Impulse

by Frederick Ramsay

  “You have a problem with my house all of a sudden?”

  “No, I just don’t want to—”

  “Well, I do. You okay with that?”

  “I’m okay.”

  The drive back to Ruxton took a bit longer than the trip out. He drove much more carefully at night and the streets were not familiar to him.

  He parked her car in the driveway.

  “Do you have nosey neighbors?” he asked.

  “Probably.”

  “You’re not worried about what they might say?”

  “Should I be?”

  Inside, she shed her jacket and he loosened his tie. Arizona is not a venue for tie wearing and he no longer felt comfortable with one. He had had to search the closet in his guest room where he stored his “Back East” clothes to find a tie. She fixed them drinks and then fetched another thick envelope from the little green desk.

  “Now what?”

  “While you’ve been amusing yourself with sports and games, I’ve been working. This is four hours on the Internet searching for anything I could find out about the missing boys. There are print-outs from the Baltimore Sun and the now defunct News-Post, sorry, American. I can never remember which is correct. Anyway, they cover the three weeks following the disappearance as well. There’s a squib from Newsweek and some bits and pieces from sites that I thought you might find useful. One says Martians picked them up.”

  “That’s useful?”

  “Actually, it is. It defines the investigation’s dead-end. The disappearance was so absolute, they might as well have been kidnapped by aliens. You see?”

  “Okay.” He leafed through the stack of papers. “Did anything in here strike you?”

  “No, not yet, but I want to read through them again.”

  “We should visit Elizabeth Roulx, I think.”

  “Who?”

  “She teaches English at Scott and is the school’s archivist. There may be something in the archives that will help.”

  “More than what we have already?” Rosemary looked doubtful.

  “You never know, and we will want to read the police reports, witness statements, too, if they’ll let us.”

  “Why wouldn’t they?”

  “Well, the police are not that keen on amateurs poking around in their files. That’s in the first place. Then there is the problem I pose.”

  “You?”

  “They will check me out with the police back home and then ‘Hell will freeze over’ so to speak.”

  “Then, I will ask for the reports. I will say I am writing a book or something, but what good will having the police reports do? They have gone over them again and again. What can we find that they can’t?”

  “We will play what if.”

  “What if?”

  “Look, we know those boys weren’t beamed up into a UFO and whisked off to the galaxy of Andromeda. They walked into those woods and vanished. Whatever happened to them, you can be sure neither magic nor extraterrestrial abductions played any role in it. Somewhere in those reports there’s a detail, some small thing someone said or saw that didn’t seem important at the time but will solve this thing. So we play what if.”

  “I still don’t see.”

  “Okay. Let’s say someone claims to be sleeping at the time and couldn’t have done this or that. We say, what if he wasn’t asleep, or what if he wasn’t in Detroit or taking a bath. Will the dominos fall a different way then? The whole story might change.”

  “How will we know if we found the right what if?”

  “People who were not thought of as significant at the time become important, things like that—dates, times, sequence. At least we should try.”

  “I’ll see about the police reports. I have a friend who’s a county judge and his father is a retired county cop.”

  “It’s nice to be connected.” He picked up the papers. “Now tell me about these.”

  “Now? It’s pretty late. What about Barbara?”

  “You told me it wasn’t my problem.”

  “Right, but—”

  “Past your bed time?”

  “You should know me better than that by now. Where do you want me to start?”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Dexter pushed open the door to his apartment and switched on the light. He looked at the clock on the bedside table and shook his head. Seventeen hours without a drink. That is a modern era record, he thought. He stepped over clothes scattered on the floor and made his way to the corner that served as a kitchenette, a badly scratched Formica-topped counter with a double hot plate, a tiny sink, and a mini-refrigerator beneath. He kept a bottle of scotch under the sink and it sang a love song to him. He bent over and pulled at the cabinet door, then stopped and stepped back. From harm’s way, he thought. He sat heavily on the edge of his bed. It had taken him hours to navigate his way home and his feet burned from too much walking. He glared at the cabinet door, daring it to open.

