Occasion of Revenge (17 page)

I tucked the photo of Daddy and Darlene into my purse, stuffed the others back into the packet with the negatives, and closed the packet up in my glove compartment.

With no clear plan in mind, I drove across the parking lot, waited for the light to change at Riva Road, turned left, and took the exit to 665 heading toward Baltimore.

As the car hummed north along I-97, Ms. Bromley’s words lingered in my ears:
Pretend to be your father. Think like he’d think
.

Officer Younger told me that Daddy’s rental car had been found in the Blue long-term parking lot. I made the twenty-minute drive in fifteen, pulled up to the turnstile, punched the button for a ticket, and drove into the gigantic parking lot.
Now what, Ms. B.?

For ten minutes, I meandered around the lot looking for a parking space, cursing all holiday travelers and their children and their children’s children. A shuttle bus squealed to a stop in front of me and I waited, tapping the steering wheel impatiently, until everyone had gotten off. I followed a man dragging a small suitcase to his car parked near the chain link fence paralleling the road. After he drove off with a friendly salute in my direction, I pulled into his slot, parked, and stepped out of the car. I locked the door and leaned against a fender.

OK, Daddy. Where did you go?

There weren’t many options. He could have walked across the busy highway to the Green lot, but what for? A few lots away was the Park ’n’ Go. Nothing much of interest there, either. If Daddy’d been ambitious, he might have trudged to the Holiday Inn or to the gas station convenience store about a mile down the road, but that didn’t seem very likely.

As I waited there, thinking, another airport shuttle bus pulled up at a kiosk two rows away.
Daddy must have taken the bus!
Barring LouElla’s alien acquaintances, there were no other options. I made a dash for the vehicle, but it pulled out just as I got there, so I sat down on the bench, panting, to wait for the next one. In less than five minutes, another bus showed up.

The doors swooshed open and I climbed aboard, settling into a seat behind the driver, an attractive woman in her early thirties with café-au-lait skin and thick fringed eyelashes. Before the bus could get underway, I showed her the picture. “I’m looking for my father. He may have been here last Saturday night or Sunday morning. Have you seen him?”

The driver glanced at the picture and shook her head. “Nope.”

“How many bus drivers are on duty at any given time?”

She shrugged. “Dunno.” Keeping those lovely lashes trained straight ahead, she eased the bus into gear and pressed down on the accelerator.

“What’s the best way to get in touch with them?” I asked as the bus lurched forward.

“Most of the guys are on duty right now.” She took the bus up to ten miles per hour, then began to slow as she approached the next kiosk. “Why don’t you just ask around?”

“Thanks,” I said. When the bus ground to a halt, I hopped off and sat on the bench in the kiosk, waiting for the next bus to come along.

I showed Daddy’s picture to every bus driver who stopped at my kiosk. No luck. When the lady with the fringed eyelashes came by again, I hopped on her bus for a ride to the terminal.

“Any luck?” the driver asked.

“ ’Fraid not.”

At the next stop, while she waited for the passengers to heave themselves aboard and stow their luggage in the racks, she said, “Too bad, and Christmas comin’, too.”

I had to agree.

She stretched in her seat to glare at someone in the rearview mirror. “Can’t block the doorway!” she yelled. “Move that bag.”

I got out with the passengers heading for flights on American Airlines, walked through the automatic doors, and just stood there in the Christmas chaos. Someone speaking Cantonese or Swahili announced a gate change, and I nearly got run over by two elderly ladies pushing a luggage cart and a mother with twins in an oversized stroller. A family of six bore down on me with a baggage cart the size of a Volkswagen. I leapt out of the way just in time to keep from being crushed against the red tile wall. “Merry Christmas!” I warbled as they rumbled by me without the slightest twinkle of Christmas in their eyes.

At Pier C I found a spot out of the traffic and leaned back against the wall near the sunglasses concession, watching the holiday insanity going on all around me and trying not to hyperventilate.
What would Daddy do?

