Unspeakable (39 page)

“O
h, Clay, I'm so sorry,” Cathy said on the other end of the line. “I hope Corinne gets out of the hospital soon. Please, give her our best.”

“Thanks, but like I say, she's been pretty out of it,” he replied. “She's sleeping right now. There's nothing I can do for her over there.”

He was sitting at the desk in his room at the Commodore Inn, near the Space Needle. He'd showered and then changed into a T-shirt and sweatpants. He was waiting for a room-service French dip to be delivered. “Listen, while I've got you here,” he said to Jerry's sister-in-law. “Did you and Mike get the guest book from the funeral home yet?”

“Yeah, but don't worry. They gave us a bunch of preprinted thank-you notes. We'll take care of the guest thank-yous. You've got enough on your plate.”

“Oh, good, thanks.” He hadn't even thought of that. “Well, as long as you have it, could you check one of the names in there for me?”

“Sure, hold on for a sec.”

There was a pause, and Clay frowned at his slightly swollen hand in the ACE bandage.

“Okay, got it,” Cathy said. “What's the name?”

“Collin Cox.”

“As in little Collin Cox, the actor? Are you serious?”

“Yeah, he was there with an older couple. He was talking with Olivia for a while.”

“Oh, yes, I remember. He was in the pew right behind Tom Hanks. Clay, are you sure you didn't get a head injury?”

“Just check it for me, please,” he said. “Okay?”

“Hmmm,” Cathy said. “Well, I don't see his name. Closest I have to it is a Collin
Stampler
on 27 Skog-Strand Lane, Poulsbo.”

“Like I say, he was there with an older couple. They drove away in a BMW.”

“Well, in the space above him are Andrew and Dee Stampler—same address. Wow, I didn't know they attended the service—not that I would have recognized them.”

“What are you talking about? Who are they?”

“Andy Stampler's a big name on the Kitsap Peninsula. Makes sense he'd be driving a BMW. He used to employ half the people here in town. He's retired and, I'm sure, a multimillionaire. He's always good for a couple of grand whenever there's a fund-raiser.”

“How old is he?”

“I'm guessing he's in his seventies. How do you suppose they knew Jerry and Sue?”

“Can you spell that last name for me?” Clay asked, grabbing a pen with his bandaged hand. “And what's that address again?”

The pipes squeaked as Collin shut off the shower. As he reached for a towel, he thought he heard the home line ringing. He stepped out of the tub and opened the bathroom door. Steam escaped to his bedroom. He listened to the phone ring once more—and then nothing. He figured one of his grandparents must have picked it up in their bedroom.

Squinting at the digital clock on his nightstand, he wondered who would be calling at 10:15 at night. He remembered the last time the home line had rung after 10
PM
. It had been when they'd found Fernando dead.

He ducked back into the bathroom, then quickly toweled off and dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt. Opening his bedroom door, he peeked down the hallway. He thought he heard his grandfather murmuring. After a moment, it was quiet. Then the master bedroom door opened and a shaft of light poured into the darkened hallway. With his hands in the pockets of his robe, Old Andy slowly walked up the corridor toward him.

“Who called?” Collin asked, running a hand through his still-damp hair.

“The husband of some hypnotist you've been seeing—behind my back,” he replied, glumly.

Collin grimaced. He moved aside as Old Andy stepped into his bedroom.

“Better close the door,” his grandfather said.

 

 

Halfway through the theme from
Exodus
, there was a click on the recording—and then a voice. For a moment, Olivia thought it was Collin in a trance. Then she realized it was Wade.

“Hey, is this on? Is this working?”
he asked.

Sitting at her mother's desk, Olivia put down another birthday card from the Frederick & Nelson box. She turned toward the tape recorder on the island counter. It had been playing for the last two hours. She'd listened to the Kingston Trio, the Beach Boys, and then an extremely tedious recording of people at a birthday party, occasionally and quite drunkenly belting out a song, one of which was “Hello Muddah, Hello, Fadduh
.
” This latest tape was a vast improvement, with movie music like “Moon River” and the theme from
The Apartment
.

“Testing, one, two, three,”
Wade said.

“Hey, you idiot, that's my Ferrante and Teicher tape!”
someone yelled. Olivia figured it must have been Sheri.
“Get away from there!”

There was another click, and then it went back to the
Exodus
theme.

The interruption gave Olivia a spark of hope that listening to these tapes wasn't an entire waste of time. She'd just heard an unscheduled interruption from Wade and Sheri Grinnell. It wasn't much, but there could be something more substantial and revealing on another tape.

In the box, amid Sheri's mementos, she'd found two cartoon birthday cards from Wade. He wasn't much for words. He'd signed both cards:
Happy Birthday, Sis – Love, Wade.

Olivia had set both cards aside, and made a note to herself to have Collin write down the same words while in his Wade persona. She had a feeling his penmanship—unlike his voice—wouldn't be a match.

As the
Magnificent Seven
theme came on the tape, Olivia found something else near the bottom of the box: three more bankbooks, all bound together in a rubber band. The dried-up rubber band broke apart as soon as she pulled out the first book. It was Seattle First National again, with
Sheri Grinnell
in slightly girlish script on the front page. The book covered her transactions from July through December 1962. Wade had been killed on October 11, 1962.