  “Tomorrow. I am going to uncork and finish you. Tomorrow will be a head buster, but not today. I am going to complete one sober day, if only to see if I can.”

  He stood and retraced his steps to the door, kicked it shut, and contemplated the mess on the floor. Clothing, newspapers, and brown paper bags, the long thin kind designed to hold fifth and quart-sized bottles—the kind that come filled from liquor stores. A half dozen were strewn about the thin carpet like fallen leaves on an October lawn. One by one he picked up his clothes and stuffed them in a laundry bag. He collected papers, bags, and cartons and crammed them into a trash bag which he then deposited in the hallway outside his door. He found a rag, moistened it at the sink, averting his eyes from the cabinet door below, and wiped down counters, walls, window sills, and his cramped bathroom. He made up the bed with clean sheets. He kept at his house cleaning for hours, working furiously, straightening, scrubbing, and sorting. Finally his mania gave way to exhaustion and he collapsed on his bed. He fell asleep before he could turn off the light.

  ***

  Barbara Thomas sat up and gathered the blankets around her. “He’s not back yet.” Her husband moaned and rolled over. “Bob,” she said, her volume increasing with each word, “Dad has not come in yet.”

  “What time is it?” he mumbled and tried to make out the numbers on the alarm clock. Without his glasses the LED images blurred together.

  “Two o’clock.” Her voiced was edged equally with anger and fear.

  “He’s probably out with his old buddies, Barb—big reunion, auld lang syne, and all that. Go back to sleep.”

  “I can’t go back to sleep. I never got to sleep in the first place. He’s not with buddies, Bob, he’s with that woman.”

  “Okay, he’s with a woman. What’s the problem?”

  “What’s the problem? Bob, what about my mother? He can’t just forget her. We don’t know what happened to her, and he could….What’s that woman want with him, anyway?”

  “What any woman wants, I expect.”

  “Men, it’s all you think about. Women aren’t like that. Dad might want to, you know…whatever. But she’s got something else on her mind, I’m telling you. Besides, they’re both pushing seventy.”

  “It’s none of our business, Barb.”

  “It is my business. He’s my father and he’s old and easily duped by any flashy woman with an eye to get his money or whatever she’s after.”

  “Barb, be sensible. Your father is perfectly capable of taking care of himself. He’s not suffering from dementia and has never, in my experience, done anything rash or foolish, and I don’t think I’d describe Rosemary Mitchell as flashy.”

  “It’s the boys’ money, Bob. That’s what she wants. They will need it for college when he dies. What if she gets her hooks into him? Women do that, you know.”

  “Women? I thought it was only one woman. My guess is she probably has money of her own. I know George Mitchell’s accountant and I think he left her pretty well off. Go to sleep.”

  “But—”


  “Barb, listen to me. It’s not the boys’ money and it’s not your money. It’s his. He earned it over fifty long years. If he wants to squander it, that’s his privilege.”

  She got out of bed and turned on him. “How can you say that? Do you think you will ever earn enough to take care of your family? No, you have to disappear every whipstitch to go to ‘work.’ Do you want them to go to public school? You think the state university system is going to get them to the top? Well, I won’t let that happen. You can roll over and watch your children’s future slip away, but not me.”

  “I’m doing my best, Barbara, and I could use some help here, instead of this constant harping.”

  “Your best isn’t enough, is it?”

  She flounced out the door. He heard the guest room door slam shut. Any hope he had of a decent night’s sleep was caught up in the silence that followed.

  ***

  Brad Stark had had a bad day and when it didn’t look like it could get any worse, Felix Darnell had called him in. Judith had kept him jumping around like a puppet on a string most of the day, alternately teasing and excoriating him. She would coo and purr like a Persian cat and just when he thought their relationship had returned to some resemblance of normalcy, she unsheathed her claws and left him hurt and bleeding. As if that weren’t enough, that night he had to hop from one reunion class party to another. He missed most of the people he wanted to speak to, and the ones he did manage to buttonhole put him off with vague smiles and “Send me something in writing, Brad.”

