Spencerville (29 page)

"Hell, no. I mean, you got to give a little to get a little in this here world. Women don't understand how business is done." Aries shook his head and added, "The chief and his cousin, Don Finney, who's the sheriff, came in here and told me they was gonna get the city and the county to switch accounts to someplace else. You know how much of my business that is? I'll tell ya. Damned near fifty percent. You know what's gonna happen now? I'm out. Because she shot off her damned mouth."

"So you don't see Chief Baxter anymore?"

"Oh, he comes in, just like he used to, 'cause this is where the city has to charge it until the city council changes it. But he don't say much to me, and what he says ain't nice." Aries added, "He says he got a bone to pick with Mary. I told him he won't be seeing her around here for a while."

"Does he still help himself to whatever he wants?"

"Hey, he never did that. He always paid. And if I wanted to give him a few things to munch on, so what?"

Keith threw a few items on the counter, things to tide him over for the weekend. Aries went behind the counter and rang up the items.

Keith said, "I'm leaving Spencer County. Monday."

"Yeah? For good?"

"Yes. No work here."

"Told ya. Too bad, though. Need more people. That'll be twenty-one dollars and seventy-two cents."

Keith paid him, and Aries bagged. Aries said, "Next time you come through, you'll see this place closed."

Keith said to Bob Aries, "Your wife did the right thing. You know that."

"Yeah, maybe. But I don't need Chief Baxter for an enemy, and I don't need to start over again at my age."

"I wouldn't count on Baxter being chief much longer."

"Yeah? Ya think?"

"You read the transcript of the St. James meeting?"

He nodded.

"What do you think?"

"Well... the man ought to have better control over his dick." Aries smiled. "Hey, you know why men give their penises names? 'Cause they don't want a total stranger makin' ninety percent of their decisions." Aries laughed and slapped the counter. "Get it?"

"Sure do."

Aries got serious again and said, "But this other stuff they's sayin' he did... like fillin' up his private car here for free... hell, even if it was true, which it ain't, nobody got hurt. Now, the thing about him and those women, well, my wife says that makes him unfit to be police chief. I don't know, because I don't know if them women is lyin', or what. But I do know that those kinds of charges ain't doin' much for his home life. Hey, you know Mrs. Baxter?"

"We were schoolmates."

"Yeah? Well, that's a fine, fine woman. She don't have to hear that kind of crap from those sluts what got up in church, brazen as can be, and told all."

"Try to make the next meeting. My regards to Mrs. Aries. You should be with her." Keith picked up the bag and left.

From a pay phone around the side of the convenience store, he called Charlie Adair's house and got the answering machine. He said, "Charlie, my plans are postponed. I'll get back to you in a day or two. Sorry I can't make it tonight. Regards to Katherine. Meantime, if you call my home phone, assume it's tapped by Police Chief Baxter, who has this crazy idea that I'm interested in his wife. Stewart did a great job. He should be back before midnight. I'm still thinking about the job offer. Can I have a grow-light in my basement office? Tell the president I said hi. Speak to you."

At about nine o'clock that evening, Keith figured he'd been up for about thirty-six hours straight, and he got ready for bed. He opened the drawer of his nightstand and saw that the Glock was missing.

He thought a moment. The Porters knew where the key was, but they wouldn't help themselves to the pistol. He looked through his wardrobe cabinets and noticed now that things were slightly disturbed.

Obviously, Baxter had gotten into the house, which, for a policeman with at least one or two locksmiths on call, was not difficult.

Nothing seemed to be missing except the pistol, and there was nothing compromising in the house for him to be concerned about. He'd burned Annie's last letters to him, and her past letters of two decades had gone through one government paper shredder or another. He wasn't much of a saver, and he was glad now that he wasn't.

Letters aside, the Glock was gone, and Baxter had been through his things. That was reason enough to kill the man, and he would have except for his promise, and except for the fact that Baxter was about to lose his wife, his job, his friends, and his town. Death, as the expression went, was too good for him.

Keith found his old K-bar knife and put it on his nightstand. He turned off the lights and went to sleep.

He awoke at dawn, showered and dressed, and went downstairs. It was a cool, crisp Sunday morning, and when he went outside, he could see his breath. He walked to the cornfield and peeled back the husk on an ear. The color was about right, and so was the dry, paper-thin husk. Almost but not quite ready. Another week or two, weather permitting.

