Dial M for Meat Loaf (11 page)

18

Plato was a man who lived his life in slow motion. Or maybe he existed in a parallel universe. Whatever the case, the people he lived with seemed to be moving at a different speed than he was. Plato had come to believe that, because of this phenomenon, he was essentially invisible at home. He was like an odd smell in the kitchen. His wife and two sons knew the smell was there and that it signified something, but because it had no particular meaning to their everyday lives, it was largely ignored.

Ever since Plato and his family had moved to the hobby farm just outside of Rose Hill, he had watched his wife whiz past him to milk the cow, water the garden, attend to her charity work in town, visit her friends, play bridge, read magazines, gossip on the phone, attend church, and all the while he simply stood in a dark corner, stinking. People walked around him, past him, near him; sometimes they even stopped next to him and looked as if they might speak, but they never did. He even felt sometimes as if his family walked through him, an odd sensation indeed for a man as corporeally substantial as he was. He wasn’t insane, so it had to be real. The more he considered it, the more he understood that his life had taken on the quality of a parable.

His identical twin sons, Kevin and Jack, had sailed past him years ago on their way to computer nirvana. They’d graduated from high school last spring. Nobody ever had trouble telling them apart because Kevin was a magenta-haired skateboarder, while Jack was a preppie in chinos. This fall, they were both planning to attend DigiPen Institute of Technology in Redmond, Washington. DigiPen was one of the first U.S. colleges to offer a bachelor’s degree in video game programming. When Kevin and Jack weren’t playing some ghastly piece of video trash, they were brushing up on their solid analytic geometry and algorithm analysis. To a man like Plato, it made as much sense as climbing the Himalayas or writing a poem in Sanskrit. Plato knew his sons were leaving for Washington soon not because they told him, but because he could enter a room and listen to a conversation without anyone knowing he was there.

The only one at the farm who lived at the same feeble-minded pace as he did was his dear friend, Astrid. And it was to see Astrid that he was headed at the moment, a plastic folding chair tucked under his arm. The day had been a long one, but it was finally over. As he walked through the field directly south of his house, the dead grass crunching under his loafers, the deerflies dive-bombing his head, his entire body felt swollen by the heat. He needed comfort, someone to understand him, to listen with undivided attention and offer, if not love, then at least genuine fondness.

He found Astrid standing by a patch of purple milkweed flowers. The evening light surrounded her in a golden haze. She wasn’t afraid of him. She didn’t move away. She simply stood and chewed, her tail swishing, her soft brown eyes welcoming him.

Plato set the chair directly in front of her and sat down. A light breeze cut across the field, and it cooled him now. For the first time all day, he was in the presence of someone who cared. His frayed nerves grew calm. His thoughts grew reflective. The world slowed to a manageable velocity. The milkweed flowers smelled sweet.

“Tell me, Astrid,” said Plato, crossing his right ankle over his left knee, “why is the soul so often depicted as unconscious? That bothers me. It makes me feel like the deck is stacked against me. Like God only meant me to be half awake.”

Astrid watched him, responding with a tiny moo.

“You’re so beautiful, you know that? Black and white. I wish my life could be like you. People think cows are dumb, but that’s because they’ve never known one, never loved one.” He handed her an Oreo cookie, her favorite.

She chewed it slowly, then bent her head to tug at a tuft of grass. There was no rush. She wasn’t going anywhere. She was here for him, ready to listen.

“There’s something I haven’t told you,” he said mildly. He valued her good opinion of him, so he didn’t want to speak sharply or to add unusual emphasis to his statement. “Let me backtrack a moment. You remember that I’m reading that biography of John D. Rockefeller? Well, Rockefeller and me, we’ve got something in common. He loathed his dad. I don’t exactly loathe mine, of course, but . . . I’ve always felt like such a fraud and failure in his eyes. It’s hard being the son of a saint, Astrid. Bernice thinks I see him that way because I never really got to know him when I was a child, not the way she did. But why would I want to spend time with a man who made me feel small and, if not exactly bad, then at least irrelevant?” He paused, watching an ant crawl across his foot. “Turns out, my dad was a fraud himself, just like Rockefeller’s father.” Plato smiled, then threw his head back and let rip with a belly laugh.

Astrid chewed her grass.

“I don’t mean to insult you,” he said, wiping a hand across his eyes, “but I don’t think you appreciate how important this is to me. It’s like I’ve been given this amazingly great gift. For the first time in my life, I feel like I can freely love my father, no holds barred. He’s a sinner, just like me. Flawed. Scared. He did something so bad once that he was willing to pay a man one hundred thousand dollars to keep it a secret.” When Plato said it out loud, he felt such glee, the tips of his toes curled.

