Anytime's fine with me. When do you usually eat?"

"Actually, we can suit ourselves. I fed Mother early. Her meal schedule's pretty strict, and Pop won't eat until later, if he eats at all. I'm doing pan-fried sole for us, which is a last-minute thing. I hope you don't object to fish."

"Not at all. Sounds great. You want to join me in a glass of white wine first?"

She hesitated. "I'd like that," she said. "How's Bailey doing? Is he okay?"

"Well, he's not happy, but there's not much he can do. You haven't seen him yet?"

"I'll go tomorrow, if I can get in."

"Check with Clemson. He can probably set it up. It shouldn't be hard. Arraignment's at eight-thirty."

"I think I'll have to pass on that. Mother has a doctor's appointment at nine and I couldn't get back in time anyway. Pop will want to go, if he's feeling okay. Could he go with you?"

"Sure. No problem."

I poured a glass for her and refilled my own. She settled on the couch, while I sat a few feet away at the tiny kitchen table where my typewriter was set up. She seemed ill at ease, sipping at her wine with an odd cast to her mouth, as if she'd been asked to down a glass of liniment.

"I take it you're not crazy about Chardonnay," I remarked.

She smiled apologetically. "I don't drink very often. Bailey's the only one who ever developed a taste for it."

I thought I'd have to pump her for background information, but she surprised me by volunteering a quick family time line. The Fowlers, she said, had never been enthusiastic about alcohol. She claimed this was a function of her mother's diabetes, but to me it seemed in perfect keeping with the dour fundamentalist mentality that pervaded the place.

According to Ann, Royce had been born and raised in Tennessee and the dark strains of his Scots heritage had rendered him joyless, taciturn, and wary of excess. He'd been nineteen at the height of the Depression, migrating west on a succession of boxcars. He'd heard there was work in the oilfields in California, where the rigs were springing up like a metallic forest just south of Los Angeles. He'd met Oribelle, en route, at a dime-a-dip dinner at a Baptist church in Fayetteville, Arkansas. She was eighteen, soured by disease, resigned to a life of scriptures and insulin dependency. She was working in her father's feed store, and the most she could look forward to was the annual trip to the mule market in Fort Smith.

Royce had appeared at the church that Wednesday night, having hopped off a freight in search of a hot meal. Ann said Ori still talked of her first sight of him, standing in the door, a broad-shouldered youth with hair the color of hemp. Oribelle introduced herself as he went through the supper line, piling his plate high with macaroni and cheese, which was her specialty. By the end of the evening, she'd heard his entire life story and she invited him home with her afterward. He slept in the barn, taking all his meals with the family. He remained a guest of the Baileys for two weeks, during which she was in such a fever pitch of hormones that she'd twice gone into ketoacidosis and had had to be briefly hospitalized. Her parents took this as evidence that Royce's influence was wicked. They talked to her long and hard about her giving him up, but nothing would dissuade her from the course she had set. She was determined to marry Royce. When her father opposed the courtship, she took all the money set aside for secretarial school and ran off with him. That was in 1932.

"It's odd for me to picture either one of them caught up in high passion," I said.

She smiled. "Me too: I should show you a photo. She was actually quite beautiful. Of course, I wasn't born until six years later-1938-and Bailey came along five years after me. Whatever heat they felt was burned out by then, but the bond is still strong. The irony is, we all thought she'd die long before him, and now it looks like he'll go first."

"What's actually wrong with him?"

"Pancreatic cancer. They're saying six months."

"Which he knows?"

"Oh yes. It's one of the reasons he's so thrilled about Bailey's showing up. He talks about heartbreak but he doesn't mean a word of it."

"What about you? How do you feel?

"Relieved, I guess. Even if he goes back to prison, I'll have someone to help me get through the next few months. The responsibility's been crushing ever since he disappeared."

"How's your mother handling this?"

"Badly. She's what they call a 'brittle' diabetic, which means she's always been in fragile health. Any kind of emotional upset is hard on her. Stress. I guess it gets to all of us one way or another, myself included. Ever since Pop was diagnosed as terminal, my life's been hell."

"You mentioned you were on a leave of absence from work,"

"I had no choice. Someone has to be here twenty-four hours a day. We can't afford professional care, so I'm 'it.' "

"Rough."

"I shouldn't complain. I'm sure there are people out there who have it worse."

I shifted the subject. "You have any theories about who killed the Timberlake girl?"

Ann shook her head. "I wish I did. She was a student at the high school, as well as Bailey's girl."

"She spent a lot of time here?"

"A fair amount. Less while Bailey was off in jail."

"And you're convinced he had nothing to do with her death?"

"I don't know what to believe," she said flatly. "I don't want to think he did it. On the other hand, I've never liked the idea that the killer could still be around someplace."

"He won't like it either, now that Bailey's back in custody. Somebody must have felt pretty smug all these years. Once the investigation's opened up, who knows where it'll go?"

"You're right. I wouldn't like to be in your shoes." She rubbed her arms as if she were cold and then laughed at herself uneasily. "Well. I better get back downstairs and see how Mother's doing. She was napping when I left, but she tends to sleep in short bursts. The minute her eyes open, she wants me Johnny-on-the-spot."

"Give me time to wash my face and I'll be right down." I walked her to the door. As I passed my handbag, I caught sight of the envelope Clemson had given me. "Oh. This is for your father. Jack Clemson asked me to drop it off." I plucked it out and handed it to her.

She glanced at it idly and then smiled at me. "Thanks for the drink. I hope I haven't bored you with the family history."

"Not at all," I said. "By the way, what's the story on Jean Timberlake's mother? Will she be hard to find?"

"Who, Shana? Try the pool hall. She's there most nights. Tap Granger, too."

After supper, I snagged a jacket from my room and headed down the back stairs.

