Robert Crais - Lullaby Town

I looked at the picture as if it might've changed. "She works at the bank?" We exciting L.A. detectives are quick on the uptake.

"She's got a twelve-year-old boy named Toby. I see her in the market. We used to be in PTA together."

"This woman lives here, this woman and her son, Toby." Swift, we are.

"That's right."

I folded the picture and put it back in my pocket. Sonofagun. "Karen Lloyd."

May Erdich nodded. "That's right. She works at the First Chelam. I think she's the manager or something."

I finished the tea and stood up and May Erdich stood up with me. "Why are you trying to find her? Did she do something bad?" Her eyes were bright and mischievous, thinking how great it would be if someone in town had done something bad.

I said, "It involves family business, and you won't be doing her a favor if you tell people that a private cop has been asking about her. Do you understand that?"

May Erdich gave me some Groucho and squeezed my arm. "Secrecy is our motto."

"Right."

She led me to the door. "You must be a pretty good detective, all the way from Los Angeles to find somebody here in Chelam."

I put on the G-2 and went out into the cold. 'That's right. I am. In another life I could have been Batman."

The First Chelam National Bank was a small redbrick building across from the grocery store and next to a place called Zoot's Hardware. There was a single drive-through window for their customers' convenience on the west side of the bank and a small L-shaped parking lot wrapping around the east. Someone had planted a couple of young elms at the edge of the parking lot and their leaves were scattered over the cement. The drive-through window was closed.

I parked in the lot and went in. A teenage boy was filling out a deposit slip at a long table, and a heavy woman in stretch pants was talking to a teller at a blond-wood counter. An old guy in a gray security guard's uniform was reading Tom Clancy. He didn't look up. There were four windows built into the tellers' counter, but only one teller was on duty. Another woman sat at a desk behind the counter, and behind her were a couple of offices, but the offices looked empty. Neither the teller nor the woman at the desk appeared to be Karen Shipley.

I gave the woman at the desk a hopeful smile. She was in her late twenties and wore a bright green top under a tweed suit jacket and a little too much makeup. A name plate on her desk said JOYCE STEUBEN. I said, "Excuse me. I'm here to see Karen Lloyd."

Joyce Steuben said, "Karen isn't in right now. She has a couple of property appraisals, but she should be back around three. Of course, she might come in before then. That's always possible."

"Of course."

I left the bank and walked across the street to a pay phone outside the grocery. In L.A., they put phone books three inches thick with the pay phones, but most of the books are stolen and the ones that aren't are defaced. The Chelam book represented something called The Five-Town Area . Chelam, Oak Lakes, Armonk, Brunly, and Tooley's Mill. It was complete and immaculate and was this year's edition, and altogether it was maybe a quarter-inch thick. Karen Lloyd was listed on page 38. Number Fourteen Rural Route Twelve, Chelam. There were six Lloyds. Three in Tooley's Mill and two in Brunly. Karen was the only Lloyd in Chelam. No Mr. Lloyd. I copied her address along with her phone number and put the book back in its case, still complete, still immaculate. Jim Rockford would've ripped out the page, but Jim Rockford was an asshole.

I sat on the bench outside Milt's Barber Stylings and wondered at my good fortune. If Karen Lloyd was in fact Karen Shipley, maybe I could get this thing wrapped up and be on an evening flight back to L.A. In L.A., I wouldn't have to sit outside Milt's Barber Stylings with two sweaters under the G-2 and still be cold. Of course, maybe Karen Lloyd wasn't Karen Shipley. Maybe they just looked alike and May Erdich was wrong. Stranger things have been known to happen. All I had to do was hang around and wait for Karen Lloyd and ferret out the truth.

Portrait of the Big City Detective sitting on a small-town bench, ferreting. In the cold. People passed on the sidewalk, and when they did they nodded and smiled and said hello. I said hello back to them. They didn't look as cold as me, but perhaps that was my imagination. You get used to the weather where you live. When I was in Ranger School in the Army, they sent us to northern Canada to learn to ski and to climb ice and to live in the snow with very few clothes. We got used to it. Then they sent us to Vietnam. That's the Army.

A little bit after two-thirty kids started drifting past with books, and at five minutes before three a dark-haired boy in a plaid Timberland jacket came pumping down the street on a beat-up red Schwinn mountain bike. Toby Nelsen. He was horse-faced and gangly, with a wide butt and narrow shoulders, just like his father. His rear end was up and his head was down and he whipped the bike across the sidewalk and skidded to a stop by the front door of the bank just as a dark green Chrysler LeBaron pulled into the parking lot. He was laughing. A woman who might've been Karen Shipley got out of the Chrysler. A dozen years older than the Karen Shipley in the videotape, wearing a tailored rust-colored top coat and heels and tortoiseshell sunglasses. Together. Her hair was short and set off her heart-shaped face nicely and she stood straight and confident. She didn't bounce or wiggle. Toby raised his hands over his head and yelled, "I beatcha by a mile!" and she said something and the boy laughed again and they went into the bank. I crossed the street after them. Elvis Cole, Master Detective. We Always Get Our Mom.

When I got into the bank, Karen Shipley was seated in one of the back offices, talking on the phone, and the boy was at a little coffee table, writing in a spiral notebook. I went to the end of the tellers' counter again and waved at Joyce Steuben. "I'm back."

Joyce Steuben looked around at Karen Shipley, still on the phone. "She's on a call now. Can I tell her who wants to see her?"

"Elvis Cole."

"Would you like to have a seat?"

"Sure."

I walked back to the little round table and sat down across from the boy. He was writing in the workbook with a yellow pencil and didn't look up. Fractions. He was big for twelve, but his face was smooth and unlined and young. He looked exactly like his father, and I wondered if he knew that. I said, "You Toby Lloyd?"

He looked up and smiled. "Yeah. Hi." He looked healthy and happy and normal.

"You're Karen's son?"

"Yeah. You know my mom?"

"I'm here to see her. I saw you guys racing down the street. You were really flying."

His smile flashed a yard wide. "I really creamed her today. Usually she wins."

Karen Shipley said, "Mr. Cole? May I help you?" She was standing in the little passage at the end of the tellers' counter.

I got up and went over and shook her hand. The handshake was firm and dry and poised, and she looked at me with a clear confidence that she could meet my every banking need. No wedding ring. Up close, and with the sunglasses off, you saw that she was the woman in the video, yet not. It was the face, yet not the same face. As if she had stepped into the transmogrifier with Calvin and Hobbes and had been changed. Her voice was lower and there was a light network of lines around her eyes and she looked better now than she had then, the way most women do as they move into their thirties. I said, "I hope so. I'm going to be moving to the area, and I'd like to discuss financing for the purchase of a home."

She opened the gate and gave me a warm, professional smile. "Why don't we go back to my office and talk about it."