Take the Bait

by S. W. Hubbard

While an encounter with a Stevenson this early in the morning wasn’t particularly good for his digestion, he did want to ask Ned about Dell Lambert. He slid his open copy of the weekly Mountain Herald toward Ned. “Quite a turnout for old man Lambert’s funeral, huh? I didn’t realize he had so many friends.”

  “He was a fixture around town.” Ned studied the breakfast menu, as if he didn’t already have it committed to memory. “I suppose his cronies will miss him over at the Store.”

  Frank nodded. “He lived a good, long life. Too bad the last few months of it were unhappy.”

  “Why’s that?” Ned obligingly allowed himself to be set up.

  “Celia said he seemed to think you were spying on him.”

  Ned met Frank’s steady gaze without blinking. “Spying on him? Why would he think that?”

  “He noticed your car cruising back and forth in front of his house. His sight had been gradually coming back over the past few years, and he thought you were on to him.”

  Ned’s mouth actually dropped open, giving him a rather foolish expression. He lifted his coffee cup to his lips, but his hand shook, and coffee splashed on his clean khakis. “Well,” Ned said finally, “I wouldn’t have given Mr. Lambert credit for being so sharp. But I did suspect that he could see. And I was keeping an eye on him. No crime in that, though, is there?” He rose and tossed two dollars on the counter. “I better get to work.”

  Marge emerged from the kitchen in time to see the door close behind Ned. “What happened to him?” she asked, setting Frank’s eggs and hash browns before him. “I thought he wanted breakfast.”

  “Guess he changed his mind,” Frank answered. “Could I get a little jelly?”

  He hadn’t really known what to expect when he confronted Ned about Mr. Lambert, but it certainly wasn’t that. There was a lie in there somewhere, but he was damned if he could figure out what it was.

  Later, standing on the steps of Malone’s diner, his stomach comfortably full, Frank watched a school bus rumble past the green on its way to High Peaks High School. Tommy Pettigrew would be on that bus—assuming, of course, that he was attending school today. Impulsively, Frank decided to head over to the high school and catch a word with him before the school day began.

  He didn’t even have to pull into the school driveway to find the boy. Tommy was leaning against a telephone pole at the edge of the school property, smoking a cigarette. Frank parked on the side of the road and walked toward Tommy, who watched him approach with a flat-eyed stare.

  “Hi, Tom—got a minute?” Frank asked.

  “Not really. School’s starting soon.”

  “Well, I know you wouldn’t want to be late. I just want your opinion—won’t take long.” Frank smiled. “You know, I’ve been talking to Kim and Melanie, and I get the feeling that those two didn’t truly know Janelle, the real Janelle, you know what I mean?”

  Tommy snorted. “That’s for sure. All they care about is themselves, those stuck-up bitches.”

  “But it was different with you and Janelle—after all, you’re blood relatives. You understood her, even if you don’t hang around with the same kids anymore.”

  Tommy nodded. Some of his usual bravado seemed to dissipate.

  Frank proceeded cautiously. Maybe, just maybe, he was getting somewhere. “You could probably tell each other things that you wouldn’t want other friends to know.”

  Tommy didn’t answer. His eyes had a faraway look, focused on the mountains surrounding the school. Suddenly Frank saw him as vulnerable, almost wistful. Maybe Tommy really did miss Janelle. Maybe he’d read Tommy all wrong. When the kid had said he was glad Janelle was gone, perhaps he’d meant she was better off gone, he was glad she was safely away. Could Tommy have been covering for Janelle all along?

  “Tom,” Frank said softly. “It’s all right to ask for help.”

  Tommy’s eyes met his for the first time in their conversation. Frank waited, but the boy said nothing. He remembered something Jack had said about the Harveys not washing their dirty linen in public. “If Janelle’s in some kind of trouble, some kind of danger—from anyone—we can straighten it out,” Frank went on, afraid to say too much.

  Tommy ground out his cigarette.

  “I know something was troubling her. Maybe something to do with her family,” Frank forged on. Tommy’s boot stopped its obsessive grinding, but he kept his eyes focused on his feet.

