Impulse (8 page)
“You were late again last night.” Barbara busied herself with wiping the kitchen sink although, as far as Frank could see, it didn’t need it.
“Not too late, I don’t think.”
“It was after two. More drinking with your old buddies?”
“Not this time. I had a long conversation with someone from my past.” He smiled and turned his head away, remembering that once upon a time to have intercourse with someone meant you had had a conversation.
“You’re smiling,” she said. “Does that mean you are spinning more bullshit?”
“Barbara, how you talk. Your mother and I never taught you to talk like that!”
“Mom, no, but we all heard you use language a lot stronger than that.”
“Well, just a few words I picked up in the Army. By the way, where’s Bob?” Frank tried to change the subject.
“Up at a normal hour and running errands somewhere.”
Always a tip-off. If she’d said hardware store or barber shop or any of a half hundred destinations, he would have let it pass, but
somewhere
? Somewhere could mean anything, but at that moment, it meant his daughter and her husband were not communicating.
“Somewhere?”
She resumed cleaning her sink, her back to him. “He went out. I don’t know, Dad. He took his car and left early this morning. He said he had things to do.”
“Most stores don’t open until ten.” She stopped wiping. Her shoulders sagged. “I’m your old man,” he said gently. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing.” She turned to face him and then he noticed the red eyes, the fatigue. “I didn’t wait up for you, I swear. We were arguing until one-thirty. Then I couldn’t sleep. That’s why I know.”
“You two been fighting a lot lately?”
“It’s that time in our marriage, I guess. Pushing twenty years and all of a sudden the dreams, the fancy plans, all seem so far away, so unlikely. The kids are growing up so fast. There are big decisions ahead for us and—”
“Money is tight and getting tighter.”
“How’d you know that?”
“Been there, honey. Is there anything else you two fight about, besides money, that is?”
She tore off a square of paper towel from its roller under a cabinet and wiped her face. “I don’t know. It usually starts with something trivial, you know? Then it sort of spirals up and away, but in the end, everything seems to come down to money.”
“That’s it?”
She crumpled the towel into a small ball. Outside, a mockingbird began its borrowed litany. Somewhere down the block a lawnmower coughed to life. And somewhere Bob Thompson was breaking his daughter’s heart.
“I don’t know. How can I know? He never says anything. He comes home late, eats dinner, and retreats into his little den. We don’t make love and when I ask him what the matter is, he says, ‘Nothing’ and clams up even more. I think there must be someone else. Isn’t that what all that usually means?”
“No, not necessarily. But something’s not right. Do you want me to talk to him?”
“What good would that do? You’re leaving tomorrow morning and you have some hoop-de-do to go to tonight.”
“Oh yeah, I meant to tell you. Would it be okay if I stayed on for a few days, a week, maybe?”
“Stay on? Here?”
“Well, I could go to a motel if that won’t work,’” he said. She unfolded the ball of paper towel and began to shred it into the sink.
“No, no. That’s not what I meant. It’s just….” She scooped up the bits of paper and deposited them into the trash bin. The lid dropped with a clank. “Why?”
“Long story. I promised some people at the party last night I would look into the mystery of the missing boys.”
“That sounds like a title of one of your books. Is it?”
“Who knows, it could be. That possibility crossed my mind, but no, it’s a real mystery this time. Do you remember hearing about four boys disappearing from the Scott campus twenty-five years ago?”
“Not at the time. We lived in Chicago then, didn’t we? I think one of the Scott parents may have told me something like that a while back, but I’m not sure. Is that what you’re investigating?”
“Yes.”
She squeezed her eyes shut like someone trying to shake off a mild headache. “Of course you can stay. But I’m not sure about the car. I have to be out of the office this week.”
“No problem. I have a friend helping me who can drive.”
“Well, it will be nice, then. You can see something of the boys.”
“We’re going to the Lacrosse game at Loyola, this afternoon, apparently, Frank said. “They said their dad promised but couldn’t at the last—”
“No, he couldn’t, could he? He’s too busy doing whatever the hell he does nowadays that nobody knows about.”
“Well, it’s a good thing, actually. We’ll walk over to the game—have a big time.”
“Okay. That’ll be good. I only wish that I—”
“I’ll talk to him, Barbara. It may not be anything. Money problems always make people do funny things, act crazy.”
She sat at the table and began her shredding again, this time a paper napkin. “What is it about men? They keep secrets. They think they can’t let on they need something, so they pull away from the people who love them and then go dippy over the first woman who gives them a kind word and a smile.”
“Well, you’re assuming a lot there. First, you don’t know if there is a smile with a woman attached to it or not. And—here’s the part you won’t like—most men will not go for the smile from a stranger if there’s a better one at home. How have you been lately?”
She bristled and tore another napkin in half.
“Oh, I see, it’s my fault. I work an eight-hour day, sometimes ten hours. I come home, make dinner, and do all of the house work that every other woman has an entire day to get done. I help the kids with their homework and I’m tired at the end of that. What do you expect? I should put on a tape and do a strip tease for him, too?”
