Missing Marlene (10 page)

When Jane left the house ten minutes later it was bitter cold, that kind of perfectly still cold that penetrates deeply. She turned the car heater up all the way and drove with her gloves on.

The Roadside Tavern was just as busy as it had been on her first visit, but this time the music was at a bearable level. In the bar, the slight blond bartender leaned against the counter, chatting with two bearded young men in red-and-black-plaid lumber jackets. Intending to ask him where she could find Peter Mann, Jane stepped into the bar. The bartender glanced up and, to Jane’s surprise, came out from behind the bar and walked over to her.

“Heard you’re lookin’ for Marlene.”

“That’s right. Do you know her?”

He laughed as if she were crazy. “Everybody knows Marlene. Didja find her?”

“No. Any idea where she might have gone?”

He shook his head, his brow wrinkled in thought. “I was kinda surprised she left.”

“Why is that?”

“She always seemed to be having such a good time. I thought she liked this town. She go back home, d’you think? Where was it she’s from—Chicago?”

“Detroit. No, she didn’t go home. Tell me, uh . . .”

“Steve.”

“Steve. Do you think her breakup with Gil had anything to do with her leaving?”

He looked down at the bar, licked his lips nervously. “Wouldn’t know about that.”

“Apparently she wasn’t having such a good time after they broke up.”

“Mmm, really wouldn’t know.”

“Yo!” a man at the far end of the bar called to him.

“Sorry, better help this guy. Listen, when you find Marlene, tell her we really miss her. Tell her to come back and see her friends.”

“Will do,” Jane said. “Is Mr. Mann here tonight?”

“Peter? Yeah, he was in the dining room. Hey, Vicki!”

Jane turned and saw the waitress she’d spoken to on her first visit look up from a table she was waiting on at the front of the bar.

“Go get Peter,” Steve told her.

She gave him a resentful look but crossed the entryway to the dining room. A moment later she returned with Mann not far behind. Tonight he wore enormous baggy jeans and a white sweatshirt. When he saw Jane, his eyes grew wide in inquiry.

“You find Marlene?”

Jane shook her head. “May I speak to you?”

“Shoot.”

“Somewhere more private?”

“My office.” He led the way across the bar and through a door at the back into a tiny room paneled in knotty pine, furnished with only a desk and two battered metal chairs. “Make yourself at home.”

“Thank you.”

“Now, you wanted to ask me somethin’?”

“Yes. When I was here last week, Marlene’s friend Helen said Marlene and her boyfriend Gil broke up in your parking lot. That was only two days before Marlene left. I’m wondering if their breakup had anything to do with her leaving. Did you happen to hear them arguing?”

“Hell, yeah. He was makin’ so much noise I ran out to see what was goin’ on. Gil was screamin’ in Marlene’s face, and she was cryin’, beggin’ him for somethin’. But he wouldn’t have none of it. He just kept screamin’ at her.”

“What was he saying?”

Mann shook his head, laughed a little. “It’s gonna sound really weird, but the only two words I heard were ‘porn star.’”

He nodded. “Beats me what that meant. I think I don’t wanna know! Your Marlene, she is one unbelievably hot young thing. I wouldn’t put it past her . . .” He trailed off. “Anyway, right when I was comin’ out, Gil turned and walked away from Marlene. She kept cryin’ and beggin’ him, callin’ after him, but he got into his car and drove away. She just wandered off cryin’. It was pathetic. I went back inside.”

“Do you think anyone else might know what they were arguing about?”

“Don’t think so. There was no one else out there. I asked Helen, and she had no idea. I asked a few other people, but nobody knew.”

He leaned over to the door and pushed it shut. “Listen,” he said, his voice low. “I’m gonna tell you about some trouble I had with Gil and the police because I want you to know what the guy’s capable of. So you’ll look into possibilities, if you know what I mean.”

Jane nodded, waiting.

“About two weeks before this argument we’re talkin’ about, this guy named Vernon who comes here a lot must have come on to Marlene out in the parking lot. Marlene screamed, and Gil ran out to see what was goin’ on. He beat the livin’ shit out of Vernon, hurt him so bad Vernon ended up at St. Clare’s over in Denville. Didn’t come out for a while. You understand what I’m sayin’?”

This must be the incident Detective Greenberg had been referring to. “Yes, I understand,” Jane replied. “I’d like to speak to this Vernon. Any idea where I can find him?”

