Fie was mildly skeptical about thought transference, even though he knew people who swore they had received urgent messages from friends or relatives not seen for years. Even granted that Amanda had somehow sensed his unavailing pursuit of her all evening, there were strange elements to the call from Williams.
For one thing, Amanda was tactful; it was out of character for her to have had another man telephone him about shared events after weeks of silence. For another, Williams had said he had been trying to reach the Lopezes, and why would he do that? At some point his short interchange with Maria Lopez had unfurled itself before Justin like a tape, and there was something in it about waiting frantically for Amanda because of a flight east for Christmas.
No doubt there were related Lopezes, but if they were of a closeness to be informed of Rosie’s whereabouts at a late hour why weren’t they in charge of her in the first place?
These were niggling little points, embroidery around the central fact that after all this time Amanda had suddenly chosen to let him know in detail about Mrs. Balsam and Rosie and the horse and the dog. If he had obeyed his earlier impulse and driven to the house, he would not now be lying in the dark, a witness to the unhappy marriage of milk and beer.
Like many impulses not acted upon, this one grew in reproach. What if there had been more to that relayed report, something which Williams had deliberately omitted and could pretend to have forgotten? Not twenty feet from the rear of the duplex was the shed which housed summer maintenance equipment: wheelbarrow, gardening implements, power mower, and red five-gallon gas can. Full or empty?
Justin got up and dressed, knowing from experience that at this rate sleep was a good two hours away. Fifteen minutes later, having replenished his tank, he was on his way.
The roads would be treacherous when the snow had been traffic-melted and refrozen, but for the moment presented no difficulties apart from an occasional tendency to drift. Justin had the night to himself; even the little town center he passed through was fast asleep. He had been to Mrs. Balsam’s house two or three times, but the arroyo still took him by surprise and after his unexpectedly swift descent into it he had to coax the car up the other side like a skier mounting a slope.
A half mile beyond that, another car had come to real grief, tilted sharply off the road, not near anything except a dim shape which Justin remembered to be an old church. In spite of its unfamiliar cant and cloaking of snow, it looked vaguely like Amanda’s. When Justin stopped his own car, visited by surmise on this particular stretch of road, and crossed to brush the driver’s window clear and beam his flashlight in, it was Amanda’s.
Left here quite a while ago, by the depth of blown white, and neatly locked. Amanda had certainly walked away from it. Had the steering gone, sending her off the road? She would have had to return to Mrs. Balsam’s to do any telephoning, assuming that the line was in order at that time. Had she been trying to reach him while he was ingesting that frightful mixture at the party, or driving Lucy Pettit to the restaurant?
His ego hoped so; common sense suggested that maybe Williams lived in the neighborhood, maybe Amanda had met him through her aunt. The original idea must have been for him to drive her home with Rosie, but—what? The clock unwatched over a drink, Rosie growing fretful because it was past her bedtime, Amanda deciding that it would be simpler to spend the night.
And saying, somehow incomprehensibly, “By the way, would you call Justin Howard and tell him I’m here?”
Funny that Williams hadn’t mentioned the disabled car, but perhaps he considered Amanda’s problems to be his affair exclusively. Justin closed his door with force and drove off to Mrs. Balsam’s.
Amanda was still awake, if not actually up; two long slots of light shone in the bedroom end of the otherwise darkened house. While Justin had been concocting arguments and seizing on inconsistencies, she had been tranquilly getting ready for bed.
He had only been in this area at night, and it was a surprise to discover that the two sets of lightly snowed-over tire tracks visible on the road had both originated from this driveway. One would belong to the departing Williams, but the other? A friend of Mrs. Balsam’s dropping by, unaware that she was away?
It would be unthinkable, after all his mental acrobatics, to depart without seeing his love. Justin walked to the front door and used the black iron knocker, remembering too late the volume of the Afghan’s response. It would wake Rosie Lopez, he thought guiltily, and then: This time, we will lull her off to sleep.
The dog continued her man-eating threats. It was possible that a housecoated Amanda would not care to answer the door to a stranger at this hour, but surely she would not allow that clamor to go unchecked. Unless she was in the shower or tub? But even then, alone with a small child, she would investigate the source of the dog’s alarm.
Justin went to the other end of the house and shouted Amanda’s name twice up into the bare lilac branches outside the lighted windows. There was no reply; if anything, there was an antireply. The only awareness within belonged to the dog, Apple.
He raced around to the back, encountering a cactus without feeling it, frantic because every winter a number of people succumbed to gas from faulty heaters— but here, as though in refutation, a side window stood open. He pulled himself up on the sill so that he could see all of the room.
From its size and furnishing it was obviously Mrs. Balsam’s, and it was just as obviously empty.
