The Incumbent (3 page)

“Go away.” She tried to walk around me. Her head was down; blond hair hung around her young face, shielding it from view.

“No. Not until we talk.” I took her by the arms. “Look at me, Celeste. Look at me.” She did and I could see the pain. Water streaked her skin—water that had nothing to do with the rain. “Where are you going?”

“I don’t know . . . Away.”

“Away to where?” I tightened my grip, fearing she would bolt.

“Away from here. I can’t stay here. I can’t . . . I can’t . . .” The sobs came from the deepest place of sorrow, from the abyss of hopelessness. “She’s gone. She’s dead. I’m alone.” Her shoulders began to shake.

I pulled her close, wrapping my arms around her. Her weeping came in waves that pounded the shore of my resolve. The sky seemed to be grieving with the young woman. Water ran down my forehead and face. I could feel my hair sag under the weight of it, and I felt the cold of the wind, but I was determined not to move until Celeste was ready.

chapter 2

I
hadn’t gone into the house. There was no need. Chief Webb had told me what they found and that was good enough for me. My concern was Celeste. With her father in another state and her mother missing, she was alone. I had decided to take her to my place. I could make her comfortable and relay any information from the police. It was the least I could do.

Celeste had protested at first but without conviction. She was emotionally beat down—a dry leaf in a hot August wind. Who wouldn’t be? There are few feelings worse than abject helplessness.

Chief Webb had offered to drive us to my home, but I had insisted on picking up my car. I saw no need in taking an officer off the street just to save the few minutes it would take to drive by City Hall. Once Celeste and I were in my car, I made the thirteen-minute drive to my place.

My home sits on the beach. It is large, spacious, with entirely too many rooms for a woman who lives alone. I never planned to be alone. The house remains my source of comfort. It is a world unto itself. I work hard to make sure the reality of the outside never seeps through the exterior walls. My husband called the place his Fortress of Solitude. He read too many Superman comics as a kid.

Like many houses that line the coast, this one was built in the late seventies, an era when diagonal cedar siding was in. It is three thousand square feet of open space, with one room flowing into another, and only bathrooms and bedrooms constructed for complete privacy. Most of the lower floor is one big room with areas delineated by flooring and counters. Upstairs are four bedrooms, each with their own bathroom. My home office is also there, in what once was a game room. It’s an ample space, with large windows that overlook the rolling surf, and small panes facing the street.

The house was my husband’s dream. I grew up in much smaller digs and had been content. I’d never known poverty, but my father’s salary from the university, and my mother’s income as a high school teacher, was not nearly enough to pay for any house on the beach, let alone one this size. My husband’s family was a different matter.

I married Peter in my senior year of college. We both attended San Diego State University, where he was a year ahead of me. He had grown up in San Diego. Athletic and intelligent, he excelled in college and even made the baseball team, playing second base. After he took his degree in business, he joined his father’s company—Glenn Structural Materials—a manufacturing firm that makes flooring for commercial buildings. “Yup,” Peter used to say, “the rich and powerful walk all over our product.” His eyes twinkled when he said such things. His eyes always twinkled, and not a day goes by that I wouldn’t give up everything for just one more twinkle. Just one.

Eight years ago Peter was in Los Angeles on business. Nothing unusual in that. Most of the company’s product went into high-rise buildings. Peter was often on the road. In the last two years of our marriage I filled my time with city council work. It gave me a strong sense of purpose and passed the lonely hours.

At 10:12 that evening the phone rang.

“Mrs. Glenn?” The voice was polite and professional. It melted my strength away like a blowtorch on butter. No call after ten o’clock that begins, “Mrs. Glenn” could be good. This wasn’t. A police officer, in succinct but kind words, told me that Peter was gone, the victim of a carjacking gone bad. “He was shot,” the officer said. The words pummeled me. I told myself there was no way this could be true, yet I knew it was. I knew before I picked up the phone.

I was a widow at thirty.

The years have muted the pain, but I still hate the ringing of a phone at night.

