Preston Falls : a novel

by Gates, David, 1947-

  "That's totally crackers," Carol says. "You have to get some good sleep, really rest yourself. Then call your office in the morning, say

  you've got a family emergency, get hold of the police and just start dealing."

  "But what if that takes all day? I can't not be there for Halloween." "I think they'll survive," says Carol. "Let me worry about this end, okay? If you get tied up, I'll tell the kids you had like a plumbing emergency or something. Aren't you always having trouble with the plumbing up there? Look, I guarantee they won't ask for a lot of details. Like I thought it was very interesting with Mel tonight, where she started asking you stuff and then didn't follow up? I think the spirit tells the mind how much can be processed at a given time."

  "Right," says Jean. "Listen, I should probably go." "You know, I have an idea about this. That you might think is kind of off the wall, but there's this—"

  "Carol, could you tell me this later? I'm pretty tired." "I know, and I'm keeping you up. We'll talk when you get back, God, and I've still got dishes. Sleep, okay?"

  Jean drinks off that last little bit, puts the mug in the sink and goes upstairs. She's never actually stayed here by herself, in all this time. The bedroom's almost comfortable now. She takes off her shoes, gets in bed with her clothes on and pulls the covers up around her—a waste of clean sheets, really. The alarm clock's second hand is twitching away, so the battery must be good. Ten of eleven; that seems about right. She sets the alarm for seven-thirty instead of five, picks up Emma, then remembers about the time change. So it's really what? Spring ahead, fall back: ten of ten. Which now seems pretty early to be going to bed. But she's whipped. She resets the clock, picks up Emma again and fixes the covers so only her face, hands and shoulders are out in the air. Her nose is cold. Kitty, a fair but frozen maid. She's at the part where Emma thinks Mr. Elton's in love with Harriet, but he's actually hitting on her. At some point she realizes her eyes have been closed for a while: she's still sort of thinking about Mr. Elton and that whole problem, but she's also weighing the risk of disrupting this delicate state of not-quite-sleep by reaching over and turning out the light.

  The alarm goes off— deetdeetdeetdeetdeet —and she shoots out her hand. Too hot and bright in here: her mouth is dry, and apparently she went to sleep with all her clothes on. Out the window, the sky's a cold cerulean blue. And it's so quiet. Then she remembers what she's doing here.

  She gets out of bed, turns off the radiator and unplugs it. Puts her shoes on, gets Willis's old reindeer sweater out of the bottom drawer and makes her way down through the cold house into the toasty kitchen. Through the window over the sink, she sees the grass is white with frost. She wants to call home and make sure everything's okay, but an interruption is probably the last thing Carol needs; the important thing is just to drive safely and get home to them. She starts water for coffee, then goes in and pees, trying to be extra careful near that hole in the floor, since she's still half asleep. Washes, brushes teeth, brushes hair. One thing she'd better do is turn the water off in the house, so the pipes don't freeze. Just in case he—in case nobody gets back here. If she can figure out how he used to do it. She reaches up under the sweater, sweatshirt and t-shirt and smears his Mennen (what else?) under her arms.

  There's a can of Medaglia d'Oro in the fridge, but she can't find the filters; finally she just spoons Taster's Choice into the JOE mug and dusts cinnamon over it; she hates black coffee—especially black instant coffee—but it beats getting a headache. She puts what's left of the Dewar's in the cupboard, thinking what a bad girl she'd be to tip it back at this hour of the morning. The phone book's in the drawer: a pitiful little thing about the thickness of Vogue, say, and it covers all these little towns, yellow pages included. In the front they've got all sorts of police to choose from: state police, police in whatever town, county sheriff. Apparently you're supposed to know which to call for what. Her water's bubbling; she turns off the burner, fills the mug, stirs.

  She sits at the table and rubs her cold fingers above the steaming

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  coffee. It's actually a little early to be calling the police; wouldn't it seem weird not even waiting until eight o'clock after you'd let it go all this time? They'd think you were the crazy one, like no wonder he had to get away. Another aspect of this is that up here your police are all going to be men.

