Читать книгу All The Pretty Dead Girls - John Manning - Страница 19

Lebanon started its day early, around five A.M. as alarms went off in darkened houses all over town. Lights flickered to life, and sleepy-eyed people staggered into their days. Coffeemakers perked, margarine melted in frying pans, teeth were brushed, showers got the blood pumping. School-age kids heard their parents’ alarms faintly through their dreams, and knew their turn to rise and shine would soon be here. In the big bus barn behind the high school, the yellow buses with LEBANON SCHOOL DISTRICT printed across their sides were fueled up. The New York Times truck rolled over the back roads to throw bundles of papers out in back of the Lebanon Herald office, where at around quarter to six, Jimmy Madsen, thirteen, and his mother would arrive in their SUV to pick them up. All the newspapers would be delivered in time for Jimmy to be at school when the first bell rang at eight.

In his apartment above the Yellow Bird, old Wally Bingham heard the Times truck rattle by. Almost time to get a move on, he told himself. Wally could set his clock by that truck, even though he didn’t need to. He woke every morning right at five on the dot. Even after being out of the Army for almost thirty years, it was a habit he couldn’t seem to break. No matter how late he stayed up, no matter how much he drank, no matter what kind of sleeping pill he took, every morning his eyes opened as the digital clock on his night-stand switched to 5:00.

The apartment was empty and silent, except for the sound of his coffeemaker brewing in the kitchen. Wally lay there in the bed for a few moments more, relishing the sound of the silence. After his wife Lena died ten years earlier, he’d thought about marrying again—but then he’d gotten used to the notion of being alone, for the first time in his life, and he liked it. He’d been the youngest of seven kids, had gone into the Army straight out of high school, and after he finally decided not to re-up and “retired,” there had been Lena. They’d never had kids—they tried when he was still in the Army, but Lena never could get pregnant. “God just doesn’t seem to want to bless us that way,” Lena said whenever someone brought up the subject of their childlessness. Wally admired her ability to publicly shrug off a question he knew caused her great pain. No one knew how many nights Lena had cried herself to sleep over her inability to conceive, his arms holding her until her body stopped shaking.

They had talked about adopting halfheartedly, but nothing ever came of it—and then came the illnesses, one right after another, until Lena finally just quit fighting and died. Wally thought he’d be lonely without her, but he wasn’t. Not really. It seemed almost disrespectful that he liked the quiet, liked being alone. But it’s not, he reminded himself as he stared at the ceiling, Lena wasn’t much of a talker anyway, and neither am I. And if people think it’s strange I didn’t marry again, they can go to hell. It’s none of their goddamned business.

He got out of the bed and did his morning routine: two hundred push-ups and two hundred sit-ups, before getting a cup of coffee and heading into the bathroom to shave and shower. Now that he was past sixty, his body and joints ached more than they used to, and the mornings were getting harder for him. The winters and cold weather were getting rougher—some mornings when it was cold he woke up with his joints so stiff, he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to get up. He was dreading the onset of the coming winter—he didn’t look forward to shoveling the sidewalk in front of the café, or digging his car out of snowdrifts, and the apartment didn’t seem to warm up quite as much as it used to. The weather was going to start turning cold in another month or so—and as he shaved, Wally looked at himself in the mirror and thought the magic word that had gotten him through the last two winters: Florida.

The thought brought a smile to his face. He was closing the café for two weeks at Christmas, flying down to Pensacola, renting a car, and driving all over the state until he found the place he was going to settle in when he’d had enough of the winters and the snow. He wasn’t sure where yet in Florida it would be, but this year he was going looking for it. He’d last in Lebanon maybe another year or two, and that was it. He wanted to head south while he could still get around and spend his mornings fishing and enjoying the sun. I’m still in pretty good shape, he thought as he got into the steaming-hot shower, and as long as I can do my morning calisthenics, I’m doing okay. I’m in better shape than most men half my age.

He opened the café every Monday, and his morning routine hadn’t varied once in all the years he’d owned the place. The first thing he’d do was turn on the grill and the deep fryers, and while they were warming up, he’d get the coffeepots brewing. After the grill was warmed up, he seasoned it with a layer of lard, and brought out eggs and slabs of bacon and sausage from the big walk-in cooler. Monday mornings were always the busiest of the week, and this one promised to be no different. Might even be busier than usual, since it was the first day of school over at Wilbourne. As he picked up the crates of eggs, Wally looked around and made sure everything was where it was supposed to be. There was plenty of everything. There was nothing worse than having to send Marjorie over to the A&P to buy something at retail grocery prices.

