Chapter 7
The other address was in an expensive suburb north of the city. Ralph left the Ford at the curb with the neatly stencilled house number on it and walked up the little stone path winding across the trimmed lawn.
The house itself looked like a Spanish mission that had melted in the sun and spread out over the landscape. He pressed the doorbell, heard the muffled chiming on the other side of the high wooden door, and waited.
After a minute he rang again, but still no one came.
He turned to walk back to the Ford but a faint sound of splashing water stopped him. His feet sinking in the lush grass, he circled the house and came to a small wooden gate in the cinder block fence that extended behind the house. Stretching on his toes, he peered over the gate and saw a large, irregular swimming pool, like a blue gem cut in two, set in the landscaped yard. A woman’s head moved surrounded by ripples through the water, her brown hair trailing. “Mrs. Teele?” called Ralph.
The woman glanced up, saw him, then turned over on her back and swam slowly towards the other end of the pool. “Just leave it at the front door,” she shouted over the splashing of her arms and legs.
“I’m not delivering anything, Mrs. Teele.” Ralph held his open wallet above his head. “I’m from the California State Juvenile Treatment Department. I’d like to talk to you about your son, Thomas.”
“Thomas?” she floated to the edge of the pool and hoisted herself halfway out of the water. “Oh, you mean T.J.,” she said, her face losing its puzzlement. “How’s he doing?” With a splash she was out of the pool and reaching for a towel draped over an aluminum and plastic garden chair.
Her tan was so dark that she seemed to be some species of seal with legs.
“That’s what I want to talk to you about.” He put his wallet away.
Mrs. Teele walked towards the gate, the towel draped over her shoulders. “Why ask me? You’ve got him. Isn’t he still out there in the desert someplace?”
“That’s right,” said Ralph. “He’s still committed to the Operation Dreamwatch program. We’d like to know if there’s been any communication between you and your son—anything Thomas might not have wanted to tell the staff at the Thronsen Home. Does he write to you?”
She wiped a damp tendril of hair away from her brow. “I think he writes every week or so. I’m not sure. Haven’t really felt like opening my mail for the last couple weeks.”
“Well . . . when you do read his letters, do you ever sense anything wrong? Anything that just seems funny about them?”
“Wrong?” She laughed. “Listen, I don’t know what they’re doing to my kid out there, but anything’s better for T.J. than letting him back out on the street. It took thirty-eight stitches to put his head back together after that last stunt of his. The car was totalled, of course, but we had insurance on it, at least.” Her voice had changed by the last words, making them harsh and steely.
He had to look hard before he could see the faint tracery of lines around her eyes and mouth. They betrayed her real age and the tension beneath the skin. “So you think he’s okay, then?”
“Sure.” A quick nod of the head. “Look, you got any more questions? I usually take a nap, or go shopping, or something, in the afternoon.” She pressed the fingertips of one hand against her brow.
“No,” said Ralph. “Wait a second. Has Thomas sent you a package or anything recently?”
“Let me go see.” She walked to the house, slid open a glass door, and stepped inside. In a few moments she returned with a narrow, flat parcel, still wrapped with brown paper and twine. She tore it open to reveal a varnished pine board.
“Isn’t that sweet?” she said, the same hard tone cutting under her words. “ ‘To my loving mom.’ ” She handed the board over the gate to Ralph.
He glanced at it, then back at her. “Can I keep this? It might, uh, help us with our study.”
“Go ahead. What do I want with a piece of junk like that?”
“That’s true. Well, thanks for your cooperation.” He started to turn away from the gate.
“Hey. Wait.” She smiled at him. “How come everybody’s asking about my kid today?” Her voice was relaxed again, the harshness pressed back inside of herself.
Ralph stiffened with her words. “Who else was asking about him?”
“I know there isn’t any connection, of course. Just a funny coincidence, is all. You right now, and then that other guy this morning—or was it yesterday morning? I’m not sure.”
“What other guy?”
She blinked, surprised at his sudden intensity. “A little short guy. Real dwarfy. He was selling subscriptions to some weird newspaper. Hold on, I’ll get you the sample copy he left.” With an apprehensive glance over her shoulder at him, she ran into the house and returned with the folded newspaper.
He reached over the gate and took it out of her hands. It was the latest issue of the Agitant. A brief image shot behind his eyes, of a bundle of the same issue clasped under the arms of a short man in Mrs. Alvarez’s building. Ralph gripped the paper together with the pine board in his hands. “What did he ask you about your son?”
“Oh. Gee—I don’t remember. Just the same kind of thing you asked, I think. He said he was doing a paper for some college class he was in.” She slowly backed a few steps away from the gate.
Hold on, he told himself. Don’t let her think anything’s wrong. He swallowed, then forced a smile.. “That is . . . kind of a funny coincidence, all right.” He nodded and started away. “Thanks for your help, Mrs. Teele.”
“Sure,” she said. “Watch out for the bougainvillea behind you.”
He threw the board and the paper beside him on the seat of the Ford and drove for several blocks. When Mrs. Teele’s house was out of sight, he pulled over to the curb and killed the engine.
As he had suspected, had known in fact, the two varnished pine boards were identical. Right down to the wood grain, he thought, turning each over in his hands. Even the blobs of varnish at the bottom were the same.
They must have some kind of factory that stamps them out.
The boards clattered as he tossed them onto the floor of the car. He picked up the paper and unfolded it. After a few minutes of examining the rough-edged newsprint, he threw it on top of the boards. It was just like any other issue of the Agitant he had ever seen—the same as the ones that came every two weeks to his mailbox at the base. He started up the car and headed for the freeway back into the city.
A little while later, he parked the Ford in a hamburger stand’s parking lot and watched the five p.m. rush hour traffic creep along a nearby section of freeway. Meditatively, he sipped at a milkshake.
Now what? he thought. There was something wrong about Operation Dreamwatch—something big enough for someone to murder in order to hide it—but he was going to have a hard time proving it to anyone else. He couldn’t just march into the L.A. office of the FBI, toss the two identical boards on the counter, and expect much of a reaction. Probably put me down as just another crank, he thought. Must get dozens every day.
He looked up through the windshield and watched two plasma jet trails trace through the late afternoon light. A sudden urge rose in him, an urge to just get on the freeway and head north. The traffic would thin in a little while, and then he’d be able to make pretty good time. Oregon or Washington, he thought. Maybe even Canada. The desire to get away, to forget everything about Operation Dreamwatch . . .