by Vivien Sparx
Stone arched an eyebrow. “Well what kind of man do I look like?”
She thought about that too. “You look like a determined man,” she said. “You look like the kind of man who is relentless. I see it in your eyes. It’s like you’re gazing at a far away horizon. Know what I mean?”
Stone nodded. Finished his Coke.
“You look like a man who is here for a reason – a reason that was worth coming a long way for.”
Stone didn’t respond. He sat back for another long moment, staring hard at the woman. He had plenty of experience with people, good and bad. He figured he was a good judge of character. He figured this woman was someone he could take the chance on. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the article he had torn from the newspaper. Laid it on the table, pressed out all the creases.
“Do you know anything about these girls?” he asked.
The woman barely glanced at the article. Stone figured she probably already knew the story word for word. “I know the girls. Don’t know any more about what happened other than what I read in the paper, though. Why?”
Stone sat back and sighed. “I’m looking for another girl who went missing,” he said.
“From here? From Windswept?” the woman sounded suddenly shocked.
Stone shook his head. “No, from back home in Massachusetts. My kid sister. She went missing three years ago. She was sixteen. We thought she was dead, but now I’m not so sure. I’ve been following leads. They brought me here. And when I arrive, I find that two other girls have gone missing.”
“And you think your sister’s disappearance three years ago is somehow connected to the two girls who disappeared from here last week?” She frowned, trying to make some kind of logical connection in her head. Did a fluttering thing with her hands and then absently peeled a paper napkin from the steel dispenser on the table and began tearing it into little shreds. Stone watched her. Maybe it was what she did when she was concentrating.
He shrugged. “Maybe.”
The woman couldn’t find a way to connect the dots. She frowned again. “How?”
Stone leaned forward, put his elbows on the table, bunched his fists and cracked his knuckles. “It’s a long story.”
The woman pushed back her chair and stood up. “Fine,” she said. She went around behind the counter and switched off the lights. “You can tell me when we get to my place.”
Stone paused, not completely shocked, but a little surprised. It wasn’t often people surprised him. “Pardon?”
“I’m taking you home,” the woman said. “You can stay at my place while you’re looking for your sister.”
Stone studied her carefully. She was pulling on a blue cardigan and stuffing things into her handbag, business-like and brisk. “I was going to stay at the motel across the road.”
“Not gonna happen,” she said. “It’s three miles into town. You’ll spend half your time just walking. I live down on West Street. You’ll be closer to where you need to be. And besides, I’ve practically been deputized by the local police force to keep an eye on you while you’re in these parts. Didn’t you hear officer Peyton?”
“He deputized you?” Stone started to smile.
“Well,” she shrugged. “That’s how it sounded to me.”
They stepped out into the darkening afternoon. Stone stood with his hands in his pockets watching the traffic blur by while the woman locked the diner’s front door and rattled it half a dozen times just to be sure. Passing cars were just starting to turn on their headlights. Night comes fast in the desert.
“Where’s your luggage?” the woman asked.
“Luggage?”
“Your bags.”
Stone shrugged. “I’ve got a knapsack behind the reception desk at the motel across the road. That’s it.”
The woman nodded, like she wasn’t all that surprised. “Fetch it,” she said. She unlocked the driver-side door to the grey Chevy and let some of the built-up heat of the day out. She wound the window all the way down and then slid in behind the big old-fashioned steering-wheel that seemed like it belonged on a farmer’s tractor. She looked totally out of place – this petite delicate little woman at the wheel of the big ancient brute. She pumped the gas pedal a few times then turned the ignition. The car started first time. Stone noticed how long and brown her legs looked. The woman noticed the direction of his gaze but made no move at all. “I’ll meet you back here,” she said, with just the trace of a flirtatious little smile on her lips.
Six.
Lilley Pond sat with the drivers seat close to the wheel, and used one hand for steering the big car, and the other for talking. She was one of those women who talked with her hands – couldn’t talk without gestures.
When Stone got in the car, he pushed his seat back on the runners as far as it would go, and tried to make some leg room for himself. There were worn rubber mats on the floor, and there were two cardboard boxes on the back seat. Looked like catering stuff – plates and cooking supplies maybe. There were a couple of crumpled credit card receipts stuffed into the unused ashtray, and a fine layer of dust on the dashboard. Stone set the canvas knapsack down between his knees and cranked his window down to let the cooling afternoon air in. He could hear the hiss of the tires and the whistle of the wind.
The road towards Windswept was just a standard piece of two-lane tarmac. Looked like it had been resurfaced in the last few years. Loose gravel sprinkled and spattered against the underbody of the car when it got too close to the verge.
“What have you got in there?” Lilley pointed to the knapsack. “Not guns, I hope. I’m not taking some kind of deranged madman home with me, am I?” She smiled to let Stone know she wasn’t really worried, and to take the edge off the actual question. She was curious, not concerned. She had small white perfect teeth.
Stone shrugged. “Everything,” he said. “Everything I need. Everything I own. No guns.”
