Summitt

Chapter Four

Later that evening Harry Selby drove back to the motel in Memphis. The party at Jarrell’s had been frustrating and — what the hell was the word for it — opaque, that was it. He had faced what seemed to be unreflecting surfaces wherever he turned. A dozen or so people had been there, enjoying baked chicken and a huge salad of fresh vegetables.

Clem Stoltzer, Lee Crowley and the Ledges were on hand, and a neatly groomed man with horn-rimmed glasses, the environmental director, Froelich Nash.

Crowley and Froelich Nash chatted with him. “As Mr. Nash can tell you,” Crowley said, “Summitt’s an old-fashioned kind of place. But it’s like a mirror of the future. That’s why it works.”

Jazz tapes sounded loudly. Subdued lights from fluorescent tubing played across the plants and ferns.

Froelich Nash said, “Crowley’s point is simplistic. Summitt works because we control the value of our money.” He removed his glasses and polished them carefully. “We control the price of foodstuffs and shelter. We have our own beef and poultry farms. Rents are controlled by the council. We’ve stopped inflation here.”

Sergeant Ledge took him away to meet his wife, a woman with large, calm eyes. Later Stoltzer explained with serious intensity some things he had neglected to mention about productions operations and estimates.

Jennifer brought him a plate of food and told him an amusing story about falling asleep in the sauna that afternoon and waking to find that — lie had missed the rest of it because someone turned up the music.

The flow of guests from room to room and the endless, cheerful talk created a porous barrier between him and Jarrell, and prevented them from talking. It wasn’t until he was leaving that they had a moment alone.

Selby said, “I’ve enjoyed meeting your friends, but I think we should get our business settled. I’ll come back tomorrow, okay?”

His brother had rubbed the back of his hand against his forehead as if to press away an insistent pain. “It’s not those goddamn lots, is it though, Harry? It’s the old man, and I understand that. But I’m not sure I knew him myself. Sometimes I’d think I was getting close to him, and then he’d slam a door in my face. Sometimes I almost can’t even remember what he looked like. There were times he wouldn’t let you know what he was thinking and that drove my mother crazy. A lot of things he didn’t leave us, a lot of things weren’t included in the old man’s estate. Our mutual father couldn’t have been so smart after all” — he was speaking rapidly, his voice rising — “spent half his life in the army and ended up with nothing.”

They were standing at the curb, darkness around them and sounds from the party spilling out from Jarrell’s house.

“Where were you the night he was killed? How did you find out about it?”

Jarrell put both hands on his brother’s shoulders and studied him intently. His eyes seemed puzzled, vulnerable.

Selby said, “Easy now. Want to drop this until later?”

“No, I want to talk to you, Harry. But I’m not sure I’ve got things straight myself. I wasn’t there that night, when he was shot and killed. He asked me to stay with him but” — Jarrell rubbed his forehead again — “I had to get back to school, exams or something. But he was expecting someone, I realize that now. He was worried about it, whoever they were. Maybe it would help if we went over everything, made that call to Breck or the cops in Truckee like you suggested.”

“All right then,” Selby said. “Tomorrow.” For the first time he felt a personal connection with his troubled half brother, a recognition of their relationship that could dissolve the strained civility between them.

“Sure, sure, tomorrow,” Jarrell said, smiling. But it was not an easy smile.

Lights had fallen across them from the apartment. The front door was open and Jennifer was standing there with Sergeant Ledge and Stoltzer behind her.

“So this is where you’ve been hiding,” Jennifer called out, and walked out to join them. Her mood was festive, gay. They stood chatting casually until the canopied bus turned into the street and stopped to pick up Harry Selby.

Selby opened up his duffel bag and took out his father’s diaries. Skipping through the Korean and court-martial entries, he read what Jonas Selby had written the night he had been shot and killed by “prowlers or drunken fool kids,” in Sergeant Ledge’s words.

On that night his father had written: “It’s worth it, goddammit, no matter what Jarrell claims. He can’t be here, he won’t be here is what he means. Never mind that I said please. Too long ago, he says, but they’ll be here, I’m sure of that. It hurts, what Jarrell says. That I can’t be sure, that I forget...”

