Holly

July 27, 2021

Holly has reached the point in her prayers where she’s telling God she still misses Bill Hodges when the universe throws her another rope.

Her phone starts playing its little tune. She doesn’t recognize the number and almost rejects the call, thinking it will be some guy from India who wants her to extend her car’s warranty or has an offer for a can’t-miss Covid cure, but she’s on a case—chasing the case—and so she takes it, prepared to hit end the minute the pitch starts.

“Hello? Is this Holly? Holly Gibney?”

“It is. Who’s this?”

“Randy?” Like he’s not completely sure of his own identity. “Randy Holsten? You came around asking about Tom? And his girlfriend, that Bonnie?”

“That’s right.”

“You told me to call if I remembered anything, remember?”

Holly doesn’t think Randy is drunk, but she guesses he’s had a few. “I did. And have you?”

“Have I what?”

Patience, she thinks. “Thought of anything, Randy.”

“Yeah, but it probably doesn’t mean anything. I was at this party, right? New Year’s Eve party, and I was pretty drunk—”

“So you said.”

“And I was in the kitchen because that’s where the beer was, and this Bonnie came out and we talked a little. I don’t think she was drunk, exactly, but she’d had a few, doing the zig-zag walk, if you know what I mean. I did most of the talking, I always do when I’m in the bag, and she mostly just listened. I think maybe she came out to get away from Tom, did I tell you that?”

“You did.”

“But she said one thing I remembered. I didn’t when we talked at Starbucks, but I did after. Almost didn’t call you, but then I thought what the hell.”

“What was it?”

“I asked her what she did over the Christmas break and she said she was an elf. I go what? And she says I was a Christmas elf. Doesn’t mean anything, right?”

Holly channels The Empire Strikes Back. “Everything means something, it does.”

Randy cracks up. “Yoda! Beautiful! You rock, Holly. Hey, if you ever want to go out and grab a burger and a pitcher sometime—”

Holly thanks him, says she’ll take it under consideration, and extracts herself from the call. She finishes her prayer on autopilot.

An elf. She said she was a Christmas elf. It’s probably not important, but as Yoda might also say: Interesting, it is.

Penny might know what Bonnie was talking about, but Holly doesn’t want to talk to Penny again until she has to. What she wants, now that she’s wide awake, is a cigarette. She dresses and goes down to the ice machine. On the way she has an idea. After she lights up she looks in her contacts for Lakeisha Stone and calls.

“If this is another church donation pitch—”

“It’s not. It’s Holly Gibney, Keisha. Can I ask you a quick question?”

“Sure, if it will help you find Bonnie. I mean, you haven’t, have you?”

Holly, who is ever more sure that Bonnie is no longer alive, says, “Not yet. Did she ever say anything to you about being… this will probably sound crazy… a Christmas elf?”

Keisha laughs. “It ain’t crazy a bit, girlfriend. She was a Christmas elf. If Santa’s elves dress up like Santa, that is, with the beard and the red hat. But she did have elf shoes, cute green ones with curly toes. Scored em at the Goodwill, she said. Why would you ask that?”

“Was it at a mall? A seasonal thing?”

“No, for a Christmas party. The party was on Zoom because of Covid, but the elves—I don’t know how many besides Bonnie, maybe a dozen—went around to the party people with snacks and sixpacks of beer. Or maybe some of them got champagne. Faculty, you know—they gotta represent.”

Holly can feel something warm working up her back from the base of her spine to the nape of her neck. There’s still nothing real here, but she’s rarely had a stronger intuition.

“Whose party was it, do you know?”

“These old retired professors. He was Life Sciences, she’s English. The Harrises.”

Holly lights another cigarette and walks around the Days Inn parking lot, too deep in her own thoughts to bother policing up the butt of her last one. She just steps on it and keeps walking, head down, brow furrowed. She’s having trouble keeping up with her own suppositions and has to remind herself that they’re only suppositions. Bill talked about how a case was like an egg. He also talked about Blue Chevrolet Syndrome: as soon as you bought a blue Chevrolet, you saw blue Chevies everywhere.

Supposition, she keeps telling herself as she lights yet another cigarette. Not fact, only supposition. True enough.

But.

Cary Dressler worked at the Strike Em Out Lanes; Roddy Harris, aka Small Ball, bowled at the Strike Em Out. Not only that, Cary sometimes bowled on Roddy’s team. Bonnie Dahl worked for the Harrises over Christmas, although—slow down, girl!—it was only a one-night gig. As for Ellen Craslow—

She calls Keisha back. “Me again. I’m sorry to bother you if you were getting ready for bed.”

Keisha laughs. “Not me, I like to read late when the house is quiet. What’s up, pussycat?”

“Do you know if Bonnie had any further association with the Harrises? After the Christmas party gig, I mean.”

