Lost Man's Lane, page 12
My brush with the big story reminded me of when I’d stepped over the rattlesnake, blissfully unaware, then left with nothing but memories and a story to tell. No consequences.
I was dating Leslie Carter, while Kerri was usually off with Jolly Jake Crane, who would make his cheerful, waving way down the street. His silver Volvo was equipped with a feature I’d never seen before: little windshield wipers on the headlights, ostensibly to clear snow or road spray, and certainly to drive up the sticker price. He liked to flick them on when he was departing even in dry weather, so his car itself looked like it was waving at me.
Sometimes he would pull into my driveway with Kerri and we’d all talk. It was okay. He was a nice guy, and I couldn’t hate him, but I wasn’t comfortable asking Kerri questions about her parents in front of him, and I couldn’t get past the irrational sense that he was intruding on the conversation. Graduation loomed for Jake. I wouldn’t be sorry to see him head back west.
Jerry Flanders was still working for the radon-mitigation company, Eliminator, driving a battered white panel van filled with pumps and hoses and compressors. The company let him drive it home, which was a good thing, maybe, but I struggled to see it that way. It felt like a mobile billboard advertising his disappointment. Gwen was almost never around.
One night toward the end of May, Leslie and I walked down Kirkwood Avenue and got ice cream from White Mountain, across from Peoples Park, where the skateboarders and protestors hung out. A college town is never short on protestors. The causes change but the energy remains. I think that’s probably a good thing.
The park was near the beautiful Sample Gates that mark the western perimeter of Indiana University’s campus, twin spires of limestone above brick sidewalks, looming over Kirkwood Avenue like sentries. While they were a small marker of a massive campus, they felt like the formal entryway. They also conjured a sense of separation: college on this side, town on that side. The IU semester was done, the chaos of graduation and move-out and raucous parties giving way to overflowing dumpsters and couches abandoned on sidewalks. Shoes hung from telephone lines in all directions, tied together by their laces and then flung over the lines in a bizarre farewell ritual of unknown origin.
It was a change that townies looked forward to—you could park anywhere you wanted!—but always struck me as eerie, how the lifeblood drained from the town so quickly. Everyone knew it would be restored in the fall, so they enjoyed the low-key tone of summer, but there was an element of a lost city to it, the purposelessness of a place built to support something that was no longer in action. It made me think of Otis Elevator and RCA and Westinghouse, leaving empty buildings behind like oversized gravestones.
“It’s weird without the students,” I said as Leslie and I walked through the quiet campus.
“In a good way,” Leslie said. “Summer.”
She held my hand lightly in hers. She was wearing white shorts and a pale blue tank top and her skin was bronzed with the early stages of a deep summer tan.
“I know. But the emptiness is only nice because people know it’s temporary. Imagine if they closed the school for good.”
“You’re cheerful.” She let go of my hand.
We followed the winding brick path beneath the tall oaks and beech trees of Dunn’s Woods, then traced the banks of what was then called the Jordan River. It was little more than a meandering brook, but it was pretty, cutting right through the heart of campus, and in a hard spring rain it could thunder with whitewater. We walked past Bryan House, where the university president lived, and then the Lilly Library, where some of the rarest books in the world were housed, from an original Gutenberg Bible to the first printed collection of Shakespeare’s works to George Washington’s handwritten letter accepting the presidency. It also housed the collections of the Mystery Writers of America, which were about to become important to me, though I didn’t know it yet.
On past the Lilly Library and the Showalter Fountain, the Arboretum waited, eleven acres of pristine landscaping that featured trees from around the world, a pond, a meadow, and a stone gazebo. Numerous perfect spots to sit beside a beautiful girl on a warm evening. We settled down on the soft, new grass, listening to the quiet brook. I put my arm around Leslie and she kissed my neck, her lips cold from the ice cream. Her hair fell across my cheek as she kissed the base of my throat and gave my collarbone a teasing nip with her teeth.
“Has your dad heard anything about Meredith Sullivan?” I asked.
Leslie pulled back. “What?”
“I was just curious if he’d heard anything new. I know the FBI was supposed to have a profiler working on—”
“You need to stop,” she said, gentle but firm.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “My mind wanders back to it a lot. To her. And… him.”
The carillon was sounding, the big bells playing the song of the hour as the clock struck eight. Leslie gazed off in the direction of the sound and her expression softened.
“I can’t imagine what it feels like to be the last one who saw her,” she said. “It has to haunt you. And I know you’ve had all those people calling you, and everyone asking about it, but…” She took a breath and faced me again. “You think about it too much. I mean, we’re sitting here together, and I’m kissing you, and you interrupt to ask what my dad has heard? It’s not your job to worry about that. You were a bystander, that’s all. Don’t let it take over your life.”
“I’m not doing that.”
Her face showed how unconvinced she was.
“Summer’s almost here,” she said. “I want us to work out in summer, beyond summer. I want us to last.”
I sat up. “Me too. Of course.”
“What will you be doing while I’m out at Camp Amherst?” she asked.