He would have suggested to that ponytailed punk slouched against his suitcase that he straighten up and get a haircut; helped that elderly woman with her shopping bags; patiently explained to that violinist that busking wasn’t allowed, then given him an extravagant wink and dropped a dollar into the hat at his feet; hurled a few
expletives deleted
at that tour group of boisterous teenagers blocking the aisle so that nobody could get by … and then he’d have a drink.

But nobody’d seen Daddy at the various bars and restaurants around the airport; in case he’d opted for less intoxicating fare, I checked Starbucks, Cinnabon, and Roy Rogers with equal lack of success.

On a hunch, I followed a pathway of lights set in
the floor to an elevator that took me to the observation deck. I watched two Southwest planes take off, their skins glowing orange and tan in the setting sun. I felt soothed, somehow, by the all-consuming roar of the jets and by the wind, surprisingly warm for this time of year, as it lifted my hair and howled past my ears. But I didn’t feel the presence of my father anywhere there.

I knew it would be a waste of time to check the airlines and the rental car agencies; the police had been there ahead of me with powers of persuasion far greater than mine. In a funk, I walked all the way to the end of the International Pier and realized Daddy could have taken the light rail all the way to Baltimore, getting off at any one of a number of stops. That got me so depressed that I looked around for a place to sit down, but nobody had thought to install any benches. No benches! This made me just as mad as it would have made my father. I leaned against the wall and pouted. Then I paced back and forth in front of the fare machines.

When I stopped fuming long enough to actually look at a fare machine, I threw up my hands in frustration. Even if you knew where you were going, the damn thing was so complicated that even I would have lost patience with it in five seconds flat. There was no way Daddy’d ever have been able to put in the right amount of money, punch the right button, and produce a usable ticket.

So, what did he do?

I walked down a level and strolled back along the sidewalk to the baggage claim area, watching curiously as courtesy vans for the various rental cars agencies and local hotels cruised by. Blue-and-yellow SuperShuttles to Washington and Baltimore pulled up
on a regular basis. Buses for the satellite parking lots passed me, and taxis came, one after another, and a few limousines.
Holy cow!
I thought.
You can go anywhere from here!

When the bus to the BWI train station shuddered to a halt in front of me, my heart did a flip-flop. Daddy loved trains. As much as trains had been modernized since he was a lad, he was fond of saying, thank God no one had engineered out that comforting, soothing
clack-a-tah, clack-a-tah, clack-a-tah
. I stood there like a dummy, staring at the bus. Would Daddy have taken a train? From the BWI train station one could catch an Amtrak train to anywhere on the eastern seaboard. A man could easily lose himself in New York City or Boston or Philadelphia.

I hopped aboard the courtesy bus and rode the short distance to the train station, where a substantial queue of people jostled each other in their eagerness to board the bus I had just gotten off. I wandered into the station, which was small and nearly square, with enough molded gray plastic seats to accommodate about twenty people. To my left stood a coffee wagon; straight ahead lay the ticket counter.

I grabbed a train schedule and took a place in line behind a blue-jeaned student carrying a ragged backpack. From the schedule I realized Daddy could have gone anywhere from here, all the way from Boston to Fort Lauderdale with transfers west at any number of cities in between. He could be halfway to California by now. I made a note to ask the police: Had he used his credit card? The ATM?

When the student left the window, tucking his ticket into a back pocket, I stepped up and showed Daddy’s picture to the blue-shirted agent, who glanced
up from his electronic keyboard only long enough to give it a cursory glance and say, “Sorry, miss.”

“Look again? Please?”

He met my gaze. “Nope.”

Disappointed, I turned and surveyed the room. Under the automated schedule board, self-serve ticket machines lined the wall. Behind me were the rest rooms and on the opposite wall, some vending machines. I decided that if Daddy had done any waiting in this room, he would have bought some coffee, so I joined the line at the coffee wagon.

When it was my turn, I ordered a medium coffee and showed the woman who handed it to me Daddy’s picture. She studied it for a while, holding the snapshot in one hand while absentmindedly wiping the counter with her other. “Nope. Don’t ever recall seeing that guy.” I winced as she laid the picture down on the damp counter in front of her, thought for a minute, then tapped it with a lacquered fingernail. “But that woman there. I’ve seen her before.”

