On the Loose (3 page)

"Do you know what bothers me the most, Eugene? That damn rose."

The town's weekly, The Crier, which went to press
on Wednesday and came out on Thursday, reported
that Eve (Perkins) Bullard, 80, a lifelong resident,
died Tuesday of injuries from an apparent fall at her
home on Grove Street. Arrangements were to be
announced by Drinkwater Funeral Home.

Chief Morgan discreetly questioned neighbors
and came up dry. A partial autopsy was performed
at the general hospital in nearby Lawrence. Mrs.
Bullard had succumbed to head trauma, presumably from a fall.

The Bensington Garden Club, of which Mrs.
Bullard had been a longtime member and a past
president, arranged the flowers at the wake. The
Reverend Mr. Austin Stottle of First Congregational Church said prayers.

There was no burial. Mrs. Bullard had willed her
body to University Hospital in Boston.

The days sobered into autumn, and soon it was
November, like March a mongrel month, unloved,
unloving. The sky was skeletal, schematic, plucked
by a crow. The gray in the air only lightly colored
Chief Morgan's mood. The chief, whose wife had
died young, the victim of a car crash, had learned
long ago to take each day at a time and to seek no
meaning in the incoherence of grief. As the days
shortened, he geared himself to face another winter without a woman. The one he'd been seeing
was breaking off with him.

He spent considerable time at a window table in
the Blue Bonnet restaurant, which was neatly nestled between the town hall and the library. The
window table overlooked the green and all the little shops on the far side. At the flanks were Pearl's
Pharmacy and Tuck's General Store. More and
more of Tuck's was taking on the look of a superette, displeasing to Morgan. He remembered the
waning days of a cracker barrel and penny candy. At Pearl's he remembered when condoms were
called prophylactics and never openly displayed.

His tablemate at breakfast was usually Chub
Tuttle from the fire station or Fred Fossey, the parttime veterans agent, whose greatest joy was raising
and lowering the flag on the green, Boy Scouts in
partial uniform snapping off salutes. At lunch he
was frequently joined by Reverend Stottle, who
held the private opinion that when God made the
human race he got it wrong but won't admit his
mistake. The chief, though not a churchgoer, was
among those with whom the reverend shared confidences, which included his weakness for unapproachable women in his congregation, those hefty
in the thigh and overblown with goodness.

Crossing the green with the reverend, Morgan
bumped into Amy White, who said she was putting her aunt's house on the market. Positioning
her back to the wind, which had teeth, she said she
couldn't bear to step foot through that door again.
The chief told her it was a tough time to sell and
advised her to wait until spring.

"We've priced it to move," she said and gave
Reverend Stottle a haggard look. "I can still see
her lying at the foot of those cellar stairs. Do you
think she's at peace?"

"Death," said Reverend Stottle, "is winter without storms."

Harry Sawhill needed a nip in the morning to get
him going and another at noon to keep him smiling.
At night the drinking turned serious and put him to sleep. Trish Becker, who saw him two or three
times a week, said, "You can't go on this way."

He said, "It's the only way I know."

They were in Andover, in the bar at Rembrandt's, a restaurant off the square. Their table
was tiny, and they sat knee to knee. Trish was
drinking a martini and picking at peanuts. "If I had
your balls in my hand," she said, "would you trust
me not to squeeze?"

He thought for a moment. "Yes, I think so."

"Then trust me now. You need help."

Moments later she rose from the table in her
thigh-high dress and, heading toward the ladies'
room, drew looks from men at the bar, none of
whom interested her, all of the sort who make
vague passes but lack confidence to execute direct
ones. Alone in the ladies' room, she compressed
her lips and viewed herself in the mirror. "Beauty's
mortal, my dear," she murmured aloud. "Be careful." Then she dabbed her hot face with a damp
tissue and hoped she wasn't going through the
change.

She returned to the table. Harry, nursing his
vodka tonic, gave her a half smile. There were moments when they seemed to see into each other. He
said, "I'm going to try."

She glanced at the men at the bar. Most appeared
placid and uncomplicated, with skim-milk complexions, no five o'clock shadows. "Try what, Harry?"

"To get myself together."

She drove her fingers into the peanuts. "No,
Harry. No, you won't."

Trish Becker lived in the Heights, home to Bens-
ington's well-heeled newcomers. Once an expanse
of pristine woodland, it was now a meandering avenue of grand houses. Ben Sawhill also lived there,
the only townie who did. It was too late for a
phone call, but she rang his number anyway.

"Belle's in bed," he said.

"I want to talk to you." He was her lawyer, her
financial adviser, her confidant, and his wife Belle
was her buddy. "I hate my house."

"What's the matter with it?"

"Everything," she said. The house was an elegant red-brick Georgian with a wing for guests.
Since her divorce it had quietly assumed a personality she didn't care for. Some rooms, no matter
how warm the colors, had a chilling effect, as if
they held grudges. The kitchen, which should have
been friendly with its great bow window, seemed
menacing, perhaps because of the many utensils
hanging from ceiling racks. The dining room, the
windows heavily draped, seemed disengaged from
the rest of the house.

"I told you to sell it four years ago," he said.

"The market wasn't right. You said so yourself."

"You heard what you wanted to hear. What's really wrong, Trish? It isn't the house."

She shifted her cordless phone from one hand to
the other and flung her hair back. Her feet were
shod in fleece-lined slippers. "I hate November,"
she said.

"It's not a pleasant month. So what?" He waited
a moment, then added, "This isn't like you."

"That's because your brother's turning me into a
drunk. It's your fault. You introduced us-you and
Belle."

"We thought it was a good idea at the time."