The cramped, almost illegible words somehow brought him closer to his father and to his brother. He didn’t understand Jonas Selby’s pleas to Jarrell, but he could respond to their concern and dependence, and their helpless involvement with one another. Sitting in the bright, dismal room, the yellowed diaries heaped on a coffee table, Selby found himself envying them. At least they were linked together by something, never mind whether it was love, or some kind of fear. Something.

His own links were only a few faded snapshots. He had pictures of his mother too, taken in the backyard of his grandfather’s home in Davenport, Iowa, under cherry trees, a pretty young woman smiling self-consciously. He had lived there after her death, and he knew the cherry trees well. He had climbed all over them as a boy.

Selby often wondered why he thought so much more about his father than he did his mother. She hadn’t wronged him in any way, that must be it. She had just died. He remembered the funeral and the cut-glass vases of flowers and the smooth ivory feel of her forehead when he’d kissed her before they closed the coffin. The priest had sprinkled holy water over the mourners and Harry Selby’s hands had got wet while he looked carefully through the cards on the funeral flowers for his father’s name. (As a little boy, his mother had lulled him with the story that his father was “off in the army” and would come back to him one day. But after her death his grandfather made it clear his daughter had never been married to Jonas Selby, although she had given his name to their son, Harry.)

After college, Selby tried to find out the details of his father’s military service. A Corporal Thomas Nye at the Department of the Army’s Records Center in Washington, D.C., had provided him with information.

Jonas Selby had served in an intelligence unit in Korea with the rank of sergeant. At the time of his induction (in Peoria, Illinois), he had been unmarried and without dependents. After three years in Korea, Jonas Selby had been reduced to the rank of private and confined to a military stockade near Seoul. From there he had been transferred to an army hospital in Boulder, Colorado, for the treatment of service-related disabilities.

Jonas Selby had then returned to the anonymity of civilian life, and his shadowy profile had faded completely from the files of the United States Army.

The charges against his father had not been specified in Corporal Nye’s reply. A transcript of the court-martial proceedings were still not available. The trial’s referral symbols were K. (Korea), Gen. Crt. (General Court-Martial), Selby, J. — 36663864 (Selby’s serial number), but the material was classified operative-confidential and, as such, could not be disseminated to unauthorized persons.

Not even to his son, Selby had thought bitterly, a son he had never admitted having, or acknowledged in any other way, not until it was too late...

Unable to sleep, Selby put on his topcoat and went out for a walk. The neighborhood was familiar to him from many road trips, stretches of freeway and neon signs near airport hotels and liquor stores, sex shops and topless bars. In older cities there was always the bus station with Norman Rockwell soldiers, more neon, bag ladies, winos and young girls, and in the luncheonette off the waiting room, the steam counters with breaded meatloaf, watery coleslaw and flat, starchy pies.

At an all-night diner he stopped for coffee. Something about the waitress caught his attention. There was nothing unusual about her; she was plump and clean with her hair tied back behind her neck, but she puzzled him for some reason or other.

It was the way she took his order, he realized; no, not quite that, but the way she reached for the Silex when he asked for coffee. She didn’t turn around, just swept an arm back and picked up the glass pot without looking at it. But he couldn’t figure out why that simple gesture should have interested him.

When he returned to his room at the Delta Arms the red light was flashing at the base of his phone. It was his daughter, Shana, on the line.

“Where’ve you been, daddy? I called twice already.”

“I went for a walk. Is something wrong?”

“There’s nothing to be worried about, nothing at all. But Mrs. Cranston, she got all excited and just insisted we call the police, she acts like—”

“Are you all right, Shana?”

“Of course, I just—”

“Is Davey all right?”

“I’m on the other phone, dad,” Davey said. “I’m fine, I saw the car first and I told—”

“Davey, please be quiet. I was talking to daddy.”

“Goddammit, Shana, don’t ever start a conversation telling me Mrs. Cranston had to call the police. Start at the beginning now.”