  Coffee's way too hot, so she goes into the pantry and on into the closet with the tank and the water heater to see if she can figure out how to shut stuff off. At first it's hopeless—just all these pipes—but then she begins to see. Only two pipes go into the wall toward the bathroom and kitchen, which must mean these are the water lines into the house. So if you turned those two valves off, at least water couldn't go anyplace but this closet, right? And then if you just heated this little area . . . The space heater, she's afraid, might burn the whole place down, but there's that electric radiator upstairs. Willis used to have some way of draining the tank and the water heater, but then wouldn't you have to shut the pump off too? Or else everything's just going to fill back up again. One of the breakers probably shuts the pump off, but of course nothing's marked. Well, it's her own fault for never making Willis teach her. Though in fairness she was always busy getting the kids organized and the house straightened up. So now she's in the position of being a dithering woman.

  One thing she does know how to do: after the water's cut off, she drains the pipes into a saucepan, opening the little valves under the sinks in the kitchen and bathroom. She goes out to the woodshed for a jug of antifreeze, flushes the toilet and pours half the jug into the bowl. A rich, sick green.

  She goes back up to the bedroom for the electric radiator, which weighs a ton and you can't get a decent grip. So she sort of walks it: lift one end, swivel, lift the other end, swivel. The stairs aren't that bad, but then there's the whole rest of the way, and it feels like she's already done something to her back. She's just about in tears: quarter of eight in the morning, and alone in this cold house with this thing. Then she gets an idea. In the dining room there's a hooked rug Willis's grandmother supposedly made. She drags it into the front hall, wrestles the radiator onto it, lays it on its side and puUs the rug like a sled. This big triumph that no one will ever know about.

  By the time she gets the radiator set up in the closet and comes back out to the kitchen, the coffee's lukewarm. She drinks it, standing up, in three foul-tasting gulps. She reaches around and tries to massage her

  PRESTON FALLS

  back, then spreads her legs, bends at the waist and slowly lets her hands sink toward the floor. She feels the top half of her body ratchet down in little jumps as the muscles relax. Her breasts swing out disagreeably and her fingernails touch the floor. She feels the pull in the backs of her thighs. Her knuckles touch the floor. She really should get back into doing yoga. Do it in the morning, when Carol does hers. Right, in all that free time while you're fixing breakfast, dressing for work and getting the kids ready. The backs of her wrists touch the floor. This is probably doing absolutely nothing for her back except making it worse.

  She straightens up slowly. Maybe it's her imagination, but she thinks it feels better.

  By now it must be eight o'clock. Time to do this.

  She decides she might as well call the Preston Falls police, since that's where they pay property taxes. Though it's sort of right wing even to think about your property taxes. And actually Willis pays them: they agreed that the expenses up here would be his thing. She looks up the number and dials. The man who answers says, "Police department, good morning." The good morning strikes her as hilariously weird.

  "Yes, hi," she says. "This is Jean Karnes, K-a-r-n-e-s? We, ah, have a place on Ragged Hill Road? I don't know if I should actuaUy be calling you or the state police or what, but maybe you can help me?"

  "Go ahead," says the man.

  "Well, I'm not sure, but I think my husband may be missing? He had been on leave of absence from his job and he was supposed to be back a
t work this morning, and I finally came up last night to check on him because I hadn't heard from him and there's like no sign of him. But the weird thing—"

  "Say you came wp?"

  "Yes, from—^where we live, down near New York City." She feels funny about saying "Westchester" to these people.

  "So this is your weekend house, ma'am?"

  "Yes. But he'd been staying up here by himself since Labor Day. Sort of getting some work done on the house." The white spiral cord on this telephone is absolutely grimy.

  "And when was the last time you spoke to him?"

  "I'm not sure, exactly," she says. "It was some time ago."

  The sflence of male exasperation.

  "I'd say it was several weeks," she says.

  "Uh-huh," he says. She takes this to mean that he understands they

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  have marital problems, like all people with weekend houses. "Well, all's I can tell you, you can come down, make out a missing persons and we'll put it on the computer."

  "So I should come down there?" she says. '

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "Do I need to bring anything?" she says. "A picture or anything?"

  "I guess if you want to bring one."

