She lunges for the cellphone, knocking her keys onto the floor.
“Hello? Hello?”
At first there’s nothing—and then a burst of loud static.
“Hello?” she says again, disappointment washing over her. “Is anyone—”
“Hey, baby girl … I was just about to hang up.”
Every muscle in her body goes limp, and she has to lean against the table to keep from falling. “Ryan …” she says, but it comes out in a whisper.
“You there, Gwen?”
“I’m here, honey. I’m so happy to hear your voice.” The tears come now, gushing down her face.
“Listen … I don’t know how long this line’s gonna last. We haven’t even been able to file our reports with the magazine or any of the newspapers … yesterday … fires all over the place.”
“Are you okay, Ryan? Are you safe?”
“I’m okay. I wanted to tell you … taking care of myself and doing my best … get home to you.”
“I miss you so damn much,” she says, unable to keep the emotion from her voice.
“I miss you, too, baby … know when I’ll be able to call again, but I’ll keep trying … by Christmas.”
“You’re breaking up.”
Staccato bursts of static hijack the line. Gwendy pulls the phone away from her ear and waits for them to decrease in intensity. Amidst the noise, she hears her husband’s faint voice: “. . . love you.”
She presses the phone back to her ear. “Hello? Are you still there? Please take care of yourself, Ryan!” She’s nearly shouting now.
The line crackles and then goes silent. She holds it tight against her ear, listening and hoping for one more word—anything—but it doesn’t come.
“I love you more,” she finally whispers, and ends the call.
34
FORTY-EIGHT HOURS OF LAZINESS (she tries to tell herself she wasn’t actually being lazy, she was simply relaxing and decompressing—but she’s not buying it) is all Gwendy can tolerate. On Wednesday, she wakes up at dawn and goes for a run.
A sleety, granular snow is falling and the roads are slick with ice, but Gwendy pushes forward, the hood of her sweatshirt cinched tight around her face. Running through downtown Castle Rock is usually a comforting experience for Gwendy. She jogs her normal route—down Main Street, avoiding the unshoveled sidewalks, past the Common, the library, and the Western Auto, circling the long way around the hospital and heading uptown past the Knights of Columbus hall and back toward View Drive—and she feels a sense of rightness in her world, a sense of belonging. She’s traveled all over the country for her work—first as an ad exec, then as a writer/filmmaker, and finally as a public servant—but there’s only one Castle Rock, Maine. Just as her mother had told the stranger in the black hat at the mall, this is home.
But something feels off today.
This morning she feels like a visitor traveling through a foreign and unfriendly landscape. Her mind is cluttered and distracted, her legs sluggish and heavy.
At first she blames this feeling on the way her phone call with Ryan ended the night before—so abrupt and unsettled. After hanging up, she cried herself to sleep with worry.
But when she passes in front of the sheriff’s station as she makes her way uptown, she realizes it’s something else entirely. For the first time, she understands how much she’s dreading the difficult task that awaits her later that morning.
35
GWENDY’S FIRST IMPRESSION OF Caroline Hoffman is that she’s a woman who is used to getting her own way.
When Gwendy walks into the stationhouse at 9:50 AM (a full ten minutes early for the meeting), she’s hoping the Hoffmans haven’t arrived yet so she and Sheriff Ridgewick will have time to discuss the investigation.
Instead, the three of them are waiting for her in the conference room. There’s no sign of Sheila Brigham, the longtime dispatcher for the Castle Rock Sheriff’s Department, so Deputy George Footman escorts Gwendy inside and closes the door behind her.
Sheriff Ridgewick sits on one side of a long, narrow table, a chair standing empty next to him. Mr. and Mrs. Hoffman sit side-by-side across from him, a second empty chair separating them. They make an interesting couple. Frank Hoffman is slight in stature, bespectacled, and dressed in a wrinkled brown suit that has seen better days. He has dark circles under his eyes and a slender nose that has been broken more than once. Caroline Hoffman is at least three or four inches taller than her husband, and thick and broad across the shoulders and chest. She could be a female lumberjack, something not unheard of in this part of the world. She’s wearing jeans and a gray Harley Davidson sweatshirt with the sleeves rolled up. A tattoo of a boat anchor decorates one meaty forearm.
