Barleycorn’s brown eyes looked up at Vincent. The dog tipped his head, trying to understand the man’s words.
The pull of the dog’s sweet disposition was too much for Vincent. Squatting, he gave Barleycorn rough scratches.
Won over, Yates thought.
* * *
Yates learned that Vincent resided in the center. There were no other guests, either homeless or ill.
Vincent made them pancakes for an early supper. They cleaned up the mess, then began arranging tables and chairs for Tuesday night bingo. It began at seven. They hauled a wire cage filled with white ping-pong balls, all pre-numbered and -lettered, to a head table. The cage sat inside a stand so it swung freely when the crank was used.
At two minutes after the appointed hour, Vincent motioned Yates to the front and addressed the room. “Folks, listen up. Before Rev. Razzell gets started with tonight’s festivities, I want to introduce Yates. Yates is staying with me for a couple of weeks. You’ll see him here and around town. He’s looking for work in our fair community. Les and Doris, you’ll see him over at the park with his dog when that monster of yours drags you through.” Vincent craned his head to make eye contact with a couple sitting at the last table.
The man wore thick black-framed glasses; the woman’s gold-rimmed pair was perched on the tip of her nose. Their simultaneous waves to Yates completed the introduction.
From behind them, a white-haired man made his way to the wire cage. “Everybody ready,” he said, giving the crank a spin. Yates correctly assumed that the man was Rev. Razzell.
Yates listened closely as he served beverages, but did not hear any of the players refer to anyone else using the surname Miller. They were all close friends, so first names were primarily spoken.
Whenever someone yelled bingo, the room quieted while the professed winner called out his or her winning spaces. If a bingo was achieved without the use of the free space, then the player won a dollar. That happened only once in the first set of five games, then Razzell called for a break.
The ruckus in the room rose several notches. Yates rushed beverages around and large bowls of potato chips and cheese twists.
Doris stopped him when he passed. “What’s his name?” She pointed to the hairy yellow dog laying on a folded-over blanket in the corner. His alert brown eyes never left Yates.
“Barleycorn,” Yates said.
“That’s an unusual one.”
A nearby noise competed with Doris’s response, causing Yates to look around. Razzell apparently kicked the leg of an empty folding chair on his passage back to the front of the room. He smiled at the man whose expression remained oddly bland.
Doris went on. “We own a Great Dane.”
“Male?”
“Uh-huh. Vincent wasn’t teasing. We call him Monster. That didn’t start out being his name, but well, he sort of grew into it.”
“Vincent said you’re just here for a couple of weeks,” Les chimed in.
“Hopefully, here at the shelter for a few. I’ve got an interview at the hospital. I hope to get my own place if I get the job.”
“What do you do?” Les asked.
“I passed my nursing boards last spring.”
A small gasp distracted Yates. Razzell remained in the vicinity. Their eyes met, telling Yates that the reverend emitted the sound. Covering the gasp with a forced cough, Razzell jerked his eyes forward.
Yates followed his shuffle off toward the cage of bingo balls. Razzell wound the crank. He watched Yates with a funny expression on his face.
The game ended at nine. The seniors cleared out shortly thereafter. Yates tidied the main room without being told. He emptied the wastebaskets into trashcans sitting in the alley out back. After Vincent locked up, he walked Yates to his room for the second time, then moved down the hall to his own.
Earlier, Vincent gave Yates a five-second tour of the barebones hospice facility. It consisted of two patient rooms with one twin bed each, a common bathroom between them, mismatched chairs, nightstands, and lamps. Yates took another five seconds to check out his room. He found it stuffy, cranked a window open, and stored his backpack under the bed.
It was now after ten. The room was no less stuffy. He yanked the bedspread back, knowing it would be unwanted weight. He froze as still as a statue, his arm flung out toward the foot of the bed. A rushing rose in his ears. The blanket beneath the spread was the one he covered Terri with on the bench five months ago.
He faced another summer of memories infused with Terri Miller’s presence. What would they bring?
Dead Ends
The next morning, Yates cleaned the center’s bathrooms, swabbed the kitchen sink and counters, and washed the front windows inside and out. Vincent and Yates sat down to grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup at noon. After the dishes were scrubbed, Yates was released with free time.
He put Barleycorn on his leash. Yates sized up Larkspur’s downtown as he led his dog to the park. It was definitely a “walkable” community, and he liked that.
The park was the size of two square blocks dotted with ancient evergreen and deciduous trees. It was a fantastic amenity, really. And roomy. Yates looked around as Barleycorn pulled him toward a tall length of hedge. The crimson leaves reminded Yates that his mother always called such a hedge, “a burning bush.”
Yates looked across the way. In one of the houses that faced the park lived the Great Dane named Monster.
The park had its share of benches for those who chose to sit and ponder. Yates tugged on Barleycorn. They crossed the park at an ambling speed, determined by Barleycorn’s sniffing nose. Eventually, not following a direct course, Yates approached the one man present and occupying the center of three wooden benches. A patch of wiry hair appeared to grow out of the “V” formed by his plaid cotton shirt, open one button down from the collar.
