that somebody has been watching, or why the note. This is the mystery: the design, the quality of the stock. The message is the medium. He knows without being told that this is not a threat. Carefully matching the original fold lines, he zips the paper into his messenger bag. He locks it in the car and walks away, pacing the streets with no certain destination.
He has to think.
When he left Archambault’s this morning he came directly to the Star building, jittering and loaded for bear. His thinking has done a 360 since then, and it’s getting dark.
He went in to research the story he devised to justify his presence here. His projected in-depth story about Fort Jude’s spontaneous human combustions got him into the morgue, a.k.a. library. Three unexplained deaths by fire in the same city within thirty years – what a story! If he could find something new on them and get it right and sell it, Fort Jude’s incendiary women would jump-start his career. If he could force himself to go back into that terrible house.
It’s in the blood.
The librarian brought him everything he needed: photocopies of front pages and folders of individual stories, folders of cracked photos, city directory, tax records on the one burn site still standing police reports, personal data on the victims – everything he needed – but he could not bring himself to look at them.
In a miracle of avoidance, he cut to the chase.
He called for everything they had on Chaplin and the four names supplied by this guy Bellinger’s kid. The boys snapped in that Jeep on a prehistoric beach before he was imagined are middle-aged men now, but if his mother kept that snapshot she kept it for a reason, maybe as a message to him.
Maybe Lucy, who told him nothing, saved the big stuff for last so she wouldn’t have to sit through a painful Q. and A. Searches always begin in crazy hope and end in the usual way, but, hey. Maybe he can find and confront the guy.
Maybe she knew he’d use the photo to track the suspects to their lairs. She never said much but she loved him, she’d want him to get what he wants. What he wants? He wants to bag his biodad like a deer and take him home tied to his roof rack, antlers and all. Then the fight, the joyful reunion, whatever Dan Carteret really needs – an explanation – will follow. To hell with the story. He can get out of this town without going back to the Archambault house.
Meeting Bob Chaplin yesterday, Dan never would have guessed that the miserable, defeated guy he found weeding his sidewalk in Pine Vista used to be a big deal. Amazing, he’s front and center in a full-page spread in the Sports section, flanked by his main men Bellinger, Von Harten, Coleman, Kalen, holding their helmets like trophies – five guys with Seventies sideboards and toothpaste grins.
All but Chaplin stayed local. He moved north and rose fast in the food chain, up to a point. Eagle Scout, Harvard graduate, summa cum; Harvard combined law degree and M.B.A., Goldman Sachs; New York wedding, reception at the Metropolitan Club but no photo, wonder what happened with the wife; regular promotions. Then the stories stopped.
Scowling, Dan studied young Chaplin the way he used to study Burt Mixon’s blunt, mean face, convincing himself all over again: It isn’t him.
He thinks.
The others? Their lives continued, boring or not. The Bellinger kid’s father did well over the years, still is: high school fullback, University of Florida all the way, marriage to a local girl, partner in a leading law firm, officer in the Florida Bar Association, ecology activist, local tennis star, all good. There wasn’t much on Von Harten or Coleman; Jaycees, pillars of the community, printing company, car dealership, prizes for whatever they’re still doing, no big, but at least they’re still doing it. Possible. They’re all possible.
The thick Kalen file started with a sixth birthday party – carousel and pony rides, family must have a lot of jack; at six the kid had the same bulldog scowl as Chaplin’s beefy tackle. Dan scowled reflexively. Kalen smiled for his photo in suit and tie graduating from some jerkwater college, couldn’t get in anywhere decent, Dan thought; could he be that stupid and be my dad? Wedding photo: Kalen in a tux, strong-arming his cute, tiny bride with big boobs out of the Episcopal cathedral in a shower