“I saw(that sign. I’ll be sure to try it later.”
“Have the peach. Helen just made it up last week. It’s dandy. So if you aren’t here for ice cream, then why are you here?”
Here goes, he thought. “I’m a private detective, ma’am. My client’s parents disappeared around this area some three and a half years ago. The cops never got anywhere. The son hired me to find out what happened to them.”
“Old folk?”
“Yeah, they’d been driving all over the U.S. in a Winnebago. The Winnebago was found in a used car lot up in Spokane. Looked to be foul play, but nobody could ever find anything out.”
“So why are you here in The Cove? Nothing ever happens here, nothing at all. I remember telling my husband, Bobby-he died of pneumonia just after Eisenhower was reelected in 1956-that this little town had never known a heyday, but it just kept going anyhow. Do you know what happened then? Well, I’ll tell you. This banker from Portland bought up lots of coastal land and built vacation cottages. He built the two-laner off Highway 101 and ran it right to the ocean.” Thelma stopped, licked the end of her fountain pen, and sighed. “Then in the 1960’s, everything began to fall apart, everyone just upped and left, got bored with our town, I suppose. So, you see, it doesn’t make any sense for you to stay here.”
“I’m using your town as a sort of central point. I’ll search out from here. Perhaps you remember these old folk coming through, ma’am-”
“My name’s Thelma, I told you that. There’s lots of ma’ams in this world, but just one me, and I’m Thelma Nettro. Doc Spiver pronounced me deader than a bat some years ago, but he was wrong. Oh, Lordy, you should have seen the look on Ralph Keaton’s face when he had me all ready to lay out in that funeral home of his. I near to scared the toenails off him when I sat up and asked him what the hell he was doing. Ah, yes, that was something. He was so scared he went shouting for Reverend Hal Vor-hees to protect him. You can call me Thelma, boy.”
“Maybe you remember these old folk, Thelma. The man was Harve Jensen, and his wife’s name was Marge. A nice older couple, according to their son. The son did say they had a real fondness for ice cream.” Why not, he thought. Stir the pot a bit. Be specific, it made you more believable. Besides, everyone liked ice cream. He’d have to try it.
“Harve and Marge Jensen,” Thelma repeated, rocking harder now, her veined and spotted old hands clenching and unclenching on the arms of the chair. “Can’t say I remember any old folk like that. Driving a Winnebago, you say? You go over and try one of Helen’s peach ice cream cones.”
“Soon I will. I like the sign out there at the junction of 101 and 101 A. The artist really got that brown color to look just like rich chocolate ice cream. Yeah, they were driving a Winnebago.”
“It’s brought us lots of folk, that sign. The state bureaucrats wanted us to take it down, but one of our locals-Gus Eisner-knew the governor’s cousin, and he fixed it. We pay the state three hundred dollars a year to keep the sign there. Amabel repaints it every year in July, sort of an anniversary, since that’s when we first opened. Purn Davies told her the chocolate paint she used for the ice cream was too dark, but we all ignored him. He wanted to marry Amabel after her husband died, but she wouldn’t have anything to do with him. He still isn’t over it. Pretty tacky, huh?”
“I’d say so,” Quinlan said.
“You tell Amabel that you think her chocolate is perfect. That’ll please her.”
Amabel, he thought. Amabel Perdy. She was her aunt.
The stocky gray-haired woman behind the counter cleared her throat. She smiled at him when he turned back to her.
“What did you say, Martha? Speak up. You know I can’t hear you.”
Like hell, James thought. The old relic probably heard everything within three miles of town.