her. Her eyes dropped a little further and she saw, at the very foot of the letter, the notation “cc: Patricia Chalmers.” Well, this was a Xerox, not a carbon, but it still cleared up the puzzling matter of this being Alan’s letter (and settled her first confused idea that it had been delivered to her by mistake).
But what, in God’s name…
Polly sat on the Shaker bench in the hallway and began to read the letter. As she did so, a remarkable series of emotions lensed across her face, like cloud formations on an unsettled, windy day: puzzlement, understanding, shame, horror, anger, and finally fury.
She screamed aloud once “No!'-and then went back and forced herself to read the letter again, slowly, all the way to the end.
San Francisco Department of Child Welfare 666 Geary Street San Francisco, California 94112
September 23, 1991
Sheriff Alan J. Pangborn Castle County Sheriff’s Office 2 The Municipal Building Castle Rock, Maine 04055
Dear Sheriff Pangborn:
I am in receipt of your letter of September 1, and am writing to tell you I can offer you no help whatever in this matter. It is the policy of this Department to give out information on applicants for Aid to Dependent Children (A.D.C) only when we are compelled to do so by a valid court order. I have shown your letter to Martin D. Chung, our chief legal counsel, who instructs me to tell you that a copy of your letter has been forwarded to the California Attorney General’s Office.
Mr. Chung has asked for an opinion as to whether your request may be illegal in and of itself. Whatever the result of that inquiry, I must tell you that I find your curiosity about this woman’s life in San Francisco to be both inappropriate and offensive.
I suggest, Sheriff Pangborn, that you lay this matter to rest before you incur legal difficulties.
Sincerely, John L. Perlmutter Deputy Director cc: Patricia Chalmers After her fourth reading of this terrible letter, Polly rose from the bench and walked into the kitchen. She walked slowly and gracefully, more like one who swims than one who walks. At first her eyes were dazed and confused, but by the time she had taken the handset from the wall- mounted phone and tapped out the number of the Sheriff’s Office on the oversized pads, they had cleared.
The look which lit them was simple and unmistakable: an anger so strong it was nearly hate.
Her lover had been sniffing around in her past-she found the idea simultaneously unbelievable and strangely, hideously plausible.
She had done a lot of comparing herself to Alan Pangborn in the last four or five months, and that meant she had done a lot of coming off second best. His tears; her deceptive calm, which hid so much shame and hurt and secret defiant pride. His honesty; her little stack of lies. How saintlike he had seemed! How dauntingly perfect!
How hypocritical her own insistence that he put the past away!
And all the time he had been sniffing around, trying to find out the real story on Kelton Chalmers.
“You bastard,” she whispered, and as the telephone began to ring, the knuckles of the hand holding the telephone turned white with strain.
14
Lester Pratt usually left Castle Rock High in the company of several friends; they would all go down to Hemphill’s Market for sodas, then head off to someone’s house or apartment for a couple of hours to sing hymns or play games or just shoot the bull. Today, however, Lester left school alone with his knapsack on his back (he disdained the traditional teacher’s briefcase) and his head down. If Alan had been there to watch Lester walk slowly across the school lawn toward the faculty parking lot, he would have been struck by the man’s resemblance to Brian Rusk.
Three times that day Lester had tried to get in touch with Sally, to find out what in the land of Goshen had made her so mad. The last time had been during his period five lunch-break. He knew she was at the Middle School, but the closest he got to her was a callback from Mona Lawless, who taught sixth- and seventh-grade math and chummed with Sally.
“She can’t come to the phone,” Mona told him, displaying all the warmth of a deep-freeze stuffed with Popsicles.
“Why not?” he had asked-almost whined. “Come on, Monagive!
“I don’t know.” Mona’s tone had progressed from Popsicies in the deep-freeze to the verbal equivalent of liquid nitrogen. “All I know is that she’s been staying with Irene Lutjens, she looks like she spent all last night crying, and she says she doesn’t want to talk to you.”
And this is all your fault, Mona’s frozen tone said. I know that because you’re a man and all men are dogshit-this is just another specific example illustrating the general case.
“Well I don’t have the slightest idea what it’s all about!”
Lester shouted. “Will you tell her that, at least? Tell her I don’t know why she’s mad at me! Tell her whatever it is, it must be a misunderstanding, because I don’t get it!”
There was a long pause. When Mona spoke again, her voice had warmed up a little. Not much, but it was a lot better than liquid nitrogen. “All right, Lester. I’ll tell her.”
Now he raised his head, half-hoping Sally might be sitting in the passenger seat of the Mustang, ready to kiss and make up, but the car was empty. The only person close to it was soft-headed Slopey Dodd, goofing around on his skateboard.
Steve Edwards came up behind Lester and clapped him on the shoulder. “Les, boy! Want to come over to my place for a Coke?
