As she came deeper into the room, her impression of disuse deepened. The place was deep in dust and heavily cobwebbed. The chair at the bench was ringed with spiderwebs.
She was nervous now but she came all the way in, wanting to see it all with a quick look. Again she observed the bookbinder’s tools: the rawhide hammer lying on the floor where he’d dropped it long ago, covered with dust; a steel hammer at the edge of the bench, a few feet from the bookpress; balls of wax thread; needles; paper. There was lots of paper, fine marbled stock for endsheets, standard stock for the pages, colored papers and white sheets and some with a light creamy peach tone. Against the wall was a paper rack. And there were leathers, very fine under the dust, and edging tools that looked like cookie cutters and were used, she knew, for laying in the gilt on a gold-trimmed leather book. There was a hot plate to heat the edging tool on, and behind the hot plate was a row of nasty-looking gluepots. She opened one and smelled PVA, the bookbinder’s glue. A newspaper, open on the table, was a year old.
She went outside and closed the door. The wind whistled down from the hills. She walked back to her car, opened the door, and sat with her feet dangling out, hoping they’d come home soon.
An hour passed and the sun grew hot. The arroyo baked under the glare of it and the chill melted away. Slowly she became aware of a creepy sensation, like the feeling you get driving on the freeway when the man in the next car stares at you as he comes past.
She looked at the house and saw curtains flutter upstairs. This might be nothing more than the temperature control blowing air up the window, but her sense of apprehension grew as she looked at it.
She wanted to leave but she couldn’t. She had come a long way, and though the chance of failure had always been strong, she had never failed at anything by default.
The curtain moved again. No heating flue did that, she thought.
She got out and walked across the yard. She went up the path to the door and gave it another loud knock.
There was a bump somewhere. Her unease was now acute.
She circled the house. Out back was a smaller deck with steps leading up to a door. She went up and knocked. Through a filmy curtain she saw movement, as if someone had crossed from one room to another.
“Hey, people,” she called. “I’ve come a long way to talk to you. Why don’t we hear each other out?”
Nothing.
Not a sound now, but the presence behind the door was as tangible as the purse slung over her shoulder. She had a vision of something sexless and faceless, holding its breath waiting for her to leave.
“It’s about the Rigby girl and the burglary you had here.”
She could feel her voice soaking through the old wood around the window sash. There wasn’t a chance of them not hearing her.
“It’s about Darryl and Richard Grayson, and the book Grayson was working on when he died.”
Even the house seemed to sigh. But the moment passed and nothing happened, and in a while she wondered if the sound had been in her mind.
“It’s about the Graysons and their friends…you and the Rigbys.” She took a breath and added, “And Nola Jean Ryder.”
As if she’d said a magic word, the door clicked and swung inward. Someone…a man, she thought…looked through a narrow crack.
“Mr. Jeffords?…Is that you?…I can’t see you very well.”
“Who are you?”
It was the same voice she had heard on the telephone recording—the same only different. The recording had rippled with macho arrogance: this man sounded tired and old and shaky.
“What do you want here?”
“I came down from Seattle to talk to you. I’m a reporter for the
She told him her name, but he seemed not to hear. Technically, ethically, it didn’t matter. The rules only demanded that she give him fair warning. He was talking to a reporter and they were now on the record. She could use him if he said anything worth using.
But she had never played the game that way. “I’m a reporter, Mr. Jeffords.” It still meant nothing to him. He heard but did not hear. He listened but his mind heard only words and blipped out meanings. She had done too many interviews with people like him, private souls who suddenly found themselves newsworthy without understanding how or why it had happened. They were always appalled when they opened their newspapers the next morning and learned what they had said.
