Preston Falls : a novel (40 page)

There are three chairs in front of his desk; Jean takes the one nearest the door.

"So," says Arthur Paley. "From what I gather, you missed the excitement last night."

Jean cocks her head.

"Ah. Well, it seems our Mr. Starger," he says, "saw fit to take his proteges out to some cowboy bar. Where he proceeded to get into a dispute with one of the locals, who I gather was being attentive to Miss—what the heU's her name. Bruno. Anyhow, to cut a long story short, Mr. Starger ended up in the jug and Mr. Cooperman spent the morning trying to bail him out. Of course the gentlemen missed their plane, but Miss Bruno is winging her way back to us as we speak."

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"My God," says Jean. "I had no idea,"

"So I was told," he says. "I suppose the philosophical way to look at this is pennies from heaven. Oddly enough, we'd been contemplating— well, as you know, downsizing has become a dirty word—but a certain amount of restructuring, and particularly in Mr. Starger's area. So, rather fortuitously, this may end up helping along a process that was already in motion. My guess is that very shortly we'll be hearing from Mr. Starger that he's decided to resign in order to pursue other opportunities." He looks at Jean. "You had a comment?"

"No," she says. "Only that I'm really sorry this is happening. For whatever it's worth, he's been a wonderful person to work for."

Arthur Paley smiles. What you notice is the whiteness of his teeth coming out of his suntan, and how evenly his white sideburns are trimmed. "You owe Jerry a great deal, I know," he says. "And I know, too, that you've grown tremendously in your time here, in your field of expertise. You certainly brought us out of the dark ages—kicking and screaming sometimes." A strategic chuckle. Then back to serious. "I'll tell you something. I'd be willing to predict that within a few months you'll find some better opportunities yourself. New worlds to conquer." Another chuckle. "Maybe someplace that's not so darn hidebound."

"Am I being fired?" she says.

He smiles and shakes his head. "You know, you're a breath of fresh air. Think of this as more along the lines of career counseling. Mentoring, if you wiU. Just because Jerry's elected to move on, or let's say it's become expedient that he do so, it doesn't mean the people he brought in are in any way damaged goods. And of course I include you in that. Now, as I say, we are looking at some restructuring in his area—what was his area. And possibly rethinking some matters of style and presentation. You may disagree about this, probably you do, but it is possible in this business to have a little too much flair. If I have any criticism overall of Jerry's tenure here, it would be that." He waves a hand around. "But hell, change is just the nature of things. I'd be willing to bet you feel the need of a change yourself."

"Well," she says, "if it were a change for the better."

''There you go," he says. "So take time, look around you and . . . we'll talk again."

"Could I ask something that's none of my business? Is this going to hurt Howard Cooperman?"

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"I'd hardly call it an auspicious beginning, would you? But he's going to be fine. You let me worry about Howard."

"Right." Jean stands up. "I'm really not stupid, Art."

He laughs. "Who the heck said you were, for Pete's sake?" He gets up too. "I'll deck the son of a gun myself. Jerry Starger's not the only macho man around here."

"Right," says Jean. "Well. I'll see you later, then."

"Door's always open." He comes around the desk and, as if by way of demonstration, opens the door for her.

Instead of going straight back to her office, she walks down the hall to Jerry Starger's corner. A phone's ringing, but his assistant, Martha, isn't at her desk. Jean stares at his closed door. She's seen the poster a thousand times: the little girl with crutches and leg braces. Help Jerry's Kids. The naked not-funniness of this never hit her before.

She walks to her office, can't bear to go in, and keeps on all the way around to the reception area. Helen looks up, phone wedged into her neck, and says, "Can you hold just a second, please? Jean, you just had a call." Jean takes the slip: Tony Petrosky. 802-642-8025. Urgent.

She suddenly feels sick to her stomach, and braces a hand on Helen's desk. "Could I use your key a second?" It seems to take Helen forever, fumbling around in her top drawer; Jean somehow makes it to the ladies' room, unlocks the door and gets safely inside. She's hearing everything as if she had earplugs.

