Bag of Bones Part 16

The books were different enough to qualify as schizoid. One, with a playing-card bookmark about three quarters of the way through, was the paperback edition of Richard North Patterson's Silent Witness Silent Witness. I applauded her taste; Patterson and DeMille are probably the best of the current popular novelists. The other, a hardcover tome of some weight, was The Collected Short Works of Herman Melville The Collected Short Works of Herman Melville. About as far from Richard North Patterson as you could get. According to the faded purple ink stamped on the thickness of the pages, this volume belonged to Four Lakes Community Library. That was a lovely little stone building about five miles south of Dark Score Lake, where Route 68 pa.s.ses off the TR and into Motton. Where Mattie worked, presumably. I opened to her bookmark, another playing card, and saw she was reading 'Bartleby.'

'I don't understand that,' she said from behind me, startling me so badly that I almost dropped the books. 'I like it - it's a good enough story - but I haven't the slightest idea what it means. The other one, now, I've even figured out who did it.'

'It's a strange pair to read in tandem,' I said, putting them back down. 'The Patterson I'm reading for pleasure,' Mattie said. She went into the kitchen, looked briefly (and with some longing, I thought) at the bottle of wine, then opened the fridge and took out a pitcher of Kool-Aid. On the fridge door were words her daughter had already a.s.sembled from her Magnabet bag: KI and MATTIE and HOHO (Santa Claus, I presumed). 'Well, I'm reading them both for pleasure, I guess, but we're due to discuss 'Bartleby' in this little group I'm a part of. We meet Thursday nights at the library. I've still got about ten pages to go.'

'A readers' circle.'

'Uh-huh. Mrs. Briggs leads. She formed it long before I was born. She's the head librarian at Four Lakes, you know.'

'I do. Lindy Briggs is my caretaker's sister-in-law.'

Mattie smiled. 'Small world, isn't it?'

'No, it's a big world but a small town.'

She started to lean back against the counter with her gla.s.s of Kool-Aid, then thought better of it. 'Why don't we go outside and sit? That way anyone pa.s.sing can see that we're still dressed and that we don't have anything on inside-out.'

I looked at her, startled She looked back with a kind of cynical good humor. It wasn't an expression that looked particularly at home on her face.

'I may only be twenty-one, but I'm not stupid,' she said. 'He's watching me. I know it, and you probably do, too. On another night I might be tempted to say f.u.c.k him if he can't take a joke, but it's cooler out there and the smoke from the hibachi will keep the worst of the bugs away. Have I shocked you? If so, I'm sorry.'

'You haven't.' She had, a little. 'No need to apologize.'

We carried our drinks down the not-quite-steady cinderblock steps and sat side-by-side in a couple of lawn-chairs. To the left of us the coals in the hibachi glowed soft rose in the growing gloom. Mattie leaned back, placed the cold curve of her gla.s.s briefly against her forehead, then drank most of what was left, the ice cubes sliding against her teeth with a click and a rattle. Crickets hummed in the woods behind the trailer and across the road. Farther up Highway 68, I could see the bright white fluorescents over the gas island at the Lakeview General. The seat of my chair was a little baggy, the interwoven straps a little frayed, and the old girl canted pretty severely to the left, but there was still no place I'd rather have been sitting just then. This evening had turned out to be a quiet little miracle. . at least, so far. We still had John Storrow to get to.

'I'm glad you came on a Tuesday,' she said. 'Tuesday nights are hard for me. I'm always thinking of the ballgame down at Warrington's. The guys'll be picking up the gear by now - the bats and bases and catcher's mask - -and putting it back in the storage cabinet behind home plate. Drinking their last beers and smoking their last cigarettes. That's where I met my husband, you know. I'm sure you've been told all that by now.'

I couldn't see her face clearly, but I could hear the faint tinge of bitterness which had crept into her voice, and guessed she was still wearing the cynical expression. It was too old for her, but I thought she'd come by it honestly enough. Although if she didn't watch out, it would take root and grow.

'I heard a version from Bill, yes - Lindy's brother-in-law.'