He walked around the farmyard, surveyed the buildings, the fences, the grounds. All in all, he'd done a good job, and all it took was some money, a lot of time, and backbreaking labor. He didn't know, really, why he'd done it, what the objective was, but he felt good about it. He knew he'd touched things, fixed things, that his father and uncle had touched and tinkered with, as had his grandfather.

There weren't many physical remains from his great-grandfather's day, or his great-great-grandfather, the original settler, but he was walking the same ground they walked, and in the early morning and in the evening, when the countryside was quiet in half-light, he could feel their presence.

He went to church. Not St. James, but St. John's in Spencerville. This was a different congregation, to be sure — better dressed, better cars. The big brick and stone church was the best building in Spencerville, aside from the courthouse. If the county had an establishment church, it was St. John's Lutheran, firmly connected to the early settlers and the present power structure. Even the Episcopalians dropped in now and then, especially if they were running for office or had a business in town.

Keith looked for the Baxters but didn't see them as he walked in. Even if he'd literally bumped into Mr. Baxter's ample body, there wouldn't be a problem; it was Sunday, this was a church, and Spencerville's God-fearing gentry wouldn't tolerate discord or disharmony in or around the Lord's house on the Lord's day.

Keith went inside. The church was large and held about eight hundred people. Keith scanned the backs of the congregation in the pews, but still he didn't see Mr. and Mrs. Baxter. If they were there, however, he'd see them coming out if he stood at the bottom of the steps after the service.

Keith took a seat on the left toward the rear, and the service began with Pastor Wilbur Schenk, Mrs. Baxter's confessor, officiating.

It wasn't until about halfway through the service that he realized that Annie was in the choir, sitting on the far right side of the altar, so he had a good view of her.

The choir rose to sing, and she looked at him as though she'd noticed him long ago and was impatient with him for not seeing her. They made eye contact for a moment, and he winked at her. She smiled as she began singing "Rock of Ages," then looked down at her hymnal, still smiling. She looked angelic, he thought, with her red choir robe and her eyes that sparkled in the candlelight. When the hymn was finished, she folded the hymnal and glanced at him again as she sat.

Before the service ended, Keith left and drove out of Spencerville.

He stopped at the Cowley farm and knocked on the door, but no one answered. It was unlocked, so he went in and called out for Billy Marlon, but the house seemed to be empty. He went into the kitchen and found a pencil and an envelope from a piece of junk mail and wrote: "Billy, leaving town for a while. See you next time. Stop the boozing. Go to the VA hospital in Toledo for a checkup. That's an order, soldier." He signed it, "Landry, Colonel, U.S. Army, Infantry." Keith didn't know how much good the note was going to do, but he felt some sort of need or obligation to write it. He put a hundred dollars on the kitchen table and left.

He considered going to the Porters' house, but he'd said his goodbyes and didn't want to alarm them with a change of plans; another case of the less they knew, the better for them. Cliff Baxter and his cohorts not only had to be reckoned with, but they were setting the agenda for a while.

Next call was Aunt Betty's. On the way, he stopped at a big indoor farm stand and bought jams, homemade candy, maple syrup, and other sugar products that would have put most people into sugar shock, but which Aunt Betty seemed to thrive on.

She was home, ready to go to Lilly and Fred's house for Sunday dinner, she informed him. She invited him in, but like most elderly people he knew, especially his German relatives, she didn't know how to handle a small change in her day. She said, "I have to be there in an hour."

Lilly and Fred lived about twenty minutes away, and Keith recalled with a smile Aunt Betty's theory of time relativity as it applied to herself and to other people. He said, "I'm only staying a minute. If you hurry, you can make it. Here, I brought you a few things." He put the bag on the dining room table, and she emptied it, item by item.

"Oh, Keith, you didn't have to do that. You're such a sweet man."

And so on.

He said to her, "Aunt Betty, I'm leaving for a while, and I wonder if you'd be good enough to keep an eye on the place."

"You're leaving again?"

"Yes. I don't do it often. Once every quarter century or so."

"Where are you going this time?"

"To Washington to take care of some leftover business. I've asked some other people to keep an eye on the place, as well. Jeffrey and Gail Porter. Jeffrey is an old schoolmate of mine."

"Which Porter is he? The one with the three sons?"

