A Stranger in My Grave (8 page)

“So do I.”

“Very clearly?”

“Yes. They made quite a parade out of it.”

“Why should both of us remember a little thing like that?”

“Because it was very unusual, I suppose,” Pinata said.

“So unusual that it could only have happened once that year?”

“Perhaps. I can't be sure of it, though.”

“Wait.” She turned to him, flushed with excitement. “It must have happened only once. Don't you see? The students wouldn't have been dismissed from class a second time. They'd already been given their chance to see the snow. The school authorities surely wouldn't keep repeating the dismissal if it snowed a second or third or fourth time.”

Her logic surprised and convinced him. “I agree. But why is it so important to you?”

“Because it's the first
real
thing I remember about the day, the only thing that separates it from a lot of other days. If I saw those students parading in their cars, it means I must have gone down­town, perhaps to have lunch with Jim. And yet I can't remember Jim being with me, or my mother either. I think—I'm almost sure—I was alone.”

“When you saw the kids, where were you? Walking along the street?”

“No. I think I was inside some place, looking out through a window.”

“A restaurant? A store? Where did you usually shop in those days?”

“For groceries at the Fairway, for clothes at Dewolfe's.”

“Neither of those is on State Street. How about a restaurant? Do you have a favorite place to eat lunch?”

“The Copper Kettle. It's a cafeteria in the 1100 block.”

“Let's assume for a minute,” Pinata said, “that you were having lunch at the Copper Kettle, alone. Did you often go downtown and have lunch alone?”

“Sometimes, on the days I worked.”

“You had a job?”

“I was a volunteer for a while at the Neighborhood Clinic. It's a family counseling service. I worked there every Wednesday and Friday afternoon.”

“December 2 was a Friday. Did you go to work that afternoon?”

“I don't remember. I don't even know if I was still working at that time. I quit because I wasn't very good with chil—with people.”

“You were going to say ‘with children,' weren't you?”

“Does it matter?”

“It might.”

She shook her head. “My job wasn't important anyway. I'm not a trained social worker. I acted mainly as a baby-sitter for the children of the mothers and fathers who came in for counsel­ing, some of them voluntarily, some by order of the courts or the Probation Department.”

“You didn't like the job?”

“Oh, but I did. I was crazy about it. I just wasn't competent enough. I couldn't handle the children. I felt too sorry for them. I was too—personal. Children, especially children of families who reach the point of going to the Clinic, need a firmer and more objective approach. The fact is,” she added with a grim little smile, “if I hadn't quit, they'd probably have fired me.”

“What gave you that idea?”

“Nothing specific. But I got the impression that I was more of a hindrance than a help around the place, so I simply failed to show up the next time.”

“The next time after what?”

“After—after I got the impression that I was a hindrance.”

“But something must have given you that impression at a defi­nite time or you wouldn't have used the phrase ‘the next time.'”

“I don't follow you.”

He thought,
You follow me, Daisy baby. You just don't like the bumps in the road I'm taking. Well, it's not my road; it's yours. If there are potholes in it, don't blame me.

“I don't follow you,” she repeated.

“All right, let's skip it.”

She looked relieved, as if he'd pointed out to her a nice, easy detour. “I don't see how a little detail like that could be impor­tant when I'm not even sure I was working at the Clinic at the time.”

“We can make sure. They keep records, and I shouldn't have any trouble getting the information you want. Charles Alston, the director, is an old friend of mine. We've had a lot of clients in common—on their way up they land in his lap; on their way down they land in mine.”

“Will you have to use my name?”

“Of course. How else—”

“Can't you think of any other way?”

“Look, Mrs. Harker. If you worked at the Clinic, you must know that their file room isn't open to the public. If I want infor­mation, I ask Mr. Alston, and he decides whether I get it or not. How am I going to find out if you were working on a certain Friday or not if I don't mention your name?”

“Well, I wish you didn't have to.” She pleated a corner of her gray jacket, smoothed it out carefully, and began all over again. “Jim said I mustn't make an—an exhibition of myself. He's very conscious of public opinion. He's had to be,” she added, raising her head in a sudden defensive gesture, “to get where he is.”

“And where is that?”

“The end of the rainbow, I guess you'd call it. Years ago, when he had nothing at all, Jim made plans for himself: how he would live, the type of house he would build, how much money he'd make, yes, even the kind of wife he would choose—he had every­thing on the drawing board when he was still in his teens.”

“And it's all worked out?”

“Most of it,” she said.
One thing hasn't, and never will. Jim wanted two boys and two girls.

“What, if I may ask, was on your drawing board, Mrs. Harker?”

“I'm not a planner.” She fixed her eyes on the projector again. “Shall we continue with the newspaper?”

“All right.”

He turned the crank, and the headlines of the next page rolled into view. Gunman John Kendrick, one of the FBI's most wanted men, was captured in Chicago. California had nine traffic deaths on Safe Driving Day. The Abbott murder trial was still going on in San Francisco. A woman celebrated her 110th birthday in Dublin. High tides were demolishing several houses at Redondo Beach. In Sacramento the future of the State Junior College was discussed by educators, and in Georgia 2,000 students rioted over the racial ban in the Bowl game.

“Any bells ringing?” Pinata said.

“No.”