'Oh ayuh - our story's on retail. You can get it at the store, or the Village Cafe, or at that old blabbermouth's garage . . . which my father-in-law rescued from Western Savings, by the way. He stepped in just before the bank could foreclose. Now d.i.c.kie Brooks and his cronies think Max Devore is walking talking Jesus. I hope you got a fairer version from Mr. Dean than you'd get at the All-Purpose. You must've, or you wouldn't have risked eating hamburgers with Jezebel.'

I wanted to get away from that, if I could - her anger was understandable but useless. Of course it was easier for me to see that; it wasn't my kid who had been turned into the handkerchief tied at the center of a tug-of-war rope. 'They still play softball at Warrington's? Even though Devore bought the place?'

'Yes indeed. He goes down to the field in his motorized wheelchair every Tuesday evening and watches. There are other things he's done since he came back here that are just attempts to buy the town's good opinion, but I think he genuinely loves the softball games. The Whit-more woman goes, too. Brings an extra oxygen tank along in a little red wheelbarrow with a whitewall tire on the front. She keeps a fielder's mitt in there, too, in case any foul pops come up over the backstop to where he sits. He caught one near the start of the season, I heard, and got a standing O from the players and the folks who come to watch.'

'Going to the games puts him in touch with his son, you think?'

Mattie smiled grimly. 'I don't think Lance so much as crosses his mind, not when he's at the ballfield. They play hard at Warrington's - slide into home with their feet up, jump into the puckerbrush for the flyb.a.l.l.s, curse each other when they do something wrong - and that's what old Max Devore enjoys, that's why he never misses a Tuesday evening game. He likes to watch them slide and get up bleeding.'

'Is that how Lance played?

She thought about it carefully. 'He played hard, but he wasn't crazed. He was there just for the fun of it. We all were. We women - s.h.i.+t, really just us girls, Barney Therriault's wife, Cindy, was only sixteen - we'd stand behind the backstop on the first-base side, smoking cigarettes or waving punks to keep the bugs away, cheering our guys when they did something good, laughing when they did something stupid. We'd swap sodas or share a can of beer. I'd admire Helen Geary's twins and she'd kiss Ki under the chin until Ki giggled. Sometimes we'd go down to the Village Cafe afterward and Buddy'd make us pizzas, losers pay. All friends again, you know, a ter the game. We'd sit there laughing and yelling and blowing straw-wrappers around, some of the guys half-loaded but n.o.body mean. In those days they got all the mean out on the ballfield. And you know what? None of them come to see me. Not Helen Geary, who was my best friend. Not Richie Lattimore, who was Lance's best friend - the two of them would talk about rocks and birds and the kinds of trees there were across the lake for hours on end. They came to the uneral, and for a little while after, and then . . . you know what it was like? When I was a kid, our well dried up. For awhile you'd get a trickle when you turned on the tap, but then there was just air. Just air.' The cynicism was gone and there was only hurt in her voice. 'I saw Helen at Christmas, and we promised to get together for the twins' birthday, but we never did. I think she's scared to come near me.'

'Because of the old man?'

'Who else? But that's okay, life goes on.' She sat up, drank the rest of her Kool-Aid, and set the gla.s.s aside. 'What about you, Mike? Did you come back to write a book? Are you going to name the TR?' This was a local bon mot bon mot that I remembered with an almost painful twinge of nostalgia. Locals with great plans were said to be bent on naming the TR. that I remembered with an almost painful twinge of nostalgia. Locals with great plans were said to be bent on naming the TR.

'No,' I said, and then astonished myself by saying: 'I don't do that anymore. I think I expected her to leap to her feet, overturning her chair and uttering a sharp cry of horrified denial. All of which says a good deal about me, I suppose, and none of it flattering.

'You've retired?' she asked, sounding calm and remarkably unhorrified. 'Or is it writer's block?'

