His house was orderly. The hardwood floor gleamed under a coat of varnish, and there were rugs with what looked to her like Navajo designs in the places where people walked the most. It was not a new house. The floor creaked under her weight and she could see faint ceiling stains where the roof had leaked. The room was steeped in ancient smoke. It had soaked into the drapes and walls and furniture, and in here it had no hint of flavor. They were both chain-smokers, she thought, remembering her parents and what her childhood had smelled like. They smoked what they liked when they had it, but if times were tough, they’d sweep the dust off“ the floor and roll a tobacco paper around that.
He had a homemade going in the ashtray and a coffee cup that still had almost a full head of steam. His living room was narrow and long. It opened out to the front deck and a secondary hall led away to the right, probably to a bedroom. She turned and looked at him. He was a rugged guy in his sixties. His hair was slate gray, his skin the leathery brown of a cowboy or a farmer. His demeanor was flat, the last thing she expected after hearing his forceful voice on the telephone recording. He had a curious habit of avoiding eye contact: he almost looked at you but not quite. He seemed to gaze past her left shoulder as she told him her name for the fourth time. He sat without offering her a chair and made no move to offer coffee as he leaned forward and sipped his own.
She grappled toward an opening. “I’ve heard a lot about Nola.”
What a bad start, she thought, but it seemed to make no real difference to him. His eyes lit up at the mention of the name; then his mind lost its focus and he looked around the room. He flitted his eyes across her face, stopping on a spot somewhere behind her head. But he didn’t say anything and she came toward him slowly and sat on a hard wooden chair facing him. His eyes followed her down, but he kept looking slightly behind her, always picking up something just behind her left ear. There’s nothing back there , she wanted to say, but she didn’t.
Then he spoke. “Who…did you say you are?”
“Trish Aandahl…I write for the Seattle Times .”
“Why did you come here? Did you bring Nola back with you?”
There’s something wrong with this guy, she thought. He acted like the prototype for all the dumb jokes you heard kicking around. One shovel short of a full load . She didn’t know how to talk to him, but she made the long reach and said, “I’m going to try to find her, Mr. Jeffords.”
“Good.” He gave what passed for a smile. “Real good.”
He blinked at whatever held his attention behind her head and said, “I want to see her real bad.”
“I want to see her too.”
“She was here.”
“Was she?”
“Yeah. Nola Jean.”
“When was she here?”
“Soon.”
This guy’s from the twilight zone, she thought. She leaned back in her chair and smiled. “When will Mrs. Jeffords be home?”
“She’s gone to the store.”
“When will she be back?”
“Grocery shopping.”
She would have to wait until Mrs. Jeffords returned and, hopefully, gave her something coherent. The thought of entertaining Jeffords until then was less than thrilling, but she had done heavier duty for smaller rewards than this story promised.
Then she looked in his face and knew what his Problem was. She had seen it before, and the only mystery was why it had taken her so long to figure it out.
The recording on the telephone was an old one—a year, maybe two years or more.
Charlie Jeffords had Alzheimer’s.
Her next thought chilled her even as she thought it.
She was thinking of the gunplay the night of the break-in, and what Eleanor had said. I never fired a gun in my life . . .
She thought of Mrs. Jeffords and the temperature in the room dropped another ten degrees. Goose bumps rose on her arms and she hugged herself and leaned forward in the chair.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to wait for your wife.”
“Aren’t you gonna bring Nola Jean back?”
“I’d like to. Would you like to help me?”
He didn’t say anything. She took a big chance and reached for his hand.
He looked into her eyes, his lips trembling.
“Nola,” he said.
She squeezed his hand and he burst into tears.
He sobbed out of control for a minute. She tried to comfort him, as much as a stranger could. She held his hand and gently patted his shoulder and desperately wanted to be somewhere else. This was the curse of Alzheimer’s: even as it eats away your brain, you have times of terrible clarity. Charlie Jeffords knew exactly what was happening to him.
“Mr. Jeffords,” she said.
He sniffed and sat up and released her hand.
“The night the trouble happened. Can you tell me about that?”
He didn’t say anything. She pushed ahead. “That girl who broke in. Do you remember what she wanted?”
“Her book.”
“What book?”
“Came for her book back.”
“What book?”
“She wanted her book back.”
“What was the book?”
“I been holding it for her.”
“Whose book was it?”
“Nola’s.”
“Wasn’t it Grayson’s book? Wasn’t that Darryl Grayson’s book, Mr. Jeffords?”
“It’s Nola’s book. Gave it to me to hold.”
She leaned forward. He tried to look away but she wouldn’t let him.
“I’m tired,” he said.
Damn, she thought: don’t know what’s real anymore.
She tried again. “Mr. Jeffords…”
But that was as far as she got. Through the front curtain she saw a pickup truck pull into the yard.
Mrs. Jeffords was home.
She left Charlie Jeffords there on the couch. She hurried down the hall and let herself out the back way.
There’d be time enough later to think back on it. She’d have a lifetime to wonder if she’d acted like a frightened fool.
Now all she wanted was to put some distance between herself and the woman in the truck.
She stood on the back porch, flat against the wall, listening for some hint of how and when to make her break.
She heard the woman yell.
“Charlie!”
Then, when he didn’t answer, a shriek.
“Charlie!”
She heard the thumping sounds of someone racing up the front steps. At the same time she soft-toed down the back and doubled around the house.
She stopped at the corner and looked out into the yard. For reasons she only half understood, she was now thoroughly spooked.
There was no time to dwell on it. The truck sat empty beside her rental car: the woman had jumped out without closing the door or killing the engine.
Go, she thought.
Run, don’t walk.
She sprinted across the yard, jumped in her car, and drove away fast.
43
She looked at me across the table and said, “It seems silly now, and yes, before you ask, I do feel like a fool. I’ve never done anything remotely like that. To break and run just isn’t my nature. I can’t explain it.”
“You don’t have to. I’ve done a few things that I can’t explain either.”
“Charlie Jeffords never shot at anybody, and I don’t think the Rigby girl did either. Where does that leave us? All I can tell you is, the thought of being there when that woman came home was…I don’t know. The only thing I can liken it to is having to walk past a graveyard at night when I was a kid.”
“It’s like me walking through the blood at Pruitt’s house, and every dumb thing I’ve done since then. Sometimes you do things.”
“I don’t know, I had this feeling of absolute dread. My blood dropped to zero in half the time it takes to tell about it, and I was just…gone, you know?“