“I suppose you want to know how I found out.”

Astrid’s attention had switched to a red-winged black-bird, but Plato trusted her. She was still listening.

“See, it’s like this. Two days before my dad’s stroke, I stopped by the house. It was late afternoon. I walked in through the front door and was about to call out a hello when I heard Dad talking to someone in his study. It sounded pretty heated so I stayed in the foyer and listened. Dad was talking to a man named Runbeck. You don’t know him, but he’s a handyman. Has a reputation as kind of a weasel. He’d fixed my parents’ garage door opener a few months back, and he’d taken his old sweet time about it, too. I remember Mom saying that Dad shouldn’t pay him by the hour because he was so slow. At first, I thought they were arguing about the bill. It wasn’t like Dad not to pay it, but maybe he was taking Mom’s advice—dickering over the price. But then I realized they were discussing something else. Somehow or other, Runbeck had discovered information about Dad’s past. Whatever it was, it was really bad. From what this Runbeck implied, I think my dad may have killed someone and then covered it up. I mean, I couldn’t believe it. I was mulling it over when I heard Runbeck demand another fifty thousand dollars.” Plato waited for Astrid’s response. “Did you get that? He said
another
.”

The cow twitched.

“Yeah, I was pretty shocked, too. That meant Dad had already paid the guy money for his silence once before. If that was the case, and I had no reason to doubt it, there had to be truth in what the handyman had found out.” Plato batted a fly away from his face. “Okay, so they argued for a few more minutes. Finally, Dad agreed to pay him what he asked. But he demanded that Runbeck give him back ‘the letters’ first. That really grabbed my attention. Dad said Runbeck had no business snooping around the garage. From that I guessed that my father must have hidden something in there and that Runbeck had found it. Dad asked, did Runbeck really want to ruin him? Runbeck said that Dad had already done a pretty good job of it himself.

“You know, Astrid, for the first time in my life I actually felt sorry for my father. Even though I’d never killed anybody, I felt this . . . this crudely visceral sense of kinship. It’s what spiritual types call an epiphany. Do you know what that is, Astrid? An epiphany is when you learn something that changes the entire direction of your life. It’s like God appearing to Paul on the road to Tarsus. Like the day Edison saw the light.”

When Plato looked at Astrid this time, he saw two great startled eyes staring back at him. She understood, just like he knew she would.

“So I stood there in the front foyer, feeling as if I’d been struck by lightning. Like the burden I’d been carrying around all my life had just been lifted off my shoulders. I would have stayed a while longer, but I heard a noise in the kitchen. Someone was standing in there listening. I had no idea who was home. Bernice was in town, so it could have been her. Or maybe it was Uncle Milton or Mom—or maybe all three. I didn’t stick around to find out.”

Astrid was eating grass again. Apparently, shock in a cow didn’t last as long as it did in a human being. What Plato appreciated about Astrid was her sense of proportion. In her own quiet way, he felt she was attempting to teach him something important.

“Thanks, Astrid. I get your point.” He sat for a while enjoying the peace and quiet. Somewhere down deep inside him, he knew he should feel immense guilt for taking such pleasure in his father’s fall from grace. But instead, he was grinning like an idiot.

“You know, Astrid, in that biography of John D., it said that he believed overeating rich foods stimulated the criminal organs in the brain. Do you think that’s true?” He waited. “Maybe that was why my father was trying to starve himself to death before his stroke.”

Astrid blinked one eye.

“Yeah, I’m with you, kid.” He got up, folded his chair, and patted her nose. “I’m gonna find myself the biggest, meanest, baddest hot fudge sundae with whipped cream and
two
cherries this side of the Pecos.”

He winked, then walked away whistling.

19

Cora rumbled down the country road in her ’78 Chevy Malibu, kicking up a cloud of dust in her wake. She knew she probably shouldn’t be driving, what with her one eye dimmed by a cataract and her other eye recovering from surgery, but it was pretty deserted out here, there wasn’t much to hit, and her good eye was almost back to normal. Besides, it was Friday. If she didn’t drive out to Melvin DuCharme’s hunting cabin today, she’d have to cool her heels until Monday. She remembered Melvin saying he used the cabin on weekends, and for what she needed to do, she didn’t want company.

