A Sudden Silence (11 page)

"I'd rather stay," I said.

"Good night then."

"Good night."

I moved to help her but she said quickly, "I can manage." So I watched her go.

She stopped at the bend in the stairs. "Will you call me sometime?"

"Yes. But not for a while."

"I don't think I'll hold my breath," she said.

I sat there flipping through the channels, sat in the chair where Chloe had been, with my head where her head had rested. I tried not to think of her upstairs.

Pretty soon her parents came. They were real early and Mrs. Eichler ran upstairs right away to see how Chloe was, while her dad thanked me again for staying. I could smell alcohol on his breath, not foul and ugly the way it smelled on Plum's breath. This was sweetish and pleasant. Probably expensive stuff. Probably wine.

When her mother came back she said Chloe was almost asleep and I tried not to think too closely about that either, about that dark head on a white pillow, the shadows of her eyelashes on her cheeks.

I said I'd be going then, and they both thanked me again, and I walked down to the street where I'd left my car. After I unlocked it and got in, I sat, looking at the house. The dark window above the porch was Chloe's room. I could see the corner of the deck where we'd stood together and kissed. What had I meant when I'd said, "not for a while?" How long was a while? Long enough for me to forget Bry? But I never would. I lay back and stared at the roof of Dad's car. It was cold and I was cold. Time to go.

I had the key in the ignition when a car turned into Sapphire Cove Road, its headlights moving like searchlights across the Eichler's front yard, across the driveway, across the house, moving on, leaving everything in darkness. The blare from the speakers crashed behind it as it roared on toward Clambake Point.

I sat, stunned, my heart thumping.

I'd seen something in those headlights, something that filled me with so much dread that I'd started to shake. I opened the glove compartment, my hands jumping so I could hardly pick up the flashlight Dad keeps in there for emergencies. Noiselessly I opened the door and went back up the Eichler driveway. From inside came the faint voice of the newscaster. Eleven o'clock. At eleven o'clock the Strathdee sisters always take Fluffy down to the gates at Del Mar. They'd seen the car. I turned on the flashlight and hooded it with my hand.

Chloe's Mustang was pulled in front of the closed garage door and beside it was Mr. Eichler's Volvo. Old, he'd said. Probably a classic, I'd thought. It was a shining dark green with a curved back, a 122S, probably 1966 or '67. It must have been in the garage when I brought Chloe home or I would have noticed it. My heartbeat was trapped inside my chest, thumping to get out. I crouched at the back of the car, shone the light low. Old-fashioned splash guards, rubber, black and shining and perfect like the rest of the car. In the middle of each was a white circle with a V inside. V for Volvo. I clicked off the flashlight and stayed in my crouch. Everything flooded back—the screech of the brakes, the thump, my brother dead.

"You'll remember," Officer Valle had said.

I remembered.

IN THE
E
ICHLERS
' living room the TV blared out a commercial for American Express. Still crouching I ran to the front of Mr. Eichler's car and felt along the fender. Nothing. I examined the hood, my light moving small as a tennis ball across the perfection of dark green paint. Nothing. But when I let my hand follow the light I thought I felt a slight concave dip.

"These little foreign jobs bust a gut if you even look at them," Plum had said. But not a classic well-preserved 122S Volvo like this. This car was built.

I checked the tires, pushing my fingers into their pattern. I'd bet a million dollars they'd match.

What if I marched up to that front door and confronted them? And Chloe would hobble from her room and ... What if I went to a call box and had the cops march up with me? They wouldn't, of course. They'd want hard evidence.

"Chloe's parents were at a party in Newport Beach," I'd tell Officer Valle. "They were drunk and they drove home and changed their minds and went back. Remember, those tracks going both ways?"

Bent over, I ran for my car.

There's a turnout on the ocean side of Coast Highway between Clambake Point and Del Mar. I drove in and cut motor and lights.

All this searching and suspecting and it had turned out to be Chloe's father! And he'd seemed so nice, so real. My stomach hurt. How would Chloe feel? But maybe it had been someone else, some drunken idiot who'd borrowed his car, panicked after the accident, and put it back. No. The car that hit Bry had gone along their street, past their house to Clambake Point. That would be too big a coincidence. It was their car. Wilson? No. We'd left him at the party. Someone had driven this car the other way first. Someone. Mr. Eichler! I rolled down the window and breathed in gulps of cold air. God! What was I going to do? If only there had been someone who'd
seen.
I needed a witness before I started accusing.

