Reunion at Red Paint Bay (10 page)

His hand eases its grip on the knife. His arm hangs limply against the leg, the blade pointing downward, harmless. The fleeting impulse to kill evaporates from his consciousness. He has come tonight just to satisfy his curiosity—he might even admit that it is an obsession. The letter opener lying on the bureau was pure coincidence. It could have been put away in a drawer, mixed in with pads and pens, or not existed at all in this particular place. Then the thought of killing would not have occurred to him. Plunging a blade, even a dull one, into someone shouldn’t be a matter of circumstance.

And so the uninvited visitor leaves as he has come, with silent footsteps. He glances into the room across the hall again. A light circle of fur rests against the pillow at the top of the bed. He admires the way cats above all species can ignore the comings and goings of
humans that don’t concern them. It would be relaxing not to pay attention. He resists the temptation to go in and pet the animal. He has already stayed longer than is perhaps wise. He regrets not having the time to see more of the house—the layout of the downstairs, the angles and spaces. He appreciates the softness of the carpet under his feet and the dim overhead light as he descends the stairs. His own apartment is so cold and bright. He leaves the letter opener on the bottom step, pushed under the rug, where the bulge of it may be noticed in a day or two. An experienced intruder wouldn’t purposely disturb the scene, of course. There would remain on the carpet the faint imprints of his shoes—a common size—and in the air, linger the scent of some mild soap, not easily named. Otherwise not a trace.

Stepping out into the mist, he flips up the collar to his jacket. The slight bite to the air makes his skin shiver. He feels good realizing that he doesn’t have to do anything drastic right away. Violating the sanctity of this man’s home is enough, at least for one cool, moist night.

Summer carnival was coming
to Red Paint. Simon watched from his desk as workers set up the two rows of blue canvas tents, creating a makeshift midway. It amazed him how quickly they could turn the Common into an amusement park. In three days would come its destruction, leaving no trace of it beyond marks in the grass as the carnival moved on to a neighboring town.

He sensed movement toward his desk and looked up. A short, husky man dressed in jeans and red plaid shirt had his hand out. “Dan LeBeau. We met at a Chamber lunch a few months ago. I own LeBeau’s Hardware.”

Simon took the hand in an awkward grip, palm to fingers, and let go quickly. “Right, Dan,” he said as if having a clear memory of the man. People expected
to be remembered by the editor of their town paper. “What can I do for you?”

LeBeau glanced about the newsroom. In the corner Carole was typing into her computer, her headphones on. He nodded her way. “Your police reporter, she called me for her story.”

“What story is that?”

“I’ve got a finance manager, Bonnie, been with me for eight years. I found out this week she’s been stealing from me. It started out small, a few hundred dollars here and there. Then it got to moving thousands of dollars at a time into fake accounts, pretending to pay bills.”

“So you turned her in to the police, and Carole has the copy?”

“Yeah, but you can’t run the story.”

“We
can’t
?”

“It’ll kill my reputation around here.”

Simon wrapped up the remains of his tuna sandwich and glanced out the window. A long truck marked
WORLD
’
S BEST MOBILE PETTING ZOO
pulled up on Mechanic Street. There were no windows in the huge vehicle, which made him wonder, did North American Traveling Amusements Inc. treat its animals humanely? He could assign someone to go undercover and find out—Rigero, maybe, as an itinerant worker. But if the story closed down the carnival, the
Register
would never be forgiven.

“So,” LeBeau said, “you can understand my position.”

As far as Simon could tell, that position boiled down to
I’ll be embarrassed, so you can’t run the story
. “From my experience, readers always sympathize with the injured party,” he said. “They may be surprised you didn’t catch on sooner, but they won’t blame you. They’ll think you’re a good guy who got taken advantage of.”

LeBeau stepped closer to the desk. “Who’s going to buy paints and brushes from somebody who can’t keep track of tens of thousands of dollars? Some people already think I’m soaking them.”

“Are you?” The question was abrupt, but Simon was glad he said it in just that way. He had bought from LeBeau’s many times.

LeBeau cocked his head. “You charge what people are willing to pay. That’s the way it works.”

“It works that way because you have no competition. You have what, three stores?”

“Four. We just opened in Rawley.”

“So you have the only four hardware stores within thirty miles of here.”

LeBeau looked out of the window for a moment, conjuring his next argument. “Look, I’m a private company. My financial numbers are nobody’s business. I’m not pressing charges against Bonnie. We’re going to work it out between us.”

Simon glanced over at Carole. “I’m afraid you made it public the moment you called the police.”

LeBeau picked up the snow globe on Simon’s desk and shook it. Little flakes of white floated through the liquid, landing on the small skyline of Portland. “I advertise in the
Register
,” he said. “I was thinking of doing a big promotion for our new store.”

Simon stood up. “Advertising and editorial are separate departments, Dan. We can’t pick and choose what to run from the police log. It’s often embarrassing to someone, even advertisers.”

“I didn’t see you running a picture of the graffiti on your door a week ago. Wasn’t that news, somebody scrawling
RAPIST
on the front door of the
Register
?” He said the word louder than the rest, and even Carole with her earphones in looked over.

“You’re getting desperate now.”

LeBeau tossed the snow globe between his hands. “A lot of folks around here would like to know if our friendly little town paper is hiding a sexual predator.”

Simon moved toward the door, inducing LeBeau to follow. “We’re not hiding anything, Dan. But we do have a reputation to keep up for reporting all the local news, not just some of it.”

“Right, you make your reputation by ruining mine. That make you feel good?”

It was his job to report the news, regardless of whom it hurt. Journalists did that every day all over
the country. What did he feel about it—proud, satisfied, sorry at times?