"No, his father had three sons. Jeffrey is one of them. Jeffrey is my age. Anyway, I just, wanted you to know."

"Wait here. I have something for you." She went into the kitchen and returned with his bottle of French red Burgundy, cold from the refrigerator. "This will just go to waste, so you should take it."

"Thank you."

"Why don't you come to Fred and Lilly's with me? I'll call. They can put out another plate. She always makes too much. Wastes food, that woman. I told Harriet, that daughter of yours wastes..."

"I have another engagement. Aunt Betty, listen to me. I know you don't listen to gossip, spread gossip, or believe gossip. But in a few days or so, you're going to hear some gossip about your favorite nephew, and about Annie Baxter. Most of what you hear will probably be true."

She only glanced at him a moment, then turned her attention to the items on the table.

Keith kissed her on the cheek. "Don't speed. I'll write you."

He left Aunt Betty in the dining room, probably worried about getting to Lilly's on time with less than an hour to spare. Keith smiled. Well, he'd gotten his wine back, which was a good trade.

He headed home, back to the farm. It was midafternoon now, and the October sun was in the west, clouds had appeared, along with a north wind, and the countryside seemed dark, cold, and lonely on this Sunday afternoon.

He had a sense of loneliness himself, a feeling of closure, but also an assurance that he'd done things right. He would leave in the morning, with or without her, but she would be with him in his heart, and he'd be with her. Next week, or next month, or even next year, they'd be together.

At about six P.M., Keith was in the living room, reading and drinking his Burgundy, which was at room temperature now. He'd found a box of his old college books in the attic and had chosen Edith Wharton's Ethan Frame. He'd enjoyed Wharton in college, as well as other American writers from that period, including Henry James, Theodore Dreiser, and Ohio's native son, Sherwood Anderson. He suspected, however, that no one read these people any longer. He made a mental note to ask the Porters if Anderson was still required reading at Antioch.

His reading since college had been mostly current affairs and political nonfiction, the sort of stuff that appeared on the Washington Post bestseller list and probably nowhere else. He looked forward to spending the next twenty-five years reading things that had no immediate relevance whatsoever.

He had the radio tuned to a Toledo station that played oldies, and Van Morrison had just finished "Brown Eyed Girl," which he liked, and Percy Sledge was now crooning "When a Man Loves a Woman," which Keith considered one of his favorite songs to make love by.

It was dusk, made darker by the rolling clouds, and he saw the headlights of a vehicle turn into his driveway before he saw the car. A few seconds later, he heard the tires on the gravel.

He put down his book, shut off the radio, and looked out the window. A white Lincoln passed by the house and went around to the side.

Keith went into the kitchen and out the back door as the Lincoln came to a stop. The driver's-side door opened, and Annie got out, wearing a white turtleneck, brown tweed skirt, and matching jacket. With her was an energetic gray mongrel who jumped out of the car and began running around the yard.

Keith and Annie stood a few feet apart, and she smiled. "You made me lose my place in the hymnal."

He said, "You looked and sounded like an angel."

"Some angel. You should know what I was thinking up there. I must have turned as red as my robe."

He walked over to her, and they kissed, not passionately, but tentatively, neither knowing where this was going.

She said, "My Aunt Harriet says you send me your regards."

"I do. I like her. I want you to send her a postcard from Rome."

Annie didn't respond to that directly but said, "She told me she had Sunday dinner with you at your aunt's. She went on about what a handsome, cultured man you were." Annie added, "She even used the word sexy."

"My goodness. I'll send her a postcard from Rome."

She wasn't smiling, Keith saw, and looked as though she had a lot on her mind.

Keith happened to notice a blue and white bumper sticker on her car that read, "Support Your Local Police."

She saw where he was looking and said, "You want one? I have extras."

"Let me think about it."

She smiled, then frowned. "I don't have much choice."

"I know that."

There were a few seconds of silence again, then Keith asked the obvious, unromantic question. "Where is your husband?"

"He's still at the lodge on Grey Lake. He called yesterday afternoon and said he was staying overnight. He'll be back around midnight, he said." She added, "He doesn't give me much notice. He probably knew he was staying over."

Keith nodded to himself, recalling Baxter's note to him indicating he'd be coming around on Monday. Keith asked, "And are you sure you weren't followed?"

"I didn't see any police cars, city or county, and I know the unmarked cars. Anyway, I'm leaving in a few minutes, and we can stand here behind the house."

