Furnace. Muriel Gray
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was grinning.
Archie Cameron left the room with a long look at Josh and Deputy Busby took a chair.
‘You take a copy of your statement to keep?’
Josh nodded numbly, trying hard not to think of the horror contained in the words that were tucked so neatly inside his jacket.
‘Yeah.’
‘Yeah? Well here’s another souvenir from Furnace, Virginia.’ He slid the square of paper towards Josh.
‘One thousand bucks.’
Josh stared at him, his eyes narrowing. ‘The maximum? Even though my stopover checked out?’
‘Mister, if I were you I’d be pretty thankful for walkin’ outta here at all after what you done. Looked in your wallet and I guess those hundred and forty-five dollars ain’t goin’ to cover it. Pleased to tell you we take Master Card.’
Josh was about to protest further, but the policeman’s face told him it was useless. Part of Josh wanted to pay a fine. A huge fine. But no amount of money would undo his deed.
The transaction was performed in an uncomfortable silence until the deputy folded up the credit card receipt and a copy of the ticket into an envelope and handed it to Josh. He watched Josh’s face as he took it.
‘You keep hold of that now.’
Josh looked at him suspiciously, since the man’s tone was of a dishonest merchant who has successfully swindled a fool. The deputy read his face and added with a glare of indignation, ‘In case anyone needs to check up on you. Believe me. I’m goin’ to make damned sure they do.’
Only when the envelope was safely away, did Deputy Busby hand Josh the keys to Jezebel and the licence that he’d scooped up from the table.
‘You need a ride back to the truck? I’m supposed to ask.’
Josh shook his head. ‘It’s only a few blocks. I need the walk.’
‘Good. Cause you ain’t gettin’ a ride.’
Josh stood up and pocketed his keys. He looked long and hard at the man’s face, but any aggression he might have been able to muster before today was dissipated by the knowledge of his own inner guilt. He broke the stare first, turned and left the room.
John Pace was gone from the main office and Josh was oddly disappointed he hadn’t stayed to say goodbye. He’d heard enough horror stories from other drivers about the consequences of committing a violation in backwater towns, to know that by the sheriff, at least, he’d been treated fairly and with respect. But even though the law had decided he’d done nothing wrong, as he walked down the concrete steps to the clean sidewalk, he felt like a man being released from prison.
The air smelled sweetly of catkins and sap, and a gentle breeze moved the young chestnuts that lined the street. Josh walked slowly at first, then picked up speed as the fresh air revived and invigorated him.
Alice Nevin. The woman who started today with two children and ended up with one. Thanks to him. He knew she wouldn’t be home. He could almost see her now, lying on a hospital bed somewhere, her pupils dilated with tranquillizers and her thin arms lying immobile by her sides. But maybe something … anything …
Josh had no idea what he was going to do. He just wanted to go to her house. There was a drugstore at the end of the block. He pushed open its glass door and walked to the empty counter. A pretty but dull-eyed girl stopped stacking packets of sanitary towels, walked slowly over and filled the space behind the cash register.
‘Yeah?’
‘You know where Strachan Boulevard is from here?’
She looked at him. He knew she’d be weighing up the hair, the clothes, the earring. But he moulded his face into contours of friendly expectation and she broke into a half smile as she decided to co-operate.
‘Okay. You want to make a right here, then take a left into Frobisher Place and then two blocks down you’re there.’
‘Thank you.’
‘You’re welcome.’
As he turned to go Josh’s gaze swept past a telephone on the wall. His heart lurched. Elizabeth. He should phone Elizabeth. He felt in his pocket for his wallet and found his phone card. He could feel the girl’s eyes burning into his back and knew that although this call, of all the calls in the history of time, should be made in private, he couldn’t wait any more.
He punched in the complex code, waited for that monotonous and irritating voice to tell him how much time he had and then at last heard the long ring of his own phone. There was a click then the heart-sinking hiss that meant the answering machine had kicked in. His own voice.
‘Hi. You’ve guessed. We’re out. Try the numbers that follow, call back or leave a message. Here we go, the shop number is …’
He hung up. He hadn’t left the answering machine on, so at least that meant she’d come home and been there to switch it on. So she was safe. Cold comfort. She wasn’t answering.
He stood for a moment and let his heart slow down. What would he have said if she’d picked up the phone? This was new territory. Josh Spiller was a man, and a man who drove forty tons of truck around America. Yet right now, he wanted to put his forehead against this wall and weep. For a moment he saw himself reflected in the shiny chrome of the telephone, saw himself as he knew the girl behind the counter was seeing him; a haggard, haunted face that belonged to someone he barely recognized.
He dug his fingernails into his palm, took a breath and walked quickly out of the store. Movement. As always, it was the only cure.
Sim was worried about his lemon balm. The leaves were turning brown around the edges and there were aphid casts on the new shoots. He bent over the big terracotta pot and poked pointlessly at the sick plant with a gnarled finger. Herbs were tricky. You had to know when they came indoors to avoid the frost and when they should go out again to harden off. He reckoned this time he’d got it wrong, underestimating once again the bitter spring winds that chilled Pittsburgh, and he tutted as one of the leaves fell off with his touch.
Inside the house, Josh and Elizabeth’s phone rang. The old man straightened up and shuffled towards the open window. Sim liked it when they had their answering machine on. He could hear all their messages clearly through the window, whether open or shut, and it made him feel part of their lives that he knew what was going on, often before they did. Sometimes it was just messages from Josh’s work, and sometimes it was Elizabeth’s family. But he always listened in the hope of hearing something secret and exciting. And there was something else.
Sim had a pointless but amusing little gift. Mostly, although occasionally he got it wrong, he could tell who was phoning while it was still ringing.
He had no idea how he knew, but he did. He liked to play the game with himself as the phone rang its four short peals before the answering machine intercepted.
‘Dispatcher,’ he would say out loud on the second ring, and then slap his thigh when the familiar voice came on, droning, ‘Josh? Got a pretty high-paying load with your name on it. Call me, would you?’
Or he would mouth, ‘Oh oh, Elizabeth’s brother,’ and then look delighted when the sulky sibling’s voice left its disgruntled message. If he were ever forced to explain the process, and he knew he never would, Sim would have to say that he could see not so much the person, but the essence of the person as the phone rang, and the times he got it wrong he believed were simply the times when he just wasn’t concentrating hard enough.
Of course he never mentioned any of this to Josh or Elizabeth. Sim thought they probably knew he listened to their messages but said nothing. They were so kind. They knew no one ever phoned Sim, and he guessed Elizabeth left