He wanted to go back and lose himself at the bar, but he forced his fingers to move toward the coin slot of the pay phone and he inserted money and dialed.
“Hello."
“Donna?"
“Yeah.” A big sigh. Oh, Christ in his mercy.
“I'm so sorry.” The opening of every alcoholic since the beginning of time.
“'S awright. No problem."
“Tell me I didn't call you and make a horse's ass out of myself last night."
“You didn't call me and make a horse's ass et cetera."
“I did, didn't I?"
“You don't remember, right?"
“I'd had a few drinks."
“You can say that again, oh...” A loud noise. “Hang on a minute.” She went to turn her boiling kettle off and banged the phone down giving Eichord a nice little shot in the ear as she did so. Oh, blessed art thou. She thought about this man as she turned the flame off. The horrible thing that had overturned her life had left only tatters of the former woman. She could not dredge up any interest in this man as a partner. Someone to be with. But she could see he was interested and in her mind many emotions tried to spark. There were misfires. One or two flashed enough for her to identify what was in her head.
Donna was not a woman to play games. The role of bitch goddess was not one she found acceptable, despite her love for melodrama. She had some character, whether or not her own personal standards of what might constitute sexual misconduct were the average woman's. She lived by her own code, which she had always thought of as—before all else—humanistic. She was an honest person and she knew what drew men was the open free-spirited display of awareness. She could look at a guy, as—they most women can, and tell him everything she wanted him to know in that one frank glance. But she had that gift in even the most asexual encounters, and anyone who spent time close to her felt the visceral quality and realness.
Yet the horrors of her abduction had changed her. She no longer felt in touch with herself, no longer trusted, no longer wanted to be liked. She hated cold people and was both mad and sad about her own growing coldness. Donna did not want to end up alone, closed, pointing inward with her focus, living only for self as she saw so many do. She wanted her life to be full of others, and for her that meant men and that meant sex.
And all of this filled her with mixed emotions and a disconsolate awareness of how badly the status of victim had mangled both her own esteem and her life's longitudinal axis. And she saw, for reasons that were unknown if not unimportant to her, a good man who appeared to be crumbling at a dangerous time, and he had reached out to her as a fellow human being for companionship and she'd cut him off at the pass. In that moment's pause as she turned the flame off and walked back to the telephone she shrugged to herself and the decision she made in those few seconds saved both of them.
“You still there?” she said, making herself sound like she cared.
“Still here. Am I calling at a bad time?"
“No.” She laughed. “But funny you should mention it.” He winced. “I guess you don't remember calling me in the middle of the night asking for a date?"
“I don't suppose I can convince you that was somebody impersonating me."
“Oh, you mean you DON'T want me to go out with you?"
“No! I mean ... Yes, I do. Of course. I meant—"
“I know. Forget it,” she said. She knew if she didn't plunge on ahead that would be it. Now or never. Do it. “You still want to ask me out?"
“Sure,” he said, waiting for the put down.
“How about six-thirty, seven ... something like that? We can go to a show or something.” There.
“Fine. Wonderful. Sure. Six-thirty tonight?"
“Yeah. One thing. I don't like guys to get drunk. I mean, I'm not a what-do-you-call-it, I don't care what somebody else does. But I don't like—TEMPERANCE, that's it, I'm not into that. I just don't like somebody that I'm with that way."
“My word of honor—” He started to do a tap dance.
“That's okay. I just wanted you to know. Okay?"
“Sure. Okay."
He wasn't used to people being so direct. The women in Dallas came on so forthright. He liked it, you understand, he just wasn't used to it. He fumbled around and told her he'd pick her up and thanked her, a little more enthusiastically than either of them liked, and that was that.
Donna Scannapieco puffed up her cheeks and blew out a big stream of air as if she'd inhaled a third of a cigarette, shaking her head at her own moves as if to say, “You ought to be ashamed of yourself.” And then she just sort of sighed and collapsed on a couch and stared out the window at nothing. What the hell is the difference? she thought. What can it hurt?
For his part it changed everything. He straightened up to his full height, put his shoulders back, and walked out to the car. Mostly what he wanted to do was make it all right. Back to square one.
He sensed or he knew what she was doing. This was a rape victim, somebody to whom the idea of a date—not to mention a date with a booze-hound of a cop—a chauvinistic, booze-hound cop at that—had to be at the bottom of her wish list. Yet she felt enough of his need that she was making one super effort in his behalf and that effort, which some men might have found demeaning or patronizingly insulting, it turned him on as nothing else could have. He loved, treasured honesty in a person insofar as personal relationships went, and she was giving him a priceless gift. Her no-strings-attached forgiveness. And it gave him the necessary shot of strength to get through the day.
Eichord was a full-steam-ahead kind of guy. All or nothing. And there was no thought of failing again. He was back on course as he hadn't been in months. He stopped and bought some dog food in a convenience store, walking past the package goods as if the liquor wasn't there. The last thing he craved was a drink. He craved a toothbrush. He wanted to go home and brush his teeth. But he didn't. He bought a toothbrush and toothpaste and went back to work.
He spent an hour and a half in the cop shop, taking care of some details that had been floating submerged beneath the layer of alcohol. He called someone who's name he obtained from the MCTF computers. The man was very elderly and Eichord pondered whether or not to handle it on the phone or call someone up in the Midwest to send a detective out and question him. He decided he'd gamble first and dialed the man direct, expecting a forgetful old codger who could barely hear, and he was in for a nice surprise.
“Hello, Mr. Lloyman?"
“One and the same. What can I do for you, sir?” Chipper voice.
“My name's Jack Eichord, sir, and I'm with the police department in Dallas, Texas. We're investigating a number of homicides and I need to ask you a few questions please."
“Ah. Okay. All right. Fire away, Mr. Eichord."
“According to some records we've come across you were with the Branson Social Services Agency for many years."
“Yes, sir, I ran that agency for nearly thirty years."
“Do you remember ... Let me ask this, it's a kind of personal question but the records say you're ninety-one. Is your memory such that you can still recall individual cases that you were involved in? Forgive the question."
“No. That's all right. I must say my memory isn't what it once was. I used to have a fine memory. But I notice this last five or six years it's not what it was when I was in my sixties or seventies, say. I'm awfully lucky, though. I know most ninety-one-year-old men aren't out painting their houses each year like I have for the past fifty-eight years. My health is wonderful for my age. Legs are starting to go, but, well, you asked about memory. Go ahead. Maybe I can remember the case."
“Great.” Eichord loved the guy. “There were twins. They were placed by your agency into a foster-home situation.” He mentioned the year.