“No, I can’t.”
“Well, why not?”
“Because he wasn’t.”
The main real man was Thomas Chase McGinley. According to the mandatory check of his Michigan driver’s license he’d never been convicted of a felony. He didn’t even have any outstanding traffic violations. Okay, he had bad teeth and stringy hair, and there was the faint whiff of Deliverance about him, but maybe that was just me being snobbish. Other than those grooming defects, he appeared to be an upstanding citizen who had until recently worked as a shipping clerk in a sporting goods store in Michigan. Perhaps he would know the difference between a countertop and a kayak.
“The only remotely criminal activity McGinley’s been engaged in was two years ago”-O’Malley leafed through a tiny spiral notebook-“a tussle at a Big Boy restaurant in Tipp City, Ohio, when management said he tried to walk out with someone else’s larger order and McGinley claimed it was all an accident. That’s why no bond was set. We let him go with a promise to appear.”
“Why would he lie about being in prison? To brag?”
“Men have been known to say stupid things. Perhaps he thought it would impress Babe.”
“He’s from Michigan, though. What about that?”
“Lots of people are from Michigan, Paula. Magic Johnson. Eminem. Madonna.”
Caroline’s fingers were playing on an invisible keyboard. She was aching to reach for another drink but didn’t want to fuel O’Malley’s assumption that she was loaded.
A month earlier she had helped to organize the library fund-raiser and had baked brownies for the Unitarian church rummage sale. Both were big successes. Now she was out on bail, hiding from the media, and listening, bewildered, as two people in her kitchen argued about Madonna and a guy they called Countertop Man. Wanting a drink was perfectly understandable.
“Where’s Grant?” O’Malley asked.
“He’s in Hartford,” I said. “With Lucy.”
Now O’Malley looked like he wanted a drink.
Thirty-four
O’Malley refused to let me go with him. He and his partner searched the woods and came back to the house to report. All they found was a flattened area where someone had knelt down and had a cigarette, a can of Bud, and a pee. No way to tell how long ago any of those activities took place.
“Can you really tell about the pee?” Caroline asked.
“No. I’m making an educated guess based on the number of beer cans. Someone was there, but who knows when? It could have been last summer during the fireworks.”
“Were the cans rusty?” I asked.
“Aluminum cans don’t rust, Sherlock, they oxidize.”
“Was it flattened grass or something else? Grass would have sprung back up after a day or so, especially if it had rained.”
His look said it all. Maybe I was letting my imagination run wild. Caroline lived near the woods. All sorts of animals probably trespassed on her property with nothing more on their minds than eating, eliminating, and making babies-and some of them sat down flattening the grass.
“I’ll have a car swing by the house regularly for the next few days,” Mike said. “As annoying as they are, when the press gets wind that you’re home, they’ll probably camp out in front and keep away anyone who might have mischief on his mind. Set the alarm and if you see anything, call us right away.”
Caroline was close to tears. “Mike, I didn’t do anything.”
How could he respond? He was a cop. She was a convicted felon and a fugitive out on bail. He said nothing, just squeezed her arm and left.
I didn’t know what else I could do for her. As long as Lucy was out there pretending to be Caroline, the genuine article would have some peace. She could get in touch with her lawyer and try to explain things to her kids who were still in Tucson. The next day would be a totally different story. And she’d had lots of them. So many it was possible she no longer knew which one was the truth. I picked up my backpack and got ready to leave.
“I should go, too,” I said. “Besides, you probably want to be alone.”
“I don’t want to be alone. I’ve just gotten out of a ten-by-ten cell. You can’t leave me here. If the reporters don’t think I’m arriving until later, and Lucy and Grant take the back roads trying to ditch them, I’ll be all by myself. What if he is out there? Corian Man?”
“Countertop. He didn’t specify stone or composite. Caroline, much as I hate to admit this, O’Malley was probably right. It was a raccoon or a turkey.”
“Turkeys don’t throw off five-foot-tall shadows, and if there is one that big outside I’d rather not be here.” she said quite sensibly. She grabbed an erasable marker and scribbled a cryptic note on the whiteboard letting Grant know that she was all right and would be in touch. I waited while she rummaged in her hall closet.
– -
An hour later, we were on the road. Caroline Sturgis was crouched down in the backseat of my car, under a tarp wearing one of her son’s hockey uniforms. Every once in a while, she’d peek out from under the tarp.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Toward New Haven,” I said. “More places to stash you.” That was our plan, I’d check Caroline into a hotel or motel for the night and head home. Then I’d call Grant and tell him where to pick her up in the morning.
“I should have made sure this was Jason’s clean uniform,” she said, sniffing the armpits of her son’s jersey. “I think I took the dirty one.” She popped up again like one of those carnival games where the mole keeps bobbing up and you’re supposed to whack it on the head. “Stay down,” I said.
“Between the stinky uniform and the dirty tarp it’s hard to breathe under here.”
“That’s not dirt on the tarp, it’s soil. Do you know there are places in the world where people eat dirt?” I said.
“Kids do it, too. They call of pica-eating stuff that isn’t food. I hope that’s not on the menu tonight, I am the tiniest bit hungry.”
We passed an exit whose only claim to fame was cheap gas, something called the Famely Restaurant, and a motel, the Hacienda.
“Famely with an e,” I said, thinking ahead to dinner. “If they can’t spell can they read recipes?”
“Oh, Grant and I stayed at a place called the Hacienda on our honeymoon in Zihuatenejo.” She sounded wistful and looked pathetic. Her face was dirty, and after all she’d been through, I thought, why not? Something told me it wouldn’t be the romantic Mexican hideaway she and Grant had found, but if the sheets were clean it would do for the night. And hopefully the cook at the Famely restaurant was better at his job than the sign maker was.
I got off at the next exit and made my way back, snaking along the road that ran beside the highway until it didn’t and then did again and finally we reached the Hacienda.
The place looked about as Mexican as your average generic bag of nachos-cardboardy, some orange, some red, very little spice. I parked around the back so the car couldn’t be seen from the lobby.
“Is there a hockey mask in that bag?” I asked.
Caroline looked through her son’s duffel bag and pulled out a face and throat protector. She put it on. Her face was covered but her hair stuck out.
“Here, use these.” I tossed her a scrunchie and a baseball hat, my “don’t leave home without them” kit that I always kept in the compartment between the seats. “Put the hat on backward. It’ll cover the stubby ponytail.” With Jason’s sweatshirt thrown around her shoulders, Caroline could pass for a boy, if someone didn’t look too closely.
“I’ll go to the front desk, you walk around the lobby like you’re not interested.”
“I have a teenage son,” Caroline said, fidgeting with her disguise. “I know what ‘not interested’ looks like.”
We needn’t have worried. Peyton, the desk clerk, couldn’t have cared less. It was a little strange to see a