The diner would open promptly at six thirty, and there were always a few people waiting outside the door when he unlocked it. Even with the competition from the damned fast-food joints out by the highway, Wally still had a good breakfast rush every morning. Although Micky D’s has cut into some of my factory crowd with their rubbery food and fucking acid coffee, he thought as he tossed an English muffin into the toaster,

At six thirty sharp, he opened the door. Waiting to come in were a couple of people he didn’t recognize—he suspected they were parents of a Wilbourne girl, heading back to wherever they called home—and just at that moment getting out of his car was Sheriff Miles Holland.

“Howdy, Sheriff,” Wally called. Miles waved back at him as he locked his car.

Sheriff Holland was well liked and respected by most people in Lebanon. Wally was always offering him a free cup of joe, but Miles always refused anything for free; he paid for every bit of food he put in his mouth. Now that is one rare cop, Wally thought. Miles was an honest man, and that he’d raised his son that way, too, had earned the respect of everyone in town. Like his son Perry and Perry’s regular standing order of chili-covered cheeseburger and fries, Miles always had the same thing for breakfast every morning—scrambled eggs, a couple of slices of bacon, buttered toast with apple jam, hash browns drowned in ketchup, and lots of black coffee.

Rosie, his morning waitress, had slipped in the back door. She was tying her apron around her waist as Wally headed to the kitchen to get Miles’s eggs scrambling. “One couple in the front booth,” he told her. Rosie nodded and hurried over to take their order.

Wally heard the tinkling of the bell as Miles came inside.

“Sure you don’t want to switch to sausage this morning, Miles?” Wally called through the opening.

“Can’t eat this morning, Wally,” the sheriff called back. “I just need to get the coffee to go, if you don’t mind.”

“No breakfast?” Wally asked, coming around to the doorway.

“No breakfast?” Rosie echoed.

Miles smiled. He was a few years younger than Wally, but was starting to spread out in the waist. He had thin legs and a barrel chest, and he shaved his head bald. Wally noticed that his blue eyes—usually so clear—were bloodshot and bleary. Since his wife died a few years back, Miles had aged what seemed like twenty years and seemed to put on weight. But this morning, Wally thought, he looked worse than usual.

“No breakfast,” Miles said, sitting down at the counter.

Rosie handed Wally the order from the couple in the front booth. He glanced down at it, then looked back over at Miles. “You look like hell,” Wally blurted out as Rosie filled a Styrofoam cup with coffee. “What’s going on?”

Miles sighed. “Got a call up to the college.” He accepted the coffee from Rosie and handed over two dollars. “Keep the change.”

“What happened up at the college?” Wally asked, his voice low, glancing over at the couple in the booth, wondering if they really did have a daughter there.

The sheriff took a sip of his coffee. “One of the girls went missing.” He raised his eyebrows at his friend. “Been a while since that’s happened.”

“And they need the sheriff for that?” Wally grinned. “She’s probably just off having a good time.”

“I don’t think so. Her bike was found by a delivery man this morning outside the front gate.” He lowered his voice. “Blood everywhere.”

“Jesus,” Wally said.

“You gonna get cooking the order?” Rosie said, sticking in her nose.

“Some girl got murdered up at Wilbourne,” Wally told her in a harsh whisper.

“Now we don’t know that, Wally.” Miles gave him a face. “I shouldn’t have said anything.” He looked over at Rosie, a thin woman in her late thirties who might have been pretty once, but now seemed dry and brittle. “But I want people to be on their guard if we’ve got some attacker running around out there.”

“No body?” Wally asked.

Miles shook his head.

“How they taking it at the college?”

“Well, you know how they get up there about them girls. They act like it’s a convent and every girl in there doesn’t have red blood flowing through her veins.” Miles sighed. “We’ve got the state forensics team heading up there, so I gotta be off.”

“Take a few minutes and eat something.” Wally coaxed. “Be easier to get through the morning with a full stomach, you know.”

“Nah, I’ve been dawdling as it is.” Miles shook his head. “I’ll be back in later before I go into the office. I’ll have my breakfast then.” He stood and picked up the coffee. “Just didn’t have the stomach for eating a lot of grease after seeing all that.”

“Given the circumstances,” Wally said, “I’ll forgive you for calling my food greasy.”

Miles grinned and gave him a thumb’s-up sign. Then he was off.

Wally watched as he drove off. Miles waved as he backed out of his spot, turned on his flashers, and headed off down the road at a steady clip in the direction of the college.

Somewhere in his mind, Wally seemed to recall another incident at Wilbourne a long time ago. He’d have to ask Marjorie later if she remembered what it was.

For some reason, his hands wouldn’t stop shaking all morning as he fried eggs and toasted bread.