Reunion at Red Paint Bay - By George Harrar Page 0,60
L.A. would descend on the town and poke around like it was a newly discovered historical site. He—or she, perhaps, the feminine touch right for this tale of rape and murder—would become a fixture at Red’s, overhearing bits of conversation, sliding her card across the counter for people to call her later and arrange a meeting at some out-of-the-way location. And they would talk, as Maine folk could once they got going, remembering stories of Simon as the talented but restless teenager, Simon as the young man who left for Portland to make his mark in journalism, Simon who ten years ago came back to buy his hometown paper, a curious move, the fallback position for a journalist who had never made it out of the state. It was obvious that he had hoped to go further. You could see it in his work. He wasn’t engaged in the town the way an editor should be. Standoffish, aloof. As for the incident on the dock twenty-five years ago, there had been rumors. The girl’s family left town quickly after graduation, and Simon was the last one to be with her in public. A few people put two and two together, figured something happened. Nobody said rape, though. Nobody went that far. But looking back …
Casper stirred on the bed, stood up, stretched, and sank back in the opposite direction around Davey’s head. Simon turned away and tiptoed down the thickly carpeted stairs into the kitchen. If he drank tea it would be time to boil water, search through the box of odd herbal flavors, then sit with his hands cupped around the mug, breathing in the scent. All very calming. He hated tea, the thin taste of it, and the way it reminded him of being sick as a boy. Bland tea was his mother’s cure for any disturbance of the stomach. He opened the refrigerator and pulled out the organic milk that Amy bought as part of her futile effort to put at least some healthy ingredients into Davey’s body. Simon poured himself a glass to the very top.
It was an accident. That would be clear to everyone if he turned himself in, explained the situation, how one thing led to another. But if he had done nothing wrong, why hadn’t he called the police when Paul failed to surface in the water? Why leave the scene, go home, change clothes, act as if nothing had happened? There was the sure sign that something had happened—acting as if it had not.
When Simon pulled into his customary parking space at the side of the Register Building facing the red brick wall, he didn’t turn off the engine immediately. He sat for a moment tapping his fingers on the steering wheel, contemplating the circumstances he suddenly found himself in. He was an unrepentant rapist, according to Amy. He was the reason a woman committed suicide, according to Paul Walker. And, quite likely, he had taken another man’s life, according to his own observation. Some problems had conceivable solutions. These problems seemed locked in place around him, no resolution possible. You couldn’t change death back to life. Perhaps you could escape, though. He could back out of the parking space and drive out of Red Paint, out of Maine, out of his life, at least for a while. Amy would probably appreciate some time off from him. The Register—it could go on without him. He imagined the headline—Editor Seen Leaving Town. Not Fleeing, a concession to the fact that he did still own the paper.
The newsroom was unusually alive with activity when he finally entered the front door. Leaving town sounded adventurous, but he wasn’t the type to run away. He turned toward his desk and Joe Armin materialized in front of him as he often did, as if transmitted from some other place and re-forming himself in the air. “Hey boss, big news,” he said. “I heard it on the scanner—the police are over at the bay looking for a missing person.”
Simon continued to his desk with deliberate speed, dropped his briefcase on the floor and picked through the mail neatly piled for him, as he would normally do. “Who’s missing?”
“Some guy who was staying at the inn. They think he may have fallen into the bay and drowned.”
Fallen into the bay, not pushed or punched. Simon slid his finger under the flap of an envelope and opened it. “Why do the police think somebody fell into the bay?”
“Yesterday afternoon the