She was going to be a counselor at a summer camp in Brown County, which was thirty minutes away, or roughly a thousand miles if you’re sixteen and your girlfriend is going to live there for two months.
“Thinking of you, of course. Writing sad poetry. That kind of thing.”
“Seriously.”
I shrugged. “Hanging out. Working. Sleeping. You know… summer.”
“I might be able to get you a job there. My dad knows the director.”
It should have been appealing—making money, the two of us working together by day, sneaking off by night… it should have been exactly what I wanted from the summer… but something about the suggestion made me uneasy.
“Why do you want me there?” I asked.
“Why do I want you to be with me? Isn’t that obvious?”
“Is that the only reason?”
“It’s the major one.”
“What’s another one?”
“I just… want you to be occupied, you know? It’s good to stay busy. Keep from dwelling on the missing-girl thing.”
The missing-girl thing?
“I’m not dwelling on it,” I said, “and I’ve already got a job.”
“I’m sure they can find another umpire for the Little League games.”
“It’s Babe Ruth League,” I said defensively, as if the difference between calling balls and strikes for twelve-year-olds or eight-year-olds were that significant. “I’m supposed to help Dom mow lawns too. If he can get that trailer fixed, we’ll be able to tow the mowers all over and make some real money.”
“So you don’t want me to ask about Amherst?”
I wanted the carillon to play again, to give me an excuse to look toward the sound the way she had. Why was I angry with her? She was offering me a chance to spend the summer with her. She wanted me there.
You were a bystander, that’s all.
“Maybe,” I said. “I’d have to talk to my mom.”
It wasn’t much, but it was enough to make her smile.
“Great,” she said. “Do that! Imagine what it would be like if we had the whole summer together. You haven’t even seen Amherst yet. It’s so beautiful out there; the sunset on that lake is amazing. We could swim out to the raft together…”
She kissed me, lips no longer cold from the ice cream, and I kissed her back and told myself to listen to my body and not my brain, which is a very simple order for a sixteen-year-old male to follow. It was a nice night, after that. It was mostly a very nice night.
Keep from dwelling on the missing-girl thing…
I got Leslie home late, and her father came out and pointed at his watch and I nodded and lifted a hand in apology. I should have gotten out to speak with him, but I didn’t, and not because I was afraid of the lecture about getting his daughter home on time.
I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to keep from asking him questions.
Bystander, Leslie had said. I’d spent the semester studying root words for the SAT, immersed in Latin and Greek derivatives, and while nothing so sophisticated rose to mind in this case, the origin felt clear enough to me: “by” as in “goodbye.”
So long, see you.
The story of Maddox had started with me—started because of me, from the media perspective—but now it continued, and I’d been left behind. That was good, of course. That meant I was safe.
But I couldn’t shake the memory of the girl’s face in the mirror, or Maddox’s voice. My girlfriend didn’t want to hear about it; the girl who might want to hear about it was off with her own boyfriend; my mother would be gone until late in the night, and I certainly didn’t want to tell her about my nightmares. The people who might listen were gone; the people who were available were tired of listening.
Maybe it was time to embrace the idea of being a bystander. My mother would not only support my taking the counselor job at Amherst Woods, she’d be delighted by it, because it meant fewer nights home alone with the potential to get in trouble. I’d make good money and I would be with my girlfriend. The “missing-girl thing,” as Leslie had termed it, would fade into the past where it belonged. I promised myself that as I turned onto Raintree Lane.
But I didn’t talk to my mother about Amherst Woods over breakfast the next morning, and when school let out that afternoon, I went to visit Noah Storm.
3
WHEN I WALKED UP the massive limestone steps beneath those looming lightning rods, I realized I should have called. I hesitated at the door, almost losing my nerve, then rang the bell.
Noah greeted me with a smile and no trace of surprise, as if my visit had been expected.
“Marshall! How are you?”
“Fine.” I parted my lips to offer some reason for my visit, but he was already walking away from the open door as if expecting me to follow. His office was one room in a large house, but it felt as if it were the only place that mattered. I wasn’t even sure if he was the only tenant or if he lived there.
“No leads,” Noah Storm said, leaning back in the leather chair behind his desk and propping his feet up, answering the unspoken question casually. “No promising leads, at least. Everyone has a theory, you know. But in terms of helpful evidence?” He shook his head.
“That’s the way I feel,” I said, and then flushed, embarrassed by equating his professional work with my high school experience. “About the theories, I mean, that everyone claims to have heard something.”
He nodded. “With a sensational crime, the problem is never silence. I’m checking it all out, and obviously the police are running their own investigation, but…” He spread his hands.
“Nothing yet.”
“Nada.” He loosened his tie and took a breath, his chest filling under the crisp white shirt. He was dressed almost exactly as he had been when we first met. This shirt had a faint blue pinstripe, but the difference was negligible. I felt as if he would look this way if you woke him in the middle of the night.
“How are you holding up?” he asked. It seemed like a genuine question.
“Okay, I guess. The reason I came by was… well, I don’t know, I just… in the beginning, I was part of it.” I leaned forward, flustered. “That doesn’t make sense, but—”
“Sure it does,” he said. “You were helping. You were active. Now you’ve been relegated to a spectator role, and that’s frustrating.”
