Chapter 23

LINDY

She slept badly the first night back in Wolf River.

For one thing, the air conditioner had an annoying arhythmic clunk that grew louder as the night progressed. She tried turning the thing off, but the hot, airless night pressed down on her like a giant sweaty hand. She decided battling the clunk was better than suffocation.

Her dreams, when she did sleep, were not conducive to rest. They were filled with dark memories and floating clowns and a waitress who smiled with somebody else's face. When she awoke, the sheets of her bed were cold and wet, and clung unpleasantly to her body.

When she finally gave up on sleep, the travel alarm she had placed beside the bed read five minutes to seven. Lindy had an impulse to call California to see if Nicole was all right. Or to talk to Brendan. She rejected both ideas immediately. In the first place, it was still the middle of the night out there, and in the second, she really didn't have anything to say. If Nicole was not all right, her friend's parents had the number of the inn and they would get in touch with her. And Brendan would think she was crazy, scared by a plastic doll in a soup tureen.

She showered and dressed quickly, anxious to get out before she had to see Roman and Alec. Being with them made her feel unclean.

She hurried out through the empty lobby to the street. The day was overcast, with a heavy feeling to the air. Lindy walked down Main Street to the drab-looking Kountry Kitchen Kafe, which stood where Bonnie's Gift Shop used to be. A pair of weather-beaten men who looked like farmers were eating breakfast in silence at the counter. They gave Lindy a brief look and returned to their food. She took a stool at the far end and took the menu from the clamp attached to the napkin dispenser.

A waitress brought a glass of water and silverware. She was a fat peroxide blonde with a bitter curve to her mouth. Loose flaps of skin hung on her upper arms.

"Help you?"

"I think I'll just have a sweet roll and coffee. Is the orange juice fresh?"

"Frozen."

"Never mind, then."

Lindy looked up from the menu to see the waitress still looking at her.

"I know you," the woman said.

Lindy searched her memory. Nothing clicked. "I-I'm sorry, I don't think I -"

"Lindy Grant."

"That's right," she admitted.

"Jesus, you look just the same."

Unconsciously Lindy narrowed her eyes. Something about the way the woman tossed her head - a gesture too young for her... Good Lord!

"Merilee Lund!"

"That's me. Only it isn't Lund any more. It was Spielman for a while, then Gotschke for too long."

"Well, you look... fine."

"That's a crock. I know how I look. But you. Jesus, how do you do it?"

"Just metabolism, I guess." Lindy was embarrassed by the physical comparisons. To get off the subject she said, "So you've been married a couple of times?"

"To my everlasting sorrow. A salesman from Milwaukee the first time. Planned to start his own machine tool business. Went through all of his money, then all of mine, then went back to Milwaukee to live with his mother."

"Men can be bad news," Lindy said.

"Hell, Avery Spielman was an angel compared to my last ex. Joe Gotschke. From the Gotschkes out by Split Rock. Maybe you know them."

"I remember the name," Lindy lied.

"I'd like to forget it. Gave me three kids and half a dozen broken teeth. Then he ran off with an Indian squaw, and I never saw a nickel's worth of child support or anything else."

"Rough," Lindy said. She stole a peek at her watch.

Merilee caught the glance. "Oh, hey, I'm not doing my job. That was a donut and coffee?"

"Sweet roll. Cinnamon, if you have it."

"I think so."

She moved up the passageway behind the counter, and Lindy tried not to look at the broad rear end and the varicose veins visible beneath the short uniform skirt. There was no way she could relate this woman to the bouncy, supple-bodied cheerleader she remembered.

Merilee came back with the coffee and cinnamon roll. She placed them on the counter and leaned forward, braced on her fat elbows, obviously expecting more conversation.

"So who'd you marry?" Merilee asked. "Nobody from here, I guess."

"I haven't married anybody," Lindy said.

"Smart."

"I always thought maybe you and Todd Hartman might end up together."

Merilee snorted. "Not likely. You were the one he had the hots for. Last I heard he married some rich bitch from Chicago and went to Washington to be a financial adviser or some damn thing."

"How about that," Lindy said, knowing how witless the comment sounded, but not able to think of anything else to say.

"So what are you doing back here?"

"Just... a visit." She took a bite of the roll and burned her mouth on hot coffee to keep from having to say any more.

"Seen your dad yet?"

"My father? He's down in Madison."

"Not anymore. You did know he moved back here, didn't you?"

"Oh... yes. I meant to say he was in Madison. We haven't kept in real close touch."

Merilee looked at her with a peculiar smile. "I guess nobody does. Well, things change."