'Well, it's certainly not chosen chosen retirement.' I realized the conversation had taken a rather amusing turn. I'd come primarily to sell her on John Storrow - to shove John Storrow down her throat, if that was what it took - and instead I was for the first time discussing my inability to work. For the first time with anyone. retirement.' I realized the conversation had taken a rather amusing turn. I'd come primarily to sell her on John Storrow - to shove John Storrow down her throat, if that was what it took - and instead I was for the first time discussing my inability to work. For the first time with anyone.

'So it's a block.'

'I used to think so, but now I'm not so sure. I think novelists may come equipped with a certain number of stories to tell - they're built into the software. And when they're gone, they're gone.'

'I doubt that,' she said. 'Maybe you'll write now that you're down here. Maybe that's part of the reason you came back.'

'Maybe you're right.'

'Are you scared?'

'Sometimes. Mostly about what I'll do for the rest of my life. I'm no good at boats in bottles, and my wife was the one with the green thumb.'

'I'm scared, too,' she said. 'Scared a lot. All the time now, it seems like.'

'That he'll win his custody case? Mattie, that's what I - '

'The custody case is only part of it,' she said. 'I'm scared just to be here, on the TR. It started early this summer, long after I knew Devore meant to get Ki away from me if he could. And it's getting worse. In a way it's like watching thunderheads gather over New Hamps.h.i.+re and then come piling across the lake. I can't put it any better than that, except . . . ' She s.h.i.+fted, crossing her legs and then bending forward to pull the skirt of her dress against the line of her s.h.i.+n, as if she were cold. 'Except that I've woken up several times lately, sure that I wasn't in the bedroom alone. Once when I was sure I wasn't in the bed bed alone. Sometimes it's just a feeling - like a headache, only in your nerves - and sometimes I think I can hear whispering, or crying. I made a cake one night - about two weeks ago, this was - and forgot to put the flour away. The next morning the cannister was overturned, and the flour was spilled on the counter. Someone had written 'h.e.l.lo' in it. I thought at first it was Ki, but she said she didn't do it. Besides, it wasn't her printing, hers is all straggly. I don't know if she could even write h.e.l.lo. Hi, maybe, but . . . Mike, you don't think he could be sending someone around to try and freak me out, do you? I mean that's just stupid, right?' alone. Sometimes it's just a feeling - like a headache, only in your nerves - and sometimes I think I can hear whispering, or crying. I made a cake one night - about two weeks ago, this was - and forgot to put the flour away. The next morning the cannister was overturned, and the flour was spilled on the counter. Someone had written 'h.e.l.lo' in it. I thought at first it was Ki, but she said she didn't do it. Besides, it wasn't her printing, hers is all straggly. I don't know if she could even write h.e.l.lo. Hi, maybe, but . . . Mike, you don't think he could be sending someone around to try and freak me out, do you? I mean that's just stupid, right?'

'I don't know,' I said. I thought of something thumping the insulation in the dark as I stood on the stairs. I thought of h.e.l.lo printed with magnets on my refrigerator door, and a child sobbing in the dark. My skin felt more than cold; it felt numb. A headache in the nerves, that was good, that was exactly how you felt when something reached around the wall of the real world and touched you on the nape of the neck.

'Maybe it's ghosts,' she said, and smiled in an uncertain way that was more frightened than amused.

I opened my mouth to tell her about what had been happening at Sara Laughs, then closed it again. There was a clear choice to be made here: either we could be sidetracked into a discussion of the paranormal, or we could come back to the visible world. The one where Max Devore was trying to steal himself a kid.

'Yeah,' I said. 'The spirits are about to speak.'

'I wish I could see your face better. There was something on it just then. What?'

'I don't know,' I said. 'But right now I think we'd better talk about Kyra. Okay?'

'Okay.' In the faint glow of the hibachi I could see her settling herself in her chair, as if to take a blow.

'I've been subpoenaed to give a deposition in Castle Rock on Friday. Before Elmer Durgin, who is Kyra's guardian ad litem - '

'That pompous little toad isn't Ki's anything!' she burst out. 'He's in my father-in-law's hip pocket, just like d.i.c.kie Osgood, old Max's pet real-estate guy! d.i.c.kie and Elmer Durgin drink together down at The Mellow Tiger, or at least they did until this business really got going. Then someone probably told them it would look bad, and they stopped.'