“Wow. You travel light.” She did a thing with her hand and the car veered towards the middle of the road, but she didn’t seem to notice. There was no other traffic, so it probably didn’t matter, but Stone felt himself stiffen. It was like she couldn’t co-ordinate how to talk and drive at the same time. Stone figured she’d probably last five minutes driving in a city – or on a freeway. But out here in the Arizona desert, it didn’t seem to be a problem. Stone couldn’t recall seeing any dented fenders on the car when he got in – but maybe she had just been lucky so far.
“I like to keep things simple,” Stone said. “And it’s hard to move around if you’re carrying too much luggage. Apart from a couple of shirts, another pair of jeans, a hat and some personal stuff, what else would I need?”
“Shoes.”
“I’m wearing my shoes,” Stone said. “I’ve only got one pair of feet, so I only need one pair of shoes.”
Lilley said nothing for a mile or so. The car crested a gentle rise, and in the distance, Jack Stone finally got his first glimpse of the township of Windswept.
They were still a couple of miles out, so his first impression was of a low, dark smudge crouched and silent and insignificant within the vast wasteland of surrounding dry desert. The smudge had shape, but not definition. He could see dull light glinting off rooftops set against the brilliant oranges and reds and mauves of a spectacular sunset. But not even nature’s breathtaking light-show could make the town look pretty.
Lilley switched on the Chevy’s headlights.
“Welcome to Windswept,” she said. “Sorry, we normally have a marching band and parade to welcome visitors.” Another smile, this one making her eyes sparkle.
“That’s okay,” Stone said. “I got a taste of the local welcoming committee back at the diner.”
Lilley made a face and waved her hand in dismissal. The car veered again, then came back to the right side of the road. “That was just Larry and Marv. They’re well meaning boys. They take their jobs as deputies very seriously.”
Stone grunted. “I noticed,” he
said. “I take everyone who points a shotgun at me seriously.”
Another brief silence. They were coming closer to town. Structures quickly took on shape and size, but not color. Everything looked drab and brown. The outlying buildings were brick blocks, single story: factory-type buildings behind high chain wire fences. Scraggly tufts of dry weed grew between the cracked pavements and around the locked gates. There were no lights. Everything seemed dark and deserted.
“The brick factory closed down back in the 80’s,” she said as they entered the outskirts of town. They cruised past a roadside sign that was just the same as the one Stone had seen back at the turnoff. Same lettering, same shape, just without the ‘3-mile’ indicator. “That was before my time,” she added. “The cement works closed about a decade ago.”
Stone frowned. “So what do people do for work around these parts?” he asked. “What keeps Windswept from disappearing off the map and becoming a ghost town?”
Lilley thought about that as she shifted gears, slowing down as they approached a T-intersection. “We’re stubborn,” she said at last, not because it was necessarily the right answer, but because it was the only answer she could come up with. Stone suspected the truth was that there was no good answer, and no good reason for Windswept to exist. He guessed there were struggling towns like this one right across Arizona and beyond.
“A lot of the locals work in tourism. I know quite a few folks who commute to Phoenix – and there’s talk of the cement works re-opening.” She shrugged, crawled through the intersection, and then picked up speed again.
The town began to take on more detail. At the next intersection Lilley braked and slipped the car out of gear. The big engine gurgled and hissed and rattled as it sat there idling. Stone glanced out the passenger window and saw a sign on a pole that told him they were driving down Main Street. Across the intersection he could see a row of low red brick buildings on both sides of the road with big shop front windows. They all looked the same; only the signage for each one seemed different. There were streetlights here so he could read the signs out front of each store, and a cluster of park benches spaced along the footpaths.
Lilley pointed. “The police station is a hundred yards further on,” she said, like she thought it was important Stone knew. Then she clunked the Chevy back into gear and turned left, cruising slowly along a dark quiet street that had cars parked in front of old houses with wide verandas. “This is West Street,” Lilley said. “My place is just up ahead.”
She pulled up outside an old weather-worn timber shack that had probably once been charming, but now just looked tired and beaten down by fifty years of summer and dust. The paint was peeling and blistering off the walls, and the guttering sagged. Stone noticed there was grey mesh insect screen on all the windows he could see from where he stood.
Lilley stooped over a mailbox that was just a standard metal box atop a treated timber post. She withdrew an advertising circular and tucked it into her handbag, then led Stone along a short cement path and up two steps onto the veranda. The screen door hung off one hinge. Lilley made a face that might have been a plea for understanding, or an apology, Stone wasn’t sure. She pulled the door open and held it with her hip while trying to balance her handbag on her knee as she rummaged round for the key. Stone set down his knapsack and stood back to let her do her thing while he looked around.
The houses across the street were in the same state of neglect and disrepair. Maybe all the residents were unmarried women who didn’t have a man to do the maintenance work around a house. Maybe the men in Windswept were lazy, or worked away all week. Maybe the relentless harsh weather in these parts just became too much to bother trying anymore.
Maybe everyone knew the town of Windswept was dying, and it was just a matter of time.
