Memory Lane

by Vella Munn

  Kim wrapped her arms around her grandmother’s shoulders, fighting tears. This woman had lived an incredible life. She’d been loved by two very special men. She’d had the strength to pull herself together after a devastating loss and had gone on to raise three healthy, well-adjusted children. “What a beautiful sentiment,” Kim whispered. “You had a good marriage. Two of them. I just wish Grandfather—”

  Margaret interrupted. “Don’t you worry about me. I want you to find someone of your own to love.”

  “I’d like that,” Kim admitted as she cradled her grandmother’s head against her shoulder. “It just hasn’t happened yet. There aren’t many men like Grandfather or Dow out there these days. Strong, good men may be a dying breed.”

  Margaret Revis waited until Kim had been gone for the better part of an hour. In that time, the older woman watched the shadows stretch up to the glass door and enter the room.

  She’d done wrong by Kim. In her love for a motherless child, and her own need to pass on what Dow had given her, Margaret had given Kim a warm, solid background. She’d spun wonderful stories about a man who loved a woman enough to allow that woman to grow in ways most women of her generation weren’t able to. Margaret didn’t regret letting Kim know that.

  But she had gone too far. She shouldn’t have told Kim as much as she had about the never-ending wonder of being married. And she shouldn’t have lied.

  It was dark now. But when Margaret got to her feet, it wasn’t to chase away the shadows. She reached for the phone, dialed a number, but after listening to it ring twice, hung up. Shaking her head, her lower lip once again caught between her teeth, Margaret made her way to the glass door. She could no longer see the hummingbirds. There was nothing to distract her from the past.

  And from her lies.

  The second time she picked up the phone she completed her call. The sound of Mark Stockton’s deep, competent voice calmed her a little.

  Chapter Two

  Kim’s mind was going in three directions at once as she got into her car and started down the private drive that would take her from her grandmother’s house to one of Camp Oro’s narrow streets. She was on her way to her first meeting with the staff members of the Comstock Museum and determined to be as prepared as possible given what little she knew. Although Kim had served as a consultant before, this was the first time the request for her services had been prompted by desperation and embarrassment. According to Stephan, the losses, although each relatively minor, added up to thousands of dollars.

  It was obvious that the museum should have had an effective security system installed long ago, but the Comstock Museum wasn’t unique in its failure to do so. Many museum personnel shied away from anything that would make their structure look like a fortress. Unless Kim was mistaken, even with the thefts, she would have her work cut out for her convincing the employees that an open-door policy wasn’t going to work.

  Maybe she should have talked to the local police first, Kim was thinking as she reached Rich Gulch Street and prepared to turn. She jerked to a stop in front of a gaping hole where the street had been as recently as last night.

  A group of elementary school students was standing off to one side, jostling each other for better view of the large, dark pit. A city work truck was parked nearby, but the two men leaning against the truck seemed more intent on responding to questions than doing anything. A trio of men Kim had seen lounging outside the Camp Oro Tavern Saturday night were closest to the cracked and buckled pavement.

  Kim jumped out of her car. This made absolutely no sense whatsoever. As she shut her door, she heard one of the men ask the other two if they were sure the TV station had been called.

  “I told you,” the one with the least amount of hair snapped. “They said they were on their way. Bringing cameras. You want I should draw you a map?”

  The one who’d asked the question took the put-down in stride. “I told ’em. Told ’em it was going to happen again.”

  “You didn’t tell anyone anything. And even if you did, no one would listen to you. Would you look at that thing! That’s the biggest damn cave-in we’ve ever had.”

  Kim stifled the impulse to order the men to stop arguing with each other and answer the thousand and one questions running through her mind. If their chortles and joking attempts to shove each other into the pit were any indication of their mood, they wouldn’t give her a straight story, even if they knew anything.