  Frank knew he was pushing the limits, but he didn’t see any way around it. “She asked Pastor Bob, ‘Why does God let terrible things happen?’ What did she mean by that, Tom?”

  Tommy took a step backward. “How should I know? What did he say?”

  “He didn’t know. They were interrupted before Janelle could tell him.”

  Up on the hill, a bell rang faintly. Tommy grabbed his backpack. “I gotta go—school’s starting.”

  Frank grabbed the boy’s arm. “What terrible thing happened?”

  Tommy pulled away angrily. “There was no terrible thing! Leave me alone!” And he loped up the school driveway, blending in with the crowd of hurrying teenagers.

  Frank gazed listlessly out his office window, tormenting himself with what he could have done differently. Should he have come straight out with it? Tommy, was your uncle sexually abusing Janelle? Tommy would’ve denied it and complained to Jack. Jack would be outraged and complain to Clyde. And no one in town would side with him. Why should they? He had no concrete evidence to back up the accusation.

  A little red Mazda entered his field of vision, pulling into the parking lot alongside the post office. He watched, mesmerized, as a pair of strappy sandals emerged, followed by two slender, tanned legs. Immediately he perked up—those legs could belong to only one person in Trout Run.

  He smiled as he watched Penny Stevenson bounce up the steps to the post office. Those long legs were wasted behind a library desk. They must have been more of an asset in her hash-slinging days at the Trail’s End. The place had a slightly raffish reputation, mostly because it was run by Laurel Matson, an aging hippie from down-state, and had some odd vegetarian dishes on the menu. Frank’s smile broadened as he imagined what Clyde’s reaction must have been when he first learned his daughter-in-law was passing out plates of tofu to backpackers.

  The scene evolving in Frank’s mind’s eye grew more detailed; he could see the interior of the Trail’s End quite clearly. When certain faces revealed themselves to him, he raced out the office door, hoping to catch Penny before she got back to her car.

  Luckily, post office workers were no faster in Trout Run than anywhere else, so he arrived beside the little red car just as Penny did.

  “Hi, Frank.” She flashed him that big grin. “Did you run over here to give me a parking ticket?”

  “Nah, I’m saving my summons for when Clyde parks in front of a hydrant.” They chuckled together. “Seeing you made me think of something,” Frank told her.

  “You need more research done?”

  “No, it actually has more to do with your previous job.”

  Penny’s megawatt smile seemed to dim a bit, but she kept up her cheerful banter. “You want to know how to carry three cups of coffee and a piece of pie in one trip?”

  “No, I just wondered—do any of the local kids ever hang out at the Trail’s End? Maybe coming in to hear the music?”

  Working her softly colored agate beads through her fingers, Penny studied the ground for a long moment. “Unaccompanied minors aren’t allowed in the bar. Laurel almost lost her license a few years ago, and now she’s very strict about that.”

  A heavy silence hung between them. Frank waited.

  “I knew I should have spoken up sooner.” The words erupted from Penny like soda from a shaken bottle. “Ned thought it wasn’t important, that I’d only stir up trouble for Nick Reilly, the bartender, and give my in-laws another reason to be pissed at me.” She brought her head up and faced Frank squarely. “Do you ever feel that you lose perspective living here? I mean, everyone kno
ws everyone else’s business.” She spread her arms in a graceful arc. “Everyone has an opinion on how you ought to be living your life. But then when something bad happens, the heads all go straight down into the sand. And after a while, you start thinking you’re the one who’s crazy.” She ended her speech with a thump of both manicured hands against her chest.

  Even though she was obviously distressed, Frank could not help smiling. He wondered how long Trout Run, and Ned Stevenson, could withstand the force of her personality. “Believe me, Penny, you’re one of the sanest people I know. Now, start at the beginning and tell me what’s troubling you.”

  Penny took a deep breath. “Back in March, when I was still working at the Trail’s End, Janelle came in one night with two girlfriends to hear the band that was playing in the bar. At the time I didn’t know who she was, but with her face plastered all over town on those posters, it came back to me that I’d seen her there.”

  “I knew that damn Kim was keeping something from me,” Frank stewed.