“Oh, he won’t know where Marlene went. She didn’t want nothin’ to do with him—gorgeous girl like her, nerdy guy like him.”

“Still, I’d like to talk to him.”

Mann shrugged. “Suit yourself. He works at Harmon’s —you know the building-supply store over in Boonton?”

“No, but I’ll find it.” Jane rose. They walked together through the bar to the entryway.

“I appreciate your help,” Jane said.

“Hey, no problem. I just hope you find Marlene. We miss her here.”

“Tell me,” Jane said. “Do you like Marlene?”

He looked at her and frowned, as if that was a strange question. “ ‘Course I like her. Everybody likes Marlene.”

“Why?”

“She’s a real party girl. And she’s a knockout! What’s not to like?”

Jane just shook her head and shrugged.

Sitting in the car in her coat and gloves, waiting for the air blasting from the vent to heat up, Jane regarded the entrance to the Roadside Tavern. A black pickup truck with a deep diamond-shaped dent in its side rumbled into the parking lot and a couple got out, a young man with a crew cut who wore only jeans and a black T-shirt, and a girl—she couldn’t have been more than seventeen—with a mop of black hair who wore a black micro-miniskirt and a purple halter top. From the look of them, it might have been July rather than the middle of October. They walked into the Tavern, the man far ahead of the girl, as if they were strangers.

Jane shivered, suddenly feeling old at thirty-eight. The car was just beginning to warm up. She put it in gear and drove out of the lot onto Highland.

Peter Mann’s perplexed voice seemed to echo in the dark car.
It’s gonna sound really weird, but the only two words I heard were ‘porn star.’

What on earth had Gil been talking about? Assuming, of course, that Mann had heard him correctly. If only Jane could just ask Gil—but she daren’t go near him again..

The most natural conclusion was that Marlene had been carrying on with Vernon, the man who had “come on” to Marlene and whom Gil had beaten up. But why would learning of Marlene’s affair with another man cause Gil to use the words
porn star?

Jane chewed her lower lip, pondering as she followed Highland Road’s frequent twists. What could Marlene have done that would have caused Gil to use those words? What did porn stars do?
Well,
Jane thought,
they have sex. Lots of it. Often with a variety of partners.

Like Roger, and Vernon, and Gil himself, and . . . ?

It was all too much to think about. Jane felt a dizzy headache coming on fast. She switched on her high beams and leaned forward in her seat, forcing herself to concentrate on the road ahead.

The next morning, Florence waved cheerily from the front steps as Jane backed out of the garage. Jane and Nick waved back.

Jane pulled onto Lilac Way and headed up the hill. “You’ve got your dollar for the fifth-grade bake sale?” she asked Nick.

“Yup, in my backpack. Why couldn’t you give me five dollars?”

“Too much sugar.”

“Florence said she’s going to bake an American apple pie.”

“How nice. You’re lucky to have Florence.”

“Yeah, she doesn’t care how much sugar I have.”

She’d have to have a word with Florence about that.

“Mom, drive faster. I’m going to be late.” Nick was leaning over the seat, staring at the clock in the dashboard, which read 8:12. School started at 8:15.

“Buckle up and stop worrying,” she said. “You’ve never been late yet.”

She turned onto Magnolia Lane, Roger’s street. As they passed the bungalow, she looked away. She continued along the winding road and came to Hawthorne Place, a short road leading off Magnolia that ended in a cul-de-sac at the edge of a cliff.

Suddenly Jane realized this must be the cliff Roger had been going on about at Audrey’s party. Parked at the cliff’s edge was a dump truck loaded high with building debris—a mountain of wood, plaster, and rock. A short bearded man stood beside the truck, gesticulating wildly as he spoke to the truck’s driver.

“Mom,” Nick whined, “why are you slowing down? Come
on
.”

She hadn’t realized she had slowed the car. At that moment the little man turned and saw Jane. To her dismay, he stomped over.

“Mom, what does he want?”

“I don’t know, darling. Hello,” Jane greeted the man. Up close he looked like a troll out of a fairy tale, with a red bulbous nose and a bushy gray beard that came halfway down his chest.

“If
you’re
thinking about dumping something here, you can forget it,” he said angrily.

Jane shook her head quickly in denial.

“I own this land. Don O‘Rourke, O’Rourke Development. You people can find someplace else to get rid of your shit.”

Nick giggled in the backseat.

“I have no intention of dumping anything here,” Jane said.

