Okay, I told myself.
Okay.
The place probably held a lot of bad memories for them, how couldn't it? You lose your child, have him stolen from you, and everything you look at reminds you of that loss. How could a family undergo a trauma like that and not be damn near ruined by it? Oh, sure, familial love can go a long way in helping you to deal with a loss, but how long did it take for this place to seem more like a headstone for what their family once was rather than the home it had been? Christ, I couldn't blame them for selling the place, pulling up stakes, and moving somewhere new. A fresh start. But, God—to have done that means that they had let him go, they had given up hope. And if Beth's math was right, if this place had been in her family for the last seven years, that meant that Christopher's parents had waited only two years, maybe less, before giving him up for dead.
And I suddenly hated them for that. How could anyone simply give up on their child still being alive? It's not like when you have the family pet put to sleep, or it just turns up missing one morning—"Oh, Fluffy's gone, dear me; guess we'll have to go to the shelter and pick out a new one"—no, this was a human being we were talking about. If Tanya and I ever had children and one of them turned up missing, I'd tear through anything that got in my way in order to find them. I'd never give up. Let alone so soon…
I rubbed my eyes, took a deep breath, and checked my self-righteousness at the door. Yeah, it was easy for me to sit there and judge Joe and Ellen Matthews, not having any idea what they'd gone through for those two years immediately following Christopher's disappearance.
—ever notice how the most vindictively moral advice on how to raise a child comes from people who don't have children? "Well, no, we don't," they always say when called on it, "but we know enough that if we did have them, we'd…"
Blah, blah, blah.
And so I sat there, having the nerve to judge the Matthews for their actions without having one iota of a notion as to their pain and grief. Maybe two years' waiting, two years' uncertainty, two years' worth of disintegrating hopes and guilt and God-only-knows what else—maybe two years of that was more than even the strongest of us could bear, so how could I blame—let alone hate—them for what they did in order to protect the remnants of their family?
So they had given up, sold their business, and moved on to a new life.
Maybe that wasn't such an awful thing.
So the big question now was: Would Uncle Herb who remembers everything know where they had moved to? My bet was yes—the transfer of a property and business like this isn't exactly something that can be done in an afternoon, it takes time. And if the Matthews were in a hurry to get away after finally making what had to be an incredibly painful decision, then papers would have to have been sent back and forth in the mail, the money transferred into the Matthews' new bank account wherever they'd gone—hell, Uncle Herb probably had to call them at least once during the process.
I released the breath I'd forgotten I was holding.
Okay.
Uncle Herb the-worrier-who-remembers-everything would know where they'd gone—and if it wasn't right on the tip of his tongue, odds are he was the type of guy who saved paperwork. Worriers usually are. I myself have still have some receipts for vinyl record albums I bought in the late 70s. Don't ask me why.
Beth brought my onion rings and a Pepsi refill. "You look like you're feeling a bit better."
"I am, I think. Let me ask you something I'll bet you can answer: does Uncle Herb tend to keep fairly accurate paperwork?"
She burst out laughing, covered her mouth, then took a deep breath. "Sorry. It's just… asking if Uncle Herb keeps accurate paperwork's a little like asking the Andretti family if they know where to find a car's gas tank."
"So that would be a yes?"
"That would be a yes. Uncle Herb's got enough files stashed around this place to build the world's biggest bonfire. Larry and me spent I-don't-know how long getting all that stuff entered into the computer, but Uncle Herb still insists on keeping the papers themselves." She leaned closer. "Between us—and please don't let on I told you this—I think computer's scare him a little. I know he doesn't trust them. Says they make everything a little too easy for a person. He don't trust anything that goes too easy. He prefers the forms and the legwork."
"Sounds like he's a cautious man."
"He's a worrier, like I said. And a worrier's just a cautious man with way too many backup plans, if you ask me."
"I'll remember that—and I won't tell Uncle Herb that you let on about his cyberphobia."
"His what?"
"Fear of computers or anything related to them. Cyberphobia."
"That's what it's called?"
"Yep."
"Huh. I never knew that." Then she smiled, slowly, with great mischief. "Now I got something to call him that'll confuse him."
"Or make him worry that he needs to see a doctor fast."
We looked at each other and laughed, right up until a loud, metallic crash from somewhere back in the kitchen made Beth close her eyes for a moment, wincing, then open just her right eye and shudder. "That would be my less-than-coordinated husband bringing in supplies—or what's left of them by now. Be right back." She disappeared through the swinging doors, still laughing. I wondered if anything ever made her genuinely angry.
Judging from the way her laughter grew louder, then was joined by her husband's, even money said no.
I tore into the onion rings—which were delicious, and surprisingly light—and was just finishing off the Pepsi refill when a stocky, white-haired man of perhaps sixty-five with rugged features came through the doors wiping off his hands on a towel. He reminded me of Burt Lancaster in Atlantic City, except that this man had no moustache.
"I swear on Lawrence Welk's bubbly grave that that nephew of mine would drop a consonant if you super-glued it to his hand. Don't get me wrong, I love 'im, but physical prowess is not that boy's strong point." He slammed open a cooler door and pulled out a bottle of beer. "We got a set of delivery doors, right, that're wide enough you could drive a small car straight through them and not bump either of the side mirrors—they give a body a wide berth, is what I'm saying—yet Jim Thorpe back there manages to walk sideways into one of them and drop the handle of the supply cart right onto a box of brand new pots and pans, then trip over his own two feet and fall ass-first into the grease barrel." He popped the cap of bottle. "That requires some serious skill." He took a couple of swallows from the beer, wiped his forearm across his mouth, then slapped the bottle onto the bar and said, "And you are?"
"Uncle Herb, I take it?"
"No, Uncle Herb would be me, and since today is one of my good days and I remember who I am, I guess that means we're talking about you, so once again I ask: and you are?"
I pulled out the badge and said, "Chief Deputy Samuel Gerard of the U.S. Marshal's Office."
Uncle Herb looked at the badge, then at my face. "Well, I'll be damned. A genuine U.S. Marshal, right here in my own place of business. Nice badge."
"Thanks," I said, putting the wallet back in my pocket.
"You know," said Uncle Herb, "it's a real shame they don't let you guys keep them badges after you retire."
"I always thought so."
He took another sip of his beer. "What's a U.S. Marshal do when he retires, anyway? I mean, how does a guy like that get away from it all once he's got time?"