Cast in Stone

by G. M. Ford

  "I think this place should have an attached angioplasty clinic."

  "When in Rome, my dear. Not even the mop is fresh-squeezed in a place like this. Especially not the mop."

  Rebecca was not what you'd call a morning person. Under the best of circumstances, she greeted each new day like one of those cute reminders from the dentist, and Lakeside, Washington, at nine o'clock in the morning was several miles east of the best of circumstances. As with my previous attempts at levity, the mop joke elicited little more than a feral sneer.

  She brought her water tumbler up for microscopic inspection.

  "What clever ploy have you hatched for sweating the info out of the poor unsuspecting rubes over at the real estate agency?" she inquired, absently turning the scratched burgundy tumbler slowly before her eyes.

  "I kinda figured I'd march right in and just ask 'em."

  "Rife with your usual Florentine complexity."

  Rebecca now produced a monogrammed hanky, with which she began to meticulously scour the rim of the glass.

  "What if we're not the first people over here asking questions?" "I think we are." "How come?"

  Hygienically unsatisfied, she set the glass back down without drinking.

  "SPD never asked to see her real estate license. I can't see any other way they'd get to here," I said.

  "I think you're right."

  "Have you been holding out on me?"

  Rebecca arched an eyebrow.

  "I rather thought I'd given my all."

  "Indubitably, my dear, but to the point."

  "I asked a few questions Saturday night between autopsies. Bill Bostick was hanging around, looking professionally concerned, hoping to provide the public with information and get his picture taken."

  "How is old Peerless these days?" I interrupted.

  "Same old same old. The ultimate spin doctor."

  "My old man used to say Bostick was a white guy trapped inside the body of an even whiter guy."

  This engendered Rebecca's first thin smile of the day.

  "According to the photogenic Billy B, the state and the SPD are just going through the motions. As far as they're concerned, it's death by misadventure— period. Unless and until they see something new that gets their attention, it's going to stay that way."

  "Why didn't you tell me on the way over?"

  "I was waiting until you cleared your account. Any further charges would have put you over your limit."

  Our breakfasts arrived. Between measured bites, Duvall treated me to a running commentary not only on the well-known effects of cholesterol and saturated fats on the pulmonary arteries but on the various scraping and grinding tools used to remove the glutinous buildup thereof. For my part, I made it a point to use the last of the oiled toast to sop up the dregs of my eggs.

  It was a little before ten as I guided the rented Taurus through town. Lakeside was strictly a one-story town. Typical western layout. Two one-way streets in opposite directions wound north and south along the south shore of Lake Chelan, making up the ten-block business district. What wasn't real estate offices was either fast food or minimarts. Perpendicular to downtown, a truncated series of side streets headed west into the high desert, randomly losing interest and petering out among the withered sage and juniper. And this was the civilized end of the lake. Fifty-five miles to the northwest, Stehekin was justly

  famous for being sufficiently remote as to be reachable only by boat.

  As promised, Shore Properties was on Front Street, diagonally across from the Key Bank. A red neon sign shone OPEN from the front window of a cedar A-frame. The attached gravel parking lot was empty except for a battered bronze Subaru station wagon.

  Nancy Davies' movers could have cleaned this place out in fifteen minutes. The shiplap cedar-paneled walls were decorated haphazardly with Out-of-date calendars and yellowed pictures of the lake. Two gray metal desks, one on the left, one on the right as we entered. The one on the left presently was home to a small copy machine, a coffeemaker, a hotplate, and a fair collection of basic foodstuffs. A one-person operation.

  Rubbing her hands together, a woman emerged from the back room. About thirty, she was tall enough to gracefully carry the extra twenty pounds and pretty enough for it not to matter. She wore a long denim skirt with a line of silver buttons up one side and a blue-and-yellow plaid blouse held close at the throat by an oversize cameo. Her long, brown hair was pulled straight back, tightened into a ponytail by four blue retainers spaced evenly along its conspicuous length. She looked up for the first time.

  "Oh." She instinctively brought one hand up to her throat. "You startled me. I haven't had many people stop by, particularly not this early in the morning."