  She goes to the sink to rinse out the mug, but of course nothing comes out of the faucet. This policeman's attitude—or is she overreacting?—makes her spend an extra ten minutes looking in drawers and cupboards for pictures, whether he wants them or not. But their picture-taking has fallen off in the last few years. Her picture-taking, actually, since Willis never bothered unless you came right out and asked. Finally, in a basket crammed with old letters and bills, she finds an envelope of pictures from their first summer up here. Willis aiming the garden hose at seven-year-old Mel and four-year-old Roger in swimsuits. Front of house. Back of house. Side of house. House from up on the hill. Jean at the hibachi, smirking, holding up a hot dog on a long fork. (What had gotten into her?) Ah: Willis with chainsaw; he'd been cutting sumacs to give a better view of the stone wall. This would do. He was slimmer then, less gray in the temples, but it's got the basics: eyebrows grown together, eyes set deep, cheekbones he'd have to gain even more weight to bury entirely, lower lip so much fatter than the upper. The mouth that looked giving rather than taking, which just goes to show you. Fine, she'll give them this. She sort of likes that it will mean absolutely nothing to them.

  She unplugs the space heater in the kitchen, which it was dangerous to have left on all night, and feels the air start to get cold immediately, as if the place just can't wait to get back to being an empty house out in the middle of nature. She goes upstairs, glances into his study to make sure everything's turned off, then checks in the bedroom. Might as well bring Emma along. And how about that Pilgrim's Progress, to play around with that funny lettering? Forget it: she's got enough on her plate. She takes a last look around the kitchen. She should hide the boombox and CDs; incredible how much money you're looking at in a stack of CDs. But you know? You get tired of cleaning up after boys. Still, there's one thing: that mug of her father's. She just can't abandon that up here, little as he loved it. She finds a plastic grocery bag, wraps up the JOE mug and sticks it in her purse.

  PRESTON FALLS

  She should have warmed up the Cherokee, but by the time she gets to Quaker Bridge Road the needle on the temperature gauge is up to the first little mark and she can turn the heater on. The morning sun is bringing out the green of the fading grass and giving the bare trees long, sharp shadows. She passes poor little house after poor little house, each with a giant satellite dish in the yard. Pumpkins and tree ghosts have never looked so pagan to her: right down from barbaric times. She could never have lived up here. Not that she'd ever been asked.

  She tells the post office lady she left her key at home and could she have the mail for Box 324. No problem. On the one hand it's nice that people up here are nice, but it's like anybody could just waltz in and ask for your mail. This lady's beauty-parlor perm looks odd with that mannish blue postal service sweater, but it must be cold working in here. She comes back and flops four bundles with rubber bands around them on the counter. "I guess you hit the jackpot."

  "I guess so," Jean says. "Well, it can't all be bills."

  ''There you go." So Jean has struck the requisite Preston Falls note: wry stoicism with a hint of self-deprecation.

  She goes over to the chest-high table, slips off the rubber bands and starts throwing junk mail and catalogs into the wastepaper thing. She never knew they had so many hardware stores and lumber companies up here. A couple of things marked PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL: IMMEDIATE RESPONSE REQUIRED, from a post office box at Cooper Square Station—probably some bogus contest. Sales at Grand Union. Full-color circulars from Ames, with all this seventies-looking type and layout; apparently they're trying not to intimidate rural people.

  She takes the rest out to the Cherokee—bills, bank statements; but, again, not a single letter—and she starts the engine so she can run the heater. The most recent phone bill, postmarked October 26, says THIS IS A FINAL DISCONNECTION NOTICE: total amount overdue $157 and change. But no long-distance calls on the statement. The one postmarked September 26 shows calls to Etna, New Hampshire (his mother), Rutland, Vermont (that lawyer?), Chesterton, New York, and New York City. Two electric bills. Two American Express bills (neither one has new charges) and one Amexgram, that thing they send when you haven't paid: his balance is six hundred-odd dollars. Two MasterCard bills, balance of nine thousand and change; the October bill has some

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  snippy little thing about his minimum payment. SECOND NOTICE from Allstate Insurance; Willis registers the Cherokee and his truck up here because the premiums are lower, which she's always thought was dishonest.

