“You’ll be in our prayers.” And he nodded once again, and walked away.
I parked in what was by now the familiar off-road spot behind the rise and took my mat, field glasses, receiver, and go cup to the top of the hill. No movement outside. I extended the receiver’s aerial, plugged in the headphones, and put them on. I had to take my gloves off for fine-tuning the receiver, but then I had it: running water, dishes banging, a drawer opening and shutting. From only three or four hundred yards, there was little distortion. I made a slow sweep with the field glasses. Inside the house a door opened, then closed. Then nothing.
I sipped at the coffee. All I had achieved with my visit so far was the discovery that the situation was complicated. I wondered what Tammy was doing, whether she had called Dornan yet, and what would happen then: to her, to Dornan. To me.
Adeline started to hum. It wasn’t a hymn but an old show tune. Fringed buckskin, white teeth, blond hair… and then I had it: Doris Day in Calamity Jane, singing about the windy city. When her husband wasn’t around, did Adeline dream of being transformed by a big-city suitor?
After a while I heard Jud’s pickup. I wondered what had taken him so long. Maybe he’d been giving thanks for the gas. He drove round the back of the house. Two minutes later, the back door slammed.
“Sit,” came Adeline’s voice, loud and tinny from the receiver. “We’ll eat.”
Scraping of a chair, chink of cutlery on crockery. Scrape of another chair. Moment’s silence. Then, “Dear Lord, we’re thankful for this food. Amen.” Jud’s voice. “Amen,” Adeline’s voice. Food sounds: lighter tink of spoons on bowls.
Adeline’s voice: “Truck all right?”
Pause, while I imagined Jud nodding. “Drove her to the gas station, had John put her up on the blocks. No leak as I could see.” Eating noises. Pause. “Gas come to near nineteen dollars.” Audible sigh: Adeline. “Children fine?” Jud asked.
“Out back. Right as rain.” Which was more than Adeline sounded. “Jud?” Eating noises. “Jud, why haven’t we heard?”
“Couldn’t say.”
“We should have heard by now. How can we manage without that money?”
“We’ll hear soon enough.” Definite tones in his voice of I-don’t-want-to-think-about-it-right-now.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have written to Miz Goulay, maybe it’ll make him mad. But that check should’ve come a week ago, more. He’s never missed before. We need that money.”
Chair scraping. “Tractor needs work,” Jud said. The door closed behind him. Adeline sighed and started collecting the dishes, then stopped, and it took me a moment to identify the strange sounds: she was crying.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I had finished the coffee and refilled the cup with lukewarm tea from my flask when I saw movement in my peripheral vision: a car moving down the road to the Carpenters’ house. I put down the cup and focused the field glasses. My adrenal system switched from standby to power mode. A dark gray Maxima, a man driving and a woman in the back. Not the configuration for a social call.
The Maxima parked three or four yards from the Carpenters’ front door, and the man took just long enough to remove the keys and open his door to tell me the car was probably a rental. He climbed out, looked around. Sloppy training. He should have looked around before he parked, and again before he left the car. He should have familiarized himself with his vehicle. He should have looked up. He closed his door, checked around one more time before opening the woman’s door.
The woman who got out of the car wore expensive, beautifully draped trousers, handmade boots, and a cashmere twinset under a camel-hair overcoat. Gold earrings gleamed below her short blond hair. Subtle cosmetics; a touch of color on a strong, straight mouth. No purse. One in the car? Even royalty must show ID to board a scheduled flight. Her clothes were good, but not private plane level.
They approached the door, him walking a yard ahead and a little to her left. Small steps, and slightly pigeon-toed, like an amateur weight lifter or college football player. Haircut from somewhere north and east of Arkansas. Gray suit, from one of the better department stores by its looks, and cleverly tailored around the shoulders and chest. The cleverness was wasted: the swing of his left arm was a little careful, a little self-conscious. Not a cop, though. Cops have to carry their guns all the time.
My heart began to hum like a turbine.
He knocked on the door, then stepped aside for the woman. I measured him against the doorframe: an inch or two taller than me and much, much wider. Not a good idea to get within closing distance of those arms. But maybe this had nothing to do with Luz. I finished my tea, crumpled the cup one-handed.
The door opened. From the expression on Adeline Carpenter’s face it was plain that her visitors were not strangers but that their arrival was a surprise, and worrying.
Adeline said something. The woman said something. Adeline stepped to one side and the woman, then the man, went in. The door closed. Muffled noise from the kitchen transmitter. Maybe they were talking in the hall. More noise. Definitely voices. I should have thought to put a bug in the hallway. Or the living room. It had seemed unused, not a good choice for my limited resources, but it was just the place Adeline would take guests, especially well-dressed ones. I flexed my knee, scanned the windows. Nothing.
But then the kitchen door creaked, and Adeline’s voice came clearly.
“—in the oven. Please, take a seat.”
“You don’t seem pleased to see us, Adeline.” The woman’s voice was smooth and light, but with the occasional metallic Boston vowel.
“I thought maybe you would write. Or call.”
“Yes, well, I have the kind of news best delivered in person. I’m sorry to tell you that Mr. Karp is dead.” My hands tightened on the field glasses and I lost the focus for a moment. “—sending any more checks.”
“Dead?”
“At least so far as the courts would see it. He’s in a coma that he won’t be coming back out of. A vegetable. I can make up this month’s arrears from my own account, that’s only fair. But I have to tell you there won’t be any more to come.”
“But I need…” The rest of Adeline’s soft voice was lost. Or maybe she just trailed off. She cleared her throat. “Hay prices were down this fall. With two children we depend on that money.”
“Which is why I’ve come to take Luz off your hands.”
Three hundred yards. With this knee it would take at least two minutes to get down there. Another two to disable the car. Two more to get back out of sight. I scanned for hiding places closer to the house.
Someone shifted noisily in their chair. Probably the man. “Take Luz?” Adeline sounded bewildered.
“It’s for the best,” the woman said. “Her sponsor can’t help her anymore, and there’s no provision in his will for her maintenance.” She couldn’t know that; he wasn’t dead yet.
“But what—”
“We’ve found another sponsor.”
The hum in my chest climbed a note.
“We could—”
“He wants Luz to be fostered closer to his residence. Now, Adeline, I know you and Jud have done a fine job, and I’m prepared to offer you a bonus, something to help you redecorate her room, perhaps, after she’s gone. Where is the child?”
“She’s out back.” Her voice got stronger. “On the land. Might not be back till suppertime.”
“Then you’d better start looking for her now. Mike here would be glad to help. These things are best done quickly.”
“But her things…”
“Not necessary. Her new sponsor will see to it that she has everything she—”