Beyond Confusion, page 11
Beth smiled. “Oh yes I am. In fact, that may be my primary function, since you fill the other so well.”
He felt his face go hot at the compliment. When she’d agreed to serve out her husband’s term, Beth had begged Rob to take over the law enforcement duties associated with the county’s chief executive. She would learn, she said, and she would back him up, but she wanted him there as undersheriff. He had agreed with reluctance. He’d been content as the county’s chief investigator, and he disliked administrative chores.
But he didn’t regret the deal, and he was glad to know she didn’t either.
“You said Carla was timid when Ruth first saw her.”
“Very. She barely spoke in class and had no friends.”
“I gather she changed.”
“She met Aidan Pascoe. Last year.”
“How, if she was that shy?”
“Ruth didn’t say.”
Rob swallowed cold coffee. “And Aidan transformed her?”
“Swept her off her feet?” Beth shook her head. “I don’t think so. The Aidan I remember was not exactly a stud-muffin.”
“Kids change, boys especially.”
“As you know.”
“Low blow,” he said without rancor.
Rob was a senior before he reached the glorious altitude of five feet eight. A late bloomer, everybody said, especially his grandmother. He was now five eleven, having shot up three painful inches in his eighteenth year, but there were still moments when he was a shrimp. The experience gave him a soft spot for kids who were miserable in high school, whatever the reason. He would have to back off from that befuddling empathy.
Beth watched him.
He sighed. “Tell me everything you know about Aidan Pascoe.”
Beth took their cups to the kitchen and returned with them, emptied, and the coffeepot. “Another coffee?”
“I guess so. Might as well pull an all-nighter.”
She poured two cups and set the empty pot on a trivet. “Tell me something first. You had a rough time the first years of high school, or so I imagine.”
“I did.”
“How did you get through the anger?”
“Jokes and judo.”
“Come on, be serious. It’s a grossly intrusive question, but it has a bearing on both of these young people.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “I was serious.”
“Go on.” She busied herself sugaring her coffee.
“When I was a first grader my dad noticed I was the smallest kid on the block. He did something about it.”
She sipped.
“He taught me a few simple self-defense moves, so the big guys would think twice about shoving me around, and he lectured me about not misusing judo and turning myself into a bully, too. That was good, I guess, but the main thing was the jokes.”
“A soft answer turneth away wrath?”
“With bullies, a soft answer doesn’t work. A joke, the right kind of joke, can distract them, or their hangers-on.”
“So you and your father practiced jokes?”
“Joke-of-the-day club. Knock, knock.” Rob grinned. “That’s about it.”
“He was a smart man.”
“Not smart enough to avoid being sent to a combat zone.” He made a face. He did not like to talk about his parents. His father, Staff Sgt. Charles Neill, who characterized himself as a glorified file clerk, was killed in a random rocket attack on Saigon during the Tet Offensive of 1968. Within the year, Rob’s mother had died in an unnecessary wreck on the River Road.
Beth waited, her eyes dark with too much sympathy.
“I lost my sense of humor.”
Her eyes brimmed but she had the wit to wait.
“You remember my grandfather?” Dumb question.
She blinked and sniffed. “You’re kidding. Robert Guthrie presided over my adolescence.”
“At the soda fountain.” His grandfather had owned a small traditional drugstore in downtown Klalo. The Guthrie soda fountain was a teen hangout.
“Cherry Cokes.”
“French fries and ketchup.”
“For you maybe. I had to watch my waistline. It was a great place to flirt with boys.”
“And girls. Not that I was flirting at the age of nine. Mostly I picked fights. Granddad could see I was in trouble. So he found the dojo and persuaded me my father would want me to be a warrior.”
“He lied?”
“He lied,” Rob said with affection. “It’s a good thing Sensei was a strict traditionalist.” The master, an ancient Okinawan, had had almost no English, but he had conveyed his disdain for colored sashes and other Japanese corruptions of the art of the empty hand. He would have been horrified to see karate turning into an Olympic sport.