“Yes! I couldn’t have said it like that, but you’re right.”
I appreciated that he knew I’d been more than a bystander.
“I guess I had an unrealistic expectation. I thought people would let me know things that…” I searched for the right idea, and he provided it for me.
“That weren’t public. Of course. You weren’t merely part of things; you were the protagonist.”
“It felt that way, anyhow.”
“Sure it did. That’s being a detective, Marshall. The story doesn’t move without you.”
“It’s got to be a cool job,” I said, gazing around his office.
“It is nothing like the movies, but there’s also nothing I’d rather do. No day is the same, and for a curious man? Well, it’s the dream job. A good detective is a perpetual student.” He grinned. “That might not sound like fun to you.”
“I was surprised by all the books in your office,” I confessed.
“You were looking for guns and bourbon bottles, eh?”
“I knew it wouldn’t be like that, but I wasn’t expecting this either.” I hesitated, then plunged ahead. “Is there a way to learn the business without having to be a cop or in the military or whatever?”
“Sure,” Noah said. “But to be any good, it takes time and it’s humbling. Anything worth doing in life meets that criteria. Detective work has one essential requirement: a willingness to admit that you might be wrong. Being observant and quick on your feet is nice, but self-doubt is mandatory. You will make mistakes, you will go down the wrong road with the best of intentions and the soundest of reasoning, and then you must acknowledge the mistake and start over. Think you have that in you?”
“My mother forecasts the weather,” I said. “I understand what it’s like to get it wrong more often than you get it right.”
His rich laugh boomed through the room.
“Not bad, Marshall.” He smiled and nodded at the bookcase behind him. “Borrow any book you want, if you’re curious about the profession.”
I shifted in my chair. “Are there any good ones about how to find people?”
His smile faded. “You’re not going to find Meredith Sullivan by reading a book, you understand that?”
“I’m not talking about her.” As his eyebrows rose, I spoke hurriedly. “I’m not talking about anyone in specific. I’m just interested in how it’s done.”
He studied me for a moment, then rose and withdrew a volume as thick as a dictionary. The cover said: The Sourcebook to Public Record Information. When he passed it to me, I needed to use two hands to accept it.
“You don’t have to read it all,” he said with a grin.
“Thanks.” I looked from the book to him. “Do you ever have anyone work for you? You know, part-time or an internship, like that?”
“I haven’t. It’s a small shop, Marshall.” He tapped his chest, indicating that he was the shop.
“If I could help in some way, summer is coming up, and I’ve got time.”
He rubbed his jaw. “It’s a highly confidential business. Everything I do is under a nondisclosure agreement.” He lifted his hand before I could speak. “I know you won’t tell tales out of school. But you’re under eighteen, so there are legalities involved that I’ve never had to consider.”
“If there is anything that I could do, I’d take it seriously. I promise.”
He looked at me without speaking. I couldn’t read his face.
“Let me think on that topic,” he said at last.
“Okay. Thanks. It’s like you said earlier: I don’t want to be a spectator. I’m not saying that I think I can solve this—I’m not an idiot—but I’d rather understand what’s happening than just wonder about it like everyone else.”
He twisted in his chair and pulled open the door of a mini fridge. There were bottles of water and two bottles of Upland beer inside. Upland has sold tens of millions of beers in the years since, but it was new to the Bloomington scene that year. Noah tossed me a water and took one for himself.
“I shouldn’t be bothering you,” I said, even as I opened the water and leaned back in the chair, the fat sourcebook to public records resting on my lap.
He waved that off, putting his feet back up on the desk.
“You caught me at a good time. My eyes are tired. I’m going through email tips, looking for any that feel legitimate.”
“Are there any?”
He shook his head, and right then he did look very tired.
“I expected to have so much more by now. I thought I’d be putting together a pattern that might have brought her together with this guy, and instead…” He ran a hand over his face. “Hell, I dream about her. It sounds like some bad cop cliché, but it’s the truth.”
“So do I,” I blurted. “All the time.”
He looked at me over the tips of his shoes, one eyebrow cocked, waiting. When I didn’t offer anything, he said, “Is it always the same dream?”
How had he known to ask that?
“Marshall?” he prompted.
“Yeah.” My voice was scarcely audible.
He took his feet off the desk and pulled his chair up closer. His eyes were so intense that I had trouble meeting them.
“Me too,” he said. “And I don’t usually do that. I dream about similar things, sure, but…”
“Not in the exact same way?”
“Never. In these dreams, I’m in the same field, looking out at the same farm, and I’m close, but I can’t see her.”
I felt my muscles go loose and watery with fear and, oddly, relief. The sense of not being alone dulled the fear of the surreal shared nightmare.
“It’s a farm?”
“I think so. Fields, fences, and a—”
“Barn?” I blurted.
He stopped and stared at me.
“You too?”
“Yes.”
We were both quiet then. He took another drink of water. The thick limestone walls blocked all the street noise. There wasn’t so much as an engine’s purr or a bird’s song. It was only Noah Storm and me—and our nightmares.
