“Yeah,” said Harry. “I had a wife used to feel that way about me.”
“She wondered why I didn't get married. She asked me once. I said I didn't want to. It really surprised me, that she'd ask. Like she didn't know that if I got married, I'd leave and she wouldn't be able to make ends meet. A job close to home, that paid okay, was going to be the only way out, for me, anyway. So I heard about the criminalistics lab in Des Moines. I applied, and got an interview, and it wasn't too far from our house. I got the job. Better pay, and I started to make headway on my student loans.” She pulled three or four fries from the bag. “Found some,” she said brightly.
I watched her bite the ends off the little bundle of fries. “And then?”
“What bothered me was that my sister, she'd gone ahead. Like I told her to, I admit it. She got hired as a geologist with a big oil company, met an engineer, married him, they moved to Scotland to work the North Sea Oil, she even sent me and Mom tickets so we could visit.” She shook her head slowly. “We went, all right. Mom just went ape over their house, the fact that it was in Scotland, that they were friends with important people. Hell, there was even an honest-to-God still-life painter living next door.” She'd turned toward me, and now leaned back against her door. “My sister was living my ideal damned existence. My little sister had achieved my ideal life, while I stayed home and all I had accomplished was, I had disappointed Mom.”
Ouch.
“That'd be tough,” said Harry. “Really tough.”
Hester took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “I mean, you know, good for her, and all that. But, anyway, I was really depressed. I honest to God hoped for a plane crash on the way back from Scotland. I really did. I'll tell ya, guys, I would have run to just about anywhere, just to get out of that. But, there just wasn't any place to go. No Mansion, with free rent and people like me.”
It was silent for a few seconds. I took another bite of my first burger. It was starting to cool.
“So, the reason for sharing all that garbage with you,” said Hester, straightening up, “is that those girls up there, especially Huck and Melissa and poor dead Edie… life was just not cooperating with them. And they were just looking for a place to run. Hell, probably even Toby and Kevin, for that matter.”
“Yeah.” Harry had fished out an apple turnover, and was unwrapping it.
“They're really all victims. Victims of some rich woman who can afford to provide a phony hiding place for them. And this Peale bastard. Oh, yeah, Mr. Peale. Her pet vampire. But Jessica, she's acquiring them, they're just being kept like a bunch of livestock. Peale killed Edie, and with Toby's help. That's a given. But Jessica Hunley's the one who made the whole thing possible. And that really pisses me off.”
I simply said, “Okay.” It got sort of quiet again.
“Look,” she said suddenly, “I'm saying that, if they'd had some more time for things to sort themselves out, none of 'em would be in this mess in the first place. Jessica just recruited at the right time.”
“Okay.”
“Don't humor me, Houseman.” She rummaged some more. “Did you take the salt?”
“Nope. I found some pepper, though.” I held up the little packet. “See?” I remember thinking that her fries had to be cold by now.
“Well there's a bunch of ketchup packs, but unless I squeeze 'em into my hand… ” She looked up from her search. “Do you see what I mean, though?”
“I think so. She found some people at an unstable time in their lives?”
“Part of it. It's not just that when all the expectations you've had for yourself don't come true, it's when everybody who is important to you had them for you… ” She stopped abruptly. “Shit happens, Houseman. But not at the same time or the same way for everybody. So, when it happens to you early on, you just watch others pass by, with no shit sticking to them at all. And you feel betrayed.”
“I can see that,” said Harry. “Shit really does happen. Boy, I know that.”
“And you sometimes do things to cover up the disappointment.” Hester sounded tired. “Things you normally wouldn't do, even a while later, but once you start it's almost impossible to stop, because you think you've found your… ”
“Place?” I tried to help.
She sighed. “No, no. Guys are so dense. No, it's much more than that. It's like, you've found your accomplishment. You have to settle for a little less, but you've found it.”
“Oh. I see.”
Hester shook her head. “Oh, Houseman, eat your hamburger.”
“I do get it, though,” I said, leaning forward so the special sauce wouldn't drip on my shirt.
She sighed. “Okay. So, anyway. We agreed that we go right to our motels, and start fresh in the morning?” She was still burrowing through the sack, looking for the rest of her cold fries.
“Mmmph.” I love Big Macs, but they're kind of hard to talk through.
“Here they are!” She fished a bunch of them out, along with a wad of napkins. They'd apparently spilled from the cardboard container, and gotten in with the pile of condiments, napkins, and salt that the employee had swept into the bag. “Okay, then, you want to start with
…?”
I swallowed, and used one of the napkins to wipe some sauce off my chin. “I think with the Walworth County Sheriff's Department would be good, don't you?”
“Mmmm.” This time she was the one with the mouthful of fries.
“Got it covered,” said Harry. “Already talked to them. We got the run of the county as long as nobody fucks… oops… screws up.”
“Okay, then,” I said, “wherever we can find Jessica. We drop in, agreed?”
“Sure.” Hester took a long pull on her Diet Coke straw. “What time?”
I thought about it. “Nine-thirty? Ten?”
She looked at her watch. “Let's go for nine-thirty. We aren't going to get squared away tonight until one or so.” She was already tidying up, folding her paper napkin, and getting ready to go. I quickly took a large bite of my second Big Mac. It was cold by now, too.
“You know how to get to Fontana?” asked Harry. “Hester should be taking fifty to Lake Geneva, but we should take sixty-seven south to Williams Bay, and then back westerly to Fontana.”
I swallowed again. “Oh, sure. No problem.”
“What I was trying to say, you two,” said Hester, suddenly, “is that gathering victims at such a hard time in their lives is more despicable than recruiting people who want to get into this vampire stuff.”
“Sure.” Harry agreed. I guessed I did, too.
About thirty minutes later, Harry and I correctly turned south on sixty-seven, and watched Hester disappear down highway fifty. I wondered if her mother knew Hester had worked dope cases.
Six minutes later we were in Fontana.
The room wasn't too bad. Two queen-size beds. Shower. Sink. Toilet. Chair. TV. Even a place to hang hangers. It was cold, and the heating mechanism was integral with the air-conditioning. I turned it on, and had instant tobacco smell. Turned it off, opened a window, and tried to set the little digital alarm clock that came with the room.
Finally, Harry said, “If you'd put your fuckin' glasses on, Houseman, so you could read the dials, we could get another half hour of sleep.”
I got it set, but then picked up the phone and left a wake-up call for 08:30.
“What you do,” said Harry, “is why I divorced my ex-wife.”
I blew him a kiss. “Good night, Harry.”
TWENTY-NINE
Wednesday, October 11, 2000
09:12
I was awakened by the phone. I glanced at the clock. 09:12. I groggily wondered why the wake-up call was solate. “Yeah.”
It was Hester. “You guys like to come over here for brunch?”
“Jesus, Hester. They didn't call, and the alarm didn't go off… ”