Beth nodded. “Mike quit when he realized he was never going to be a black belt at that dojo.”
“I remember.” Rob’s mouth twitched. “I have news for Mike.”
“Whoever the teacher was, Mike was never going to be a black belt.” Beth laughed, a relieved sound.
Rob thought it was time to get down to business. “My anger was diverted into karate.”
“And computers.”
“Science fiction first, where Lucky Starr, space ranger, saves the galaxy.”
“Not Stephen King?”
“Him I found later. Then computers. That was Gran’s contribution. When the jokes started coming back, I was armed for adolescence.”
“So you had an easy time?”
“No, but I survived more or less intact.”
“And got out of town the day after you graduated from high school.”
“I hope,” Rob said, “that I didn’t break my grandfather’s heart. I didn’t mean to.” He had run off to California, then the center of the computer industry. Nowadays he would have just run to The Dalles.
Beth smiled. “No. Robert missed his fishing partner, but he bragged about your independence.”
Rob felt a surprising degree of relief. If anyone living knew what his grandfather had felt, it was Beth. “So tell me about Aidan Pascoe.”
“On the face of it, he should have been all right, but he wasn’t. His parents were divorced, but lots of parents are. The father had custody of Aidan and his brother. The mother kept the daughter and lives in Hood River. Dad’s a carpenter and a sports fisherman.”
“Is that code for right-wing Republican?”
“It’s not code. He likes to fish. Steelhead mostly. But he talks like Rush Limbaugh’s mean cousin. He’s also a sports fanatic. The older boy, Seth, was on the football and basketball teams, and Dad was a loud supporter, too loud sometimes. Aidan was the kind who tried out and never made the team. His father didn’t forgive him.”
“Aidan should have gone to live with his mother.”
“She didn’t ask for custody of the boys. That’s all I know about her. I never met her.”
“But you did meet the father?”
“Once. I met him when Seth’s grades threatened to bump him from the football team. Seth wasn’t dyslexic, just didn’t concentrate. I guess his father scared him into working enough to get by. He stayed on the teams, and he graduated. I haven’t heard anything about him since he left school.”
“He probably moved away.” Most young people did, at least for a while.
“Probably. He wasn’t good enough for an athletic scholarship though, pardon me, scholarship is the wrong word. I think colleges that recruit athletes should cut the comedy and just hand out cash. Save the scholarships for the scholars.”
“Beth—”
“I know. Stick to the subject. Aidan. Well, it’s hard to pin down. He had trouble concentrating, like his brother, and rarely finished his homework. I didn’t call his father in, but I threatened to, and it worked. Sort of. He drifted along, Cs and Ds. No hobbies, no friends. But he graduated. And then he joined the army.”
“And that surprised you?”
“No, not completely. There was this superheated atmosphere of patriotism around that time. Kids are vulnerable to it, and Aidan was vulnerable every which way. Also, the military structure may have attracted him. He was a strange rootless, shapeless personality. Maybe he thought the army would give him meaning. It works for some kids. I know that’s not a fashionable sentiment, but it’s true. And in Aidan’s case, it worked, at least for a while. This was five years ago, the year before...you know.”
The mudslide. Before Beth survived her husband’s death and quit teaching. Before she became sheriff of Latouche County.
“He came home the next September on what they used to call embarkation leave, meaning he was about to be sent off to Iraq with his unit, and he looked great. He came by the high school, in uniform, mind you, and thanked me for being an important influence.” She sounded agitated.
“Well, that’s nice. A lot of us forget to thank our teachers—”
“I didn’t know where to look,” Beth hissed. “I was embarrassed. I hadn’t done a thing for that child, couldn’t. He was spouting a lot of platitudes I wanted to believe. I wished him luck and didn’t see him again.”
“Ever?”
“Ever. The rest of this is from Ruth.”
“Understood. He went off with his unit....”
“And came back too soon.”
“What do you mean?”