At the sink, a tall young creature is leaning into the mirror from the waist and batting away with both hands at her hairdo; she turns her head to look at Jean staggering into a stall. Jean swings the door closed, drops to her knees, sticks her tongue out over the toilet bowl and retches. She feels her stomach muscles convulsing, and out comes a little drool of white stuff that must be the Rolaids. There's nothing else to come up. She retches twice more, then sweat starts pouring and that peace comes over her that almost makes it worth vomiting. You can easily, easily see how women get into this. She just kneels there and breathes for a while, then stands, slowly, and brushes off her knees. It feels okay to stand up. But she's really got to get some food. Whatever this Urgent thing is (she dreads to think), it has to wait until she gets something solid in her stomach. Eat properly, and then when you're told to look for a new job you can square your shoulders, stick out your chin and say. Thanks for just devastating my life, like it wasn't devastated already. So women do have

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options, if they'll just take good enough care of themselves to keep strong. Or is that too bitter?

When Jean comes back with the key, Helen's scribbling with the phone at her ear. She hangs up, then sees Jean and says, "Oh."

Jean stares at the slip. Mrs. Keene, Chesterton Middle School, 914-^35-4200.

She closes her door, sits down, breathes. The assistant principal: this can't be good. Better deal with this first, no matter what the Urgent thing is—probably news about Willis that she can't do anything about.

"Oh hi, thanks for getting back to me," Mrs. Keene says. "We just wanted to check with you, because we noticed Melanie's not in school today and we were wondering if she might be ill."

"She's not in school?''

"She hasn't been in any of her classes this morning."

"I'd better call home," says Jean. "I had to be out of town overnight, and my sister was taking care of—"

"We did try your house, actually," says Mrs. Keene. "The reason Tm concerned, we've just heard a rather wild story from Erin Miller. Erin says that Melanie had been planning to run away to her father's house? Does this make any sense to you?"

"Well—we do have like a weekend place," says Jean. "But—"

"Now, apparently—and again, this is all according to Erin— apparently she had planned to get herself down to La Guardia somehow and take a flight to—well, Erin is saying Bennington, but I think she must mean Burlington, because I doubt very much they fly into Bennington.''

"Oh my God."

"Bear in mind, now, this may all be talk. But according to Erin, Melanie made a plane reservation over the telephone using your credit card, and then she was planning to—"

"I am going to kill Erin." Jean opens her bag and gets her wallet out. Then she remembers: her MasterCard was missing.

"Well, I would hardly hold Erin to blame," says Mrs. Keene. "She told me she didn't think Melanie would really go through with it, until she was absent this morning. You know, I put myself in Erin's shoes, and—"

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"I don't care about Erin Miller," says Jean. "What have you done? What are you doing?"

"Well, we thought the first thing should be to contact you or your husband, in the event that she was simply home sick. We do have a bug going around."

"God, what time is it? It's after eleven o'clock. She could be— anything could've happened; she's twelve years old." The phone trills and the light for 5322 begins blinking. "Crap. Can you hold?" Jean hits Hold, then 5322. "Jean Karnes."

"Tony Petrosky, Mrs. Willis. I left a message before, but I thought I better keep trying. We have your daughter in custody up in Burlington—now don't worry, she's fine. She was on an airplane this morning from New York City, and we thought we better get in touch with you to know how to proceed."

"Oh thank God" says Jean. "Is she all right?"

"Yes, she's fine. Though I gather she's not too happy about being detained."

"She's not iny^z7?"

"No-no-no. They've got a—not a lounge, you wouldn't say, but sort of a waiting room area. At the barracks up there. Couch, couple chairs. Where they can keep an eye on her."

"But what on earth was she—wait, could you hold? Let me get rid of this other—it's her school."

"I'll hold."

She hits Hold, then 5321. "Mrs. Keene? She's all right. I'm talking to the police right now. Apparently they picked her up in Burlington."

"I thought it was Burlington."

"Can I call you back?" Jean says.

"Of course. Well, you must be—"

"I'll call you back." She hits 5322. "Hello?"

"I'm here," says Petrosky.

Jean lets out a long breath. "How did you find her?"