  “I’m not surprised. The rule about no unaccompanied minors in the bar really is strictly enforced. But Laurel was out of town that weekend, and Melanie Powers is Nick Reilly’s niece. So he agreed to let them come to hear the Blue Mountain Stompers if they would just drink Coke and not take up a table from paying customers.

  “It was really busy that night so I didn’t pay much attention to them. But I remember seeing Janelle apart from the other two, talking to this intense-looking guy with a ponytail. It wouldn’t have stuck in my mind, except that she had a pen and she was taking notes.”

  Frank’s grip on his pen tightened. “Go on.”

  “That’s it. When Janelle disappeared, I asked Nick if he didn’t think we should tell the police that we had seen her talking to a strange man. But Nick said he knew the guy. That his name is Pablo; he comes into the Trail’s End every few weeks, and it couldn’t be important. So I let it drop.” She chewed on her lower lip, scraping off the deep red lipstick. “Then I got the job at the library and I put the whole thing out of my mind. But when you came in, I started thinking about it again. And when you told me Janelle was supposed to do primary research for her paper, it struck me that she might have been interviewing this Pablo guy.”

  “Interviewing him about utopian communities? You mean, you think he lives on a commune or something?” Frank asked.

  Penny shrugged. “Could be. You can tell from looking at him that he’s not an investment banker. Of course, that doesn’t mean he’s some kind of freak.”

  Frank glanced at his watch. “Nick Reilly on duty now?”

  “Yes,” Penny said, “but wait until after the lunch rush, when Laurel will be back in the kitchen talking to the cook about dinner. He’ll know that I sent you, but it would help if you could keep Laurel out of it.”

  Frank put his arm around Penny’s shoulders. “You did the right thing,” he reassured her.

  Penny offered him a smile that trailed off to a grimace. “Yeah, then how come I feel like the proverbial stone has just shifted from one shoulder to the other?”

  “I asked you a question and you answered it. Surely the Stevensons don’t expect you to lie to the police.”

  Penny sighed. “I can’t seem to figure out what they expect of me. I guess that’s my problem. I don’t know how to be a good Stevenson wife.” She gazed off at the mountains. “My parents were killed in a plane crash when I was five. My mother’s cousin was my guardian, and she shipped me off to boarding school as soon as she could. When I first met Ned and he described this place, it all sounded so perfect, so Norman Rockwell. I guess I fell in love with the whole package—the small town life surrounded by a big family. But I can’t seem to get this family solidarity thing right.” Penny smiled ruefully as she climbed into her car. “I guess it’s like royalty,” she said, buckling her seat belt. “You have to be born into it.”

  Frank watched the little red car zip out toward Stevenson Road, trying to suppress the image of old man Stevenson as he heard what his daughter-in-law had done.

  17

  THERE ARE ALL KINDS OF BARTENDERS: suave ones who work at fancy French restaurants; sexy young men and women who mix drinks at singles bars; avuncular types who tend neighborhood pubs; and salty, tough guys who pour shots and beers at working men’s hangouts. But all successful bartenders share one quality—they’re bullshit artists. Nick Reilly was no exception.

  Frank entered the bar at the Trail’s End at ten after three and found Nick polishing glasses and cutting lemons in preparation for the dinnertime rush. He greeted Frank cordially; if he felt any twinge of concern at having a cop leaning on his bar, he didn’t show it.

  “Hey, Frank, how you doin’? Some kinda weather we’ve been having, huh? Not nearly as buggy as usual,” Nick said as he set a stein of beer in front of Frank.

  “No, it’s great weather for hiking or working in the yard. ‘Course the fisherman all hate these clear, sunny days. Fish bite better in the rain.”

  “Ain’t that the truth. Say, you ever pull anything out of that stretch of the brook that runs behind your house?” Nick asked.

  “Yeah, I caught a beautiful brown trout a couple of weeks ago. I haven’t fished since then—quit while I’m ahead.”

  “You fly-fish?” Nick inquired.

  Frank waved dismissively. “Naw, none of that fancy stuff for me. Just a worm on a hook … and I eat what I catch, too.”

  “Hey, I’m with you, man! What’s the point if you don’t eat ’em, huh?” Nick grinned, slapping the polished oak bar for emphasis. His smile revealed two slightly overlapping front teeth, an imperfection that, along with a smattering of freckles, lent a permanently youthful air to a face that was pushing forty.