Sowbug! This time I had to find him.

I rammed out onto the highway, slowing, because there are always dangerous drivers on the roads and this was still the Fourth of July. But I had a hard time concentrating on being careful. My mind kept jumping and the car jumped, too. It would feel this way to be driving drunk. I slowed some more. Easy, Jesse, and stay cool. Above everything, stay cool.

From the Del Mar overlook I could see that Sowbug's place by the tunnel was still empty. I got out and walked, scanning the sand that was deserted now except for a group still celebrating around a roaring fire. It was cold, with a sharp night wind off the ocean. Even the seabirds had found shelter somewhere. Sowbug wasn't here. OK. There were other beaches to check. I'd checked them before; I'd check them again.

I drove to Scotsman's, to Aliso, to Corona Del Mar, to Huntington. I stumbled over lovers, illegal campers sacked out in sleeping bags, walked around a dead and stinking seal, and all the time my mind seesawed, trying to hold a balance. I remembered Mr. Eichler at Bry's funeral. Did he sing? Did he pray with the Reverend Orville that Bry would find peace? Or did he pray that he'd never be found out?

I drove to Bolsa Chica.

Mrs. Eichler had thought the posters were a practical idea. I imagined her telling her husband, "Don't worry. Nobody saw," and I choked down my rage.

Sowbug wasn't on Sunset Beach. Nobody was on Sunset. Could he have gone north? He'd have had to have a ride and if he did he could be anywhere, clear up in Ventura County even. I turned south, freewaying till I got to the Dana Point turnoff, then cutting toward the beach again. There was still plenty of action around Doheny where all the big motor homes were parked. Once Mom and Dad and Bry and I rented one of those and went fishing at Lake Cachuma.

I went on down to San Clemente and San Onofre before I turned. No Sowbug. Talk about the needle in the haystack, whatever that was. It was twenty minutes of four when I was cruising past Webster Beach. Four in the morning always seems the downest time there is. That's when I waken to memories of Bry, to the heart-sickening thud, to the loneliness of that bedroom, empty next to mine. I bet there are more suicides at four
A.M.
than any other time. I wondered if Mr. Eichler ever wakened at four
A.M.
, if he lay sweating, reliving as I did that final thump of metal on flesh.

The parking lot at Webster was empty, the yellow lights shining ghostlike on the dark concrete. They're constructing a new fishing pier and at the same time doing something with the sewer lines. Big, concrete pipes are strewn on the sand and I slowed some more, getting that sudden rush of blood through my veins, hearing Officer Valle's voice, "Sowbug likes tunnels he can crawl into." Yes!

I peeled into the empty parking lot and jumped out. The wind plucked at my sweat shirt and blew my jeans against my legs. Jeez! I'd never felt anything as cold as that wind. But I had something else. A need. Once I knew, once we had Eichler, the pain would stop. The emptiness would be filled.

There was a bundle of rags rammed in the mouth of the first pipe. The bundle didn't close it all the way because those big concrete tubes were maybe five feet in diameter. I poked the rags out, knelt, and shone my light inside. There were two mounds of clothing way in the center of the hollow tube. One of the mounds moved.

"Sowbug?" The tunnel echoed my voice but only mine.

I tucked my flashlight under my chin and began crawling. The cold came up through my legs, into my stomach. And my stomach wasn't feeling that great anyway.

I reached the first lump and shone my light. The man was round and gray-whiskered and pale as death. He was not Sowbug.

The second lump was a woman wrapped in layers of clothes, her head on a stained satin pillow.

"Lemme alone," she muttered and I quickly turned off the light.

It was hard to back up and I had to crawl over the man again. "Sorry," I said. "Excuse me."

Outside I stayed on my hands and knees, letting the sickness ebb. I hadn't thought about how it was. "Sowbug, I'll never again..." I said out loud. But I didn't know what I'd never do.

Another pipe. Another bundle bunched in its end. There was nothing to do but make myself face it. When the packing came out, bits of clothing scattered around my feet. There was a dirty red-plaid shirt that looked a lot like the one Sowbug wore.