“I’m sorry, really I am. I didn’t mean to scare you. That was really dumb. But a car was parked up on the logging road tonight, and Davey went up to find out what it was doing there. Tell him, Davey.”

“That’s right, dad. It was about nine o’clock and I heard Blazer barking. So I went up to the top of the meadow, and it was a sports car, sitting there with the lights out. I—”

Shana interrupted him. “It’s where people used to park for beer parties, daddy.”

“They used it for more than that, you know they did, Shana, until daddy and I planted that honeysuckle hedge along the blacktop.”

“Dave, did you get a look at the car?”

“No, it was too dark, dad. But it was low and kind of bulky, I could tell that much, a Corvette or maybe a Porsche. The driver was holding something shiny, binoculars, I think. He must have heard me coming ’cause he started the car and drove off. It was either dark blue or dark red, something like that.”

Shana said, “Daddy, here’s Mrs. Cranston.”

Mrs. Cranston’s voice was stern. “Could’ve been some of them drunks from Little Tenn, Mr. Selby. But they’re gone now. They never drink where God and decent folk can watch ’em, not that piney trash. They like sucking on their bottles in the dark. But don’t you worry none now.”

She had called the sheriff’s substation on Route One near Muhlenburg; Sergeant Ritter had sent a car out. Ed Jimson and Milt Karec had checked up and down Mill Lane and had found the break where someone had driven through the honeysuckle hedge onto the logging road. She’d have Casper Gideen fix it in the morning.

“We’re all snug now,” she told him. “The dog’s in and Ed and Milt’ll be checkin’ around again later tonight. Now Shana wants to talk to you, Mr. Selby.”

“Daddy, I forgot to ask you! How’s Uncle Jarrell? What’s he like? Is he coming for a visit or anything?”

“We didn’t touch all those bases yet, honey. It’s late now, you and Davey had better get to bed.”

“Okay, daddy. But don’t hang up, please. I forgot. I told Normie Bride I’d call him after I talked to you. Is that all right?”

“Well, keep it short, doll. You’ll see him at school in the morning.”

“Thanks, daddy. Good night — I love you. And Uncle Jarrell too.”

Selby called his brother in Summitt, but Jennifer answered, sounding sleepy and surprised to hear from him.

“I’ll try to rouse him, Harry. Hang on.”

After a moment she came back saying, “I’d need help from Gabriel, or a bass drum anyway. We had a nightcap after everyone left—” A smile lit her voice. “Then we went off to see the wizard. I told him you wanted to talk to him but he only mumbled something about seeing you tomorrow.”

“Did he say when?”

“No, but he and Mr. Stoltzer are driving to Lindville in the morning. I don’t think they’ll be back until sometime in the afternoon.”

“Would you please ask him to call me before he leaves? I may have to change my plans.”

“I sure will, Harry. It was a nice party, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, it was.”

“Have a good sleep, Harry. I’ll see you tomorrow, I hope.”

But Jarrell didn’t call the next morning. At ten Selby rang his apartment but got no answer. He had obviously gone off to Lindville with Stoltzer without bothering to return his call, or Jennifer had forgotten to give him the message.

Selby lunched at the counter of a crowded restaurant where the snatches of talk were of weather and football games. A radio report mentioned that certain local highways and interstates would be closed that weekend. There was a mention of Camp Saliaris, and he remembered that was close to Summitt City. A man beside him was saying that the Vols needed a running game, while the radio announcer was explaining that traffic would be diverted onto secondary roads. Airborne and field maneuvers from the installation would begin at — Selby didn’t catch the time because the football fan chose that moment to outline to his companion — moving catsup bottles and mustard jars into positions — the obvious disadvantage of the Veer information against stunting linebackers.

At the Delta Arms, Selby tried his brother’s number again. After a dozen rings he broke the connection and put a call through to Clem Stoltzer’s office. A secretary told him that Mr. Stoltzer was in a meeting but had left a message for him. He was to call Sergeant Hank Ledge at Security. If Mr. Selby would hold, she would put him through.

He thanked her and waited. In a moment Sergeant Ledge came on.