Olivia flipped to that date. On October 15, Sheri withdrew six hundred and twenty dollars, practically draining her account. Olivia figured it must have gone to help pay for the funeral. Then on November 29, Sheri made a deposit of nine thousand, nine hundred dollars—an extraordinary amount, especially for someone whose deposits rarely exceeded a hundred dollars at a time.

Olivia wondered if Sheri had received some sort of payment for what had happened to Wade. Was it part of an inheritance or an insurance compensation? Or was it hush money? Sheri claimed to know some big secret about the Rockabye Murders and her brother's death. Had someone connected to the World's Fair or the police paid to keep her quiet?

Olivia started to jot down a note to herself:

Her cell phone rang, interrupting her. As Olivia reached for it, she glanced at the clock on the microwave: 10:39
PM
. The caller ID showed:
Collin Stampler
. She clicked on the phone. “Hi, Collin,” she said. “I was supposed to call you tonight, wasn't I? I'm sorry.”

“It's okay,” he said, sounding a bit stiff.

“It's been a crazy day here.” She got up to switch off the reel-to-reel tape player. “How are you?”

“I'm all right. Um, you said you might be able to see me tomorrow.”

“That's right.”

“Well, my grandfather wants to come with me to the appointment.”

“You told him?” she asked, sinking back down in the desk chair.

“Well, not really. Your husband thinks I took his picture and texted it to somebody or something. I'm not sure what's going on. But he called my grandfather, all bent out of shape. Anyway, your husband told my grandfather that I was seeing you for hypnosis therapy.”

“Oh, Collin, I'm so sorry,” she murmured. “But you know, maybe this is a good thing. You were going to have to tell your grandfather eventually. The fact that he wants to come to the appointment with you, that's a positive sign—at least, I hope it is.”

“Well,” Collin sighed. “Here he is. He wants to talk with you.”

Now she realized why Collin sounded so strange. The grandfather had been standing beside him all the while. He came on the line. “Hello?”

“Hello, Mr. Stampler,” she said, straightening up in the chair. She wasn't sure why, but she suddenly felt intimidated.

“What time were you planning to see my grandson tomorrow?” he asked abruptly.

“We hadn't arranged a time yet. My schedule is pretty open.”

“Well, I don't like taking him out of school, but I don't want to drag this out any longer then we have to. How about ten o'clock tomorrow morning?”

“That works for me,” she said. “Would you like me to come there to Poulsbo?”

“No, we'll see you at your office. Collin knows the way.”

“Actually, my office is—well, it's under repair right now. But you could come to my father's house. It's off Lake Washington in the Denny-Blaine neighborhood—182 Alder Lane.”

“182 Alder,” he repeated. “All right, Collin and I will see you at ten o'clock. Meanwhile, please tell your husband not to call my house again.”

“I will,” she said. “I'm sorry about that, Mr. Stampler.”

“Good night, Ms. Barker,” he said. Then he hung up.

Olivia clicked off the phone. After that conversation—and before calling Clay—she desperately needed a cigarette.

Her father had just gone to bed. So she tried to be as quiet as possible stepping out the front door. She lit up a Virginia Slim. She still couldn't get used to the burnt, crusty exterior of the door. Clutching the collar of her sweater around her neck, she gazed out at the bushes along the border of the front lawn—and the street beyond it. All at once, she saw someone dart between two trees on the parkway.

A panic swept through her. “Who's there?” she cried.

“It's me, Ian!” he called back softly. He waved at her and came up to the front walkway. “I'm sorry, did I scare you?”

She held a hand over her heart. “What are you doing here?”

He shyly approached the front stoop and shoved his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “I know they're supposed to put an extra patrol on this street, but I needed to make sure you're all right. I saw you come outside. I thought you might be investigating a noise or something.”

She puffed on her cigarette. “No, I just stepped out to satisfy my filthy habit.”

“I didn't take you for a smoker.”

“I'm trying to quit. This is my third cigarette today.”

The light went on in the window upstairs.

Ian glanced up. “I think I woke your dad.”

“It's okay,” she said, flicking an ash. “Dad won't be upset. He thinks you're a great guy.”

Ian gave her a crooked smile. “So how am I doing with his daughter? I mean, my pushiness and borderline-stalker behavior aside, what do you think of me?”

“To be honest, not too long ago, I got burned as badly as this door here. I'm still kind of getting over it. So if you're interested in me, I'll probably be a lot of work.” She dropped her cigarette and ground it out. “All that said, in answer to your question, I think my dad might be right about you.”

Ian took a step closer to her. “Really?”

Olivia heard a car engine purring, and she looked toward the street.

A patrol car cruised up the narrow road and stopped in front of the house. A stocky young cop climbed out and came to the start of the walkway. “Haggerty,” he said. “They just radioed this to me. . . .”

Olivia thought it might be some new, startling development.

“I'm the third guy who's seen you out here and almost mistook you for a prowler. Unless the nice lady invites you in, they want you to go home and let us do our job here. Otherwise, I'm supposed to haul you in for loitering.”

Olivia laughed. “You better go home,” she said to Ian.

He smiled at her and nodded. “Sleep tight.”

She picked up the cigarette butt, stepped back inside, and locked the door.

 

 

Before heading home to his apartment in Madison Park, Ian pulled into the small parking lot of Madison Val-U Mart—near Olivia's office. The place was open until midnight. Right now, there was only one other car in front of the store—a black Saturn with two people in the front seat. The way the store light reflected on the windshield, Ian couldn't see their faces. It looked like two men in there. But he wasn't sure.