“He was back within six months, back and out of the army. No more parading around in uniform. Ruth heard a lot of speculation, that he’d been wounded, that he was AWOL, that he’d been involved in an atrocity and booted out in a cover-up. You’d have to get on to the army to find out why he was discharged.”
“I’ll do that. You said speculation. Who was doing the speculating?”
“The older girls and a couple of the aides. Aidan had made quite a hit with the ladies on his embarkation leave, between the uniform and the new motorcycle.”
“You didn’t say anything about a motorcycle.”
“Ah, well, there you are. My memory isn’t what it should be. When Aidan came home from basic training, his father was proud of him all of a sudden, so proud he bought Aidan a bike. It was probably the first sign of approval the old man ever gave him.”
“Dad was interested. The girls were interested. Aidan got a lot of attention, for the first time in his life.” Rob turned that over in his mind. “And then it was over.”
“Yes. Ruth has seen him around since on the motorcycle, but she doesn’t know where he works or where he’s living. She was surprised when Carla Jackman started hanging out with him. He’s a good four years older than Carla, for one thing. And Carla’s mother is...was fastidious.”
“What did Ruth say about Carla? What else, that is.”
Beth hesitated. “She said Aidan was good for Carla.”
“In what way?”
“She started to assert herself. Over small things, at first. Her mother had chosen her clothes and hairdo, which meant Carla was really out of it—dresses and pantsuits and fluffy curls, like she was forty years old. Her junior year, though, Carla experimented. All black at first, including black lipstick, but Goth is boring these days. Now she’s into low-slung jeans and little skimpy tops with bits of lace and temporary tattoos.”
“Temporary?”
“They keep changing, so they must be transfers. Ruth said the piercings were even more dramatic.”
“They tend to be.” So far Willow had only pierced her ears—four times. Her mother had agonized over that.
Beth’s mouth twitched in a suppressed smile. “Apparently, when Marybeth objected to the navel piercing, Carla threatened to have her tongue pierced.”
Rob laughed.
So did Beth. “The biter bit.”
Beth didn’t have much to say about Harley Hoover, who sounded dead-center normal and depressingly well-adjusted in contrast to Aidan. She was sorry to hear Harley had suffered a head injury and glad to know he was back with friends and family. She liked him. Everybody did. Except Meg.
On the drive home, Rob thought about Marybeth’s daughter. How far had the revolt against her mother gone? The change must have run deeper than mere experimentation with fads. Beth said the girl had started speaking up in class, though not necessarily in a way that pleased her teachers. If anything, her grades had gone downhill, but she had made a few friends among the rebels and outcasts at the high school. She cut class a lot. From what Rob had observed in his conversation with Mr. Jackman, and from what Meg had told him of her talk with the stepmother, Carla’s rebellion extended to her father.
How all that, and what he’d learned of Aidan Pascoe, connected with the likelihood that Carla and Aidan had trashed Trout Farm and tried to burn Jack and Maddie out, Rob did not know.
He got home about nine-fifteen and found a message from Meg on the landline.
Chapter 12
“I’m still at the hospital.” Meg’s voice sounded dull.
Rob cleared his throat. “It’s bad, then?”
“Yes. I don’t think she recognized me.”
Very bad. “I’m sorry, Meg.”
“I shouldn’t be using a cell phone here. Thanks for calling. I’ll phone in the morning.”
“Okay. I love you.”
“You, too.” She sounded as if she were crying or wanting to cry. Male voices rumbled in the background. “Bye.”
Rob set the receiver down and stared at Meg’s whiteboard with its multi-colored phone numbers, dissociated names, and forgotten dental appointments. When she’d called earlier, why had she used the landline instead of his cell phone?
Because she’d known he wouldn’t be home yet, and she hadn’t wanted to speak to him. It was a desolating thought. He went upstairs, changed into his karate gi, and began a slow-form exercise that demanded total concentration.
