“May I help you?” Her voice was soft, almost whispery.
“Hi,” I said. I’d never done much of the clothes shopping for Sarah and Paul-didn’t even do that much for myself, not without a lot of arm twisting. And my kids certainly weren’t of an age anymore where anything in this store would fit them. “Uh, a friend of mine, he and his wife have just had a baby, and I was thinking I should get them a little something.”
“We have infant clothing at the back of the store. Did they have a girl or a boy?”
“Uh, they had…” Come on, you dumb bastard. Just pick one. “A boy.”
She led me to the back of the shop. “I think this is the place someone recommended to me,” I said. “I have a friend who shops here for her daughter, I think.”
The woman cocked her head. She smiled playfully. “You don’t sound too sure. Are you not sure whether she has a daughter, or are you not sure whether it’s her daughter, or not sure that she shops here?”
“Where little kids are concerned,” I said, “the only thing I’m really sure about is that I don’t want any more. Our kids are pretty grown up now, and while the little years were wonderful, they’re the sort of thing you only want to do once, right?”
Nice blathering. Nice, totally idiotic blathering.
“I suppose,” the woman said. “Who’s your friend, who shops here?”
“Ms. Snelling,” I said, gambling that if Trixie had been in here, and if she had given her name, it might have been that one.
The woman shook her head. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“She was here last Thursday. Probably getting something for her daughter. About five-four, dark hair, very pretty.” I thought of Hector’s description of what she’d been wearing that day. “Would have probably been wearing a long leather coat, these high-heeled boots.” I thought about showing her the picture of Trixie from the newspaper, but that would put a totally different spin on the nature of my questioning.
“Oh yes, I remember her. But I didn’t get her name. She always pays cash.”
“Yes, that sounds like her,” I said. “Likes to keep those credit card charges down. So she comes in regularly?”
The woman was holding up some sort of jumper thing in blue. It didn’t look big enough to hold a shih tzu. “The odd time, but not very often. But I don’t think it could be the same person. She doesn’t buy for her own daughter. She likes to buy presents for the Bennets’ little girl when she’s up this way visiting. I think she must be her aunt or something.”
“Oh, that’s right,” I said. “I meant niece. Not daughter.”
The woman gave me a look, like she thought something funny was going on, but I kept smiling and maintained eye contact, and she seemed to let it go.
“She is just the most adorable little girl. I think her aunt spoils her,” the woman said.
I felt a charge going through me. “The Bennets, they still have that place down the road a ways?”
“Well, if you call Kelton down the road a ways,” she said. “How about something like this?” She’d matched the jumper to some booties and socks and the whole outfit looked a bit fussy, to tell you the truth.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “Last time I dropped in on the Bennets, must be six years or so. Don’t think I could find their place if my life depended on it.”
“They’re still on County Road 9, can’t miss them,” she said. “Hang on, I think I have her on my mailing list. I could check for you if you’d like.”
I felt an adrenaline rush, but stayed calm. “I don’t want to put you to any trouble.”
“Oh, it’s no trouble.” She dug out a book from under the register. “That’s right, County Road 9, just north of Kelton. Would you like their phone number?”
I wasn’t sure I needed it, but took it just the same. All I wanted to do now was burst out of the store, check my map, and find County Road 9.
“I’ll take this,” I said, pointing to the jumper and booties. I figured that to back out on the sale now would start raising suspicions again.
“Would you like it done up in a gift bag?” she asked.
I said that would be fine. I thought it would take forever, her arranging the tissue paper, scoring the string with the blunt edge of some scissors to make it go all curly, helping me pick out a card.
It was all I could do not to run out of the store. But once I was out the door, I made a mad dash to the car.
24
Using Trixie’s pencil, I followed the route west out of Groverton, up to Kelton, which was barely big enough to warrant a dot, then found County Road 9 heading due north from it. I turned the key, heard the engine’s powerful but understated roar-not the sort of thing I was used to behind the wheel of my hybrid Virtue-and started heading out of town.
It was only slightly after noon, and I could have used some lunch, but I felt that I was so close to finding Trixie, and to learning what was going on, that I didn’t want to stop. But as I drove, I found I wasn’t thinking of food anyway. I was burdened with doubts that finding Trixie would actually accomplish all of the things I hoped it would.
She’d already run away from me once. And she’d shown herself capable of taking desperate measures to make sure I didn’t come after her. But maybe this time, if we could have a conversation in a less unsettling environment-in other words, without a dead man in the room-she’d be more inclined to tell me what was going on.
It took twenty minutes to reach Kelton, and another twelve seconds to drive through it. A general store, a gas station with pumps from the middle of the previous century, maybe a dozen houses. Motorists were supposed to slow to forty miles per hour driving through, but most, like me, held pretty close to sixty and no one seemed to mind.
County Road 9 wound through farm country. Barns, their boards weathered gray, sat back from the highway, beyond two-story homes likely built seventy to a hundred years ago. At the end of every driveway stood a mailbox, and at some, a small building, phone booth-sized, that could have been outhouses if it weren’t for large, window- like openings. These, I realized, were for children to stand in, for shelter, while they waited for school buses on wintry mornings.
I slowed for each mailbox, trying to read the name. Some were painted on crudely, others used those metallic-looking peel-and-stick letters you can buy from the hardware store. For a while, I had a pickup behind me, the driver wondering what I was doing, letting my foot off the gas as I approached each farm’s driveway. Finally, catching a break in the oncoming traffic, he gunned past me, giving me the finger.
“Whatever,” I said under my breath. I had other problems.
I’d seen boxes labeled “Fountain” and “Verczinski” and “Walton” and “Scrunch.” That one gave me pause. Scrunch? I tried to imagine going through life with a name like Scrunch. Maybe that was why they lived out in the country. Fewer people to introduce yourself to.
“Hi, we’re the Scrunches.”
“We’re a bunch of Scrunches.”
“Packing lunches for the Scrunches.”
I was having so much fun entertaining myself that I drove right past the mailbox marked Bennet.
I actually spotted the name, “,” in my rearview mirror. There was no name on the approaching side of the mailbox, so when I glanced into my mirror and saw what appeared to be the right letters, if in the wrong order, I hit the brakes.
Once I had the car pulled over to the shoulder, I scoped out the Bennet house. It sat a good hundred yards