“I merely said—”
“I’m tired. I get up at five-thirty. I go to bed at eleven. You do the math, Dad. I can’t keep this up.” She picked up the last napkin on the table and blew her nose. “And he’s in the study. Working, he says. Or he eats and leaves the house. He says he has work to do. Work! What the hell does he think I’m doing all day and all night?”
“I’ll talk to him, Barbara. There may be some very simple explanation for the whole thing. In the meantime, let me loan you some money.”
“I don’t want your money, Dad, I want my husband back.”
He got up and found a clean cup in the cupboard. He filled it with coffee. He put it in front of her and poured himself another as well.
Bob Thompson started life on the wrong side of the tracks, as they used to say. He did not have the advantages of private schools, summer camps, and parents who were connected to the power structure in one way or another. He grew up within sight of the old Baltimore and Ohio roundhouse, now the Chessie System Railway Museum. He worked his way through the University of Maryland flipping burgers, washing cars, and delivering pizzas ’til three a.m. He got his CPA at night school. He worked hard, kept his thinning hair and expanding midriff in as much control as he could, and wore a look of permanent confusion when he was around his wife, whom he held in awe. In no way did he fit the uptown mold.
“We fight over the Scott Academy thing, too,” she said, ignoring the coffee.
“How’s that?”
“I want to send them to Scott. I told you that. If they went there, I wouldn’t have to arrange for someone to watch them in the afternoon, and…Bob says, ‘No way can we afford it. Not on what I make.’ I said, ‘You make? What do you think what I bring in is—chopped liver?’ And he says it helps. It
helps
?”
She finally gave way to the tears she’d been holding at bay. Frank leaned over to the counter and grabbed a fistful of napkins and handed them to her.
“Dad,” she said, her words muffled by napkin balls, “solve my mystery too. What is he doing? Is he seeing someone? I need to know. I’m going crazy. Stay as long as you need to. Find out for me, please?”
“Sure. I’ll talk to him. Follow him around town, if I have to. I’ll find out. In the meantime, you need rest. I’ve got the boys this afternoon, then the party tonight. You take the day off and rest a little, read a book, take a bubble bath.”
“Easier said than done. Can you get a ride to your party? I don’t know when or if Bob is getting back and I have a job to do at the church. Well, if I have to, I could cancel but—”
“No need, I have a friend picking me up.”
She sighed, gathered her flannel nightshirt closer and gazed at the clock.
“You know, I think I will just rest for a while,” she said. She got up, somewhat awkwardly. She hadn’t inherited her mother’s grace, only her regular features and smile. A smile little in evidence lately. She turned and pursed her lips as a new thought seemed to cross her mind. She frowned.
“Who’s the friend you’re going to the party with?”
“Just an old friend, a piece of my childhood.” He regretted the use of the word
piece
.
“Who?” she said, not quite insisting.
“Well, if you must know, I’m going with Rosemary Mitchell.” He buried himself in the morning paper. He felt her eyes burning holes in the middle of the op-ed page.
“The friend who’s driving you around town while you do your
investigating—
that wouldn’t be Mrs. Mitchell, would it?”
He shrugged.
“And that someone from your past, the one you had a
conversation
with, that wouldn’t be Rosemary Mitchell, too?”
He lowered the paper. “Barbara, what’s the problem?”
She glared at him for what seemed a full minute. “Where’s Mom?” she hissed, and her tears began again.
“I don’t know why we have to do this so early.” She was tall and very blonde, the kind of blonde that usually comes from a bottle, but in her case, it was the real thing. He’d discovered that the night before when she came back to his room.
“You said you wanted to go hiking. We’re going hiking.”
The dead dry desert stretched to the horizon. The sun just cleared the mountains to the east. He squinted and said, “It’s supposed to hit triple figures again this afternoon. Morning is the only safe time for a beginner to tackle the desert. If we want to do ten miles, we have to start early. By noon, it’s going to be well over a hundred degrees out here.”
“Ten miles! You said, like, a hike. I don’t want to go….If I wanted to travel ten miles, I’d call a cab.”
“Well, let’s see how it goes. If it’s too much for you, we’ll turn back, okay?”
She rolled her eyes and smoothed her baggy shorts. They were his. She’d met only a few men whose waist matched hers. Most of the ones she dated were paunchy business men and agents. But this guy seemed nice, and Joey, her minder, had ticked her off, so she’d gone with him last night and then allowed him to talk her into this hiking thing. It must have been the line of coke she did in the bathroom before she let him seduce her. She had what she called her loose moments, usually after a snort.
“I have to pee,” she said.
“There’s a privy over there,” he said and pointed to the spot-a-pot on the edge of the pulloff.
“No thanks, those things stink.”
“Well, there’s nobody around. You could go behind a saguaro. Just don’t get too close.”
“I’ll use the facility.” It did have an odor, but not too bad. The dry air seemed to do something to spot-a-pots in the desert. She discarded her thong down the hole. She did not need that thing riding up on her, and she knew it would. A wedgie in the desert. “These thongs aren’t made for walking…” she sang.
“What?”