When his cell rang the first time, he let it go, thinking the caller would record a message, but it was a hang-up. All the same, it broke his concentration. The caller couldn’t be Meg—if she phoned, she would leave a message. He calmed, centered, sank back into mindfulness. Some time later, the cell rang again, startling him. He jumped sideways, caught up the phone from the top of the dresser, and pressed Talk. “Robert Neill.”
It was Madeline Thomas. “You sound out of breath. What are you doing?” Her voice crackled. Bad reception.
“Kata.” His breathing steadied. “Karate. What can I do for you, Chief Thomas?”
“Harley’s missing.”
“You’re reporting a missing person?” He groped for civility.
“I know you don’t do a search until the person is missing twenty-four hours.” Her patience was exaggerated.
“True for adults.”
“He’s gone. He wasn’t here for the ceremony....”
“Are you at Trout Farm?”
“Yes. I can get a signal upstairs. His car’s missing and some of his stuff. He left the house unlocked. No, I’m lying. He was gone when Bitsy and I got here this morning for the purification, and the house was locked then. When I came out tonight, it was unlocked, like he came back and left again in a hurry.”
“What are you doing out there at, what is it, midnight?”
“I had a bad feeling.” She didn’t elaborate. Rob knew about Madeline’s bad feelings and didn’t ask for an explanation. When something was wrong she felt it.
“Soon as they settled Jack down for the night,” she went on through a burst of static, “I drove out here. Harley’s gone. I’ve been calling around. His mom. His grandmother. Nancy. The kids who were out here when we boxed the books. Nobody’s seen him. He’s missing.”
Rob fumbled in the pockets of the jacket he’d hung on the back of a chair for a notebook and pen, juggling the telephone. The sleeves of his gi flopped. “Okay. His grandmother lives in Flume, right?”
“Yes, but he wasn’t with her. And he isn’t with his mother. He doesn’t get along with his stepfather.”
“What’s Harley driving?” He sat at Meg’s dressing table.
“Nancy’s old Corolla. Blue. I don’t know the license number, but I think it’s still registered to her. He gave it to her when he joined the army. Her roommate’s taking her to the college these days.”
Nancy Hoover, he wrote. Toyota Corolla. Old. Blue. “I’m going to send a patrol car to you.” A welfare check, so-called. “The deputy can secure the house.” And look for evidence of foul play. “Can you stick around until he gets there?”
“Okay. He didn’t come to see Jack at the hospital.” She meant Harley didn’t.
“And you were surprised?”
“I was when I got to thinking about it. Harley and Jack are close.”
Rob turned that over in his mind without result. He was too tired to think. “Tell me what you’re afraid of.”
“Suicide?”
Suicide would be a real fear. Harley was disturbed, and the rate of suicide among Klalos was higher than in the population as a whole. But Madeline didn’t sound sure.
After a moment, she added, “Maybe revenge. He has a lot of anger. If he knows who set the fire...”
Rob hesitated. “Aidan Pascoe.”
“Who’s that?” She sounded perfectly blank.
“Carla Jackman’s boyfriend.” The bedroom was chilly and getting colder. He shivered.
“The kid who helped Fern’s grandniece clear the house? You sure he did it?”
“I have a warrant for Pascoe’s arrest.” He didn’t mention the girl.
“Fast work.”
“Leon gave me what I needed. How would Harley know who torched your house?”
“Kids hear things. Harley has a lot of friends. I think the Pascoe boy came out to the farm while Meg was here. Harley talked to him. I don’t think they were on good terms. Carla Jackman’s boyfriend?”
“That’s right.”
She let out her breath with a whoosh. “Is that why they trashed the farmhouse? Mama told them to?”
“I didn’t say they did that. I don’t have the evidence yet.”
“But you’re looking.”
“Yes.”
A long pause. “It doesn’t make sense.” There was nothing slow about Madeline Thomas.
“No,” he said, exhausted. “Nothing makes sense.”
After he sent out the patrol car and heard a preliminary report from the deputy, Rob tried to resume the exercise, but he was too tired to focus. He fell on the empty bed and slept without moving for five solid hours. And woke to the telephone. Again.