  He turned and studied his wife. She’d insisted they make love when they got home, although what transpired seemed more contest than connubial. Now, she lay on the bed, sprawled across its width like a child, face as innocent as a baby. But twenty minutes ago that same face had been contorted with excitement. She loomed over him, teeth bared, hair damp and flying wildly, as she shook her head back and forth and spat out commands like a mad drill sergeant.

  That had been the characteristic that attracted him to her when they first met. Her willingness to take risks and the ferocity of her love making intoxicated him. He felt they lived on the sexual edge. But now, settled in a community like Scott, where everyone’s life was an open book, the very thing that once possessed him like a narcotic, now frightened him. The thrill had been numbed with the passage of time. He wondered if she didn’t need some sort of psychological help. The sheets had fallen off the bed. He pulled them up and covered her. She hadn’t bothered to put her night gown back on. He stepped out onto his mini-porch and dug out his last cigarette. What to do?

  Darnell had thrown Meredith Smith up at him—that and Brad’s poor performance on that project to date. He had not closed the deal. He had not even put the deal on the table. In fact, he’d missed Smith completely. And Smith planned to leave for Arizona the next day. What was Brad going to do about that, Darnell wanted to know.

  He told Darnell he managed to persuade Smith to stay over a few days. He said he’d personally convinced him to study the mystery of the missing boys and perhaps write another book with that as its theme. Naturally he, Brad, would be with him and there would be time to work on the gift. Smith, he’d declared, would not commit to a donation as big as the one they were after unless he had time to think. But, by demonstrating the school’s support for his work, etc. etc….Of course, Brad made most of it up, but Darnell couldn’t know about that.

  “Are you sure it’s wise to pursue the missing boys mystery, Stark?” Darnell had sounded worried. “That tragic chapter is closed. Do we really want to open it up again? It would mean the press, all those reporters, TV. It can’t do us any good. Think of the families of those poor boys.”

  “Well, Dr. Darnell, you’re quite right, as usual.” Brad began to backpedal, “I’ll just make it my business to see that he doesn’t succeed. In the end, there will be no story. The past is the past.” Yes, indeed. The last thing Brad needed was for that business to come back and haunt him—haunt them all. Now there would be no resolution. Not now, not ever.

  And, if it turned out Smith did, in fact, leave for Arizona on Sunday, well, he couldn’t be held responsible for that. These old guys were not exactly the most reliable people, after all. But to be on the safe side, he’d have to get hold of Smith first thing in the morning and convince him to make good on his promise to look into the disappearance. At least long enough for him to make a pitch.

  Judith rolled over, spilling the sheets back on the floor. He thought he saw her eyelids flicker. He decided to sleep in the guest room.

  ***

  Rosemary stopped talking when she realized Frank’s breathing had become much too regular. She placed the paper in her hand on the coffee table and turned to him. His head had slumped forward. Eyes closed, he dozed peacefully at the end of the couch.

  Poor baby. He’s had a big day.

  “What do I do now?”

  Put him to bed?

  “Hush.”

  She yawned, stretched, and considered her options. Should she wake him? And if so, should she do it now or later? And if later, how much later? She decided to let him doze for a while. She stood, adjusted a pillow so that he could lean back.

  “Frank?” she said softly and shook his shoulder. “Frank.” Louder. His eyes snapped open.

  “I’m okay. What were you saying?”

  “You were asleep.”

  “No, just drifted off there for a second.”

  “You were dead to the world, my friend. Now you have two choices: Since I don’t like to drive late at night, you can take my car and go back to your daughter’s, or you can spend the night here. Either way, I’m beat and going to bed.”

  What are you up to, Lady? This will be three nights in a row for the two of you here in the house.

  “I know what I’m doing.”

  “I’m sure you do,” he said, sleepily, confused.

  “Actually, I wasn’t talking to you,” she said.

  He sat up and looked around. “There’s someone else here?”