Peter’s company had carried a large life insurance policy on him. The money was enough for me to pay off the house. My father-in-law still ran the company and still paid Peter’s salary. All that had changed was the name on the “To:” line. I told him the checks weren’t necessary. “Yes, they are,” Peter’s dad said. “I would have paid him anyway. This way I feel like I’m helping and . . . for the moment it takes to sign the check, I feel as if Peter is still alive.”

I’ve never brought the checks up again.

“Is this okay?” Celeste asked.

I was sitting on the floor of the living room, in front of the fireplace. The blaze warmed my body but could not drive the chill of memory away. Celeste had come down the stairs and was standing on the last step. Damp from the rain, I had shown her my closet and helped her find something comfortable. She was dressed in a blue sweatshirt with a Yale University emblem. I collected college sweatshirts. Why? For the same reason people collect saltshakers. I don’t know why, I just do. The sweatshirt was a little large on her. Although we were close to the same height, I still had an inch on her and almost two decades of life.

Celeste wore her body like most nineteen-year-old girls. She had grown into a woman but still retained a bit of a youthful spindle-look. She tugged at the jeans she wore; like the sweatshirt, they were mine. I recognized them. They were the pair that seemed a little too snug lately. She pulled them up again.

“It’s great. Do you feel warmer?”

“A little.” She lowered her head, as if making eye contact would crack the dam of emotional control she was trying so hard to shore up.

“Come sit down by the fire,” I said, patting the floor. “It’ll help dry our hair—of course, we’ll both end up with a terminal case of the frizzes.”

She smiled. Even across the room I could tell it was forced. I’ve forced many a smile in my day. Celeste crossed the carpeted floor, passed the white leather sofa and the wrought iron end tables, and came to my side. There she crossed her ankles and lowered herself like an elevator until she was seated cross-legged on the floor—a maneuver that would have broken something in me.

We stared at the orange and yellow flames, watching them dance like leprechauns on St. Paddy’s day. “I find fires relaxing,” I said. “They help me think.”

Celeste placed her elbows on her knees, cradled her round face in her hands, and gazed into the fireplace. I could see the light sparkle in her blue eyes.

I wanted to ask questions, but everything I could think of seemed insipid. “How was your day?” seemed inappropriate. I also knew that the police had questioned her thoroughly; she didn’t need another round of inquiries from me.

“Will they call if they learn anything?” she asked softly. She had begun rocking.

“Yes, they know to call here.”

“The waiting is hard.” There was a tremor in her voice. “I don’t like waiting.”

“Me either. A two-minute egg takes two minutes too long.”

She didn’t respond for a moment. Then she looked at me. “Do you think she is . . . I mean, do you think my mom is . . .”

I placed a hand on her knee. “I don’t know. We still have hope.”

“I don’t know what I’ll do if she’s . . . dead.” The tears washed over her lids and down her face.

“It’s too early to worry about that.” My own eyes were starting to swim. “For now, you’re welcome to stay with me. I have plenty of room.”

“Mom liked . . . likes you.” She fixed her eyes on the fire, as if mesmerized by the flame. “She said you were the smartest person she ever met, man or woman.”

“I like her. Her good work made my election possible.”
Great
,
I
sound like a politician.
“What I mean is, she went above and beyond the call of duty. I always felt comfortable around her. I can’t say that about everyone.”

“You mean like Chief Webb?”

We exchanged glances.
It couldn’t be that obvious.
“What do you mean?”

“Mom said you two don’t like each other. How come?”

I hadn’t expected that. “It’s not that we don’t like each other; we just have different views. As mayor, I had to make some hard decisions and he didn’t like them.”

“Does he want your job?”

I chuckled. “A lot of people want my job, but Chief Webb isn’t one of them. He dislikes politicians. He’s mad at me for other reasons.”

“Like what?”

“Money, for one thing. The Police Department always needs more money.”

She nodded. “The police didn’t get the money they wanted?”

“Not all of it. The city didn’t have the funds. We did what we could.”

Celeste continued to rock, then asked, “Could they find my mother better if they had the money?”

