Behind the house the printshop was dark. Beyond that, a stretch of meadow ran out to the woods. For a brief time, perhaps no more than these few moments on this night only, the field caught the last of the day’s light in this particular way and spread a silver-blue blanket at the foot of the trees.
Crystal heard me coming and was standing at the door. I clumped up the stairs and she opened the door.
“Well, Janeway, I didn’t expect to see you here. You look like an old man.”
“I am an old man, and getting older by the minute. Have the cops been back?”
“Just once, that same night. They decided not to tap the phone. They don’t seem as worried about you as they were at first.”
“That’s good to know. Can we talk?”
“Sure. Come on in.”
The house was dark, like the first night I’d seen it, except for the one light coming out of the kitchen down the hall. I went on back like one of the family. She came in behind me and motioned to the table, and I pulled out the same chair I’d sat in earlier.
“Where’s your husband?”
“Out in the shop working.”
“I didn’t see any lights out there, that’s why I wondered.”
“You can’t see the lights when he’s in the back room.”
She poured coffee from a pot on the counter and offered second-day rolls. They microwaved instantly, she said, and were about as good the day after. I shook my head no and she sat across from me, her face etched with the sadness of the ages. She sipped her coffee, looked at me through her glasses, and said, “What’s on your mind?”
“Nola Jean Ryder. We could start with that, go on from there.”
Her face didn’t change, but I could sense her heartbeat picking up to a pace something like a jackhammer.
“I haven’t heard that name in twenty years.”
“Really?”
“Well, that woman who wrote the book about Darryl and Richard did want to ask me about her. I couldn’t help her much. That’s something Gaston and Archie and I never talk about.”
“Why not?”
“It wasn’t what you’d call a pleasant association. It’s something we’d all rather forget.”
I waited her out.
“Nola Jean was DarryFs…I don’t exactly know how to put it.”
“Huggins called her his whore.”
She stared off at the dark window. “So who the hell’s Huggins and what does he know about it? Was he there? I only met the man once or twice, years ago, and he didn’t seem much interested in Nola Jean then.”
“Well, was she a whore?”
“If you mean did she walk the streets and hook for her supper, the answer’s no.”
“There are all kinds of whores, though.”
“Are you talking from experience?”
“You seem to forget, I was a cop. I did my time in vice.”
“Of course. You’ve probably seen whores in their infinite variety, and all in the line of duty. Somehow I don’t think you ever met anyone quite like Nola Jean. She was the kind of dark-spirited gal people write books about.”
She got up and went to the coffeepot but did not pour. Looking out across the meadow, she said, “She could get men to do anything. I never knew how she did it. The only one she couldn’t touch that way was Gaston. She sure tried, but none of it worked. I guess that’s why she hated him.”
She rinsed out her cup and turned it bottom-up on the counter. Again she stared through the window, past the edge of the printshop to the meadow. She turned her head toward me and said, “This is all ancient history. I don’t see what she’s got to do with anything today.”
“Do you have any idea where she went?”
“No idea at all. Just drifted away, seems to be what everybody thinks.”
The room was heavy with the presence of this long-lost woman. Crystal hugged herself as if that would make her warm again.
“I don’t think about her anymore.” But she looked away. She was not a woman who lied easily.