A bunch of the guys said they’d drop by. We have to talk about this outrageous Catholic harassment. The big meeting’s at the church tonight, don’t forget, and it would be good if we Y.A.’s could present a united front when it comes to deciding what to do.
I mentioned the idea to Don Hemphill and he said yeah, great, go for it.” He looked at Lester as if he expected a pat on the head.
“I can’t this afternoon, Steve. Maybe another time.”
“Hey, Les, don’t you get it? There may not be another time!
The Pope’s boys aren’t fooling around anymore!”
“I can’t come over,” Les said. And if you’re wise, his face said, you’ll stop pushing it.
“Well, but… why not?”
Because I have to find out what the heck I did to make my girl so angry, Lester thought. And I am going to find out, even if I have to shake it out of her.
Out loud he said, “I’ve got stuff to do, Steve. Important stuff.
Take my word for it.”
“If this is about Sally, Les-” Lester’s eyes flashed dangerously.
“You just shut up about Sally.”
Steve, an inoffensive young man who had been set aflame by the strife over Casino Nite, was not yet burning brightly enough to overstep the line Lester Pratt had so clearly drawn. But neither was he quite ready to give up. Without Lester Pratt, a Young Adults’ Policy Meeting was a joke, no matter how many from the Y.A. group turned out. Pitching his voice more reasonably, he said: “You know the anonymous card Bill got?”
“Yes,” Lester said. Rev. Rose had found it on the floor of the parsonage front hallway: the already-notorious “Babtist Rat-Fuck” card.
The Reverend had passed it around at a hastily called Guys Only
Y.A. meeting because, he said, it was impossible to credit unless you saw the vile thing for yourself. It was hard to fully understand, Rev.
Rose had added, the depths to which the Catholics would sink-uh in order to stifle righteous opposition to their Sataninspired night of gambling; perhaps actually seeing this vile spew of filth would help these “fine young men” comprehend what they were up against. “For do we not say that forewarned is-uh forearmed?” Rev. Rose had finished grandly. He then produced the card (it was inside a Baggie, as if those who handled it needed to be guarded from Infection) and handed it around.
As Lester finished reading it, he had been more than ready to ring a few sets of Catholic chimes, but now the entire affair seemed distant and somehow childish. Who really cared if the Catholics gambled for play money and gave away a few new tires and kitchen appliances? When it came down to a choice between the Catholics and “Sally Ratcliffe, Lester knew which one he had to worry about-a meeting to try and work out the next step!” Steve was continuing. He was starting to get hot again. “We have to seize the initiative here, Les… we have to! Reverend Bill says he’s worried that these so-called Concerned Catholic Men are through talking.
Their next step may be-”
“Look, Steve, do whatever you want, but leave me out of i’t!”
Steve stopped and stared at him, clearly shocked and just as clearly expecting Lester, normally the most even-tempered of fellows, to come to his senses and apologize. When he realized no apology was forthcoming, he started to walk back toward the school, putting distance between himself and Lester. “Boy, you’re in a rotten mood,” he said.
“That’s right!” Lester called back truculently. He rolled his big hands into fists and planted them on his hips.
But Lester was more than just angry; he hurt, damn it, he hurt all over, and what hurt the worst was his mind, and he wanted to strike out at someone. Not poor old Steve Edwards; it was just that allowing himself to get passed at Steve seemed to have turned on a switch inside him. That switch had sent electricity flowing to a lot of mental appliances which were usually dark and silent. For the first time since he’d fallen in love with Sally, Lester-normally the most placid of men-felt angry at her, too. What right had she to tell him to go to hell? What right did she have to call him a bastard?
She was mad about something, was she? All right, she was mad.
Maybe he had even given her something to be mad about. He hadn’t the slightest idea what that something might be, but say (just for the sake of argument) that he had. Did that give her the right to fly off the handle at him without even doing him the courtesy of asking for an explanation first? Did it give her the right to stay with Irene Lut’ens so he couldn’t crash his way into wherever she was, or to refuse all his telephone calls, or to employ Mona Lawless as a go-between?
I’m going to find her, Lester thought, and I’m going to find out what’s eating her. Then, once it’s out, we can make up. And after we do, I’m going to give her the same lecture I give my freshmen when basketball practice starts-about how trust is the key to teamwork.
He stripped off his pack, chucked it into the back seat, and climbed into his car. As he did, he saw something sticking out from under the passenger seat. Something black. It looked like a wallet.
Lester seized it eagerly, thinking at first that it must be Sally’s.
If she had left it in his car at some point during the long holiday weekend, she must have missed it by now. She’d be anxious.
And if he could relieve her anxiety about her lost wallet, the rest of their conversation might become a little easier.
