The view was like a mural painted on a blue backdrop. The islands in the channel looked grim and deserted, twenty-six miles out. On the mainland, the small beaches were faintly visible, the surf like a tiny ruffle of white lace. The palm trees looked no bigger than fledgling asparagus. I could pick out a few landmarks: the courthouse, the high school, a big Catholic church, a theater, the one office building downtown over three stories high. From this vantage point, there was no evidence of the Victorian influence or any of the later architectural styles that blended now with the Spanish.
This house, he told me, had been finished in the summer of 1950. He and his wife, Reva, had just bought the place when the Korean War broke out. He'd been drafted and had gone off two days after they moved in, leaving Reva with stacks of cardboard boxes to unpack, returning fourteen months later with a service-related disability. He didn't specify what it was and I didn't ask, but he had apparently only worked sporadically since his medical discharge. They'd had five children and Rick had been the youngest. The others were scattered now through the Southwest.
"What was he like?" I asked. I wasn't sure he'd answer. The silence stretched on and I wondered if perhaps it might have been the wrong question. I hated to spoil whatever sense of camaraderie we'd established.
He shook his head finally. "I don't know how to answer that," he said. "He was one of those kids you think you're never going to have a minute's trouble with. Always sunny, did things without being told, good grades in school. Then when he was sixteen or so-his last year in high school-he seemed to lose his footing. He graduated all right, but he didn't seem to know what to do with himself. He was drifting. Had the grades for college and God knows I'd have found the money someplace, but it didn't interest him. Nothing did. Oh, he worked, but it never amounted to a hill of beans,"
"Was he doing drugs?"
"I don't think so. At least there was never any sign of it that I could see. The kid drank a lot. Reva thought it was that, but I don't know. He did like to party. He was out 'til all hours, slept the weekends away, hung out with kids like Bobby Callahan, way above us socially. Then he started dating Bobby's stepsister, Kitty. Christ, that girl was trouble the day she was born. By then, I was sick of putting up with him. If he didn't want to be part of the family, fine. Go somewhere else, though, earn your own keep. Don't think you can use this place to get meals and laundry done," He paused, looking over at me. "Was I wrong? I'm asking you."
"I don't know," I said. "How can you answer a question like that anyway? Kids get off-course and then they straighten out. Half the time, it doesn't have anything to do with parents. Who knows what it is?"
He was silent, staring out at the horizon, his lips encircling the cigar like a hose coupling. He sucked in some nicotine, then blew out a cloud of smoke. "Sometimes I wonder how bright he was. Maybe he should have seen a therapist, but how did I know? That's what Reva says now. What's a psychiatrist going to do with a kid who has no ambition?"
I didn't have a response to any of this so I made sympathetic sounds and let it go at that.
Brief silence. He said, "I hear Bobby's all messed up."
His tone was hesitant, a guarded inquiry about a hated rival. He must have wished Bobby dead a hundred times, cursing his good fortune at having survived.
"I'm not sure he wouldn't trade places with Rick if he could," I said, feeling my way. I didn t want to set offa fresh surge of agitation, but I didn't want him harboring the notion that Bobby was somehow "luckier" than Rick. Bobby was working his ass off to make life all right, but it was a struggle.
Below us, an old pale blue Ford rattled into view, spewing exhaust. The driver swung wide around my car and paused, apparently activating an automatic garage door. The car nosed out of sight beneath us and, moments later, I heard the muffled sound of the car door slamming.
"That's my wife," Phil said, as the garage-door mechanism ground under our feet.
Reva Bergen trudged up the steep walk, burdened with grocery sacks. I noted with curiosity that Phil made no move to assist her. She caught sight of us as she reached the porch. She hesitated, her face a perfect blank. Even at that distance, her gaze had an unfocused quality that seemed more pronounced when she finally came out of the back door, moments later, to join us. She was a dishwater blonde with that washed-out look women sometimes acquire in their fifties. Her eyes were small, nearly lashless. Pale eyebrows, pale skin. She was frail and bony, her hands looking as clumsy as gardening gloves on her narrow wrists. The two of them seemed so entirely unsuited to each other that I quickly discarded the unbidden image of their marital bed.
Phil explained who I was and the fact that I was investigating the accident in which Rick had been killed.
Her smile was mean. "Bobby's conscience bothering him?"
Phil interceded before I could frame a response. "Come on, Reva. What harm can it do? You said yourself the police-"
She turned abruptly and went back inside. Phil shoved his hands down in his pockets with embarrassment. "Nuts. She's been like that ever since it happened. Things set her off. I haven't been a joy to live with myself, but this thing has torn her heart out."
"I should be on my way," I said. "But I would like for you to do one thing if you would. I've been trying to figure out what could possibly have been going on back then and I'm not having much luck so far. Did Rick give you any indication that Bobby was in trouble or upset? Or that he might have had some kind of problem himself?"
He shook his head. "Rick's whole life was a problem to me, but it didn't have anything to do with the accident. I'll ask Reva, though, and see if she knows anything."
"Thanks," I said. I shook his hand and then fished a card out of my bag so he'd know how to get in touch with me.
He walked me down to the road and I thanked him again for lunch. As I got in my car, I glanced up. Reva was standing on the porch, staring down at us.
I headed back into town. I stopped by the office to check my answering machine for messages (none) and my mail, which was all junk. I made a fresh pot of coffee and hauled out my portable typewriter, detailing the notes on my investigation to that point. It was painstaking stuff given the fact that I'd turned up absolutely nothing. Still, Bobby was entitled to know how I'd spent my time and at thirty bucks an hour, he was entitled to know where the money went.
At three o'clock, I locked the office and walked over to the public library, which was two blocks over and two blocks up. I went downstairs to the periodicals room and asked for the previous September's newspapers, now consigned to microfilm. I found a machine and sat down, threading in the first reel. The print was white on black, all of the photographs looking like negatives. I had no idea what I might spot so I was forced to skim every page. Current events, national news, local political issues, fire, crime, storm systems, folks being born and dying and getting divorced. I read the lost-and-found column, the personals, society, sports. The mechanism for advancing the film was somehow out of whack, so that paragraphs jerked onto the nine-by-twelve screen with the focus slightly skewed, generating a motion sickness of sorts. Around me, people were browsing among the magazines or were seated in low chairs, reading newspapers attached to upright wooden lances. The only sounds in the room were the drone of the machine I was using, an occasional cough, and the rustle of newsprint.