They headed back into town after that. Decker was sullen and quiet now, lost in a sea of dark thoughts. They spent the next few hours buying clothes for him, as he’d been forced to leave Georgetown without packing a thing. Then, they ended up back at the Jamaica House, where Decker took a nap, and Lulu wandered about the village asking questions. The day flew by. Before Decker knew it, it was already six o’clock and happy hour had started.
They avoided Jerry, the innkeeper, and his insistent crab cakes, and made their way down Route 30 toward Winhall. There was a local watering hole which they’d spotted earlier that boasted cheap wings and cheaper beer, and Decker was certain half the town would be there after work. And he was right. The place was packed full of locals. It seemed that the visiting ski crowd had yet to descend from the slopes.
In the end — although they split up and talked to as many people as they could — they didn’t learn anything new. No one seemed to know very much about Zimmerman, although everyone was convinced his death had been a simple car accident.
“Fox,” someone said, speculating on the animal that Zimmerman was trying to avoid on the highway. “Moose,” someone else said. “No, it was obviously a beaver since he drowned in a beaver pond.” And so it went, back and forth.
“I almost skidded off the road there just a day or two earlier,” someone added dramatically. “Beaver came up out of the pond. I tried to avoid him and skidded. Bang! Hit the railing but didn’t punch through, thank goodness. It’s a dangerous bend.” And someone else added, “And you drive a Toyota as well.”
Someone said the accident had occurred in Jamaica but Chief Brody of the Winhall Police had insisted on taking the case as Zimmerman lived in his jurisdiction. And, strangely, said Lulu, reporting back from a chat with yet another talkative bar fly, the police chief from Jamaica had agreed. “How convenient,” she sneered, raising an eyebrow.
Decker pointed at a corner booth and they moved from the bar with their pitcher and wings.
No sooner were they seated than an anorexic waitress with thinning bleached blond hair trailing the scent of cigarettes appeared out of nowhere and told them they had to order real food if they wanted to stay in the booth.
“Sure,” Lulu said. “We’ll stay. Bring over some menus. You’re okay with that, right, Tony?”
“As long as they’ve got a good steak,” Decker answered. “I feel like red meat tonight. You got a good steak, sweetheart? Plus, a nice iceberg wedge. With plenty of blue cheese?”
“Best in town.”
When the waitress had gone, Lulu said, “Funny. Didn’t take you for a red meater. You look more like a chicken breast and occasional fish kind of guy.”
“Usually I am. But, sometimes, I just get a craving. You know.”
“Guess you can’t always judge an e-Book by its jpeg,” she said.
Decker laughed. “What’s behind your jpeg, Sarah Lee? Since we’re stuck here together. What’s your story? Where were you born? Where’d you grow up?”
“Born in China,” she said. “In Shanghai. My father was a government statistician and, later, a college professor. But he fell out of favor with the Party after doing too candid a census of earthquake victims and releasing it to the academic world, and our family was forced to flee China for Hong Kong when I was twelve.”
Later, Lulu continued, they moved to Boston, where her father set up a barely successful green grocery business, selling mostly ethnic vegetables to Chinese restaurants… and working as a bookie on the side.
“Like me, my Dad was facile with numbers.” Three years later, due to excellent grades — not to mention a generous scholarship — Lulu entered MIT at fifteen.
“Your folks must be proud of you,” Decker said.
“My Dad died two years ago. But my Mom’s still alive,” Lulu said. “She lives out in Lexington now. She’s… I guess she’s proud of me. Kind of old school. She’s squicked by my piercings and tats, though.”
“Squicked?”
“Grossed out. Disgusted. You know.”
Though still haunted by Emily’s death, Decker found himself strangely attracted to Lulu. But it wasn’t romantic or sexual, he told himself. He just wanted to let go of the pain in his heart, to feel human again. And, for some reason, he felt comfortable in her presence. Despite her odd combination of beauty and self-mutilation. Despite her tininess and that mysterious cast to her eyes.
“How about you?” she said, changing the subject. “Where were you raised? How’d you end up at the NCTC?”
“Born in Davenport, Iowa. The Quad Cities,” said Decker. “My Dad was a cop, my Mom a librarian. But they died in a car accident when I was fifteen, and I was raised by my aunt and her husband Tom in nearby Bettendorf. Went to Northwestern, where I majored in mathematics; minored in languages. After college and a two-year stint on the Bettendorf Police Force, I applied to the FBI and became a Cryptanalyst Forensic Examiner. Spent my first eighteen months with the Racketeering Records Analysis Unit in D.C., before being transferred to Chicago. Eventually joined the Joint Terrorism Task Force in New York.”
“That’s where you were based during the El Aqrab incident?”
Decker nodded. He waited for the normal questions about his role in preventing a mega-tsunami from destroying the Eastern Seaboard but they never came. Instead, Lulu asked him, “What was it like being raised by your aunt and uncle in Iowa? I mean… you know. Losing your parents and all. Being orphaned like that?”
“They did what they could,” Decker answered. “Where the hell is that steak?” He searched the room for their waitress.
For a moment, neither of them spoke. Then, when Lulu continued to stare at him, waiting, he said, “My uncle and I are still close. That’s why I called him when I needed someone to look after Becca.” He stared back at Lulu. “What about you? You never did tell me your story about getting frostbite. What was it like escaping from the People’s Republic of China?”
His words had their desired effect and Decker felt surprisingly shamed by his tactics. They both had their secrets. There were things he remembered that he would have given practically anything to forget. But no matter how buried, they lingered. Something had happened to Lulu during her childhood escape to Hong Kong, something she didn’t want to remember. It was always a source of great wonder to Decker that the things which were essentially formless cast the longest shadows.
“One night,” she said quietly, “I got separated from my parents in the north Wuyi range near Nanping, in Fujian. We were en route south from Shanghai, traveling through the mountains rather than on the more popular coastal roads. I… I was forced to sleep outside and it snowed, which is pretty rare there. Anyway, when I woke up, my fingers were frozen. Almost lost them. To this day,” she said, waving her hand, “they get cold really easily. Get all numb and start throbbing.” She smiled but there was a glimmer of pain in her eyes. “How come you became a codebreaker?” she asked him.
Decker gave his normal reply, how he liked the order it lent to seemingly random objects or events. “I guess I enjoy solving puzzles,” he said. “You know. Seeing patterns. Profiling based on disparate data. I guess my brain is a good relevance-making machine.”
“You mean it helps you stay in control” she replied. “A safe distance away.”
“Perhaps.” She sounds just like Emily, Decker thought. That’s what his wife used to say.
“Excuse me a second,” said Lulu. She slipped out of the booth. “Be right back.” She made her way toward the bathroom.
Their food came soon thereafter and, after waiting another five minutes or so for her to return, Decker finally got up to see where Lulu had gone. He rounded the bar and spotted her talking on her cellphone by the corridor leading to the kitchen. She didn’t see him and he headed back to their table immediately, without even fetching her. She reappeared moments later.