TWENTY-ONE
Cecilia was late getting back. Instead of returning at 11:30, it was closer to 12:15 when she finally walked in the door. She was dressed for church in a baggy blue tweed suit with bumble bee scatter pins on the lapel. The white blouse underneath featured a frothy burst of lace at the neck. She expressed no surprise when she saw me and in my paranoid state, I imagined my presence had been reported in advance. She opened the half-door to the office, closed it behind her, put her handbag on the desk, and turned to look at me. “Now. What can I do for you? I hear you’re staying at Selma’s so it can’t be a room you’ve come to ask about.”
“I’m still working on this business of Tom’s death.”
“Seven weeks ago tomorrow. Hard to take it in,” she said.
“Do you happen to remember who was staying here that weekend?”
“At the motel? That’s easy.” She reached for the registration ledger, licked her index finger, and began to page back through the weeks. March became February as she reversed the days. The week of February 1 appeared. She ran a finger down the list of names. “A party of skiers, maybe six of ’em in two cabins. I gave ’em Hemlock and Spruce, as far away from the office as I could make it because I knew they’d get to partying. That type always do. I remember them toting in more cases of beer than they had luggage. Complained a lot, too. Water pressure, heat. Nothing suited them,” she said, shooting me a look.
“Anyone else? Any single women?”
“Meaning what?”
“Not meaning anything, Cecilia,” I said, patiently. “I’m following up on the CHP report. Tennyson says he saw a woman walking down the road. She may have been a figment of his imagination. It’s possible she had nothing to do with Tom. It would be helpful to find her so I’m hoping against hope she was staying here that night. That way you could tell me how to get in touch with her.”
She checked the register again. “Nope. Married couple from Los Angeles. Or so they claimed. Only saw that pair when they crawled out of bed to take meals. And one other family with a couple of kids. Wife was in a wheelchair so I doubt he saw her.”
“What about you? When you came back from the movies, was there anyone on the road? This would have been between ten and ten-thirty.”
Cecilia seemed to give it some thought and then shook her head. “The only thing I remember is someone using the phone out there. I try to discourage strangers stopping off to make calls; tromping up and down the porch stairs, ripping pages from the telephone book. Handset’s been stolen twice. This is private property.”
“I thought the pay phone was public.”
“Not as far as I’m concerned. That’s strictly for motel customers. One of the amenities,” she said. “Anyway, I could see the Rainbow was closed and the outside lights were off. I poked my head out, but it was only Barrett calling her dad to pick her up. I offered her a lift, but she said he was already on his way.”
“You have any idea if Rafer had picked up on the 9-1-1 dispatch?”
“You mean, the ambulance for Tom? Probably,” she said. “Or James might have called him, knowing they were such good friends.” She closed the ledger. “Now, I hope you’ll excuse me. I have someone joining me for Sunday lunch.”
“Sure. No problem. I appreciate your help.”
I tucked my papers in the briefcase, gathered up the index cards, put a rubber band around them, and dropped them in there, too. I shrugged into my jacket, grabbed my handbag and the briefcase, and returned to my car at the Rainbow. So here’s the question I asked myself: If Barrett left work at nine thirty, why did it take her thirty to forty minutes to call her dad? I sat in the car, watching the clouds gather in a dark gray sky, watching the light dim down to a twilight state. It was only one o’clock in the afternoon, but the dark was so pervasive that the photo sensor on Cecilia’s exterior lights popped to life. Snow began to fall, big airy flakes settling on the windshield like a layer of soap suds. I waited, watching the rear of the Rainbow Cafe.
By two-thirty, the lunch crowd was all but gone. I sat with the inborn patience of the cat watching for a lizard to reappear from the crevice between two rocks. At 2:44, the back door opened and Barrett came out, wearing her apron and her chef’s toque and carrying a large plastic garbage bag intended for the trash bin to my left. I rolled down the window. “Hi, Barrett. You have a minute?”
She dumped the garbage bag and moved closer. I leaned over and unlocked the passenger door, pushing it open a crack. “Hop in. You’ll freeze to death out there.”
She made no move. “I thought you were gone.”
“I was visiting Cecilia. What time do you get off work?”
“Not for hours.”
“Why don’t you take a break? I’d like to talk to you.”
She hesitated, looking toward the Rainbow. “I’m really not supposed to, but it’s okay for just a minute.” She got in the car, slammed the door, and crossed her bare arms against the cold. I’d have run the engine for the heat, but I didn’t want to waste the gas and I was hoping her discomfort would motivate her to tell me what I wanted to know.
“Your dad says you’re on your way to med school.”
“I haven’t been accepted yet,” she said.
“Where’re you thinking to go?”
“Did you want something in particular? Because Nancy doesn’t know I’m out here and I really don’t have a coffee break until closer to three.”
“I should get to the point, now you mention it,” I said. I could feel a fib start to form. For me, it’s the same sensation as a sneeze in the making, that wonderful reaction of the autonomic nervous system when something tickles my nose. “I was curious about some- thing.” Please note, she didn’t ask what. “Wasn’t it you Tom Newquist was here to meet that night?”
“Why would he do that?”
“I have no idea. That’s why I’m asking you,” I said.
She must have done some acting at one point; maybe high school, the senior play, not the lead. She made a show of frowning, then shook her head in bafflement. “I don’t think so,” she said, as though racking her brain.
“I have to tell you, he made a note on his desk calendar. He wrote Barrett plain as day.”
“He did?”
“I ran across it today, which is why I was asking earlier who he was here to meet. I was hoping you’d be honest, but you dropped the ball,” I said. “I would have let it pass, but then the story was confirmed, so here I am. You want to tell me how it went?”
“Confirmed?”
“As in verified,” I said.
“Who confirmed it?”
“Cecilia.”
“It wasn’t anything,” she said.
“Well, great. Cough it up, in that case. I’d like to hear.”
“We just talked a few minutes and then he started feeling bad.”
“What’d you talk about?”
“Just stuff. We were chatting about my dad. I mean, it was nothing in particular. Just idle conversation. Me and Brant used to go steady and he was asking about the breakup. He always felt bad that we didn’t hang in together. I knew he was leading up to something, but I didn’t know what. Then, he started feeling sick. I could see the color drain from his face and he started sweating. I was scared.”
“Did he say he was in pain?”
She nodded, her voice wavering when she spoke. “He was clutching his chest and his breathing was all raspy. I said I’d go back to the motel and get some help and he said, fine, do that. He told me to lock the truck door and not mention our meeting to anyone. He was real emphatic about that, made me promise. Otherwise, I might have told you when you asked the first time.” She fumbled in her uniform pocket and found a tissue. She swiped at her eyes and blew her nose.
I waited until she was calmer before I went on. “Did he say anything else?”
She took a deep breath. “Stay off the road if any cars came along. He didn’t want anyone to know I’d been talking to him.”
“Why?”
“He didn’t want to put me in any danger, was what he said.”
“He didn’t say from whom?”
“He didn’t mention anyone by name,” she said.
“What else?”
“That’s everything.”
“He didn’t give you his notebook for safekeeping?”
She shook her head mutely.