I was beginning to wonder what on earth Darlene had been doing at the BWI train station when I looked more closely and saw that it was LouElla’s face the server was pointing to. In the photograph, LouElla stood behind Darlene, just to her left, and was talking to Dr. McWaters. I tried to steady my breathing. “Are you sure?”

She chuckled. “Who’d forget
that
hairdo!”

“When did you see her?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Couple of days ago.” Her eyebrows suddenly disappeared behind a fringe of bangs. “Wait a minute! I remember now. It was after lunch, because she complained that the coffee was too
weak, so it must have been last Sunday, the day the coffee machine broke down.”

She pushed the picture toward me. I picked it up carefully, wiped the back on my slacks, and returned it to my purse with thoughts tumbling around in my brain and crashing into each other at one hundred miles per hour.
What the hell was LouElla doing here on Sunday afternoon? Taking Daddy to the train? Following him?

I didn’t realize I’d spoken out loud until the woman answered me. “Damned if I know.”

chapter
12

By the next morning, I had decided to take
the direct approach and simply ask LouElla about it. But I’d forgotten that Emily and Dante were house-hunting again, this time in Port Royal, Virginia, and I’d volunteered to watch Chloe.

By nine o’clock, Chloe had finger-painted with warm oatmeal on the high chair tray and played how-many-times-will-Grandma-pick-up-the-bottle-if-I-throw-it-on-the-floor, but I was distracted and knew I couldn’t rest until I had talked to LouElla.

I tried to telephone to let her know we were coming, but the operator told me that her number was unlisted. LouElla probably didn’t want the CIA to get ahold of it. So I wrestled the car seat into the back of my Le Baron, strapped Chloe into it, and took off for Chestertown.

Luckily I found a parking spot on Church Lane directly under a plum tree and opposite the Geddes-Piper House which also served as the Historical Society of Kent County. I unbuckled Chloe, threaded her legs
into the circular openings in a Gerry pack, and eased her onto my back, one strap at a time.

At LouElla’s, I rang the bell, but nobody answered. Maybe she was in her garden. I walked around the corner and along Court Street, peering through the slats in the fence that surrounded her backyard.

LouElla was there, kneeling on a thick pad of newspaper, digging up a small garden plot with her trowel. As I watched with my eyes glued to the one-half-inch gap in the fence, she took an object from a box, stood it upright in the hole she had just dug, and patted the earth snugly around it.

“Mrs. Van Schuyler?”

LouElla looked up, then around, confused about where the voice was coming from.

“It’s me. Hannah Ives. I’m over by the fence.” I waved my hand high in the air.

LouElla stood and beamed in our direction. “Oh, my! How delightful to see you! Delightful!” She wiped her hands on a wide blue apron and plodded over to the fence. I stepped back as one blue-violet eye loomed large between the slats in front of me. “And Chloe! This is my lucky day! You must have come to see my garden.”

A gloved hand shot over the fence with an index finger pointing southward. “There’s a gate down at that end. Meet me there.”

With Chloe in the backpack playing Vidal Sassoon with my hair, I made my way to the gate and waited while our hostess undid a series of locks. After a minute of ominous clicking and clacking, the gate swung open. “Come in, come in.”

LouElla stood on a flagstone path that curved away from us toward the back of her house, where it joined
a twelve-by-twelve-foot patio. Speedo lay on the patio in a spot of sun in front of a sliding glass door that led inside. When he caught sight of me, he scrambled to his feet and wagged his tail energetically. Chloe hooted with delight.

LouElla spoke directly to Chloe. “And I have something to show
you
, precious.” She crooked her finger and led us over to the plot of ground she had been working on. I stood over the freshly turned earth, completely robbed of my power of speech. Eight Barbie dolls, bare-chested and variously coiffed, stood in a row, buried in the dark soil up to their waists. In a box nearby, at least a dozen more Barbies lay, awaiting planting. What exactly did LouElla expect to reap, I wondered, particularly since Ken seemed to be nowhere in the vicinity?

“Da-da-da,” said Chloe.

I swiveled my head to look at my granddaughter. “You took the words right out of my mouth, Chloe.

“Golly, LouElla,” I said at last. “You must be very proud.”