David Gates - Preston Falls

The only empty seat she can find on the 8:10 is next to a man with an expensive suit and haircut and a shave so close his cheeks gleam; the tiny broken veins look painful, and he smells of aftershave. Willis's word for aftershave was "stinkum." 7^. The man gives Jean one sidelong glance before going back to Grain's New York Business. She's got Emma in her duffel bag but feels stupidly obliged to think about her problems instead of escaping into a book. She looks out the window at whitecaps on the dirty river.

In the office, she tries Willis's mother again, and this time Sylvia answers, with her singsong "Hello" whose two-note o leaps an octave. Jean, as always, feels like saying Fine, so you went to Smith, just answer the phone like a human being. Typical Sylvia: she apologizes for not calling back, but she's been so preoccupied. Has Jean managed to find Willis? As if she'd misplaced him. Jean says no, but she's sure he's fine, and Sylvia says, "Oh dear." Well, she can't sit in judgment over Sylvia until she's been through what Sylvia's been through. (It's getting there,

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actually.) On the other hand, Jean still has to act like she lives on the planet, so what makes Sylvia so special? She doesn't seem aware that this is the week Willis was due back at work, so Jean glosses over that; why get her even more upset? Assuming that's what the Oh dear meant. If there really does turn out to be some sort of bad news, let Champ deal with his mother. And if Sylvia doesn't exactly find him a tower of strength in her old age, she has only herself to thank. Though Jean can imagine somebody someday saying the same cruel thing about her and her children.

She borrows Anita Bruno's Times and looks through the Home section, all about rich people and their gracious leisure. Infuriating. But of course here she is with her house in Chesterton (though not the really tony section of Chesterton) and another house in the country, kicking back and reading the Times, while underpaid Helen has to spend her days saying "The Paley Group" over and over in the same nicey-nice voice and is allowed to read a paper only if no clients are in the reception area. (This dates from the morning Jerry Starger saw the Post on her desk and decided it looked low rent. Which it actually did.) It does Jean no spiritual good, reading the Home section every Thursday so she can feel sorry for herself. But after a while, it's like so what. Plus she is a. designer. She's reading about how these hateful people redid their seventeenth-century mill in Normandy, when the phone rings.

"Mrs. Willis?" He doesn't say Karnes, so Jean knows right away this is it. "I'm Captain Anthony Petrosky, Vermont State Police? The reason I'm calling, we've been going over the missing persons report you gave the police over in Preston Falls."

"Yes?"

"I take it your husband hasn't been located since then."

"Has not? No."

"Well, what we were hoping, in that case, perhaps you could help us out on a couple of items."

"Of course," Jean says. "Do you have any—" She wants to say leads, but it sounds too tv to say to a real policeman. "Anything at aU?"

"We haven't located him, no. I'm sorry. But we thought it might be a good idea to contact some of your husband's associates up this way. If you could fill us in with a few names."

"Associates?"

"Anybody he knows."

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"He really doesn't know too many people up there," Jean says. "I mean, as far as I know."

"But he did know a few people."

"Well," says Jean, "actually not really. There's another family that comes up on weekends that we see once in a while because they have kids too. But I doubt he'd seek them out on his own. Or vice versa."

"Why's that?"

"We just don't really have all that much in common. Except the kids."

"So I take it you haven't called them."

"No, it honestly never occurred to me."

"Well, it wouldn't hurt to have the name."

"I don't know," says Jean. "You know, I hate for them to be bothered."

"Oh, I doubt we'll be bothering them. From what you say. It'd just be good to have on hand."

She punches up PHONE.PRSNL and gives him the Bjorks' three numbers and both addresses.

"Now, your husband also knows Mr. Reed, doesn't he?"

"Reed?" says Jean. "Oh. You mean — that was his lawyer. So I guess you know about the whole thing that happened."

"We know about the incident on Labor Day, yes. But your husband and Mr. Reed go back before then."

"No, not at all. He was sort of recommended to us at the time, you know, that we're talking about. / was actually the one who made the caU."

"J see," he says. "So they became friendly after Mr. Reed represented your husband."

"TheyJ/^?"

"This is news to you?"

"Well," Jean says, "ever since that happened, my husband had been staying in Preston Falls. So I wasn't really, you know, up to date."

"Okay, so how, exactly, did your husband come to meet Mr. Reed?"

"A neighbor of ours in Preston Falls recommended him," says Jean. "The man my husband gets firewood from."

"I see,'' says Captain What's-his-name. Jean is terrible with names. "Now, this neighbor: this is someone your husband knows pretty well?"

"Not really, no. At that point we were kind of desperate, and we

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knew, or my husband knew, that this man, you know, knew a lawyer, so we just, sort of, didn't know who else to call."

"Uh-huh." Jean dreads that he's going to ask for the name, and then she's going to have to say. Well, we knew he'd been arrested for drugs, or whatever the story was, because of course that would be in the computer. How could Willis ever have brought her, and their children, into contact with all this?

"And your husband also spends time in New York City?"

"Does he spend time here? He works here."

"When he's not at work. He must have friends, people he hangs out with?"

"Well, not so much anymore. His brother lives in New York. But I spoke to him I guess Tuesday, and he hadn't heard anything. Listen— I'm sorry, could I get your name again?"

"It's Captain Anthony Petrosky. S-k-y."

"Petrosky, right." Jean writes the name in the margin of the Times. "Captain Petrosky, if you know something I don't know, could you please tell me?"

Silence for just a second. Then he says, "Would you mind holding?"

The phone goes blank, no dial tone, nothing, as if she were just pressing some random object to her ear. She's wondering how long she should wait until she can assume she was cut off, when the line opens up again and he says, "Mrs. Willis? Sorry to keep you. The reason for asking about New York City particularly, the truck registered to your husband has been located down there."

"In New York} You're kidding." She actually stupidly stands up and looks out the window. The usual tiny people way below down on the sidewalks.

"That surprise you?"

"I don't know," she says. "I guess it doesn't, really. Except that he hates the city. Or he claimed to. Whereabouts was the truck?"

"Says here it was towed… let's see. Okay, towed from East Houston Street" — he pronounces it like Houston, Texas—"and impounded. They assume it to be stolen or abandoned. I do have a number you can call down there to try and claim the vehicle, but from what I understand, it's not currently in a drivable condition, due to lack of wheels. Now, New York, after they talked to us, they gave it a going-over, but they didn't turn up much of anything. Couple road maps, coffee containers— well, I can read you what they found, but nothing any way unusual."

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"In New York." She sits back down and looks at the picture of Mel and Roger. You can see that spot where Mel's eyebrows almost meet. "But you say it could've been stolen?"

"Possible. There's no report out on it. Equally possible, you have an older vehicle, it could have just died and somebody figured let New York City cart it off. Anyway, what I thought by telling you, if you had acquaintances in New York — you or your husband — then you might want to try getting in touch with them. An awful lot of these cases, it ends up being a personal matter and the parties work it out in their own way. Which I'm not saying the police shouldn't be notified. But that would be my advice."