SIX
Once behind his desk, a cup of Dooley’s thick coffee in front of him, he placed a call, not to a neighboring sheriff but to Atlanta, Georgia, to Mr. Harvey McBride. Ezra explained the situation at length and waited for a response. After a spell McBride spoke. “Well, what is it you want me to do, Sheriff?”
“I thought—” Ezra started, then paused. What was it he did want McBride to do? “I thought you might have an interest in these developments,” he concluded. He felt uncomfortably like a hick county sheriff trying to sound like a knowledgeable city policeman.
“I am interested,” McBride stated flatly, “but I fail to see what I can do about the situation.” He had a habit of punctuating certain words in every phrase he spoke, usually some word other than the one Ezra expected him to emphasize, and the sheriff found it annoying.
“Listen, Mr. McBride, it’s your family, and I just thought—”
“Now hold on, Sheriff.” McBride cut him off. “It was my family. I loved my wife and dearly love my daughter, but this past week has been very hard for me. Imogene stole my car and over two thousand dollars in cash from me, not to mention some very expensive jewelry and personal items. She took Cora, willingly, I assume, and they departed for parts unknown, although I suspect they are off to visit Imogene’s demented sister in Oregon. I expect that after a few weeks of that, she’ll be running back home. My main interest is in Cora’s well-being, naturally, but taking some action to save my wife from some sort of embarrassment is—well, it’s out of the question! She should count herself fortunate that I am not filing charges and asking you to arrest her for grand theft!”
Fat chance, Ezra thought. “But what about Cor—what about your daughter?” Ezra cursed himself for imitating the odd speech pattern McBride used.
“Cora will turn up,” McBride said confidently, and Ezra got the mental image of a man polishing his fingernails on his coat lapel. “I’m certain of it, either here or back there. But even if she doesn’t, she’s eighteen, free, and capable of making adult decisions—possibly more capable than her mother, for that matter. I don’t see there’s a cause for alarm, that is, unless you suspect something has happened to her . . . of an, uh . . . unpleasant nature.”
“No,” Ezra admitted. He was finding his dislike for McBride enjoyable, the way he disliked mongrel dogs and snakes. “There’s no evidence of anything like that. Not yet.”
“Well, then,” McBride summed up, “I’m very sorry to disappoint you, Sheriff, but it seems that the problem is yours and yours alone. Imogene is apparently in your backyard, for a change, and you’re stuck with her. Do call me if Cora shows up, however. I’d like to talk to her.”
Ezra broke the connection as McBride hung up. The sheriff began tooling the tobacco around in his pipe with his knife and thought carefully. “Dooley,” he called to his assistant, who was working a large piece of wood with a sharp carving knife, “go over to the hotel café and get a chicken-fried for the lady outside. Bring it back and give it to her, and let her pay you for it if she’s a mind to. If not, just leave it there. Also, tell whoever’s on the desk tonight to hold a room for her, one of the big ones near the street so she can see the square.” Dooley spat, missing the spittoon again, and pulled himself up to leave. “Oh, yeah,” Ezra continued, “get her a pack of cigarettes, too.”
“What brand?” Dooley asked as he pulled suspenders up over his shoulders from their usual dangling position around his knees.
“Huh?” Ezra was lost in thought. “Oh, uh, Luckies, I guess. And ask for fried potatoes with the steak instead of mashed. She’s outside.” Dooley sauntered out, spitting once more with no better aim than before.
This was something he didn’t really need, Ezra thought. He pulled the girl’s yearbook over to him and opened it to a marker where her class picture was. She was damn pretty, that was for sure, about the prettiest girl in the whole class, maybe in the whole high school. This was a yearbook for her junior year, and he flipped idly through it. Something didn’t quite make sense.
She was clearly prettier than the “Most Beautiful Girl—Junior Class,” and her picture didn’t appear as a blowup for any of the other awards for which she was eligible either. Well, Ezra mused, these are mostly popularity contests—maybe she just wasn’t popular. But that didn’t jell. Pretty girls were always popular, weren’t they? He turned back to her class picture. Even the small shot showed a beauty that far surpassed the Homecoming Queen, Prom Queen, and School’s Favorite Gal photos of other girls that were blown up to eight by tens. Even the runners-up for each contest couldn’t hold a candle to Cora’s almost mystical beauty. Under her class picture Ezra read the list of organizations to her credit: Pep Club, French Club, Typing Team, Poetry Club. That was it. He suddenly realized that she had been a member of these clubs but never an officer. Never a leader. That was odd. Officers were popular kids too, but never as popular as the big award winners. He knew that. And, he persisted, pretty girls, especially very pretty girls, were always popular, very popular, too popular. Yet she wasn’t an officer in any club, not a member of the student council, not even listed as a member of the Junior Prom Decorating Committee. This was wrong, he knew, but he refused to think about why.