LeBeau dropped the plastic globe in Simon’s hand. “I didn’t think you’d have an answer for that.”

As Simon turned
into the driveway of his home, there was the Volvo, parked slightly crooked, Amy’s trademark. He pushed in the front door and saw her black sandals in the hallway, as if she had stepped out of them midstride. It always relieved him to see the tracks of her around the house.

“Amy?”

There was silence for a few seconds, then: “In here.”

He hurried to the kitchen where she was standing at the sink, opening a can. He wrapped his arms around her and she twisted her head so that their cheeks rubbed against each other. He loved the smooth feel of her skin, unlike any other sensation he could think of. It was pure Amy.

She checked her watch. “You’re home early.”

“That’s because I’m taking you out on the town tonight.”

“Which town?”

“Red Paint, of course. The carnival is back.”

She shifted around inside his arms to face him. “You get like a little kid this time every summer.”

“If you can’t get excited when you go to a carnival, you must be dead.”

She pulled back slightly. “Davey stays with us this year, no running off on his own.”

“He is eleven, Amy.”

“Eleven going on eight.”

Simon leaned in for a kiss and tasted something different—new lipstick? New toothpaste? “We don’t kiss much anymore,” he said when they broke apart. “Why is that?”

“I haven’t been keeping score,” she said and then kissed him again, “but you can add one more to our total.” She turned away, toward the refrigerator. “When you go upstairs, tell Davey to wash for dinner. I’m throwing together a vegetable soup. It’s all I have the energy to make.”

Simon headed down the hallway, grabbing his briefcase as he went, and turned up the stairs. At the top he stopped outside his son’s room, listening for a moment. Not spying really, more information gathering, as he’d do in the bank or supermarket, trying to pick up on what people were talking about. He heard an unfamiliar voice on the other side of the door, lower-pitched and slower-paced than Davey’s usual rapid-fire delivery. He tried to distinguish words but could only make out “Yeah” and “Nah.” He knocked. Nothing. He waited a few seconds and knocked again, harder.
Still nothing. Simon nudged open the door and peeked around it. “Davey?”

The boy sat cross-legged on his bed, propped up by pillows, the phone at one ear, his earbud in the other. “I got to get off now,” he said with exaggerated loudness, “on account of my father has invaded my room.” He hung up the receiver.

“It’s time for dinner, and afterward we’re all going to the carnival together.”

The boy’s face contorted into a mixture of disbelief and resignation. “You mean I have to go with you guys?”

“Mom’s orders. Go with us or not at all.”

Small white lights
stretched between the trees down both sides of the Common, illuminating the green as if it were a large rectangular stage suspended in the black of space. The air burst with sounds of a banjo band and kids yelling and one strong-lunged baby crying. They walked down the crowded midway, bumped and brushed at every step. Simon reached ahead to tap Amy’s shoulder. “This is the most crowded I’ve ever seen it,” he said. “You can barely move.”

She licked her chocolate cone. “Where’s Davey?”

He looked back into the swirling lights of the Merry-Go-Round, trying to pick out the slight form of their son. “By that booth with the water guns,” Simon said, vaguely pointing. “Around there.”

“You see him?”

“Not this second, but—”

“You said you were watching him.”

Simon rose up on his toes, looking for the telltale blue cap. “Okay, I see him. But this is ridiculous. We can’t keep our eyes on him every second just because we spooked ourselves one time.”

She moved in closer so he could hear her. “I didn’t spook myself. The person Davey saw at the front door spooked me.”

“It could have just been somebody coming around selling something.”

“At eight o’clock on a Thursday night? And why didn’t he ring the bell?” They’d gone over this before. He didn’t have all the answers. “A carnival is exactly where predators hang out and snatch kids,” she said.

“If he’s not safe in the center of Red Paint, we might as well move to Canada.”

Amy gestured with her cone toward the tent. “What’s he doing now?”

A quizzical expression flashed across Simon’s face before he could stop it. “He’s just talking to someone.”

“Who?”

“I can’t tell from here, some man maybe.”

“A man?” Amy pushed her way against the tide of people. “Davey!” she yelled with an urgency in her voice that made everyone stop and look. Twenty yards away, the boy waved and waded into the crowd toward
them. For a moment they lost sight of him, then he popped up next to them.

“Hey Mom, can I—”

“What did that man want?”

“What man?”

She motioned toward the tent, but there was only a mass of backs, no one distinguishable. “The man you were just talking to.”

“I don’t know.”

“Then why were you talking to him?”

“He said hello, so I said hello back. You told me to be polite to people.”

“Is he the father of one of your friends?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe?”

“I think so, ’cause he knew my name, except he called me David.”

“He knew your name?”

“Yeah, so?”

“What else did he say?”

“I don’t remember. Can I have six bucks to go on the bumper cars? Please.”

“The bumper cars don’t cost six dollars,” Simon said.

“Three rides do.”

Amy took two dollars from her pocketbook, and Davey grabbed them. “Thanks.”

“We’ll come watch you,” she said.

Davey twisted up his face in yet another expression of disgust. He seemed to have an endless variety of ways to show his revulsion. “Dad?”

Simon had thought about going on the ride as well, renewing their battle from last year when they rammed each other at every turn. This year, it seemed, Davey wanted to be on his own.

“How about we watch him get on,” Simon said to Amy, “and then we go away till he’s done?”

As Davey ran off a young man stepped in front of them. His face was unshaven and his curly hair spread wildly across his head. Amy grabbed Simon’s arm.

“Mr. Howe,” the fellow said, grinning now, which exposed two sharp canine teeth, as if they had been filed to a point. “It’s me, Randy—you know, the Hero of Dakin Road.”

“Right, Randy Caine,” Simon said, his body un-stiffening. “I didn’t recognize you from your mug shots.”