“Excuse me. I’m new in town. Does Larkspur have a library?” He hoped to find old local phonebooks and crisscross directories shelved there so he could look up the name Miller and see what he could find.
He learned about such things when he visited his librarian mother after school and during summer breaks. Years before Terri’s death, he lost the fight with his curiosity and tried an internet search. The search proved quick because the number of results overpowered him. The commonality of the name and the fact that he couldn’t narrow down the search parameters were the reasons. Terri never divulged the name of her hometown, not until the afternoon she produced the map and asked to be driven back to Larkspur and Crossroads.
The same rationale negated any positive results from all the Michigan phonebooks stocked in his mother’s library and those on microfiche from around the country. He didn’t even try. No point in repeating the same process and expecting different results. Wasn’t that a test for sanity?
What he needed was a database storing the names of those persons with a longtime homeless disposition. Sanity told him such a compilation didn’t exist.
The man squinted up at Yates suspiciously, then down at Barleycorn. “The library’s over on Cramer. Two blocks down, one block over.” With his head, he gestured first north, then west.
“Thanks.”
Yates started to turn when the man said, “Dogs aren’t allowed.”
He looked back. “What?”
“The library. It doesn’t allow dogs.”
Yates fixed him with a serious stare. “Too bad because he reads at a third-grade level.”
The man puffed out his cheeks to Yates’s facetiousness.
Yates stored the library directions away, then retraced his steps to Crossroads. Of course, he would not take Barleycorn into
a public facility.
At the community center’s front door, Yates and Barleycorn followed another man, dressed in a business suit, inside. His dark hair was shaggy. Yates noticed the onyx ring on his little finger when he waved to three men playing pool. The pool table was positioned to receive a great deal of natural light through the front window.
“Morning, fellas. How’s it going?”
Two of the three men responded; the third one just waved. From the return greetings, Yates pieced the man’s name together. He was Ron Smith. Ron seemed to know his way around the center. Yates nodded at the pool players, then reduced his pace to slow, and walked in Ron’s footsteps down the hall. Yates was headed toward Vincent’s office, so was Ron.
Yates hung back when Ron stopped in the office doorway and said, “Just checking on the contract. Did you get it faxed to Beebe okay?”
“Yeah. It went through fine. No answer yet.” Ron closed the door on Vincent’s voice.
Snapping off the dog’s leash, Yates said, “Looks like we’ll be waiting our turn. You’d rather stay with Vincent while I go to the library than be closed up in my room, wouldn’t you, boy? Give him those irresistibly sad eyes when I ask him, okay?”
Man and dog padded back to Yates’s room. Barleycorn went straight to his water bowl and lapped up most of its contents. Yates threw himself on the bed.
Last night while he lay awake in his new surroundings, he decided he would not mention Terri’s name to Vincent. He would line up other sources, like the phonebooks and directories, see how far he could get, before breaking down, if need be, and trying to worm information out of his host. Questioning Vincent might raise the suspicion quotient, and Yates was pleased with the bunk space. An overly suspicious Vincent may decide to terminate his goodwill and evict Yates and Barleycorn.
Ten minutes passed before Yates heard Vincent’s office door open. He sat up and called Barleycorn over. Eyes forward, Ron sailed past without even a glance their way.
“Come on,” Yates said, patting his leg. “Let’s go see if we can wrangle an invitation.” Barleycorn fell into step alongside his master. Yates stopped short of the office’s threshold, but stuck his head around the door frame. Vincent looked up from his laptop and smiled. On the table with the computer were several file folders and loose papers.
“Question,” Yates said.
“What is it?” Vincent’s voice lured Barleycorn to his side. Tail wagging happily, snout turned up, Barleycorn did his stuff.
“I want to head over to the library. Can Barleycorn stay with you, or should I leave him in my room with the door closed?” By the time Yates finished, Vincent was already stroking the dog’s mane.
“Sure, leave him here. I’m writing up some program descriptions.”
“Program descriptions?”
“We’re about to go into high gear around here with senior programming. Crossroads received a grant and a local entrepreneur made a generous donation. Things are moving fast. That’s why you’re showing up is definitely a godsend. You taking on the chores around here gives me more free time for defining the scope of the programs. I need my board’s approval fairly quickly. I’ve got a coordinator coming in two weeks.”
“Are you sure Barleycorn won’t be in the way?”
A whoop went up in the main room.
“No, those guys might be distracting, but Barleycorn is pure company. And the quiet kind.”
“Thanks. Be a good dog, Barleycorn.”
Barleycorn played the part to the end. His eyes never left Vincent. Yates rushed down the hall and around the corner before Vincent thought to offer the hospice’s bookshelves for some easily acquired reading material.
