There was no mistake. But the shoes had been sat back up on the closet shelf with two pairs of old tennis shoes. The intruder had gotten confused and figured that all three pairs of shoes belonged on the shelf. Somebody had been in here.
I was just about to switch off the bedroom light and go back to the living room when I noticed the shoe print on the floor. It looked familiar but at first I wasn’t sure why. The dirty snow he’d tracked in had made the shoe impression clear.
I went over to my bedside table; I keep a flashlight there. It isn’t half the size of Cliffie’s but it’s handy and serviceable when there’s a power outage or I hear strange noises in the darkness. The noises usually turn out to be raccoons. I made the mistake of putting out food for a couple of baby raccoons one night, and now I have a whole family of them working their way up my back stairs several nights a week. But they’re all so cute I can’t break it off.
I followed the footprints from my bedroom to the door. The pattern of the prints resembled a waffle iron. An image came to me: Robert Frazier, sitting in the leather chair across from Judge Whitney, and the imposing, expensive winter shoes he wore. I remembered thinking they looked like rubber cleats. They’d make a pattern similar to the one on my floor. But why the hell would Frazier be in my apartment? What would he be looking for?
I felt better. Yes, there’d been an intruder in my apartment and yes, I now knew who it had been. Or thought I did, anyway. Now, all I needed to know was why he’d been up here.
I went and got my skates. They were black and dusty. At least the blades looked reasonably sharp. A skater, I’m not. I changed clothes, too, jeans and a button-down blue shirt and a black pullover sweater. I was glad to get out of my suit and tie. They always feel confining to me and I feel like an impostor in them, like I’m a kid pretending to be a grown-up. Which, come to think of it, maybe I am.
As I changed clothes, the two cats sat on the bureau watching me. I wasn’t all that interesting but the Tv wasn’t on so I’d have to do.
They have their programs. For some unfathomable feline reason, they loved westerns, especially the gunplay and the cattle stampedes.
I tossed my skates over my shoulder as casually as I could, hoping I resembled one of those ski bums you always see in whiskey ads. You know, the ones with the perfect teeth. For what they’ve spent on their teeth, we could build several new schools.
A few minutes later, I was down in the driveway trying to get the car to run smoothly.
I kept using the choke and swearing a lot. That was a combination that always seemed to work.
Thirteen
The skating rink was packed. I had to park on a graveled shelf looking down on the rink.
Parking spots were hard to find.
It’s a great rink, built just a few years ago. The rink itself is kidney-shaped, carved out of a plot of timber that runs to firs and jack pines and hardwoods. On the southeast edge of the rink is the warming house, a log cabin-style structure where you can buy hot chocolate, hot dogs, popcorn and Pepsi, plus get warm around an old-fashioned potbellied stove.
Probably the prettiest the rink ever looks is at holiday time. Two nights before Christmas, there’s a costume pageant of people on skates.
It’s probably not quite up to Broadway standards but it’s pretty to watch and the choir always sounds great. The rink is a place where a lot of romances start and a lot of romances end. The couple you saw last year positively enraptured with each other are this year enduring sporadic fights and glowering silences. Or they’re with new mates.
The music over the loudspeakers was a lot better than usual tonight. Out here, they play a lot of music that was popular five years ago, like the Ames Brothers and Eddie Fisher. They can’t quite bring themselves to play rock and roll unless it’s by the Chipmunks or the McGuire Sisters, but tonight, the air was filled with Buddy Holly and “That’ll Be the Day” and, man, it made me feel great, all charged up and convinced that Pamela Forrest was going to fall in love with me.
She would, anyway, if I could ever find her.
I spent my first half-hour skating around the rink looking for her. To no avail. Not a sign of her on the rink or in the warming house.
As for the skating, I stuck to the outside of the rink. Fewer people noticed me falling down that way. Every once in a while, I’d get going pretty well and I’d think that I’d suddenly somehow mastered the ice, and then the ice would dump me again. It’s not good for your ego to have five-year-old girls giggle and point at you.
I was going to give them the bird but then I thought that that probably wouldn’t look real mature on my part.
I was thinking about going home-I was spending more time on my butt than on my blades-when Mary Travers slipped an arm through mine and drew me out into the center of the rink where the grown-ups and young show-offs were skating. She smelled wonderful, and looked even better, her jaunty raspberry-colored beret angled beautifully across her silky chestnut-colored hair and her cheeks tinted with the night’s air.
She wore a heavy turtleneck sweater that matched her beret, jeans and a pair of white high-top skates that flashed artfully whenever she made one of her elegant, practiced moves.
“You should hire me, McCain.”
“For what?”
“To teach you how to skate.”
“You don’t think I’m any good?”
“I saw those little girls laughing at you.”
“Yes, and I’m planning to sue them, too.”
She laughed and squeezed my arm tighter and took me around the rink. It was fun. I didn’t have to do anything. She was strong and fleet enough for both of us.
She said, “I don’t see Pamela anywhere.”
“Well, I don’t see our friendly druggist -i.e., your fianc@e-anywhere, either.”
“He’s at a city council meeting.”
I was going to say something snide but decided against it. She deserved her happiness. She was the most decent person I’d ever known, and if I could have, I would have fallen in love with her in a second. I wanted her to be happy.
“Does he know you’re here?” I said.
“No.”
“How’d you manage that?”
“I didn’t. I just told him I wasn’t sure what I was going to do.”
“So you came out here?”
“Looks that way, doesn’t it?” She smiled but I could see the sadness in her eyes this time, the sadness I always put there without meaning to.
We skated some more. I kept looking around for Pamela.
Mary said, “I really don’t want to marry him, McCain.”
“I know.”
“He always reminds me I’m from the Knolls, like he’s doing me a favor or something by marrying me.”
“So why don’t you just call it off?”
“I want kids.”
“His kids?”
“Well…”
We skated some more. She kept good strong hold of my arm. You could smell stove smoke from the warming house and every once in a while somebody would skate by with a hot dog and you could smell mustard and ketchup.
“He’s going to build them a house.”
“Build who a house?” I said.
“My folks.”
“He’s going to build your folks a house?”
“That’s going to be my wedding present.”
“Wow.”
“He owns this land up on Ridgedale, where they’re putting in a new development. That’s where he’s going to build it. They’ll be out of the Knolls and into a brand-new house. He’s even going to furnish it for them.”
I looked at her. “And he’s going to hold it over your head the rest of your life.”
A male voice came on the loudspeaker and said, “We’d like to have a moment’s silence to commemorate the deaths of the fine young men who died in a plane crash not very far from here.”
And I kind of felt it, even though all the other stuff was going on, Kenny and Susan dead and Ruthie pregnant and Mary marrying the wrong man-even with all that turmoil, there was still room to think about Buddy Holly and Richie Valens and the Bopper and to feel sorry for them and their families. I know they say that young men consider themselves invincible. I guess that changed for me a couple of years ago when I was doing my stint as a weekend warrior with the National Guard. I’d wanted to go on to law school so the Guard was the only way I could avoid the draft.