  “In a way. I’ll tell you about it some other day. Your decision.” She dropped the car keys on the table. Frank yawned and his eyelids crashed again. She found an afghan, put his feet up on the couch, and covered him. She watched him for another minute and then, certain he would not awaken, at least not soon, she put out the lights, and disappeared into the shadows at the foot of the stairs.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  “Ledezma?”

  “Yeah, who’s this?” he rasped. The clock read six A.M.“It’s Barnett. You know, I work the eleven to seven shift at the Medical Examiner’s office.”

  “Right, okay. Sorry, Barnett, it’s Sunday and I’m not quite awake yet. What’s up?”

  “You still working the Smith case, the one where the old lady—”

  “Yeah, for now, anyway. That could change in a week though.”

  “No kidding? I guess the brass wants to put the old files on ice, right?”

  “Something like that. So what’ve you got?”

  “Maybe nothing, maybe you caught a break. You said I should call if anything turned up, you know. So when I get the paper work, I’m thinking of you right away.”

  “Right, thanks. What paper work?”

  “What we have here is a body. Well, not a body, a skeleton mostly, but it’s a woman, for sure, and the doc says fifty to seventy years old and in the desert at least three years. Could be your dame.”

  Ledezma slipped out of bed and started dressing. This could be it, he thought. Finally, a break. “How’d she die?”

  “Somebody put a bullet right through the old brain box.”

  “Bingo. Don’t do a thing until I get there.”

  “No problem, Sergeant. You don’t, by any chance, have a copy of her dental records, do you? The doc says we’re stuck until Monday because the dentist’s office is closed and we don’t have a warrant anyway.”

  “I’ve got them. By the way, where did they find her?”

  “Out with the sa
guaros and the snakes.”

  “I’ll be there in an hour.”

  ***

  Ledezma did not like the morgue. The place gave him the creeps. It smelled of chemicals and other things he didn’t want to identify. He recognized formaldehyde from his days in biology lab, and the clove oil. When things got really ripe, they’d use clove oil to cover the scent. He tried not to think about the sweet rotting odor that served as a kind of olfactory pedal point to the rest. He considered himself a pretty tough guy. He’d seen his share of gore and body parts in various stages of decay in his time, but the morgue always threw him. Somehow, to collect all that human garbage in one place seemed obscene.

  He looked around the room. McMicken used a morgue set up in an old building next to the county medical examiner. The town struggled to keep up with the explosive growth and coincident increase in the homicide rate, so they expanded as best they could. There wasn’t much to see. The room had the predictable white tiles on the walls and tiers of refrigerated drawers to hold the bodies, each with its identifying card slot. He’d pulled one of those drawers once and vowed he’d never do it again. He had just joined the force then. His squad sent him to the morgue to identify a body. What he didn’t know was one of the officers had been put in the drawer and covered with a sheet. When he opened the drawer, the cop sat up and moaned. He cleared the morgue and the building in something like four seconds flat.

  Bones were laid out on a stainless steel table. A steel bucket was positioned on the floor at one end. Someone, the medical examiner probably, had begun to arrange them in order. He would count them first to make sure they were all there. Then he would try to retrieve some DNA to confirm the ID. He’d arrange the bones this way and that to make up a story about how the person had died. Ledezma shivered, not just from the chill air—they kept the temperature down, like working in a refrigerator—but because he secretly feared the place.

  Barnett, the ghoul who helped the ME, stood a few paces away, waiting. He was a messy man wearing a stained tan lab coat over an equally stained tee shirt. He had hair that had started out as a widow’s peak but male pattern baldness sent his forehead up and back. Only the peak remained, a thin greasy brown smear of hair clinging to his forehead like a drowning rat. Ledezma contemplated with distaste Barnett’s large, pitted nose, his slouching stance and wary, sly expression. He felt about him in the same way as he felt about the room; he didn’t like either of them for the same reasons. But Barnett served a purpose. Ledezma peeled a twenty off his roll and put it in Barnett’s palm. He got a yellow crooked-toothed grin by way of thanks. Ledezma turned back to the body, or what was left of it.