* * *
The library was flanked by a drugstore and quaint bed and breakfast. All sat back from the street with grassy yards that welcomed with the feel of a residential area. Chiseled into the library’s cornerstone was the year 1890. Yates thought the library must be one of Larkspur’s earliest amenities. A short stone wall bordered the ancient building, its rising tower, and front lawn. Both the building and tower were made of the same style of dark stones used for the wall. A wide walkway led to a covered veranda.
He took his hand off the strap securing his backpack over his shoulder and opened the library’s glass and stained-wood door. A high ceiling lifted and opened the closeness of the central room. In addition to regimented aisles of shelves, waist-high shelving created counter space for newspapers and periodicals and cut the room nicely into comfortable reading nooks.
Yates went straight to the circulation desk. A woman with blue-streaked hair and a bundle of wrist bracelets greeted him. “Can I help you?”
“Old phonebooks and crisscross directories?”
“Third aisle.” She pointed, her bracelets rattling. “Halfway down. Left side. They can’t be checked out.”
“Thanks.”
Yates knew universal library policies about research material. Almost like osmosis, they soaked in from close contact with his mother. He found the crisscross directories first. The publisher was Polk. These directories, composed annually, were divided into three parts. If the researcher had a Larkspur phone number, street address, or name, he could find or verify information in the other two categories.
Yates’s finger dragged across the directory spines, lined-up chronologically, until he came to the edition that preceded the year he met Terri Miller. That would have made him twelve. Had Terri lived in Larkspur that year? He didn’t know, but it was possible. He started there and worked back. All he had was the name Miller. Polk Directory entries included husband’s and wife’s names. It didn’t take long to check through twenty years’ worth. Just to be safe, because Terri was in her sixties when she died, he went back another ten years. He hefted three and four directories at a time and carried them to the nearest table. The amount of time spent in each volume was so miniscule, he didn’t bother to sit in any of the chairs provided. His backpack waited in one though.
None of the handful of Miller entries he found listed the name Terri, or Teresa, or any derivative, among them. Not even the initial T.
It became evident the current phonebook would most likely be his best source. Sadly, perhaps his sole source. A Miller presently living in Larkspur might provide a glimmer of information relevant to Terri’s past, but so many years had marched by. Surely, Yates thought, a family member would not forget her.
On the shelf below the directories, he found Larkspur phonebooks. The most recent one was there. He slipped it out. Back at the table, he made use of the chair next to his backpack, unzipped the pack’s main compartment, and lifted out an electronic tablet. There, he inputted the names, addresses, and phone numbers of the five Millers listed.
With a map of Larkspur, he could put together some logical progression for how to proceed.
He went to speak with the librarian. “Where can I find a street map of Larkspur?”
“One hangs in the lobby.”
He looked around at the lobby doors. Yates missed seeing that on the way in. He thanked the woman.
As he returned the phonebook to the shelf and gathered his things, he wondered if he could get around town with the GPS app on his phone. Still, it would help to see an overall layout. He studied the map, retrieved his tablet, and made notes. One location was just two blocks over. He debated going, or returning to the center, picking up Barleycorn, and walking around with him. The dog would make him look less like a stranger. He adopted that plan, but decided not to implement it until early evening, when people were home from work.
His afternoon was spent working with a woman, Bertha Zeller, who authored the Crossroads newsletter. He read it through. Bertha did a nice job and accomplishe
d the goal. The newsletter was newsy. She fitted it to the standard typing page, two columns per sheet. The headline story lobbied for less fat and calories in one’s diet. Easy for Bertha to preach. She was yard-stick thin. They walked to the office supply store. A teenage clerk operated the Xerox machine and charged Bertha for fifty copies. The money for duplicating the newsletter and purchasing stamps came from the dues Crossroads members paid annually, Bertha told Yates.
Back at the center, Bertha and he stuffed envelopes, then labeled and stamped the stack. Yates gathered the stack into his backpack. After he and Barleycorn took a jaunt through the park, they delivered the mailing to the post office.
Around six, Yates fed Barleycorn, got a strawberry milkshake at the Dairy Corner for himself, and made his way to the first of the five Millers on his list.
He knocked at 502 Cherry Lane.
“Oh,” Yates said, when a black man opened the door. “Are you Thomas Miller?” He was. Yates explained the mistake. Thomas was obviously not Terri’s relative. Thomas crossed Peter, Thomas’s brother, off the list. That saved Yates a trip.
The first Caucasian Miller Yates located lived on Prospect Street. William J. He listened intently enough, but claimed no real knowledge of outlying family members. He suggested Yates check in with a cousin on Remmer Road, four blocks over.
Yates and Barleycorn walked the distance through a well-established neighborhood of small homes, all single story. The front door to 223 stood open. Yates knocked. Cousin Grace shook her head at the end of his short recital. She could not recall a Terri Miller, and she thought she would have because Grace and Terri were close in age. Grace pointed Yates south toward Michael B. Miller when Yates insisted he wanted to complete his task.
Grace shook her head. “He won’t be any help.”
That was a true statement. Michael stared at Yates with a glazed look, then referred him back to William, the first Caucasian Miller he visited on Prospect.
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