He got up and went out to his car. She was still sitting on the bench, rigid as a goddamn flagpole, he thought. She had mentioned two men, boys really, in a 1932 Ford with AGATITE EAGLES printed on the door who had given Cora the eye when she crossed the street. That would be Nolan Talbert and his brother, most likely. Not exactly a logical pair of suspects for abduction, since Nolan had declared for the ministry and was home on spring vacation from the Baptist Seminary.
Ezra drove over to the Talbert place, anyway, but Nolan didn’t remember seeing the girl. His brother, Gary, remembered her, he thought, but he recalled that she had red hair, not blond. Cora was blond, Ezra knew; the black-and-white yearbook shot even showed that.
Ezra made the rounds of houses belonging to one or two others he knew had been downtown that day, and he even drove out to Luke Short’s ramshackle house and questioned him. Nothing. No one but Luke had seen Cora to know who she was, and while everyone remembered the mother’s frantic questions, no one except Luke was even completely sure that Cora McBride existed anywhere but in her mother’s mind. The gossip had already started. “She’s tetched,” Lucy Holloway told him. “Scared the dickens outta my boy Fred when she came inta the drugstore!”
No, Ezra thought as he drove back into town, she’s not “tetched.” She’s tired, dirty, scared, and probably a little bit lost, but she’s not crazy. Not yet.
He turned back onto Main Street and parked the car at the courthouse and killed the engine. She still sat on the bench, staring at the darkened drugstore. It was almost nine-thirty, and most of the cars on Main Street had long since gone home. Only the railroad crews and some kids moved around after nine o’clock during the week. Agatite was, Ezra thought, a quiet town all right. People didn’t just disappear here, not without some kind of reason.
One thing McBride had said bothered him. He was certain that Cora would turn up. He had emphasized the word more than the others. Ezra’s mind had already decided that there was something the girl’s father knew, or thought he knew, that Imogene McBride didn’t. Maybe McBride had found a way to slip his daughter some money for a bus or train ticket. Two passenger stops had taken place since noon, although one of them was westbound, and she would be able to pay her way by just getting aboard and buying a ticket at the next station. It would have been easy if she had the money. But how could she? McBride couldn’t pull something like that off without somebody in Agatite helping out. Ezra knew his people, especially Pete. Pete wouldn’t do something crooked if it would save his mother’s life. He was too damn honest sometimes, Ezra thought. Still, every man has a price, Ezra believed; that’s the first thing a lawman learns. But not old Pete. Hell, they’d gone swimming together as kids, fished every other weekend, known each other all their lives. Pete wouldn’t sell anything for money if he thought somebody wanted it bad enough and it was his to give away. But maybe Cora hadn’t offered him money. She didn’t have any, Mrs. McBride had said. Pretty girls were popular unless . . . unless they had a reputation. There. The thought was out. But Ezra squelched it immediately. Not old Pete. That was impossible. Hell, he’s older than I am. No. Her father must have gotten to her some way.
Ezra got out of his car and lit his pipe. But how could McBride plan such a thing? Luke had said that the fuel pump had gone out and the carburetor needed overhauling. That’s not the sort of thing you can count on or fix to break at a specific place. Maybe he had some kind of private detective following them. Yeah, maybe. But Agatite was small enough that a stranger stuck out like a sore thumb. Four people called to tell him about her breakdown before Luke even got her back to town. Ezra was bothered. This was an itch he couldn’t scratch.
Walking across the lawn, he noticed the smell of spring in the air, flowers and bushes around the courthouse. The stars were out, clear and bright, and the air carried only the slightest chilly suggestion of the brutality of Texas winter as it reluctantly gave way to spring. It was a beautiful night. She noticed him coming and raised her hand in greeting.
“Sheriff, I want to thank you for sending the meal.” She smiled as he approached. “It was delicious! I’m afraid I was hungrier than I knew I was.” The plate and napkin from the hotel café were on the bench beside her.
“Well, I couldn’t let you starve yourself to death.” He uncomfortably puffed.
“And you didn’t!” she said brightly. “Mr. Dooley is so nice! Do tell him how much I appreciate his trouble.”
“I think he’d be sufficiently obliged if he never heard you call him mister.” Ezra smiled. She was pretty, too, he thought. It was easy to see where Cora got her beauty, for although she outstripped her mother in every specific department, Ezra was keen to notice Imogene’s shapely legs and clear, almost transparent skin, which caught the streetlamp’s glow.
“Did you make your calls?” she asked. “Has anyone seen her?”
“I called,” Ezra said, “but nobody’s seen her.” He felt uncomfortable about the small lie. He really had meant to call some other sheriffs. “I checked out those boys in the Ford, too, and there’s no worry there. Nolan Talbert—that’s the driver—he’s going to be a preacher, and he couldn’t even remember watching her the way you said.”