"Well, my understanding," he says, "the airline people called ahead while they were en route. She had quite a bit of makeup on, from what I gather, but one of the stewardesses noticed she seemed a little young. So I guess they figured, you know, better check it out."

"Is she there? Can I talk to her?"

"Well, no—see, I'm still down in Rutland. I can give you the number up there. What happened, they called me from—okay, let me back

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up here. What she told them at the airport, she was on her way to see her father. So they started asking her, you know, where does he live? Preston Falls. How was she getting there? Little vague on that. I guess they called your house in Preston Falls and couldn't raise anybody, so one thing and another they put her in the computer, and the name Willis set the bells off. Anyhow, the upshot was, they called down here because I was up to speed on the other matter, and I told them I'd get in touch with you and we'd sort of take it from there."

"So you haven't actually seen her."

"No, ma'am. But if they say she's fine, I wouldn't worry. Got a pencil? I'll give you that number. You want to ask for Sergeant Mallon,"

She writes the number on the pink slip underneath his, putting a ditto mark under the 802.

"Tell me something," he says. "Maybe I'm off on a tangent here. But do you have any reason to think your daughter knows anything you might not know about your husband's whereabouts? Or do you think she was just on a lark?"

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"Or whatever. Do you think he and she had been in contact?"

"No. No, definitely not. That would shock me more than anything."

"And I guess you weren't sending her to hook up with him."

"Do you think I'd put a twelve-year-old—wait, what are you saying? You think this is some weird scam or something? That we're all in on? What possible—"

"All right, slow down," he says. "Look, this is my job. Okay? Now, while I have you, did you have any luck reaching any of your husband's friends?"

"No. I mean, I did reach them. Some of them. I didn't have any luck."

"Right," he says. "Let me ask you. Were you thinking of coming up to get your daughter? "

"Yes—I mean, can I?"

"Sure. But let me just run something by you. I remember you were saying you needed to come up and close your house? So I was thinking, what if I arranged to meet you—or better yet, what if we did this} I pick your daughter up in Burlington, or maybe have them bring her partway, and she and I could hook up with you in Preston Falls."

Jean has a terrible flash that this isn't a state policeman at all but some serial killer who somehow knows their whole story. Maybe he got

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Willis: he's just this voice on the telephone. She tries to think back about what actual proof she has, except she can't really think.

"I don't know," she says. "How would that work?"

"Just bring her to the house, I guess. Try to get there while it's still light enough to look around. And get some heat going. Probably chilly in there."

This must be all right. She could always call Information for the Vermont State Police, then call that number and ask for Captain Petrosky. She lets out a long breath. "Okay," she says.

"Good. So when would you be getting there, about?"

"What is it—eleven-thirty? I have to take the train up to get my car, so probably twelve-thivly. . . . Let's see, one-thirty, two-thirty, three-thirty, four-thirty. . . . Okay, so probably five o'clock? If all goes well?" She looks at the picture of Mel and Roger. "That sounds bizarre, doesn't it? If all goes well.''

"This isn't the easiest thing," he says. "You're holding up fine. So five o'clock. We'll be there."

"Wait, you need directions."

"Ragged Hill Road, isn't it?" he says. "I assume it's that old farmhouse on the left-hand side, just before you get over into Wakefield. Sits sort of up on a rise?"

"You know our house?"

"We get over in there from time to time," he says. "Fact, we're pretty well acquainted with one of your neighbors. You said your husband knows Mr. Castleman?"

"Right. He lives just down the road." Wait: did she say that?

"He's quite a character, Mr. Castleman."

Jean says, "I'm surprised that you know the house."

"Oh sure. Like I say, we get over that way. So we'll look for you about five."

Jean keeps the receiver at her ear and calls the Burlington number; she's relieved when the person answers "State Police." Sergeant Mallon takes his sweet time picking up; he puts the phone down with a clunk when she asks to speak to Mel, then gets back on. "She says she don't want to talk to you."

"Is she all right?"

"Oh, she's fine. There's some magazines in there. She's been looking at them when she thinks nobody's watching."