The Night Remembers

13

On First Avenue, near St. Patrick’s, I found a drive-up phone and pulled up. For my quarter I got to talk to a female voice who identified herself as the cleaning woman and who told me that none of the Pennyfeathers were home. I asked if she could tell me where they’d gone. She sounded reluctant. “Some things came up,” she said.

“I’m a friend of the family’s.”

“Oh.”

“So you’d be doing both them and me a favor by telling me where they went.”

“I really don’t think I should say anything.” She paused again. “They went—” She stopped again. “I’d like to hang up now, if you don’t mind.”

She didn’t wait for an answer.

Sitting in the car, the wind cold through the open window, I took what was left of the phone book (it appeared that some deranged beast had taken out all its anger on it) and looked through the yellow pages for the number of David Pennyfeather’s law office.

After the receptionist identified the place, I said, “I’d like to speak to David Pennyfeather, please.”

“I’m afraid he’s unavailable right now.”

“Is he in?”

Hesitation. “Yes.”

“Thank you.”

Because his office was only six blocks away, in the center of the downtown area, I decided it was worth driving over. I made one more phone call and left.

Following the recession of the early Eighties, Cedar Rapids decided to impose its will on an unfriendly economy. Despite factory closings, long free-food lines, and some bad national publicity, the city gambled on its own future by turning the downtown into a model of refurbishment. Buildings that appeared to be on the verge of desertion were torn up and rebuilt with a ferocity of purpose that unsettled a good deal of the electorate until they finally saw the transformation completed — tall, gleaming buildings; skywalks; rebuilt offices that bore no resemblance to their former crumbling selves. It used to be easy to stand on the corner of Second Avenue and Third Street, say, and imagine how, only a few decades earlier, farm wagons used to roll into town on Saturday mornings bearing sweet little girls in braids and grinning little boys with wide eyes. Cedar Rapids was then a center for all the surrounding farm towns, but now it was a center for much more — national and international business alike. The restoration had been successful in all respects, as the bumper-to-bumper Mercedes-Benzes and all the fast-walking yuppies proved. The blueplate luncheon at the Butterfly used to cost $1.25. Now you could easily drop twenty times that in several of the more fashionable spots. Now it was almost hard to imagine that farm wagons had ever rolled down these streets.

David Pennyfeather’s office was on the third floor of a building that had once been a department store. Not that you could tell.

I rode up on the elevator with two young women who carried briefcases and smoked cigarettes with an urgency that said they weren’t able to indulge upstairs. They were mysterious creatures to me — attractive without doubt, but aggressive in the way men were aggressive, angry and curt, sarcastic and bitter. I had no doubt that they were a lot tougher than the men from whom they still probably had to take orders.

A massive wooden door meant to impress gave the Trotter, Styles and Pennyfeather law offices the air of a fortress under siege. I put my hand on a doorknob that seemed far too frail to open such a formidable door, and pulled.

Everything was mahogany and leather except the carpet and drapes, which were a sedate red the color of dried blood. In a wooden alcove, bent over a computer screen, was a spiritual sister of the two women in the elevator. Her auburn hair caught in a soft chignon, her knit dress an impeccable and dazzling white, the receptionist seemed to know vast and consequential secrets I couldn’t even guess at intelligently.

Disappointment registered quickly in her brown eyes. She probably didn’t see many clients dressed in car coats, white shirts, and chinos. “May I help you?”

“I called a few minutes ago about seeing David Pennyfeather.”

“I’m afraid he’s still busy.”

“Would you tell him Mr. Walsh is here? I was at his parents’ home last night. He’ll probably remember me.”

She let her irritation show. I was doing two things wrong. One, I wasn’t taking her hint that I should just leave. Two, I was taking her away from her work at the computer screen.

She stood up. “If you’ll have a seat over there, I’ll go speak with him.”

“Thank you.”

She nodded and left the reception area. If her body wasn’t perfect, it sure came close, tall and lean in a worked-at sort of way. One thing I’ve got to give my sons’ generation. They take care of themselves. Physically, anyway.

First I looked through Forbes, and then I looked through a two-day-old Wall Street Journal. I had no idea what I was reading. Mostly, I looked for cartoons. The New Yorker was a lot more fun to skim through.

I sat in a fat leather chair long enough that one of my legs started to go to sleep. I was stamping my foot, trying to get some circulation going again, when the receptionist came back.

Standing over me, she said, “He can give you a few minutes.”

“I appreciate it.”