  Frank was smiling, too. He remembered being in the Trail’s End with Edwin just a few weeks back and overhearing Nick talking to some fly fisherman at the bar. On that occasion Reilly had been agreeing that anyone who did not release what he caught should be split and fried himself.

  “So, you going to have a band in here tonight?” Frank asked, nodding to the right of the bar, where two straight-backed chairs sat on a small raised platform. In recognition that musicians might need a little more light than candles stuck in wine bottles could provide, someone had carelessly tacked a single spotlight to the exposed beam that crossed over the stage. Performers weren’t coddled at the Trail’s End.

  “No, Jim and Mary Weaver will be here Saturday,” Nick explained.

  “You get a pretty good crowd in here on Saturdays, even in the winter, don’t you?”

  Nick shrugged. “Depends—some groups always pull them in.”

  “I hear the Blue Mountain Stompers have a regular following,” Frank said. “I’ve never heard them, but the kids all seem to like them. They must play rock, huh?”

  “No, it’s more like bluegrass—they call it Adirondack Country. You should come.” Nick checked a schedule that was taped up next to the cash register. “They’ll be here again August tenth.”

  “Yeah, maybe I will. There’s one of their fans I wouldn’t mind running into,” Frank said as he casually studied a framed photo of the previous year’s Talent Show Night.

  “Oh, who’s that?” Nick asked, his green eyes entirely guileless.

  “A fellow named Pablo—I don’t know his last name. I hear he hangs out here sometimes.”

  The first flush of understanding crept across Nick’s ingenuous moon face. He struggled to maintain his casual tone as he filled bowls with salted nuts. “Pablo? Yeah, name sounds familiar, but I meet so many people here …”

  “Sure, I understand,” Frank said as he helped himself to the nuts. “This particular guy was seen talking to Janelle Harvey a few weeks before she disappeared. Does that ring a bell?”

  Nick craned his neck to look beyond the huge field-stone fireplace that divided the room from a small service area leading back to the kitchen. Apparently seeing no one, he propped his elbows on the bar and looked Frank square in the eyes. �
��You’ve been talking to Penny Stevenson, haven’t you?”

  Frank lowered his usually resonant voice to a hoarse whisper and leaned so close that his head nearly touched the bartender’s. “Listen, I don’t care about you letting those girls into the bar. I just think this Pablo guy could tell me something about Janelle’s disappearance. There’s no need for Laurel to know anything about it.”

  Nick emitted a sharp guffaw that sounded like a terrier’s yelp. “Are you kidding? If you go into Malone’s and order a piece of pie, those old farts sittin’ in front of the Store know about it before you’ve finished up the crust. It won’t be long before they find out why you’re here.”

  Nick began to pace behind the bar. “When I got out of high school, I worked as a logger for a while. Every night, I came home feeling like I’d been hit by a freight train. Then a friend did me a ‘favor’ and got me in as a prison guard at Dannemora.” Nick stared unseeingly at the array of liquor bottles beside him. “Jesus, the stuff I saw there! People told me I’d get used to it. But I didn’t want to be the kind of guy who could get used to things like that, so I walked out. When Laurel hired me fifteen years ago I was flat broke; working odd jobs and crashing with friends. Now I have a little house over in Verona and a new car” Nick’s voice trailed off, and he threw down his bar rag in disgust. “What do you want to know?”

  The thrill of elation Frank felt when he realized that Nick Reilly was going to cooperate suffocated every spark of compassion within him, and he began to pepper the bartender with questions. “How well do you know this Pablo? Where does he live?”

  “He’s been coming in maybe once a month or every six weeks for over a year now. The reason he first stuck in my mind is he always drinks cognac”—Nick pointed to a bottle of Hennessy—“even in the summer. He nurses one glass for hours, then he leaves. He always has a book with him. Never says much to me—guess I’m not highbrow enough for him—but he usually strikes up a conversation with someone at the bar. Once he got a bunch of Canadians riled up, talking about Quebec separatists. Then he managed to start a thing on affirmative action with the only black customer we’ve had in here for months.”