  "We wanted to get an early start."

  "Well, that's sure the only way to get the jump on the summer season around here. Everybody wants to wait till spring, and then they're all bent out of shape when all the choice dates are spoken for. This is sure the smart way to do it. I'm Rosalee Weber. How can I help you folks?"

  "I wanted to ask you a few questions, if I may."

  A cloud shaded her face.

  "About property?" "Not exactly."

  "Who are you with?" she demanded.

  "I'm from Seattle," I said.

  "From the bank?"

  "No. I'm not."

  "From the board?"

  "I just had a few questions."

  "I don't have to answer any more questions." She pinned me with a level gaze. "I've cooperated fully. I've agreed to a payment schedule, and by God I'll live up to it, but I will not, I repeat, I will not be hounded by you people. You go back and tell them that."

  "I'm not from the bank or the board or anyone else you know."

  She was cautious now.

  "Are you here about property?"

  "Not exactly, I—"

  She waved at me dismissively. "Then I don't have time for you. I don't mean to be impolite, mister, but my dance card is full. I've got more than I can handle already. Anything you're selling, I haven't got the money to buy. So, if you don't mind, let's not waste each other's time, okay?"

  She gestured toward the door, then turned her back on me.

  "Nice work. You've got her eating out of your hand," Duvall mumbled from behind me. I tried again.

  "I wanted to ask you about a former employee." Inexplicably, I suddenly had her undivided attention. "Who?" "Allison Stark." Her relief was apparent.

  "We've never employed anybody by that name." "You're sure?"

  "Positive."

  "Perhaps Mr. Weber would—"

  "Listen, mister, before you travel too far down that road and make an ass of yourself, Mr. Weber is my father. Okay? This is his business. Has been for twenty-three years. I've worked here full time since I got out of high school. Every year we hire three or four new salespeople to work the busy season. Usually it's four. It's not like they're hard to keep track of. Soon as Labor Day rolls around they're out of town like they were shot out of a cannon, never to be seen again. In case you haven't noticed, Lakeside isn't exactly Gotham City this time of year. And I'm telling you we've never had any Alice."

  "Allison."

  "No Alice, no Allison. No anything. Okay? So, if you'll excuse me, I'm a little backed up here at the moment."

  She sat down heavily at her desk and began leafing through her oversize Rolodex. I slipped a folded-up copy of Carl's composite photograph out of my coat pocket, smoothed it out on the edge of the empty desk, and crossed the room.

  "Could I just get you to take a look at this picture for me?"

  Glowering at me. "And then you'll go away?" "I swear."

  She snatched the picture from my hand.

  "I don't have time for this foolishness, mister."

  She cast an exasperated glance at the paper in her hand. In an instant, she went black and white. She slid back into her chair as if pressed back by a giant hand; her button eyes remained glued to the picture as it slowly waffled its way to the floor. From
deep within, a single contraction convulsed her body, snapping her like a whip. Throwing both hands over her mouth, she stumbled pell-mell toward the rear of the building, darting into the lavatory, slamming the door behind her. I opened my mouth and then closed it again. Rebecca was not so kind.

  "She's putty in your hands now."

  Neither the door nor the distance was sufficient to muffle the anguished sounds of her violent retching. The toilet flushed a couple of times, but the heaving ground on unabated, coming in waves for what seemed an eternity. I started back. Rebecca stopped me with a small wag of-her head and went herself.

  Tapping lightly on the door, she stepped partially inside.

  "I'm a doctor," I heard her whisper before she softly pulled the door closed behind he?.

  The toilet* flushed again. The gagging went on— straining, dry and empty-throated now, then ceased, replaced by muffled talk and tears.

  Rebecca reappeared briefly, stepped back into the far room, gathered a handful of paper napkins, and reentered the bathroom. More running water and talk. I retrieved the offending picture from the floor and pocketed it.

  They came out together. Rosalee Weber was the -color of oatmeal, her eyes unfocused, the front of her blouse soaked and dark. A wayward line of brown vomit clung stubbornly to the hem of her skirt. The smell of vegetable soup trailed in her wake. Guiding her with a hand on the shoulder, Rebecca eased her to her chair.

