Lights came through the trees; he heard a car motor and hunched down in the seat. Then the red light went out; the gates clacked and started to swing open.
He couldn’t believe his luck.
He laughed a little wildly and whispered, “Up yours, Riley,” then slid out of the car, closing the door quietly. He crouched behind the fender and watched over the hood of the car. The gates hit their stops, rocked back and forth, and a car that looked comically small compared to the pillars, like the circus car ten clowns pile out of, tooled through the open gates and headed up the road toward the town.
The motor of the other car faded, and Adam ran. The gates started to shut, but the road was narrow; he’d make it with rime to spare, was so close now he felt the slight breeze the gates made as they swung, then saw the red light had turned yellow.
The gates were alarmed, the grounds must be too; with beams that would silently alert the cops if he broke them. The Tildens were rich, and the cops wouldn’t hang around to have another cup of coffee or doughnut. They’d get here... and get him before he was halfway up the long drive that disappeared into the trees.
He ground to a halt and watched balefully as the gates met and latched. The little light turned red again, glowing fiercely in the dark like the eye of a tiny, ferocious animal.
Vacancy blinked on and off in green neon. The motel looked immaculate, with freshly painted white units, and no cigarette butts or crumpled paper cups in the driveway. Good—Adam could never sleep in a dirty place, thanks to his mother.
The office was spotless, with gray carpeting and a long, polished pine counter. The man behind it was about sixty, with thin pale hair and nails trimmed to the quick.
“Forty, cash or credit card,” he told Adam. “We eat the tax until July, then the room goes to eighty and you eat the tax.” He smiled, showing teeth too perfect to be his own, and pushed the registration card across the counter. Adam gave him two twenties and signed A. Harris, Greenville. New York (he didn’t know if there was such a place). He changed a digit in his license number in case Latovsky or anyone else tracked him this far after they found her body... if they ever did.
“Free continental breakfast,” the clerk said. “Juice and coffee, Danish or doughnut, served right here.” He nodded at an alcove with a trestle table with stacked cups and saucers and a shining coffee urn. Then he gave Adam the key to unit 12.
Adam shaved and showered to save time in the morning, then wrapped a towel around his waist and settled himself in front of the TV, sure he’d be too keyed up to sleep. But he woke up to a blank, softly roaring screen and a stiff neck from sleeping in the chair. It was after four, the sky was turning gray. He massaged his neck, then pulled down the bed cover to get a couple of hours’ more sleep. At nine, he’d be back on Old Warren, down the road from the gates, ready when she came through them.
He was almost asleep again when it finally hit him that she could come and go a dozen times, a dozen feet from him, and he wouldn’t know it, because he had no idea what she looked like.
“Do you have the date?” the librarian asked Adam.
She was about fifty, with a very long face and hair so tightly curled it looked carved. She had on a pink sweater set that reminded him of his mother for some reason. He’d always thought of her in the flowered dresses, yet she must have worn something like this, because at the sight of it, with the cardigan held on the woman’s shoulders by a brass chain, he saw his mother’s broad shoulders and the blur of her face.
“I’m afraid I don’t,” Adam said.
“Oh dear, that could be a problem. You see, the paper’s index is only computerized from nineteen eighty-seven on. You’ll have to dig for anything before that, and I do mean dig. The existing indices are so sloppy as to be worse than nothing. We have a county paper, a real newspaper, and it’s been on the computer since eighty-four.”
“But this is much more likely to be in the town paper,” Adam said. “Why don’t I try from eighty-seven on.”
She set him up in a windowed cubbyhole with a terminal and discs for the Oban-Bridgeton Ledger from 1987 to the present.
“It’s really a lousy paper,” she confided. “We call it the Poop.”
He laughed dutifully and she left him alone.
Sun coming through the window glared on the screen and he shaded it with one hand and slipped in the Jan-Jun 1987 disc. He typed Tilden, Klein, Leigh in that order, but only Tilden came up on the screen. He tapped run program and lines of green type appeared: That spring, Frances D. Tilden hosted flower shows in Bridgeton, Oban, and Sharon; Lawrence Simms of Tilden House was marshal of the Memorial Day parade. On the next disc, Frances Tilden donated a new wing to Oban Hospital, a playing field to the town’s Little League, a Lincoln limo to Meals-on-Wheels, and fifty turkeys to a shelter in Torrington for their Thanksgiving dinner. Lines of type rolled up the screen as Frances Tilden parted with thousands.
Rich, Riley had screamed. No one gets to people like that.
We’ll see, Adam thought, and slid in the next disc.
Frances Tilden gave away more money, went to more garden shows; she attended a benefit for Public TV in Westport and another for the Knapp Museum in Oban and won a bridge tournament. No Eve Tilden, Leigh, or Klein—no Eve anything, and his hands started to sweat. He wiped them on his handkerchief, then reached for the next disc. His mouth was sour and his bowels felt hot and jittery. He should’ve eaten more than the freebie motel breakfast of Danish and coffee. When he finished here, he’d stop for something—it rolled up so fast he almost missed it and had to go back: Eve Tilden Leigh to Samuel Daniel Klein, May 9, 1987. It was a wedding announcement on page 3, section C of the Oban’Bridgeton Ledger. No guarantee there’d be a picture of the bride, but it was likely, given the prominence of the family.
His hands were still sweating when the librarian brought him the issue in a plastic binder and he had to wipe them again so he wouldn’t leave finger marks on the newsprinr as he turned the pages. It was between the local soccer scores and real estate ads in which houses seemed to start at a million. It was one column written in fulsome small-town-paper prose, and there was a picture. It was grainy, amateurish, taken from a distance. But the light was on her strong, clear, handsome face and he knew he’d know it anywhere.
Two hours after Adam returned the May 9, 1987 Ledger to the librarian with thanks, Lucy Evans rang Jim and Barb Riley’s doorbell. Barb had said she was going to the mall around lunchtime and Lucy wanted to go with her.
There was no answer. Barb must’ve gone on without her and Lucy was sorry because she didn’t see much of Barb during the school year, and she’d hoped they could have lunch together and take advantage of the spring sales.
She started back down the walk, passed the open garage door, and saw Barb’s car. She must’ve taken Jim’s—only his was there too she saw a couple of steps farther on. She stopped and looked back at the house.
Maybe they’d taken a walk or gone jogging, but there weren’t any nice walks around here and jogging on the narrow busy roads was a little like the old joke about playing in traffic.
They could be around back doing some spring yard work, and she went around the garage along a stone path to the yard. It was empty. She went up on the deck, crossed the slats to the kitchen door, and rang the bell. She heard it tinkle inside the house and called “Barb,” then listened for water running or the rush of the washing machine, but the house was silent—too silent—and a prickling feeling ran up her arms and across the back of her neck.