But not now. All he did was ask about a room, and all she did was tell him the price was $39, which struck him as perfectly reasonable. If she looked at him at all, at his face or at Homer’s, he never saw her do it. He was just a burdensome duty to be dealt with as quickly as possible, before she got back to polishing the essay portion of her application to Harvard.
He filled out the card she gave him, making up a name and address, leaving the space for his car’s make and license number blank. They always had a space for it on the card, but they didn’t seem to care if you filled it in or not, and this girl, who wouldn’t have noticed if he’d registered as Mahatma Gandhi, was no exception.
He paid cash, because his credit card was in Remsen’s name and he’d already signed in as somebody else. He could have used Remsen, the name would be safe for days if not weeks, and by tomorrow he’d be back in New York and none of this would matter. But he had the money, so what difference did it make?
She asked him if he would want to make phone calls, because then he would need to leave a deposit, or allow her to take an imprint of his credit card. He shook his head, picked up his room key, and filled his nostrils for one last time with the sweet smell of curry.
15
After all he’d gone through to get his hands on it, he managed to walk halfway to his car the next morning before he realized he’d left his baseball cap in his room. Fortunately he’d also forgotten to leave the room key on the dresser, so he was able to let himself in and retrieve the cap. With Homer on his forehead, rather like a Valkyrie on the prow of a Viking warship, he felt ready to face the world.
He drove a few miles, stopped to top off the gas tank for what would be the final time, drove some more. The phrase safe at home echoed in his mind like a mantra. All he needed to do was get into his own apartment and lock the door behind him and he’d be locking out his life as a fugitive and everything that went with it. And, because he was retired now, with no one last job looming in front of him, he’d be locking all of that out forever. He’d have his stamps, he’d have his enormous state-of-the-art TV, he’d have his TiVo, and he’d have all the other aspects of the life he’d arranged for himself within easy walking distance — his regular deli, his favorite restaurants, the newsstand where he bought the Times every morning, the laundry where he dropped it off dirty in the morning and picked it up clean at night. He didn’t suppose it was a terribly exciting life, centering as it did upon such sedentary and solitary pursuits as television and stamp collecting, but excitement had lost its charm for him over the years, if it had ever had any to begin with, and he found it thrilling enough to bid a few dollars on a stamp on eBay and see if some bastard pounced on it before time ran out. It was low-stakes excitement, no question, but that was plenty.
That errant thought was trying to break through again, struggling to rise to the surface. It was like something barely glimpsed out of the corner of your eye. You knew you’d catch sight of it if you turned your head, and that was all it took to keep your gaze fixed straight ahead.
His breakfast, picked up without incident at a drive-up window, consisted of two Egg McMuffins and a big cup of coffee. Just before exiting the interstate he’d seen a sign for a rest area five miles ahead, so he drove there and parked under a tree. He’d timed it just right, he was pleased to note; the coffee was cool enough to drink and the Egg McMuffins were still warm.
When he was done eating he went to the restroom, and on his way back he finally remembered to buy a paper. USA Today was seventy-five cents, and he fed in three quarters before he noticed that the coin box right next to it held that morning’s New York Times. He pressed the coin return, got his three quarters back, added a fourth quarter and bought the Times. On the way back to the car he was already planning his approach to the paper. First the local and national news, then the sports, and finally the crossword puzzle. What day was it, anyway? Thursday? The puzzles increased daily in difficulty, from Monday, not much of a challenge to a bright ten-year-old, to Saturday, which often left Keller feeling slightly retarded. Thursday was usually just about right. He could generally fill in a Thursday puzzle, all right, but it took some thought.
He settled in behind the wheel, made himself comfortable, and started in on the paper. He never did get to the crossword puzzle.
16
The paper Keller bought every morning came in four sections, but the edition the Times distributed outside of the immediate New York metropolitan area fit into just two. There was an assassination story on the front page, dealing primarily with its evolving political implications, and another story further on about the hunt for the killer, which seemed to have trailed off in several directions, none of which had thus far panned out. There was nothing about Miller Remsen, which came as no surprise to Keller; even if they’d found the body, which seemed unlikely at this stage, the only way it would interest anybody outside of Indiana would be if he’d scrawled Catch me before I kill more governors in lipstick on the mirror.
He almost missed the real story.
It was on the third page of the second section. “Arson, Murder Found in White Plains Fire,” the headline announced, and it was White Plains that caught his eye. If it had been less specific and said Westchester instead he might have skipped right past it, but he’d been to White Plains countless times, first to see the old man and then to see Dot. He’d catch the train at Grand Central and a cab from the station, and he’d sit drinking iced tea on the wraparound front porch of the big old house on Taunton Place, or in the cozy kitchen. So he read about the fire in White Plains, and knew shortly that he wouldn’t be going there again, because there was no more house, no more porch, no more kitchen. No more Dot.
Evidently there had been a story in yesterday’s paper, which of course he hadn’t seen. But earlier — Monday, he thought, though it could have been Sunday, it wasn’t all that clear — earlier, he read, a fire had broken out in the early morning hours, raging out of control before firefighters could arrive on the scene, and consuming virtually all of the century-old house right down to its foundation.
The fire had begun in the kitchen, which was where they’d found the charred body of the householder and sole resident, identified by neighbors as Dorothea Harbison. Investigators had suspected arson immediately, attributing the all-consuming fury of the blaze to the liberal use of an accelerant throughout the residence. Initially it seemed at least possible that Ms. Harbison had set the fire herself; neighbors described her as quiet and reclusive and thought she’d shown signs of depression in recent months.
Keller wanted to argue with them, whoever they were. Reclusive? She didn’t suffer fools or share her personal business with the world, but that didn’t make her some goddam cat lady, wearing the same old flannel nightgown until it fell apart. Signs of depression? What signs of depression? She didn’t go around giggling, but he’d never known her to be genuinely depressed, and she was about as suicidal as Mary Fucking Poppins.
But there was no longer a question of suicide, the story continued, because a medical examination revealed that the woman had been shot twice in the head with a small-caliber handgun. The wounds were not consistent with suicide — no kidding, thought Keller — nor was the handgun found at the scene, which led investigators to conclude that the woman had been shot to death and the fire set to conceal the crime.