'The papers were served by a deputy named George Footman.'

'Just one more of the usual suspects,' Mattie said in a thin voice. 'd.i.c.kie Osgood's a snake, but George Footman's a junkyard dog. He's been suspended off the cops twice. Once more and he can work for Max Devore full-time.'

'Well, he scared me. I tried not to show it, but he did. And people who scare me make me angry. I called my agent in New York and then hired a lawyer. One who makes a specialty of child-custody cases.'

I tried to see how she was taking this and couldn't, although we were sitting fairly close together. But she still had that set look, like a woman who expects to take some hard blows. Or perhaps for Mattie the blows had already started to fall. Slowly, not allowing myself to rush, I went through my conversation with John Storrow. I emphasized what Storrow had said about s.e.xual equality - that it was apt to be a negative force in her case, making it easier for Judge Rancourt to take Kyra away. I also came down hard on the fact that Devore could have all the lawyers he wanted - not to mention sympathetic witnesses, with Richard Osgood running around the TR and spreading Devore's dough - but that the court wasn't obligated to treat her to so much as an ice cream cone. I finished by telling her that John wanted to talk to one of us tomorrow at eleven, and that it should be her. Then I waited. The silence spun out, broken only by crickets and the faint revving of some kid's unm.u.f.fled truck. Up Route 68, the white fluorescents went out as the Lakeview Market finished another day of summer trade. I didn't like Mattie's quiet; it seemed like the prelude to an explosion. A Yankee Yankee explosion. I held my peace and waited for her to ask me what gave me the right to meddle in her business. explosion. I held my peace and waited for her to ask me what gave me the right to meddle in her business.

When she finally spoke, her voice was low and defeated. It hurt to hear her sounding that way, but like the cynical look on her face earlier, it wasn't surprising. And I hardened myself against it as best I could. Hey, Mattie, tough old world. Pick one.

'Why would you do this?' she asked. 'Why would you hire an expensive New York lawyer to take my case? That is is what you're offering, isn't it? It's got to be, because I sure can't hire him. I got thirty thousand dollars' insurance money when Lance died, and was lucky to get that. It was a policy he bought from one of his Warrington's friends, almost as a joke, but without it I would have lost the trailer last winter. They may love d.i.c.kie Brooks at Western Savings, but they don't give a rat's a.s.s for Mattie Stanchfield Devore. After taxes I make about a hundred a week at the library. So you're offering to pay. Right?' what you're offering, isn't it? It's got to be, because I sure can't hire him. I got thirty thousand dollars' insurance money when Lance died, and was lucky to get that. It was a policy he bought from one of his Warrington's friends, almost as a joke, but without it I would have lost the trailer last winter. They may love d.i.c.kie Brooks at Western Savings, but they don't give a rat's a.s.s for Mattie Stanchfield Devore. After taxes I make about a hundred a week at the library. So you're offering to pay. Right?'

'Right.'

'Why? You don't even know us.'

'Because . . . ' I trailed off. I seem to remember wanting Jo to step in at that point, asking my mind to supply her voice, which I could then pa.s.s on to Mattie in my own. But Jo didn't come. I was flying solo.

'Because now I do nothing that makes a difference,' I said at last, and once again the words astonished me. 'And I do do know you. I've eaten your food, I've read Ki a story and had her fall asleep in my lap . . . and maybe I saved her life the other day when I grabbed her out of the road. We'll never know for sure, but maybe I did. You know what the Chinese say about something like that?' know you. I've eaten your food, I've read Ki a story and had her fall asleep in my lap . . . and maybe I saved her life the other day when I grabbed her out of the road. We'll never know for sure, but maybe I did. You know what the Chinese say about something like that?'

I didn't expect an answer, the question was more rhetorical than real, but she surprised me. Not for the last time, either. 'That if you save someone's life, you're responsible for them.'