He felt his face go hot at the compliment. When she’d agreed to serve out her husband’s term, Beth had begged Rob to take over the law enforcement duties associated with the county’s chief executive. She would learn, she said, and she would back him up, but she wanted him there as undersheriff. He had agreed with reluctance. He’d been content as the county’s chief investigator, and he disliked administrative chores.
But he didn’t regret the deal, and he was glad to know she didn’t either.
“You said Carla was timid when Ruth first saw her.”
“Very. She barely spoke in class and had no friends.”
“I gather she changed.”
“She met Aidan Pascoe. Last year.”
“How, if she was that shy?”
“Ruth didn’t say.”
Rob swallowed cold coffee. “And Aidan transformed her?”
“Swept her off her feet?” Beth shook her head. “I don’t think so. The Aidan I remember was not exactly a stud-muffin.”
“Kids change, boys especially.”
“As you know.”
“Low blow,” he said without rancor.
Rob was a senior before he reached the glorious altitude of five feet eight. A late bloomer, everybody said, especially his grandmother. He was now five eleven, having shot up three painful inches in his eighteenth year, but there were still moments when he was a shrimp. The experience gave him a soft spot for kids who were miserable in high school, whatever the reason. He would have to back off from that befuddling empathy.
Beth watched him.
He sighed. “Tell me everything you know about Aidan Pascoe.”
Beth took their cups to the kitchen and returned with them, emptied, and the coffeepot. “Another coffee?”
“I guess so. Might as well pull an all-nighter.”
She poured two cups and set the empty pot on a trivet. “Tell me something first. You had a rough time the first years of high school, or so I imagine.”
“I did.”
“How did you get through the anger?”
“Jokes and judo.”
“Come on, be serious. It’s a grossly intrusive question, but it has a bearing on both of these young people.”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “I was serious.”
“Go on.” She busied herself sugaring her coffee.
“When I was a first grader my dad noticed I was the smallest kid on the block. He did something about it.”
She sipped.
“He taught me a few simple self-defense moves, so the big guys would think twice about shoving me around, and he lectured me about not misusing judo and turning myself into a bully, too. That was good, I guess, but the main thing was the jokes.”
“A soft answer turneth away wrath?”
“With bullies, a soft answer doesn’t work. A joke, the right kind of joke, can distract them, or their hangers-on.”
“So you and your father practiced jokes?”
“Joke-of-the-day club. Knock, knock.” Rob grinned. “That’s about it.”
“He was a smart man.”
“Not smart enough to avoid being sent to a combat zone.” He made a face. He did not like to talk about his parents. His father, Staff Sgt. Charles Neill, who characterized himself as a glorified file clerk, was killed in a random rocket attack on Saigon during the Tet Offensive of 1968. Within the year, Rob’s mother had died in an unnecessary wreck on the River Road.
Beth waited, her eyes dark with too much sympathy.
“I lost my sense of humor.”
Her eyes brimmed but she had the wit to wait.
“You remember my grandfather?” Dumb question.
She blinked and sniffed. “You’re kidding. Robert Guthrie presided over my adolescence.”
“At the soda fountain.” His grandfather had owned a small traditional drugstore in downtown Klalo. The Guthrie soda fountain was a teen hangout.
“Cherry Cokes.”
“French fries and ketchup.”
“For you maybe. I had to watch my waistline. It was a great place to flirt with boys.”
“And girls. Not that I was flirting at the age of nine. Mostly I picked fights. Granddad could see I was in trouble. So he found the dojo and persuaded me my father would want me to be a warrior.”
“He lied?”
“He lied,” Rob said with affection. “It’s a good thing Sensei was a strict traditionalist.” The master, an ancient Okinawan, had had almost no English, but he had conveyed his disdain for colored sashes and other Japanese corruptions of the art of the empty hand. He would have been horrified to see karate turning into an Olympic sport.