The night was cold and the breeze coming off the Pacific was briny and damp. I shrugged into my jacket and walked the two blocks to Pearl 's Pool Hall as if through broad daylight. Floral Beach, by night, is bathed in the flat orange glow of the sodium vapor lights that line Ocean Street. The moon wasn't up yet, and the ocean was as black as pitch. The surf tumbled onto the beach in an uneven fringe of gold, picking up illumination from the last reaches of the street lamps. A fog was rolling in and the air had the dense, tawny look of smog.

Closer to the pool hall, the quiet was broken by a raucous blast of country music. The door to Pearl 's stood open and I could smell cigarette smoke from two doors away. I counted five Harley-Davidsons at the curb, all chrome and black leather seats, with convoluted tailpipes. The boys in my junior high school went through a siege of drawing machines like that: hot rods and racing cars, tanks, torture devices, guns, knives, and bloodlettings of all kinds. I should really check one day and find out how those guys turned out.

The pool hall itself was two pool tables long, with enough space between to allow folk to angle for a tricky shot. Both tables were occupied by bikers: heavyset men in their forties with Fu Manchu beards and long hair pulled back in pony tails. There were five of them, a family of road pirates on the move. The bar ran the entire length of wall to the left, the barstools filled with the bikers' girlfriends and assorted town folk. Walls and ceiling were covered with a collage of beer signs, tobacco ads, bumper stickers, cartoons, snapshots, and bar witticisms. One sign proclaimed Happy Hour from six to seven, but the hand-drawn clock under it had a 5 at every hour. A knee-slapper, that. Bowling trophies, beer mugs, and racks of potato chips lined the shelf behind the bar. There was also a display of Pearl 's Pool Hall T-shirts on sale for $6.99. A leather biker's glove hung inexplicably from the ceiling, and a Miller Lite mirror on the wall was festooned with a pair of lady's underpants. The noise level was such that a hearing test might be in order later.

There was one empty stool at the bar, which I took. The bartender was a woman in her mid-sixties, perhaps the very Pearl for whom the place was named. She was short, thick through the middle, with graying, permanent-curled hair chopped straight across the nape of her neck. She was wearing plaid polyester slacks and a sleeveless top, showing arms well muscled from hefting beer cases. Maybe, at intervals, she hefted some biker out the door by the seat of his pants.

I asked for a draft beer, which she pulled and served up in a Mason jar. Since the din made conversation impossible, I had plenty of time to survey the place in peace. I turned on the stool until my back was up against the bar, watching the pool players, casting an occasional eye at the patrons on either side of me. I wasn't really sure how I wanted to present myself. I thought for the time being I'd keep hush about my occupation and the reasons for my presence in Floral Beach. The local papers had carried front-page news about Bailey's arrest, and I thought I could probably conjure up talk on the subject without appearing too inquisitive.

Down to my left, near the jukebox, two women began to dance. The bikers' girlfriends made some rude observations, but no one seemed to pay much attention aside from that. Two stools over, a woman in her fifties looked on with a sloppy smile. I pegged her as Shana Timberlake, in part because no other woman in the bar looked old enough to have had a teenage daughter seventeen years before.

At ten, the bikers cleared out, motorcycles rocketing off down the street with diminishing thunder. The jukebox was between selections, and for a moment a miraculous silence fell across the bar. Someone said, "Whew, Lord!" and everybody laughed. There were maybe ten of us left in the place, and the tension level dropped to some more familial feel. This was Tuesday night, the local hangout, the equivalent of the basement recreation room at a church, except that beer was served. There was no hard liquor in evidence and my guess was that any wine on the premises was going to come from a jug the size of an oil drum, with about that much finesse.

The man on the stool next to mine on the right appeared to be in his sixties. He was big, with a beer belly that protruded like a twenty-five-pound bag of rice. His face was broad, connected to his neck by a series of double chins. There was even a roll of fat at the back of his neck where graying hair curled over his shirt collar. I'd seen him flick a curious look in my direction. The others in the bar seemed known to one another, judging from the banter, which had largely to do with local politics, old sporting grievances, and how drunk someone named Ace had been the night before. The sheepish Ace, tall, thin, jeans, denim jacket, and baseball cap, took a lot of ribbing about some behavior of his with old Betty, whom he'd apparently taken home with him. Ace seemed to revel in the accusations of misconduct, and since Betty wasn't present to correct the impression, everyone assumed that he'd gotten laid.

"Betty's his ex-wife," the man next to me said, in one of those casual asides meant to include me in the merriment. "She kicked him out four times, but she always takes him back. Yo, Daisy. How about some peanuts down here?"

"I thought that was Pearl," I remarked, to keep the conversation alive.

"I'm Curtis Pearl," he said. "Pearl to my friends."

Daisy scooped what looked like a dog dish full of peanuts from a garbage pail under the bar. The nuts were still in the shell, and the litter on the floor suggested what we were meant to do. Pearl surprised me by chomping down a peanut, shell and all. "We're talkin' fiber here," he said. "It's good for you. I got a doctor believes in cellulose. Fills you up, he says. Gets the old system powerin' through."

I shrugged and tried it myself. No doubt about it, the shell had a lot of crunch and a sharp infusion of salt mingled nicely with the bland taste of the nut inside. Did this count as grain, or was it the same as eating the panel from a cardboard box?

The jukebox sparked to life again, this time a mellow vocalist who sounded like a cross between Frank Sinatra and Delia Reese. The two women at the end of the bar began to dance again. Both were dark-haired, both slim. One taller. Pearl turned to look at them and then back at me. "That bother you?"

"Why should I care?"

"Not what it looks like anyway," he said. "Tall one likes to dance when she's feeling blue."

"What's she got to be unhappy about?"

"They just picked up the fellow killed her little girl a few years back."