'Yes. It's also about what's fair and what's right, but I think mostly it's about wanting to be part of something where I make a difference. I look back on the four years since my wife died, and there's nothing there. Not even a book where Marjorie the shy typist meets a handsome stranger.'

She sat thinking this over, watching as a fully loaded pulptruck snored past on the highway, its headlights glaring and its load of logs swaying from side to side like the hips of an overweight woman. 'Don't you root root for us,' she said at last. She spoke in a low, unexpectedly fierce voice. 'Don't you root for us like he roots for his team-of-the-week down at the softball field. I need help and I know it, but I won't have that. I for us,' she said at last. She spoke in a low, unexpectedly fierce voice. 'Don't you root for us like he roots for his team-of-the-week down at the softball field. I need help and I know it, but I won't have that. I can't can't have it. We're not a game, Ki and me. You understand?' have it. We're not a game, Ki and me. You understand?'

'Perfectly.'

'You know what people in town will say, don't you?'

'Yes.'

'I'm a lucky girl, don't you think? First I marry the son of an extremely rich man, and after he he dies, I fall under the protective wing of another rich guy. Next I'll probably move in with Donald Trump.' dies, I fall under the protective wing of another rich guy. Next I'll probably move in with Donald Trump.'

'Cut it out.'

'I'd probably believe it myself, if I were on the other side. But I wonder if anyone notices that lucky Mattie is still living in a Modair trailer and can't afford health insurance. Or that her kid got most of her vaccinations from the County Nurse. My parents died when I was fifteen. I have a brother and a sister, but they're both a lot older and both out of state. My parents were drunks - not physically abusive, but there was plenty of the other kinds. It was like growing up in a . . . a roach motel. My dad was a pulper, my mom was a bourbon beautician whose one ambition was to own a Mary Kay pink Cadillac. He drowned in Kewadin Pond. She drowned in her own vomit about six months later. How do you like it so far?'

'Not very much. I'm sorry.'

'After Mom's funeral my brother, Hugh, offered to take me back to Rhode Island, but I could tell his wife wasn't exactly nuts about having a fifteen-year-old join the family, and I can't say that I blamed her. Also, I'd just made the jv cheering squad. That seems like supreme diddlys.h.i.+t now, but it was a very big deal then.'

Of course it had been a big deal, especially to the child of alcoholics. The only one still living at home. Being that last child, watching as the disease really digs its claws in, can be one of the world's loneliest jobs. Last one out of the sacred ginmill please turn off the lights.

'I ended up going to live with my aunt Florence, just two miles down the road. It took us about three weeks to discover we didn't like each other very much, but we made it work for two years. Then, between my junior and senior years, I got a summer job at Warrington's and met Lance. When he asked me to marry him, Aunt Flo refused to give permission. When I told her I was pregnant, she emanc.i.p.ated me so I didn't need it.'

'You dropped out of school?'

She grimaced, nodded. 'I didn't want to spend six months having people watch me swell up like a balloon. Lance supported me. He said I could take the equivalency test. I did last year. It was easy. And now Ki and I are on our own. Even if my aunt agreed to help me, what could she do? She works in the Castle Rock Gore-Tex factory and makes about sixteen thousand dollars a year.'

I nodded again, thinking that my last check for French royalties had been about that. My last quarterly quarterly check. Then I remembered something Ki had told me on the day I met her. check. Then I remembered something Ki had told me on the day I met her.

'When I was carrying Kyra out of the road, she said that if you were mad, she'd go to her white nana. If your folks are dead, who did she - ' Except I didn't really have to ask; I only had to make one or two simple connections. 'Rogette Whitmore's the white nana? Devore's a.s.sistant? But that means . . . '

'That Ki's been with them. Yes, you bet. Until late last month, I allowed her to visit her grandpa - and Rogette by a.s.sociation, of course - quite often. Once or twice a week, and sometimes for an overnight. She likes her "Whita poppa" - at least she did at first - and she absolutely adores that creepy woman.' I thought Mattie s.h.i.+vered in the gloom, although the night was still very warm.

