Kerwin Frees had narrowed his search to a small valley between two low ridges. It was rural—even for the Tahoe area—but he was hopeful that among the clusters of summer homes and isolated retreats someone had seen something.
He had mapped a course that took him on a rough circuit of the area, going door-to-door. Not many doors opened. This time of year, most of the summer homes were awaiting their occupants, while the ski lodges had just bid their owners good-bye. Of the few people he spoke to, only two had actually seen the blazing trail of light. One, out for a late-night walk, had seen it reflected in the water of a large pond; the other, an insomniac, had glimpsed it as it passed over a skylight. A handful more claimed to have been awakened by something—some noise or tremor or explosion—and had assumed it to be thunder or a stray jet.
Still, he was able to determine approximately where the “meteorite” had skimmed the treetops. It was pushing twilight when he pulled his car into a little cul-de-sac called Perelandra Circle—an ironic and downright un-Tahoe-ish name. There was one cabin in the cul-de-sac, though he could see the smoke from a neighboring house weaving among the trees.
As he pulled into the drive, he was startled by movement on the roof. He glanced up, but caught only a flash of turquoise above the ridgepole. If it was raccoons, they’d taken to dressing up for their nocturnal forays. There was no car in the drive, but a light was on inside. It was extinguished even as he approached the front door. He knocked, he rang, he knocked again. He tried to peer through a front window. Once he thought he saw movement in the darkened recesses of the place, but he couldn’t be sure.
Probably a kid, he thought, or a woman, left alone and waiting for parent or partner to come back from the store. “Hey!” he called. “I just want to ask a couple of questions about a meteorite fall we had a while back. I’m a… an astronomy student and I was hoping I might find it. It’d really help my grades, you know?”
There was a long silence, then, a voice just on the other side of the front door said, “A meteorite?”
“Yes. It was May 6th. At about one A.M.”
“And it fell near here?”
“Very near. Possibly in that little valley behind your house. Did you see it?”
“No. I’m sorry. I did not see it. I was… not up at that hour.”
Kerwin Frees muzzled his frustration and asked, “Did you hear anything then? I talked to several people in the area who said they heard something that woke them up—like thunder or a jet going over.”
Now the silence was profound. Then, Kerwin Frees imagined he heard murmuring on the opposite side of the door. “Do you think you might open the door? It’s kind of hard to communicate like this. I’m really not dangerous.”
“Sorry, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
“I understand. So did you? Hear anything?”
“I heard nothing. We had not taken occupancy of the house just yet.”
Frees frowned. “A minute ago, you said you were asleep. Now you say you weren’t in the area?”
“We were, as you say, ‘in the area.’ We were not in the house at that time.” There was a pause and some more murmurs. “We were camping… across the valley.”
“You still might have heard something.”
“We did not.”
It was a strange interview, Kerwin Frees thought later, as he drove home in the dark. The hidden speaker (and a hidden companion, he was fairly certain), the sexless, oddly accented voice, the ambiguous answers. A very strange interview. He let his imagination run with it; he had stumbled across a hostage situation, or one side of a love triangle, or someone who had broken into the house and was using it without the owner’s knowledge.
The more he thought about it, the more this last idea stuck with Kerwin Frees. He decided he would call the sheriff’s department in the morning and suggest that the house might bear watching. Could just be kids using the place as a party spot, or it could be someone a lot more sinister. He wasn’t prone to poking his nose into other folks’ affairs, and he didn’t feature himself as a good Samaritan, but he might be able to keep some poor schmuck from walking into a very sticky situation.
Stan Schell was tired. In fact, he was exhausted. It was day ten of a two-month book tour and he sat in a titanic Barnes & Noble in Sacramento wishing he was browsing for books instead of sitting behind his signing table praying the cluster of newcomers by the front door had come to see him. Still, he was grateful to be here; the other stops he’d made so far had been in small-town specialty stores that had barely enough room in them for the signing table, let alone the two or three people who might show up to have him sign a book.
Working on his second latte from a neighboring bistro, he caught himself wondering who had first noticed that books and espresso go together like bagels and cream cheese, and realized he was hopelessly bored. And depressed. And exposed. He was between two sale tables, in conspicuous view. He’d signed a few books—might even sign a few more—but mostly he’d sat under the flickering glances of browsers, trying not to read their thoughts. Sometimes people would stop, pick up a book and indulge in pleasantries, such as informing him that they didn’t read science fiction in a tone of voice that suggested they didn’t understand why anyone would.
At the bottom of the latte, he decided he’d had it with trying to look interested and interesting. He pulled a newspaper from his briefcase and pretended to be looking at the ad for his signing. Then he gave up all pretense and turned the page. An audible sigh escaped him—and went completely unnoticed by the flock of shoppers around the sale tables. The section he held—the section the promotions manager had given him because his ad was in it—was inhabited by gossip columns, allegedly witty and urbane commentaries, and advice to the lovelorn.
Stan glanced surreptitiously around. He seemed to have become such a fixture over the last two hours that people had ceased to notice him. He turned his eyes back to the paper. His mind was desperate for something to do. He read Dear Abby.” Then he read “Miss Manners.” Then he turned the page and met himself face to face.
He was simultaneously nonplused and pleased. Evidently the paper had run an article on the hometown boy as well as the paid ad. His eyes brought into focus the two words that appeared next to his face on the page. Ask Arlen. His gaze dropped to the text below. Dear Arlen, it said, I feel funny writing to a column about this…
“Excuse me, but could you sign my books, please?”
“Huh?” Mouth still hanging open, eyes possibly bugged out, Stan looked up into the face of a fan. She smiled shyly and proffered two of his novels for him to sign—a paperback and the hardback that would go out of print in a month, barring divine intervention. He dropped the mystery back into the briefcase and scrambled for his pen. “That’s what I’m here for,” he said and smiled.
The girl cocked her head and looked at him as he imagined Alice must have once looked at the White Rabbit. “You’re the guy that writes that advice column, aren’t you? Ask Arlen?”
He stared blankly at the flyleaf of the hardback, once again meeting his own black and white gaze. “Looks that way,” he said and signed his name.