Last night, she’d redrawn Melvin’s directions so she could read them easily while she was on the road. This morning she’d packed a picnic lunch and started off around noon. Even with the map, she’d made a couple of wrong turns, but she was pretty sure the cabin was just up ahead now. She’d been toying with the idea of renting a metal detector, but felt it might look suspicious. Why on earth would an old woman like her need a metal detector? People would talk. It was better to use Kirby’s map and pray for luck.

When she came to a fork in the road, she eased the car to the right. A few minutes later, the river came into view. Just as Melvin had said, the road dead-ended at the cabin.

Cora sat in the car for a few seconds and looked around. It was quiet out here by the river. Quiet and green, and the air smelled of moss and earth and dry leaves. It reminded her of the years she’d spent on her father’s farm. Even a small town like Rose Hill had become cluttered with noise. At this moment, all she could hear were birds and the faint whine of a cicada. Summer sounds. It felt good to be out having an adventure. She’d never been the adventurous type before. Funny, the twists and turns a life could take.

Cora lugged the picnic basket and the shovel up to the small wooden deck just off the front of the cabin. She located the extra key where Melvin said it would be and unlocked the door. The first thing that hit her was a stale, musty odor—like dirty laundry that had been sitting in the basement too long. Cora’s face puckered as she muttered, “What a dump.” It was what she’d expected, only worse. With just three windows, all covered by dingy, yellow curtains, there wasn’t much light, but she could tell the floor was partially covered by a shabby, green indoor-outdoor carpet. Two cots rested along the far wall and a couple of battered wood chairs sat next to an old-fashioned Formica kitchen table. It was just one room, and not very large. Melvin had built a bookcase out of pine boards and bricks next to the door, but there weren’t any books in it. Only magazines—and clutter. Cora couldn’t understand why he didn’t clean the place up. There wasn’t any water or electricity, so it might not be real easy, but what kind of man would want to spend time in such a pigpen? Her opinion of him took an instant nosedive.

Leaving the picnic basket on the kitchen table, Cora took the shovel and went back outside. The first order of business was to figure out where the Devil’s Tree was. Without that tree as the anchor, Kirby’s map was useless. Cora climbed down off the deck and headed north along the river. She was glad now that she’d remembered to cover her exposed skin with sunscreen, but she hadn’t thought to bring along any mosquito repellent. Big mistake.

Even though there was a cooling breeze coming off the water, the day felt sticky and hot. Cora was dressed in a pair of thin cotton pants and a sleeveless cotton shirt. Both pieces of clothing were pink. She loved pastels, although she knew they did nothing for her aging skin. The woman behind the cosmetic counter at Mansel’s department store told her she was an autumn. She should be wearing lots of browns and oranges. But Cora hated brown and orange. Her friends would just have to cope with her in pastels. It was very little to ask.

Tramping through the brush, Cora finally spotted the weeping willow. Never before had she seen such a huge dead willow. She could understand now why Kirby had been so impressed. The leafless limbs looked like giant hanks of wooden hair drooping toward the ground. Way up at the top were several dark smudges. Cora couldn’t see the crows very well, but she could tell by the way the smudges moved that they were ready to spring and destroy at a moment’s notice. Crows were disturbing critters. She’d never liked them.

Pulling Kirby’s map out of the pocket of her slacks, she pressed a finger against the bridge of her glasses, and read out loud, “Sixteen paces due north of the Devil’s Tree. Due east four paces. Southeast nine paces. X marks the spot.”

Why hadn’t she thought to bring a compass? As an adventurer, she was a flop. She’d simply have to use the sun and hope she got the measurements right. Except, the clouds were thickening. The sun was in and out, but mostly in. “Fudge,” she mumbled. She’d just have to wing it.

Looking up at the sky, she placed her back flat against the tree trunk. The crows started to caw. They were laughing at her, but she ignored them. “This seems like north to me,” she said, knowing full well that it was only a guess. As soon as she moved away from the tree, she realized that she had no idea what a pace was. “Probably the length of Kirby’s big feet,” she muttered. She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw movement up ahead of her, about thirty yards into the woods. It was a big dark form, hazy to her damaged eyes, but definitely there. What if it was a bear?

Standing absolutely still, she waited to see what would happen. If it
was
a bear, she’d have to run for it. But if it was a deer, she’d be okay. She kicked herself for not bringing along one of Kirby’s rifles, not that she’d know what to do with it, or even how to load it. Her dad had kept a loaded shotgun in the barn, but that was a long time ago. Cora used to be a pretty good shot. She wasn’t a wimp.