The question pierced me. “No, sweetheart. That has nothing to do with this. The money they wanted was going to other things, like new radios and such. The police are doing everything possible to find your mother. They’ll ask for help from others if necessary. Chief Webb has a chip on his shoulder when it comes to me, but I’ve never known him to shirk his duty.”

Rocking, rocking, and more rocking.

“Did you hear me, Celeste?”

“Yes.”

“Everything is being done that can be done.”

“I miss her.” She sniffed and ran a hand across her cheek. I leaned back and found the box of Kleenex I keep near the sofa. I handed her one and then took one for myself.

“I know you do,” I said. I love words. They’re powerful, even life-changing. Now they were as weak as the tissue I held.

“We aren’t like other families.” Celeste blew her nose. “Most kids my age fight with their parents. Maybe it’s because Dad left us, but we never fought, never. All my friends can’t wait to move out of their homes; I can never wait to get home. She made it warm and safe. I . . . guess it wasn’t so safe after all.”

I put my arm around her and pulled her close. My chest tightened. “Do you need to call your dad?” I wondered why I hadn’t thought about it before.

“No. The police called him. I doubt he cares.”

I started to contradict her, but what did I know? The man did pack up and leave.

“He’s in Texas, isn’t he?”

“Galveston.”

“Do you ever see him?”

“No, and I don’t want to. It hurt Mom when he left. She used to cry all the time. I can’t forgive him for that.”

I nodded. This conversation was doing nothing to ease her distress. “How about some hot chocolate?” She agreed and I struggled to my feet. “Would you rather sit on the sofa?”

She shook her head and returned her gaze to the fire. Watching her sitting on the floor, eyes fixed on something only she could see, flooded my soul with maternal instincts. The sudden force of the emotion surprised me. I wanted to take her in my arms and assure her that everything was fine, that it would all work out. But everything wasn’t fine, and there was a good chance none of this would work out. Celeste could be a functional orphan at the age of nineteen. Nineteen was pretty close to adult but still young enough for a girl to need her mother.

I went to the kitchen and poured milk in a saucepan to heat. I could have nuked a couple of cups in the microwave, but this gave me time to think. What was I to do with Celeste? Having her in the house was no problem. There was more than enough room and I would appreciate a little company, but what of the long term?

As I stirred the white liquid, more questions came to mind. Why Lisa? Was it a burglary? Had she brought a stranger home? I knew little of what the crime scene was like, yet had gleaned enough from Webb to know there had been a brief struggle, but not the kind that leaves a room in shambles. And what of the blood? How does that happen? Four drops forming a square. That was certainly premeditated. Why my card? Surely that was just coincidence. Lisa must have had my card out for some reason, and the attacker or attackers used it to leave their appalling little message.

That was problematic, also. Why bother with such a macabre effort? Not only was it a sick thing to do, it took time. I shuddered to think of where the blood may have come from.

I poured the milk into a pair of mugs and mixed in a few spoonfuls of Ovaltine. Disturbing images swirled in my mind, like the chocolate in the milk. I tried to evict the mental pictures but they were persistent, digging their heels into my gray matter. An act of unknown violence had been committed against a woman, and as a lifetime member of that lodge, I felt a vicarious terror. And if I felt it, I knew Celeste must be awash in fear. More troubling still was the realization that there was nothing I or anyone could do about it. There was no unwinding the clock. Even if Lisa were found alive and well in the next ten minutes, the events—real and imagined—had already left searing scars in the mind.

I walked back into the living room with the mugs in hand. As I neared, I saw Celeste wiping tears from her face. The sight ripped away what little remained of my shredded detachment. Celeste sat alone on the floor, for the moment more child than adult. No matter how close I sat, no matter how much I tried to infuse my presence into her loneliness, she would still be as lost as a dingy adrift in the middle of the sea.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered as I set the mugs on the hearth and retook my place on the floor.

“There’s nothing to apologize for.”

“I’m trying to be strong.”

I put an arm around her. “Stop trying.”

Celeste rested her head on my shoulder. She smeared a tear, sniffed, and then plummeted into convulsive sobbing.

A moment later I joined her.