  Seated, Rosalee used both hands to wipe imaginary hair from her face and then gave a final snuffle.

  "Please excuse me," she said to the room. "Nothing like that's ever happened to me before. I don't know what came over me."

  I kept quiet. No matter. She read my mind.

  "It was that face. I never expected to see that face again."

  She slid out the bottom drawer of the desk, took out a box of tissues, and blew her nose. "What did you call her?" she asked. "Allison Stark."

  "She called herself Rachel Gandy when she was here." "When was that?"

  "This past summer . . . back before ... before ..."

  She began to sniffle again and then, in stages, worked into a full cry; the cries turned to wails; her heavy body pulsed to the sobs as if some inner wall of collected reserve had suddenly crumbled. I fidgeted and waited.

  "I'm so sorry," she said, scraping herself back together. "I thought I was past all of this. I thought I'd put it behind me. I've worked so hard to put this all back together. Sorry." She dabbed her swollen eyes.

  "No problem," I said.

  "Nobody would listen to me."

  "I'll listen, if you feel up to telling me about it."

  Nodding, Rosalee Weber inhaled deeply and then began her story as if she were going to have to tell it in a single breath.

  "She showed up right around the first week of April, just about when we begin to take on new people for the summer season. She'd met my dad over in Seattle. They'd been at a survivors' support group together. You know, for people who've recently lost loved ones. So they could talk and support each other." I nodded, understanding "My mom had passed away last January. I mean, it wasn't a surprise or anything, she'd been real sick for quite a while, but Dad was devastated. He—" she snuffled once, caught herself and continued. "Anyway . . . he'd been going over twice a month for these support groups that his doctor recommended. That's where they met. Rachel lost her

  husband in a car accident a couple of months before, and you know they'd got to talking and Dad told her how we hired in the spring and she told him how she was in the business before she got married, so he ended up offering her a job. And then in early April, there she was on the front steps."

  "Where did this support group meet?"

  "Providence Hospital, over in Seattle."

  "What then? You hired her?"

  "I thought she was a bit uptown for around here, but Dad really liked her—her being from Wisconsin and all." She read my face. "Dad's family was originally from the Madison area. We've still got people back there on his side of the family—aunts and uncles."

  "Can you remember anything else about her Wisconsin background?"

  She shook her head. "That was between Rachel and Dad. Wisconsin was way before my time. We went back a couple of times for the holidays when I was little, but I don't know anything about it."

  "So she signed on—" I led her back.

  "Right around the beginning of April. You could see right away that she knew what she was doing." She shrugged heavily. "She turned out to be one of the best salespeople I'd ever seen. Maybe a bit too strong at the close for my taste, you know, pushy, but nobody complained so I—we let it go."

  Rosalee finally came up for air.

  "Anyway, by the time Lake Vista came around, she was so far ahead of all the other new hires that we just naturally put her to work on that."

  "What's Lake Vista?"

  "That's the new condo project over on the east side of the lake. Ninety-six custom units. It was Dad's baby. He got in on the ground floor. He put a lot of his own money into it. Dad helped line up the other

  investors and everything. Vista was going to be his big one. We had a sales exclusive on it."

  Rebecca's eyes told me that she'd also noticed the change in tense.

  "And Rachel was selling the condo units?"

  "Between her and Dad they sold fifty-three of the units, which was just incredible in what everybody said was a flat market."

  Her eyes welled again, but she surprised me and carried on.

  "Dad was just aglow. It was like he'd been reborn. I hadn't seen him that happy since before Mom got sick. The Lake Vista project was the best medicine in the world for him. It gave him hope again. He kept saying how this was the one that was going to lift us up to a whole 'nother level. No more small-time for us, all of that kind of stuff-. How he already had a start on an even bigger project. How he was going international."

  She was winding down, beginning to sniffle again. I poked her. "And then?"

