“It’s all right. Just sit down. We can talk about your mom later. What I want to know for now is why you decided to come over.”
She hesitated a long time. “My mom’s going to kill me for coming here.”
“Let’s worry about that later.”
She scanned my office for gremlins, a pretty girl with more poise than one would expect in somebody her age. That was my thought, anyway.
But then she sort of spoiled the impression by jerking up from her chair, covering her mouth with her hand- the way I always did when the Falstaff beer started backing up-and rushed out the door to the john on the other side of the coatrack.
My charm had worked once again on a female.
They didn’t usually go so far as to barf literally.
Only figuratively.
The exterior door opened and Sara Hall, angry and frantic, rushed in, scanning my office much as her daughter had only moments earlier, and said, “Where is she?”
She wore the same outfit she’d worn earlier, too, but her shades were over her eyes.
“Who?”
“I don’t want any of your guff,
McCain. You know who. If you don’t tell me, I’ll have Sykes arrest you for contributing to the delinquency of a minor. Or maybe statutory rape would be even better.”
“Why don’t you sit down and quit acting crazy?”
“Where is she, McCain? I’m serious about calling Sykes.”
And then we both heard Dierdre throw up for the second time.
“Oh, Lord,” Sara said. She didn’t sound angry; she sounded drained, weary.
She came in and sat down and took off her sunglasses and then covered her face with lovely fingers.
“Sara, why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”
She shook her head. Said from behind her hands, “I can’t, McCain. I wish I could. I wish I could tell somebody, anyway.” Then, “This is when I resent my husband dying on me. He should be here. He was stronger than I was with things like this.” Then, whispering, “This whole thing.”
I almost asked what whole thing.
“You’re not weak,” I said.
“No, I’m pretty strong. But this whole thing-”
We were back to the this-whole-thing thing.
Toilet flushing. Water running. Paper towel being cinched free from the dispenser. Door opening.
She came up to the door and said, “Mom!”
Sara turned in her chair as if she’d been shot.
“How’d you know I’d be here?”
“You told me you trusted McCain, remember? So when you snuck away this was the first place I thought of.”
“I didn’t tell him anything, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Sara seemed ecstatic. “Really?”
“Really, Mom.”
Then to me: “Really? She didn’t-?”
I shook my head. “Didn’t have time. Started to. Then got sick.”
Sara was as bad at lying as Dierdre.
“She’s been sick-the flu-”
“We’re way down the road on that one, Sara,” I said.
“I don’t know what that means.” Sounding scared.
“It means she’s pregnant. That’s why she was throwing up.”
Sara gasped the way women in movies gasp.
Dierdre showed no particular expression.
“Then you did tell him!” Sara snapped, crazed again.
“Mom, he figured it out. Throwing up in the middle of the day. Me coming over here to tell him some kind of secret. You being so wound-up and all-he figured it out for himself.”
Sara turned to me again. “Please don’t tell anybody, McCain. Please promise me.”
My seventeen-year-old sister had gotten pregnant a few years ago. People still whispered about her, snickered, even after she’d fled to Chicago. Nobody deserved that kind of treatment.
“Don’t worry, Sara. I won’t say a word.”
“I have to trust you, McCain.”
“I know.” I reached over and took her hand.
“And you can.” To her daughter, I said, “How about taking ole Mom home and helping her relax?”
Sara smiled anxiously. “Ole Mom here could sure use one.”
I hadn’t learned anything other than that a high-school girl had gotten herself in trouble, the kind of trouble small-town gossips, lineal descendants of the folks who ran the Salem witch trials, loved to dote on. But now wasn’t the time to push for anything more.
“You’re a good man, McCain.”
“And you’re a good woman, Sara.”
Sara and Dierdre hugged briefly and left.
Leaving me to wonder if her pregnancy had anything in particular to do with our two most recent murders.
Twelve
We ended up eating in the backyard that night with Mrs. Goldman. She’d been grilling herself a burger and so we threw our own burgers on the fire and joined her at the small picnic table.
“We tried out that new dance boat last night,” Mrs. Goldman said, in between shooing away flies and slapping mosquitoes.
“How was it?” Kylie said.
“A lot of fun.”
A couple of retired men had spent a year building a large, completely enclosed dance boat that was decorated like a restaurant and dance club inside. Booths lined two of the walls and there were three decks where you could stand for romantic moonlit glimpses of the night.
“How about we give it a try?” Kylie said.
“Fine,” I said.
She mst’ve seen how Mrs. Goldman was watching us.
“My husband and I are separated for the time being,” Kylie said.
“It’s really not any of my business.”
Kylie laughed. “I don’t care about my reputation. It’s McCain’s I’m worried about. I don’t want to spoil his virginal image.”
Mrs. Goldman smiled. “His life seems to have slowed down the last few months here.”
“He’s just resting up. He’ll come roaring back.”
“I really like it when people talk about you like you’re not here,” I said.
Kylie and I were sitting next to each other on one side of the table. Mrs. Goldman’s summer garden imbued the dusk with exotic odors you don’t usually associate with states where corn and pigs are economic staples. I was having my usual reaction to that purgatory between day and night, that melancholy that was not quite despair but came pretty close.
Kylie slid her arm around me. “I wouldn’t have made it these last few days without Sam here.”
“Ditto for her. I’ve been kinda down myself.”
“Well, you never know where things like this will lead,”
Mrs. Goldman said.
Dogs barked; children laughed; a group of three very young teen couples walked down the alley, boys nervously teasing the girls they liked, not knowing what else to do, that wonderful awkward terrifying time of first
