Lullaby Town

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The next morning my back felt stiff and hard, and the place behind my ear ached with a doughy, immediate presence. I took more of the aspirin, soaked in a hot bath to loosen the back, and then did yoga, starting with the simplest stretches and working my way through the spine rock and the cobra and the spine twist. The back hurt quite a bit at first but warmed and felt better as I worked.

By twenty minutes after nine I was back in Chelam. I drove down Main Street past the bank to the town square, turned one block south, then turned again and parked in front of a place that had at one time been a showroom for John Deere tractors. Now, it was empty.

The threat of snow had passed without incident, and the day was bright and clear except for a scattering of cottonball cumulus clouds that moved through the sky to the south. It was warmer. I walked back to the grocery store one block north and stood by the pay phone and looked at the bank. Karen Shipley's green LeBaron was in the lot. I could go into the bank and confront her, but chances were good that she would continue to deny that she was Karen Shipley. Chances were equally good that she would deny knowing the three leg-busters who had come to the Ho Jo. I could go in with the sheriff, but that would bring in the press and Peter Alan Nelsen. The press would like it, but Peter Alan Nelsen probably wouldn't. Also, I didn't like the way it felt for Karen Shipley. There was something acutely desperate and unprotected about Karen Shipley denying that she was Karen Shipley even as she stared at her photograph, and I didn't want the sheriff and the town and the press to know what it was before I knew what it was. Also, going to the sheriff seemed like a wimpy thing to do. There were alternatives. I could lie in wait for Karen Shipley and, when she stepped out of the bank, pistol-whip her into admitting her true identity. If that didn't work, I could shadow her every move until, in an unguarded moment, she revealed her true self. Or maybe I could just ask around. Hmm. Asking around seemed easiest and a lot less trouble. After all, Karen Shipley had lived here for eight years. The people here knew her and knew of her, and if I talked to them, I might learn what they knew and see what they saw. If I knew enough and saw enough, maybe I'd know what in hell was going on and what to do about it. Elvis Cole, detective in search of intelligence.

Rittenhauser's Diner was down the block, two doors past the barbershop. I went in and sat at the counter. A pinch-faced short-order cook in a blue apron was standing with his arms crossed near the cash register. He was watching a tiny Magnavox color TV that was sitting on a gallon can of pork and beans next to the register. Oprah Winfrey. Something about fat men being better lovers. He picked a clean coffee mug from a wire rack and filled it and put the mug in front of me without my having to ask. He said, "What'll it be?"

Three eggs, scrambled. Rye toast. Maybe put some mushrooms and some cheese in the eggs."

"Sharp cheddar?"

"How about Swiss?"

"You got it."

He made the eggs and a little patty of hash browns and two large pieces of rye toast. When it was done, he put it all onto a heavy white plate, then he put the plate in front of me. I said, "Nice looking plate of eggs."

He said, "Uh," and went back to the Oprah.

I ate some of the eggs. "Just moved out from California. Transfer. Met Karen Lloyd at the bank yesterday."

"Uh."

"Nice looking lady."

He said it again.

"You know if she's married or seeing someone?"

"Nope." An obese man in his sixties told Oprah that he could ejaculate twenty-six times a day. He attributed it to his bulk. The cook looked interested.

"Nope, you don't know, or nope, she's not seeing someone?"

"Ain't none of my business." The obese man said that when he was thin, he was sexually dysfunctional.

"She been working at the bank long?"

The cook leaned closer to the television. Something about high-fat content leading to increased fluids production.

I said, "Great day for a nuclear holocaust, huh?"

The cook nodded and cut himself a piece of cherry pie, still staring at the Oprah.

Maybe looking for intelligence in Chelam was going to be harder than I thought. I decided to shadow her every move.

Being a stranger in a small town is sort of like being a Martian in Mayberry. You tend to stand out. Aunt Bea sees you hanging around a parking lot, pretty soon Barney Fife is looking at your driver's license. Opie rides by on his bike, pretty soon you got Andy in your shorts. Everybody in town knows you're there, and then you get your thugs in string ties asking why you're still around. You see how this works?