“Well, let's try the local news. The American Penwomen gave a Christmas party and the Trinity Guild a bazaar. The Bert Peter­sons celebrated their thirtieth anniversary. The harbor dredging contract was O.K.'d. A Peeping Tom was apprehended on Colina Street. A four-year-old boy was bitten by a cocker spaniel and the dog ordered confined for fourteen days. A woman called Juanita Garcia, age twenty-three, was given probation on charges of neglecting her five children by locking them in her apartment while she visited several west-side taverns. The city council referred to the water commission a petition concerning—”

He stopped. Daisy had turned away from the projector with a noise that sounded like a sigh of boredom. She didn't look bored, though. She looked angry. Her jaw was set tight, and blotches of color appeared on her cheeks as if she'd been slapped, silently, invisibly, hard. Her reaction puzzled Pinata: did she have a grudge against the city council or the water commission? Was she afraid of biting dogs, Peeping Toms, thirtieth anniversaries?

He said, “Don't you want to go on with this, Mrs. Harker?”

The slight movement of her head was neither negative nor affirmative. “It seems hopeless. I mean, what difference does it make to me whether a woman called Juanita Garcia got probation or not? I don't know any Juanita Garcia.” She spoke the words with unnecessary force, as if Pinata had accused her of having had a part in Mrs. Garcia's case. “How would I know a woman like that?”

“Through your work at the Clinic, perhaps. According to the newspaper account, one of the conditions of Mrs. Garcia's two-year probation was that she get some psychiatric help. Since she had five children and was expecting a sixth, and her husband was an Army private stationed in Germany, it seems unlikely she could afford a private psychiatrist. That leaves the Clinic.”

“No doubt your reasoning is sound. But it has no connection with me. I have never met Mrs. Garcia, at the Clinic or anywhere else. As I told you before, my work there was concerned entirely with the children of patients, not the patients themselves.”

“Then perhaps you knew Mrs. Garcia's children. She had five.”

“Why do you keep harping like this on the name Garcia?”

“Because I got the impression it meant something to you.”

“I've denied that, haven't I?”

“Several times, yes.”

“Then why are you accusing me of lying to you?”

“Not to me, exactly,” Pinata said. “But there's the possibility that you may be lying to yourself without realizing it. Think about it, Mrs. Harker. You overreacted to the name….”

“Perhaps I overreacted. Or perhaps you overinterpreted.”

“That could be.”

“It was. It is.”

She got up and walked over to the window. The movement was so obviously one of protest and escape that Pinata felt as if she'd told him to shut up and leave her alone. He had no intention of doing either.

“It will be easy enough to check up on Mrs. Garcia,” he said. “The police will have a file on her, as well as the Probation Department and probably Charles Alston at the Clinic.”

She turned and gave him a weary look. “I wish I could convince you that I never in my life heard of the woman. But it's a free country; you can check everyone in the city directory if you like.”

“I may have to. You've given me very little to go on. The only facts I have are that on December 2, 1955, there was snow on the mountains, and you ate lunch at a cafeteria downtown. How did you get downtown, by the way?”

“I must have driven. I had my own car.”

“What kind?”

“An Oldsmobile convertible.”

“Did you usually drive with the top up or down?”

“Down. But I can't see how all this is important.”

“When we don't know what's important, anything can be. You can't tell what particular detail will jog your memory. For instance, that Friday was a cold day. Maybe you can remember putting the top up. Or you might have had trouble starting your car.”

She looked honestly bewildered. “I
seem
to remember that I did. But that may be only because you suggested it. You say things in such a positive way. Like about the Garcia woman—you're so sure I know her or knew her.” She sat down again and began repleating the corner of her jacket. “If I did know her, why have I forgotten? I'd have no reason to forget a friend or a casual acquaintance, and I'm not forceful enough to make enemies. Yet you seem so positive.”

“Seeming and being are two different things,” Pinata said with a faint smile. “No, I'm not positive, Mrs. Harker. I saw a straw and grasped it.”

“But you're holding on?”

“Only until I find something more substantial to hold on to.”

“I wish I could help. I'm trying. I'm really
trying.''

“Well, don't get tense about it. Perhaps we should stop for today. Have you had enough?”

“I guess so.”

“You'd better go home. Back to Rainbow's End.”

She stood up stiffly. “I regret telling you that about my hus­band. It seems to amuse you.”

“On the contrary. It depresses me. I had a few plans on the drawing board myself.”
Just one of them worked out,
Pinata thought.
His name is Johnny. And the only reason I'm trying to track down your precious day, Daisy baby, is because Johnny's having his teeth straightened, not because you got your head stuck in the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

He turned the roll of microfilm back to the beginning and switched off the light in the projector.

The girl in the horn-rimmed spectacles came hurrying over, looking alarmed as if she expected him to wreck the machine or at least run off with the film. “Let me handle that,” she said. “These things are quite valuable, you know. History being made right before our eyes, you might say. Did you find what you wanted?”

Pinata glanced at Daisy. “Did you?” “Yes,” Daisy said. “Yes, thank you very much.”

Pinata opened the door for her, and she began walking slowly and silently down the corridor, her head bent as if she were study­ing the tiles on the floor.

“No two are alike,” he said.

“Pardon?”

“The tiles. There are no two alike in the whole building.”

“Oh.”

“Someday when this current project of yours is finished and you need something new to amuse yourself with, you could come down here and check.”