"He's a dead end. And I'm Dorothy Parker's big
blonde, that's what I am."

"Dorothy Parker's blonde had no money. You
do. That's all the difference in the world." His
voice was sharp, authoritative. "And you have
children."

She had a son in college and a daughter in
boarding school, their holidays spent with their
father, who had remarried and was said to wear
his new young wife on his arm for fashion, as if
she'd come out of his wardrobe. The last she had
seen of him was in Newsweek, a picture of him in
a designer suit and color-splashed tie, his executive abilities lauded, his software company
touted.

"You don't understand," she said. "I was a good
wife."

Ben was quiet. She imagined dark tones in his
face. Her mind's eye saw the prominence of his
jaw, a striking feature he shared with Harry, as if
they'd been line-bred for it. She wondered
whether Belle was waiting for him.

"Still there?" she asked.

"You're right, Trish. November's a lousy month."

"Don't tell Harry I called."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

"Don't tell Belle either," she said.

Bobby Sawhill stared out of his bedroom window
at leafless trees that reminded him of empty birdcages. The stillness of the trees and the pallor of
the sky affected his thoughts. It was his birthday.
He was a November baby.

He heard footsteps on the stairs and turned
from the window. His room was neat, everything
in place, nothing on the walls, no posters, no heroes. No stereo. Stereo music hurt his head. A
computer given to him by his uncle did not interest
him. He kept the television on but seldom
watched. Girlie magazines interested him, but the
theater in his head interested him more. He preferred the past to the present, skits in which he
was barefoot, his toes grass-stained, his mother
counting them. This little piggy went to market,
this little piggy ...

His father rapped on the door and opened it.
"We leave at six. That all right?"

He remembered a neighbor woman catching
sight of him with his pants down, calling his little
thing a bullet, and telling him it'd be awhile before
he fired it.

"Did you hear me, Bobby?"

He consulted his watch and shrugged. It was four
o'clock, which made six o'clock a long time off.

"We can make it earlier or later," his father said,
"whatever you wish."

It didn't matter.

When he heard the door close he gathered up
schoolbooks and planted himself at his writing
table. He did only what he had to in homework,
which came easy to him. School did not. Where
others sought attention he avoided it. Teachers
overlooked his long silences because his grades
were adequate and his father was somebody. He
had no friends.

A few minutes before six his father called to him.
Descending the stairs, he glimpsed Trish Becker
and whispered, "Why does she have to come?"

On the drive to Andover he sat in the back and
Trish Becker sat beside his father, who fought the
feral glare of oncoming headlights. Screwing her
head around, Trish Becker said, "Wow, you're thirteen now. A teenager."

"It's no big deal," he said.

At Rembrandt's they were ushered through the
lounge and shown to a choice table on the glassedin porch. The waitress brought aperitifs. He was
given a glass of ginger ale topped with crushed ice,
through which he punched a straw. Trish Becker
smiled at him. She wore eyeliner and showed
cleavage. Her hand came forward in the suggestion of a touch and fell back when he said, "I'd like
my presents now "

"After dinner when the cake comes," his father
said.

"I don't want a cake."

Trish Becker's gift was a Cross pen, which did
not impress him, though he mumbled a thank-you.
His father's gift pleased him less.

"I already have a watch."

"You have a Timex," his father said. "This is a
Seiko."

"You have a Rolex."

"You'll get one when you graduate from high
school."

Menus were read. When the waitress came for
their orders, he said, "I'll have pizza."

"They don't have pizza," his father said. "Order
something real."

He ordered what they did, poached salmon. He
ate only the edges. His father finished first and ordered a vodka tonic; then excused himself and
went to the men's room. Left alone with Trish
Becker, Bobby read sympathy in her eyes and disliked her for it. She reached under the table and
placed a hand on his knee.

"Do we need to be enemies?"

His face was passive, his voice cool. "Are you
going to marry my father?"

She spoke slowly. "Would it upset you if I did?"

"I wouldn't like it."

"Chances are I won't," she said. "Why are you
staring at me like that?"

"I know what you look like naked. I've seen
pictures."

She was confused, somewhat shocked. "Of me,
Bobby?"

"Other women."

Something clicked, and she seemed on the point
of laughter as if from an image of his face slammed into a double issue of Penthouse. "I'm flattered,
Bobby."

"Why?»

"Just am."

His father returned. In time the cake he didn't
want came anyway, with candles he was obliged to
blow out. Trish Becker sliced three neat pieces, the
biggest for him, more frosting than the others. Her
smile was knowing.

"Happy birthday, Bobby."

Winter came early with a heavy snowfall of dry
furry flakes. In the light of morning, the storm
spent, Chief Morgan shoveled his walk and
knocked snow from arborvitae, which instantly
diffused a fresh green aroma. He cleared enough
of the short driveway to get his car out of the
garage. The car, public property, unmarked except
for the fading town seal, stuttered before it found
a voice and stalled only once on the plowed street.

The police station, situated in a rear corner of the
town hall, the entrance on the side, was just large
enough to accommodate the ten-member force,
which included the chief and three civilian dispatchers. Meg O'Brien, the daytime dispatcher, gave him
a penetrating look when he pushed through the
door. He stamped snow from thick-soled shoes and
shed his gloves but kept on his parka.

"You have problems," Meg said. "One of the
cruisers broke down, and Eugene ran the other
into a snowbank."

"Those aren't problems, they're aggravations."
He was anxious to slip over to the Blue Bonnet for
breakfast, but Meg's gaze held him. Big eyes and
heavy teeth overwhelmed her pony face. A bond of
affection existed between them, though occasionally she got on his nerves. "Anything else?"