I drove back to the Howard Johnson's, changed rooms, then drove down to the Hertz office in upper Westchester and traded the blue Taurus for a white one. I couldn't do much about Aunt Bea and Opie, but I could make it tougher for Joey and his pal with the tie.

By nine-fifty I was back in Chelam. By nine-fifty-two the new white Taurus was parked in a little alley outside the John Deere showroom and I had picked the lock on a side door and let myself inside. From the showroom I could see the bank and the grocery store and a fair part of Main Street. Aunt Bea and Opie might wonder about the Taurus, but it was better than having them wonder about me.

Between ten-thirty and noon eight people pulled up to the First Chelam, went in, did business, and came out. None of them were fat guys with caviar skin or people who wore string ties, but I held hope.

At five minutes after twelve Karen Shipley came out and got into her LeBaron. She was wearing a tweed pant suit and brown flat-heeled shoes under a slim leather topcoat, and she carried a briefcase. She pulled out of the lot and turned south, and I hustled out to the Taurus and went after her. Twenty minutes later we turned into a shopping mall in upper Westchester where Karen went into a little cafe. A man in a gray suit took her hand and kissed her on the left cheek and they sat at a window table. I sat in my Taurus. Midway through the meal she opened the briefcase and took out some papers and gave them to the man. He put on tortoiseshell half-glasses, read the papers, then signed them. She put the papers back in her briefcase and they resumed their lunch. Business.

At ten minutes before two Karen was back in the First Chelam and I was back in the John Deere showroom. Opie and Aunt Bea were nowhere to be seen.

At three o'clock Karen Shipley came out again, climbed back into the LeBaron, and drove half a mile out of town to the Woodrow Wilson Smith Elementary School. Toby got into the car and they drove back across Chelam to a single-story medical building with a little sign that read B. L. Franks, D.D.S. amp; Susan Witlow, D.D.S., a dental corporation. They stayed for just under an hour.

After the dentist, we went back through Chelam along a two-lane county road between fields and woods and a scattershot of ponds and small lakes until we turned down a broad new black-topped road past a stone sign that said Clearlake Shores. Someone had come in with a bulldozer and carved out a housing development around a couple of lakes that were too round and too sculptured to be natural. Most of the lots were still unimproved, but some of them had houses under construction, and some of them held completed houses warm with life.

Karen Shipley pulled into a one-story brick colonial with a wide cement drive and white pilasters and virgin landscaping. Maybe a year old. Maybe less. Four white birch trees and a live oak had been planted in the front yard. The trunks on the birch were only a couple of inches thick, the oak was maybe a little thicker. They weren't much now, but if you gave them a little time they would grow tall and strong and you would be glad you stayed with them. There was a basketball backboard suspended over the drive at the lip of the garage. Toby and Karen went inside through the front door and lights came on. They didn't come out again. Home.

I cruised through the development and parked in some high weeds near the county road and watched the house until the sky was dark. Joey and the guy with the string tie didn't show up. Shadows didn't skulk across the landscape. The new house and its hopeful landscaping didn't look like a place where people hid in fear or sicced leg-breakers on unsuspecting private eyes, but then they never do. When my stomach made more noise than the radio, I drove back to the Howard Johnson's.

Each day was pretty much the same. Toby would head for school on his red Schwinn mountain bike, then Karen would leave for the bank. She would get to the bank before anyone else and unlock the door. Joyce Steuben would get there two or three minutes later, and the teller would roll up by nine, just before the bank opened. Bank customers would come and go, and sometimes during midmorning or in the early afternoon Karen would drive to a house or a building or a piece of unimproved land where she would meet two or three people and they would look and smile and point, and then Karen Shipley would go back to her office.