  This was incredible! She was going to be late for her first day of work because a street had caved in and she couldn’t get her car out of the driveway. Last night there’d been pavement with a dividing line painted down the middle. Now there was absolutely nothing. A section of Rich Gulch Street some twenty feet in diameter had fallen out of sight.

  When a couple of well-dressed women joined the growing crowd, Kim left her car and came close enough so she could catch what they were saying. “Do you think the mayor knows?” one asked the other. “Knowing that man, it’s going to take him a year to decide what to do.”

  The other woman laughed her agreement. “I served on the budget committee last spring. I know the town doesn’t have the money to deal with this.”

  You can’t just leave it! Kim stewed, but she wasn’t going to waste time attempting to point that out to the women. Someone must be in charge. She could ask the women if there was a public-works foreman or how she could reach the mayor. That’s what she’d do. She’d present her case to the mayor and insist he do something.

  Kim started around the hole, angling toward the women, but stopped before she reached them. Was the hole getting larger? Now that she was within a few feet of it, she could see asphalt lying in huge chunks at the bottom of the pit. She estimated the depth at somewhere between ten and fifteen feet. It was so dark down there that it was hard to be certain.

  Kim took another step before the strength left her legs. Fascinated, and fearful, she gave up the battle. Kim still sensed the presence of others, but their voices couldn’t reach her. She was communicating with the cold, dark pit. She was being pulled emotionally as well as physically toward it.

  Kim inched as close as she dared and dropped to a squatting position. This was a hole in the ground. A freak of nature in the middle of civilization. Something easily explained.

  Something capable of reaching out and pulling her into it.

  “You better get back, lady. The rest of it might go.”

  That made sense. Kim realized she should have known better than to stand on the cracked and tilting asphalt that ringed the hole. There might be solid earth beneath the asphalt and there might be nothing. She got to her feet, feeling a heaviness in her legs as she tried to step back.

  Closer. Come just a little closer.

  Thoroughly frightened now, Kim scrambled backward. Sweat broke out on her neck and shoulders, making a lie of her desperate attempt to deny what she’d heard or thought she’d heard. No one else was staring, white-lipped, into the hole.

  She was the only one who had heard the eerie invitation.

  Kim was relieved to see the TV camera pull up and start hauling equipment out of their vehicle. The sight of the professionally made-up woman and her blandly handsome companion gave the surroundings a reality that had been missing before. This was a newsworthy event. Something that would be logically explained during the evening news. Certainly not something to keep her awake at night.

  “Does anyone know how many times this has happened before?” the TV woman was asking. “Wasn’t the last cave-in over by the post office?”

  “Last winter,” the bald man from the tavern volunteered. “Just after Christmas.”

  “It was not near Christmas,” he was contradicted by his companion. “It wasn’t even Thanksgiving yet.”

  “Whadda you know? It was, too, Christmas. Cold as you know what, with so much fog that it was a couple of days before anyone noticed the parking lot had caved in.”

  “Says who? You make up more stories than my cat has k
ittens. The one by the post office wasn’t near as big as this. If you ask me, they ought to make it into a swimming pool.”

  Kim watched as the TV woman tried to extricate herself from the discussion between men who obviously believed themselves experts on cave-ins. The TV man was interested in finding out how to get in touch with the mayor. From what Kim gathered, being the mayor of Camp Oro was a volunteer position, and the man was probably at work and just now hearing about the cave-in. “He’ll turn it over to Mark anyway,” one of the two well-dressed women said. “That’s what they pay him for.”

  “Forget Mark,” her companion laughed. “You and I have to get to work.”

  “Forget Mark?” the first woman uttered as the other one pulled her away. “That’s a lot easier said than done.”

  Kim was trying to remember where she’d heard the name Mark when the TV woman called out a hearty hello and signaled with expansive gestures that she wanted someone to join her. Kim glanced in the direction the woman was looking. The man making his way through the crowd was notable for two reasons: he was the only one moving with a sense of purpose and he was—was magnetic the right word?