I shone the beam inside, and there he was, alone in the pipe under his torn blanket, curled up with his arms around his wine jug.

"Bug?" He snored and curled himself tighter.

I reached in and shook his foot, but not as hard as I once would have shaken it.

"Bug? It's Jesse Harmon. Wake up. I need to talk to you."

He tried to pull his foot free and squirm farther into the pipe, but I had a firm hold and I slid him out toward me. It was like pulling a dog out of a hole. But he wasn't a dog.

"I'm sorry, Sowbug," I said. "I'm desperate or I wouldn't do this to you."

He lay in the sand, boneless, shading his eyes and face, making one last effort to wriggle away.

I held on and shone the light in my own face.

"Don't be scared, Sowbug. I'm not going to hurt you. Remember me? Jesse? From Del Mar Park? It was my brother who was killed. Here, sit up. I'll help you."

His blanket had stayed behind in the pipe. I fished it out and wrapped it around his shoulders. He still had the wine jug, about an inch sloshing in the bottom. If he was too drunk to talk I'd wait around till he sobered.

"Let's go to my car," I said. "It'll be warmer. Come on, Bug."

He didn't want to go anyplace, but I pushed him ahead of me through the soft sand. Partway up he unscrewed the top of the jug and drank as he walked. I took the empty jug from him and dumped it in the trash basket. Then I wedged him into the passenger seat, got behind the wheel, and started the engine.

"We goin' someplace?" he asked.

"No. We're just going to sit here and talk." The heater came on with its little roar. I decided to let him sit for a minute and thaw before I started my questions. It didn't take long for the car to start smelling pretty bad and I had to roll down my window a couple of inches. I heard him snore.

I prodded his shoulder. "Sowbug! Dammit, don't you go to sleep on me." I shook him some more. "The car that killed my brother. You saw it happen, didn't you?"

He stayed limp, but I sensed the minute understanding came, when it got through to him exactly who I was and what I wanted. I sensed the sudden wariness.

"I don't know nothin'...." The whine was back.

"Yes, you do. It was a dark green car, right? A Volvo, 1966 maybe. I even have the registration. All I need is a description of the man who was driving it."

He drew in his breath in a wheezy whistle.

I began guessing. "You were up poking around in the trash, just at the entrance to the beach that night, and you saw Bry get hit. Right? You didn't know who it was. I believe that, Sowbug. If you'd known it was Bry you'd have gone to help."

He nodded vigorously. "I sure would. I would have helped."

"And when the car stopped, you were right across the highway." I was visualizing it, reliving it again though I didn't want to, and suddenly I knew exactly how it had been. "And the man had to step out to reach Bry's shoe." I opened my door, put my left leg out, reached across the hood with my left arm, pretended to throw. "Like that?" Tears closed the back of my throat. "And you were just across the highway and you saw him," I said again.

"I didn't know it was your brother, son. I swear it. I would have helped."

"You can help now. Just tell me what the man looked like."

"The police. That Officer McMeeken. I don't like him."

"You don't even have to talk to him. I'll arrange it. Officer Valle is nice."

I'd closed the door again and it was very warm. Sowbug shucked his blanket. "They won't take me in?"

"No."

"They won't make me leave California? That Officer McMeeken said they'd ship me to Alaska if they ever found me sleeping on the beach...."

"He's only trying to scare you. Tell me about the man."

His lips twitched in a smile. "That weren't no man, sonny. That was a girlie."

"A girlie?" Immediately the image of Chloe flashed in my head, Chloe in her blue swimsuit, smiling for the camera.

"Yes, sir. Nice looking, too. Fancy dresser. Classy."

I swallowed. "You eyeballed her good, Sowbug?"

"Yeah. The parts I could see. Saw her back. Saw a fair piece of leg as she stepped out. Worth seeing, too." He was chortling and I wanted to slap him, new understanding or not. A woman! "Heels this high, and one of them sexy gold chains around her ankle. Saw clear away up above her knee when she put her..."

I leaned forward. "A chain?" I couldn't believe what he was saying. "A chain, Sowbug? Did it have a diamond in it?"

"Can't say. But I'd know it again. I'd know that leg, too."

I grabbed his wrists. "Now, listen, Sowbug. This is major. Are you sure the woman was driving?"