  She rips open the bank statement postmarked October: a balance of $12.17, no canceled checks, no ATM transactions and a five-dollar service charge. The September one shows a balance of $17.17, with a single cash withdrawal: 9/18, $400, New Baltimore Service Area, New York State Thruway, plus a $1 ATM fee.

  Why did he bother to leave seventeen dollars? Obviously to keep his account open. Which meant he took off for somewhere but intended to come back? Or at least to have the option? But maybe it was just that the machine only gave out multiples of twenty: her little girl-detective deduction. New Baltimore. That's the one just south of Albany, right? But was it even Willis, or had somebody stolen his cash card? But if they'd stolen his cash card, wouldn't they also have his credit cards? And since there was no activity on those statements . . . But of course Willis's MasterCard was pretty well maxed out.

  She fastens her seat belt, releases the brake and waits to pull out as a low-slung black car passes by. Going to the post office before the police made sense, actually. Well, so now she's been to the post office. She so much doesn't want to do this. The poHce station, she assumes, is in the town hall, where you always see cruisers parked around the side.

  The officer behind the counter looks to be in his twenties; he's got one of those ultra-neat short haircuts young Christians have, with the perfectly circular cutouts around each ear. Naturally he wears a wedding ring.

  "Hi. I'm Jean Karnes?" she says. "Are you the person I spoke to?"

  "No, ma'am. That would be Officer Plankey." The name tag above this one's badge says ALDEN. "He went out for breakfast. Are you the lady that called about your husband?"

  "Yes."

  "Here," he says, pointing to a waist-high swinging door. "Why don't you come around this way and have a seat."

  She sits on a metal folding chair at the side of a metal desk with a computer on it. He sits down on the swivel chair and clicks a mouse here and there on the pad, squinting at the monitor. Then he starts tapping at the keyboard. "I brought along a picture," she says.

  He stops tapping, takes the picture from her, looks, puts it on the desk.

  PRESTON FALLS

  He asks for Willis's full name, address, age, description and occupation, tapping in h
er answers; then he listens to her story. He doesn't seem to think it's weird that Willis's computer was on—they've got one at home, and he's always forgetting. The broken window? Could be kids; anything missing from the house? Not that she knows of. Well, come to think of it, she didn't see his guitars. But of course he sometimes hides them, and she didn't check his hiding places. She tells about the unpaid bills and the cash withdrawal on the Thruway on September 18. He nods. And how long since she's seen or heard from him? Well, right around then, actually. He looks at her. "You mean around September eighteenth?" he says. Probably, she says. He looks back at the screen, taps a few characters, then, still looking at the screen, he says, "Was this a usual length of time with you and your husband?"

  Not until she's back in the Cherokee does it hit her that she should have told about him getting arrested on Labor Day weekend; she'd honestly forgotten. And it probably had no bearing. Well, so they'll find out anyway, won't they, from their computer? But when he asked if Willis had seemed unusually upset—no, "overwrought"—it might have been good to mention that. Instead she said he was a little burned out from work. So now they'll think she was being evasive.

  Well, she's done all she can do here, yes?

  She could drive by the house one more time, just in case his truck is there. Maybe check on the guitars?

  No. Enough.

  She heads back through the center of Preston Falls, trying to remember the most direct route over to the Northway. Past the old movie theater with its windows boarded up, past the used-furniture place that's now a pile of bricks with charred boards sticking up, past Winner's, where the display window has a cardboard cutout of a black cat arching its back. Right: Halloween. At least she'll be back in time to be with Mel and Roger. She drives past Julie's Luncheonette, with the hole busted in its plastic sign. Past the one surviving nice old storefront, Howard & Sheron's, with black-and-gold lettering that still says SUNDRIES and always makes her think of sun-dried tomatoes. She's a city person; so sue her. Sometimes it depresses her that she's ended up back in the burbs, even though she'd campaigned for it because of the kids. A blast of wind comes along— ivhomp —that actually rocks the Cherokee and sends a plastic bag flapping up into the blue sky like a rising witch.