  “Did you just get here?” the TV woman asked. Kim watched as the hard professional veneer fell away. In its place emerged an eyelash batting flirt with one hip casually jutting in the newcomer’s direction.

  “I got a call a little while ago, but I had a client with me. It didn’t take you people much time to get here.”

  “You know how it is, Mark.” The TV woman switched her weight to her other hip. “Slow news day. If nothing else comes up by five o’clock, this’ll be the feature.”

  “I was afraid of that.” The man frowned. “Let me talk to the public-works crew and the mayor, and then we’ll get you your story.”

  The woman glanced at her watch. “I’m supposed to see some woman who’s heading a renters’ protest group in an hour. Let me get it on film, Mark. We’ll take some shots of you measuring the hole or something. You can fill me in on what’s going to happen later.”

  “Don’t rush me, Nora. I don’t want to be misquoted the way I was the last time.”

  Kim felt like an eavesdropper but she couldn’t wander away. A size forty-four long jacket, she decided. Slate hair made for a woman to run her fingers through. A chest— Kim blew out her breath.

  “All right,” the object of her not-too-civilized thoughts was saying. “Get your camera set up. We’re going to have to get barriers around this before someone falls in it.”

  “Where’s the cops?” a man standing near Mark asked. “What do we pay taxes for if there’s no cop around when we need one?”

  Mark turned quickly. Kim got her first clear look at his eyes, deep and smoke green as the swimming hole she’d known as a child. Like the river water, and like the cave-in, Mark’s eyes demanded respect. “There’s no cop on duty this morning because you, and others like you, decided the town didn’t need full-time police protection, Howard. If you had your way, we wouldn’t have a public-works crew, either.”

  “Hey,” Howard spluttered. “You can’t talk to me like that.”

  Mark’s broad shoulders were more than a match for the other man’s expanded belly. “Why not. I don’t have time to listen to you shoot off your mouth.”

  Stunned, Kim took a backward step. She expected a man who dressed and looked like someone who could command respect simply by existing to speak in carefully modulated tones and sweep away any opposition with professional logic. Instead Mark was meeting the other man on his ground. And winning the argument.

  Howard was still spluttering, but no one was paying any attention to him. Instead the crowd’s attention was being diverted as the men from the public-works crew presented their case to Mark.

  The workmen understood the need to put some kind of barrier around the cave-in but were in disagreement as to the effectiveness of what was in their truck. Mark suggested that they use signs proclaiming No Trespassing By Order Of Camp Oro Police Department and the workmen went into action. With the TV crew recording the event, one of the workmen started placing flashing portable signs around the hole. The other jumped into the truck and took off.

  She’d gotten too close to the hole. Without having to turn and look at it, Kim sensed its drawing power. Half hoping no one was making note of what she was doing, half not caring, Kim put another ten feet between her and the darkness. Only then did she glance at her watch. She’d been here the better part of a half hour now. She was already late getting to the Comstock Museum. And she was going to be even later if she didn’t do more than stand and listen.

  Kim edged forward. She stopped with her arm inches from Mark’s. He smelled of wool and the same spicy aftershave her father used. His presence separated her from the hold the cave-in had on her. “Excuse me. I need to talk to you.” Her words were directed at the man’s chest.

  “What?”

  “I need to talk to you,” Kim repeated. “About my car.”

  “In a minute. I’ve got my hands full right now.”

  “I’m sure you do. However, I have a problem.” He did look busy. She tried to sound reasonable. “I can’t get my car onto the street. It’s totally useless.” She pointed at her trapped car to emphasize her point.

  For the first time Kim felt the man was paying attention to her. He looked, looked again and then spoke. “Oh, brother. One more thing. All right. Look, I’ve got to do this TV thing first. Hang on a bit, will you?”