There was a light burning in the front room of the house directly opposite, and he could hear a dog barking somewhere further along the street.
Stone heard Lilley grunt, and he turned round to see her using her shoulder against the front door to shove it open. She stood in the doorway for a moment, reaching inside the doorframe to switch on lights.
“Welcome,” she said. “I know it’s not much, but it’s home.”
Seven.
Lilley dropped her handbag on the sofa and went through the rest of the house switching on more lights while Stone stood in the small living room and looked around.
“Make yourself at home,” she called from somewhere down a long hallway. Probably her bedroom, Stone guessed. “I’ll just be a couple of minutes.”
Stone stood in the middle of the room and took it all in quickly. Cheap sofa, old television resting on a cabinet that looked like it had been bought in a pack and assembled. There were chips and gouges in the laminate. There was a bookcase set against the far wall that looked like it matched the TV stand. Stone ran his eyes over the stacked shelves out of idle curiosity. There was a lot of cook books, some old hardcovers and three shelves of erotic romance paperbacks. The rest of the space was stacked with sagging mounds of magazines and personal nik-naks. There were no photos. Stone thought that was odd. He frowned and looked around the room again. No photos anywhere.
He went to the front window and pulled back the curtains. The windowpane was dusty, and the insect screen was frayed and holed in a couple of places. He noticed the window frame had been nailed shut.
Stone glanced out at the quiet street. The light he had seen in the house opposite was out now, everything eerie silent and shut down for the night. Even the dog had stopped barking.
He heard Lilley before he turned. She was talking as she came down the hall, probably for no other reason than to let him know she was coming so he wouldn’t feel like she was sneaking up on him. So when she came into the living room he was standing waiting by the window.
She had changed out of her blue uniform into a white sundress. It was a simple thing, buttoned up at the front, and belted at the waist with a piece of fabric that was the same material and color as the dress. It was sleeveless, cut just above the knee. The white showed off the tan of her legs and arms. She smiled at him, and he noticed she had taken time to touch up her makeup. The lipstick was fresh, and she had added color around her eyes. Her hair was still in a bun but she was tugging at the pins even now while he watched her. She did it all very casually, very matter-of-factly, but Stone knew enough about women to know that she was doing this for him, not for comfort, and not out of habit. No woman came home from a hard day’s work and changed, did her make-up and spent time on her hair just to sit in front of the television alone for the evening.
Lilley turned away for a moment, glanced over her shoulder into the kitchen, and when she turned back, the pins were gone and her hair tumbled in a long wavy black cascade over her shoulders. She shook it out like a fashion model, then sighed.
“That’s better,” she said, sounding genuinely relieved. “Having my hair up all day gives me a headache.”
She came further into the room, her steps light on the threadbare grey carpet. She had her hands clasped in front of her body in a kind of defensive posture, still a little uncertain, maybe a little hesitant. “I know it’s not much…”
Stone shook his head. “I’m grateful. It’s a lot better than sleeping in a motel,” he said. Then, without pausing he asked, “How long have you been divorced?”
She tilted her head to one side and gave him a little look of surprise. “What makes you think I’m divorced?”
Stone shrugged. “An educated guess,” he said. “You don’t wear a wedding ring, and any married woman who invites a man to her home would have made the fact very apparent, so a guy like me didn’t draw the wrong conclusion. And second, there are no photos. I figured you took them all down after the divorce. It’s something a woman would do. If you had been married and your husband had died, you would have had photos of him everywhere, like some kind of a shrine. That kind of thing.”
Lilley started to smile, and then stopped herself. She p
ut her hands on her hips and tried to look outraged and defiant. “What makes you think I was ever married at all, mister?”
Now Stone smiled. “Because you’re too damn beautiful to have stayed single.”
She laughed then, and the sound was light and sweet and suited her. She shook her head. “Eight years,” she admitted.
Stone raised an eyebrow in surprise. “You married young then.”
“And divorced young. He went to Phoenix for work and didn’t come back.”
Stone knew there was a lot more to the story but he let it go.
They stood there, three feet of awkward uncertain tension between them, saying nothing. Then suddenly Lilley made a gasping sound like she had been holding her breath for too long, and twirled on her heel, headed for the kitchen, calling to him from over her shoulder. “I hope you like homemade pumpkin soup.”
Eight.
The soup was good. Stone helped himself to seconds, and then Lilley poured him a cup of black coffee and came to sit across from him at the old wooden kitchen table.
“Jack – can I call you Jack?”
“Sure. Can I call you Lilley?”
She smiled again. She put her hand flat on the table, fingers splayed like she wanted to reach out for him but stopped herself. Stone looked into her eyes.
“Jack, what are you really doing here? And how long will you be in town for? Do you know?”
Stone sipped at his coffee to buy himself time. Decision time. Stone went with his instincts. He set the cup down on the table.
“I am looking for my kid sister,” he said. “Her name is Susan.” He reached into his back pocket and took out his wallet, flipped it open to a passport-size faded photo behind a plastic window. He laid the wallet open flat on the table so Lilley could see. She leaned closer and peered down.