“He’s very busy.” She was scolding me, angry that he’d agreed to see me at all.

“Thanks again.”

She led me down a carpeted hall. Behind various closed doors I heard the rumble of male voices being earnest. On the walls were Grant Wood reproductions. When I was young, I could never understand why Wood painted the way he had. One day when Sharon and I were on a picnic, though, I stood on a hill just outside of Anamosa and looked down at the blue vein of creek and the green roll of hill and the gathered brown of forest and then I saw it, saw just what Wood must have seen, and ever since, all other nature paintings have seemed slightly wrong to me. He got it right and he was the only one.

David Pennyfeather was waiting for me. He wore a three-piece gray suit and black horn-rim glasses. For all his size, he looked like a mean boardroom version of his mother. He was perched on the edge of his large mahogany desk. His office looked just like the reception area, only smaller.

I put my hand out. He shook it without enthusiasm and broke quickly. “Why don’t you close the door, Mr. Walsh.”

“All right.”

I went and closed it and came back. I glanced down at a chair. He held up his hand. “You won’t be here long enough to sit down, so don’t bother.” He put his hand out palm up. “I’d like the $500 back that Carolyn gave you.”

“Isn’t that between Carolyn and me?”

“Hardly. Carolyn, much as I love her and much as I respect her intelligence, can be very naive.”

“Have you ever considered the fact that I may be trying to help her?”

“To be honest, no. You’re a retired cop who runs a nowhere apartment house. I checked you out, Walsh. Personally.”

“Did you check far enough to see that I’m a licensed private investigator?”

“If I wanted to hire an investigator, Walsh, I’d hire one of the reputable ones. There’s a Pinkerton office as close as Des Moines. For just one example.”

“You seem to forget. You didn’t hire me. Your sister did.”

“Well, I’m just helping her out. Actually, you saved me a trip by coming up here. I talked to Carolyn this morning and she expressed some misgivings about hiring you. I told her I’d take care of it.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“I don’t give a damn what you do or don’t believe, Walsh.” He narrowed his eyes into a practiced gaze. He got up from the desk and pushed half a foot toward me. I had no doubt he was a tough man. He was bigger and younger, and I wasn’t stupid. “You were the man who arrested my father. The whole idea of hiring you is ludicrous.”

“Your mother doesn’t seem to think so.”

“My mother’s been so hurt and confused she no longer knows what to think.”

“So you’ll do her thinking for her?”

“That’s right, Walsh. That’s right.”

He went back around his desk and sat down. “We’re through now.” He put his head down. Apparently my audience had ended.

“Where’s your father?”

“Did you hear me? We’ve finished talking.” He kept his head down.

“When I called, the cleaning woman said that something had happened. She wouldn’t tell me what.”

“It’s none of your business.”

“Maybe I could help. You’ve got a nice mother and a nice sister. I’ve even started to like your father.”

“The same man you helped put in prison for twelve years, even though he was innocent?” He let his anger go. It was considerable. He looked miserable now, young suddenly, and frustrated. “Just get the hell out of here, all right?”

I decided to have one last go at it. “You didn’t advise him to hide, did you?”

He said nothing.

“That’s the sense I got from the maid. That your mother had taken your father someplace. That wouldn’t be smart. You know the police are going to want to talk to him.”

He sat back. His gaze softened somewhat. “How would you react? You just get out of prison and all of a sudden they’re threatening to take you back again. And both times you were innocent.”

“Running isn’t going to help.”

He put his head down again. “They’re not running. They’re just trying to figure out what to do.” He looked up. “Now, goodbye. Do you understand? Goodbye.”

I put my hand on the door and let myself out.

Twenty minutes later, parked on Second Avenue, I watched as David Pennyfeather came quickly out of his building. He wore a gray overcoat and a black fedora. He moved without pause.

I followed him to the Second Avenue parking ramp. I waited below. It took five minutes before he appeared again in a new blue Volvo sedan.

He was upset enough that he nearly rear-ended a truck stopped at a light. He was also angry enough that he started leaning on his horn, as if the truck driver was at fault. The driver gave him the hi-sign and then spent the rest of the red light shaking his head about the condition of the human species in general today.

David Pennyfeather moved straight down Second Avenue and across the bridge, at the end of which he took a left.

After another near-accident, this time with a white-haired old woman in a big battered Buick, he clamped both hands on the wheel and began driving with real determination.

Ten minutes later we were on a gravel road that led to the interstate.

We were going out of town somewhere.