“Then why’d you stop?” Before she could reply, he rushed on. “I’m clearing this land, from the top here all the way down to the bottom of the cliff. Building luxury homes. I’ve got enough crap to get rid of down there without you people adding more, so you can just shove off.”

Furious, Jane opened her mouth to defend herself, then decided it wasn’t worth it. “Oh, for Pete’s sake!” she blurted out, and drove away, leaving him standing there. In the rearview mirror she saw Mr. O’Rourke watch her briefly, then stomp back to the dump truck.

“What an impossible man,” Jane fumed.

“He said ‘shit’ and ‘crap.’ ”

“I know it, darling. A very rude person.”

She drove quickly the rest of the way to school, but it was 8:17 when they arrived. Jane went in with Nick and explained to Mrs. Glenn that it was entirely Jane’s fault, that something had come up on the way. When Jane was finished explaining, Mrs. Glenn handed Nick a late pass. “Fill this out and give it to your teacher,” she said in her dead monotone.

Jane’s mouth fell open. “But I just told you it’s my fault.”

“Late is late,” Mrs. Glenn said, and returned to her desk.

“Thanks a lot, Mom.” Nick led the way out to the lobby. “My first tardy.”

“I’m so sorry, darling.” She kissed his head and watched him trudge down the corridor toward his classroom.

From Nick’s school Jane drove directly to Harmon’s Building Supply in Boonton, the town bordering the northwest end of Shady Hills. As she pulled into the parking lot, she realized she hadn’t told Daniel she’d be in late. Then she remembered he’d said he had a dentist appointment and wouldn’t be in till noon.

Harmon’s was a vast hardware warehouse that smelled of paint and fresh-cut lumber. Jane went directly to the customer-service desk.

“I’m looking for Vernon List.”

The woman at the counter referred to a chart on the wall. “Fasteners, aisle six.”

Jane thanked her and found aisle six. Halfway down, an elderly couple stood talking to a young man in a bright yellow Harmon’s apron. Jane went close enough to read his name tag: Vernon.

He was of medium height and average build. What first drew your attention was his hair, the wiry kind that’s impossible to do anything with. It stuck out from his head in strange brown lumps. His eyes were small and brown, his features unremarkable. He was neither handsome nor ugly, just an average young man one would have been unlikely to take much notice of if not for the raw-looking red scar running from his left temple to his jaw.

He finished with the couple, who bustled off with a handful of screws, and turned to Jane. “Need help?” He spoke in a dull monotone, totally lacking in effect, as if he were in a trance.

Jane found it difficult to imagine that Marlene would have been interested in this young man, bland of personality and appearance—certainly no comparison to the dangerous and handsome Gil Dapero.

“Yes. Mr. List, I—”

“How’d you know my last name?”

“I wonder if I could talk to you for a minute.”

He frowned. “About what?”

“Marlene Benson.”

He flinched, his mouth dropping slightly. “Marlene?”

“Yes. My name is Jane Stuart. Marlene took care of my little boy.”

“Yeah?”

“You probably know she’s gone away.”

He nodded. “So?”

“So I’m looking for her. Her mother and I are concerned. Do you have any idea where she might have gone?”

“Why would I?”

“I understand you were . . . interested in her. I heard about what happened with Gil Dapero.”

For the first time he showed some feeling, tilting his head and directly meeting her gaze as if willing her to believe what he was about to say. “Gil thought I was interested in her, but I wasn’t. I was just talking to her. Then he came out and went crazy.”

“What made him come out?”

He glared at her resentfully. “How the hell should I know? He came out. He thought I was comin’ on to her or something and”—he gently touched the scar on his face—“beat the shit out of me.”

“And that’s all that happened?” Jane asked.

“Yeah, that’s all.” His expression suggested that it was all as puzzling to him as it was to her.

“So you’re saying you have no idea where Marlene might have gone? You haven’t heard anything, maybe at the Tavern?”

“No, I haven’t heard anything. And I don’t go there anymore.”

“And the last time you saw her was when?”

“That night,” he whined. “When this happened.” He touched his cheek again. Then he frowned as a thought occurred to him. “How’d you know I work here?”

“Peter Mann told me.”

He nodded, shrugged.

Jane fished a business card out of her bag and handed it to him. “If you think of anything that might help us find her, will you please give me a call?”

“Yeah, sure,” he said, but from his belligerent expression she could tell he thought taking the card was pointless.