"Okay." He asked, "Should I explain about Washington?"

"No. No need." She said, "I heard about the hurricane on the car radio after I left Terry's. I just got myself upset, then I was going to come back, but I thought Cliff would be home, and I figured you and I needed a running start." She added, "Then he calls and says he's staying over. I could have killed him... I cried myself to sleep last night, thinking about you and what could have happened yesterday."

"It's not too late."

She looked at him a moment, then said, "My sister told me you're leaving tomorrow."

"You asked me to leave."

"Oh, and you do what I ask you to do? Since when?"

He smiled. "I used to do about half the things you asked me to do. That's not bad."

"Depends on which half."

"You're tough."

"No, I'm a pushover. That's my problem."

"I know a good assertiveness-training course for women in Washington. Every woman I knew in D.C. took it. I'll get you a brochure."

"Poor Keith. Did they give you a hard time?"

"Are we having a fight?"

"Not yet." She stayed silent a moment, then said, "Okay, I do want to know about Washington."

"All right. On Thursday, my old boss, Charlie Adair, came here — right here to the farm — and informed me that my former employers wanted me back. I said, 'No, I'm madly in love with the girl next door.' He said, 'Fine, bring her along.' I explained about your small-minded husband not letting you travel with former lovers..."

She suppressed a smile and said, "So this was business?"

"Yes. What did you think it was? A Washington holiday before my elopement to Washington?"

"I didn't know what... well... you know... I just got myself..." She looked at him. "It had nothing to do with a woman?"

"Oh... I see... no, it didn't. Do we have a jealous streak?"

"You know I do. But only with you."

"Well, all the more reason for me to turn down this job, then. They wanted me to fly around the world seducing female heads of state."

"Don't tease. I was a wreck. I don't know what's wrong with me. I've never felt like this... well, once. I used to be insanely in love with this guy years ago."

"Was he faithful?"

"Faithful as a puppy."

"Was he good in bed?"

"Best lay in Ohio."

"Who dumped who?"

"We'll never really know."

"That's a sad story."

She nodded, then looked at him. "So the government wants you back?"

"They do, and I had to go there in person to say no..."

"Keith, if you want to go back to Washington, don't let me stand in your way..."

"I don't want..."

"Listen. You can go back, and if we decide to be together, if you want me there and if I want to come, then I'll come to Washington."

"You wouldn't like it. Believe me."

"I might."

"Annie, if I'm asking you to leave your world, then I have to leave mine. I have no regrets, and I hope you won't, either."

"No, Keith, you listen to me — this was your world here, and it could have been again. But you can't stay here because of me, and I won't be responsible for you not going back to Washington."

"Are we both through being noble? Good. Let's be selfish, because I think we both want the same thing."

"Maybe. I have to go."

"Where are you supposed to be?"

"Nowhere. He could be home anytime. He does that. Whenever he bothers to tell me when he'll be home, he always shows up a few hours earlier, like he expects to find me in bed with the milkman or something."

"How about a farmer? Let's go to your house and give him something to get annoyed about."

Again she suppressed a smile, then said, "I just stopped by to see you before you left, and I wanted you to meet Denise."

"Who?"

She called out to the dog, who came running, licked Annie's hand, then sniffed at Keith and put her paws on his knee. Keith knelt down and played with the dog, who was friendly and who looked like a wire-haired terrier.

Annie watched a moment, then asked, "Do you remember?"

He looked at her, obviously not remembering.

She said, "This is actually Denise number four."

Then it came back to him — he had given her a mongrel puppy in the summer of '63, and they'd named her Denise after the Randy and the Rainbow's hit song of that summer. He stood and looked at Annie. "This is?.."

"This is Denise's great-granddaughter. Denise died about 1973, but I'd kept one of her pups and named her Denise Two, then she had a litter, and so on... I... it was just sort of a connection, I guess... really sentimental and silly... you know how us country girls are..." She looked at the dog, who was pulling on Keith's shoelaces, then at Keith, and she said, "A dog's life is short, but... they don't make problems for themselves."

Keith contemplated the dog awhile, realizing that this dog represented an incredible display of love and loyalty, faith and remembrance over the years. "I can't believe you did that."

"I didn't have much else..." She tried to smile and said, "If only Cliff knew... he has dogs of his own, but this one is mine, and this one hates him. In fact, they all hated him. Old Denise bit him once." She laughed.