'Devore called to say he was coming east for Lance's funeral and to ask if he could see his granddaughter while he was here. Nice as pie, he was, just as if he'd never tried to buy me off when Lance told him we were going to get married.'

'Did he?'

'Uh-huh. The first offer was a hundred thousand. That was in August of 1994, after Lance called him to say we were getting married in mid-September. I kept quiet about it. A week later, the offer went up to two hundred thousand.'

'For what, precisely?'

'To remove my b.i.t.c.h-hooks and relocate with no forwarding address. This time I did tell Lance, and he hit the roof. Called his old man and said we were going to be married whether he liked it or not. Told him that if he ever wanted to see his grandchild, he had better cut the s.h.i.+t and behave.'

'With another parent, I thought, that was probably the most reasonable response Lance Devore could have made. I respected him for it. The only problem was that he wasn't dealing with a reasonable man; he was dealing with the fellow who, as a child, had stolen Scooter Larribee's new sled.

'These offers were made by Devore himself, over the telephone. Both when Lance wasn't around. Then, about ten days before the wedding, I had a visit from d.i.c.kie Osgood. I was to make a call to a number in Delaware, and when I did . . . ' Mattie shook her head. 'You wouldn't believe it. It's like something out of one of your books.'

'May I guess?'

'If you want.'

'He tried to buy the child. He tried to buy Kyra.'

Her eyes widened. A scantling moon had come up and I could see that look of surprise well enough.

'How much?' I asked. 'I'm curious. How much for you to give birth, leave Devore's grandchild with Lance, then scat?'

'Two million dollars,' she whispered. 'Deposited in the bank of my choice, as long as it was west of the Mississippi and I signed an agreement to stay away from her - and from Lance - until at least April twentieth, 2016.'

'The year Ki turns twenty-one.'

'Yes.'

'And Osgood doesn't know any of the details, so Devore's skirts remain clean here in town.'

'Uh-huh. And the two million was only the start. There was to be an additional million on Ki's fifth, tenth, fifteenth, and twentieth birthdays.' She shook her head in a disbelieving way. 'The linoleum keeps bubbling up in the kitchen, the showerhead keeps falling into the tub, and the whole d.a.m.n rig cants to the east these days, but I could have been the six-million-dollar woman.'

Did you ever consider taking the off, Mattie? I wondered . . . but that was a question I'd never ask, a sign of curiosity so unseemly it deserved no satisfaction. I wondered . . . but that was a question I'd never ask, a sign of curiosity so unseemly it deserved no satisfaction.

'Did you tell Lance?'

'I tried not to. He was already furious with his father, and I didn't want to make it worse. I didn't want that much hate at the start of our marriage, no matter how good the reasons for hating might be . . . and I didn't want Lance to . . . later on with me, you know . . . ' She raised her hands, then dropped them back on her thighs. The gesture was both weary and oddly endearing.

'You didn't want Lance turning on you ten years later and saying '"You came between me and my father, you b.i.t.c.h.'''

'Something like that. But in the end, I couldn't keep it to myself. I was just this kid from the sticks, didn't own a pair of pantyhose until I was eleven, wore my hair in nothing but braids or a ponytail until I was thirteen, thought the whole state of New York was New York City . . . and this guy . . . this phantom father phantom father . . . had offered me . . . had offered me six million bucks six million bucks. It terrified me. I had dreams about him coming in the night like a troll and stealing my baby out of her crib. He'd come wriggling through the window like a snake . . . '

'Dragging his oxygen tank behind him, no doubt.'

She smiled. 'I didn't know about the oxygen then. Or Rogette Whit-more, either. All I'm trying to say is that I was only seventeen and not good at keeping secrets.' I had to restrain my own smile at the way she said this - as if decades of experience now lay between that naive, frightened child and this mature woman with the mail-order diploma.

'Lance was angry.'

'So angry he replied to his father by e-mail instead of calling. He stuttered, you see, and the more upset he was, the worse his stutter became. A phone conversation would have been impossible.'