“Actually, yeah. Bonnie worked for the Mrs. Professor for awhile early this year, writing thank-you letters and putting her contacts in order. Shit like that. Showed her some computer stuff, too, although she thought Mrs. Professor knew a little more about computer stuff than she let on.” Keisha hesitated. “She said that maybe the old lady had a little bit of a letch for her. Why do you ask?”

“I’m just trying to trace her contacts and what she was doing between the end of 2020 and when she disappeared,” Holly says. This is only a kissing cousin to the truth. “Can I ask you one more question, not about Bonnie but about the other woman you mentioned? Ellen Craslow?”

“Sure.”

“You said you guys used to talk with her in the Belfry, but didn’t you say she also worked in the Life Sciences building?”

“Yes. It’s right next door to the Union. Does it matter?”

“Probably not.” But maybe it does. Rodney Harris might still have an office in Life Sciences. College profs never really retire, do they? Even if he doesn’t, he could have had one when Ellen went missing.

Holly is out of cigarettes, but there’s a 7-Eleven adjacent to the motel. She’s walking there along the service road when her phone lights up again. It’s Tanya Robinson. Holly says hello and sits on a bench outside the convenience store. Dew has fallen and the seat of her pants gets wet. Ordinarily, this would bother her a great deal, since she doesn’t have another pair. Now she barely notices.

“I wanted to fill you in on Barbara,” Tanya says.

Holly sits up straight. “Is she all right?”

“She’s fine. Did she tell you her news? I’m thinking she’s had so much going on today that she hasn’t had time.”

Holly pauses briefly, but if Tanya knows, it’s probably all right to say she does. “She didn’t, but Jerome did. It’s wonderful. In poetry circles the Penley Prize is a pretty big deal.”

Tanya laughs. “Now I’ve got two writers in the family! It’s hard to believe. My own grandfather could hardly read at all. As for Jim’s grandfather… well, you know about him.”

Holly does. The notorious Chicago gangster Alton Robinson, subject of Jerome’s soon-to-be-published book.

“Barbara has been meeting with a local poet named Olivia Kingsbury—”

“I know who she is,” Holly says. She doesn’t bother to tell Tanya that Kingsbury is a lot more than a local poet. “Jerome says she’s been mentoring Barbara.”

“For months now, and today is the first I learned of it. I suppose she felt like she’d be accused of copying her brother if she told, which is ridiculous. But that’s Barbara. Anyway, the two of them have become very close, and today Ms. Kingsbury had to go to the hospital. A-fib. You know what that is?”

“Yes. It’s too bad, but at her age things go wrong. Olivia Kingsbury is close to a hundred.”

“They got her stabilized, but the poor old thing has cancer—she’s had it for years, Barbara said, but now it’s spread to her lungs and brain. She said some more, but it was hard to make out because she was crying.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“She asked me to call all her friends. She’s going back to Ms. Kingsbury’s house with the old lady’s caregiver, who’s as broken up as Barbie is. The two of them are going to spend the night, and I guess tomorrow they’ll bring Ms. Kingsbury home. The old lady told them she doesn’t want to die in the hospital, and I don’t blame her.”

“That’s very grown-up of Barbara,” Holly says.

“She’s a good girl. A responsible girl.” Tanya is crying a little herself now. “She plans to stay there the rest of the week and over the weekend, but it may not be that long. Barbara said Ms. Kingsbury made it clear that if the a-fib starts again, she doesn’t want to go back to the hospital.”

“Understood.” Holly is thinking of her mother, who did die in the hospital. Alone. “Give Barbara all my love. And about the Penley Prize—congratulate her on making the shortlist of the shortlist.”

“I will, Holly, but I don’t think she cares about any of that just now. I offered to go over and Barbara said no. I think she and Marie—that’s the caregiver’s name—want to be left alone with Ms. Kingsbury. She doesn’t seem to have anyone else. She’s outlived them all.”

The subtext of Tanya’s call is that Barbara will be out of touch while attending to Kingsbury during her friend and mentor’s final illness, but when Holly gets back to her room with two fresh packs of cigarettes in the pockets of her cargo pants, she calls Barbara anyway. Straight to voicemail. She says Tanya filled her in, and if Barbara needs anything she only has to call. She says she’s sorry bad news came so close on the heels of the good.

“I love you,” Holly finishes.

She gets undressed, brushes her teeth with her finger and a little motel soap (oough), and goes to bed. She lies on her back, looking up into the dark. Her mind won’t turn off and she’s afraid she’s in for a sleepless night. She remembers she has a few melatonin rattling around in the bottom of her bag and takes one with a sip of water. Then she checks her phone for text messages.

Tonight there’s just one, and it’s from Barbara. Only two words. Holly sits on the bed, reading them over and over. That heat is working its way up her spine again. The text she sent Barbara, along with the picture of Cary Dressler and the Golden Oldies bowling team, was brief: Do you remember this guy?

Barbara’s reply, almost certainly sent from Kiner, judging by the time-stamp, is even briefer: Which one?