  "And then ... it was a Monday. Right about at the end of August. Things were beginning to wind down for the season. Dad went over to Seattle for a stockholders' meeting. To tell them the good news about how far ahead of projections we were and all that. He was like a little kid. Bought himself a brand-new suit and everything."

  She cleared her nose again, hurrying now.

  "A couple of hours after he left. . . she . . . Rachel.. . she comes in and tells me that she got a call, you know, with a job offer and what with the season winding down how she's gonna take it, but that she's gotta get there instantly if she wants the job. She asks me to pay her off so she can leave right away."

  "And?"

  "Well, what was I going to do? She knew I could sign checks. I'd paid her before. It was the end of the season. I paid her off. I sat right here and watched while she took it across the street and cashed it. Thirty-eight hundred bucks and change. She came out, got on the airport shuttle, and I never saw her again until you—"

  She waved a hand in my direction. This time, she prodded herself.

  "Anyway, Dad came back the next morning just walking on air. He was everybody's hero. Then . . . you know, when he got finished with his story, I just sort of casually mentioned that Rachel had moved on."

  She shuddered at the memory.

  "It wasn't like it should have been such a big surprise or anything. Rick and Loretta had already given notice. She wasn't the first associate to just up and leave. I shouldn't have ... he . . ."

  She looked up at me as if for a dispensation. I had none to offer.

  "I'll never forget the look on his face—the pain and hurt. He screamed at me. Swore. He never swore. Called me a bitch. Said I was a goddamn liar. In my whole life he'd never talked to me like that before. For a second I actually thought he was going to attack me, but he just ran out the door, across the street to the bank."

  She found a hidden cache of strength. Her tone got stronger.

  "He looked twenty years older when he came back fro
m the bank. Never said another word to me. Just picked up his briefcase and headed out the door. I never—" Another tissue. "He ... to make a long story short . . . the Lake Vista escrow account was empty."

  "How much?"

  "Four hundred ninety thousand in down payments and deposits."

  "You called the cops." I made it a statement.

  "My dad signed the transfer. He was an officer of the corporation. It was his responsibility. And there was the note."

  I didn't want to ask, but did anyway.

  "Note?"

  "He left a note. He said it was all his fault. That he took full responsibility. That he'd made a bad investment and lost all the money. Didn't mention anybody else. He was that way. He wouldn't blame anybody else for his problems. He just took all the blame on himself."

  "Handwritten?"

  She nodded, twisting a wadded up tissue in her big hands. "He took eighty Valium."

  "I'm sorry." It sounded inane, but I said it anyway.

  "It was probably better that way," she said. "At least it was over for him. He didn't have to be around when they auctioned off the house, the cars, Mom's furniture, everything. I don't think he could have stood that. It would have broken him. They even sold his and Mom's clothes to a secondhand store in Wenatchee."

  "And Rachel Gandy?"

  Rosalee Weber sat up now, placing both hands flat on the desktop.

  "That was later. After the auction and the suits and the settlements, when things started to slow down a little and I had time to think about things, that's when I got back to wondering about Rachel Gandy. About the timing of it all. How Dad had looked that day when he found she'd gone. How he'd run right over to the bank. How happy he'd been up until that morning. How terribly alone he'd been since my mother

  passed away. Then I started to think about how much time he and Rachel had spent together out there at Vista in the models. Day and night for months, just the two of them out there together. It started to add up. That's when I started to wonder. She had him to herself. He was so lonely. It would have been so easy for a woman like her. He was country, just a small-time, small-town guy, you know, it would have been no problem for her. So I started asking some questions." "And?"

  "Most people around here wouldn't even talk to me. Lots of folks around here had money in the project. Far as they were concerned, if I wasn't going to have the decency to do what Dad did, I should have at least left town. I kept at it though, and eventually I ran down a couple of the original construction guys, electricians, who said that on a couple of nights, back in late July, when they'd stayed late to finish up projects, the model was lit up long after closing time, that it sounded like there were people in there. Music, laughing. Sounded like a party. The second time it happened, they knocked to see what was going on. They thought maybe it was kids, you know. According to them, my Dad answered the door, and she, Rachel, was in there with him."