“Oh, he remembered.” Her mouth became a pencil-thin line. “But I doubt that he knows anything.”
“Mrs. McBride,” Ezra began, knocking his pipe out against the metal arm of the bench, “is there any chance your daughter could have gone back to her—to your husband?”
“No,” she said quickly and quietly. “I mean, no. There’s no way she could. She only had a nickel, and a train ticket costs a bit more than that, a bus too.” He nodded in agreement. “Sheriff”—she had a lilt to her voice and raised her chin a bit, making him aware of her attractiveness once again—“have you spoken to my husband?”
He couldn’t lie. “Yes, ma’am.”
“And did he say that she had run away to go back to him?”
“Not exactly.”
“But that’s what you think, isn’t it?” She almost sighed the question.
His knee was bothering him suddenly, and he shifted his weight. “Ma’am, to tell you God’s truth, I don’t know what to think.”
“What else did my husband—did Mr. McBride say about me?”
“Well—” Ezra hesitated. This was none of his affair, this divorce, if that was what it was. He didn’t really want to get involved in a marital problem. But, he realized, he already was involved, so he took a breath and plunged in. “He said you stole his car and some money and other stuff, jewelry, but he wasn’t going to press charges.”
She laughed, a mirthless, dry cackle that seemed so odd coming from such a pretty woman. It was, Ezra realized, almost hysterical, and he recognized once again the indefinable quality that he had seen lurking behind her gray eyes so often that afternoon. He found it disturbing and vaguely frightening. “That’s rich!” she said, wiping the tears from her eyes. “Well, Sheriff, the owner’s papers in my name are in the glove compartment of the car, if you’d care to see them. I took care of that before I left, and let me tell you, it wasn’t easy. But it was legal! The money he gave me freely, in front of witnesses. As for the rest of the things—well, you’ll just have to take my word for it. They’re mine!” She was speaking too loudly, Ezra knew, speaking out of weariness and desperation, but he didn’t know how to stop her.
“Yeah, well”—he paused—“I don’t want to see nothing. If you say the stuff’s yours and he don’t want to make a case out of it, it’s none of my business.”
Suddenly she calmed down, visibly gained control of herself once again, and Ezra found himself amazed again at her ability to harness her emotions and display complete calm in the face of panic and worry. “Yes, Sheriff, of course. I’m sorry. You’ve tried to be kind to me, and I’ve done nothing but yell at you and cry all over you. I do appreciate all you’ve done, really! I’m just a bit tired, that’s all.”
“Well, that’s all right, about the crying, I mean. You’ve been through a rough day.”
“Still”—she held up a hand, and he noticed how long and graceful her fingers were, the nails perfectly manicured and lacquered with red polish—“that’s no excuse for being a crybaby. I swore I’d never cry again when I left Atlanta.” This last was said hard, but her gray eyes immediately softened, and she looked up at his fumbling with his empty pipe. “Have you a match?” she asked.
He handed her a box from his pocket, and she lit a cigarette from a new pack, the one Dooley had brought her. She took the smoke in deeply, exhaling it through her nose like a man, but not without a certain style that made Ezra’s heart jump suddenly. He shook his head when she offered him the box back, and she dropped it into her purse.
“Yeah,” he said finally, “I’ll bet you are . . . tired, that is. Listen, I had Dooley make you a reservation down to the hotel, a big room that overlooks the square. Maybe you want to go over there and check in, freshen up, maybe get some sleep. Maybe tomorrow . . .” He trailed off.
“Thank you, Sheriff, I’ll think it over, really I will.” She folded her hands in her lap, one holding the cigarette away from her skirt, and resumed her stare at the drugstore across the street. It’s like somebody watching a movie show, Ezra thought.
“Well, good night,” he said, and he walked back to his car. He was perplexed and more than a little attracted to her. Suddenly he turned, and without thinking, he strolled back and asked her, “Uh, Mrs. McBride, has Cora ever done anything—this sort of thing, before?” It wasn’t the question he wanted to ask, and he was relieved when her only answer was to smile brightly and confidently and shake her head.
“She’s a good girl,” she said, and she resumed her stare, and he turned and started again for his car.
Hell, he thought, cursing himself, there’s twenty years’ difference between us, at least. But she seemed so helpless and determined. He realized suddenly and with a shock that he was about to ask her to come home with him. What could he be thinking of? Something in the back of his mind stirred uncomfortably, and Hilda’s face suddenly swam before his eyes. Only it wasn’t Hilda’s face, not exactly. It was hers, Imogene’s. He rubbed his eyes briefly, and the image retreated. He started to load his pipe and then thought better of it and put it in his pocket. His hands were shaking a bit. Gaining control of them, he bent his arthritic knee and got into the car and started it. As he drove slowly home, the face came to him again in his thoughts. Her face. She is pretty, he thought.