The Girl With the Deep Blue Eyes

Fourteen

Back at his house, he typed up his report, including a summary of his interview with one Roberta Ellison, neighbor, and printed it out. He could have attached it to an email, but Bob Newhouser was an old-school hard-copy kind of a guy. He liked everything on paper so he could slip it into a manilla file folder and tuck it away in a steel cabinet, so Doak printed out two copies, one for Newhouser and one for his own files, not that he ever expected to look at it again. If he ever needed to see what he’d written, which was doubtful, he’d find the document on his hard drive. That had to be easier than rooting around in the cardboard carton that served him as an unclassified file cabinet.

He’d been checking the new phone periodically, and he checked it now, and this time he had a voicemail. It had come in just minutes ago. He played it, and heard her say, “Call me.”

He erased the message first, then made the call. She answered at once. She said, “Is it you? ’Cause this is me.”

“I somehow figured as much.”

“Do we need code names? Maybe not, if we’re the only two people who ever use either of these phones. I want you to know I have no idea what I’m doing here. Is it safe to talk on these things?”

“Where are you?”

“At the Baron. I’m early for my shift, I’m out back in my car. Well, leaning against my car.”

“Parked up against the building?”

“No, I’m at the back of the lot. If you’re thinking security cameras, we’ve got one, but I’m in its blind spot. If you’re impressed, don’t be. It’s my usual spot.”

“I’m impressed anyway,” he said. “Outside is good. I’m in my house—”

“Not out on the dock?”

“No, although that’s not a bad idea. In a little while maybe I’ll crack a beer and go out there.”

“I wish I could join you.”

“I don’t think—”

“Oh, it’s not the kind of wish you have to steer me away from. It’s like I wish dogs could talk so you could have real conversations with them.”

“One of the best things about them,” he said, “is they can’t.”

“See, now that wasn’t a wish you had to steer me away from, either, and now you ruined it for me. I’ll never be able to wish it again.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I should hope you are. I couldn’t come over even if it was a good idea, because I’m about to start my shift and watch otherwise prudent men defy their cardiologists. Are you okay, darling? Is everything good?”

“Yes and yes.”

“I just called you darling.”

“I know.”

“Am I still your fantasy girl? Or did that go up in smoke along with the fantasy?”

“Oh, you’re it,” he said.

“God, I like the way you said that. It gave me a little shiver. What did you do today? And if that’s a terrible question, you’ve got to admit it’s better than What are you wearing.”

“Some work for an insurance company. Most of it on the computer, going into some subscription databases, but then I drove over and looked at his house and interviewed the lady next door.”

“Was that fun?”

“She was pregnant, and a very well-behaved little boy sat on the couch next to her.”

“It’s good the kid’s well behaved, or she’d be sick at the prospect of having another.”

“I wanted to fuck her.”

“Really.”

“Yeah, I really did. I sat there asking stupid who-gives-a-shit questions and pretending to pay attention to her answers, and I wanted the kid to go into the other room so I could fuck his mother.”

“But you didn’t do anything, or say anything.”

“No. I hadn’t planned on mentioning it.”

“Yet here you are, telling me about it.”

“Yeah, and I’ve got to be at least as surprised as you are. And I’m not trying to make you jealous—”

“Which I’m not.”

“—or excited.”

“Which I am, kind of. Anyway, I think I know why you’re telling me.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. When I woke up this morning, I didn’t give George a blow job.”

“Now there’s a coincidence,” he said, “because neither did I.”

“Just one more thing we’ve got in common, my darling. But, you know, I thought about it, because the occasional BJ makes life at home a good deal more tolerable for me.”

“For him too, I bet.”

“But here’s the thing, when I thought about it I thought about you, and it struck me that if I blew George, or even if I just thought about blowing him, it didn’t have to be a fucking secret. I could tell you. And I can, can’t I?”

“Yes, of course.”

“I can tell you absolutely everything. I’m still getting used to the idea, but it’s true, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“And you told me about Mommy Preggers because you could. You could tell me how you wanted to fuck her, and if you actually did fuck her you could tell me that, too. We can tell each other anything. Isn’t that amazing?”

“It is.”

“Have you ever had anything like that with anybody?”

“Never. Have you?”

“Are you kidding? I’ve been nothing but secrets all my life. Are you gonna call her?”

“Call who? Oh, Roberta?”

“Is that her name, the pregnant lady?’

“Roberta Ellison.”

“What does she look like? I want to picture her.”

He described the woman.

“She sounds nice. You still want to fuck her, don’t you?”

“I could live just fine without it,” he said. “But would I like to fuck her? Which is not to say that I could, because she has a say in the matter, but yes, I’d like to.”

“Well, you know where she lives. Give her a day or two and then drop by with some follow-up questions.”

“Maybe.”

“How would you do it?”

“How?”

“What position? You want to know what I think? I think you should take her from behind, with both of you lying on your sides, and you’ve got your arms around her so you can put your hands on her belly. What do you think of that?”

“If we by some chance got you pregnant last night,” he said, “I think that’ll eventually be a dandy position for us.”

“Oh my God,” she said. “I’d managed to forget about that. And now it’s too late for a Morning After pill, and I don’t have one, anyway. I’m not pregnant. I can’t be, can I?”

“Probably not.”

“Oh, look at the time. I got here way early and I’m gonna walk in late. And we’re using up phone minutes, and what happens when we run out?”

“If we can’t get them refilled, we’ll just get new phones.”

“Well, that’s good to know,” she said. “It’s a big relief, actually. Because now I know we’ve got nothing to worry about.”

After she ended the call, he sat for a long moment, letting it replay itself in his mind. He remembered the first mention of Lisa, in Radburn’s office, the first glimpse of her on the sheriff’s phone. Some bell had rung inside him at that first sight of her, but did it go back further than that? Hadn’t he begun anticipating all of this even before he’d seen her picture?

And it kept building. Just now, the things she’d said to him, the things he’d found himself able to say to her. It was powerfully sexual, and yet from another angle it had next to nothing to do with sex.

All that crap lovers spouted in the movies, finding one’s other self, being two halves of the same person. It had never quite made sense to him, and he wasn’t sure it did now, and those weren’t the words he’d use if he found himself moved to talk about it. But he knew what they were getting at, the writers who put those lines in the characters’ mouths.

He had the refrigerator door half open and changed his mind, went back to his desk. Opened up Google, typed george otterbein, hit Enter.