Beth nodded. “Mike quit when he realized he was never going to be a black belt at that dojo.”
“I remember.” Rob’s mouth twitched. “I have news for Mike.”
“Whoever the teacher was, Mike was never going to be a black belt.” Beth laughed, a relieved sound.
Rob thought it was time to get down to business. “My anger was diverted into karate.”
“And computers.”
“Science fiction first, where Lucky Starr, space ranger, saves the galaxy.”
“Not Stephen King?”
“Him I found later. Then computers. That was Gran’s contribution. When the jokes started coming back, I was armed for adolescence.”
“So you had an easy time?”
“No, but I survived more or less intact.”
“And got out of town the day after you graduated from high school.”
“I hope,” Rob said, “that I didn’t break my grandfather’s heart. I didn’t mean to.” He had run off to California, then the center of the computer industry. Nowadays he would have just run to The Dalles.
Beth smiled. “No. Robert missed his fishing partner, but he bragged about your independence.”
Rob felt a surprising degree of relief. If anyone living knew what his grandfather had felt, it was Beth. “So tell me about Aidan Pascoe.”
“On the face of it, he should have been all right, but he wasn’t. His parents were divorced, but lots of parents are. The father had custody of Aidan and his brother. The mother kept the daughter and lives in Hood River. Dad’s a carpenter and a sports fisherman.”
“Is that code for right-wing Republican?”
“It’s not code. He likes to fish. Steelhead mostly. But he talks like Rush Limbaugh’s mean cousin. He’s also a sports fanatic. The older boy, Seth, was on the football and basketball teams, and Dad was a loud supporter, too loud sometimes. Aidan was the kind who tried out and never made the team. His father didn’t forgive him.”
“Aidan should have gone to live with his mother.”
“She didn’t ask for custody of the boys. That’s all I know about her. I never met her.”
“But you did meet the father?”
“Once. I met him when Seth’s grades threatened to bump him from the football team. Seth wasn’t dyslexic, just didn’t concentrate. I guess his father scared him into working enough to get by. He stayed on the teams, and he graduated. I haven’t heard anything about him since he left school.”
“He probably moved away.” Most young people did, at least for a while.
“Probably. He wasn’t good enough for an athletic scholarship though, pardon me, scholarship is the wrong word. I think colleges that recruit athletes should cut the comedy and just hand out cash. Save the scholarships for the scholars.”
“Beth—”
“I know. Stick to the subject. Aidan. Well, it’s hard to pin down. He had trouble concentrating, like his brother, and rarely finished his homework. I didn’t call his father in, but I threatened to, and it worked. Sort of. He drifted along, Cs and Ds. No hobbies, no friends. But he graduated. And then he joined the army.”
“And that surprised you?”
“No, not completely. There was this superheated atmosphere of patriotism around that time. Kids are vulnerable to it, and Aidan was vulnerable every which way. Also, the military structure may have attracted him. He was a strange rootless, shapeless personality. Maybe he thought the army would give him meaning. It works for some kids. I know that’s not a fashionable sentiment, but it’s true. And in Aidan’s case, it worked, at least for a while. This was five years ago, the year before...you know.”
The mudslide. Before Beth survived her husband’s death and quit teaching. Before she became sheriff of Latouche County.
“He came home the next September on what they used to call embarkation leave, meaning he was about to be sent off to Iraq with his unit, and he looked great. He came by the high school, in uniform, mind you, and thanked me for being an important influence.” She sounded agitated.
“Well, that’s nice. A lot of us forget to thank our teachers—”
“I didn’t know where to look,” Beth hissed. “I was embarrassed. I hadn’t done a thing for that child, couldn’t. He was spouting a lot of platitudes I wanted to believe. I wished him luck and didn’t see him again.”
“Ever?”
“Ever. The rest of this is from Ruth.”
“Understood. He went off with his unit....”
“And came back too soon.”
“What do you mean?”
