26
Voorheesville, which I reached by heading due west on Route 9 through Bennington and Troy, was the epitome of the bedroom community. I’m sure it had a town center, or at least a cluster of tasteful buildings passing for one, but from what I could see, it consisted of mile after mile of undulating, well-kept interweaving blacktop, hemmed in by tamed trees and regularly placed, half-seen tidy houses. Some of these were pretty grand-English Tudor near-misses and combination Federalist-Southern plantations with swimming pools out front, but for the most part they were white, wooden, neat, and reclusive. They clung to the centers of their two-acre lots, surrounded by enough shrubs and trees to shield them from all but a glimpse of their neighbors’ roofs.
I stopped at a filling station among an odd and incongruous collection of fake-Georgian commercial buildings and got directions to the address Brandt had given me. It was located in what must have been the low-rent district. The trees were not as tall, the lawns not as large, the shrubs not as fat, and the houses, with a couple of garish exceptions, were downright self-effacing. Along a spur marked Dead End, cluttered with split-levels on half-acre lots, I found a mailbox marked Stark.
I pulled into the driveway and parked in front of a one-car garage. Above the door, its six-foot wingspan painted in peeling gold, was a wooden bald eagle. To the right of the garage, parallel to the driveway, was a one- and-a-half story white clapboard house as lacking in distinctive features as the one-dimensional boxes in children’s drawings. I walked up the shoveled path to the front door and knocked.
The door swung back two feet, revealing a short, thin, white-haired woman who instantly struck me as the cleanest, neatest person I’d ever met. There was not a wrinkle or a fold out of place. Her dimly flowered housedress and cardigan sweater looked as if they were on a hanger; her brown lace shoes were spotless and scuff-free; her face and hands pale pink and practically shimmering; every hair was rigidly in place.
“Yes?” Her voice was barely above a whisper.
“Mrs. Stark?”
“That’s right.”
I pulled out my badge, something I rarely did at home. “My name is Lieutenant Gunther. I work for the police department in Brattleboro, Vermont. I called you a few hours ago?”
She nodded, just barely.
“I have no jurisdiction down here, so you’re under no obligation to talk with me, but I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions about your daughter, Pamela.”
Her eyes, which had been focused somewhere over my shoulder, dropped to my shoes. In that one gesture, I sensed some vital part of her anatomy giving way. She said, just audibly, “Of course,” and, turning from the door, vanished into the gloom of the hallway beyond.
I hesitated-the door was still barely open-before I followed her inside. From what I could see of it as my eyes adjusted to the dark, the hall was empty. I walked its ten-foot length and looked to both sides. To the left was another hallway leading presumably to some bedrooms; to the right was a totally gk andreen living room. Mrs. Stark was sitting on the edge of a straight-backed chair, her immaculate hands in her smooth lap, looking at the green shag carpeting. She seemed so lost in her thoughts, I wasn’t sure she remembered I was there.
The room was dark, the only light a green seepage through thick drapes drawn across a large patio window. Hanging on the walls, along with the occasional half-visible picture, were several military swords-some cavalry, some oriental-four glass-faced display frames filled with medals and insignia, and two oil paintings, both depicting modern battle scenes, one featuring World War II-vintage tanks, the other Vietnam-era helicopters. Above the dark green mantle at the far end of the room was another eagle, surrounded by gold stars. The rest of the room looked more normal-no army cots or pup tents-but I did notice that most of the furnishings were equipped with sanitary fail-safe devices: antimacassars on the backs of armchairs, a doily under every lamp, glass cups under the table legs, small rugs on the carpeting in front of each chair. The entire room was as neat and antiseptic and green as a freshly filled fish tank. The only sound I could hear was a clock ticking somewhere.
I walked over to the sofa and sat gingerly, conscious of squashing its pillows’ perfect plumpness. “Mrs. Stark, when did you last see your daughter?”
She looked up at me slowly. “Three-four years ago.”
“And where was that?”
“Here. She was living at home. She and the Colonel had a fight, only this time she left-forever.”
“The Colonel?”
“My husband.”
“And where is he?”
“Gone. I don’t know.” She went back to staring at the floor.
I looked around the room again. Of all the scenes I’d played in my head prior to coming here, this was not one of them.
“Did he go shopping or something?”
“No. He left.”
“When?”
“A couple of months ago.”
I wanted to return to her daughter, but something tugged at me to keep this line going. “Why did he leave?”
“To find her.”
“Did he?”
“I don’t know. He found something.” One hand rose slowly and barely touched her forehead with its fingertips before resettling next to its peer. It was like the kiss from a solicitous bird. “She is dead, isn’t she?”
“Yes, I’m afraid so.”
She let out the softest of sighs. “And now he’s dead too.”
“Your husband?”
She nodded again.
“Not that I know of.” I reached into my pocket ano meight='d pulled out the photograph of the late Kimberly Harris. “Mrs. Stark, I hate to do this, but I have to ask. Is this a picture of your daughter?”
I crossed the room and laid the picture in her lap, face up. She didn’t touch it, she didn’t even react, but she did look.
“Yes,” she said simply, her voice unchanged. It was an utterance from someone drained of any emotional reserves. She was like a well of tears long run dry.
“If your daughter left home several years ago, why did your husband wait so long to go after her?”
Another sigh escaped her, a sound so gentle in this quiet green room I could almost see it. “They say fathers and daughters are supposed to have a special bond, don’t they?”
“I’ve heard that.”
“Colonel Stark and Pam had that once, when she was a little girl. They seemed able to talk to each other without saying a word. It troubled me, because of what he did for a living. I was afraid that one day something would happen to him, that he would be gone forever, and she would be destroyed.”
“What did he do for a living?” She looked surprised. “He was a soldier.”
It was my turn to nod. She didn’t say anything for a moment. I was afraid my interruption might have broken her concentration, but she went on. “Perhaps that’s what should have happened. She would have loved him if he’d died. Instead, they grew older, and began to fight.”
“About what?”
“Nothing. Everything. Private things. She was no longer a little girl. And she grew up to be a young woman. I think that surprised him. He wanted everything to be the same. Of course, it wasn’t.” The hand fluttered up again and settled down. “It’s a little confusing. I don’t know. Maybe he loved her too much-not like a real father and daughter.”
A sour taste came to my mouth. I remembered Susan Lucey saying something that had struck that same chord. “What do you mean, exactly?”
She shook her head slightly and shrugged.
“The Colonel was more than just a soldier, wasn’t he?”