“Sorry to keep you waiting,” Gwendy says, taking a seat beside the sheriff. She places her leather tote on the table in front of her, but quickly removes it and puts it on the floor when she realizes it’s dripping wet from melting snow. She uses the sleeve of her sweater to wipe up the small puddle left behind.
“Morning, Congresswoman,” Sheriff Ridgewick says.
“Can we get started now?” Mrs. Hoffman asks, glaring at the sheriff.
“Sure thing.”
Gwendy leans forward and extends her hand, first to Mr. Hoffman and then to his wife. “Good morning, I’m Gwendy Peterson. I’m very sorry to meet you both under these circumstances.”
“Good morning,” Mr. Hoffman says in a surprisingly deep voice.
“We know who you are,” Mrs. Hoffman says, wiping her hand on her pant leg, like she touched something unsavory. “Question is, how you gonna help us?”
“Well,” Gwendy says, “I’ll do whatever I can to help locate your daughter, Mrs. Hoffman. If Sheriff Ridgewick needs—”
“Her name is Carla,” the big woman interrupts, eyes narrowing again. “Least you can do is say her damn name.”
“Of course. I’ll do whatever I can to help find Carla. If the sheriff needs additional personnel, I’ll make sure he has it. If he needs more equipment or vehicles, I’ll make sure he has that, too. Whatever it takes.”
Mrs. Hoffman looks at Sheriff Ridgewick. “What the sheriff needs is someone to come in here and show him how to do his job properly.”
Gwendy bristles. “Now wait a minute, Mrs. Hoffman—”
The sheriff touches Gwendy’s forearm, silencing her. He looks at the Hoffmans. “I know you folks are desperate for answers. I know you’re unhappy with the way the investigation is progressing.”
Mrs. Hoffman snickers. “Progressing.”
“But I assure you me and my men are working around the clock to chase down every single scrap of possible evidence. No one will rest until we find out what happened to your daughter.”
“We’re just so worried,” Mr. Hoffman says. “We’re both sick with worry.”
“I understand that,” the sheriff says. “We all do.”
“Jenny Tucker over the hair salon says your guys were checking out the Henderson farm yesterday,” Mrs. Hoffman says. “Wanna tell me why that is?”
The sheriff sighs and shakes his head. “Jenny Tucker’s the biggest gossip in town. You know that.”
“Doesn’t make it not true.”
“No, it doesn’t. But in this case it’s not true. Far as I know, no one’s been out to the Henderson place.”
“Why not?” she presses. “From what I hear he did time in Shawshank when he was younger.”
“Hell, Mrs. Hoffman, half the hard-grit laborers in Castle County served time at one point or another. We can’t go searching all their houses.”
“Tell us this,” she says, cocking her head to the side like an agitated rooster. “And give us a straight answer for a change. What do you have? After a full week of walking around in circles, what do you have?”
Sheriff Ridgewick lets out a deep breath. “We’ve talked about this before. I can’t tell you anything more than I already have. In order to protect the integrity of the investigation—”
“Caroline,” Mr. Hoffman says, “maybe we should—”
Mrs. Hoffman turns on her husband, eyes burning. The thick veins in her neck look like they’re going to explode. “They got nuthin’, Frank. Just like I told ya. They ain’t got a goddamn thing.”
Gwendy has been listening to all of this with a sense of disconnected awe, almost as though she were sitting in the front row of a studio audience at an afternoon talk show—but something inside her awakens now. She raises a hand in an effort to take control of the room and says, “Why don’t we all just take a minute and start over again?”
Glaring at Gwendy, Mrs. Hoffman suddenly jerks to her feet, knocking over her chair. “Why don’t ya save that happy horseshit for the folks ’round here who were dumb enough to vote for ya?” She kicks the chair out from under her feet, spittle spraying from the corners of her mouth. “Coming in here with your fancy clothes and five-hundred-dollar boots, trying to shine us on like we’re stupid or somethin’!” Flinging open the door, she storms out.