"Yes, they do." Lindy took a last swallow of her coffee and left the rest of the cinnamon roll. "Nice seeing you, Merilee." She pulled a bill from her wallet.

"You pay at the cashier," Merilee said.

Lindy smiled at her, walked to the front of the cafe, and paid. She debated about going back to leave a tip, but Merilee was still standing there watching her, so she decided not to. She was upset enough without hearing any more depressing news from her one-time best friend.

ROMAN

The lobby of the Wolf River Inn was empty when Roman came down at about nine o'clock. That was fine with him. He was in no mood to talk to anybody, least of all his ex-school chums. Christ, that dinner last night had been the pits. First, Lindy Grant acting like he was a piece of dog shit. Just as though he'd never made it with her. Then that little creep Alec McDowell giving him a temperance lecture. To top it off there was that toy clown in the bowl. He didn't try too hard to come up with an explanation for that one. The waitress must have done it.

A sick feeling of dread had followed him up in the elevator last night and got into bed with him between the cold sheets. He forced it back into a closed part of his mind now. All he wanted to think about was getting the hell out of Wolf River without delay.

He found the rental car where he'd left it out in the parking lot behind the inn. He decided to take it now and gas up, then come back here just long enough to throw his stuff in a suitcase and check the hell out. He got into the car and turned the key in the ignition.

Nothing happened.

"What the hell?"

Roman snapped the key angrily back and forth, with no response from the starter.

"Jesus H. Christ, that's all I need."

He tried the lights, the horn, the air conditioner fan. Nothing worked.

Dead battery. You'd think a big outfit like Hertz would make sure they put a good battery in their heaps before they rented them out.

He slammed the door and stomped back into the hotel. The desk clerk was talking to a girl in some kind of white uniform - beautician or manicurist or something. The clerk looked up reluctantly as Roman approached.

"You got a Hertz in this town?"

"Hurts?"

"Read my lips. Hertz. Rent-a-car. They got an office here?"

"If there is, it'll be in the phone book."

Roman spoke with sarcastic precision. "Right. Good thinking. So do you happen to have one? A phone book?"

The clerk pointed across the lobby. "Over there by the pay phones."

"Thanks a lot."

With his anger building, Roman flipped through the thin Wolf River telephone directory until he found the local Hertz number.

The phone rang nine times at the other end while Roman's knuckles whitened on the receiver.

"Hello," a woman's voice finally answered.

Roman scowled at the instrument. "Have I got the Hertz office?"

"You would have if it was open, but it's not."

"What do you mean not open?" Roman was shouting now.

"I mean Mr. Jacobs is home with strep throat, and there's nobody else here can run the place, and it won't do any good to yell at me, mister."

Roman swore and hung up. He marched back across the lobby to the registration desk. Struggling to keep his voice level, he said, "Would you know where I can find a mechanic? And don't tell me in the phone book."

"Well, it's Saturday, and it's kind of early."

Roman dug for his money clip and slipped out a five-dollar bill. "This is pretty important to me."

The clerk looked down at the five then back up at Roman. "Jim Dancey two blocks down Main Street at the Shell station does some mechanical work if it's not too big and he's not too busy. You could try him."

"All I need is a jump start. He ought to be able to handle that. Which way on Main Street?"

The clerk gave him directions, pocketed the five dollars, and returned his attention to the girl. Roman walked the two blocks muttering to himself.

At the Shell station he found Jim Dancey, a bald, overweight man in green coveralls. Roman explained the situation, and Dancey sent him back with a kid in a pickup truck.

The kid hooked up the jumper cables and spent ten minutes trying to start the Monte Carlo.

"There's nothin' wrong with your battery, mister," the kid said finally.

"Then why won't it start?"

"Beats me. Jim'll have to look at it. I just do jump starts and tire changes."

"Balls!"

Half an hour later, after having the Monte Carlo towed to Dancey's Shell station, Roman sat in his room at the Wolf River Inn with a glass of whiskey in his hand, staring at the telephone.

There were more calls he could make, but he was oddly reluctant to pick up the receiver. Along with his anger and frustration, Roman had a growing suspicion that he was not going to have an easy time getting out of Wolf River.

Off in the corner of the room, unseen and unheard, the Floater laughed.

ALEC

He heard Lindy's door open and close sometime after seven o'clock as he lay sleepless, staring at the crack of light that showed where the curtains did not quite meet over his window. When he was sure she was not coming back to her room, Alec got up and dressed. He had nothing to say to either her or Roman this morning. And there was something he wanted to do.