“Afternoon, Mr. Selby. Tried you a while back but the clerk said you stepped out. Reason I called, your brother called me a while ago from Lindville. Mr. Stoltzer had something come up and couldn’t go with him. Jarrell drove over alone this morning. He’d like to have dinner with you tonight in Memphis. He’ll come by the motel about seven. Asked me to tell you that, Mr. Selby.”

“Thanks, Sergeant. I’ll be waiting for him. By the way, do you know where Jennifer is? There’s no one at Jarrell’s.”

“I think she left, Mr. Selby. Earlier today. But I’ll check. Hold on a second.” The connection was broken. After a humming interval, the sergeant said, “That’s right, Mr. Selby. I talked to the guard at the north gate. She picked up her car around eight o’clock. She was on her way to the airport.”

Harry Selby watched the fading sunlight darken and soften the pyracantha and squat firs surrounding the motel’s swimming pool. Their evasions had nothing to do with him, he was thinking. He was the outsider here, a role he was accustomed to. But he felt oddly dispirited. A bit of doggerel from his father’s diaries came into his mind for no reason. “A cannonball took off his legs, so he laid down his arms.” That was followed by lists of trains and a poem about the Bonnie Earl of Murray. He would have liked to ask Jarrell about that. But he wouldn’t now. The past was a hostile place, Sarah had told him. The addiction of nostalgia was always terminal. “The past is the only place they allow hearsay evidence,” she’d insisted.

If his brother wanted to avoid him, he could simply have said so. No need to bring Jennifer and the granite-faced sergeant into it. No reason for all these clumsy lies and charades. Maybe Jarrell had wanted to be honest last night. For a moment or so it had seemed that way. But it didn’t matter.

He knew now why the waitress in the diner had caught his attention last night. She’d known where the coffee pot was, had reached for it without looking, it was as simple as that. But Jennifer hadn’t known where the coffee was. That’s what had been puzzling him all along.

She’d pulled out drawers and opened cupboards until Jarrell went in to help her. A young woman who slept over regularly would certainly know where the coffee things were kept. Which meant she hadn’t known Jarrell either very long or very well.

The office door of the motel opened and the clerk called, “Phone, Mr. Selby. It’s long distance for you. You can take it in here if you want.”

The connection was bad, streaked with what he thought at first was static. He recognized Mrs. Cranston’s voice, but it was so oddly cracked and muffled that he didn’t understand her. Then he realized she was crying.

“I hate to — because you’re so far off, but somebody took her, Mr. Selby. The police are looking...”

“I can’t hear you. What—?”

“Somebody in a car took her, took Shana. Davey’s not back yet. Trooper Karec—”

The motel office was warm, an electric heater glowing in a corner, but Selby’s stomach had become so cold and cramped that the sudden pain flattened his lips. Trooper Milt Karec was speaking to him then in a quiet and careful voice.

“— five-fifteen, five-thirty, it happened about then. She was riding her bike on Fairlee Road...”

It didn’t get through to Selby. The words were unrelated to reality; they were only noises. He knew Trooper Karec, a stocky young man with glasses and a pleasant smile, black hair already graying. He was the solid officer you talked to about fishing permits, dog licenses, when the roads would be clear after snowstorms.

“—a car hit her.”

“Goddammit, is Shana hurt?”

“No reason to think that, Mr. Selby. That is, we don’t know yet.”

Fairlee Road was a stretch of blacktop that ran along the eastern line of Selby’s place. From there it curved past a trailer camp known as Little Tennessee (Little Tenn) to the main highway linking Philadelphia and Baltimore. Karec told him that Shana had been riding her bicycle on Fairlee, her smashed bike had been found there. Skid marks indicated that a car had swerved and sideswiped her.

“He deliberately ran into her?” Selby was trying not to shout.

“Mr. Selby, we can’t say deliberate, and we can’t say him yet. We don’t know if it was a man. We’re figuring maybe she was just shook up and he — the driver — took her to a hospital. We’ve checked East Chester General and St. Luke’s, but nobody’s treated anyone answering your daughter’s description.”

“Hold it.” Selby said to the clerk, “Call the airport and get me on the next flight to Philadelphia. Tell them it’s an emergency.”