She watched him slather sunscreen on his arms and legs. “You next.” He handed her the bottle.
“What number?” she asked, inspecting the bottle and seeing no indicator.
“Forty. You need it out here.”
“How can you get a tan with forty? I never use anything stronger than fifteen. Usually, none at all. I’ll pass.”
“You’re not here to get a tan. You’re in the desert and the sun can fry you like an egg. Besides, if you don’t, you’ll have tan lines or worse, you’ll look like a dancing lobster. That won’t go too well on the runway, will it?”
He had a point. She did not need a farmer’s tan. And it would be pretty obvious two minutes into her act when she dropped the shortie raincoat and got down to the leopard skin bikini. She squeezed out the liquid and began to apply it.
“Get behind your knees,” he said. “People always forget that and then they are miserable.”
“You want to help me here?” She flashed him a smile.
“Sure. Where do you want me to put it?”
“Here.” She slid her shorts down.
He laughed and obliged. “I don’t think this part is in danger of sunburn.”
“Maybe not now, but who knows what might happen out there.”
He gave her a water bottle fitted with a belt clip and took a rucksack with three more and slung it over his back.
“Water?” She made a face. “I need coffee this time of day.”
“Coffee’s no good. It’s a diuretic and will speed the dehydration process. Water is what you get. One more thing,” he said, and produced a shapeless wide-brimmed hat and clapped it on her head.
“What’s this for?” She caught sight of her reflection in the SUV’s window. “I look like a bag lady.” The idea stopped her. She knew she needed to change her act. Everybody did what she did. Prance out in some fantasy costume, drop it piece by piece and work the pole. She needed a gimmick if she wanted to book into the big clubs, Vegas, maybe. A bag lady. She’d come out all hunched over in crappy clothes and the guys would boo maybe, or think it was comedy act, but then as she peeled off each layer of rags, they’d get it. Yeah, a bag lady—something like that—sweet.
“Let’s go,” he said.
She looked at the scrub brush, cacti, and air already shimmering off the desert floor and wondered what possessed her to agree to this craziness.
“You’re the doctor. I’m right behind you,” she replied, but without much conviction. They marched away from the parked car and made their way along a barely discernable path westward into the desert. It was already too hot for her.
***
An hour later, he slowed down. She had fallen twenty yards behind him. He stopped and waited for her to catch up. Her water bottle was nearly empty. She sat on a boulder and pulled off her cross trainers. She frowned in annoyance. The shoes used to be white but now were the same dun color as the desert floor. They were not the best things to hike in, but he made a point of staying on the level path. If she had been better equipped, he would have taken them farther east and hiked up a small mountain.
“Are you okay?” he asked. Then he saw the red marks on her feet, markings that would soon develop into a set of very nasty blisters. He dug around in the rucksack and found the moleskin he kept there in case something like this happened. He knelt in front of her and picked up one foot.
“Here, let me take care of that.” He cut strips of the soft fabric and applied it to her feet. “Where did you get these shoes, anyway?”
“I’ll have you know they are very expensive designer cross trainers,” she said and inspected one foot.
“Expensive, but very bad for your feet. Look at these marks. Next time you buy shoes, get ones that fit and are good for your feet, not ones with a fancy label. We have to get you back or you won’t be working tonight.”
“Will that stuff keep it from getting worse?”
“Yes, but I don’t want to take any chances. Besides, you look like you’ve had enough for one day.”
“Suits me,” she said and leaned back. “Let me rest a minute, then we can go back.”
He nodded and wandered a few yards farther along the path. He squinted and shaded his eyes against the sun and scanned the horizon. He focused on a large rock fifteen or twenty yards away. He couldn’t be sure but he thought he saw an inscription.
“Put your shoes on and come with me,” he shouted.
“I’m tired. Let me rest some more.”
“No, this is important. You can rest later. Come on.” He heard her grumble in the background and he set out toward the reddish boulder. She scrabbled up behind him.
“Look at that,” he said and pointed.
“Some kid scratched a picture on a rock. Big deal.”
“No, no, it’s a petroglyph.”
“Huh?”
“A picture carved into the rock by a Native American hundreds of years ago. Maybe longer.”
He walked closer to have a better look and stumbled over the canvas tarp. It had been bleached the same color as the gravel and sand around it. He gave it a kick and flipped the corner back. She screamed. At first, he thought a scorpion bit her. He had forgotten to warn her about scorpions. Then he saw what she saw.
The bones were yellow-brown and bits of clothing still clung to some, but insects and small animals had removed anything resembling either flesh or features.
“Shhh…” he said.
“Is it a person?” she whimpered.
He lifted the canvas a bit more. Insects scurried over the bones and away into the desert. He made out the distinct outlines of a pelvis and more fabric.
“Yes, I think so. I’m guessing a woman. We have to call the police.”
“Police?”
“Yeah. I’m just an anesthesiologist and a long way from freshman gross anatomy, but that jagged hole in the cranium is not supposed to be there.”
Her face took on the ashy expression one sees just before people faint. He grabbed her just as she collapsed and kept her from falling into a jumping cactus.