He found the place easily on the north edge of town, set away from he neighboring farms by a growth of poplar trees. Even as he walked up the brick steps of the Golden Glade Residential Care Home, Alec wondered if maybe this was a bad idea. He didn't really want to see this man; he was afraid of what he might learn. And yet if he went away from Wolf River, surely forever the next time, he would always wonder.

"I'd like to see Arthur Mischock," he told the pert white-haired lady at the reception desk.

"The chief? He doesn't get many visitors. You a relative?"

"No."

When she saw there would be no further explanation, the lady got businesslike. She ran a pink fingernail down a chart. "Let's see... he's had his breakfast, so you can go on up now if you want. He's in Room 214, right off the stairs."

Alec followed her directions, depressed by the old people with vacant stares who shuffled past or were wheeled through the halls by healthy young attendants.

Golden Glade. They always had such tranquil names. The retirement homes and convalescent homes where nobody ever retired and nobody got better. Society's dumpsters. There was only one crime society could not forgive; one illness medicine could not cure. They were both the same - growing old.

Alec climbed the stairs and hesitated for a moment outside Room 214, then knocked softly. There was a muffled reply from inside. He took that as an invitation and entered.

The room was pleasant enough, splashed with morning sunlight through the window that looked out on the poplars. The wallpaper was flowery and bright. The furniture, what there was of it, was in good repair, and it might not be a bad room to live in were it not for the medicinal smell.

The man propped up in the hospital bed bore little resemblance to the bearish chief of police who used to intimidate suspects with his sheer bulk. This man was shrunken and dried. The right half of his grayed-out face hung loose. His right arm was shriveled and folded into his body.

"Hello, Chief," Alec said, trying not to look shocked at the man's appearance.

"H'lo, McDowell." The voice was still strong, although slurred by the paralysis of half the mouth.

"You know me?"

"Sure. I remember you. Not likely to forget. How long ago was it, ten years?"

"More like twenty."

"Whatever. Why'd you come back?"

"I was sent for."

"Who'd do that?"

"I don't know. I thought maybe you could tell me."

"Nope. Wasn't me, I can tell you that much. Had my way I'd never seen you again. Or the other two either. Heard all three of you are back in town."

"You don't miss much."

"Word gets around in a town like this. You oughta know that."

Alec's eyes ranged over the small room that contained the pitiful few relics of a man's life. A police badge mounted on velvet. A framed citation from some civic group. Pictures of Mischock as a young cop standing in smiling groups with other young policemen. A tinted 1930s photograph of a woman.

Standing on the bureau next to a small television set was a bowling trophy with the gold leaf flaking away. A checkerboard was set up and ready to play on a small table. The checkers and the board wore a coating of dust.

"You come to see me for a purpose?" the chief said, jerking Alec's attention back to him.

There was nothing to be gained by being subtle with this blunt old man. Alec said, "As a matter of fact, I wanted to ask about my father. I guess you were on the scene right after he died."

"Blew the top of his head off," said the chief. "Funny way for a man like that to do it. The quiet types are usually pill takers or jumpers."

"What I wondered," Alec continued, "is whether there was a note or anything. I know nothing was said at the time, but I thought maybe -"

"No note," Mischock cut him off. "Didn't need one. I knew why he done it."

"Did you?"

"Sure. So do you. It was the Nunley kid."

"Frazier?"

"I never heard about another one."

Alec's impulse was to play ignorant, but he knew it would be a waste of time. He said, "You know about that, too?"

"It wasn't no big trick to figure it out. I traced the clown getup he was wearin' to a costume place in Appleton. Found out the Dixon boy rented it there. Him and you and that Grant girl were all pretty thick at that time. Didn't take any giant brain to put the pieces together."

"But you never said anything."

"Nope. Important people involved. Judge Grant didn't want his daughter to get hurt. Elmer Swanke, he said it'd give the town a bad name. Your father, he was for tellin' it the way it happened, but we convinced him otherwise." The broken old man stared off at a spot on the ceiling. "That was a sorry day. Ain't none of us or the town ever been the same since. Your father shot himself; I don't know what become of your mother. Elmer, he's dead five or six years of the liver disease. You can see what kinda shape I'm in. And Judge Grant's got his own problems."

"It wasn't out fault," Alec said. "Not really."

He stopped talking suddenly, realizing how absurd he must sound looking for absolution from a crippled old man after all these years.

"Don 't matter now," the chief said. He closed his eyes suddenly, just like that, and began to drool down the front of his bathrobe. The interview was over.