“I could be.”
THE NEXT MORNING, Jack woke up in the hotel bed. Mindy was gone and he wasn’t surprised. He figured she was already regretting her decision to talk, but he planned on looking her up again anyway—after this case was closed.
He showered, shaved, dressed, and headed downstairs to find two police cruisers parked on the street near the alley between the hotel and the movie house.
Jack still knew cops from his days in the department. He tossed a short nod to Jimmy Martin, a middle-aged sergeant he’d worked with as a rookie.
“Hey, Jimmy, what’s the news?”
“Mugging and murder, I’m sorry to say.”
“Who’s the victim?”
“Young lady. Nice-lookin’ one too.”
Jack stiffened. “Young lady?”
“Yeah, too young to end up shot to death. Looks like they roughed her up before they killed her. Think you can identify her?”
“Don’t know.”
“Take a look, then.”
Jack stepped into the alley, pushed through the wall of uniforms, and felt his stomach drop. Left in a heap next to the garbage cans was Mindy Corbett, shot through the heart.
CHAPTER 12
Remains of the Day
His smile was stiff as a frozen fish.
—Raymond Chandler, Farewell, My Lovely, 1940
JACK’S DREAM, WHICH ended more like a nightmare, should have prepared me for what was coming the next day. It didn’t.
Tuesday morning began like any other, apart from my postdream disorientation. I crawled out of bed as soon as the alarm went off, not sure if I was in Jack’s century or mine. But after a cup of coffee, I managed to shower, dress, dry my hair, and stop wondering what Jack was going to do next to find his missing person, and whether he felt guilty about Mindy’s fate.
All the while I was thinking about this stuff, I expected Jack to break into my thoughts and answer me. But he never did.
Anticipating my meeting with Mrs. McConnell, Spencer’s principal, I chose a suitably matronly, nonthreatening outfit from my closet—a long, gray wool skirt, black low-heeled boots, and an oversized black turtleneck. Vaguely aware that my outfit would have raised absolutely no eyebrows in the 1940s, as well as today, I went to wake my son.
To my surprise, Spencer’s bedroom was empty, save for our snoozing marmalade-striped cat, Bookmark, which Sadie had given to Spencer as a kitten on the day we’d moved in.
The bathroom all three of us shared was also vacant, so I hunted through the apartment. The television was quiet, but I checked the living room anyway. Empty. The dining room was empty, too. I finally found Spencer in the kitchen. He was standing at the sink, washing out his cereal bowl, his back turned to me. It was more than a half hour before the school bus arrived, but he was already dressed and ready for class.
“Up early, aren’t you?”
Spencer jumped, startled, then reddened with guilt. I spied his backpack on the counter, his bicycle helmet sitting next to it. I tumbled onto his scheme immediately. He’d almost made it, too. If Spencer had skipped breakfast, he would have outfoxed me.
“You are not riding your bike to school,” I said.
“Why not?”
“Because avoiding the bus is not the way to solve this problem.”
The bowl clattered—too loudly—in the drying tray. Spencer tossed his still-damp spoon into the silverware bin.
“Get ready to go. I’m driving you.”
Spencer rolled his eyes and yanked his backpack off the counter. I could tell by his expression that he was sorry I hadn’t changed my mind about seeing Mrs. McConnell to discuss what had happened on the bus the day before.
My son continued his sullen silence in the car. While I never condoned pouting, I understood his reasons. It was bad enough that he was bullied and humiliated in front of his classmates. Now his mother was going to have a talk with the principal about the matter.
Poor Spence probably feels trapped and embarrassed, I thought, with more humiliation to come.
No, baby, more than anything, your son’s pissed off.
“Back off, Jack.”
Why? You can handle the truth once in a while, can’t you?
“Of course Spencer is angry. You know very well a bigger boy at school gave him a hard time. But I’m going to have a talk with the principal and see that a matron is put on the bus from now on—”
A matron! Baby, your son’s not going to have a matron with him every minute of every day. He’s got to learn how to handle punks and Brunos.
“How?”
Jack Shepard offered a variety of tactics he himself had used in the past. I shook my head.
What’s your beef?
“Things are a lot different from when you were a kid, Jack. If Spencer took your advice, I’m fairly sure he’d end up in juvenile hall or I’d end up being sued for everything—or both.”
I tried to explain the wonderful world of modern middle-class public education.
What do you mean “Zero Tolerance”? Are you telling me a red-blooded American boy can’t bring a switchblade or a pair of brass knuckles to school these days?
“Sorry, Jack. The future’s pretty complicated.”
Jack went silent.
“What?” I asked. “Don’t you have any more parental advice to dispense?”
Listen up. Forget the brass knuckles. I’ll make it simple because, when you’re dealing with the human animal, some things will never change. Bullies look for weakness and fear. Your son has to learn how to overcome his fear and fight for his dignity. He has to learn how to stand up for himself.
I drove by the entrance to the Finch Inn, past the sign for the restaurant, and swerved onto Crowley Road. We crested the hill, went through the traffic light, and began rolling down the other side when a flurry of white particles blew across the roadway.
“Mom, look! It’s snowing.”
The particles swirled right into the path of my Saturn. Then a wind funnel swept them onto the shoulder of the road, where they collected like snowflakes. But they weren’t snowflakes.
The white torrent was formed by thousands of pellets of foam peanuts, the finer grain we used at the store to protect books during shipping. It was about that time that my stomach clenched with an ominous premonition.
“An accident,” Spencer said. He leaned forward and peered through the windshield.
Crowley Road ended at the bottom of a steep hill, where it hit Seneca. Drivers could make a right or left turn on Seneca. Going straight wasn’t an option unless you wanted to crash through a wooden fence and slam into a tree. It was clear from our vantage near the top of the hill that someone in a maroon sedan had chosen the third option.
Debris from the shattered fencepost littered the grassy field now sprinkled with foam. The sedan had left tracks in the soft dirt, leading right to a tall oak. The vehicle’s front end was crumpled into a U around its stout trunk. The hood was bent like an accordion and the front windshield was shattered. The sedan’s doors were open, and a thin stream of foam continued to pour out of the vehicle. The trunk had popped, too. On the ground next to the wreckage lay a stretcher bearing a shrouded body.
Emergency vehicles were parked all over the place: Quindicott Police cars, ambulances, and fire trucks. I braked as I approached the scene.
A young officer I didn’t recognize waved me around the bend, but as I swung onto Seneca and negotiated my way through the vehicle barrier, a bearlike figure stepped into the path of my Saturn. I say “bearlike” in the literal sense, for Chief Ciders of the Quindicott Police was indeed built like a bear, and not the cuddly kind. He had the disposition of a bear, too, though debate raged about whether he acted more like a hibernating bear or an angry one.