“He was back within six months, back and out of the army. No more parading around in uniform. Ruth heard a lot of speculation, that he’d been wounded, that he was AWOL, that he’d been involved in an atrocity and booted out in a cover-up. You’d have to get on to the army to find out why he was discharged.”
“I’ll do that. You said speculation. Who was doing the speculating?”
“The older girls and a couple of the aides. Aidan had made quite a hit with the ladies on his embarkation leave, between the uniform and the new motorcycle.”
“You didn’t say anything about a motorcycle.”
“Ah, well, there you are. My memory isn’t what it should be. When Aidan came home from basic training, his father was proud of him all of a sudden, so proud he bought Aidan a bike. It was probably the first sign of approval the old man ever gave him.”
“Dad was interested. The girls were interested. Aidan got a lot of attention, for the first time in his life.” Rob turned that over in his mind. “And then it was over.”
“Yes. Ruth has seen him around since on the motorcycle, but she doesn’t know where he works or where he’s living. She was surprised when Carla Jackman started hanging out with him. He’s a good four years older than Carla, for one thing. And Carla’s mother is...was fastidious.”
“What did Ruth say about Carla? What else, that is.”
Beth hesitated. “She said Aidan was good for Carla.”
“In what way?”
“She started to assert herself. Over small things, at first. Her mother had chosen her clothes and hairdo, which meant Carla was really out of it—dresses and pantsuits and fluffy curls, like she was forty years old. Her junior year, though, Carla experimented. All black at first, including black lipstick, but Goth is boring these days. Now she’s into low-slung jeans and little skimpy tops with bits of lace and temporary tattoos.”
“Temporary?”
“They keep changing, so they must be transfers. Ruth said the piercings were even more dramatic.”
“They tend to be.” So far Willow had only pierced her ears—four times. Her mother had agonized over that.
Beth’s mouth twitched in a suppressed smile. “Apparently, when Marybeth objected to the navel piercing, Carla threatened to have her tongue pierced.”
Rob laughed.
So did Beth. “The biter bit.”
Beth didn’t have much to say about Harley Hoover, who sounded dead-center normal and depressingly well-adjusted in contrast to Aidan. She was sorry to hear Harley had suffered a head injury and glad to know he was back with friends and family. She liked him. Everybody did. Except Meg.
On the drive home, Rob thought about Marybeth’s daughter. How far had the revolt against her mother gone? The change must have run deeper than mere experimentation with fads. Beth said the girl had started speaking up in class, though not necessarily in a way that pleased her teachers. If anything, her grades had gone downhill, but she had made a few friends among the rebels and outcasts at the high school. She cut class a lot. From what Rob had observed in his conversation with Mr. Jackman, and from what Meg had told him of her talk with the stepmother, Carla’s rebellion extended to her father.
How all that, and what he’d learned of Aidan Pascoe, connected with the likelihood that Carla and Aidan had trashed Trout Farm and tried to burn Jack and Maddie out, Rob did not know.
He got home about nine-fifteen and found a message from Meg on the landline.
Chapter 12
“I’m still at the hospital.” Meg’s voice sounded dull.
Rob cleared his throat. “It’s bad, then?”
“Yes. I don’t think she recognized me.”
Very bad. “I’m sorry, Meg.”
“I shouldn’t be using a cell phone here. Thanks for calling. I’ll phone in the morning.”
“Okay. I love you.”
“You, too.” She sounded as if she were crying or wanting to cry. Male voices rumbled in the background. “Bye.”
Rob set the receiver down and stared at Meg’s whiteboard with its multi-colored phone numbers, dissociated names, and forgotten dental appointments. When she’d called earlier, why had she used the landline instead of his cell phone?
Because she’d known he wouldn’t be home yet, and she hadn’t wanted to speak to him. It was a desolating thought. He went upstairs, changed into his karate gi, and began a slow-form exercise that demanded total concentration.