Gwendy stares after Mrs. Hoffman with her mouth hanging open. “I didn’t mean to … I was just trying …”
Mr. Hoffman stands. “Congresswoman, sheriff, you’ll have to excuse my wife. She’s very upset.”
“It’s no problem at all,” Sheriff Ridgewick says, escorting him to the door. “We understand.”
“I apologize if anything I said made matters worse,” Gwendy says.
Mr. Hoffman shakes his head. “Things can’t get much worse, ma’am.” He looks closely at Gwendy. “Do you have children of your own, Congresswoman?”
Gwendy tries to swallow the lump that rises in her throat. “No. I don’t.”
Mr. Hoffman looks down at the ground and nods, but he doesn’t say anything further. Then he shuffles out of the room.
Sheriff Ridgewick stares after him and turns back to Gwendy. “That went well.”
Gwendy looks around the conference room, unsure of what to do next. It all happened so fast her head is swirling. She finally blurts out, “I bought these boots at Target.”
36
GWENDY MOPES AROUND THE condo for the rest of the afternoon, watching cable news and drinking too much coffee. She left the sheriff’s office hours earlier feeling depressed and incompetent in equal measures, like she let everyone in the room down. She obviously said something to stoke Mrs. Hoffman’s ire, and the sheriff was doing just fine handling the two of them before she went and opened her big mouth. And that smartass comment about her clothes and boots … it bothered Gwendy. It shouldn’t have, she knows that, but it did. Since returning to Castle Rock after all those years away, she’d grown used to the occasional snide dig. It came with the territory. So why did she let it get to her like that?
“Well, don’t just sit there,” she says to the button box. “Figure it out and get back to me.”
The box ignores her. It sits there—on the end table, next to a half-empty mug of coffee and an outdated TV Guide—and answers her with stubborn silence. She grabs the remote and turns up the volume on the television.
President Hamlin stands at the edge of the White House lawn, his arms crossed in defiance, the Marine One helicopter whirring in the background. “. . . and if they continue to make these threats against the United States of America,” he says, flashing his best tough-guy look at the camera, “we will have no alternative but to fight power with power. This great country will not back down.”
Gwendy watches in disbelief. “Jesus, he thinks he’s in a movie.”
Her cellphone rings. She knows it’s too soon to hear from Ryan again, but she scrambles across the sofa and snatches it up anyway. “Hello?”
“Hey, Gwen. It’s Dad.”
“I was just thinking about you guys,” she says, muting the television. “Need me to bring anything for dinner?”
There’s a slight pause before he answers. “That’s why I’m calling. Would you be terribly upset if we canceled tonight?”
“Of course not,” she says, sitting up. “Is everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine. Mom’s just kind of dragging after her doctor’s appointment this afternoon. To tell you the truth, so am I.”
“Do you want me to pick up something from Pazzano’s and drop it off? I’d be happy to.”
“That’s sweet of you, but no, we’re good. I’m going to reheat some lasagna and we’re hitting the sack early.”
“Okay, but call me if you change your mind. And give Mom my best.”
“I will, honey. Thanks for being such a great daughter.”
“ ’Night, Dad.”
Gwendy hangs up and looks at the Christmas tree standing in the corner. A string of lights has gone out. “Yeah, some great daughter … I completely forgot she even had a doctor’s appointment today.” She gets up and takes a couple of steps into the middle of the room, and then stops. Suddenly, she wants to cry, and not just your garden variety sniffles, either. She feels like dropping to her knees, burying her face in her hands, and sobbing until she passes out.
A tightness growing in her chest, Gwendy slumps onto the sofa again. This is pathetic, she thinks, wiping away tears with the heels of her hands. Absolutely pathetic Maybe a hot bath and a glass of wine will—
And then she looks at the button box.