After waiting another minute, she decided she must have been mistaken. All was quiet. She was understandably jumpy. She’d never gone searching for buried treasure before.

“Okay,” she whispered, backing up against the tree again. The crows continued to laugh. Sixteen paces due north. She counted to herself as she put one foot carefully in front of the other, leaving a good five inches between each step. When she got to the end, she turned east four paces, then southeast nine paces. It was all so frustratingly inexact. Taking a deep breath, she placed the tip of her shovel on top of the spot and dug in. A few minutes later, dabbing a clean hanky at the sweat on her forehead, she stood back. She’d uncovered a hole the size of a twenty-inch television set, but she’d found nothing.

She paced it off again. This time, she ended up several feet away from the first hole. So she dug another. And again, she found nothing. Seven holes later, she was tired and frustrated. She needed to sit down and rest her weary shoulders. She wasn’t giving up. Oh no. But she had to take it easy. Filling the holes back in, she stuck a longish twig on top of each. She didn’t want to dig up the same place twice.

Checking her watch on the way back to the cabin, she saw that it was going on two-thirty. She should probably eat her picnic lunch, but decided to take a short nap instead. It was only supposed to be in the high eighties today, but Cora was sure it was already in the high nineties. She hated the dog days of August.

Returning to her car, she stowed the shovel in the trunk, then rolled down the driver’s window and slid in. She adjusted the seat back and tried to get comfortable, but it was difficult because she was so hot and sticky. It wasn’t the best place she’d ever napped, but at least it was cleaner than the cabin. The idea of lying down on one of those filthy cots made her very grateful indeed for the modern luxury of a ’78 Malibu.

A crack of thunder woke her. Cora sat bolt upright and tried to get her bearings. She’d been dreaming about winning first prize for her meat loaf recipe. She was lying on a silk couch in her suite at the Maxfield Plaza, talking to reporters and drinking chocolate milk out of a martini glass. Her mother was there and so was Kirby. He kept calling her “cookie” and “sweetie,” trying to ingratiate himself, to insinuate himself back into her life. Fat chance.

A sudden bolt of lightning cut directly across the river. Cora leaned her head out the window and looked up at the sky. The clouds had turned a yellowish gray, like heated metal. The air was so still, not a leaf fluttered. Cora had been a Minnesotan all her life. She knew the signs. This was tornado weather.

For a moment, she wondered if she should make a run for it. Try to get home before the storm hit. But being out on the open road wasn’t smart. The cabin was old but solid. It had lived through many a Midwestern summer and was still standing. She could feel herself begin to dither. Make a decision, old lady, she ordered herself.

She rolled up the window and slammed the car door before rushing for the deck. Standing with her hand on the doorknob, she looked behind her and saw the wind moving up the river. The sky was churning now, with roiling black clouds that looked like fields of inverted haystacks, some dipping toward the water. Lightning ripped through the dark sky, sending her shrieking for cover.

And then it hit. First the roar of the wind, forcing the pokey tree branches against the windows. Then the rain came down with such ferocity that the sound of it pounding on the roof was almost deafening. Cora turned down her hearing aid and put her hands up to her ears. She cowered in the center of the room, not knowing what else to do. There wasn’t a basement or even a piece of heavy furniture to get under. She closed her eyes and prayed. As hot as she’d been, she was shivering now.

But almost as quickly as it had come, the worst of it passed. The rain eased. The sky became lighter and the wind died down. That’s when she noticed it. The picnic basket was gone. For a moment she was so surprised, she couldn’t move. She thought she’d been completely alone out here by the river, but that had obviously not been the case. What kind of idiotic nincompoop would steal an old woman’s food?

Feeling thoroughly disgusted and just a wee bit frightened, Cora opened the front door. She replaced the key where she’d found it, then marched down the soggy wood steps out to her car. “You aren’t safe from hooligans
anywhere
these days,” she muttered to herself. It was too wet to dig in the woods anymore, but when she returned, she’d have to be more careful.

Cora had just started the engine when she saw a vague form flutter out of the trees toward the rear of the cabin. Thick clouds still obscured the sun, and thunder continued to rumble. After locking all the doors, she pulled around back. A man dressed in a hooded raincoat was standing on his tiptoes looking into one of the windows. Startled by the sight of her car, he tipped backward, nearly losing his balance. Cora switched on the headlights so she could get a better look at him, but by then he was rushing toward the safety of the woods.