"The dogs all had good judgment."

She smiled again. "He asked me once where I'd gotten Denise, and I told him my guardian angel gave her to me."

Keith nodded but didn't reply. The dog bolted off in chase of something she smelled or heard near the barn, and as Keith watched, a flood of memories came back to him, and he couldn't trust himself to speak.

He recalled the day when he'd first noticed Annie Prentis in school, then remembered the summer they'd begun courting, the long walks, sitting with her family on their porch, ice cream sodas in town, holding hands in the movies, the feel of her skin and hair, the smell of her, the first kiss. The sexual tension had almost driven him out of his mind, and in those days the chances of actually doing it were somewhere between nil and zero. Yet, one night, when her family was out of the house and he'd come over, they sat on the porch together, and she said almost nothing for about half an hour. At first he was annoyed at her distraction, then somehow, in some manner that to this day he didn't quite understand, without a word or a touch or an obvious look, she let him know she wanted to have sex. He recalled being so frightened by the thought that he almost went home. But he didn't, and he'd said to her, "Let's go to your room." His world and his life were never the same after that night.

He recalled, too, his decision to take a puppy from a friend's litter and give it to her a few days afterward. He didn't know about flowers after sex then, and since then his gifts to women had been more substantial, as had his gifts from women. But the puppy was the first thing he'd ever given to a girl, and more important, what she'd given to him — herself — was as good a gift as he'd ever gotten.

He said, "You never wrote to me about Denise."

"I was... I couldn't think of a way to mention Denise without sounding like I was being soppy and lovesick." She took a breath and looked at him in the fading light. "So... these dogs were a daily reminder of you." She smiled. "Are you insulted?"

"No, I'm speechless."

"I'm too sentimental for my own good... I'll tell you another secret — at my sister's house I have a trunk full of Keith Landry... love letters, prom photos, our high school and college yearbooks... valentines, birthday cards, a teddy bear... I had some other things, too, and I was stupid enough to keep them with me when I got married. He found the box of things — no letters or photos or anything like that, but little gifts and souvenirs that you'd bought me, and I guess he figured they weren't from my girlfriends, and he threw them out." She added, "I didn't say anything to him, because I wanted to be a loyal wife. But I knew then, if not before then, that I'd married the wrong man." She stayed silent a moment, then said, "I have to go now."

"Did you leave your things at your sister's house?"

She looked at him. "Yes... I was afraid to bring anything home in case he was there. Why?"

"Good. Let's go."

"Where?"

"To your sister's house. We're leaving. Now."

"No, Keith..."

"Now, Annie. Not tomorrow, not next week or next year. Now. Does your sister like dogs? She just got one." He took her in his arms and kissed her.

She pulled away. "Keith, no... I mean... are we really going? Now?"

"Within the minute. Leave your car here. My car is still packed. Call the dog. Sit in my car." He went into the house, got his keys, and turned off the lights. He took a piece of paper from a pad in the kitchen and wrote, "Cliff, Fuck you." He signed it, then went outside to the Blazer and asked Annie for her keys, which she gave him. He asked, "Do you want to leave him a note in your car?"

She glanced at the paper in his hand and replied, "No. He doesn't leave me notes."

"Okay." He jumped into her car and drove it to the barn, got out, slid open the doors, and drove the Lincoln inside. He left his short explanatory note to Cliff on the driver's seat, slid the barn doors closed, and went back to the Blazer. He handed her keys back to her and started the Blazer. As he pulled down the driveway, she asked him, "Did you leave a note for him in my car?"

"Yes. It was petty and childish."

"What did it say?"

"Two words, not 'Happy Birthday.' "

She smiled but said nothing.

He pulled out of the driveway, Annie beside him, Denise in the backseat, and his luggage in the rear.

Keith turned south, toward Chatham County. Neither of them spoke for a while, then Annie said, "I can't believe this is happening."

He glanced at her and saw she was staring straight out the window, looking a little dazed, or perhaps frightened. He asked her, "Are you all right?"

She nodded, then looked at him. "This is really happening."

"Yes, and there's no turning back."

Again she nodded, then slipped off her wedding and engagement rings and threw them out the window. "There's no turning back." She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. "I love you."

He felt her tears on his face. He said, "I've missed you."