37
GWENDY CAN’T REMEMBER THE last time she went on two runs in the same day. If she had to guess, she’d say it was the summer when she was twelve years old, the same summer Frankie Stone started calling her Goodyear and she finally decided to do something about her weight. She ran pretty much everywhere that summer—to the corner store to pick up eggs and bread for her mother, to Olive’s house to listen to records and tear through the latest issue of Teen magazine, and of course, every morning (even on Sundays) she ran the Suicide Stairs up to Castle View Park. By the time school started in September, Gwendy had lost almost fifteen pounds of baby fat and the button box was hidden away in the bottom of her bedroom closet. After that, life would never be the same for her.
Tonight, she jogs at a fast clip along the centerline of Route 117, enjoying the feel of her heart pounding in her chest. The snow stopped falling several hours earlier, right around dinnertime, and the plows are busy clearing side streets at this late hour. The main roadways are eerily empty and hushed. At the bottom of the hill, she passes a group of men wearing hardhats and orange vests with CRPW stenciled on them: Castle Rock Public Works. One of them drops the shovel he’s working and gives her an enthusiastic round of applause. She flashes the man a smile and a thumbs-up, and keeps on trucking.
The tiny piece of chocolate the button box dispensed was in the shape of an owl, and Gwendy stared in rapt fascination at the amazing details—the staggered lines of each feather, the pointy tip of its beak, the pools of dark shadow that made up its eyes—before popping it into her mouth and allowing it to dissolve on her tongue.
There was a moment of complete satisfaction—at what, she didn’t know, maybe everything—and then a rush of startling clarity and energy spread throughout her body. All of a sudden, she not only no longer felt like crying, her entire body felt lighter, her vision seemed clearer, and the colors in the condo appeared brighter and more vibrant. Was this what it was like when she was younger? She couldn’t exactly remember. All she knew was that it suddenly felt like she’d sprouted wings and could fly up into the sky and touch the moon. She immediately changed into workout clothes and running shoes, and headed outside.
No, not immediately, she reminds herself, as she cruises past the Sunoco station toward Main Street and the center of town.
Something else happened first.
In the midst of all those good feelings, those wonderful feelings, she suddenly found herself fixating on the red button at the left side of the box, and then slowly reaching out with a finger and touching it, caressing its glassy surface, and the thought of actually pre
ssing it and erasing President Richard Hamlin from the face of the earth wormed inside the basement of her brain like the wisp of a forgotten dream just before waking.
Whoa, girl, a little voice whispered inside her head. Be careful what you daydream because that box can hear you thinking Don’t you doubt it, not even for a second.
Then, and only then, did she carefully withdraw her finger and go upstairs to change into running gear.
38
THE NEXT DAY DAWNS clear and cold. A brisk wind blows in from the east, swirling amongst the treetops and drifting mounds of snow against the tires of parked cars and the sides of buildings. In the glare of morning sun, the blanket of ice-crusted snow is almost too brilliant to look at.
Gwendy pulls her car to the shoulder of the narrow back road and takes off her sunglasses. A half-dozen sheriff’s department vehicles are parked in a staggered line in front of her. A group of uniformed officers huddle between two of the cars, heads down, lost in conversation. An open field of maybe fifteen or twenty acres bordered by deep woods stretches out along the right side of the road. Thick trees crowd the other side, blocking the sun’s rays and dropping the temperature there by at least ten degrees.
Sheriff Ridgewick spots her car and disengages from the other men. He starts walking in her direction, so Gwendy gets out and meets him halfway.
“Thanks for coming on short notice,” he says. “I thought you’d want to be here.”
“What’s going on?” she asks, zipping up her heavy jacket. “Did you find the girls?”
“No.” He looks out across the open field. “Not yet. But we did find the sweatshirt Carla Hoffman was wearing the night she disappeared.”
She looks around. “All the way out here?”
He nods and points at the northeast corner of the field. Gwendy follows his finger and, squinting, she can just make out a couple of dark figures camouflaged by the backdrop of trees. “One of my men spotted it this morning. Wind was blowing so hard it was actually moving across the field. That’s what caught his attention. That and the color.”
Gwendy's Magic Feather Page 7