  Kim couldn’t decide whether that was an order or a request. Either way she had little choice but to stand back and watch the camera zero in on Mark. He was asked to get as close to the hole as possible so it would show up in the background. Kim expected him to straighten his tie or make some other concession for the camera, but he only waited with the patience of a man who’d been interviewed before.

  “From what I understand,” Mark was saying, “the cave-in was first noticed by some high-school students waiting for their bus. By the time they found someone to take a look at it, this whole section—” Mark pointed “—had broken off and dropped into the tunnel.”

  “This isn’t the first time this has happened in Camp Oro,” the TV woman prompted as the blandly handsome man aimed the camera at her. “Would you please explain.”

  Kim didn’t listen to Mark’s response. Living in San Francisco had led her to believe that men either had their hair styled by professionals at such establishments as The Country Squire or had it attacked during the annual sheep shearing. Mark had a head of thick black hair a stylist would kill to get his hands on, and yet she was willing to bet he went to a barber where he could read back issues of fishing magazines. His suit was nothing outstanding. It fit magnificently because Mark had the physique to make anything look good, but she’d be surprised if he’d done more than snag it off a rack during his lunch hour.

  He was clean shaven. As he tilted his head to one side, Kim caught a glimpse of a thin white line along his jawbone and called up the image of a boy fighting for honor or reputation on some dimly remembered playground. His hands were too big and square to fit the stereotype of a politician. She’d like to see him in jeans; jeans were, to her way of thinking, the ultimate in masculine attire.

  The thought startled Kim. She’d never been a voyeur. Usually she had an excuse for not joining the other single women she knew for a night on the town. What interested Kim Revis was the inner man, not the outer package. At least that’s what had always interested her before.

  “Can you give us any predictions about when the street will be repaired?” the TV woman asked.

  Mark shrugged and gave a noncommittal answer. He was saying something about having to meet with the city council, and Kim was forced to acknowledge and admire his quick, logical mind.

  The TV woman was trying to get Mark to commit himself to something, but he obviously wasn’t going to be backed into whatever it was. With a last glance at the camera, he stepped away from where he’d been asked to stand. “Later, No
ra. I thought you had another interview.”

  “I can reschedule.” Nora was standing closer to Mark than necessary.

  “I can’t.”

  Kim silently applauded Mark’s ability to turn down the woman’s invitation without calling attention to what he was doing. Still it made approaching him an unsettling business. Everyone, it seemed, wanted a piece of the man. They expected him to take charge. But, maybe that wasn’t the role he wanted to assume.

  “Do you remember me?” Kim asked as she eased herself in front of Mark. “The woman without the car.”

  Mark could have turned his attention to her car, but he was looking down at her. The look lasted a long time. “I’m sorry about that.”

  “So am I.” She should have worn heels instead of the flats she figured she’d need if she was going to spend the day touring the museum. Yet, more than height was tipping the balance in his favor. “It kind of puts me in a bind.”

  “Agreed. Unless you can hire a crane to hoist your car onto the main road, you’re in a jam. Serious jam.” The green eyes caught Kim and pulled her into them.

  Thrown off balance, Kim seized the first thing to pop into her mind. “What do you mean, I’m in a jam? This hole—” She pointed without taking her eyes off Mark. “This hole is your responsibility.”

  “Mine?” he threw back at her. “Where did you get that idea?”

  “I— You’re telling everyone what to do. You’re the one who was just interviewed.”

  “It isn’t my cave-in. Just like it isn’t my town, although there’re a lot of people who’d like to dump it in my lap this morning. Look. Why don’t I have the mayor get in touch with you after we’ve hashed out a few things. I’m going to be late getting back to my office as it is.”

  Mark’s brusque dismissal was more than Kim could handle this morning. Facing a new job, spending the weekend alone in the house that had once held a three-generation family, the strange, uneasy mood that had overtaken her as she tried to look into the hole, had gotten the best of her. “At least you can get to work,” she whispered. She blinked twice, appalled by her tears.