Every day between four and four-thirty Toby would pedal up to the bank and go in and stay until Karen left, sometimes as soon as Toby arrived, sometimes not until five. They would go home, Karen sometimes stopping to do a quick errand on the way, but most times not. Once, they drove fourteen miles to a McDonald's, and once they drove to the next town to see the new Steven Seagal film. One day Toby didn't come to the bank. Karen left early and drove to the school where the Woodrow Wilson Smith Barking Bears took on the Round Hill Lions in a basketball game. I went in through the rear of the auditorium and watched from the stage. Toby played right forward and he was pretty good. Karen sat on the lowest bleacher and cheered hard, once screaming at an official and calling him a jerk. The Barking Bears lost 38 to 32. Karen took Toby out to a place called Monteback's for a malt. Portrait of the successful single-parent family in action.

At six-oh-five on the morning of the fourth day it fell apart

I was driving down the county road toward Karen Shipley's when Karen Shipley passed me going in the opposite direction, an hour before she usually left.

I turned around in a gravel drive and waited for a pickup with a beagle in the back to pass, then pulled out and followed her. She went past Chelam, then picked up the state highway and drove most of the way to Westchester. Traffic heading down toward the city was dense and made keeping her in sight easy. She stayed in the right lane and took an exit marked Dutchy. Less than a mile off the interstate she pulled into the parking lot of an abandoned Eagle service station and parked. There was no one else around. I stayed behind an old guy in a 1948 Chevy for another half mile, then pulled over, parked off the road, and walked back through a jumble of birch and elm trees until I was behind the Eagle station. She was still in the car.

The cold air and the winter woods smell made me think of when I was a boy, hunting in the autumn for squirrel and whitetail deer, and I felt the peace that comes from being alone and in a wild place. I wondered if Karen Shipley felt that peace, and if that was why she came.

At twenty-two minutes before seven a black Lincoln Town Car with smoked glass and a car phone antenna turned off the road and parked behind her. The door opened and a dark man with a thick neck and a wide back got out. He was in his early forties and taller than me, and he wore an expensive black Chesterfield topcoat and gray slacks and black Gucci loafers shined so cleanly that he probably kept them in his refrigerator. He took a green nylon bag out of the trunk of his Lincoln and walked over to Karen's LeBaron and gave Karen an off-white smile, but I don't think he was trying to be friendly. Karen got out without smiling back. She took the bag and tossed it into the passenger side of the LeBaron. They talked. Karen's mouth was tight and her eyes were edged on a frown and she stood with her bottom pressed against the LeBaron. The dark man reached out and touched her arm and I could see her stiffen from eighty yards away. He said something else and touched her again and this time she pushed his arm away and as fast as she touched him he slapped her. It was a single hard pop that turned her head. She didn't scramble away from him and she didn't scream for help. She stood there and glared and he raised his hand again, but then he lowered it and went back to the Lincoln and drove away with a lot of spinning tires and spraying gravel and roaring engine. I copied down his license number.

Karen Shipley watched him drive away and then she got back into her LeBaron and started the engine and put her face into her hands and cried. She slapped the LeBaron's steering wheel and screamed so loudly that I could hear her even with the windows up and the engine running.

She cried for another five minutes and then she dried her eyes and checked her makeup in the rearview mirror, and when it was perfect she drove away.

I ran back through the woods and pushed the Taurus over a hundred on the roads back to Chelam and picked up Karen Shipley again just as she turned into the bank's parking lot. I pulled up beside the grocery and watched. It was six-fifty-two. Still plenty of time before Joyce Steuben or the teller would arrive.

Karen got out of the LeBaron and carried the duffel bag into the bank. Ten minutes later she came out with the duffel now deflated and folded into a tight roll. She walked across the street to a public waste can in front of the hardware store and threw the duffel away.

Someone in a green and white Chevy Blazer drove by, beeped his horn, and waved. Neighborly. Karen Shipley did not wave back. She walked with her eyes forward and her face set all the way back into the bank. She looked tired and old. Older than the lemon-pie girl in the 8 X 10.

I sat in the Taurus in the empty grocery store lot and watched the town come to life. A rural town with small-town ways. The air was cool and smelled of maple and the coming of Halloween. I turned on the radio. A man and a woman were discussing all the fine recipes you could make with pumpkins and the other autumn squash. A little bit of butter. A little cinnamon. A little sugar. After a while I turned off the radio.

Fall used to be my favorite time of the year.