“You’ll have to use the pay phone, Mr. Selby. I can’t tie up this switchboard.”

Selby reached across the counter and took a grip on the clerk’s shoulder.

“Make that call,” he said. “Make it now, you hear me?”

“All right, all right.” The clerk dialed rapidly, his finger-flicks petulant.

Selby said, “Trooper, tell Mrs. Cranston I’ll be on the next flight to Philadelphia. Is my son there now?”

“No, sir, he’s still down on Fairlee with Trooper Jimson. We got four squads covering the back roads, Sergeant Ritter is checking the GPs in Long Grove and London Mill. We got everybody out, don’t worry.” Trooper Karec cleared his throat. “Your daughter could be here waiting for you by the time you get home.”

But Trooper Karec was wrong; when Selby got home four hours later, Shana wasn’t there. Selby knew that with chilling certainty when he walked in and saw his son and Mrs. Cranston sitting stiffly beside the phone. A growl sounded as their German shepherd came hurtling down the stairs, the ferocious challenge fading into whimpers at the sight of Selby.

“Blazer’s been up in Shana’s room,” Davey said. “He wouldn’t come down after the troopers left.”

“Can I fix you something to eat, Mr. Selby?” Mrs. Cranston was standing but she kept her large, worn hand on the phone. “There’s pot roast, it’s cold now, but I could make you some sandwiches.”

“No, that’s all right, thanks.”

Davey sagged against his father and began to cry. His emotional collapse was shattering; he had obviously kept his feelings under control until that instant, but the effort was too much for his years and strength.

“She’s lost, isn’t she, dad?” The firelight glinted on his tears. “She took a wrong turn or something. Nobody’d hurt her, she’s lost, I know it. She’s waiting for it to stop raining and come home...”

Selby changed into slacks and a sweater, his senses painfully intent on the silent phone.

He and Davey sat in the study with sandwiches and coffee in front of the fireplace. The light glowed on the leather furniture and hardwood floors. Rain came lightly down the windows. A few of the panes were from the original Quaker farmhouse, the glass flawed and burled and smoky, and the rain found these wavy fissures and followed them in swift, darting patterns, a flashy contrast to the newer glass where the water fell in slow, level rhythms.

On the plane ride from Memphis, Selby had forced himself to face the obvious possibilities as unemotionally as possible. Shana would be found safe and sound. At a doctor’s office, at somebody’s house, somewhere. Or she’d be found injured, or dead. Or she would remain missing...

“I brought her bike back up here.” Davey had washed his face and dried his eyes. He was Sarah’s gift to them, Selby always thought; he had her dark hair, her quick smiles, and warm, brown eyes. “I put it behind the kennel run,” he want on, “where it will be out of the way. It’s got some red paint on it, the bike, I mean. It’s pretty banged up—” His breath caught, and he looked steadily into the fire. “There’s some red streaks on the frame and sprocket. I’m thinking about that car on the logging road, dad. Remember we called you about it?”

“Yes,” Selby said, but that call from Shana seemed like a time in another world, the plastic motel room, his brother and the girl who loved boats, the grim sergeant, all of them receding now into shadows.

“You said it was a sports car,” Selby said, “with a low silhouette like a Corvette, wasn’t it?”

“I couldn’t tell what color it was because it was night,” Davey said, “but it wasn’t white or yellow or anything like that. It had to be a dark color, maybe brown or red.”

The phone rang. They heard Mrs. Cranston answer it. Selby was up and moving when she said, “Oh, bless you, baby. Your daddy’s right here, ’course he is.”

Selby ran from the study to the foyer.

“Baby, here he is.”

“Shana, are you all right?”

“Yes, daddy, but—”

“Where are you?”

“Daddy, he hurt me.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m at Barby Kane’s in Little Tenn.” Her voice became ragged and thin; she was crying. “Come and get me, please. Don’t bring Davey or anybody. Promise, daddy.”

“I’m leaving now, honey.”

“Hurry, daddy. But don’t look at me, please, don’t look at me. Just take me home.”