When his cell rang the first time, he let it go, thinking the caller would record a message, but it was a hang-up. All the same, it broke his concentration. The caller couldn’t be Meg—if she phoned, she would leave a message. He calmed, centered, sank back into mindfulness. Some time later, the cell rang again, startling him. He jumped sideways, caught up the phone from the top of the dresser, and pressed Talk. “Robert Neill.”
It was Madeline Thomas. “You sound out of breath. What are you doing?” Her voice crackled. Bad reception.
“Kata.” His breathing steadied. “Karate. What can I do for you, Chief Thomas?”
“Harley’s missing.”
“You’re reporting a missing person?” He groped for civility.
“I know you don’t do a search until the person is missing twenty-four hours.” Her patience was exaggerated.
“True for adults.”
“He’s gone. He wasn’t here for the ceremony....”
“Are you at Trout Farm?”
“Yes. I can get a signal upstairs. His car’s missing and some of his stuff. He left the house unlocked. No, I’m lying. He was gone when Bitsy and I got here this morning for the purification, and the house was locked then. When I came out tonight, it was unlocked, like he came back and left again in a hurry.”
“What are you doing out there at, what is it, midnight?”
“I had a bad feeling.” She didn’t elaborate. Rob knew about Madeline’s bad feelings and didn’t ask for an explanation. When something was wrong she felt it.
“Soon as they settled Jack down for the night,” she went on through a burst of static, “I drove out here. Harley’s gone. I’ve been calling around. His mom. His grandmother. Nancy. The kids who were out here when we boxed the books. Nobody’s seen him. He’s missing.”
Rob fumbled in the pockets of the jacket he’d hung on the back of a chair for a notebook and pen, juggling the telephone. The sleeves of his gi flopped. “Okay. His grandmother lives in Flume, right?”
“Yes, but he wasn’t with her. And he isn’t with his mother. He doesn’t get along with his stepfather.”
“What’s Harley driving?” He sat at Meg’s dressing table.
“Nancy’s old Corolla. Blue. I don’t know the license number, but I think it’s still registered to her. He gave it to her when he joined the army. Her roommate’s taking her to the college these days.”
Nancy Hoover, he wrote. Toyota Corolla. Old. Blue. “I’m going to send a patrol car to you.” A welfare check, so-called. “The deputy can secure the house.” And look for evidence of foul play. “Can you stick around until he gets there?”
“Okay. He didn’t come to see Jack at the hospital.” She meant Harley didn’t.
“And you were surprised?”
“I was when I got to thinking about it. Harley and Jack are close.”
Rob turned that over in his mind without result. He was too tired to think. “Tell me what you’re afraid of.”
“Suicide?”
Suicide would be a real fear. Harley was disturbed, and the rate of suicide among Klalos was higher than in the population as a whole. But Madeline didn’t sound sure.
After a moment, she added, “Maybe revenge. He has a lot of anger. If he knows who set the fire...”
Rob hesitated. “Aidan Pascoe.”
“Who’s that?” She sounded perfectly blank.
“Carla Jackman’s boyfriend.” The bedroom was chilly and getting colder. He shivered.
“The kid who helped Fern’s grandniece clear the house? You sure he did it?”
“I have a warrant for Pascoe’s arrest.” He didn’t mention the girl.
“Fast work.”
“Leon gave me what I needed. How would Harley know who torched your house?”
“Kids hear things. Harley has a lot of friends. I think the Pascoe boy came out to the farm while Meg was here. Harley talked to him. I don’t think they were on good terms. Carla Jackman’s boyfriend?”
“That’s right.”
She let out her breath with a whoosh. “Is that why they trashed the farmhouse? Mama told them to?”
“I didn’t say they did that. I don’t have the evidence yet.”
“But you’re looking.”
“Yes.”
A long pause. “It doesn’t make sense.” There was nothing slow about Madeline Thomas.
“No,” he said, exhausted. “Nothing makes sense.”
After he sent out the patrol car and heard a preliminary report from the deputy, Rob tried to resume the exercise, but he was too tired to focus. He fell on the empty bed and slept without moving for five solid hours. And woke to the telephone. Again.
