Today she was so-so.
On the other side of the wall that divided the old and new parts of the house, Roberta Gast too was looking in the mirror, the beautiful Chippendale mirror she had inherited from her mother. She had hung it in the living room, where the light was just right, flattering her, doing away with the awful wrinkles she had seen on her face on moving day. Now, in the morning light, it gave back the image of a handsome, clever-looking woman. Smiling, Roberta walked away from the mirror and looked out the window.
Was the car there? Yes, Bob had left it on the brow of the hill, at the very edge of the sloping lawn, just as he had promised.
Eddy was playing outside, stumbling slowly over the grass, following a meandering parade of ants. All the ants were carrying tiny green pieces of leaves.
Roberta did not see the ants. She put her face against the screen and called to Eddy, “Look, Eddy, there’s the old car. Wouldn’t you like to play in the car? Look, one of the doors is open. Why don’t you play in it for a while? You can pretend to be driving a car, a real car.”
Annie was back at work, mixing paint, trying to get the right depth of black for Andersen’s tall hat, when she heard the squeal from outdoors and Flimnap’s shout. Running to the window, she saw him race across the hillside, trying to intercept the car that was plunging toward him in free fall.
Annie threw open the screen door and ran after him, screaming, “Stop, stop! Let it go!” But he wasn’t stopping, he was galloping along beside the car, throwing open the door, heaving himself inside. The car skidded as he wrenched at the steering wheel, but instead of slowing down it plunged faster and faster, heading for the thick forest of oak trees at the bottom of the hill. While Annie stumbled after it, shrieking, there was an awful grinding as the driver’s door burst off its hinges and the left side of the car crunched and scraped past one tree, narrowly missed another, and came to a stop in a wild arching thicket of buckthorn and honeysuckle.
Sobbing, Annie floundered through the thicket and grasped the shuddering frame of the door. Flimnap looked up at her, his face white, his hands shaking on the wheel. There was a whimpering bundle on the seat beside him. It was young Eddy Gast.
“Oh my God, Flimnap,” whispered Annie.
And then Roberta Gast was there, opening the door on the other side, extracting Eddy. “He loves to play in the car,” she said, her voice trembling. She turned away and started up the hill, carrying Eddy, whose frightened face looked back at Annie over his mother’s shoulder.
Flimnap got out. Shakily he turned away from Annie and looked at the car. “Where the hell did it come from?”
“I don’t know, but I’ve seen it before.”
The car that had plunged down the hill carrying little Eddy Gast was not his father’s Bronco or his mother’s Mazda. It was the old Chevy in which Robert and Roberta Gast had appeared in Annie’s life for the very first time.
Chapter 15
“Then get thee gone, and a murrain seize thee!” cried the Sheriff …
“I have a good part of a mind to have thee beaten for thine insolence!”
Howard Pyle,
Merry Adventures of Robin Hood
The police and fire departments in Southtown were housed in a big flat-roofed brick building. Most of it belonged to the fire department. Huge red engines filled the driveway, their chromium fittings glittering in the sun.
Homer found the entrance marked POLICE and walked in. The white-haired officer on the other side of the counter looked up from his computer screen and said, “May I help you?”
“Chief McNutt?”
The officer shook his head and stood up. “Sergeant Kennebunk. You’re Homer Kelly?” He smiled and glanced at his watch. “The chief’s expecting you. You’re right on time.” He stretched out his hand. “Glad to meet you. You’re pretty famous around here.”
“For bungling and general mismanagement?” But Homer was flattered. Grinning, he shook Kennebunk’s hand and glanced down the hall. “Is the chief here?”
“I’ll get him.” Kennebunk disappeared.
Homer looked at the pictures on the wall. They were all alike, photographs of a tubby man in a tight uniform standing beside one famous person after another—Ronald Reagan, Tip O’Neill, Ted Kennedy, Ross Perot. One showed him smirking beside a gorgeous woman who might be Madonna, or perhaps some other shapely female.
Kennebunk came back, looking embarrassed. “He’ll be a minute or two.”
“Well, maybe you can help me, Sergeant. I’m looking for a man named Small who lives in Southtown. I understand Mrs. Small has disappeared. She was a student of my wife’s.”